The Vergecast - Artisanal Hipster Vinyls

Episode Date: November 14, 2014

This week's show involves a lot of policy: policy on the internet, policy in music, policy concerning not being stabbed when retrieving your stolen iPhone. And then there was something involving Taylor Swift and Scooby Doo. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

No. Come on. No. That's not how this should start. I mean, we're not even good at starting it. You were so ready. And that was a low point. I gave you,

I gave you like a heads up this time. I was like, you're going to do a great job. I thought I would. And now it's, it's playing somewhere. Like, everything about starting the show is really bad. I had a whole bit. I had a gambit.

And, Welcome to the Vergecast. The Gambit was to let Dieter do it. All right. This is the Vergecast. That usurper that you heard was Deeter Bone. To my left is Chris Plant. Hi.

Oh, hello. And over in the swag box, Sam Sheper himself. That's a new one. Hi. Hi. Sam, we brought Hypecheck himself back to the show after last week. We're going to try to structure hype check a little. bit more, but I just enjoy having Sam, like, right in your field of you at all time.

You look up, I'm here. It just, it keeps us true. So let me start by reading a tweet. Let's start the show. There we go. This is the Vergecast. It's a show about a lot of stuff. But today, it's going to be a show about this tweet from Mark Cuban.

Oh, God. In my adult life, says Mark Cuban. I have never seen a situation that paralleled what I read and Anne Rand. books until now with net neutrality. No. Yeah. Yeah. We have reached what I would call a completely crazy level of stupidity with net neutrality.

So wait a minute. I don't know. The people want more government to protect them, says Mark Cuban. Oh. So they can't be stopped from getting movies, TV shows over the top. That is straight out of Anne Rand. That makes no sense. We're takers.

We're takers. We are just takers who want the government to give us things, and it's going to turn us and do crazy slops. If Ed Rand was an up-and-coming author today, says Mark Cuban, she wouldn't write about steel or railroads. It would be net neutrality. She also wouldn't be read because she's an utter hack who couldn't write. It was a good fortune of events that led to her being famous. Congratulations. By the fifth tweet of this amazing tweet storm, Mark Cuban.

Who is John Galt? No. Oh yeah. I mean, I'm just glad that some people don't have to get past high school English and they can just post on it the rest of their life. And they should take the internet. And they should go home. An enclave in the middle of the mountains in Colorado. Oh, yeah. And the rest of us can, and they can just have their own special private internet there.

The rest of us can deal with their other internet. Before we do that, let me just say, that was going to be my gambit. That was going to be the opening gambit where I just read the tweets in a crazy voice. But then I blew it. Just be clear, I blew it. What does a Mark Cuban voice sound like? No, no, no, no, I'd like to hear you Mark Cuban. No, I can't.

I can't. I was all hyped up. Yeah. It was going to be like a... You know why you can't do your Mark Cuban voice? It was going to be like a bellowing. It takes 25 minutes to cook. That's a Cuban sandwich joke for everyone in the audience. All right, Chris, you're fired.

By the only person in the audience is saying. I didn't laugh at that joke. Yo, hype check on the Cuban sandwich joke. It was bad. Not even bust. I've lost. Just a head shake. All right.

So let's talk about this news. Is it warmer in the swag corner than it is over here? It's quite warm over here, I think. It's sweaty. And that corner's pretty warm. This is terrible. It must be 90 degrees over there. All right.

Let's talk about the news of the week. There's a lot of it. But I would say the biggest news this week, the way the week opened was I actually received a panicked text from someone that said, this is true. A source texted me and said, the president is finally about to do something about net neutrality. And I like got on Slack and like alerted the team.

And then within seconds, the president released a statement saying, I support full net neutrality using the strictest possible rules. And then the world has gone crazy ever since. Yeah. And so the backstory there, which we have dug up, is that a great many companies, like basically what we're seeing right now is the tech industry, particularly startup-ish tech companies. And people who like things. like free speech.

And every, like, you know, we are a startup, like the Fox Media's a startup, the verge of startup, most digital media companies that are in startup phase are all aligned in favor

of strong rules to protect net neutrality. And then AT&T and Comcast and Verizon and, you know, big, big access companies. Team Mobile. The powerful T-Mobile

are all aligned against it. They don't want new rules. And that has turned into, they align against it. All those big telecom companies align against net neutrality by saying they support it. We're for net neutrality and an open internet. Just do it this way. No, they didn't say it too.

It's basically we promise. But so what happened was that cabal of like, I say cabal in the loosest possible term, but that group of like startup tech companies, powerful tech companies finally pushed Obama after disastrous midterm laws. to the Republicans to finally take a stand and take the high ground. It's basically what I perceive as like a yolo Obama. He's a lame duck. He doesn't have the rest of the government outside. But like you guys can answer this for me because you're going to know way better.

But to me it feels like I've already done everything I could against this. So now I can say I support it and everything's already in place to make sure it doesn't happen. Like this, I wrote it, I'm sorry, I said, he hired the guy who worked for ComCats, which isn't a company, Comcast. But he had, yeah, it's like, it feels like the people who are in place, you, tell me, tell me about this, because I don't understand. Here's the long history of this, this nonsense. Obama's first guy, Julius Shankowski, proposed the exact plan Obama endorsed in 2010, and he got crushed. You got run out of town. Just like, literally, like, basically run out of town.

Like, he got crushed. for saying a very obvious thing, which is internet service is a utility akin to phone service. And we should use the same rules that allow us to regulate the phone system so that you can call anybody you want. And anybody who wants can call you. And you're allowed to put whatever phone you want on the network. Right. Makes sense. There's rules and rules.

There's rules about the internet has to be free and open and accessible to the devices and services and people. And those rules are obviously substantially similar to the rules that govern how we use the phone network because it's a network. Sure. Right? So you said, we'll just use these existing rules that are strong rules. We'll classify the Internet under Title II. That's the legal. That's the section of the Telecommunications Act.

And there's a bunch of shitty rules that apply to telephone networks. And we have the powers, the FCC, to say we're not going to enforce them. That's called forbearance. So we'll use the rules we need. We'll write other rules under Title II that we do need. And we'll just ignore the ones that say, like, we're going to limit, we're going to set rates for long distance telephone. Sounds great. That doesn't make any sense.

Got run out of town. So I literally Comcast in Verizon, and quite frankly, people are getting mad about this, the right-wing media machine seized a chance to attack Obama for regulating the internet, which makes no sense. Well, it doesn't. That is not the thing that Title II is, right? It's not regulating the internet. It's regulation.

It's just not regulation in the sense of what people are thinking when they hear regulation. It's regulation. No, it's not what people are thinking when they think of the internet. Exactly. That's the thing. It's regulating a piece of the internet. No, it's regulating Comcast. Right.

And Comcast is in the internet. But Comcast, this is the move that they make. They make the same move I support an open internet. And they also say don't regulate the internet. And the problem is that part of the internet is Comcast. Like, grant that. Right? No, I won't.

Like, no, because that definitionally, that'll, that's the thing. that lets them lie. Right. The internet is we are the internet, right? Is that what you want to say? The internet is people? No, I'm saying Comcast could fade away and not exist. And the internet would be fine.

And the internet would be different, but it would be fine. Yeah. It still exists. Yeah. Yeah. Like, that's the problem here, right? The problem is that Comcast is taking, the move that they're making is, Comcast takes credit for, like, every, like, they take credit for, I don't know,

Airbnb and Etsy. Right. Right. And they take credit for the success of the things that people love on the internet by saying if you regulate us, you'll regulate Airbnb. And like, that's not true. Yeah. Right. And so this is the move. So that, so Wheeler got killed against regulating the internet. And because Obama was like still in the in, in the first blush of being the president, basically, he's like, we'll find compromise. Uh, and then Republicans were obstinate. And so whatever. So they, the FCC tried another way to do it, which was always

called a house of cards. This way failed. This is the lawsuit that got thrown out. Yeah. So this is a section 7-06 or whatever. It's like very wonky, but they basically said, there's, 706 says, the FCC should be responsible for good broadband in America. That's all, it's basically all it says. And the FCC's like, that's, that's good enough.

And for good broadband, we need all these strict rules against Comcast. And Verizon was like, no, that doesn't give you the power. They won in court. The judge in that case said, the FCC is correct, that broadband providers are a threat to internet openness because they have so much power.

They should be regulated, but you can't do it this way. And then Wheeler has basically been like twiddling his thumbs. Tom Wheeler replaced Jewish and Akowski. Former cable industry law. Wheeler is the one I know. Wheeler is a bastard. It's just a fact. It's just a fact.

His parents weren't married. I mean, that's all he's saying. He's just saying that. Yeah. Welcome to the show. Dude. Hype check. Tom Wheeler. Bastard.

Yeah. Got it. See? Like that. From the hype seat. Fresh. Oh my gosh. Right.

So, we learned to go over for Jenikowski. He has insisted over and over again that he can craft a hybrid proposal. He can figure out a way. That there are some fast lanes that are acceptable that maybe what we need to do is regulate the interconnection layer, which is where Netflix has its arguments versus the consumer layer. He is trying everything he can to not to pass. rules that will somehow not piss off Verizon, like in Comcast. The reality is that Comcast and Verizon are so against any rule change for a variety of reasons, some which are legitimate.

Like, we've built our business and sold money and sold pieces of it to investors based on the regulations staying the same. Like, that will be weird for us. Like, um, but whatever. They're so against it that no matter what you do, you will end up in court. So you might as well make your strongest move, which is what Obama is saying. And Wheeler's like, but what if, what if I'm, I do whatever I want.

And actually what he said in a meeting that was reported in the Washington Post was, I am an independent agency, which is just an amazing quote for any bureaucrat in the government. Like he like buttoned up his gray suit. He'd like gotten a sensible car. Wheeler was visibly frustrated during the meeting telling attendees what you want is what everyone wants, an open internet that doesn't affect your business.

Wheeler, a Democrat said he had to work out how to quote, split the baby to keep both sides happy. But you can't. That's the thing. And this is what I will just tell you. If you're in a situation where everyone's going to get pissed off at you, do the thing that gives you the most power. Right?

Straight up. If everyone's going to be mad at you, right? Or some powerful interest is necessarily going to be pissed at you. It seems like that's like Mueller doesn't want that power. Because he's a lot of. But also, well, and that's the other thing is, what's your definition of power? Because when you talk about it, that's what people do. They do go for power.

And what that power is, great. I can retire. I can retire and get that money. Yeah. Well, that's fun. Yeah. So that's been our week. But like Obama, thank you for endorsing at this time, this late in the game when you have no leverage at all.

So now the story is can the people that are against proper, you know, powers to the FCC to regulate, not regulate the internet, but to regulate these companies that provide internet to us, is that better? Okay. That is a better way of frame it, because when you say regularly and open, it sounds weird. Can, like, if you walk up to any American human and, like, lay out the case for should you be able to, you know, not have discrimination in the way you get, like, lay out the basics of net neutrality, the basics of their politics, the vast majority of people will be like, yeah, that's cool. I'm for that. but the question is by using the regulate the internet language by using um i don't know by using the language that they use are they going to get a large portion of people to go against their own self-interest and and undo a bunch of the work that had been done to get people to pressure the FCC

i think i've solved it okay okay here's what you do here's how you pitch it this is your like commercial it doesn't matter how you pitch it because like you're actively being worked against that's what Sure, sure, sure. But there's like something very simple that if you could even just get people to listen to this once, they'll be on board. You say, hey, you know those people who manage your bills for your cell phone, which never works, and your cable, which never works. What if they had more power over the internet, the one thing that sometimes works? Right. No, and that's a thing.

No, but if you look at what the FCC is doing and how they think and, like, why they're moving, why Obama moved, it wasn't. because of, you know, companies like Netflix. It wasn't because of companies like Tumblr that are like really, like, they're really pushing, right? And Tumblr's part of Yahoo and Tumblr's like kind of doing it on the zone from what I can tell. It's because of the four million comments that crashed the FCC server, part of which happened like after we did the internet as fucked like eight months ago or nine months ago.

They crashed it super hard after John Oliver did his segment. Like it went down. We actually ran. we FOIA requested the emails that they sent each other after John Oliver. They're hilarious. They know. We need to do a dramatic reading of these. I mean, there's no way you can take the citizens of the United States and say, do you want Comcast to have more authority over your life?

Because they won't say yes. Right. They hate Comcast. We ran a story called The Most Hated Company in America about Comcast's terrible customer support and all of the reasons. And this is like, you know, Adrian's like last huge feature series at The Verge. And basically what she discovered is because Comcast. Comcast has so little competition, they have no incentive to improve this bullshit, but they do have incentives to sell you more crap, right? And to put in the, and to lump customer support into like retention sales or customer support into upcharges. And it's amazing what happens when even like an ounce of competition shows up. Right. Because it's so rarely does. Like in New York, there is no cable competition. You get Time Warner. But then with internet, you have like pretend competition. Yeah. They finally.

finally installed Fios and one building on my street. And they said they're not going to install it anywhere else. And everyone kept calling Fios and calling Time Warner and just saying we're going to leave. And then Time Warner did this thing in New York where they're like, you all have high-speed internet

now. We switch. We flipped a switch. Yesterday, I had 30 and now I have 300. And it's like they sent me a new modem, but in plugging into the same shit. So it's like, so what, and then they have the different speed rates and it's like it's just a tube so why why do i have to pay you this much more money

yeah for 30 and then the next day suddenly i'm 300 and it's the same rate but if i want 400 i have to pay more the whole pricing thing of it is so absolutely insanely absurd and frustrating and they they never would have even had to have done that if there wasn't that much competition right and if you think about if you look at a market like kansas city where oh yeah uh google fiber showed up And just like a test market, like AT&T fiber is like everywhere now. Yeah. Like they're moving hard against it. And they fight against you.

I mean, that's where I'm from. And my family, they don't stick with anything for more than a year at this point because they have AT&T and now everyone's trying to get you in two year plans. But it's like, we're going to come. We're going to install. Everyone your TV is going to be interconnected. And we're going to give you this internet. And then Google's like, oh, well, we're in your neighborhood now.

We want to do this. And they're constantly getting pulled back and forth. And if you could do that, that's fine. And like the, this is the choice you have to make for. access, right? You can look at, in that we ran this picture with the internet as fucked. It was the iPhone, or cell phones in 2004 and cell phones in 2014. And like, you can just see what competition did, right? A trio is, was, is, like, a drastically different product than the iPhone. You could say it sucked. It's okay. I like, to the editor at trio central.com. Just, just go ahead.

I like, literally looked at Dieter with, like, a sad look in my eyes. But the Comcast cable box, the default Motorola piece of junk, is the same a decade later because there's no product of the market that competes with it. So there's no incentive to improve it to make more money. Mine died actually two days ago. And they, in what they're going to. It's going to take two years for the day from the phone. And I say this and I will disclose to the world that Comcast ventures as an investor in Vox Media, our parent company. But that means nothing.

As we have this conversation. Well, it's like whatever. Like, you know, we. Yeah. It's. There's your ethics. and games journalism. Yeah.

But whatever. Hype check Gamergate. Don't even get me started. No, but here's the truth about Comcast. If you've been in an airport recently, you've probably seen their ads. They believe that their iPad app is an operating system. It's a picture of an iPad running the Comcast app, and they're like the X1 operating system.

And it's like you don't know what an operating system is. Like, you just don't know what it is. I don't want you near this part of my life. Like, please hire all of the best network engineers in the world with your billions and billions of dollars and profits and make them make a better network. But don't hire the designers and the app engineers

who weren't good enough to get a job at Apple or Facebook and Google and be like, yo, make us an operating system because it's crap. And like, they just don't see it. They are taking credit for the good work that other people do on top of their network. And they're they're insisting that their free email services and weird apps and like bad ideas about content are enough to make them not just dumb pipes. That they should not be regulated like the dumb pipes that pretty much everybody I know wants them to be.

And the idea that we're imposing more government regulation on these companies that will somehow just regulate themselves because there's a free market is insanity. It is insanity because there is no competition for access. Even in wireless, like switching from 18T to Verizon is impossible. So this story hasn't changed. The story that you're telling is the same problem that we've had for since at least a Verizon case, if not before. But the question I have is what is changing now is they are getting more aggressive, I feel, like in talking to the wider internet, the wider humans out there rather than just attacking the FCC. And the question, I'm going back to the thing I said before is. Will regular humans be convinced to advocate against their own self-interest?

So here's the thing. Like Ted Cruz, the day Obama released his statement, was like net neutrality is Obamacare for the internet. Come on. And what's dangerous about this, and I get tons of emails now that are like, stop putting politics on the verge. And it's like, well, A. Everything is politicized. Everything is politicized. Gamergate was politicized.

Like, it's the same spectrum of things, right? It's like change versus not change. But literally that. the idea that like wanting the internet to exist and not be fucked with is not a political issue like uh scalia and his dissent in the verizon case the the old one that throughout the bad rules that didn't work was like you should just do it the right way like you want these rules that's fine it's in your power FCC just do it the right way and like doing it the right way isn't going to change it is literally just at this point let me put it this way if you're a comcast and AT&T and Verizon and whoever. You have pretty much maximized your profit seeking from the existing network model, right? We know how the internet works in America. We know what people are going to buy. We know how much they're going to spend. What you want them to do is use more data and meter their data. So you put a data cap on it and hope they hit it. That's like 18Ts. That's the wireless carrier move. Everybody

understands it. And what you want people to do is use data that you can then charge against in some other way. right so if you're the wireless carriers it's easier to just meter the whole thing and give you a pretty low cap so you'll go over it as that becomes your primary internet access if you're comcasting you've got a 300 gig cap a lot of people aren't going to hit it some people are and you're like crap how do we make more money out of this already existing customer relationship and what you say is well i can't charge the customer anymore but i'll go to apple and charge them i'll go to google and charge them i'll go to google and charge them i'll go to youtube and charge them and those companies will pay but the companies that can't afford to pay will like wither and die on the because they won't have as good access to the consumer. And in a world where we know that Google has done extensive testing on their homepage, and they know that milliseconds of responsiveness add up to real concrete user behavior, that little difference is a significant thumb on the scale. And so the cable companies are out of ways to charge you. We know that they are excellent at finding ways to charge other people.

And they're just going to go and do it because that's their next revenue. Yeah. And even then, most people would be like, whatever. Big companies charging other big companies. Some little companies are getting screwed whatever. But they're not out of ways to charge us. Yeah. They'll pass on a cost. The next way is to like, you know, start charging for fast lanes and slowlades and bundling stuff. And, oh, yeah, if you get our service, you'll get this data speed. And oh, we'll toss in free Netflix. And it'll go really fast. Imagine everything you hate about cable applied to the internet.

Right. Yeah. And it's just, what they're saying now is, you know, Comcast will say, well, we believe in everything Obama says. We just don't need these cumbersome laws. Right. And the way they're saying that is because they've applied it. Like when they bought NBC Universal, they promised to abide by these principles because the FCC is like the only way we're letting you buy a content company is if you can't favor their fucking content. Yeah. And they're like, that makes sense. Yeah, we'll sign that document. But that expires in 2018. Like that's actually not so far away. Like you get past these laws and there would be a court case that might not be done until 2018. So like you're screwed anyway. So it, Everyone's lying, the end.

Jeez. That was my net neutrality rat for the day. All right. Do we want to do some, do you want, never mind. I was going to do a dramatic reading of this, this email from inside the FCC. Come on a comic show. Last week tonight. No, dude, you got to beat poetry it.

You got to, we need bongos. Camo was on a comic show. Last week tonight. I think we should workshop this before we just do it. HBO. We should workshop this. We're going to go up. Foot?

We were in the cat skills for two weeks. We're shopping on a new routine. He should watch it. Yeah, I think, like, that would be good. Like, here's what I want you to ask you. I want you to get in a car. I want you to drive the mountains and read this stuff to each other. Yeah.

Until you realize what a bad idea it is. And then you can come back. I have next on my list. Yeah. The Chris Plant explains Dragon Age to Dieter. No, no, no, no. Not true. Not true.

Oh, boy. Chris Plant explains Dragon Age lore to Dieter. Very different. I want to play Dragon Age Inquisition. I've never played Dragon Age. Tell me what I need to know so that I can play this game. My note was, oh, bro, I don't know Dragon Age at all. I haven't played this game so much.

And there's a great piece I'm going to throw you to the Gawker Network. But Kirk Hamilton on Kataku wrote like the, hey, you didn't play 80 hours of Dragon Age 1 and 2, understandably, especially for Dragon Age 2, apparently. Here is everything. So people should definitely read that thing. But what I will say is, I went to Dragon Age Inquisition Blind. I don't play like RPGs. I haven't played RPGs in super long.

This one's 80 hours long. Yeah. So just recognize that. But when you say this one's 80 hours long, are you exaggerating? No. Okay. 80 hours is like, that's how long the reviewers who are in a hurry hit it at 80 hours. Wow.

So can I pick up this game and play it for like a half hour at a time? Here's what's crazy about it. And why I think I'm actually going to play it probably over like the next year. But so one, you get the sense that they get storytelling really, really well. Like the game opens there's on the very, just the credit scene, right? Like start, options, all that bullshit. And there's like two lines of people and it's like mages and like soldiers who I guess are Templars. And they're walking towards this big like citadel or something.

And then you press start and the whole thing blows up. And you're like, what? And then that like it's a great thing that you keep being. minded of because so much the game is about this, something really, really bad has happened. Bad things are coming into the world. There are two sides that if they work together, you can probably fix this really quickly. But

they have mad beef. And then on top of that, each group, there are the groups within both of those who also have mad beef with each other, and there are people who are just trying to take advantage of the situation to become higher-ranking political people. So it's

a thing where it's like... So it's real life. It's real life. It is like, the whole time you're just like, it would be so easy to fix this if you would just stop being an asshole. But I totally know why you're being an asshole. That's that Dragon Age is really just, yeah, that's telecom. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But on top of that, the characters are so well written. I'm going to talk about this Freddie Prince Jr. man.

Oh, my God. Really? Freddie Prince Jr., the role of a lifetime, a giant demon bullhorn monster who's a mercenary with a kind of a heart of gold. And he is so good. And I didn't even realize it was him. I'm like, who is this guy? This guy is on it. Like this guy is, this guy needs to be getting some real roles.

Looked him up. He had some real roles. Yeah. He was on Scooby-Doo, the movie. Wait. You didn't know this? Yeah, Scooby-Doo 1 and 2. I'm just saying, no, I'm actually backing all the way up to.

You went back to research Freddie Prince Jr. No, no, I looked up the character from Dragon's Age. Okay. Discover it was Freddie Prince Jr. You know. Yeah, got it. PJ. I got it. I got it. Okay. He's going to be a present one day.

I thought you were just like, man, I love this character. I wonder what other roles is guys played. Scooby-Doo! Scooby-Doo! Another one of my favorite things. I Pipe Check Scooby-Doo. Ew. What? The movies, no. The original cartoon, the Hannah-Barbara cartoons from like the 60s, yeah, good. Two thumbs up. Those are great.

Sixies. Seventies? I love how far we've gotten away from Deep and Musk now. It's just like, yeah, two thumbs up. I'm just going to start to steal it from other shows. It's not my problem. Copyright my ass. That's fine.

Two beefs up. Yeah. So it's so good. It's so good. Okay. So I'm buying that. What else? What else?

What else? What else? What else? What else? What else? What else? You're buying? You're buying?

Yes. Because... I'm really bad at a... Does it have a good campaign? The campaign is the first good, like, really good one. Because I hate multiplayer. Can't do it. I suck so hard that I can't do it.

You could try multiplayer. I don't want to try it. But even if you don't like that... Only if it's worth the campaign. The campaign, I would say... It seems like I have to buy Master Chief because it's four halos for 50 bucks. How can I turn that down? And then you get the five beta also.

You're just buying it to keep it in your house. Yeah. Like, be honest with yourself. I don't have a 360 anymore. Especially if you don't like the multiplayer, there's no sense to have that. Okay. Wait until it's like cheaper. Yeah.

If you're playing it for multiplayer, whatever, sure. I can tell you that the word on the street is that Assassin's Creed is a pile. Pile. Yeah. I actually had a really sad conversation with the. We were, like, working on a story earlier. And, like, all of a sudden, she's like, Assassin's Creed sucks.

And she was just, like, really sad. I think people really like really like that game. I love that game. I didn't play, what's the last one, the Pirates, Black Bag? No, no, because that one's the best. Yeah. Oh, it is? I have it.

I don't know if I'd say it's the best. It's gradually over time. It is, it is on its own merit. It is on its own merit. It is on its own merits the best video game of that series, but it is not the best Assassin's Creed of that series. Which is. Brotherhood.

Yeah. I think it's Brotherhood. Brotherhood is like crazy polished, but they didn't add bombs yet. Yeah. Okay, I clearly haven't paid, like, the last year. Yeah. I like to play video games like two to three years after they come out. Oh, sure.

That's what I do with Rockstar games, usually, except for when I have to review. Yeah, so you want those. Tell me, let me ask you a question, a really stupid basic question. When you review a video game, you just play it as fast as you can. What happens there? Sorry, before you're going to do. How many times did you have to answer this question? That's what I want to know.

I just want to pull up to that, you know, God's point of view right here. Before this, I was, like, talking to you guys in this position about something that really mattered about the world. And I'm like, yeah, tell me more. And now you're like, video. No, it was Assassin's Creed. And I'm like, well, you've seen Ubisoft has been making games for years. In the case of Ubisoft versus Assassin's Creed, Etsio 2. At CO2.

Don't worry about it. Etseo, deuce, dues. I can tell you all about the juicy drama behind the scenes. Hypejack, Assassin's Creed. Beef. Yeah, there we go. That's fine. That's the good stuff.

Here's what I'm going to say about Assassin's Creed. Yeah. If you want a great Assassin's Creed game, and I'm not the first person to say this, one came out this year. It's called Lord of the Rings, Shadow of Mortar. Yes. And it's like, if somebody said... I've finished the game. I'm collecting all the stupid bullshit trinkets right now because I love it so much.

I'm like afraid to stop playing. It's where Assassin's Creed was going after, too. It's like lots of great locomotion. There's all these crazy moves you can do. It feels like it's much more about stealth. It stayed on track while Assassin's Creed went and did all this crazy shit where it's like bombs and boats. I mean, to me, Assassin's Creed, in a very basic level, is about stabbing. Yeah.

Yeah. You want to play Shadow Mortar then. Okay. Yeah. It's a lot of stabbing. And it's a lot of stabbing. I'm just stabbing. I can't comment on stabbing on the air.

It's not good. It's about literally exploding heads with your bare hand. Well, after they're your slames, which is even more... So actually, speaking of stabbing, I want to get into something with Sam real quick before we move on to the next thing. Okay. You almost got stabbed over the weekend and you wrote about it and it was very popular on the internet. It was. Why did you...

So Sam got his phone, his gigantic phone, stolen his back pocket. I did. Because he keeps in his back pocket. I was experimenting with it very stupidly, and it is just a bad idea to keep the phone in your back pocket. But it's still really... When you say experimenting, like instead of... Did you have a hypothesis? Were there test results?

Yes. Yes. Because, because... Hypothesis. Well, keeping my phone to my back pocket be beef. Oh, it's funny. Because, because you have like a little scientific journal? I had a journal, and every time I entered it into my pocket, I gave it a rating.

And I put it out of my frog pocket. It got another rating. No, so you want me to tell the story? Yeah. Okay, so I'll make it really quick. I was at a bar in my neighborhood of the East Village, New York. I will not tell you what bar it is because that's not right. And I was there at the bar.

And the bar is... What's wrong with saying what the bar is? What bar is it? The 13th step in the East Village. Oh, gross. If you go to the 13th step, your phone will be stolen. I live really close to there. It was convenient.

That wasn't right. Whatever. Bust. bust. This is not really quick also. So I'm there at the bar, phones in my back pocket, and I just went to go reach for my phone, and I was wearing a jacket, and I was keeping it either in my jacket or back pocket or front pocket, and I was just like, where the hell is my phone?

I have my keys in my wallet, phone. Can I hit the fast forward button? So Sam leaves the bar and, like, sees the guy, and he, like, pushes the button, and he hears it coming out of the dude's pocket. Sure. And like, and they went up to the guy. Wait, wait, wait.

And then what do you do when you confront the guy? It was me and my brother. And I will replay my emotions and reaction. You can't. I can't. You can't. How do you do that? Okay.

So I, my brother, Daron, gave me confirmation that this was the guy. That's him. And that's him in Hebrew, Zahoo. And so him and I went up to, went up to the guy. Wait, wait, wait. Were you on a mission speaking in, like, Hebrew as code? Yes, we were speaking in Hebrew as code. So he wouldn't.

Yeah. So he, so me and Daron were like trailing behind him and he sort of like stops in like in like a, you know, a doorway kind of thing. Yeah. And you're holding down the right trigger so that you were in stuff. I'm just, I'm just pressing the button over and over. And I go up to him and there's this like one or two seconds of like he's like, oh shit. And I'm like, then I just put on this thing. I'm like, oh my God, dude.

You have it. You have my iPhone. I hear it. It's ringing in your jacket. Dude. You found my iPhone. Dude, you have it. And then he just has.

no choice, pulls it out of his pocket, and I just see my iPhone in his hands, and I just take the iPhone, and I just take the iPhone from his hands. And then you note it down. And then I really screenshoted the message because like the message was. So what I'd like to point out to, you could have been stabbed. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Right. This was a dumb thing to do. It was dangerous and very stupid. But it was, it was three in the morning. And it was also a $900 iPhone and my iPhone, and my iPhone five s got stolen on my birthday of this year, which was six months ago. And I was just like, there's no way in hell I'm getting two phones stolen for me in six months. That's not happening. And I got him and, you know, you just, here's the thing. If I would

have approached him and been like, yo, dude, you stole my phone, give it back. That would have been very stupid and foolish. But I approached him in the sense that he was sort of like the good guy in the situation. And you know, like a little bit of. Yes. I know. I did. I totally did. Yeah. Was that you were doing it consciously or you instinctively needed to do social? Instinctively. Instinctively, you instinctively hacked his brain. Yes.

And while in that hour or so that he had your phone, he bent it. I don't know if that's true. I dropped it yesterday. I dropped it yesterday. That was our brief for him. And now it's getting stabbed. We should have a story of like Sam's Nightlife Adventures. God, no, you don't want it.

The more, the more chef or sags we have, chef's eggs. Are we writing segways? Just awful. That's the worst name. High sex, chef's eggs. I don't even know what that means. Sounds like a... All right.

We're just hard transition. Let's talk about YouTube music for a second. And then we should talk about Taylor Swift. Teens will buy YouTube music. By the way, every time Chris is on the show, we talk about Taylor Swift. I think that's true. Oh, you know what I learned today? Yeah.

Some people get to call her T-Swift. You do, Dieter. You could call her T-Swift. I am too old to call her T-Swift. All right. So, YouTube. music. So this is, I think this is actually fascinating. So you can, I watch a lot of music on YouTube. The way I prefer to share music is YouTube. You just send links to videos. That's great.

So YouTube is now doing the thing where you can pay them what's, seven bucks a month? Yeah. I saved the wrong link, so I got to go find it again. But it's also, if you pay the 10 bucks a month for Google Play, it's like, yeah, two things are like kind of included sort of. Right. So you can pay, you don't get ads on music, which is cool. And I'm, I sign up for everything, so I'm signing up for it. Yeah. Why not? I have audio, Spotify, Google Play, and now YouTube music subscription.

What do you use? I use Spotify. And it's great. What's my jigger? iTunes, uh, what's it called? iTunes, Match. You pay for all these things? Unlimited.

iTunes Ping? No. I forget don't subscribe. iTunes Match is garbage. Yeah, it's the worst. It has just nothing, nothing going on. What is the number here? Ad free, 799 a month.

Right. For ad free video. And then you get Google Play, which is renamed. Wait, it's ad-free video across the board? No. Just for music videos. Oh, man. I would have been all over that. Can I hype check this real quick?

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, YouTube, this YouTube thing with the subscribing music is going to be huge because there are a lot of people out there that listen to music on YouTube. And when I went to Israel, I was staying in a friend's house in Tel Aviv, and he's like 24. And he would just, or maybe even older, they would just go on YouTube. like hook up the laptop to the TV and speakers and just hit play on a playlist and just cycle through music videos like on YouTube and he was like this is a very popular thing that people do. I mean, so the stats are like most teens get their music on YouTube?

So are teens going to be able to pay this eight bucks a month? They'll say their parents, I want this for Christmas. It's cheap. It's a monthly thing or whatever. It'll be like the gift card. Yeah, you get it at Or Jane. Yeah. Right.

So you can't pay with Apple Pay. Yeah. Why would you want to do that? Oh, you can at Duane Reed. You can at CDS. Right. Thank goodness. I wasn't going to buy it.

When this got announced and when I knew it was coming, I was all angry. They're like, why there's so many different kinds of music subscriptions at Google? This doesn't make any sense. But like, it's just if you like music videos a lot or if that's how you listen to music, then just get this. It's kind of neat. I think it's a good idea. I'm not, I don't care.

It's good. It's not for me, but I admire anything. where a company is at least aware that it's having success somewhere. And they're like, hey, we can make that easier for people. Like, hey, a lot of people use this. Right. Pay for it and we'll take away your ads. Will artists be able to opt out of this?

Do you think? I know that there was some drama before. Okay, so here's how you take go from YouTube to Taylor Swift. Yeah. So Taylor Swift is like on a war path of deception. That's what I'm. Well, it's on her directly, right? It's like her.

No, she was in Time magazine. She gave this long interview about how she's against Spotify. no one should be surprised. Yeah, Taylor Swift is out of Spotify if you have been under a ride. Everything about Taylor Swift is Artifice, right? Like that's at a baseline level. No, it's true. Why do you?

She plays this role. Why do you mean? I'm not mean. She's like the Lady Gaga machine. I mean, no, like everything about Taylor Swift is her saying that she was embattled in some way and that her success is because of like success, right? Like she's a sore winner. Yeah, yeah.

Right? So she's like, I won and no one thought I could win. And everyone's like, everyone's like, everyone. knew you were going to win. Oh, my gold medal's only 18 carats, not 24? I don't know. No. No.

Out of the hype check box. Stay in your hype check box. I'm contained. The Sam Sheffer's story. No, so everything about Taylor, particularly this version of Taylor Swift is like Artifice, right? It's she's just the girl next door. She's moving to New York. She doesn't understand what Boudega is.

No one thought that she should name the art the thing 1989. They thought her move to pop, like literally this Time Magazine interviews about how everyone was against her. And she succeeded because she believed in her art, which is great. The best thing that ever happened was the Kanye moment because it set in motion a style to... No, she had that style before. Each one. But it solidified. Anyway.

But so what's happening now is she's saying, I need to stand up for my art. And she's connecting that Taylor Swift thing to the economic. of the music industry. I should have really written this today. And what's happening is she is, in her label and all of her people are telling this like very pernicious lie about the economics of streaming versus the economics of album sales. And they're not paying any attention to how people are actually consuming the stuff and not paying any attention to like it reality.

Yeah. Right? So they're like, we only made in the first, we sold 1.7 million copies of 1989. and we believe when Spotify came to the United States, it killed album sales, but because we kept our album off of Spotify, we did so well with it, which is all bullshit,

just all complete bullshit. It's, yes, if you put it on Spotify, maybe fewer people would have bought it. That's true because they would have a different access to it. But album sales died in 2002 when Apple launched the iTunes store. And that chart is clear.

Like, I've published it 50 times in my career already. When you unbundled the album and let people buy singles for 99 cents, they didn't buy the fucking filler. They bought the singles they wanted for $9.9. And album sales fell off a cliff and they will never, ever, ever come back. 1.7 million albums, like that opening weekend. No album has done that well since 2002, the year after the iTunes store came out.

And it's never coming back. And for them to say, streaming isn't paying us as much as our first week album sales. Well, of course not. Right? You're not, you're forcing people to buy the three singles they want on a $15 album full of filler, which, by the way, it's pretty boring. I don't know if you've listened to 1989. Fairly boring.

It just is. It's like boring. I don't want to be in that slack room. Hype check, Hype check. No, I haven't listened to it. I'm asking you to hype check. It's boring.

How would you not listen to it? Your hashtag teens, man? It's not on Spotify. Oh, my God. Fair answer. No, here's the thing. Here's the thing. Isn't it on people like...

Google play music all access? No. People like Plant and I. It's only on the services where you can pay for premium tier and the window things in the premium tiers. So what they're doing with 1989 is they're windowing it against demand, right? Right. They're doing the same thing that Hollywood does with movies on the Apple TV or with rental services or showtime in Cinemax and theaters, right?

They're saying, you really want to see Interstellar. The only way you can see it right now is if you go and pay $50 at the 70 millimeter IMAX. Next week, all the people who didn't have to demand that high, we'll sell it to you for $20 in the regular theaters. The week after that, we'll move it to VOD rentals for a lower price. And then a year later, we'll give it to HBO for nothing. and the people who just were like waiting for that, their demand will be satisfied on HBO. That's like ruthless Hollywood windowing,

which most consumers like understand, dislike, and fall for anyway. Right? If I could just get the movie at home right away, I would just do it all the time. But because there are some movies I want to see really badly, I pay the extra to go to theater. That's all Taylor Swift did with I-T.

It wasn't some, like, brilliant move. There's pent-up crazy demand for this album, so they forced people to go where they had to pay them most for it. There's brilliant business move. One other thing you're ignoring that's, a huge part of both of these things though and it's the marketing and that's what I find in infuriating about this no no no let me

explain is that she is if she really cared about everyone else who's on Spotify what you do is you fight for the average rate of streaming to go up across the board you don't leave because when you leave and you're making all this money I'm just gonna I'll finish it up

if you leave and you can make all the money because you have a marketing machine and that's why she made all this money and that's how windowing works anyway they build up the market And then you're like, I'll just wait until it's on time and you on demand. Oh my gosh. I am going to miss out on culture as I know it. If I don't see interstellar on Thursday when it comes out, it's the marketing.

That's what makes windowing as a process. Well, but marketing is like, sure, but like marketing is required. Yeah, sure. Well, but all these other things can afford it. Right. Like you should advertise. Sure, but you should create demand. All of that is brilliant.

Sure. There's nothing about that that isn't genius. By I'm saying all these, basically everyone under Taylor Swift, doesn't get that. So she's not in reality. No, but I'm saying, like, I'm not worried about Taylor Swift acting ruthlessly in her own self-interest. Like, she should. But this lie about, like, how the economics of this business work and, like, what should come back is insanity.

Because what's really happening is that in 2002, music was unbundled from albums. Just like on the internet, stories have become unbundled from newspapers and magazines. those bundled products have like suffered the people that can live in a world of unbundled content have succeeded right so like that's why there are so many singles artists and like exclusive music video releases and like that world of pop is like partially exploded because you can make great singles now now it is harm in a box of honeynut Cheerios um it is there's no question that it's harmed like the overall quality of music in a way like i've heard jimmy ivy and say that out loud right you got artists who are on the road because they make more money at their concerts recording singles really quickly in their music in their hotel rooms because singles are what get people to go to the shows and make money on shows and merchandise. Okay, what we should talk about as a society. Let's talk about that. That's why there's so much more licensing in music. Like you don't hear about people selling out because everybody needs a deal with Honey Nut Cheerios. Right. Right. Every like Chris Brown needs to do the double mint theme song that he did. Right. But this is just how the world. How did I guess this? This is like old. It's like 2007. Okay. Oh, okay. It's like old. Now you guys are like a whole little train of ranting. Here's the thing. Taylor took her music off Spotify and now plan and I can't listen. But like that's fine. That's like that happens, right?

Yeah, you can go buy it. No, but let's go buy it. You're out of the window. Like that's fine, right? Or listen to it on YouTube. You don't have the demand. Like you don't have the desire enough to pay the price that she set. Like that's normal.

That's capitalism. Right. And then she'll move it to the next window. And if you have that desire then you'll pay that price and it'll come all the way down and so whatever. Fine. But what's happening now with streaming is it's the next unbundling, right? It's the next piece where you don't pay 99 cents for the track. You pay Spotify or Spotify pays Taylor Swift 0.06 for a listen. And that is a whole different ballgame than like buying a song. It's you're paying for a listen. And that that's it. That's the whole argument that you're making here, right? Do you believe that you should get paid $20 million up front as a bet against the fact that your album might not. be good, but people have demand for it right in this first window. Or is your work so good that people will listen to it forever? And you'll collect that 0.06 cents every time they listen to it forever. So wait. And that is like a crazy like what are you arguing for here? I'm really not

clear. I'm like I'm saying like this moment in this the media industry is all like it is defined by unbundling. Okay. Like that's fundamentally. People can get whatever they want in and in massive supply, right? Right. Because they're in this world where like I forget that like things that are really obvious to you may need to be explained because I'm like yeah well okay I get that everybody knows that then what? It's actually really funny the last time I wrote about Taylor Swift

I was working at Box.com I was managing editor over there and I just wrote what I thought was a very basic thing that like verge readers know yeah right like Taylor the headline was Taylor Swift doesn't understand supply and demand it was basically all about how iTunes killed the music industry that's a fact

there is a fact right and people get their music online and like you can't force them and the album sales have plummeted and you can't force them buy whole albums anymore unless you are Taylor Swift. Right. Because your supply of Taylor Swift is scarce. But the supply of music in the world is high. Right. Right. So, in infinite actually now on the internet. So I wrote this and I didn't realize that I wasn't writing for like The Verge audience. I was writing for this much more mass vox.com audience and it people freaked out, like just freaked out. They're like, what is this? And it's like, I always say the verge audience like lives in the future,

think when it comes to, or two years in the future, because of our phones. Because everyone else gets the free phone two years later. That's pretty good. But what's true, type check, verge mission statement. That's great. But what's actually true about our media consumption patterns for people who read the verge and watchard stuff is that we're like a decade ahead of everybody else. And so Taylor Swift is having her business model argument a decade after the industry left her behind.

The economics of this industry have moved so far away from anything bundled. That you are crazy. But, but, but no, no. No, for Taylor Swift, she's doing exactly the right thing. No, I agree. Of course. But she's lying and saying it's the right thing for everyone else. Right.

Unless you agree. When we go back and I say why I would rather her support the increasing value of streaming music. I'm not saying I get on a purely capitalist. Right. You want her to help her less famous peers. It's like, well, not only not, she's not only. not helping her peers, she's misguiding them. Right. She's telling them, don't

trust these guys, go back to the way it used to be. Follow me. And it's... But I mean, we also... She has her, like, golden, like, helicopter that just flies away. And everybody's, here we go! And then there's no helicopter, and they just splen it. But these artists are making less money

off of Spotify than they did off of albums? That's the question, right? That's the moral force of the argument that they're making. Is it the vast majority of artists are making less money on Spotify that they made off album sales. No. But can you say that that's wrong?

Yeah. You think that they're making more money on Spotify than they were off album sales? The only question. I would argue that they probably aren't. And who cares? Well, not who cares, but like, the music industry is going to change. And sorry. I think that.

Wait, can I answer your question? Yeah. So there's no way to answer that question, right? Because it's if you time-back, if you, like, time-bound of the graph of revenue. Yeah. Right. And you say, okay, from now until the end of next month, how much money you'll make

from album sales versus how much money will you make from Spotify, right? The album sales will be here and Spotify will be here. But the problem is that the slope of the Spotify curve will remain constant or go up over time because people will just keep listening to your music. And you'll get paid every day that people listen to your music forever. Right. The slope of the album sales curve will just hit zero. Because who the hell is buying CDs?

No, whatever. Digital iTunes albums. Whatever, right? Because the people who want, unless you made Dark Side of the Moon, which is consistently the best-selling album in every format ever. I don't know that. It's true. Yeah. But unless you made that, what it's going to happen is your album sales will hit zero.

People will stop buying your album. So you can have all the money up front in the box of time in which you'll sell albums, or you can have some money forever. And that's the promise of streaming. I get that's the promise of streaming. What I'm saying is, like, as a practical matter, we can grant that we don't know if, you for sure that that promise is true yet. And as a practical matter right now, most people are, most artists at

above a certain level are probably making less money on streaming than they would have if none of these services existed. No, you could also say that they weren't going to make much money either way, and touring was the only thing that was going to make them money. Right. And so what I'm saying is like this whole economic argument is a little bit of a canard because

if it wasn't Spotify, it would have been the collapse of the American system of something something. And like, The revenue model for music isn't a sacroscating thing that we have to protect. And that the music now might be the promotion for the product and the product is the swag and the tours. The product is Taylor Swift. No, I mean, like, to be really blunt, the product is just Taylor Swift, right?

And the things, like, she has a line of, like, bed linens. She has... Already? Right. She has Diet Coke ads. Like, now I went through, when I wrote that Vox article, I went through and looked at all the things that Taylor Smark. Taylor Smark. Taylor Swift has a trademark for, Taylor Mark.

That's the footnote we should put on this whole thing, too. We keep saying Taylor Swift and she, but really when we were talking about Taylor Swift, there's Taylor Swift, the person who's singing. And the thing that we're talking about when we say Taylor Swift is... No, I called the guy... It's funny how much to know.

It's hundreds of people. No, it's funny how much I know. It's ridiculous. Like, I called the guy at Forbes, who put her on, like, the most wealthy artist list. And I don't forget what the exact number is and what her number is. My God, do you can buy Taylor Swift betting at Walgreens?

You can. With Apple Pay. Hype check Apple Pay. I've used it. It's awesome. It's quick. I've used it. Review. No, but here's the thing. So I call the guy Forbes, she does this list.

And I was like, tell me where her money comes from. And he's, you know, he's like this proprietary, this Forbes thing. But I quoted him, it's safe to say that the vast majority of Taylor Shurst's money comes from licensing and endorsements and not music. And so what we're really arguing about right now is not whether Taylor-Sourst can support her lifestyle in the back of 1990. 89, it's whether she can get richer, right? Like, should, like, is this work that, is it, are we saying that, like, music has so much more intrinsic value than Taylor, like, that's the argument we're having. Like, what is the value of this thing?

But for Taylor Swift, it's, why am I not maximizing what I think should be more value, right? Why is this music worth less to the world than, like, my bed sheet line? And that's a fair question for it to ask. And ultimately, I think from the consumer perspective, The answer is simple. The answer is like, I just want to use one app to listen to my music. Agreed. And Spotify should just sell me Taylor Swift's album.

If that's how she wants to. Oh, interesting. If she wants to do it that way, Spotify should just give up on this idealism against her business model. Well, do you think it's also an idea of brand value too, right? Where it's like, again, if this is promotion for all of her other things out in the world. And you look at it in Taylor's, it's weird because there's a team that is around Taylor's. So you can get so much cool. Taylor Swift shit.

Oh, gosh. The person at the core is also a brilliant person too, right? And then you look at somebody who is the other people who are as brilliant as she is. You look at Beyonce or Jay-Z too, who have built these industries around their thing. And

the music is not what they're making all their money off of it. Absolutely not. But Beyonce still packages her music in a way that has tremendous value, right? Because when you buy the Beyonce album on iTunes or whatever, you're buying a very like high end product is what it felt like so then when you buy other bioncé products

you associate it with like oh she is of a certain quality she has her things represent value represent quality is that the same thing with this taylor script like coming out of spotify that no i mean i just think we're in the middle of a like we're in the middle of a and we were connecting it actually earlier today dider connected net neutrality dude you can get you can get 33% off you can get five dollars off uh taylor Swift, Fearless, BlackBray Curve, 8330, phone scale. How do you sell that?

It's only 999. How do you have respect for yourself and sell curve cases with your face on? You can get one for the original Motorola droid, too. I mean, no, not droid two. The original Motorola droid, comma, also. Come on, man. You're way too deep in this. No, it's like store.

dot taylor swift.com is where Taylor Swift makes her money. Store.com. So, wait, wait, wait, I want to know what your vision of the way forward is. I think we're, you know, I really just write this down. Put it on the website. I should put it on the website. We're on the website right now.

And yeah, right? We're everything. We're all things. We are everything and we are the future. No, we're in a moment, and you can connect it directly to net neutrality, right? We're in a moment where unbundling threatens every established media interest in the world. And music, interestingly enough, has gotten unbundled to the point of listens. I think video got unbundled way faster because people were very rarely.

buying like whole videos, right? So that, the economics of that were like understood by the industry. So now like YouTube views are like a thing, right? And so like Taylor Swift makes more money on Viva, which is hosted on YouTube, which by the way partnered with Google, which when you type in Taylor Swift sends you to YouTube. Like there's a whole little circle of life there. Yeah. And you can see how she's playing into it.

Of course. So like, yeah, we know how to monetize video views. Right. As an industry, as a society. So what? We've gotten there very quickly. going to raise? Like, is that what's going to happen? Am I going to be $20 a month for Spotify instead of 10? But, like, just on the meta point is, is everything gets unbundled? As consumer preferences shift

towards, like, more and more unbundled things? Like, what you're getting is all the old media companies and the access industries struggling to find ways to preserve the bundle or create new bundles. So, like, the net neutrality fight is about the ability to create new bundles of things, right? Like, you can buy faster YouTube and faster Netflix, but we'll slow down apps. Apple and like here's the tier that has that. If you want the next one, you can buy the next one. So why is it that why is it that streaming videos is, you know, more profitable than streaming music?

Higher ad rates because there's way more attention on the ads. Yeah, but if Taylor Swift has 50 million plays on Spotify, doesn't that mean something? Yeah. No, so nobody knows. Like, think of, like, in the history of the world, in the history of the world, no one has ever monetized a listen of a song. Like, no one has ever, like, tried to assign a value to. that.

Like that's what Spotify is trying to do. They listen to the song on YouTube with like the lyrics on the screen. Right. But it's YouTube, right? Like, it's a whole, like YouTube has different deals. Vivo is a creation of the record industry. Right. But if the numbers are there in Spotify, shouldn't there be some sort of balance

created there too? I think the thing that we have to, like, we've been. Vivo are owned by like gigantic companies. Right. All right. Hang on, hang on. You've been ranting for a good 45 minutes about the dynamics of the music industry. That's all I want to do.

And I think that the thing, the actual thing to say, to sum up that 45 minutes is the dynamics of how the music industry is changing because of the internet are that a bunch of people are going to make a lot less money. Maybe. But the answer is just maybe. Probably. That's also because of a ton of external factors that are, you don't buy an album anymore and put it on a record vinyl and listen to it with your friends. A vinyl or a CD. Actually, vinyl sales are, have started going again.

When in history would you buy a record and put it on a vinyl? You know what I'm trying to say. I don't actually. I'm very cute. You're trolling me. Basically what I'm trying to say is that. Hype check this description. I've lost my train of thought.

He makes artisan, you know, hipster vinals in his apartment. He handcrafts them. He's got a knife. He's like drawing the cruise. And Chris, what do you think? Sam, I want you to finish your thought. And then I want to hear, Chris. Go ahead.

I just, I would like to know why, like, YouTube and Vivo and all of those things exist. And I am happy to pay Spotify 10 to. a month to get my streaming music. It's confusing to me why playing a thing on a YouTube.com, you know, HTML5 player is different than listening to in an app on Spotify. No, but I can answer your question, right? Because YouTube is a bundle of different kinds of media, and some of that media subsidizes the other media.

So the ad rates for movies on YouTube or at, like shows, videos on YouTube, are higher than the ad rates. So you're saying it's because YouTube has music, YouTube has music videos, YouTube has shows. YouTube has original content. So YouTube makes a ton of money. So they have multiple revenue streams, and those revenue streams can balance each other out so that they can run a small business against music and a big business against whatever.

Spotify just has the one. And so they're really jealously protective of it, and they are not, they haven't diversified that revenue stream, and they're struggling to figure it out. And I think their idealism about what their business model should be is what's keeping them from winning. So what should it be? I mean, they should diversify, right? They should also sell the music.

They should have other kinds of services. They should like, they should try to be a, they should do what businesses do. They should mitigate their risk, right? Because what Taylor Swift represents to them is a huge risk, right? And they don't have any answers to that risk. Right. And that's fine. I just think, like, I mean, look, I think Spotify is, like, as an app, like, is a user experience is like hot garbage.

Like, I use it because they have the most stuff. If they stop having the most stuff, like, I'll walk away from them. Right. But if you, like, the VP of Ardeo was, like, tweeting this morning, he's like, the music industry they're so stupid. They're so mad about the deals they made with these companies that don't pay them anything. And it's because they're afraid of their own consumer.

The music industry is constantly afraid of music listeners because what they know is the music listeners don't, they don't value the product as highly as they want them to. And they've only ever been good at forcing them into windows where they have to pay high amounts for bundles. And so what we're, the project, and I call it a project because

it's like happening over time and we're all deciding is how much is it worth to listen to a play worth? to listen to a song. Right. And listening to a song in a subway is very different than sitting on your couch and consuming a movie or consuming a TV show. So Spotify set one number. The music industry wants that number to be higher. And consumers have kind of said, like, maybe it's just zero. The Wall Street Journal has just reported that the U.S. Justice Department owns a bunch of Cessna aircraft, and they have put fake cell phone towers on them called dirt boxes. They fly them around major metro areas, and they use it so that your cell phone attaches to their dirt boxes instead of to your, your, your,

cell phone carrier so that they can use it to track and identify criminals. Wow. Just FYI. Wow. That's happening. Hype check dirtboxes. That is a pile of bullshit. Yeah, basically it means that they can, they can, like, gather information about your

location without having to issue a subpoena to the phone companies. And then presumably, they're connected to the NSA and they can just get you regardless. Well, I mean, let's not over, you know. Let's not overreach as much as our government. government. Right. Exactly. Truchet.

Yeah. So I know, this just came out and it's wild. That's why I was like bending down and looking at my computers. Dirt boxes. You guys talk about music. It's just the name even sounds gross. Dirt boxes. We'll get them with our dirt boxes.

Yeah. That's Scooby-Doo from the 60s, ladies and gentlemen. I will say that David is just, it just hate tweeting me right now. Okay. I agree with you. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think the.

One other thing, if you're going to talk about all the great unbundling, the book you're eventually going to write after you write this one post about Taylor and Swam. Going to do it, guys. First actually that is that the idea that the artist was not paid, especially as a middle income entity until the last 60 years or so. And that it was always a very weird, fragile thing that that existed. and now we live in a time where it makes even more sense, but on an individual basis. Right. So the great thing that is happening now is tools. When you, these big companies, any CMS or chorus, if you work for us.

But Twitter or Facebook. Somewhere, Trey just like got a dollar. They're all distribution tools. But then you have like great ways to make video with your computer. And you have great ways to make music with your computer. And all these things that used to require. Multiple people, if not dozens of people, if not hundreds of people, to take care of PR.

We have indie video games where you can make the game on your computer. You can send emails to all the press because there's a press list serve that's publicly available to you. You can distra with screen shots and video, which we used to take hours, if not days, to get all that handled. One person can handle all that while they're making their game. So now one person can do the whole process. When you talk about these companies that want to make more money off Taylor Swift,

Again, it's not just Taylor Swift. It's these large companies that want to be the company that's making money off of the talent and off of the product. And you see it everywhere. I mean, we were going to talk about Amazon and his shit, right? And that's literally two companies who are both fighting over. No, I want to be the person who's making money off of the person who's writing that. No, I played a bigger role in that person's success. Sure, you edited in them, but I just rode them.

And really, we're getting closer and closer to a point where, theoretically, hopefully, it's just the talent has a direct line. And it will never be folding there, obviously, but that shift is happening so fast. And distribution companies are the ones who are obviously trying to take advantage of it. Because that's the last line, right? And if you look at all of the battles, it has always been the publishers of whatever versus the distribution networks, right? That's a by-con versus Google on YouTube. Fundamentally, that's Amazon.

What are your notes for Amazon versus Hachet? I'm dying to know. Wait a second. Amazon and Hachette. Oh, always Reddit has Mushet, like machete. And then I said, that's all good for Christmas, right?

Yeah. No, good for Christmas, right? Because they had to get the deal done before Christmas because that's when they wanted to go back in the stores. I've read about this. What else you got? Let's see.

Spotify. No, I wrote Sportify, Taylor Swift. Spotify. Um, No, that's dumb. For some reason I wrote Lollipop, lollipop, lolly, lolly, lollipop, pow. Badoom-dum-bum.

Oh, that's... I can't do that. Really? It's really... I can make my tongue into, like, three little circles. Well, Microsoft band would be better if it was a Microsoft employee band. Think about it. I like how these notes are actually one line. jokes. I do. I just, it's like, I don't

stop and I don't look for typos. Visco on iPad, the rise of the uncles and grandmas. What? Yeah, what? Oh, because they use the iPad to take pictures and now they can take Visco and actually... Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, and just we were going to talk about, does Twitter have a secret

weapon for alienating trolls? And I wrote, no, fuck them. Twitter fucking sucks. It makes money off hate. Seriously, fuck them. that's the thing is they actually they were actually a preemptively censoring hate speech yes and I still get it constantly yeah and when I I I had a sharp turn with I did we already talk about this how I like have filed complaints to Twitter yeah yeah and they don't give a shit no and it's like no now there's a tool on the back end where they're like doing it do you see this I I saw it but I don't believe it I I've been getting well they only no that's part of the thing is they all we're

They only did it for some relatively famous, like, people in the politicians in the UK, right before they did a Twitter visit. So I need, I need this now. Yeah. I want to see it. But no, but it's all, but there's, anyway. I'm just. We should, we should.

We should. It's been over an hour. The first episode of Scooby-Doo aired in 1969. Boom, the 60s. I was right without even looking at Wikipedia. Who is, wait, who is the voice of Scooby-Doo? Here's what I want to know about you right now. Are you kind of sad that your laptop?

is closed. Are you kind of wondering when you're going to open it again? I can just do this. Are you worried Slack won't reconnect when you do your Wi-Fi Transfect? Look, I was just really proud of myself that I knew a fact. No, it's good. There was like a folly effect. There was like a whole thing going on, like this sound. No, it's a good fact. Thank you. Hype check Scooby-Doo. Again, two thumbs up. Beef. Double beef.

Two pieces of beef. All right. That, that I think is our show. Alexis O'Haney and his back at Reddit. That's huge. Oh, yeah. We should do it. Two seconds. Two seconds. The executive chairman. Reddit has had what I would call.

Just a bad year. Sam's doing a wavy thing. A roller coaster. I would say mostly just a bad year. It's not a roller coaster. Like, they're not going on. Is that a roller coaster? Are you clubbing?

I'm raving. Friday night. Sorry. It's Thursday. Hey, we're going out tonight. Oh, yeah. Yeah, sure. It's a Virgil's third birthday party now.

Yeah. We're taking New York by storm. Hashtack happy birthday birthday. We're going to one bar for a couple hours. We'll be done by nine. That'll be cool. But yeah, Alexis is back at Reddit, which is really interesting because he left Reddit. So ethics and games journalism, I will say.

Alexis makes a show with us called Civil Empires. You know him. It's a fact. Yeah. Cool dude. I went on his book tour. He's a nice guy. But Reddit has had a really bad year.

Their CEO put out that crazy, like every man is a nation. Yeah. Whatever the hell that meant. And they have the same problem. He, like, misread John Donne is what happened. Theater. Go ahead. No, I'm done.

Boom. No, but Reddit, the fapening. Like, Reddit is also this platform for, like, abuse and crazy and all this stuff. It's true. You don't hear that word. It's bad, right? So gross. It's a terrible word.

Anyway, and so he quit, and there's an interim CEO, and Alexis is back to, like, run it as executive chairman. Yeah, and he's going to be, like, doing things now. We feel so. Mobile experience. I mean, that's what he says. but yeah i don't know i'm gonna i'll we'll talk to alexis and see what he says it's interesting it's a big yeah it's like it's a thing okay my girlfriend says i can't buy taylor swift sheets i think that everyone's girlfriend's like i think like no matter who you are where you are in

your life like your orientation whatever like when you presented your significant other or can i wasn't going to be no i just yeah if you're in a relationship where the answer's like yes I wish to sleep with you. Just run. Just run. Please show up tonight with anime wifu. Ben. This is like the full bed pillow.

You're like, no, Senator Swift, but hey. I can do whatever. Let's end here. Hype check. Hype check BMW I8. That thing is fucking hot. That's our show, everybody. By the way, you should read the I review on the site.

Chris went and did it with our amazing video team. Yeah. Chris Ziegler. Chris, sorry. Plant did nothing. Thanks. Like always. It's the only thing I do always.

Show up. Technology? Video games. There are many, many ways for us to be engaged with. I don't know. I know. There's Snapchat. We're the real Verge on Snapchat.

We're on Instagram. We're at Verge on Instagram. Right. We're on Twitter. We're at Verge on Twitter. You can read us on the verge.com. You should also go on iTunes and rate the podcast five stars if you enjoy the show. No, no, no.

Don't do the pod. The podcast one is mine. The iTunes one is mine. Take it. It's yours. You can have all the other channels. Hit us up on all the social channels and I will snap you back if you snap. But here's what I know. The B for Bus troll on iTunes is one of the best things.

The listeners of the Birchcast have ever done. So I would like to continue this troll by giving you another task. Here we go. I have to quickly think of what that tells. I actually had one. Oh, yeah. It was about the thing that we were thinking about piloting next week. If people wanted it, they could say a yea or nay and leave a review.

Okay. So yeah. Sean, do that? Yeah. So we're thinking about piloting another show. A Chris Plant show. I shit you not. It's called What's Tech starring Chris Plant, where I don't know what technology is.

That name is up in the air. What's Tech? No, What's Tech's great. And I'm going to get, there's all these brilliant, talented people in the office. I'm going to talk to them about these things that they know a tremendous amount about. I'm going to make it easier for people who maybe are afraid to ask what an HTC is. Because like, what's a DLC or HBO? And each episode is going to answer really interesting questions.

I'm going to probably talk to Ben Popper about drones. We're going to talk some more about natural neutrality. That's what the people want for. But if you are interested at all, leave a review, make it five stars, and say yes. And if you really don't want it, say no, but leave five stars on this podcast. And let us know. And send it to me and I'll still make you a gift. So we are actively asking people to leave a review for this podcast saying I want another podcast.

Yeah. That's kind of a bad. review? It's a meta. It's a meta review. It's so good they want even more. It accomplishes my goal of getting Chris off of this podcast.

Yeah. No, I'm kidding. We can't have both. It's like more Scrappy Doe. Everybody wanted the Scrappy Doe. It was always pretty exciting when it was a Scrappy Doe show. He's a ride.

Once they gave Scrappy a whole show, it was a ruin. It's like he's a special treat with it. That unfortunately has been our show. I would say a real collection of feels on this show. There was a stabbing, potentially. There was some politics. And there's Taylor Swift. The Vergecast, everybody.

Good night. Bye. Bye. Bye. What is that?