The Vergecast - Tech in 2025: who's in and who's out

Episode Date: December 15, 2024

For the second episode in our two-part 2025 preview, Nilay and David are once again joined by Wall Street Journal columnist (and friend of The Verge) Joanna Stern to talk about what will, and won't, happen in tech next year. This time, David joins us after a quick jaunt to the end of next year, and relays a bunch of things that happened in tech in 2025. But some of them are lies. Joanna and Nilay have to decide which things really will happen next year, and which won't. As always, the hosts get points for good guesses and negative points for bad ones. And once we're all in late 2025, we'll declare a winner. Email us at [e-mail] or call us at 866-VERGE11, we love hearing from you. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to the Vergecast, the flagship podcast of low-stakes time travel. I'm your friend David Pierce, and I am sitting here doing my New Year's resolutions. I discovered a long time ago that if I do my New Year's resolutions, like, on December 29th, or more likely, like, January 17th, they don't actually get done. Or I'm just tired. And so my ambitions are like, go outside once this year. And so my goal now is to find a day, usually in December, where I'm more present, more active, feeling better, feeling more in and that's when I do some real goal setting. And I try to think of it like goal setting, not resolutions.

I've also learned that I should make them very small and very actionable. So like a couple of years ago, my goal was to read one page of a book every single day just as a way to kickstart some of that energy again. And it was such a small thing that I would feel guilty not doing it. So I actually did it every day that year because it's only one page. But the idea is when you read one page, you read more than one page, and then all of a sudden you're reading a lot more in a way that feels like, less sort of over your head than the idea of like, I'm going to read 50 books this year.

And I read more than 50 books that year. Perfect strategy. Absolutely no notes. Anyway, I will share my tech resolutions at some point, by the way. I've done that before and people have said they like it, just having some ideas about how I want to use tech better next year. So I'll share those. But that's for another episode.

So I've got to figure some of those out. Use my phone less. Didn't work. So we're going to try some new things. Today, we're doing the second episode in our series previewing 2025. Like we said last week, 2025 is going to be a big year. There's regulation stuff happening. There's a new administration coming in in the U.S.

There's questions about the Fediverse. There's questions about AI. Is all of this going to amount to like the next big thing in technology or not? I think 2025 is going to be the year that either things change or they don't. And we're going to find out in some really interesting ways with pretty high stakes. Last week, I had Nealai Patel and Joanna Stern on, and they just ran through some predictions. We had mild, medium, and spicy predictions. We talked about them all.

We agreed or disagreed. It was a lot of fun. I think I've figured out the points system. We'll lay that out at some point. We've got 12 months to figure it out. We'll come back to it. For this episode, we're going to do something slightly different. So I asked all of you to give me basically things that either will or won't happen in 2025.

We will land on Mars. Don't know yet. By the end of 2025, we'll know the answer. Will there be a new CEO of Google? Don't know. We'll know by the end of 2012. So these things that are kind of either going to happen or not going to happen. I made a big list of them and I'm going to throw them at Nilai and Joanna and we're going to see what we think about all of them. And again, this goes on the same points scoring system. So if you're right by the end of 2025, you get a point. Wrong. No points. Whoever gets the most points gets a prize.

We as a group are going to decide the prize together. So we'll figure. that out later on in the year. But the idea is just, if I'm a time traveler from the end of 2025 coming back and I have some things to say to you, some of them are true and some of them are false, what are we going to do? It was very fun. We had a very good time and I think you will enjoy this. We agreed more than I wanted to, but we'll make it work. Anyway, all of that is coming up in just a second. But first, I'm going to go read one page of a book because I am now like three years into this resolution and it continues to work really well and I'm not losing it today. This is the Vergecast. We'll be right back.

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We all need to retool how we build software. Welcome back. Neil Appetalas here. Again. Again. Once again, David has dragged me into the studio. If you're all wondering why we're wearing the same clothes and don't look like we've moved, we did. It's been a full week since we recorded this.

Don't worry about it. Joanna Stern's also here. I wear this every day. Yeah. It's this is my podcast sweater. I've moved to just basically wearing like I have the same shirt. You're Steve Jobs now.

I am. I really, I have done that. It's like a closet full of Issymiaki. Truly the older I get, the more I understand that. Legitimately, I have three of these shirts. Yeah.

And one day you're going to break out the Obama tan suit. Full Fox News cycle. Okay. So last week we did our predictions for 2025. We all had homework. We all talked it through.

We still haven't figured out the point system, but I have a whole year to figure out the point system. I'm probably going to win, but we'll see. What we're going to do today is I have written down a long list of things that either will or will not happen in 2025. And the way we're going to set this up is I am a time traveler from the end of 2025. And I'm coming back.

And I'm telling you a bunch of things that happened and you have to decide which ones are true and which ones are lies. Does that make sense? All lies. Fabulous. Why are these games so complicated? It's not complicated. I'm going to say a thing that happened at the end of 20. By the end of 2025, and you have to decide did it or did it not happen?

Good? You should have done a costume change. I do. I should have, honestly. Because then you could have been like, I am dressed. I'm coming back from, I am David from the end of 2025. Like, like jeans get even bigger in 2025. Right.

So I'm going to come back. You have a mustache. Anyway. A beret. This is what AI is for. Burrays are huge in 2025. When this actually publishes, will we replace David with AI mustache. 70s David will be here

In the full flares The only facial hair I can grow is like a pretty Evil goatee So we could do that Evil David could be I don't think you have a choice but to grow Eiff's 18 that way Okay

I've ordered these loosely into categories but the categories don't really matter So we're just going to blow through as many of these as we can until we have to get out of here And again the thing we all have to decide individually is this true by the end of 2025 or is it not? Thing number one, not only is Tim Cook still the CEO of Apple.

All four big tech CEOs are still the same. Oh, absolutely true. Unless Google breaks itself up. Okay. But then would sooner be the CEO of Google in that instance? That's the one where I have a question mark. I think right now the only thing that the big tech companies can do is put familiar faces in front of Donald Trump.

And anything that disturbs that is a huge. huge risk. Donald Trump's saying sooner, which I called me to say I was the most important thing on Google is the thing that protects Google from regulatory risk. You change out that face, that name, that relationship. Suddenly Donald's like, I don't like this new guy and all goes to hell. Yeah, I mean, definitely. There's, yeah, true. But you don't think there's, it's possible that one of these CEOs will just decide it's not worth it anymore, that like, faced with the prospect of what's coming in so many different directions. It's, They're not just going to be like, yeah.

I think they want to, but they're, they're bored to what Neely's saying they can't. He says are all sharks. They think they can win. That's fair. This is not, this is no longer a game about strategy. It's a game about personality and dealmaking. Yeah, I think Tim Cook's getting ready. He's like excited about it.

I think Tim Cook's excited to retire. Oh, yeah. He's been laying the groundwork to retire for one time. He's excited. This is why John Turner's name keeps getting floated. Right. But he cannot. Apple is a small country.

No, I said he's, Tim Cook is sad. I don't know this. I think Tim Cook is sad. I would say we published this story about Donald Trump saying Tim Cook had called him about European regulations. And the number of comments and responses we got that was like, he would never. This is just salacious slander. I'm like, no, he definitely did. Yeah.

Like this man opened a fake factory for Donald Trump. He is good at this game. But if you don't know that, he reopened the Mac Pro. factory where they were already making the Mac Pro and Trump got to go there and pretend they'd open a factory. As long as you cut a ribbon, it's new. You know what I mean? Yeah.

It counts. All right. So we're all saying yes. By the way, corollary, do we think Donald Trump knows who Andy Jassy is? No. The CEO of Amazon. I think he knows who Jeff Bezos is. Yeah.

Yeah. Right. And I think the fact- This is what I, this is the point of- I think Andy Jassie's favorite thing in the whole world is probably that everybody knows who Jeff Bezos is. that, like, people are very mad at Jeff Bezos about things that Jeff Bezos is no longer in control of. And I think if you're Andy Jassy, that's a pretty nice place to be. Yeah.

I'm just saying, we are entering a period where people's personal relationships of the president will determine how American tech regulation goes. And none of these guys can move. Introducing a new face is. And also, Mark Zuckerberg is unkillable. So he doesn't. He's by far the most stable. No, he's in. Right.

Founder CEO, he's staying forever. Okay. All right. Moving on. We're all saying yes. End of 2025. Invita is the most valuable company in the world. No.

Okay. What is more valuable? Right now, it's Apple and Microsoft every day. Go back and forth, right? Yeah. But Nvidia's right there. Yeah. I just think that my prediction on the last episode was the AI bubble is going to pop.

Right. And so if that necessarily means demand for chips, I'll draw. Okay. I'm saying yes Because Nvidia seems to be so far ahead of this game right now

And even if what you're saying is true There's going to be some lag to that Like I think if the AI bubble does burst I don't think it's going to happen in 2025 And I think we're going to get One more year of wild frothiness And then something is going to happen

And it's all going to fall apart People are going to keep buying these Blackwell chips That's going to just keep happening Yeah Maybe it But all All of that forward investment has to turn into revenue. Not for Nvidia.

Yeah, Nvidia's good. Invita's they're selling them. Yeah. Right. But then at some point when the companies stop booking. Sure. But maybe it doesn't happen in 2026. Let me tell you again.

At some point when the companies don't have business models to run on their Nvidia chips, Nvidia will stop selling as many chips. But that might not happen. You think it's going to happen in 2025? Yeah. Right now there are companies. They're promising their AI agents and they're all on in. They're all in in next year.

Right. And then they have to ship them. Sure. I mean, there are companies right now, like cloud computing companies that are taking out loans to buy Nvidia chips and the collateral they're putting up for their loans is the Nvidia chips.

I just, that's bananas. That is the bubbliest bubble you could possibly describe. We might have time. Oh, seriously. Okay. But yeah,

but I think if the straight prediction is the stock, right, that's what I'm measuring this market cap. Yes. I'm out. Okay. I don't think so. Are you in?

I'll be in. I'm in too. End of 2025. Somebody has acquired Snap. That's good. Who? Somebody. I can't tell you.

I forgot. I have a lot to remember coming back from December 20205. Is it Apple? No, it's not Apple. I don't think it would be Apple. Apple doesn't want it. No, Apple doesn't want it. But I think it's, uh.

Maybe it's Walmart again. Walmart? Walmart. TikTok and Snap. No. No. Just because it's a public company. It's just hard to do.

It's got to fail on its own. Activist investor shows up and tries to push out Evan Spiegel. Sure. A straightforward GE is here by Snapchat. I don't know. I don't think so. Yeah. I think I lean the same way just because I don't know where it goes.

I don't know where it goes. Yeah. Because I think Snap's problem continues to be that it is a phenomenally successful product that is essentially impossible to turn into a business. And I don't think anybody else has ways to solve that. And I don't know who would want it. Like maybe it's one of the big advert, like maybe Amazon buys it just because it's like, we're better at selling ads.

We can do that. But I don't totally see it. So all right. I'm out on that one. We're all out on that one. Yep. Okay. Number four, Open AI is officially a for-profit company and it's making money.

Those should be two separate things. Making money or making a profit? Well, yeah. All right. You're right. Let's split them. Open AI is officially a for-profit company. I would say yes. Making a profit, I would say no. This is hard for Nilai. I think that's a harder, longer fight than anybody thinks. But can they pull it off in a year?

A year is both a long time and not a long time. I mean, like this lawsuit with Elon Musk is going to keep getting messier. he's going to paperwork everybody into oblivion. It appears for however long it takes. I think Open AI gets it done just because there is so much money at stake that they're just going to have to figure out how to do it. And again, if you believe that the AI bubble is going to burst,

it is in everyone's best interest to get that done as quickly as humanly possible because then a bunch of people are going to get liquid and take that money out, and that's how they win. I think everyone has an incentive. So I'm with you that they will get it done. I'm out that they will turn one dollar profit. Okay.

All right. So we're all in on Open AI is officially a for profit company. Open AI is a profitable company. No way. No. Yeah, easy. No. It's like, okay.

I think I would honestly have a harder time with the like open AI is on an obvious path to being a profitable company than this one. Right. Right. Is this company going to be around for a while probably? Are they ever going to make a dime? I have absolutely no idea. All right.

Last one. What? Oh, sorry. All right. Last one for this section. Then we're going to take a quick break. The government is breaking up one of the big tech companies. A lot of possible candidates on this one.

Google seems like probably the most likely in our current timeline. Okay. Let's talk about the verb there. Breaking up. Has broken up? I would say I would allow anything from has broken up to has officially decided and one required court cases. in order to break up.

It has to be done and official that it is happening, but it doesn't have to have happened yet. Oh, I think Google, then, yes, Google is in for it. Yeah, I agree. What do you think it looks like? The one with Chrome and search, it's kind of on the exact same timeline is the Microsoft case,

more like the Clinton administration won that suit, and then the Bush administration, like, settled that suit. So, like, you can see how, maybe you're just going to get a bunch of weird compliance stuff happening. The other one, though, the ad tech one, like someone in the Trump administration has to understand what's going on in order to stop it. True. But that one would also be the cleanest. If you wanted, like, the answer to what to do about that one is just split the two things apart. Right. That's the whole argument is these two things should not be together. We are going to take them apart.

And then everything will be better. And so if you're the government, you win that case, we don't have to do all this other. like what are the right remedy, you just split the two things apart. And the reason I say someone in the Trump administration has to understand what's going on is, who knows, but the people around the Trump administration hate Google. I guess J.D. Vance is in the Trump administration. I mean, like, he's the vice president. Like, what's he going to do? He's going to be busy, like, getting kids to be more active. Right. The nature of the vice president is not, like, you get to break up Google.

But Mark Andreessen hates Google. Peter Thiel hates Google. there's a lot of antipathy towards Google. Yeah. J.D. Vance, by the way, also hates Google. He has been on stage at events being like Google is a problem. So that one seems assured to me. Whether or not the search case is the mechanism that's like too fancy. Yeah.

Like the Trump administration made Google sell Chrome with whatever DOJ shakeup is happening. Maybe that's too much. Trump administration forces Google to divest ad tech. Who cares? Like, try to get that story across the Fox News channel. Like, we'll see. Yeah, I tend to agree. And I also think, like, as we've talked about on the show,

that Google search stuff seems more likely to end with a bunch of, like, behavioral remedies, right? Like, Google's going to have to do the weird data sharing stuff. It's going to have to stop making the default deals. That's not the same thing as breaking it off. I don't even think they end up selling Chrome. Like would be my prediction. That's what I was wondering.

Like, does some of these concessions happen? And would that happen? Oh, and all of those concessions are like First Amendment nightmares. I just want to be very clear about this. Oh, for sure. Right. Google is not allowed to have Google search be the default in Chrome, but like right wing search. com has to be the default search in Chrome is a real outcome here.

COVID is cool.com is the new default homepage of every Chrome browser is like a real outcome we could get to. But does that happen? Could that happen sooner than they break off the ad tech business? Well, that case has already decided. But. Right. So Google is like ruled a monopolist. They're guilty of it.

We're on to the, what are we going to do about it phase? Right. The Trump administration is going to. Well, yeah, that'll all go back and forth. But somewhere in here, the Trump administration now has the ability to settle that case. Right. And like, who knows what will happen. And whether or not those settlements are a bunch of weird First Amendment ideas.

the Trump already has about Google, right? I get such bad results in Google is a thing Trump says out loud. That's all messy. Yeah. And the ad tech one is like not messy. This all comes back to me about time. Like how much can they really do in a year? That is fair.

I think that's the most compelling reason to bet against would be that this stuff all just takes a long time to get done. Right. Sunropichai calls Donald Trump and says, hey, I will make you the number one result for every query in Google search. if you settle this case with us is a thing that could happen. Yep. But you're still saying yes.

Yeah. Something will happen with Google. Like the, I think. But something will happen and they break off their business or something will happen and there will be clear concessions made. I guess we're the same thing. Clear concessions. Okay. Okay.

I'm in too. Sure. Yeah? We're all in. I don't know. My whole thing is this time. Like a year is long. I mean, but it's also not.

Betting on the legal system taking a really long time is a pretty long time is a pretty safe bet most of the time. So I think it's not, it's not crazy. But now you have to decide. You know you out. I'm out then. Right. Right. All right. But by the way, I have no idea what's going to happen in the Apple cases. Yeah. Right. Yeah. They might not even arrive. Right. And there's Amazon stuff floating around and there's Microsoft stuff floating. Like, I think all that stuff definitely takes too long. Amazon stuff was, I mean, whatever. Yeah. All right. One more for this section. Then we have had a huge society-shaking AI scandal that made everybody.

but I think differently about AI. End of 2025. Oh, yeah. I think they're already happening. I just think we don't know how to talk with them. I think that the sort of like deep fake bullying in schools will reach a crisis point, like so much faster than we think. None of the big platforms have any real plans to stop it.

Like it's already here. But do you think I would argue that would have to get bigger than some of this stuff like, that would have to be an order of magnitude bigger than like the stuff that has been happening on Instagram. already and like cyber bullying stuff and the mental health crisis on Instagram, that stuff didn't, it never hit the level of like, the most important thing to everybody. Yeah. Yeah, I think it's probably going to happen in some sort of like institutional way to make people care because like I'm not sure people keep caring about these one-off issues about kids.

But if there's some big hospital or some big company that has some AI flaw and they're put it all. all on, you know, they lose a lot of money or at worst, they lose some lives and they put it on AI, then that's probably a likely thing. America is very much in the let's touch the stove moment. Yep. Right. Like, what's just, is it hot? Right.

Let's just super, it's touch it as hard as we can. And I think that's where we are with AI. And I just think that we're also in a moment where a bunch of parents are really rethinking the value of the phones for their kids. Yes. Just across the board. And one or two more of these stories where a. bunch of kids circulate

non-consensual deep fake nudes of each other you can just it's like we're also in a political environment where we have much politicians we're like I'm gonna do stuff and this is you can just point a lot of that energy at this because no one can argue about it

yep yeah I think I'm I'm a yes on this one I have no idea what it'll look like but I think the idea that like I just think about like Cambridge Analytica which was one of those things that right I think that's what we're gonna we're definitely going to get one of those at some point for whatever

Cambridge Analytica was and wasn't. It was like it was a thing everyone knew about and could reference and talked about. And I think we haven't had any of those with AI specifically yet. And I think we're going to get one. And that's why I think it's going to be like something institutional. Like it's going to touch a hospital is a really interesting one. Honestly, like you could see a bunch of ways that could get. I think it's going to touch some part of life. And I hear what Neil is saying about the kids, but I just don't think there's enough outrage. Like there's outrage about it. But like, yeah, everyone agrees like, you know, kids have too much.

Kids don't have the juice. Yeah. Like there's already all, everyone, like, every side agrees. Yeah. And yet, here we are. Yeah. All right. I buy it.

So we're all in on this one. All right. Let's take a break. Then we're going to come back. We're going to do a bunch more. Support for the show comes from Framer. Framer is an enterprise grade, no code website builder used by teams at companies like Perplexity and Muro to move faster.

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specialist or get started building for free today at framer.com slash verge for 30% off a framer pro annual plan that's framer dot com slash verge for 30% off framer dot com slash verge rules and restrictions may apply all right we're back i have a bunch of streaming ones that we're going to do streaming entertainment et cetera uh i'm going to get you out of here on time i promise i see you looking at your One or more of Max, Paramount Plus, and Peacock no longer exists. I feel like I have to disclose already because Peacock is owned by Comcast, a Comcast investor in Rocks Media. I made a Netflix show. Do you really have to disclose these things?

We do it every time. Really? And when we don't do it, the people yell at us. Okay. Disclosure is our brand, Joanna. Okay. One time in a review of Starlight. Joanna won an Emmy.

Can we disclose that? We should. Disclosed? It's done. Disclosure. Happened. Done. One time I reviewed Starlink and I said, this is kind of spotty if you shine it through trees and most people have trees in my backyard. And then I was like, my wired internet connection is superior to this.

And I was accused of being a Comcast show because I said wireless, wired connections were better than wireless ones. And I was like, if that's where we're at. Was Peacock an option there? Peacock, Paramount Plus, Max. One or more of those three services in particular. Paramount Plus does not exist at the end of 2025. Although I will say they're like all in on letting Taylor Sheridan do whatever he wants, which is like a reasonable strategy actually.

Like I watched Landman. It does kind of work. Yeah. The Billy Bob Thornton one. I was like, oh, you should just let Taylor Sheridan do whatever he wants. It's pretty good. He's kind of like redneck Aaron Sorkin. Like it's just like a lot of nothing happens in these shows and then there's an explosion.

Yeah. But like the dialogue is crisp. Right. I mean, like everyone's walking and talking. And then like, man, that's been about. hour something should blow up every one of these episodes he's Aaron Sorkin not coastal elite I love it it's good uh okay but they're done that that deal will go away that's not going to drive enough subs for them I really love Max that's my that's my contribution here

oh I should have picked Max to die to die I think I love one of Max and Paramount Plus is going to be gone I don't know which one it is there's going to be some Max has to be doing pretty good Because they're being run so well by Warner Brothers Discovery. Yeah, that's going great. They have decent programming on there. What do you watch on Max? I just watched all of industry. Sure, okay.

Industry selling. Yeah. Gen Z Succession. One show. Hacks. Hacks is good. Hacks? I think we watch Paw Patrol through Max.

Maybe not. It sucks that my kid is named Max. Yeah, it does. It does. Joanna just calls Max and says, describe Paul Patrol to me. We also watch Jurassic Park on there. Did your kids have a crush on Chase? Max had like a baby crush.

Chase was her favorite dog on Paw Patrol. And I was like, why did you pick the cop? Like, why not? There's a water dog. Alex does like, no, I think he really likes rubble. Yeah, rubble's great. Rubble's great. He like, he fixes stuff.

Do we watch it through Max? Cop dog. See, I would argue this might not be the, great case for Max that you think it is. Don't watch that on Max. I'll be honest. We had Peacock for the Olympics. Don't have it anymore.

Paramount don't have it anymore. Oh, this is my other prediction. They will all solve this problem by not letting you turn as hard as you can turn right now. That I believe. That I will put a lot on. That's a really good one. But yet there was just that legislative, like there's, what's the legislation that just happened that makes it you have to make it? Yeah.

So how are they going to get around that? That's going away in the Trump administration. A federal agency doing stuff. Yeah, that's all over now Especially because Lena Kond did it All right, we're all saying yes to that one Right, we're all one of the three You don't have to pick one one or more of the three is gone

Yeah Again, my time travel is You lose some stuff It's hard to remember everything in the time travel Netflix is killing it in live TV And is already the biggest thing in life No No

Disclosure You already noticed We did that Disclosure How long go to that show How long do you have any years? You have to say that? Forever.

Since it's on there, it's going to be on there forever. Video on demand. Yeah, I didn't even get paid for it. This is like the funniest part of this. It was not even a conflict of interest. I just did the thing. Do I have a disclosure that I talked to you when you were doing working on that show? If you, if everyone would like to remind everyone else that I made a Netflix show, that's great for me personally.

Disclosure, I spoke to Neelai when he was working on his Netflix show. And I also talked to him when he had Comcast. Well, you're clearly in somebody's pocket. I don't know who it is. I had Comcast, you mean the service in Chicago? You still have Comcast? No, there's no Comcast out here. What do you have?

Xfinity? Is it a FIOS? Do I have to say disclosure I have Fios and it rules. Wired Internet is better than wireless internet, my friends. Disclosure, I also have Fios. Well, I have Ting, let's go. We're conflicted out. Ting, maybe.

All right, next one. We're all saying no on that one. Yeah, we're good. Okay. They have a long way to go. Yeah. Jake Paul needs to fight somebody else. They have a big test.

Christmas, this Christmas. Yeah, I reserve the right to revise this after the NFL on Christmas on Netflix. But I don't think they're right. Netflix certainly has the money to do it, but it's harder work than anybody thinks. Grand Theft Auto launched, Grand Theft Auto 6, rather. Grand Theft Auto 6 launched, and it is the single most successful game in history and has basically changed the video game industry all by itself. That's too many ideas.

So I say yes to launch. Grand Theft Auto 6 is the prince that was promised. Yeah, it's too many ideas. It launches. It launches. It makes a bunch of money. Agreed. Okay.

Everyone else is already tried to do the big game as a service thing. What was the Sony one that just failed? Concord. Yeah. Everyone just wanted to do Fortnite and it like didn't work. You need to have the big property that can support it. Grand Theft Auto is one of those properties. Yeah.

Changes the game. I think everyone's going to be like, man, I wish we invented Grand Theft Auto. And they will continue not investing money into these things that fail. But you think Grand Theft Auto, on its own, big hit, it's going to work. Yeah. I mean, assuming it's not a disaster, but I think a lot of people are going to buy. This is the prediction we have to make here. It's, I mean, the reason I put this in is that we have had a long run of huge, expensive games that haven't worked for one reason or another.

And if that happens to GTA6, it's going to be a disaster. Yeah. Like, this is the most hyped game in forever. and it has been around for forever. It is like loomed over the gaming industry for years. And if it doesn't hit and it's not as good and big and exciting and cool and groundbreaking, like GTA 5 is still a wildly successful game. If GTA 6 flops.

Chris Grant, who is our publisher and the founder of Polygon, is always showing me this chart that's like the highest grossing games in the world and they're all over like seven years old. Yeah. They're all very old because they've all just turned into these places where people hang out. So GTA6 has a long road. It does. Like,

cyberpunk 27-7 came out and it like didn't work. And then that works and like everyone knows it. But a lot of heads rolled in the meantime. Yeah. All right.

I'm in on this one. Sounds like you are too. I have no idea what you're talking about. Okay. Joanna's just a big question mark. Okay. A few more. It's the end of 2025

and folding phones are completely mainstream now. Unless Apple's releasing one and they're not. So no. You don't think they are. One of the other ones. I was going to put is... In 2025?

I don't think so. I think it's actually very funny that Apple thought I could drive a super cycle with AI. It just needs to make the phone foldover, and that would be the thing... Yeah, well, 100% drive a supersicle. What if I changed it to Apple release a foldable iPhone or iPad? Apple released a foldable something in 2025. The displays aren't good. They release a foldable MacBook, which is just a MacBook, it's a laptop.

But it's a MacBook you can... It just folds. It just like that, but it has a better chip. That's their foldable for the year. All right. So you're out on foldable phones going mainstream. I think they will go mainstream once Apple has one. But you don't think it's next year?

No. Okay. Nealai? No. Not next year. Yeah, I'm out too. I think it's coming. Yeah.

I continue to believe. Foldable phones and flip phones, which I all collapsed into folding phones. It will be a thing. Are going to happen. Yeah. Yeah. They're getting better. I see them a lot now.

Okay. the pixel 10 is by far the best and most successful Android phone. What is success? How is best measured? I'll just land on best. It is by far the best Android phone. How is best measured? You were a product reviewer.

Yeah, right? You were the lead product reviewer of the Wall Street Journal. How is it measured? Are you having this existential debate about what's a good phone? What do you think a good phone is? Best fine. I think we've all agreed that it's been the best Android phone for a long time. Wait, are we agreed on that?

I mean. Go on. I will say I do not think Samsung has, other than some hardware improvements, I do not think they've had substantial improvements to their phones. And I think they lean very heavily on their relationship with Google to do all the work. And yeah, like, at this point, like, nobody... You don't think the Galaxy Fold is better than the Pixel Fold? Yeah, I guess on Foldables, I would say they've done a better job on the hardware and they're fine. but I guess I'm talking about like flagship phones

that continue to be the most popular. Yeah. That is always going to be Samsung. They're going to, sorry, and I say this by sales, Samsung will continue to sell more phones, whether they have the best one or they don't. And that's just been the story of Android for how many years. All of them.

Is that going to change in 2020, 2025? But you think right now that Pixel is a better phone than whatever Galaxy? I prefer, well, always prefer the software experience of the pixel. I just do. Yeah, I don't disagree with you. Yeah.

So, I mean, like, you know, I don't know the, like, can it the galaxy take slightly better photos in my last testing like two years ago? I don't know. Like, did that change? You guys tell me? I haven't done camera testing of the pixel and the Samsung in probably two years. At this point, they are all on top of each other. Yeah.

Right. So I come down on, okay, there's a great. great software experience on the pixel and people. They gained one point of market share, I believe, this year. Well, they also, Google can't try very hard. Well, they'll break them up. This is a real problem for them, right? Because they can't piss off Samsung.

Right. So I guess that's where I was like, success and best. Like, sure, it's the best. But you first said success, which you changed. Wait, read your thing. If we want to just, I originally said best. and most successful. But if we want to split hairs, we can do one and the other.

I think those are very different things. Yeah. Well, yeah, they are different things. But I'm telling you both happened in 2025. Oh, then that's a hard note. If it's both, absolutely not. That's what I'm saying. Okay.

Okay. All right. We'll remain the best one. Yeah. How do I write that in my notes about what you guys said? All right. Yeah, I think we're all nose on that one. I mean, but like, what is the most exciting thing that's going to happen in smartphones in the next year?

What are we all going to be excited about when Samsung comes out with the galaxy? Ostensibly, it's AI. And is that something we're going to get excited about? No. Bluetooth 6. Bluetooth is AI. I've come full circle. All right, let's do a couple more.

Joanna, you have to leave here in a minute. Let's do a couple more. Apple is actually making a television. It's official. There's been rumored again recently. Yeah. They've been making the television. It's real this time.

Apple is going to sell you a television. 7 and 8? Not in 2025, but I think that the rumors on this will heat up. Apple is out of markets. This is a real problem. They don't make enough stuff. It's weird that they don't make enough stuff. The longer I wrote this one down originally, like, as kind of a joke.

And the longer I think about it, the more I want to say yes. But this year? Yeah, I think it's possible. I mean, it's not like hard to do. Yeah, TV is right. Like at the end of the day, they got to buy an OLED panel from Samsung. They got to glue an Apple TV to the back of it. And they're going to be like, $6,000.

Make some nice frames to put around it. It's weird because the thing you're saying about cable television dying and all this other stuff, like runs against Apple doing a TV. Yes. It's a real problem. I think they might have missed the window on doing this. Unless Apple thinks there's a giant ads business in being. Or an extension of their services business. Sure.

But they were chasing other huge iPhone size markets. And the only ones they could identify were health care and cars. And they got run out of cars because it's too hard. know what they're going to do in health care over time. But if the home, which seems to be this big place, they're going to focus some of the effort this year, and they do this home tablet sometime this spring, seems like something between an iPad and an Apple TV type of thing. Yeah. In terms of like software, right? They got to put another screen in your house and they got to find a way to charge you money.

So let's say they put another screen in your house that's home based. Is it a TV this year or is it this like tab? They're going to do this little thing first. Right. So I don't know if I think this TV thing is to your point. Like they've got to go to other markets. This makes sense. They can finally say, hey, we've got it all integrated.

It's just one cord into the wall. Like, great. But then does that happen this year? I'm saying, I don't think it happens this year. No. I'm in on it. I think we're going to hear a lot about it this year. They're going to feel that.

Just like Apple making a TV. Like reports. Yeah, we're going to hear a lot of noise about this. Mark Berman is going to be very busy talking about this year. Does an Apple TV have HTML? ports? No. Well, then what are all the people of PSY is going to do? They're not.

So you're going to make it a TV that just excludes. No, it'll have HTMLI ports. Do you think so? This is complicated. It immediately makes it complicated. See, I think that's what they've wanted to do, is the like one port, like it just plugs in. But again, if you're doing, if you're doing the home stuff you're talking about, you could sell me a bunch of new screens, or you could take advantage of the big screen that sits in the middle of everyone's house and is like, this Gen 2. Dewey on our team keeps railing on this. Like, the TV is the center of the smart home.

It is. I love that. No one has solved this yet. I love when my garage door opens and I see a little alert on my TV that says garage door open. And it's 2 o'clock in the morning and you didn't do that on purpose. And here we are. All right. Last one.

And then, Joanna, you're going to go. What do I want to do last? Waymo's self-driving cars are now everywhere in New York City. No. I just interviewed the CEO. No. But they will be like in a lot of other cities. Okay.

I pick New York specifically because it is probably the highest bar. New York is like New York they are working on. But it's not not yet. New York also has the weather issue that they are. The last time I talked to to Kedra, I was like, can you get this thing in Aspen, Colorado? She's like, no. She's like, no. Like, we can't solve that problem yet.

Like, weather is too hard. New York has enough weather where I think it's true. That's true. They're testing here. apparently. They are. There's aspects of New York that make it simpler.

Totally. It's a big grid. You can just like solve that problem. But there's two feet of snow in the ground. It's real dicey. There's not bike lanes. I think New York's really challenging.

No, I'm saying there are aspects of New York that make it simpler than L.A. or whatever, right? See, I think like Brooklyn makes a lot of sense. Just like no laws in Brooklyn. No laws in Brooklyn. But like you go down Manhattan. Manhattan is going to be tough for them. But whether, there's a lot of reasons, I think, no.

But I think we're going to, I think that 2025 is the year that met, I don't want to say, most people, a lot of people will go in Waymos for their first time. And you'll see tons of it on social media. It's going to have its moment. Yeah, it's going to have its moment. Okay. Because, like, I was in L.A. last week, and everyone who was in L.A. was trying it. It was, like, a total viral thing. So it's coming to Austin, Phoenix.

They're already in San Francisco. They're working on getting on highways. It's already in L.A. They expanded. People are going to talk about it when they go to these cities. Okay. I like this one. I'm changing this to Waymo is going to have its moment.

Waymo has a real problem, though, because their platform is the Jaguar Ipace. And Jaguar has decided to just be an influencer company now or whatever it is. Like, they need a new car. They have Hyundai. Oh, Hyundai's coming on. Yep. Hyundai's coming this year. All right.

I love Waymo. There you go. I'm out on this one. I think... And I think Zooks is doing some stuff this year, too. I think the momentum here is really good. And Tesla has a fake Robotex. Oh, yes, right, the fake Roboto.

It's real. You can look at it in a store and it doesn't move. I don't know what you're talking about. Are you in on this one, Nealai? Yeah. Anyway, Waymo's due. I'm out on this one only because I've been burned by being in on this one so many times over the last decade. This is the year. All right.

We'll see. All right. We've got to take one more break. Then we're going to come back. We're going to rapid fire through the rest of these and we're going to get out of here. Sound good? Mm-hmm. All right.

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That's upw-O-R-K.com. Upwork.com. All right, we're back. Okay. I have a couple here that rhymes slightly with some of the stuff we were talking about last week. The first one I have here is the new Alexa is sick and everybody likes it. I like sick. It's sick.

It's not just like nifty. It actually physically gets sick. It is literally cool. My Alexa has been throwing up on me. It's so sentient. It's like. I'm in if we are like it has an illness. I cannot set a timer.

If we're, if it's sick, it's so cool it's sick. I'm out. It's so cool, it's sick. Has it appears to have an illness? I'm in. It appears to have an illness. It's so, it's, it has such a strong personality that it develops sicknesses and colds and has stomach.

It's like, oh, you ordered too much whole food. If you could set the character as just like your ill relative who lives with you, that would be incredible. anytime you ask it for anything, it's like, oh. Anyway, I'm totally in on Alexa having an illness. Okay. Yeah, I think we're both, we're both thinking illness. Yeah, I'm writing illness.

I'm in on this one. My, I think Amazon is... That is actually a best case scenario for the launch, is they put these in homes, and it's so sentient, and it believes it's alive that it's like, Sorry, I can't order the Whole Foods today. Sorry, I can't tell you if the package was delivered. Do you like my sick Alexa voice?

That's pretty good. I'm not worried that if I react to it too much, it's racist. It's like a little too neurotic, you know what I mean? Yeah, that's fair. All right. I could do anxious Indian mom. Yeah, do it. Like, do you think that's going to work?

I think you need more of a stronger accent there, but I get you not wanting to get racist. Okay. Should it go to med school? Yeah. Do you know what I mean? All right. Next up, blue sky is every bit as big as threads. I think it already kind of is.

I don't know, is it? You're having a real what is everything existence of crisis over there. No, absolutely not. They're going to keep juicing the threads numbers with Instagram forever. Is Blue Sky more relevant on threads? Yes. Relevant? Yeah.

Because of the people that are there. Because of the people that are there. Is that where the conversation is? Okay. I'll allow both of these. So Blue Sky is more relevant than threads. You're saying, yeah. The threads will be huge.

And the threads is just going to be, it's already hundreds of millions of people, right? Yeah. It's probably, given what we've heard from earnings and since they're probably like knocking on the door of 300 million users. Yeah. And they're going to keep juicing with Instagram

and it's a creator platform. And that will be a thing. I think Blue Sky, who knows how big it will get? I'm very high. I'm interop and Fediverse and all this stuff. But the ceiling that we know of is Twitter, which at its hate. day was 325 million people.

And so I think threads can get bigger than that because they can just keep juicing it with Instagram. Hmm. That seems right to me. I think the threads is going to be so big and so integrated into Instagram that it's actually going to be more powerful than it would have been on its own. Mm-hmm. But I think the cool kids will be on blue sky, and that matters.

Like the, what are people on cable news going to read and put on the screen as they talk about it? I would bet on blue sky. Yeah. over threads. If it's those two against each other, I would bet on blue sky. Well, this goes back to your cable dying thing from last week, but I think those people continue to stay on X. Interesting. Okay. So the answer is kind of neither one. I think it depends, but like I hear what Neil is saying on the relevant. Like if it continues at this pace and it can bring over people that are breaking news there and it is more of the conversation, but they've got to keep.

And this is where threads has done a slightly bad. our job is getting politicians and celebrities and they've had those people, but they're not actively posting there. So if they can build the relevancy on blue sky and get those people coming over and actually consistently posting, I'm in. Okay. I don't think they're going to say an X, though. X has going to have the same algorithmic brain rot as threads.

Yeah. Right. It's just a different kind of gas leak social network. Yeah. Yeah. It's just like threads. Like I keep making this distinction. I probably need to like explain it better.

but I think you have creator platforms now and you have social media platforms. And like most things have become creator platforms where they are walled gardens, they're focused on keeping your engaged time on those sites high, they're algorithmic for you recommendations. They're entirely built around

incentivizing creators to run content businesses on the terms of platforms. That's threads. That's the shape of threads. But you're talking old school social media, you go, you share your thing, you don't care if people leave. You've got links.

It's a port. to the web. Right. Well, I mean, that part is interesting, but the part where it's like, I'm going here to follow a bunch of people and see what they're talking about, and those people are not professional content creators. And they're not totally like after the algorithm and juicing the algorithm. Right.

And so Blue Sky just is much more of that. And Twitter used to be that, to whatever extent. And I think that that is going to be where that class of people wants to gather, because the economics and the incentives of creator platform algorithms just... They just make it that way. make it that way. An X is headed that way. Yep. In like a meaningful explicit way. Because it's also like all they know how to do.

Yeah. So I, and that's what Elon wants. Like Elon's like, just don't do lazy links. Just like put your content on the X platform. I was just going to say, I keep being really struck by how meaningful a thing it is that blue sky is the only one that's like, we love when you link to stuff. It's like there's a whole group of people on the internet who are very important who just link to stuff.

Yeah. And if all of those people go to blue sky like that, that's a pretty meaningful thing. But I don't know that that ceiling is bigger than 325 million people. Yeah. Maybe not. Like that was as big as Twitter ever got. Comes back to my prediction from last week. We're all going to be just posting everywhere.

Yeah, I'm with you. But hopefully there's a system where it's easy. All right, two more, and then we're out of here. Apple launched the search engine. Call it. It doesn't have to look exactly like Google, but it is recognizably a web search engine. Yes. Yeah?

Apple's going to start to hedge. And the AI will give them the cover to hedge. Yeah, I was going to say, I think yes, but it's under the guise of AI. and it might link into, you might be able to search chat GPT or Gemini or, I don't know, Claude, whatever businesses they actually partner with. I think we're going to see those partnerships happen this year. And so that's their answer to search. Do you think they do it?

I think Apple also knows people are using these apps, these AI apps as search. So they're getting ahead of that and they will, well, they'll be a little bit behind that in some ways. Apple also has a giant library of content that they don't really. exposed to anyone in Apple News? Yeah. Like if what you want is like a bunch of recipes, they're in Apple News. Apple, I think this is a year for Apple News.

Like, more happens than Apple News. Or more hooks into Apple News, to your point. Yeah. Because I think that, I think Apple News is another place with that home display where they can really take advantage of it. Oh, for sure. And if your thing is like the web is getting poisoned and searches bad in that thing, you're like, well, I'll just point to people to high quality content.

To the source. I mean, if you go look at what's trending Apple News, you will... Yeah, I'm aware. I'm aware. It's like a lot of, like, old people yelling at stuff. Like, the number one story at Apple News is always a BuzzFeed article that's like, why are these kids stupid?

It's like a Huffington Post thing that's like ripped off three times from something else. You can really get a sense of who a platform's users are by the most popular posts than the platform. Yeah. I'm out on this one just because I think the $20 billion from Google really spends. And I think if you're Apple trying to... balance those two things, you're just going to land on the side of we're going to keep taking the money as long as the money is here. Yeah, I mean it doesn't necessarily mean they like change what happens through Safari search. I just think they're going to maybe they don't call it search.

But it was part of part of the stuff that came up during the search trial was essentially Apple agreeing not to launch a search engine while they had these deals. So I think that stuff is just, I think, going to take a while to unwind. I think if you gave me like three years instead of one year, I would say yes. But I don't know. doesn't seem like it's going to happen this fast. But you also may be right that they're one button away from the chat GPT integration just being live web search. Like it just could happen.

It's really slow and bothersome. Any way. Agreed. Okay. Last one. The Nintendo Switch came out and I hate to break this to you, but it's kind of a bust. Ooh, that's tough. It all depends on the packing game.

No, I'm out. There's no way. They won't blow it. That's too out of character for Nintendo. I don't know that Wii U exists. they did they did do the Wii you no no still out no all right I want to believe I'm saying I'm saying no just because I am at this moment avoiding buying a PS5 because I want the new switch very badly and if it sucks I'm going to have wasted six months of not buying a game console so I need the new switch to come out sometime before the end of March was what Nintendo promised so like we're we're in the sort of of any minute now phase. That changes some things for me.

Hmm. They couldn't get it out before holiday. Anyway, I have no... Maybe that's because it sucks. This is the first time I'm hearing of this, so I do not buy it. I don't know a video games. What are video games? I'm going to learn soon because I have a kid that's finally into video games.

You can buy them a switch? Well, I was going to. But maybe it sucks. But now I'm waiting because I don't know. Hmm. I will say I have... I should wait now. The current switch, and it is slow.

and I would very much like the new one to be faster. I'm sure they will do that. Okay. So I'm waiting then. It's successful because I have bought one. You've already bought one. Perfect. No, there's no way that it's a bust.

Okay. Great. I hope we're right. I believe in all of us. All right. This is too many things to go back over. I'm going to put all the results in the show notes. But thank you both.

This is delightful. We agreed more than I wanted to, but it's okay. We did all right. You seem like you've had a great year. I've won. 2025 was good to you, David. 2025, listen, has been complicated. Yeah.

I've forgotten some of the details, but I'm killing it. Yeah. That's all I can tell you. Yeah. I'm on top of the world. You still fit in your clothes from 2024. I have been wearing this sweater for 365 days and no one has noticed until you just now. It's just, you own that many versions of that sweater.

It's a good year for you. All right. Thank you both. All right. That is it for the first cast today. And that's it for our two-part mini series about 2025. Thank you to Nilai and Joanna for doing this deeply silly thing with me. And thank you, as always, for listening.

I hope this was fun. I really enjoyed doing these two. We just got to have some wild speculation time, and that is rare in this business. We had a good time. There is lots more on all of this at theversion.com, and there's going to be lots more on all of this for the next year. I think inside of these two episodes, you can sort of see what we're thinking about for the next year. A lot's going to change. A lot's going to happen.

we're probably not going to Mars in 2025, but a lot of things are going to happen and we're going to be covering it all. So keep it locked on theverge.com. It's a good website. I'm slightly biased, but I kind of like it. And as always, if you have thoughts, questions, feelings, or other things

that you definitely for sure 100% think are going to happen in 2025, you can always email us at vergecast to the verge.com. We call the hotline. 866, Verge11. We truly, truly love hearing from you. We're going to do a couple more hotlines at the end of this year,

and then we have a big plan for all of the stuff we're going to get to do next year. So keep calling, keep emailing, keep it locked on the Vergecast. This show is produced by Liam James, Will Por, and Eric Gomez. The Vergecast is Verge production and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.

We'll be back on Tuesday and Friday with your regularly scheduled programming. We are nearing the end of the year, and we're going to take a break at the end of the year, but we got a couple more fun things for you before we do. We'll see you then. Rock and roll.