The Vergecast - Spotify's big plan for podcasting / Where 5G is headed in 2021 / Everything to know about Paramount Plus

Episode Date: February 26, 2021

Hosts Nilay Patel and Dieter Bohn talk with Verge reporter Allison Johnson about T-Mobile bringing back their unlimited 5G plan with no throttling, the results of the C-band spectrum auction, and the state of 5G in America. Ashley Carman returns to the show to discuss Spotify's big event this week announcing their plans for podcasters and artists. Julia Alexander joins to report on the details on Paramount Plus' streaming catalog. Further reading: Johnson & Johnson’s single-shot vaccine is effective, FDA confirms One Medical gave COVID-19 vaccines to ineligible people, NPR report says Stretched vaccine timelines re-enter the spotlight COVID-19 vaccines are starting to work in the US MWC insists on holding potential COVID-19 superspreader event in Barcelona What is 5G, and why is it kind of bad right now? Dish is confident in its plan to offer 5G in its first major cities by end of Q3 2021 T-Mobile just brought back a true unlimited data plan with 5G and no throttling T-Mobile has 5G leverage and isn’t afraid to use it Verizon and AT&T spent big in FCC C-band auction for 5G ... The Terrible T-Mobile/Sprint Merger Must Be Undone Spotify CEO Daniel Ek explains how the company plans to help artists (and itself) make money  Spotify HiFi is a lossless streaming tier coming later this year  Twitter announces paid Super Follows to let you charge for tweets Twitter planning a feature to let you auto-block and mute abusive accounts Apple Fitness Plus review  Everything to know about Paramount Plus, ViacomCBS’s new version of CBS All Access Shows based on Italian Job, Fatal Attraction, Flashdance, and more heading to Paramount Plus  Frasier revival in development for Paramount Plus  Paramount Plus is proof we’ve hit peak streaming  Are The Office and Friends bets paying off for Peacock and HBO Max? Marvel’s Loki series will premiere on Disney Plus on June 11th Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, everybody. Before we get started today, I want to talk about something I think all of you are really going to like. We are hosting a live event with Senator Amy Klobuchar on Big Tech Regulation, followed by a panel on the future of Section 230 on March 1st. That's next week. It's coming right up. Senator Klobuchar will also be taking live questions from the audience. It's going to be very in-depth, very wienzy, exactly what you would expect from us. If you like the Vergecast, I think you're really going to enjoy it. If you're interested, if you have any questions for Senator Klobuchar, you can register at Voxmediaevents.com That's Voxmediaevents.com slash the verge live. Really hope to see you there. Support for the show comes from Retool.

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And Retool actually builds it on your company's data and your cloud with enterprise security built in. Go to Retool.com slash Verchcast. We all need to retool how we build software. What's up, y'all. I'm Skyler Diggins, seven-time WMBA All-Star, Olympic gold medalist, and mom. And I'm Cassidy Hubbard, host and reporter for nearly 20 years, covering the biggest names and stories in sports and mom. And this is Ammom, a community for athletes, game changers, and moms of all kinds.

Dropping May 14th. Tap in with us. This week on the Vergecast, our new mobile reporter, Alison Johnson, joins me in Deeter to talk about 5G, where it is, where it's going. Ashley Carman joins us, talk about everything Spotify is doing, a little bit of Twitter, and Apple Fitness Plus review. And then Julia Alexander comes on to talk about Paramount Plus. That's coming up on the Vergecast now. Hello, and welcome to the Vergecast, the flagship podcast.

of dynamic spectrum sharing. That would be great. Every time I do this, I'm like, maybe we should be the flagship podcast. Anyway, I'm Neely. I'm your friend. Deidre Bone is here. I'm that, I don't know, I won't leave respect. I got nothing.

I'm here. Hi. Great. We're going to have a lot of people join us today. Ashley Carman's going to join us. Julie Alexander is going to join us. And right now, our new mobile reporter, Alison Johnson is here. Hey, Allison.

Hello. It's your first time in the rush out. I'm very excited. Yeah, I'm pretty stoked. So we have a lot of 5G and spectrum news to talk about with Allison. But before we start, as always, I want to just give an update on our COVID coverage. Still the biggest story in the world. Lots going on on the vaccine front this week.

Johnson and Johnson's single shot vaccine only needs one shot, not two, is effective, confirmed by the FDA. There's going to be some delays in rolling that out and manufacturing it, but that is huge news. It's a big deal. The other vaccines require two shots, and now there's a bunch of discussion over how long you can go between the first shot and the second. shot. We have a big story on that on the site. You should go read. The vaccines themselves are starting to work where you're seeing cases and deaths drop across the United States. That is very exciting news. Hopefully you're coming through it. At the same time, we're still seeing people get a little too, I don't know how you put this, a little too eager, a little too fast.

So I keep talking about second order effects of the pandemic. This is like a fifth order effect. Mobile World Congress, which is the cell phone show that we cover every year, canceled last year. are definitely going to hold another one in person in Barcelona this year, which just does not seem very smart. Mobile World Congress was the first big tech event that we went, nope. This was before it became like obvious, obvious. They said that they were going to hold it. We said, we're not going. And everyone's like, you're crazy. I don't come. You're not going. And then, oh, yeah. Now we were, that was the right call. So Nicole wrote this story about MWC saying they were going to do it. The MWC people wrote us an email. They're like, we're going to be safe. We're testing.

and then we're upset that we said that we were going to hold it and they shouldn't yet. I firmly believe that. If you want to go, you know, you can do you. But we're so close to the finish line. The vaccines are working. More vaccines are being rolled out. Maybe just wait until the finish line. That's my personal view. Anyhow, that's the big COVID update. It's still the biggest story in the world. I want to commend our science team as I do every week for covering it as deeply as they do. Actually, can I add one more? So this medical services company I use is called One Medical. It's like a really convenient way to get, you know, doctor's appointments and stuff. They got caught giving vaccines to ineligible people, which is very bad. There's also a thing going around out here in the Bay Area where there were some early access codes to get vaccines that were meant for frontline workers. And somehow they started getting spread around as tech. messages separate from that context. So people were getting these codes from friends thinking that

they were there as spare vaccines that were going to go to waste. And so people went and got the vaccines when technically they were ineligible and took vaccines away from people that needed them more. So as like the vaccine rollout continues, it's continuing to be messy. And you should definitely go to official government sources to find out if you're eligible and how to get one and not random group texts. Yeah, I mean, I just want to get vaccinated. I read the story and it's bad. And like the line jumping and the being connected to a company, like, that's all icky.

Yeah. But hopefully like that ickiness is just a short term. Yeah. Because otherwise we're going to, people are going to be afraid. They're going to feel guilty and they're not going to do it. No, I agree. You should not jump the line. But if, but I also, if a line jump happens, that's better than not getting the vaccine at all.

That's true. I think a difference in our perspectives here is that you live in a city with access to testing and resources and the potential of getting vaccinated. And I live in the woods and I, my camera, like every morning I get a ring alert. It's like a squirrel run across the driveway and it's like a moment for us. Yeah. So also I think every state of New York is doing a better job of this. So maybe my perspective is a little warped and that I would, I don't hear the opportunity to jump a line. Like the opportunity to be unethical presented itself to me up. I wouldn't take it, but I would have, like, I'd like the choice.

I think you feel good about doing the right thing. All right. Speaking, speaking of complicated systems that don't work quite as well as they should, let's talk about 5G. I did it. Yeah. So, Allison, you wrote a great piece this week, which is on the state of 5G, why it's a little bit slower than we expect slower than LTE in some cases.

And then there was a flood of news about spectrum. There was a spectrum auction. T-Mobile and Verizon and Dish are all doing stuff. Let's start at the start. 5G, it's been months since the iPhone 12 came out since it became a very mainstream product, not living up to its potential. Yeah, so basically where we're at now, sort of a mess in the U.S. There's a situation with low, mid, and high band,

and how different networks kind of have different allotments of these things. So Verizon and AT&T are kind of on the back foot. They've got a lot more low band spectrum and are having to kind of make do with it. It's not super well suited for 5G. But the midband spectrum is kind of what everybody wants to get a hold of right now. It's a little better than 4G. It's not quite as fast as the super fast millimeter wave, but it has like, it's like in the sweet spot with good range.

range and all that. So that's been kind of the focus getting a hold of that. Team Mobile obviously has a lot of it from its acquisition of Sprint. So they've been in this pretty good position of being able to like go ahead and build out their network. So that's kind of where we are right now. It's just it really struck me as a weird time because it's been hyped up for so long. There's been so much like, you know, CES after CES where it's like 5G is here. It's amazing. It's the best. And really like this year is when people are going to start to see it for themselves a lot more.

They're going to get the iPhones. They're going to get the Galaxy S-21s. And they're probably going to be kind of bummed because it's not, it's definitely not the driverless car, remote surgery, amazing future. that we've been hearing about, it's kind of sort of faster than 4G if you're lucky and maybe not even. Yeah, I tweeted your story and the number of people who replied to me and said, oh, I've turned 5G off my phone. Yeah.

Because in real life, it is slower than LTE. Mm-hmm. It was just astonishing. Like, maybe in some places that would be true, but this was like a widespread reaction. And it, you touched on this and I made the joke at the top of the show. it's related to how they're allocating the spectrum. It's related to DSS. Can you just explain that for people?

I mean, I realize I started the show with a very complicated, wonky term, but can you actually explain what that means? Yeah. So the slowness people are seeing where it's slower than 4G is kind of related to mostly what AT&T and Verizon are doing to try and make the most of this low band, the low frequencies that they have access to, So that's where a technology called DSS comes in. Sasha Sagan at PCMeg was saying it was like, you know,

using the leftover odds and ends of their spectrum and slapping a 5G label on it. Like it just, it's not suited for that. And people definitely took notice when, you know, they got their iPhone, they got on the network. It said 5G and they were pretty pissed that it was not as good. as the 4G they were getting. So, yeah, a lot of people turning it off and, you know, annoyed about it. What blows me away about this is Verizon sort of been the hype master in chief for 5G.

Team Mobile's been pushing and they bought Sprint and blah, blah, blah, but like on stage at CES, pushing all the stuff, doing all the keynotes. But they have millimeter wave, which is, you're lucky to get. Everyone knows that I'm not a fan millimeter wave on phones because, like, you need. to stand in one particular spot, and then their actual offering for 5G, which they flipped on, is using this spectrum sharing setup, which is one of the reasons it's slower. And it's mind-boggling to me because Verizon always had the reputation as like the most reliable best wireless carrier across the U.S. And they're just shooting themselves in the foot.

And what I don't know is it's not a surprise to Hans Vesterberg that Verizon didn't have the spectrum that it really needed to do really good 5G for phones nationwide. That's like not a shock. So knowing they didn't have it, why did they do the CES keynotes? Why did they get on stage with Apple and go rah-rah? Why didn't they just like chill for just a minute? Because they need, they want people to churn to Verizon. It's like, right, they did the 5G marketing bonanza. Like if you work at an ad agency and you didn't get a taste of those 5G dollars, right? Like, you made a mistake. Like, they were available for everyone the whole time. If you are at Apple and you can con Verizon and paying your marketing budget for the year for the iPhone. And all you got to do is put Hans

on stage. You're taking that deal. Verizon's taking that deal. I get it. Like, Alison, to your point, like, you see the new number on your phone and you expect it to be better. Like, an absolutely bizarre outcome of this is that because AT&T relabeled their LTE network 5G, 5G in some cases is faster than real 5G because AT&T uses DSS. Like, that is nuts. Like, how do you twist yourself into that outcome where your fake 5G network is worse or is better than your real 5G network? And it is all because they were racing ahead on the marketing curve. Now, I think we've read reports.

Like the iPhone 12s are selling really well. Other 5G phones are doing well. I think Samsung's last quarterly earnings are pretty good. I just think that's all because they look different. Like, I think the entire mobile industry is confused that like 5G drove an iPhone cycle. And it's like, nah, dude, they made them square this time. Galaxy brain, they did that on purpose. They made sure that the 5G cycle hit the form factor cycle.

Yeah. I mean, the whole, I just think this industry got way out over its skis. because the 4G cycle was real, right? Like, people were watching YouTube on their phones and trying to do stuff with their phones on 3G they couldn't do. Forge said, you're going to get to do all the things you want to do. The killer app was very much like video off to the races. There's still not a killer app for 5G that I've heard about

or seen really in practice. It's, we're about surgery and self-driving cars. Right. We'll see. And so, like, I think we're just in this period where we're going to talk about the spectrum auction. Like, the networks are actually going to follow the letters, like, in numbers, in a totally backwards way. So, Alison, this week, there was another flurry of news because Verizon 18T are behind. They're doing this DSS stuff. Their networks are maybe not performing as well.

T-Mobile is, like, doing okay. Yeah. They're eager to make the most of what they have right now, I think. So that's kind of maybe you're reflecting on what we saw in the T-Mobile news this week was they unveiled a new service plan, which is unlimited. It's called Magenta Max. Of course. And, yeah, Max Plus will be coming next. My poor child. So the big deal with this plan is that it's unlimited, of course, but they've removed the deprioritization.

kind of data throttling that is just common practice across all other unlimited plans, T-Mobile's included, that when you reach a certain threshold of data usage, you're a pretty heavy user, you get to like 50 gigabytes or whatever, and you're on a busy network tower. You'll see your data speeds deprioritized and slowed down so other people get a shot. So they're doing away with that. They say on this plane, plan, no strings attached, that's not going to happen.

You can have as much 5G as you want. And they are in a position to offer that right now, which Verizon and AT&D are not so much. The other remarkable thing about this plan is it's, so there's no deprioritization. And they're also not doing anything with video quality. Like if you want to stream 4K, go ahead. We're not going to do anything with that. So most of the unlimited plans had both of those provisos. But there is one, I think, one string attached to this Magenta Max plan, right?

Yeah, there's still a limit to high-speed data you can get tethered on your device. So I think that's capped at 40 gigabytes. So, yeah, there's still those little ways that, you know, they're going to make sure you don't get too much out of it. You got to just keep an eye on the five print there. There are no 5G, like good 5G hotspots for TeamOB yet as far as I know, right? Like one of the promises of 5G was I'm going to get rid of my home internet connection and just run everything over wireless. It was a promise of LTE too.

Honestly, it was a promise of like YMAX. Like every new network connection technology, someone tells me that you can disconnect your home broadband and just run it off the cell network. It is not really true for most people. That tethering restriction feels like, oh, man. Yeah. It might actually be true. This network is relatively fast.

It's performant. They just don't want you to, like, download PS5 games on it. Right. Yeah. And they are still piloting the 5G home internet product that they've been talking about for a while. But they couldn't give me any updates on that this week because I asked because, boy, would I love to get rid of Comcast. Can I just be a huge nerd and say that before the age of app stores for smartphones

and everything needing to be approved by big companies. that want to have nice, cozy relationship with carriers, it was relatively easy to get software for Palm OS or Windows Mobile. The one that I liked was called PDANet. And what it did is you would tether your phone to this app, and then the app would make it look to the network like you were just using your phone. The app would use the data, not your computer. And so for a bunch of carriers that blocked tethering,

because they would just straight up block tethering back in 2004 or 2006 in those days. You could still tether because you could just use PDA and not have to pay the extra fee that you would have to pay for tethering. I am shocked there isn't an Android app that does this. There must be. There's got to be an Android developer right now is listening to this. Who's already tweeting at you. It's at Backlon. Just let us know.

So, Allison, you had a headline this week kind of pulling apart where T-Mobile is. I thought it was a great headline. T-Mobile has 5G leverage and isn't afraid to use it. And I think this ties into kind of the state of. the industry right now. They bought Sprint. They have Sprint's network. They have Sprint's spectrum. They are ahead in that regard. At the same time, they're supposed to be helping DISH build a network or like providing DISH with an MV&O relationship so the DISH can become the fourth competitor. They're not really playing nice with DISH at all. Dish is kind of like nowhere to be

found. But like Magenta Max is like unequivocally a good thing. So in my like swirl, uh, of is there enough competition? Is it working out? I kind of can't read this one. How do you feel about it? Yeah, it's sort of like, you know, being given some candy. And you're sort of like, oh, this is tasty and exciting. And you're not a, but there's a, there's a bad man with the candy.

No. Oh, my God. That's terrible. That's a terrible analogy. Welcome to the bird's cast. Strong debut on the verge cast. Yeah. I think one of our joke headlines that we almost like didn't realize it was a joke was like T-Mobile Unlimited is good for customers, but bad for America.

Yeah. That's a tough. I mean, that's like that's like the antitrust zone right now is like we're mad at Facebook for turning off news, but also like Facebook is making its product worse. And we're like that's an antitrust violation. Like we're just all, we're all over the place. But it seems like they have the lead. I think maybe they're not, they're betting that. Not a lot of people are going to sign up for their most expensive plan.

So they can offer this thing that makes the other networks look bad that the other networks can offer. At the same time, right, like Sprint customers are just T-Mobile customers now. And there's not a fourth carrier to provide low-cost competition because DISH basically doesn't exist. Yeah, it's kind of, it's a little bit of a distraction, I think. Like, it is a good thing. It's a good plan. And it's sort of like, yeah, jump on it. If, you know, Team Mobile is good for you and you use a lot of data, it makes sense.

But it's sort of like, let's not forget, you know, why they're in that position and that we used to have four carriers we could choose from. And now we have three and things are going to change. Like these plans are always changing. They're always going to be complicated and difficult to understand. And, you know, you gain something here, but maybe lose something here. and it's, you know, easy to lose sight of, like, they are businesses that are just trying to make a profit. And we need these services, like, clearly this year is shown. Yeah.

Yeah, it's important to keep an eye on those guys. So, friend of Verge Hellsinger, who's an economist, wrote a piece for Wired this week, pulled no punches. The terrible T-Mobile and Sprint merger must be undone. Hal's not a fan. He hasn't been a fan the whole time. I think he and some other economists actually wrote a submission. to the FCC while this merger is going down arguing against it. So I know where Hellsinger's coming from. But here's his quote. So what was supposed to happen was the government allows

T-Mobile and Sprint to merge. Then we're going to stand-up DISH network as the new fourth competitor. They're going to build from the ground up of 5G network with none of the baggage of 3G or 4GLTE to hold them back. And there's like a lot of stuff to talk about with that. But like that is sort of abstractly a great plan. So in India, for example, there's a carrier called Reliance Geo, which is a new carrier. They built an LTE network with none of the analog baggage of the previous networks, undercut everybody in Price. India has LTE, like explosive growth in internet usage in India because of this new LTE-first network. So maybe you can, like, import that strategy to DISH. They're going to build a wholly new 5G network, undercut everybody in price. We've got four

competitors again, the world's roister. We're a long way from that. In the meantime, T-Mobile was supposed to provide its network to DISH so the DISH could function as a competitor somehow, but instead they're decided to shut down their 3G service, which DISH is using for boost. And it's like, where are those boost customers going to go? So this is like the thesis of Hal's piece is we, like, we, the government made this deal with T-Mobile and Sprint and DISH, assuming everyone would play nice.

why would you believe that they would play nice? And then Charlie Ergen, who runs DISH, said this week, T-Mobile was not playing nice. And he said their decision to shut down the 3G CDMA network that Boost uses is anti-competitive. And it feels like DISH is just kind of nowhere in this game right now. Yeah. And they did talk about their plans for 5G

in their financial call this week, that they are still on track. to roll out 5G in the first major cities, I think, by Q3 this year. But yeah, that's kind of a big, like, would be a pretty big setback if they had to deal with a whole bunch of their customers who suddenly needing new devices and scrambling to deal with that. So it's really not, you know, like T-Mobile is sort of within their rights as far as the agreement goes to do that.

But it's not playing nice. And I think, yeah, Ergen's words were, he didn't meant words there. So then the last piece of the puzzle. So, like, in the near term, you've got AT&T and Verizon doing DSS or 5G networks. You've got this T-Mobile position of, like, leverage and power. You've got just stumbling around. That's like the short to medium term of what's happening. In the long term, 18T and Verizon are going to get more spectrum because there was

an auction this week and they effectively won. Yeah, yeah. So this has been ongoing. This FCC auction, kind of known as C-band, is going to make a lot of that mid-band spectrum, the really good stuff available to the carriers. So it was expected that Verizon and AT&T were two of the big bidders there. And that's what we found out this week. Verizon bid $45 billion, and AT&T came in with $23 billion.

And T-Mobile really, you know, there was just filling in the gaps of what they already have, and they only spent $9 billion. It sounds like, yeah. Good deal. Well, and I saw that DISH was like $3 million or something. Like they basically were non-existent in this. So maybe they didn't felt they didn't need it. Yeah.

I know they've kind of gotten their hands on spectrum along the way. Yeah, dish is famous for hoarding spectrum. Yeah. Like, I think if they had, like, been aggressive in this auction, someone would have been like, no, actually, no. You have to eat your vegetables. You can't just have them all. That sort of makes sense to me.

I think that the idea of T-Mobile filling in its gaps while having the strongest network and the other two having to, like, fill huge chunks, that means they're still like a year or two away. Mm-hmm. So there's other providers on these frequencies right now, satellites, and they have some time to clear out before Verizon AT&T start using them.

So that's going to start happening at the end of the year. But it's going to take well into the next year for more of those frequencies to become available. And even then, it's not the flip of a switch. It's going to take a while before a lot of people across the country see a big difference from those frequencies coming online for Verizon and AT&T. So T-Mobile's in a pretty good spot. Are these bands our phones now already have support for, or do we need new phones?

That's another interesting piece of the puzzle. iPhone 12s and Samsung S-21s, those support C-Band, and they're approved to use C-Band. But if you're talking about, like, more of the budget 5G phones in particular, they don't necessarily have support for the right bands. And it's sort of up to the mobile phone manufacturer to apply for that use with the FCC. So there's no guarantee that you'll actually get it.

I just put this together because you said C-Ban for the third time. C-band is like the old gigantic television dish, right? Like the huge ones. I only know this because my friend Jeff in elementary school, his dad had one and he got all the channels. And I was so jealous. I had that friend. Yeah, yeah. I mean, he was definitely also like a hoarder of like old electronic parts.

Jeff's house was cool. Jeff, if you're listening, miss you, buddy. Your dad was cool. But like, it's crazy to think that those old gigantic satellite dishes, those bands are being repurposed in our cell phones. Like, that's where we are. And like LTE, we repurposed all of the old. analog TV spectrum. Like in many ways, the story of these

next generation networks is we're turning off TV and repurposing it for digital, which makes a lot of sense. But it's just funny how like the old days of TV is are, the old day of TV is over. Like at every level. Like we shut down like every way that we used to get TV and we're moving it all to the internet.

And so we're repurposing not only the networks, but the delivery. There's a piece in there somewhere. There's like a wild. There's a wild idea. Dieter, I'm looking for you, buddy. I'm sorry, what? I'm assigning a hazy idea of a piece. Okay, got it.

That's what I do on the show. I'm going to write it. It'll be totally done. There is one more auction coming, I guess. It's only like 100 megahertz of spectrum. I just want to point out that this 3.45, 3.55 next auction that's coming up for 5G is a result of a law that Congress passed called the Beat China for 5G Act of 2020, because 5G is a race. I read that on the internet. So the problem is not, like, the spectrum reallocation is, like, we're good at that.

Like, the United States is good at reallocating spectrum and running auctions and selling it to Verizon. Like, as a government, like, we've nailed that. The problem is, like, where are you going to get the equipment to build the 5G networks if you can't buy Huawei equipment? And, like, smaller ISPs, smaller service riders, like, they're waiting for funds to rip out their existing Huawei equipment and replace it. The program is literally called Rip and Replace. I think like 18 months ago we had Commissioner Starks in the FCC on, and he was already talking about Rip and Replaced before all the crazy happened.

And the other problem is actually related to DISH. So DISH wants to build something called an open radio access network, O-RAN, which is open, not proprietary. So this is like a very exciting idea. You get more vendors and it doesn't work yet. It just doesn't. Like, the proprietary systems work and the open interconnects don't. So allocating the spectrum, I think, is not as much of the problem anymore as the, like, where does this stuff come from?

And I don't think Congress can, like, pass a bill to make this. Like, you can't, like, order Nokia to be better at being Nokia. I mean, you could try. I mean, I've ordered Nokia to be better at being Nokia for, like, a decade. Allison, what happens next year? We just kind of hang tight, I think. And, you know, we've, Deeter and I have talked about, you know, whether it makes sense to buy a 5G phone right now. And the guidance, oh, you know, last year certainly was like, don't, don't go out and buy a 5G phone just because it's the next cool thing.

Like, it's not going to be a big deal for a while. That's sort of shifting this year is like if you're a due for an upgrade and you're shopping around, it's not the worst idea. especially if you're going to hang on to your phone for three or four years. And in particular, if you're looking at the higher, the flagships that are, you know, ready for C-band and all the various flavors of 5G. So, yeah, I think that's something to have at the front of mind if you're looking for a phone. And that's kind of the only thing that we have to worry about right now. It's the network's getting into gear.

If only. I wish I got a 5GE switch on my AT&T phone. Really, really come full circle. All right, Alice, thank you so much. We're going to have you back soon. That was great. Thank you. It was so much fun.

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And instead of getting buried in resumes, you get a focus shortlist that actually moves your hiring forward. Join the 2.7 million small businesses using LinkedIn to hire. Get started by posting your job for free at LinkedIn. dot com slash track. Terms and conditions apply. We're back with Ashley Carmen. What's up, Ash? Hello.

There's a lot going on this week. Let's start with Spotify. You interviewed Daniel Xio of Spotify this week because they had a gigantic event. What happened with them? So Spotify decided to do kind of like the Apple thing where they did a stream on event, their first ever, which they used as an opportunity to really talk about their ambitions in audio. So that includes music.

but honestly 75% of the presentation was about their podcasting ambitions. They made a bunch of announcements that none of which were huge, huge, huge, like, groundbreaking announcements. But for Vergecast fans, they did announce a hi-fi tier coming, which is exciting for many people. Maybe not for me, but for many people. I mean, I just think it, I put this on Twitter, but like, it's so funny that all we, wouldn't people, all these services, they announced their high-fi tier and they're like CD quality audio. It's like, dude, most of the people subscribe to you have never owned a CD in their lives. And the people who did, like, totally forgot what they sound like. I don't remember them sounding very good.

They were bouncing in the car and skipping. And most people are like listening to them over AAC on their AirPods. Like, I don't know. Like, convenience is one over quality. I'm very excited for Spotify, hi-fi. I don't mean to integrate. I just think the way these companies talk about it. I definitely went to one of the websites that lets you listen to like the hi-fi version

versus the regular version. It's actually, they do three. And then there's like A, X, and B. And they play two of them. And you're supposed to like figure out these two are the same. These two are not the same. Which one is the odd one out? And then you listen to a bunch of them.

Just completely whiffed it. Just completely failed it. I can't hear it. I'm old. My ears are shot from concerts. I think it's time. Like, we live in a world of somewhat abundant bandwidth. Like, I hesitate in like our Zoom society.

If there's enough bandwidth. It's like obviously not true. but somewhat abundant bandwidth inefficiently distributed. And so it's like time to like up the bit rates for all the music and all the videos. Yeah. But like you got to build and like title

didn't work. This is what title was trying to sell you. It's like didn't happen. Anyway, that's the smallest bit of news. I'm excited for it. We're definitely going to do the video where we make a bunch of people try to listen to it and see if they can tell.

It's the only thing to do in reaction to it. Like the blind taste test, like the Pepsi challenge. I love making those videos. We'll do it. that time's going to come. But the rest of their news is a little more interesting. Their podcast ambitions are vast. They haven't quite played out. And then like next to it is clubhouse, which is like having a moment. So put that all in the context.

Yeah. So podcasting ambition wise, Spotify has really tried to position itself as sort of the center of the podcasting universe. It wants to be the place you come for all your shows, but also for Spotify exclusive programming. They've inked deals with some big names. I'm sure everyone has seen like Michelle Obama. They announced during this event of podcast with a Barack Obama and Bruce Springsteen as co-host, which I was like, what? Wait, I truly do not understand that pairing. Is it called Barry and Bruce?

It's called Renegades. What? Because that's a Secret Service code name. Wow. I see, that's, I don't know that. I just read the book, so I didn't know. Okay. So, like, they announced that, and they have the content kind of locked down.

They have the listening platform lockdown, or they want. to right now they're basically competing against Apple for podcast dominance, but like we don't really know who's winning. It could be Spotify at this point. They've bought a hosting platform called Megaphone. So they are now trying to get into a hosting third party platform, third party shows, as well as selling ads for those shows and letting them use Spotify special technology to insert ads into shows. And they have this creation part locked down with their acquisition of anchor, which the idea is to basically get as many podcasters into the space as possible and in a dream world help them monetize, which I published a report a few weeks ago

at this point about anchor sponsorships not really panning out. And I don't necessarily know that this event proved me wrong. But what the big announcement, this event was that they are fully launching their ad networks. They will now be able to sell ads for podcasts outside of their network and insert them into their streaming ad insertion technology. So stream them on the fly as people are listening. There's many layers here. Yeah. But if you can be where the most money is, you'll win in general. Like, that is the Google advertising story. That is the Facebook advertising story. You can just put it on to Spotify. If Spotify is where it's easiest to buy the ads, easiest to target them to people, and then easiest for people get paid, they can just be,

like, YouTube for podcasts. Yes. I mean, Megaphone right now is mostly enterprise, like big organizations. I think I have to just, we use Megaphone. We use Megaphone. And back media is huge. So like, that's an idea of scale. Whereas Anchor was sort of this hosting platform from the smaller creators. And they said leading quote unquote, anchor creators would be allowed to use this marketplace for ads. So I don't know if they've totally solved the YouTube part of this, where you have kind of the indie smaller people on there. But the one thing they do offer, and this is really the differentiator between any other podcast ad network and Spotify, is the audience targeting because all of this leads to Spotify having a ton of data about how people listen

audio, why are they're doing it, when they're doing it, who they are, their credit card, all that stuff. They have that data and they can use it to target against you in podcast ads. And that's new. So I'm going to cross-promote my other show. So on Decoder, we had Melissa Grady, the CMO Cadillac. And what I had her on because cookies are going away from the web and like Apple and Facebook are having their cookie fight and Google's, like, around it.

So what advertisers like her are looking at is first party data, who has the most data. So you don't have to, like, leave a cookie on the website. You can just go to Spotify. Spotify has all the data. It has all the audience segments. So I'm looking for 45-year-old CEOs who have purchased a Cadillac in the past 10 years. I'm going to make them listen to Escalade ads. And then she can just order that up from Spotify and they'll go across all the podcasts automatically

as those people stream on Spotify because Spotify is deluxellify. delivering you a stream. The part I don't understand, and that's like, that's advertising in the internet. I just described the model for all advertising in the internet. And to be clear, that's probably a ways off for Spotify, but that's the end goal dream. The thing I don't understand is that makes sense when you're streaming on Spotify, because they're streaming you the data, and they know who you are because you're logged in the Spotify. I'm guessing most Vergecast listeners are not listening to us on Spotify. They just downloaded a file through an RSS feed. And there's no cookie exchange. There's no identifier. Do they explain how they're solving

that problem because that was a big claim that I don't understand that, like, leads right into the cookie war. Cookie apocalypse, I've heard it's called. It's called Cookiepocalypse. I have many emotions about it. They really haven't said how downloads play into this. I mean, obviously they can insert. So you do have dynamic ad insertion.

Yeah, the reason we don't have chapter markers, everyone else asks us, because I don't know how long the ads will be because we have dynamic ad insertion. Yeah, which makes decisions based off of data that it knows about the listener or or based on, well, you could swap out the listener. So if, for example, it's Valentine's Day when someone's listening to Vergecast, they might get a Flowers.com ad dynamically inserted because we're running that campaign, not actually, but theoretically. And then two weeks later, at St. Patrick's Day, so maybe we're running an ad for Guinness,

we swap that into the back catalog. It basically makes it so your ads aren't static. Yeah. But they haven't talked about streaming versus downloads. They really, I think, believe that they will convert everybody to streaming. I mean, personally, I don't download podcasts. I do stream through Spotify. Yeah. I think that being able to monetize your back catalog, again, I'm just making the YouTube

comparison. Like, we know a lot of YouTubers. Having the huge catalog is like what generates the stable revenue for you. And then you make the next video and like, yep, YouTubers have to be on the grind. And there's a lot of creator economy stuff there. But if you only get paid for the video once, like you don't have a business. Like, they've all said that to us. If you only get paid for the podcast once, you kind of don't have a business. If your back catalog is making you money, like now you're like able to grow. But like if you can't target, like I still don't understand that targeting piece. And it sounds like Spotify didn't explain it at all.

I mean, Spotify's not claiming that they can target, you know, there's some kind of targeting you can do with RSS, but not a ton. And I'm doubting that Spotify, like, is going to try and solve that problem. They're just going to, they can target people very, very accurately if you're using the Spotify app. But if I'm downloading pocketcasts, via, you know, a feed that Spotify happens to be hosting. I don't think they're that, like, that's a small enough market for them that they probably

don't care. That's the entire iOS market with preloaded, right? Like, that's how they jump on Apple. Because everybody in Apple Podcasts then becomes a Spotify customer or all the podcasts in Apple Podcasts are not being monetized by Spotify as opposed to Apple Podcast Plus or whatever nonsense they're going to do. Spotify really seems hyper-focused on this idea of it's really concerned. and bringing it, the thing that's going to bring the advertisers over is the streaming ad insertion.

That's why you're coming to them because you can target, you're going to get it dynamically inserted through streaming ad insertion. If they make money off of inserting dynamically for Apple Podcasts your show, that's just like cash. Like they're not, like it's okay. Like you're already here. You're part of our system. So there we go. How does that play into their like exclusive strategy, right? They have they have Joe Rogan, he's exclusive. They bought the ringer. They bought Gimlet. Some of those shows are still everywhere, but they're definitely going to make more exclusives, right? Yeah, seemingly. I mean, this is a question that I posed to Daniel Eck, just saying basically exclusives to me seem kind of counterintuitive to advertising, because obviously advertisers want

to reach as many people as possible, whereas when you're exclusive, you're limiting your audience. He didn't really have a good answer. I didn't really get a good answer. I don't know. What I will say is the Michelle Obama podcast, and I don't know why this is the case, but the Michelle Obama podcast did become a non-exclusive after its first season. So what they could be doing is the strategy of like, okay, we're going to try to get you over. And then we'll go open to get the ads out to everybody. Yeah, I mean, the exclusive strategy makes perfect sense to me. I don't think it's that complicated.

Spotify wants you to use Spotify to listen to podcasts. If they can get you to come to listen to one show, they're betting that you're going to be annoyed at having two different podcast apps. And then you'll just switch over to Spotify so it's all on one app at the end. Yeah, and then maybe publishers are. and I'm just be happier with their Spotify monetization. It just, it makes them the YouTube of podcasts, which is either great. I'm assuming if you work at Spotify, you think that's great, or it's horrible. And I feel like the podcast ecosystem, which is very much about open protocols and not tracking

and all this stuff, like they are not so happy with this. Yeah. I mean, this is the whole podcasting dilemma is you have people on one side who are like, it's open and free and amazing. And then you have people on the other side that are like, how different? you make exclusives and not use RSS. That's not even a podcast. And then, you know, you have the whole data tracking aspect of it, which is just like consumers being worried about it. I mean, there's a lot going on here. There's a lot going on here. But doesn't it fundamentally boil down

to Open is great and RSS is great. Open Standards. Freedom. Hooray. And Spotify saying, money. We've got money. We'll pay you. You'll make money over here. More of it. I mean, yes, I don't know how interesting that is to established creators. Like that seems like it's interesting to the big stars who, like Michelle Obama, it's like, okay, I don't know how much Spotify paying her, but I'm going to guess it's really good. And then to maybe the Joe Rogans and maybe to the small creators who are like, I'm going to get on anchor and hope I can make my podcast career happen. But for the people in the middle who are like decently sized, maybe can make an income off of podcasting,

I don't really know what the cell is there for them. Yeah. So you talked to, you talked to Danielock for a while. What else stood out from that conversation? So he mentioned Clubhouse, which we had to bring up, of course. Everyone knows Clubhouse is a social audio app, super buzzy right now. I just asked him, would this be something Spotify's interested in potentially building? If you want to be the place for audio, this is the thing happening in audio right now. He just said that they're keeping an eye on it. Of course. But to me, the thing that's more that Spotify has to worry about more than just like, oh, people are talking to each other on it. an app is it is taking people away from podcasts 100%. The time that they are spending in Clubhouse is time they might have spent in a podcast. I've spoken to a few super users of Clubhouse. And they truly are like, oh, yeah, I just sit at home and listen to Clubhouse. That's what I do.

I will tell you that my, since I got Clubhouse, my routine used to be, I'm going to make dinner, start a podcast, make dinner. Now it's, I'm going to make dinner. Is anything going on in Clubhouse that I care about? I'm going to listen to a podcast. And like once or twice, there's been one, like, okay, I'll listen to that room. Yeah, my routine is we have dinner, back he goes to bed at nine because she's an adult. I open clubhouse and then I text Ashley, I can't listen to this anymore.

Because I'm definitely in the room that he lies in. I will say, like, it was really telling to me that I went to go pick up food the other night. And my boyfriend's on clubhouse now. And he's like not tech guy, like whatever. So he went to go pick up. food at a different place. So we were separated for a moment. I immediately pulled out Clubhouse to listen to it. I see he's already in a room. He pulled out his phone to go listen to Clubhouse. And that moment, I was like, wow, there's something to this because both of us, instead of pulling out our podcast,

we're like, you know, we'll just jump into a clubhouse room, different rooms, but we're in it. There's also the real, like, Clubhouse back channel thing that happens where like you're in a room, you see somebody else's in the room and then you start texting each other about what's going on. Yeah. Clubhouse more than any app in the world, Clubhouse needs a messaging function. but they need a lot of other things. But so actually your point about Eck and he's being like, our competition is attention. Like that's also what Reed Hastings says about Netflix. And like he's like, my competition is Fortnite.

Like at some point, there's only a finite amount of attention. Like if your business models, I will capture all of the attention. It just doesn't seem like you can possibly win. Because there's a lot of things competing for everyone's attention all of the time. And I just, I think Spotify and it's less earnings call, like, all the analysts were like, is this podcast about even paying off for you? And they, it doesn't seem like they haven't answered yet. I don't think we know. It's a question I'd love the answer to. I mean, to me, paying off would mean that Joe Rogan comes over to Spotify. He's getting just as many listeners as he was before. He converted all of them or got some new ones. They're making money off of his ads as well. And they're breaking in subscriber revenue. and converting some of those people who listen to Rogan to other shows. Like, that to me is success right there. I don't know if that's the case.

Yeah. All right. Well, speaking of Clubhouse, we should talk about Twitter. Twitter had an event today. They sort of formally announced spaces, which is their Clubhouse competitor. It's already out. People are using it. Shout out to our friend Sam Schaeffer, who's like rocket on Twitter spaces every day.

They also announced super follows where people can like pay to get exclusive content, like a subscription Twitter built into the thing, which is why, like they announced a bunch of stuff. They also announced a bunch of anti-harassment stuff, like auto-blocking and mute. What's your sense of Twitter in this moment? Like, their new products are the OG social network. It feels like the fallback for all these other. Can they expand out?

I mean, I was just shocked. Like, it feels like they just all of a sudden woke up and we're like, oh, you guys have been doing a thing online. We should probably get in on that. Yeah. It's like, where have you been? They were, like, pretty, like, self-reflective about it. See, like, Kavon, who, like, their head of product who we know is like, so we're going to do stuff now.

Yeah, I'm so curious what that meeting was where they're like, hey, guys, we got to build things now. So there's, you know, private communities. They bought review a newsletter thing. And now you can do super follows. So they basically are trying to be, and then spaces. So they're trying to do like a one-stop shop thing for creators, which is a really smart strategy. but if you're a creator, do you want to bet

a big portion of your community, your pariscial relationship with them, and like your career on Twitter's ability to execute on product? Yeah. Very loaded silence. Yeah, I think that's like the tradeoff there

and like Casey would make this argument. Like what is SubSecT really doing? It's letting people monetize their Twitter followings directly, right? Right. Like most journalists, at least that's what SubTac is doing for journalists. Most journalists promote their work on Twitter. People click on the links to Twitter. Something happens and then hopefully you get money. With Substac, it's like, you want longer good tweets for me? Like, pay this money and I'll email them to you. That makes a lot of sense. There's no reason that can't just be built into Twitter. And then like something like a superfollow is, do you like my tweets? I'll give you more tweets for money. You don't have to leave this app. And then maybe you can go to review.

That I don't get. Oh, I think that people are going to go crazy for it and it's going to go completely sideways. Like, the amount of superfollow piracy that is about to happen on Twitter itself is going to be out of control. Like, if you think Twitter has a moderation problem right now, can you imagine the like DMCA copyright situation they're going to find themselves in when people pirate Twitter onto Twitter? Just like, I'm ready for it. I've never been so excited about anything. The idea is like if you, you like have a community. of your like super tweet super fans, right?

And so you're like, it's basically like a subsection of Twitter just for you and your fans. But having seen Twitter try to talk about its product as a community and build products towards that, like it's kind of been messy, right? All the, like this goes back to the famous interview that Jack Dorsey did with Kara Swisher that just went completely sideways. It was meant to be just like an all-on-twitter interview, but the threads were so broken, so completely broken,

that he's like, oh, yeah, we got to fix the way the community works. And I don't know. I just, again, I think it's actually a really smart strategy. Like, Twitter woke up and came up with like, oh, yeah, no, we should serve creators. That's actually a good idea. We should find ways for them to make money on our platform. That's a good idea. I think they should maybe buy Patreon or whatever.

Like, all these seem like good ideas. So it's great. I'm happy to see Twitter finally have good ideas. I want to see them execute on them. Yeah, I will say that right now, trending on Twitter, is rip Twitter. Great. That's pretty good. Okay, last piece of the puzzle, somewhat unrelated, but I've got both of you here.

And you two, along with Becca and Monica, did our Apple Fitness Plus review. How to go? I think it went great. I'm still using it after two months, but only like once, maybe twice a week, which is more than I was exercising before, I guess. But the thing that worked for me was using Apple Fitness Plus made it so that I'm thinking about just exercising more, which means I'm like outside exercising more than I used to. It like created this like habit for me.

But that said, of the four of us, I'm definitely the one who does not have a habit of exercise over the course of my life. And so it seems fine to me. But it's also really clear that I'm a noob when a, comes to exercise subscriptions that I don't actually know enough and I don't need that much advanced stuff. Whereas people to use Peloton, people that actually do have a habit of exercise, found that it's very broad but not very deep. I don't know, Ashley, is that fair, like broad but not deep? Yeah, I think, you know, I've kind of spanned the gamut when it comes to exercise. I've obviously

used to go to the health club and the class is there and then like followed one of my favorite instructors on to Zoom during the pandemic. And like what I liked there was the connection. connection. Like he was able to literally talk to us through Zoom. I've done like beach body MLM, whatever stuff where it's like just super intense. I don't pay for him. I'm not going to out the person who Twitter piracy. I'm not going to out the person who uses beach body. But I will say I've been privy to a beach body workout. And it's really, really freaking hard. But it's a good workout. So you're like, okay, I'm coming to this because it's really difficult. And Peloton has just this magic of having the equipment plus great instructors, top of the line class. And it's.

the whole integrated experience. So Apple kind of had to fit in somewhere. I was really amazed with their diversity of instructors. I thought they did a good job, different body types, different ages. That was a huge thing. I wish there was more different body types, but you know, diversity. But the workouts themselves were fine. Like, I don't know. It was sort of very run-of-the-mill to me, and they didn't even have filters so that you could filter by the body part you want to work, which I still am like, that should be table stakes. Like, truly, I had to read the descriptions for every app or every workout. So at the end of the day, I'm not mad about it. I just wouldn't personally probably choose to use it. Yeah. Maybe it's the sort of thing where in two or three years of it, if they keep working on it, it will be really, really good. But they have to actually continue to invest in it in a real way.

That time to walk thing is like maybe a good sign. I don't know. Becca really liked it. The thing that got me is, you know, I bought an exercise trainer, a bike trainer for it. And then just realized, oh, in order to like have this work, I have to do a lot of extra thinking about how hard I'm exercising, because I just tell you match my cadence. Sometimes they'll give you a cadence number. I'd like figure out how to get cadence information out of my bike, which was a whole other

thing. And so it's just not having the service connected to the equipment actually does make a difference. You can feel it. You can see your rings. You can see your burn bar that shows that your heart rate is higher than everybody else's because you're out of shape. But like, that's it. And it's nice, but it's also, you can tell that it is a little bit like clodgy.

It's not very Apple-esque because you have to do it in their ecosystem, but they can't control the other parts of the ecosystem. And so they just have to like describe the bike the way they, it's weird. There were two lines from the video. They were both Ashley lines that stuck out. One was, how much Apple stuff do I need to make this work? Because you had to use it on your phone. Yeah, it doesn't work on a Mac. book, which to me is like, what? Right. They definitely want you to have an iPad, like, or like an

Apple TV. So that to me is like part of what you're describing Deiter. And then we're like, I already have a Peloton and I might be too far gone. Like it wants very true and also very worrisome that you're like, I'm just too deep into this cult. Like, he's not have me back. I mean, you're going to be there pretty soon. We'll see if it ever gets delivered. We ordered it in like late November, early December. It's still not here. Ashley has a great. piece about that too. Peloton is way behind on making these things. So maybe that's Apple's in, right? You can just buy any

bike and get a Peloton-esque experience for much cheaper. But that Peloton community is real big. It is evangelical about the product because the product is good. And Apple has a long road to go. I will say, yeah, if I was using just a third-party bike,

I can't think of a default app I would go to for cycling content. So if that is what they think the in is, I would probably default to Apple because I'm like, I know Apple. Yeah. They probably make good things. It's also, I will say this, you know, like Apple TV Plus, they put it in your face. They just like give it away for free all the time. Fitness Plus is all over the iPhone, right? Like, it's in the settings menu of the phone. If you open the fitness app on your phone, it's like a tab right in front of you.

Like, they are pushing it as a service as a paid part of the operating system in a way that they don't even do with the TV stuff. like maybe like i it's like iCloud fitness plus in terms of what apple is trying to get you to buy when you have an iPhone and dear to your point like will they stay committed to it like tim cook noted fitness buff says apple's biggest contribution to society will be health and fitness maybe workout DVDs are the way but i think that's just an entry point to like what's next i mean isn't it it's pretty weird that apple is getting beat by another company on the integration of software service and like happy shiny everything is okay

culture right like yeah that's that's that's apple's lane and pelton is like panting them at it by the way if you've got your own exercise bike and you're looking for an exercise app that is an apple fitness it's Zwift zw iFT it's very cool okay Ashley thank you so much we got to take a break we'll be back with Julia Alexander to talk about the astonishing debut of Paramount Plus for this show comes from What Not. Whether you're selling online or out of a storefront, you already know the challenge. You're simply hoping for people to find your listing

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Yes. You're here. Again. The streaming world has not slowed down. Yeah, last week was like, help me understand. And this week, it's like, wait, it all changed again. All right, there is a lot. I don't know how to feel about this, but Paramount Plus launched.

I feel like the last few times we've had you on for a launch for like, Disney Plus is here. The landscape has changed. HBO Max is here. Can AT&T change land? And now I'm like, Paramount Plus is here. It's up with that. So help me understand what's going on. That would have been a great headline.

Paramount Plus. Stop with that. Paramount Plus. So it's here. It's the final of the big streaming launches. Thank God. It is the final of the pluses for now, which is great. It is basically CBS All Access turned up to 10. What happened was CBS merged or remerged with Viacom in 2019 and realized they'd access to a bunch of stuff like SpongeBob again and they had access to Jersey Shore and a bunch of other things finally. And they just decided we're going to throw this all into a streaming platform. And the easiest way to to think of it for Verge Castle Snowers is that it's basically peacock, but with different types of shows and movies. But it's the same kind of idea you're going to get some aspect of live sports and live news on the premium plan for $10 a month. There's an ad free coming in June where you'll get less stuff, but the whole idea is that you're going to have a huge library,

some original shows, and then some aspect of linear TV. So CBSLLex has existed for a long time. they have never succeeded in signing me up. Was it a success before this? We don't know. So they combine streaming, so sorry, they combine subscriber numbers for CBSL access and showtime in the United States. By the time they had the Paramount Plus event yesterday, they had 19.2 million domestic across both those platforms to put that into perspective.

Disney Plus globally as close to 100 million reported about 40 million or domestic U.S. subscribers. So Disney Plus, if that's true, has done more in 14 months than Showtime and CBS Alexis did in many years. But at the end of the day, part of the issue is that CBS and really is still a linear television business. So they've never really put stuff into it. They're like, we have this thing and we want to use it more, but we don't know what we're doing with it. And now it seems like the CEO Bob Backish and a bunch of other executives are there saying we're now a streaming focused company, even if we're not a streaming first company. Wait, there's another Bob that we have to contend with in streaming?

Yeah, so in my ranking of Bob's, Bob Backish comes in third, and then Bob Chepek is second, and then Bob Iger is untouchable at number one. Got it, got it. But he stepped down. He's like an honorary number one. He's still running stuff. He's doing it. He has the greatest job.

He stepped down. I don't want to deal with all of this, like, boring business stuff. I just want to hang out with Kevin Feing and figure out Marvel stuff. And then go to Clippers games. He was the best job in the world. That's true. I mean, he was also thinking about running for president, which I'm glad he didn't do. Because the, you know, the Marvel, we got to take care of that.

There's a lot of, a lot of dominoes being set up that need to pay off at this point. So I'm looking at this list of what Paramount Plus is going to have. Shows based on the Italian job on fatal attraction, on flash dance, a bunch of old MTV, VH1 stuff. Like, what's the hit? There's a Frazier Revival, which I'm just proud of our team that we broke out a Frazier revival. It's its own story. Yeah, that was my decision. The greatest thing that has happened over the last year or so is that VERS editors have very

graciously given me the ability to run some events. And I'm like, oh, Frazier Revival, I'm writing about that. That's important to my life. It's like we got to bundle up Italian job fatal attraction flash tins. Frazier gets its own story. So did Rugrats. By the way, a creepy 3D animated Rugrats that does not look good. I made the joke that it looks like Beast Wars.

Anyway. None of these things are Netflix is like famous at House of Cards, right? Like the morning show on Apple TV Plus, HBO Max is still looking for it. But search party is very good if you have HBO Max. It's like worth watching. It's completely insane, but it's very good. what's their, what's their hit? Well, the HBO Max is a great comparison because HBO Max is still trying to find its hit.

And I think they have some coming up that I'm very excited about. And on the animation front, they have hits. So I forgot to mention the Mandalorian on Disney Plus, right? Which, like, obviously drove a ton of that. And Wanda Vision, week to week, week. Wanda Vision is like the biggest thing on Twitter. So HBO Max is a great comparison because HBO Max is finding its hit. But the best thing about HBO max is that you get HBO.

You don't have to pay extra for it. Like you have everything coming from HBO. and that makes it work in a lot of ways. And HBO Max is finding it stuff. I watched It's a Sin the other day, which is a great miniseries from the BBC that they brought over, which is phenomenal, and everyone should watch it.

Their whole thing, Paramount Plus, is that you are going to be so nostalgic that you will buy into this to watch, like, criminal minds. And the thing is, it might work. I don't think people realize how,

big criminal minds is in the United States. It remains the most watched Netflix thing almost week after week. It is the thing people are watching week after week, according to Nielsen, which has its own issues. But like that show people want to watch, if you regularly go down what people are watching in the United States, 40 to 50% of the top 10 shows

are all ViacomCBS shows. Like they're constantly, it's NTSAES, it's Criminal Minds. It's Shits Creek, which is Pop TV, which is owned by BiacomCBS. And they're hoping that they want to bring some of this over to Paramount Play. and you will eventually go over it because you're like, I want to rewatch criminal mind, so I'll do that there. The issue, specifically with Paramount Plus, is that because it's not investing the same amount of money that Netflix or Disney is in the sort of streaming section,

they have to license out a lot of this stuff still. So last night, one of the big shows that they announced was an I Carly kind of sequel, which is big for anyone born after 1990. That's a very exciting thing for them. And if you ask someone, cool, that's a sequel, where can I watch the original, the first response. be, well, it's on Netflix. So you can go to Netflix. And the same thing with Avatar and The Legend of Core, which are two huge Nickelodeon shows, to the point that they are now spinning off an entire studio to just create more of this for Viacom, CBS, and Paramount Plus, if you ask people where they watch these shows, it's on Netflix. And they associate

it with Netflix. They don't associate it with Viacom, CBS. And I think that's the main issue Paramount Plus is going to have. If you think about Disney, Disney lays out its brand entirely in every single ad, it's Disney, Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars. National Geographic. You have to go to Disney Plus to watch it. There's no other option. And with Paramount Plus, the idea is like, you might have to go to Paramount Plus.

There's a good chance it's also on Amazon or Hulu or Netflix. Is that a temporary until like the licenses run out and they just, they take it all back? Or is it like a long-term thing because they're not ever going to put enough money to like own their own IP and not want to get some residuals from Netflix or whatever. So it's always going to be kind of messy. It's exactly that. they don't have the money to say we're just going to play the exclusive play and hopefully

people sign up for $10 a month and we'll make money and we're fine on that end. Like they still want to buy NFL rights. They still want to own a bunch of linear stuff. The issue is that they have a TV division and they're like, we have to be able to put our content spent here. So they spent $15 billion on content in 2020. We bought it one or two billion with streaming related. And to put that in the comparison, Netflix spent $17 to $18 billion last year alone. They don't have a TV division.

Everything they spend goes to Netflix. Disney, by 2024, when Viacom CVS is going to allocate $5 billion on content spending just for streaming, Disney's going to allocate $14 to $16 billion. So it's just like you can't compete with those numbers, whereas Disney's saying we are streaming first, and we are going to figure out a way to move a bunch of the stuff over while dealing with linear and moving away from it. Viacom CVS is kind of like, we have this division, we don't want to get rid of it yet, we have affiliates, and we have things that we can't give up on that end, at the same time, we want to be streaming focused.

And I think what we're going to see over the next few years is companies realize they don't have to be content providers and own distribution. They can just be content providers because companies like Netflix and Hulu, which is Disney, will pay for the licensing. Like, they'll just say, sure, we need content to keep people. So, like, you can win Viacom Do I just doing what you're doing, which is just sell it. Yeah, but Viacom owned a bunch of channels.

I feel like I have to do the Julia block of disclaimers now. So NBC is owned by Comcast. Allison actually mentioned Comcast earlier, and I forgot. But NBC is a minority investor in Box Media, which is the parent company The Verge. The Verge is producing a Netflix show. Quibi existed and now it doesn't. Is that there? So compare the strategy, though, to Peacock, right?

So NBC is also a massive provider of traditional television. they also have football and live sports. They're very invested in that. Is Peacock more aggressive than this in terms of shifting the business to streaming? Or is CBS more aggressive? I think the interesting answer is in the way they're launching. When Peacock launched, this whole thing was ad-supported. We want to focus and add-supported.

If you want to sign up for the $10 premium ad-free, you can do so. But we assume that we're going to bring in cable subscribers who will just start using this and maybe use it more often, and we can sell targeted ads, and therefore increase ad spending. And they get their stuff in that regard. BiacomCDS with Paramount Plus is doing the opposite. They're launching with just premium.

The ad-free, the ad-supported cheaper tier doesn't come until June. And part of that is, I think, one of the most glaring points that stood out from last night's event. When these companies launch streaming services, the main thing they say is like, our partner is T-Mobile.

Our partner is Verizon. If you're on this, you're going to get this for free, because that first year of like giving something away for free is super important to getting people to sign up and then hopefully there's enough that you keep them. You know, I don't think, I think Disney Plus is an interesting one because they had the Mandalorian. They were always going to get signups. But it helps that someone who uses Verizon is like, you know, I opened it up and my kids liked it or I really liked it and I'm just going to keep it. Paramount Plus doesn't have one yet. And Bob Akish was like, we're figuring it out.

We're going to figure, like we're going to have more details on that later, as everyone loves to say. but the fact that they didn't have this right at their investor event a week before launch is like somewhat concerning because the best way to get it out there is to have a partner in one of the carriers. Everyone loves preloaded apps on their mid-range and around phones. That's what we've all learned. I want to come around to AT&T and talk about what they're doing with DirecTV in a minute. But you wrote two, I just want to check in on the content strategies of these companies for a minute. So you mentioned Wanda Vision, it's having a great run. conceptually just a wild show

but like very good for MCU fans to like have a thing they have to watch every Friday great and really well done that's gonna stop and then Loki's gonna start right so like Disney's figured something out here right we're just gonna have a must watch series that takes

you from movie to movies HBO Max and Peacock still looking for the hits but you as you call them snackable television they have the office and friends how is that all playing out right Is this ecosystem settling down? Disney knows that the amount that they're spending on the shows, they can't just drop it like Netflix in the way that you drop a show like Stranger Things

two weeks later, it's out of, no one cares. Like, people are over it, they're done with it. And Netflix, it doesn't matter because there's something new every week in terms of a new movie, an entirely new TV show, and there's enough library content that you're there. You're not going to leave it. With Disney, which has a very small library and not a great library, They know their whole thing that's keeping people around is either movies for kids, they don't have to worry about the families, which I've talked about on this podcast a bunch,

but also weekly shows. They want to own Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday. And they do. Every week, it's like you look at Twitter and it's Mandalorian or it's Wanda Vision, then it'll be Falcon Winter Soldier, and then it's Black Widow, and then it's Loki. And then they just keep doing it. And then you put in Pixar shows and a bunch of other stuff, and there's no reason to ever leave because week to week you feel like you're getting

something of movie quality on Disney Flux. us. But Disney also realizes that they need to bring more stuff in. And we saw that this week with the launch of Star internationally, which Haim wrote a really great piece about. And the whole idea with the Star was, what if we brought Hulu overseas, we could give people more adult shows to watch? Like, you can watch Modern Family, or you can watch 24 in prison break or how I met your mother. And we'll just use this and people don't have to leave Disney Plus. and I think, you know, there's, I have this conversation a lot with analysts. And the idea that you have to ask someone to leave an app, as you guys know, is such a huge thing.

Or it's like, if I have to leave, I don't want, like, it's just, I don't want to open something else up. So Disney was like, we're going to put a sixth tile and you can just hit Star and it's basically Hulu. And you're going to be able to do this and there's no reason for you ever, for you ever leave. That works for them because they have the kind of a must watch television that generates that. For everyone else, you have to have snackable content. And that's what they're all banking on. Paramount Plus is banking on it, NBC Universal is banking on it with Peacock. HBO Max is banking on it with their library.

And at some point, snackable content just becomes replaced. And I think a great example is Netflix. Netflix realized by 2014-2015 and that people were going to start taking their shows and movies back because they realized that streaming was going to be a thing. And so what they did was just replicated them. Like they literally made, I think it was like the real lives of Bollywood wives, which is just real. like it's just that's just real housewise they made they made selling sunset which is a bunch of discovery type shows they look at it and it works and they're like we'll just do it and at the end the day people are happy with it they don't need a specific show if they have something that feels

similar and they don't have to leave an app and it's like I can just watch this I'd like to watch beautiful people yelling at each other now right and you just like push the button and it just like happens it's like the store brand of television it kind of is the store brand of television yeah it is I will say they have, like, some of the Netflix reality stuff is so, like, it's so obviously things that would never work on any other network. Like, the glassblowing show in, like, the blacksmithing show. Yeah. Like, you know that that was a pitch of Discovery was like, this is too much even for us.

Like, you want 10 episodes of Blacksmith Reality Television? Like, we can't do this. And Netflix is like, yeah, bring it in. Like, this is great. Ted's like, I have money. Might as well just spend it. But it works because people are on the app in their late. I'll talk on behalf of myself. I'm lazy. I don't want to leave it. Like, there's something here

surface way you want me to watch and I'll watch it. Uh, like, I'm an ideal consumer in that way. And I think that's the other way to do is you have to just be everything for someone or like something for everyone. Like that's just, that's the way you have to figure out. And I think Paramount plus has the library for sure. They have the shows and they have the movies and they have the IP, but their strategy is so weird that they're giving it to everyone else that it doesn't make you ever feel like, oh, I need Paramount Plus, and that I need Disney Plus or Netflix feels like at this scale, I have to be on Netflix. And I think eventually we will, I don't think we'll see them give up on it, but I do think we'll see them say, okay, by 2024, we invest $5 billion. And then by 2028,

we're actually going to invest $4 billion. We're going to go down because we don't think this is paying off for us and we'll figure out what to do with this, but it's not going to be the life, the game changer that we need. A conversation to come back to regularly as I have with a bunch analyst when the streaming games feel more like, like, satiating the demands of executives at companies who feel like they should be in it because they're reading about it and everyone's telling them about streaming, like the whole streaming war situation, instead of being like, hey, they want content, we make good content, we own amazing content, let's just sell it off at a higher at a higher price point.

Yeah, but that doesn't get you a promotion. Come on. You want to be the- I mean, John Stanky is CEO of AT&T and they've blown out of the time. done nothing but lose money. Actually, let's talk about AT&T for a second here because right before we started recording, I mean, this is just AT&T. First of all, AT&T owned CNN.

The thing I would remind everybody, just a ridiculous outcome of American business right now. But they also own DirecTV. They have an over-the-top cable service called AT&T TV now. It used to be called many other things. And they own Uverse, which was a straight-up cable company. and now they've combined them into one thing, presumably to sell that thing, right? Yeah, apparently I was talking to you guys and very much paying attention to this conversation while also looking at Twitter because the AT&T call was happening at the exact same time.

And a lot of the tweets that I saw from journalists were like, John Stanky is not trying to hide the fact that they merge or with DISH. Like at this point for DirecTV is out of the question. like they realized that at some point before I came on the call was thinking of the lie that John Stanky as a CEO of AT&T said we did not realize when we completed the acquisition of DirecTV back in 2015 that this would be the outcome which is a ridiculous thing to say

what everybody said this is the only expected outcome I mean look some people want their television from satellite not the internet obviously yeah like this is like you know I know I rail against mergers on this show all the time. But like, this is the argument to not let companies do mergers. Like, maybe DirecTV would have failed as an independent company. They definitely would have tried to not fail as opposed to AT&T bought them, did a bunch of layoffs from the jump, missed managed it sideways, got basically no value out of the things that DirecTV owned. Like, Direct TV has Sunday

ticket, right? It was just football season. This is any AT&T customer to gain any benefit from that corporate synergy. Like, absolutely not. The best way that I've been thinking about, maybe not the best way, just the way that it's fun for my, like, masochistic brain is that AT&T bought DirecTV for about $49 billion, if I remember correctly, post, the nude version of DirecTV is now worth $16.25 billion. And this is the best part. I think about, I can't stop thinking about this, which they'll get $7 billion in cash to which they will then pay down their debt. that they incurred buying direct TV.

Like, it's just, it's, it's one of those things where you're like, maybe when people raised questions about certain acquisitions, like, we should listen because this whole thing can be avoided. I just like, wouldn't have direct TV have been like, man, we should do internet access and like been ahead of Starlink as opposed to Elon being like, I have an idea for a 45th company. And I'm the only person in America who can execute. So I'm going to do Starlink, right?

Like instead AT&T just like mismanaged it. I just like really want to reiterate for listeners. The satellite business has been steadily declining for several years. Like it was steadily declining by 2015. And the best part that AT&T you can do now, I think if I remember correctly up top my head, they lost like 618,000 customers in their last quarter. So they had 16.2 or 3 million customers left on this kind of satellite business. And the way that they talked about this was by saying, well, it's not as bad as it's been.

You've only had the company six years. It should not have been bad at all. Amazing. Well, combine that with the Uverse, combine it with their 18T TV, which used to be called DirecTV now. They're just going to sell that to someone, right? Who are they going to sell that to? Yeah. So the way it has now, so they have 70% stake in it.

30% stake is now belonged to TPG. If I remember correctly, I don't actually know what. the company is. I don't know if it's like an investment thing. But yeah, I think the idea, based on the tweets that I saw, I haven't listened to the call yet but I'm going to right after this if it's posted, is the idea that they're going to sell it off. I mean, they're whole, like, so they're not selling HBO Max.

This is not part of the deal. They're not giving up the Latin America. They're not getting regional sports. There's a few things that AT&T is going to keep. And I think that's their way of saying like, this makes sense for what we want to do with our product. And our product is HBO Max that they haven't tried away from that. it's WarnerMedia. And I think at this point, they're just trying to divest as much of direct TV as they can without it being a total embarrassment. Can I just read this? So TPG is a

private equity from TPG Capital. So I'm reading the press release. The two parties will establish a new company named Direct TV, parentheses, New Direct TV. That will own and operate 18T's U.S. fitnesses consisting of DirecTV. It's like, what did you do? Like our new company, DirecTV will be called New Direct TV. It's great. I'm very, very excited about this. I can't wait for my parents to continually be U-Sled U-V-S services. All right, Julia.

Are you going to subscribe Paramount Plus? Yeah. Wow. Do they have Top Gun? This is my number one question. There's a new Top Gun movie. Do they have it? Oh, yeah.

So, no. Well, no. What they do have, every answer is so complicated. You're like, oh, what they are going to do, is certain movies will premiere on Paramount Plus, 45 days after they're in theaters. So Mission Impossible 7 and A Quiet Place 2 will be on Paramount Plus 45 days after they're in theaters. And then other movies, Top Gun Maverick, Bond,

will be on Paramount Plus 90 days after they're in theaters. And so what the first one means is that they're following in the footsteps of NBC Universal and a couple of other companies who are like, there's no such thing as a theater window anymore. we're just going to do it ourselves, figure out how we bring this product to our streaming platforms to bring in subscribers, which we know WarnerMedia totally got rid of when they said, we're just going to put it on HBO Max day one. And their whole thing is like, we'll do that. We'll follow 45 days and then we'll move it over. And then they're big ones, which make money in theaters.

They're going to basically make the pay one window, which is the big window that they would usually give to HBO or Showtime. They're going to put that on Paramount Plus first and foremost. So I'm going to end up having this to try to Paramount Plus to watch. top kind of movie. Yeah, I mean, like, obviously, I have to, I condemn piracy, but you know, you could, you could just, you just rent it. You just pay, pay six bucks and rent it. I don't think the renting is six bucks anymore. I think it's like 20 bucks to rent. Well, I mean, once it hits like the lot, the later rental window. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I'm waiting. You know, like on YouTube. Why would I pay it in time when I can pay in money? I'm getting older,

Dieter? All right. We're way over. We gotta stop this. We gotta wrap this up. Thank you to Julia. Thank you to Allison. Thank you to Ashley. What a wild show. This is a good one. You can tweet at us if you want to give us feedback. Julia is at Ladmouth, Julia. Allison. By the way, first time in the Vergecass, Allison is great. She is Allison Joe 1 on Twitter. Ashley is Ashley R. Carmen. Deeter is at Backlon. I'm at Reckless. We love hearing from you. Please tell me if you're going to subscribe to Paramount Plus. I'm dying to know. this information. Also, if you can help me figure out how to get my parents off of U-VIRS, that would be great. Just an ongoing problem for me. We'll be back next week with more Vergecast. We got Decoder coming next week. Austin Russell, he is the 25-year-old CEO of Luminar, which is the Li-Dar company. That company just went public. He is now a 25-year-old billionaire CEO of a Li-Dar company. The run of 20-something CEOs making me feel old on Decoder continues apace. That's coming up next week. That's it. Rock and roll. Ask.