The Vergecast - The 2025 Vergecast Streaming Draft

Episode Date: April 15, 2025

It's time, once again, to see what's what in the streaming wars. For the third year in a row, our hosts — this time Nilay, David, and The Verge's Jake Kastrenakes — have to build a roster of streaming options that will win awards, show 4K content, satisfy their live TV needs, and much more. First, the hosts decide who won last year's competition, and then they pick their favorites for 2025. Make sure you listen to the episode before you read this, but here are the results of the draft: Jake's picks: Cheap: Tubi Awards: Netflix 4K: Hulu Live: Instagram Live Niche: PBS Passport Content: LoFi Girl Wild Card: Kanopy Nilay's picks: Cheap: TikTok Awards: Max 4K: Disney Plus Live: Sunday Ticket Niche: Kaleidescape Content: CNBC Wild Card: F1 TV David's picks Cheap: Peacock Awards: Amazon Prime 4K: YouTube Premium Live: YouTube TV Niche: BritBox Content: Stranger Things season 5 Wild Card: Paramount Plus We want to know who you think won the draft! Email us at [e-mail], or call The Vergecast Hotline at 866-VERGE11, and tell us all your thoughts. And if you want to catch up, you can check out our draft from 2024 and from 2023. A lot has changed, and nothing has. The Vergecast was nominated for a Webby, which means we can win a Webby People’s Voice Award and that’s voted online by you! So we’d love your support. You can vote at the link:https://bit.ly/3DXFgpN Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to the Vergecast, the flagship podcast of like the fifth row of apps on your smart TV. I'm your friend David Pierce and I'm sitting here reorganizing my Roku. I end up doing this like once a year or so. Usually actually it's around March Madness when I go to download the NCAA March Madness app so that I can watch college basketball only to discover that in this case I have 86 items on my Roku. And a bunch of them are things that I've never heard of before. Like I have a freebie app. I don't think FreeV exists anymore.

I have one called Fossum, which is just awesome with an F at the beginning. What is that? I have an app that's called Purple. There's a thing here for the Food Network Go, an HGTV Go. I'm pretty sure those are not a thing. I have a deal or no deal app on my Roku.

Why? Basically, I assume my smart TV is like most people's where my top few rows are like the apps I actually use, and then the rest just becomes chaos. And so every once in a while, I come in and I clean up chaos. That is not what we're here to talk about today. This is my lot in life, and hopefully it's not yours. What we're going to do on the show today is the annual Vergecast streaming draft.

Once a year, we like to get together, and as a way of taking stock of the streaming industry, we do a draft. We see who can put together the best collection of streaming services, which ones are going to succeed, which ones are going to fail completely, which ones will be here, which ones won't be here, who's going to win, who's going to lose. we're going to make a lot of bets about the next 12 months in streaming all on this episode.

All that is coming up in just a second, but first, a quick request for you. So the Vergecast is nominated for a Webby Award, which means a lot to us. We've been nominated for this in the past, and the reason we care a lot about this award is because it's voted on by you. This is an award that you can give to us,

if you so choose. And so if you're willing to, I'll put a link in the show notes, we'll put a link in the container post on the site. Please go to the link voted for the Vergecast. We're up against, honestly, some really great competition this year. There are a bunch of really good tech podcasts out there right now, but I really want to win. We would really, really like to have the Webby. It's this cool, like, springy award thing,

and it just means a lot to us. So if you're willing, please go vote for us. We're going to get back to the Vergecast. I'm going to go delete. I have like three Hallmark logos on here for some reason. So I'm going to fix that. Then we're going to get to it. This is the Vergecast. We'll be right back. Support for the show comes from Retool. Many companies run critical operations on duct-taped spreadsheets, Slack workflows, and whatever else they could cobble together. Not because they want to, but because building internal tools means weeks of waiting on someone else's backlog. That's where Retool comes in.

Build custom internal tools just by describing what you need. Prompt something like, build me a revenue dashboard on our Salesforce data. And Retool actually builds it on your company's data and your cloud with enterprise security built in. Go to retool.com slash vergecast. We all need to retool how we build software. What's up, y'all. I'm Skylar Diggins,

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game changers, and moms of all kinds. Dropping May 14th. Tap in with us. Do you ever wonder what's in your lotion? If you look at the back of the bottle, it could contain more than a dozen ingredients. And they may not all be regulated. The threshold is so high that only 11 cosmetic ingredients have been restricted by the FDA since 1938.

This week, unexplain it to me, the chemicals lurking in your cosmetics. New episodes, Sundays, wherever you get your podcasts. All right, we're back. It is time for the 2020. streaming draft. Nilai Patel is here. Hi, Nealai. Hello.

Jake Castranakis, welcome to the streaming draft. Thank you. Excited to be here. So you are continuing with the Alex Kranz saga, which means you either get to or are saddled with Alex's picks from last year, and then we're going to go forward. So congratulations, and I'm sorry, and welcome. I'm going to do my best to honor the chaos of her picks and bring that energy into 2025. They were truly chaotic.

So just to remind everybody how this works, we have made it slightly more complicated every year, and I'm very proud of that fact. But basically, what's going to happen is we're going to decide first who won last year's streaming draft. I'm going to read out what we all picked. We're going to decide who won. This is based on vibes, if we're being honest with each other. I looked up, like, can you find a report card? And it turns out, Nelai picked Sony Bravia Corp. And Billboard Pro does not spend a lot of time litigating the success of Sony Bravia Corps.

So we're just going to read them all out. There's no need to litigate it, David. It's the winner. Sure. It's so obvious you don't talk about it. Yeah, I mean, it's the air we breathe. And then we're going to go through and we're each going to draft into, we have seven categories. So there's, I'll read the categories in a minute again so everybody can remember, but there's cheap awards, 4K, live, niche, wildcard, and a new one this year, which is content.

I will explain all of those once we order the draft. But the first thing we have to do here is decide who gets to go first. Each service can only be picked once. It's a draft. This is how we do it. So last year, Nelai, you picked TikTok, the Disney bundle, Sony Bravia Corp. Yes. YouTube TV with Sunday ticket, Motor Trends TV, and Max.

I'm obviously the winner. Honestly, are we sure? That's a dominant performance in the draft. Can I tell you something? Sony Bravia core is. not even named Bravia core anymore. Yeah. I don't even think it was named Bravia core

when you picked it. Which, I was looking up the FAQ for this thing, they can't even explain what it is or how it works. That's true. And that's why,

it's like explaining the internet. All right? It's just there when you buy a Sony TV. Also, I think Motor Trend TV is dead. Okay. So I'm not, look, I'm just saying, on its face,

this is a dominant performance with some risks thrown in the mix. You know, TikTok, you know, big, big winner there. They really pulled through. You're maybe cashing out right on time there. There's a real chance that most of my picks don't exist by the end of this conversation. They literally had to push recording this episode a week to see if TikTok would still be here.

This is how tenuous things are. But anyway, so those are any last picks. Alex's picks, which Jake are now your legacy, welcome. We're Peacock, Hulu, Netflix. the channels app, Crunchyroll, and Paramount Plus. I'm going to be honest,

I did not know how to figure out what the channels app was. I just have a list of this as channels. Channels is, I would say, like, imagine piracy. Okay.

But like less. Does that make sense? Channels is a good way. You can get all the fast channels. You can get a bunch of, you can sort of curate your own TiVo situation, but it's more confident. Yeah, if you have an antenna,

you want channels to run all of that for you. Well, let me say something. Sounds like it too. of you are pretty supportive of channels as a pick. So I'm feeling pretty good about that. It was a good Alex. And let me say this for Peacock. Not only did they announce a new season of poker face, but it didn't stream last year, but it will this year. This is true. And not only are there Olympics, they will have it eventually. If NBC has its way, there will be Olympics every year for the

rest of our lives. Yeah. But I'm not sure how big that's been for them. So I think there's some Downs here, who I think is rock solid? Netflix, we had what, last year we got a season of Stranger Things, season of squid games. I mean, yeah, that's just showing how rock solid their service is. You know,

Crenz did pretty good. Yeah, this is good. Okay, and then my picks were YouTube, just base YouTube, Apple TV Plus, a.k.a. the Severance pick. Tooby, which streamed the Super Bowl, just saying. Prime Video,

the Criterion channel, and Instagram Reels. And just really quick, I'm going to say, I didn't win because I picked Instagram Reels. So I just immediately I am not allowed to win because I picked Instagram Reels. You have the real like discount bundle here. I do. YouTube with ads, just like plain old YouTube with ads.

Apple TV Plus, which you get, if you sneeze loudly enough in an Uber, Tube which is free, Prime Video, which is free. Essentially free, yeah. Criterion is good, right? You get the one. gesture in Instagram Reels, which is just fully Timo TikTok. Knock off TikTok. Yeah. But it's not banned. It's, it is here to say. And it's not going to be banned.

So there is an argument to be made that I intend to make that Instagram Reels is actually a very compelling pick in this year's draft for precisely that reason. But we're going to come back to that. So it's pretty clear to me that Alex Cranz won the draft last year, I would say. If you look at it, Hiccock did the Olympics last year, huge success. Netflix has won the streaming wars. Paramount Plus still exists, which was not guaranteed a year ago, but it's still here doing stuff. By the way, can I be clear? Motor Trend TV did fold, but then it was purchased by something called the Velocity Network,

which relaunched it as a regular cable channel. So it's an 87 on the Go-90 scale immediately. Yeah, it's like a private equity, Go-90. It's good. It's good. Okay. Kranz's list is filled with some, you know, I'm not saying Paramount Plus is a huge winner, but this list has just all of the channels. Like, this is just everything that you actually want to watch.

I don't know how you guys allowed this much to get. I'm sorry, I have TikTok in the Disney bundle. I have a lock on everyone's time. You have Bluey, which I think is big for certain audience. And I have Hulu. That's true. I remember this being controversial that I got to pick the book. Sort of cheating.

I think Cranes picked Hulu with ads like solo or something. I believe she picked just Hulu, either Hulu by itself or Hulu with Live TV. I think that's the one. Because you had to solve live. Right, right. So I think that's Hulu Live TV, which is an important, which no longer exists. Cool. Oh, well.

Fully gone 90. All right, I'm advocating for myself. What a surprise. I think TikTok, the Disney bundle, and Sunday ticket, and Max is a winning lineup, regardless of my Bravia core situation, which I hold dearly to my own heart. If you want to tell me that people who love anime

weren't the winners of 2024, then I don't even know if we're in the same conversation. And somehow here in 2025 with the opening eye situation, they're the obvious losers. this year. All right, David, you got to make the... Actually, Jake, I mean, I know you're reppping Kranz here, but you're the most neutral

observer. That's true. I'm absolutely not neutral here. I'm all in on Kranz. Can I tell you something? I prepped my list assuming I was going to go last. So I have to completely retooled this now. Good, even better. I was just like, there's no way I won. We're giving it to Jake, both because I do think Alex won and because you're new, and it feels like a nice

thing to do. So... That's the reason I'm okay with us. I appreciate that. I think that I won on the merits. And boy, is that going to make. I have the only 80 megabit per second streaming service on this entire list. If you want to watch Spider-Man movies, Nelai Wims. You have to buy a new TV every time you want to watch a movie.

That's the rule. At Sony's prices and with Sony's naming scheme. Yeah. If you can name two Sony televisions correctly, you can win. All right, Jake, you're it. So let me remind everybody how this works. So we are going to pick seven streaming services each. This episode may take us several hours.

And instead of just picking your favorite seven in order, we each have to fill categories. Some of these are very simple and some of them are very complicated. So the seven categories are cheap, which means it has to have some tier under $10. It can be free. It can be $9.99. You have to be able to access this service for less than $10.

That one's most of them. There's awards, which means this service has to have won an Oscar. Any Oscar, big, small, I don't care what it was, but it has to have won an Oscar. 4K, which means it has to offer content in 4K. Live, the service has to have some kind of live element, which is actually going to be much easier this year than it was even last year. Niche, it has to be a genre-specific service. This one's a little mealy, but we'll figure it out together. There is content, which is a new thing this year, and that is you can, you can.

get to pick a show or a movie from any streaming service that you didn't draft. So if you don't have Netflix, but you really want Squid Game, you can draft Squid Game as your thing. And that just goes on your roster as something that counts for you. It has to be on something you didn't draft, but it can be anything you want. And then there's Wildcard, which is anything you want in the whole universe. Wait, is the content one, the Torrent pick? Like your one escape valve is you get to Torrent one show? No. I mean, I guess. if you want, if it's like a weird European documentary, you can't get otherwise. Sure.

No, I'm just saying, like, if you don't pick Apple TV Plus, but you want severance, you can just pick it and the assumption is... We're not going to ask too many questions. Right. That's what I'm getting at, right? Like, it's that we are just like, I'm going to sneak into Ben Stiller's house in the dead of night and leave with some hard drives and thought, okay. The conceit here is, is breaking an entering. Yes, that's right. I just want to be clear. Yeah. Tiptoeing around the category. So each thing can only be drafted once. Not once in each category, once, period. And once it's gone, it's gone.

So we are going to draft 21 unique things in this draft. Does that make sense? Any questions? Ready to go? Let's roll. All right, you're up first, Jake. What do you got? We're starting with cheap.

Well, you don't have to start with cheap. No, you can go in any order you want. You should have to fill out the car. You can do anything you want. Guys, this is... David, this rule sheet could have been more detailed. All right. Hoof.

I will say the key, just as someone who, as a veteran of this draft, you should think about the service that is most likely to be competitive and the category that is most likely to be difficult to fill out later in the round. Those are the two things I would keep in your head early in the draft. You know, David's are competitor. He's lying to you. I'm going to start strong and I'm going to go for awards. And the awards category is the category I hate the most because there are three streaming services that have won Oscars. It's not a long list.

Normally, I'm a real hater of this streaming service. But in 2025, Netflix has the final season of Stranger Things, the final season of Squid Game, and a new Knives Out movie. And I'm sure there will be

some other stuff that's worth watching. So for those three alone, I'm going to lock in Netflix for the awards category. It's a good choice. I think Netflix deserves to be the first overall pick in this draft. It's normally I I'm very

Subscribe on subscribe on Netflix I feel like they have some long periods of some like realityish stuff that I'm not super in love with but they've got a handful of really great series and I'm going to be subscribing at various points this year no matter what so I feel pretty good about opening with Netflix are you consistently good at like remembering

to unsubscribe when you're done watching something. I, like, aspire to be that good at switching streaming services, and instead I just pay for too many of them all. The amount of times that I look at the Netflix tile on my TV and go, oh, got unsubscribe is like 10 times higher than the amount of times I actually unsubscribe. Okay. That makes me feel better. Like, I just, I went to resubscribe to Paramount Plus to watch Champions League Soccer

because I subscribed to it to watch Champions League soccer last year. And I was like, oh, I'll just resubscribe and do it this month and found that I had just stayed subscribed the whole time. So you're welcome for my, like, $150, Paramount Plus. Hey, somebody's got to keep them in business. Yeah. And let me be specific here. I'm paying for 4K.

All right. Okay. Okay. I'm not dealing with ads. Yeah, that's very important. That is important. There was, the first time we ever did this draft, there was a like overall price component, but frankly, it's too hard to track what these things cost anymore, so we just gave up on that.

It's just not worth it. And they'll all be different in a year and who cares. But okay, you're going high tier Netflix. Oh, yeah. In the awards category. I like it for you. All right. Eli, you get to be up second because Bravia Corps is such a smashing success.

Oh, don't worry. I have more extremely weird choices to come. I'm starting strong again with cheap and going to TikTok. I've picked it first two years in a row. Yep. And I'm sticking with it. You're not worried that this time next year there will be no TikTok in the United States? I'm worried there won't be United States this time next year, David. So I'm just going to close my eyes and...

And you know where we will watch the downfall, possibly on TikTok? It's very true. It's real. But yeah, I think for the purpose of this draft, you can't be worried about, you know, the nagging ACL injury. You just got to go. You got to go with the consensus number one. Do you think, so like I think Netflix is pretty undeniably more powerful now than it was 12 months ago. Is TikTok?

Has TikTok gone up or down since we last did this draft? Sideways. Okay. Right. It just remains. It's so powerful. You can't. get rid of it, but it's so weak that at any moment it might disappear.

Right? It might just collapse under its own weight or it might become this political pawn. But I think in terms of where the culture is day to day, it's still TikTok. No one is opening Instagram reels to find new music. No one is forced to contend with like everyday Olivia Rodriguez is in a new South American country, and you just have to see it happen. Like that's TikTok. And like the music industry is still dependent on it. There's just something White Lotus had its entire Parker Posey moment on the back of TikTok. It's TikTok.

Is it weaker than ever? Yes, as a company as an entity. I think culturally, it's so strong as it has been. I think that's right. I don't know if it's, yeah, I think Sideways is probably right on that front. It's not, it doesn't feel like it's more central to culture than it was, but I think that's just because we're so used to how central it is to, like, the, there are fewer people being excited about, like, it breaks some.

30-year-old song becomes a number one hit again because that's just what happens. That's just how TikTok works now. Yeah, and the conspiracies about it are even weirder, like meta-secretely runs the algorithm. Is that a conspiracy? Oh, yeah. Like, it's already been sold.

There's just like another burbling way. Like, it's become more of just a platform that everybody understands. To your point, but it still is the thing that creates the cultural moments in a way that very few other platforms can do as regularly as TikTok does. But I like it.

All right. You guys picked the two I was going to pick. Oh, a decision on the Disney bundle, by the way. We're going to treat the Disney bundle as three separate things. There is no Disney bundle this year. You can take Disney Plus, you can take ESPN, and you can take Hulu, but you can't take all three at once? Sure. Simple enough, right?

Oh, by the way, can I say one more thing about TikTok? Please. I've watched a number of movies on TikTok this year. Oh, yeah. It might be all you need. I watched, do you know the Jason Statham movie, The Beekeeper? For some reason that is all over. my TikTok recently.

That's amazing. Yeah, every day again, TikTok is like, you know what? That's going to happen. You're going to watch a few good men. And you just do. It's fine.

Love it. It's just what goes down. It's great. Lately, it's like you, because of Alcomer, I've watched both top guns, but intercut with each other. Oh, that's fun.

In a very odd way. Yeah, it's great. Sure. Okay. I, I'm going to take in live. I hate this already. I'm going with it.

I'm going to take YouTube TV in live. Because I think live is one of the trickier categories here Because everything it does it is equally available other places And it's going to get messy And also YouTube TV is just kind of running away with it In terms of like what is the future of cable The answer is just YouTube TV It is just winning this game

When you think about things with the future You think about cable Pretty much But it's for everything else is turning into bundles and YouTube TV is already that bundle. Yeah. The one thing about YouTube TV that confuses me is that Google has not just sold a YouTube TV device. Any Google TV that you buy, it doesn't just light up with like YouTube TV is here.

They have integrations, but it's still an operating system with apps and tiles and like, yes, you can get to a guide. But no one has, I think only Google could do it, just been like, it's a cable buy. Right. Like I have the Google TV streamer right there. And I love it. It is a terrific set top box. But you're right. Like I want to be able to log into YouTube TV. And the very first thing it shows me is not the home screen. It should show me YouTube TV. And then I should back out into the apps. Like that would make the whole experience better and I think more compelling. And it's funny because Apple on the Apple TV has the button on their remote and they are desperate to make their app the actual interface. But they don't have the content. And then Google has all of the content. And they. haven't done it. David, I feel like you're describing the old school, you know, cable box where you just like went to on-demand content and like navigated to this super sluggish and slow interface to like watch whatever five movies are available for you, which was not my favorite, but it is, you know, you jumped right into stuff. It is, it is my strong belief that when you turn

on your television, the first thing it should show you is not a home screen. I think that is like a disastrous product decision we have let everybody make that when I turn on my TV, it shouldn't show me television. It should show me television. Keep on the last thing I was watching. Pick something for me and put it on. Like, I don't care what it is. It's like I don't turn on my TV to scroll through apps. David, are you pro Netflix auto playing things? Yes, but I'm not pro them doing it with volume. This is going to get you canceled. That's an unacceptable take. The tiles, this is, this is a conspiracy theory that I have not validated, but believe to my bones.

When it auto plays in the tiles, it is 10 times louder than the actual volume of the program. We have to keep going. I will say, and I've asked any number of streamings I can do this, and I know David has to, all of them should make a fake TikTok that when you're in the, that just shows you bits of pieces of riddles and movies,

and then you can hit the button and it starts playing on the TV. Yes. That's good. 100% agree. And they all love that idea and just absolutely cannot figure out how to do it. All right. So that's my pick.

YouTube TV. Jake, you're up next. What's up? All right. You guys got some good picks here. Those sting. I'm going to head over to what I think is going to be the, what feels like the next hardest category to me,

which is 4K, which is sort of all of them, but also lends itself to, I think, just big mainstream services. And I think there's a couple left that feel pretty strong to me. I'm gonna... Guys, guys, I'm... It's amazing how hard it gets so quickly, right? Second guessing myself as we speak. We're gonna lock in on Hulu.

Hulu is trusty, it's reliable, it has a solid content of old TV shows. There's always something to watch there. They don't necessarily have big winners, but they have a solid movie selection. You know, I've got Netflix for some new original content. I feel good about having Hulu as a backup there. It's a, it's a, is a standby service.

I don't hate it. I feel like 4K is just turning into the name of streaming service now. It is a little bit. A little bit. This, this category has gotten easier to match, which is good. But I think you're right, Jake, that it is increasingly, this is another place to get one of the heavy hitters in here. Yeah.

So I think, I think you picked it right. You both took the top, like, you know, social options. I'm assuming, does YouTube TV include all of YouTube? No, regular YouTube is still available. Regular YouTube is still available. If you'd like to change, you're welcome to. Regular YouTube is straight up on my list. This feels like she didn't change this, but if regular YouTube is available, I'm going to make that change.

Okay, please. Yeah. What's your category? Guys, no, I'm locking on Hulu. Forget this. Okay. We're holding to it. Okay.

Hulu in 4K. Hulu, and it's in 4K, people. I think Hulu is kind of underrated these days. There's a lot of good stuff on Hulu. The original, although I've been watching Paradise, that's very good, highly recommend. But there's just, it's like, Hulu is the one I go to where it's just like, there's just a million 30-minute sitcoms that I'm going to enjoy. Yeah, because it's Fox. Yeah.

Fundamentally, it's Fox. Right. Hulu is the most boring pick. Nobody's ever, like, super hyped to open up Hulu and see the new thing. But it has the thing that you are going to watch after a long day and you're just like, I need to put something on. Like when the TV auto plays something, it should be whatever is on Hulu. You're picking catalog. Yes.

This makes sense. Yeah. Yeah, I don't hit it. I'm with it. It's a good one. Eli, what's next? What do you got? I'm going to put Max in awards.

That's my move. Okay. Because you get that HBO. I'm assuming the pit will be up for awards this year. They've got the movies. They've got the catalog of movies. It feels correct to me. It's a little, like, I don't think Max,

originals have won Oscars yet, but it's like, HBO. Yeah, it's, it's, the line is straight enough that I'll give it to you. Yeah. Why, why Max, be sure? Yeah. Is Max going to still be here? Is America still going to be here, David? Like, this is a very nihilistic draft for me. Like, I'm thinking about tomorrow. I'm not thinking about next year. Okay. Fair enough. But Max has the depth of content. It has, it's funny, I have to log into someone else's

Mac's account to get 4K. It's like I can't put it in 4K because I don't have it in 4K because I'm still grandfathered into my AT&T free Mac subscription, which AT&T knows about because I keep mentioning it on the show and they can't figure out how to stop giving me free Macs either. Perfect, but it's only in 1080P, which is just very weird.

You know, I've got a daughter, the Harry Potter movies on Max. There's a lot here. We've been watching those together. They get a little too scary after, four for a six-year-old. So we're just going to wait to watch the additional four movies. But we're going to watch those first four over and over again.

Love it. Yeah. I mean, like, it's just, it has the catalog, and then it has HBO. So if that White Lotus, Righteous Gemstones moment, that's important to me. I'm not a, I'm not to, like, turn on any garbage TV watcher. I'm a very intentful TV washer. Do you cancel services? Like, do you, like, watch your show and then bail for a while until you want to come back?

I've been trying to cancel Max for, like, five years, but you can't you just giving it to me. I want to cancel more. The challenge is my wife watches tons and tons of comedy specials, and they're on every service. Right? And so you're just kind of like, well, I canceled the one you want today, and then we just like start it again. Including recently Hulu, which is deep into comedy all of stuff. I think they've all figured out this is like a reliable source of cheap content that they can get at a cadence that people will watch. Yeah.

And people will always watch. Yep. And then clip it and put it on TikTok. And that's where I live. Which is the other thing that is all over my TikTok all the time is just like stand up. Like Nate Bargettze is two thirds of my TikTok at any given moment. Okay. I worry I'm going to run out of awards possibilities here.

So I'm going to take Amazon Prime video in awards because otherwise I think there's a decent chance. There's just not going to be anything left for me to pick before too long. I think Prime is working. It's like the football thing is going very well. They're way overpaid. They're going to start doing bond stuff. People seem to like reach her, I guess. Sure.

That's a show. Matt Bellany from Puck just recently described it to me as guys with guns shows, and Amazon's very good at guys with guns shows. So Prime is like, it's like the least interesting, totally mainstream service. But I'll take it. Have you been watching The Lord of the Rings show? No. I have not watched that one, and I have not watched Citadel, which are the ones that Amazon spent all of its money on. Yes, and maybe why they now have a new person in charge.

Uh-huh. Yeah. But I did watch a bunch of, like, whatever weird stuff Jeremy Clarkson is up to these days, I will always watch on crime video. So that works for me. He's like, we've done something irresponsible with a cop. He bought a Lamborghini tractor and made like three episodes of a TV show about that. And I was like, yeah, I'll watch this. That sounds great. You are very much like, whatever's on. You're like, that's why you just want the TV to start playing stuff at you. Sometimes. So, like, my parents used to make fun of me because I would, I could, I loved to take naps.

I still do love to take naps. But I always nap with the TV on. It's just, it's like, I can turn my brain off when I'm halfway listening to a TV show I've seen before. And so there's, like, background television is a bigger part of my life than I'm proud of. Like, I do a lot of, like, watching TV while I do other things. and that's where service is like Prime Video where it's like a thing I've seen before or something I haven't seen

but like don't really need to look at is very helpful. Can you write while you're listening to music with words? God, no. Okay. Absolutely not. I can't do anything creative in that headspace.

Like the language center of my brain does not let me listen to music with lyrics while I am writing or communicating. And it's the same, I can't believe you can do it with TV. But I guess you're just like passed out. No, I can't do any like creative act

while something like that is on. But it's like if I'm cooking or cleaning or napping or whatever, like I almost always will have like an episode of the office on in the background. It's like it's basically a podcast. Like I listen to TV shows the way some people listen to podcasts. And I also listen to podcasts. This explains a lot of your picks over the years. All right.

So just to recap and then we're going to take a break. Jake so far has picked Netflix in awards and Hulu in 4K. Eli so far has picked TikTok in cheap. and Max in awards, and I have YouTube TV in Live and Amazon Prime in awards. We're going to take a really quick break, and then we're going to come back to do some more categories. We'll be right back. Support for this show comes from Shopify. Every thriving, successful business has to start somewhere.

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All right, we're back. Round three. Jake Kastranakis, what do you got? Let's do it. I've been thinking very hard about this. Listen, my first two picks, they're pretty mainstream. They're pretty dead ahead. We've got Netflix.

We've got Hulu. I've got options here to grab some more big hitters, but I got to get out there a little bit. We've got to get a little more interesting. I'm going into the cheap tier. I'm taking Tooby. I'm not paying another penny. I want that.

I'm expanding my catalog of movies. They have some great films on there. It sounds terrible. You've got to watch ads. There's one ad up front, and you watch some Oscar-winning movie from the 1970s. Also, there's ads everywhere now. Like, oh, no, there's ads.

It's like not a good case against a streaming service anymore. Right. I think, like, genuinely, this is not a problem for most people. I mean, listen, if they were interrupting in the middle of the movie, I would complain to the end. of the earth that you would never hear the end of me. But it's not bad at all. I've watched a handful of movies on it over the past year.

I think, you know, we've seen these free streaming services continue to get more and more promotion. It feels like there is more attention on them than ever. I don't necessarily know that Tubey isn't for a big breakout year, but I feel good about it as a cheap pick. Well, so, okay, this is the thing I was waiting until somebody picked Tubey to ask, because I've been thinking about this ever since the Super Bowl, right? Tooby had the Super Bowl.

Lots of people watched, was a big hit, did very well. The stream held up. Like, good job, Tooby. Do you feel like Tooby has held on to any of that, right? Like, the hope is you get this big giant spike of interest. And then it comes back down, but it doesn't come all the way down. And it, like, resets a little higher. But I don't feel like even slightly more people seem to be talking about Toobie than they were before the Super Bowl.

I do think that's a challenge. The way I end up on Tooby is that I go to look up where I can watch a certain movie. and then I'm told that for whatever reason it is free on Tobey or the only place it is available is on Tobey but the actually I will say like the thing where it is only available on Tobey happens more often than I would expect

I think there is just this weird catalog of slightly less popular movies you know somebody wants Top Gun that's going to end up on a major streaming service I hope that's true I haven't checked I watched The Long Goodbye The very famous movie I think it made me won an Oscar

hopefully that's right you know, this is like a big movie back in the day. It is only available, I think, on Tooby or something like that. And I think, like, there's a whole collection of films like that that are overlooked by these services that are extremely cut throat on, you know, is this going to hook my mainstream subscriber base? And there's just stuff that you, like, cannot find. And since we're looking for stuff that you can stream, I want Tooby. I want to have those options. I think the thing you said about, like, I just Google it and it clicks me to Tooby is, like,

like a underrated, powerful thing in Tooby's favor. And it has been the thing forever. In most cases, you don't even have to log in. You don't have to have an account. You just click the thing and it starts playing the movie. And there are almost no other entertainment experiences outside of like social platforms that work that way anymore. And that's kudos to Tooby for pulling that off. I am confused how they got the Super Bowl.

That still is. Well, they're owned by Fox. And they chose Tooby. because they wanted to drive to be installed. Yeah, because they don't have another streaming service. Yeah, like Fox doesn't have an

Fox has like Fox Nation live or whatever. Like you can't drive Americans to that app, right? So it's not a choice that Fox can make. So they're like, where can we stream the Super Bowl?

It wasn't the Fox Sports app which is like a cable login. It's our big mainstream fast competitor. Yeah. And I think they got all those logins that way. That works. It's very smart of them.

That Rupert Murdoch, Wiley. He knows what he's doing, yeah. Fox now is apparently working on some other big streaming service that I'm sure is going to go super great for them. I think it's a good pick. I'm in favor. I had two be very high on my list here. Nealai, what's next to you?

What do you got? I've been making a lot of decisions here while you guys were talking. I've been working my board really hard. It's Motor Trend TV. I'm going back and forth between two of them, and I think what I've decided. decided is that there's no chance that either of you will pick the thing that I'm worried about. So I'm going to go another way.

And then when I make that pick, I reveal what it was. All right. Does that work for you? Okay. Okay. So for 4K, I'm picking Disney Plus. Oh. That's what I was going to do next.

Yeah. This is me working the board. Yeah. I'm a little surprised it lasted this long. Yeah. It's tough. It's a, it's, it's, if you have children, it's a requirement, it, 4K. We got to talk about the 4K category as it exists next year.

But it's in 4K. You get all the Disney movies in 4K, so it slots in here well. Bluey, obviously very important. But Frozen 2, shockingly important in my household. Same. Like, very important. I don't know how to explain to Max that one song is basically just a Peter Satera song from the 80s. But it is.

A song is called Lost in the Woods, and it's a banger. I'm like, you know, there's this band called Chicago. And she's like, I don't care about this. And then I try to make everybody listen to Chicago, which I don't even like listening to, but I just have to make the point. And everyone's like, what is happening in this house?

So that's very important to us as just a weekend cycle that we go through. And then you get all the Marvel stuff. You get Andor. It's all there for you. Like, Disney Plus, the only other one I would say should have been a number one pick.

This is a shocking slide because you can make a good argument for number one. Yeah, I agree. I think it is, that is going to be the thing I picked if you didn't. So I buy it. I will say, I have one, Bob Eager, I know you're listening. I have one complaint I would like to make about Disney Plus, which is they just launched a 24-7 Simpsons stream. It's basically a fast channel, but it's all Simpsons.

Very good idea, except for some reason, my two-year-old, now every time I open the Disney Plus app, it is right at like his pointing level, and he runs over to it and goes Simpsons. And it turns out that if you put on Simpsons, someone will say the word hell within six seconds. And so I can't watch it. But now every single morning, he just runs over and he just goes, Simpsons. And I don't know how to tell him that this cartoon is illegal for him.

We had the parental controls and ours messed up. We, I had the messed up. And for some reason, I had said it so that unrated TV shows would show up Max's profile. And so she opened it and the first thing in front of her face was the UFC.

And I was like, this isn't, this isn't right. This doesn't go next to the one. Like, no, thank you. And you got to go dig through it. There's some real messy Disney brand stuff happening because the parental controls

are so confusing. The gambling they've put next to Frozen is out of control. It's true. ESPN bet is right there. Will she pull it off this time? Like you say that. but we're like rapidly veering towards that.

And especially now that all the stuff is in there, right? Like Hulu is now totally integrated and ESPN is totally integrated. And all of the stuff is now just in Disney Plus. There's some pretty like racy stuff that shows up at the top of the page while I'm looking to start Frozen 2 for the 85th time. It's a little weird. Yeah. It's just a weird brand. And this is why they didn't do it.

Right. This is why they had the other. This is why they had Hulu. And then they weren't getting, this is the same as why you go to Tube? They're like, we'll just shove it on Disney Plus. Yeah.

It's a lot. Yeah. But I feel confident with, especially as a third pick in the 4K category. Yeah. So home run. It's a good pick. I'm winning so far.

I just want to be very clear about this. Yeah, we're all really proud of you, Tela. As much as I don't want to have two YouTube things, I feel like at this point, I have to pick, like, YouTube man. It is,

it is by a mile the most watched streaming service. It is like it has won the internet. Yep. I now have, I now have Amazon Prime YouTube TV and YouTube, which makes me like

the least interesting American consumer of all time. You know what that gets you though? Not only does that get you Mr. Beast's channel, it gets you Amazon's Mr. Beast reality show. That's true.

I get Mr. Beast and Beast games. What category are you in? I'm trying to decide. I think I'm going to put it in 4K because... So you're paying for premium? On principle, I'm paying for premium. I seriously believe that no ads on YouTube

is the best money I pay for entertainment every month. Wait, is premium 4K on TVs? Is that a thing on YouTube? Am I just making that up? It's not all... Not everything is 4K, but you do get lots of 4K stuff. And you don't if you have ads? That I don't know.

I'm truly just paying for no ads. I am happy. But why is it... How does that go in the 4K content? Because I get 4K content. I could put it in cheap if I was doing ads, is my point. Right. But I'm not doing that.

I'm saying you might have to put this in wild card. But I get 4K content. Because you're not buying it for 4K. Oh, interesting. Well, no, but it doesn't, I get 4K. There is 4K. We got to rethink this whole category. Marquez Brownies out here doing it in like 16K.

I could have made that a category. So we're going to rename this Krispy? Yeah. I mean, yeah, we can do that. that. All right, I'm allowing it this year. Okay. I think the 4K category is under a lot of pressure. Okay. That's fair. Maybe that is the one that needs a change, because you're right that access to 4K content is increasingly just everywhere. No, it's what you, it's gated. It's you have to pay for it everywhere. Right. I don't know. You send us your notes. But Jake picked Hulu

and you just get it on Hulu, so we'll allow it this year, but fair. This is under reconsideration for 26. And I would like to hear the feedback about it. Yeah, agreed. All right. So I'm picking, I'm picking YouTube main, or YouTube, YouTube main, YouTube premium. I feel good about it. Jake, you're up. All right, guys, I have a real problem here, which is, at this point, David's got YouTube, you know, he's got TikTok. I don't really have a social presence here. So I'm going to throw something out there. I need you tell me if this fits if I'm combining too many things are the requirement for the live categories there needs to be some sort of live content I don't need that live content to be any good I just need this service that's correct it just needs

to be live listen hit me up with Instagram Reels is a perfectly fine knockoff and there's some live streams in there oh I don't know what they're doing they're selling some stuff whatever I will watch all your TikToks two weeks later and you know what you're going with Instagram live for your live yeah Okay, so this, this, Neli makes the correct point. You can't have Instagram as a whole. Because Instagram as a whole is not a streaming service. Are reels and live one thing? No, which is your problem.

You can have reels or you can have live, but you can't have both. You know what guys? Because in classic Instagram fashion, they've made them two different products where there are one product on. They are two different features. Why are they two different features? Because YouTube hates you. Here's a thing. I'm locking it in, Instagram Live.

Wow. Listen, there's a big year ahead for Instagram. TikTok's getting banned. Instagram's going to have to figure their product out. It's going to be one thing. And this is a long play. It's just Jake in the decaying corpse versus... Someone is going to have a rock and roll Instagram live

by the end of 2025. This is going to pay off. It's going to be more interesting than if I had chosen Sling Blue. So I feel good about this. So Jake, the thing that might work for you here is that, like, you now have to actually root for TikTok to be banned. That's, that is the main thing you need for this pick to pay off.

Because now there's all these, all this reporting and rumors out there about like Instagram is once again trying to capitalize on TikTok going away and like maybe they're going to do a separate app again. And like there are people out there who are like IGTV was a good idea. We just, you know, bad timing. They're finally making an iPad app. Maybe. It could happen. It really, it could happen. You have to know, like, Instagram's response to TikTok being banned is iPad app. Yeah. Yeah. What's going on in a winner, guys?

They can get there. What are we doing? They're going to buy Mirkat or something. They're going to pull it all together. Love it. I'm excited for you. But yeah, you are now. This one, I'm buying low, trying to sell high here.

Okay. Not for, again, everyone's very confused by the stock market, and that might be us too. That's fine. Yeah. So I will say this means Instagram Reels is still available. You can still have it if you want it. picked Instagram live. Yeah.

I'm like, okay. I feel, I feel absolutely fine about this. It's funny because I don't, my prediction is that reels will not get picked over the course of this draft, but it's why I've got picked. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

I agree with both of those assessments. What was your third place live pick? Oh, this is my, it's my pick now. Oh, this is. You're up. Go for it. This is what I was, this is what I was trying to game out against David. Okay.

Because I know the NFL is important to both of. of us. So I'm just picking Sunday ticket standalone, which you can just buy. Yeah, you can. You don't need YouTube TV. You can just buy it. It's a million dollars, but that's my live pick. Yeah, you don't even need, I don't even think you need YouTube premium. You can truly buy it on its own. Yeah, and you just get it on like the YouTube page, which is a weird way to watch football. Like, that's just, that's a weird thing. Yeah. But all of my games are out of market. So this works for me. So yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm just picking dead ahead Sunday ticket.

Interesting. All right. That's fair. I was not going to pick it only because God help me. I cannot have another YouTube product. But it's a good pick. And it seems to be working. Do you get, if you buy Sunday ticket on its own, isn't it like $500 a season or something insane?

Yeah. It's like $3.50 or something. It's nuts. All to watch the Packers lose the wildcard round. It's nuts. Even if you like buy it in like the regular. Like I have a real playoffs problem here. I'm going to figure something out, but I'll go to the bar.

It'll be fine. Okay. All right. So you got Sunday ticket. I feel good about it. Go to the bar is wild card. And by the way, even if you have Sunday ticket, the NFL is like, here's a game on Amazon Prime. Like, it's all bad.

So there's a reason I was asking about that piracy backstop. You see what I'm saying? Yeah. It's good. All right. My next pick, I think I'm going cheap. I think I'm going to pick Peacock. which I just confirmed you can still get for $8 a month.

We're not publishing this episode for a few days, so that's plenty of time for them to raise the price. But Peacock continues to be the, like, place I watch The Office and Parks and Rec and New Girl, and it's increasingly getting, like, pretty good movies pretty quickly after they come out. It's just, it's kind of, it's doing a thing. I suppose this is where we should disclose that Comcast, NBC Universal is a investor in our parent company at Vox Media.

Round five. They do not pay for my. Peacock still exists. Round five. Exactly. Disclosure. But yeah, I think I think I'm doing it just because I still haven't watched Wicked. And at some point this year, I am going to watch Wicked and they need Peacock to watch Wicked.

So I think I'm doing it. Yeah. Peacock, eventually you'll watch Wicked. The dirty Comcast money well-smassed. And poker face, Jake, like you said. Yeah, I know, it's real. It's real. Poker face. They got some.

They got that one show. There's a lot of like SNL-50 stuff I still have to watch. Like there's, I got stuff to do. Which, by the way, is also on your other pick, YouTube. Oh, crap. You're right. That's okay. I'm just, I'm just SNL for life now.

This is good. All right. I'm taking Peacock. All right, let's do one more round before we take another break. Jake, you're up. All right, guys. Are you ready for this? It's about to hit the niche category.

Tell me, have you ever thought to yourself, I would love to watch a 14-hour documentary about the history of New York City by Ken Burns' brother? By Ken Burns' brother? Have you ever thought... Sven Burns? Boy, these bootleg clips of Antique Roadshow

that I'm seeing on TikTok, I would love to check out the entire series. PBS Passport. Yeah. I'm telling you this is a winner. All right. And if you need this specific genre, I'm going to say this is TV you can fall asleep to.

I think this is going to be a big hit. You get to help support public access TV, which hopefully will exist by the end of this year. Yeah, will not be here next year. And you know what? Your subscription to PBS Passport will help. All right. I respect it.

I feel good about this one. A big theme. here is that everyone is falling asleep to the TV. Like, why are we all paying so much money for streaming services when mostly what we're doing is passing out? Oh, I've got more where that comes from. Okay. Just just wait. That also appears to be how everyone watches TV. Like, do you, do you guys ever see this thing that flips around every once in a while that, uh, one of the directives Netflix gives to people who are making a show is that everyone has to always say what they're thinking and what's happening out loud because most people aren't watching the show. So they have to, like,

you can't, there can't be any unsaid, important details in a Netflix show, because they understand that lots of people are just sitting there looking at their phone. So they have to say everything out loud and it drives creatives absolutely insane.

But like, this is the world we live in now. This is horrifying. This is also what you just described earlier where you're just like, I have TV on in the background while I'm cooking all the time and this is like how you watch everything. And it's just people doing exposition

all day long in the background of David's house. Yeah. This apple is delicious. Like, There's a reason that Hollywood is dying, and it's that and the frame TV, which we will come to it. It's bleak out there. All right, PBS, love it. No, no.

It's, uh, Neely, what do you got? All right. My, I'm, it's, it's time. It's time for Nealai to do a niche pick as well. Okay. So I'm picking Collidercape, which is an ultra high bit rate, day-and-date movie server. What? Oh, God.

What? You got to have one. You got to have one. Oh, so run Collidescape. You have to buy a server called the Terra Prime, which you, like, put in a rack in your basement, because obviously you have a rack in your basement. The Terra Prime for the 24-terabyte version is $10,500.

And then you need to buy the StratocC or Stratov-V players for all the TV in your house. The StratocC is the budget model. That's $3,000. The Stratov-V, which is a player and with an integrated server, that's $4,000. And then you get day-in-date. You can buy full-quality movies. How much is the movie? The movies are tremendously expensive.

Is this a service that, like, Tom Cruise uses to watch theatrical movies in his home theater? There's a little bit of that going on. It feels like they're a little later now than they used to be. Okay. There's this thing called the Bel Air Circuit where all the houses in Bel Air have, like, screening rooms in them, like a day and date. They used to be the circuit because they run the physical reels around. Now there's digital distribution. But the movies are not always expensive.

It depends, right? Like, some of them are $30, but some of them are like $200 because they're day and day. Okay, I'm just, I'm on Collidescape's webpage. And Jake, I just want to read you this paragraph, which is the most Nelai coded thing I think I've ever heard. It says, Collidercape movie experts annotate each movie with data such as screen size and credit and intermission cues. This allows our players to integrate with your home automation to dim lights, close shades, and adjust seating when the titles roll, and automatically screen masks to match the ratio of each film. Immersive experiences that streaming services simply can't achieve.

Like, I guarantee you Nelai read this and just started just slinging money at his computer screen. The worst part about this is that Nelai is right. Like, this sounds awesome. Easily the sickest thing. This sounds incredible. Yeah, yeah. Like, easily the sickest possible movie exchange. I have stared at a collider escape so many times.

I'm like, I should sell one of my cars. And I can't, I don't watch enough movies. One of us picked Tooby, the other picked. Like, $30,000 set up to watch a wicked. Hell yes. I have a cousin. who sent me a picture of the rack in his brother-in-law's house in Virginia with like five strato vs in it. And I was like, I'm going to this house.

Like, let's go. Like, I'm very excited about it. What screens do you play on? I've been waiting this entire time to make this pick. When do you do it? I could have done it at number one. I've been on edge this whole. Some one of us could have gotten there first.

It's, yeah, easily the sickest movie experience you can have. It sounds great. It is. You watch it on the frame? You watch it on the garbage. No, you have to build. You don't have to. But you're supposed to build a theater so that the...

But it's optional at that point. So that the stratov can send 12-volt triggers to various home automation devices. I'm just imagining you being like, Max, I'm so sorry. You have to move out of your bedroom. I'm turning it into the kaleidoscape theater. It's very good. I'm very excited about this idea. I've never been more excited about anything, actually.

It's good stuff. I think you might only need a strato-V at this point. I don't know. It's just a lot of money. That's what I have for you. Honestly, if you sell your car, you will go fewer places so you'll have more time to watch movies. It's true. I'll just be alone in my house.

Look, if anybody is listening and you want to tell us about your collad escape. We will come to your house and watch movies. I will be there. Yeah. This is not a question. And then you will wake up and you'll be like, where did my kaleidescape go? All right. I am going to go content, and I'm going to pick Stranger Things Season 5, which I think,

is going to be enormous and humongous and might win me this draft all by itself. I think in terms of like stuff that is going to be on streaming services between now and next year, this one is the one that is like, if I can't have Netflix, at least I get to have stranger things.

Yeah, I think that's a big win for you. The season might be awful. Like, all these actors are like in their 40s now. Yeah. They've been doing this for forever. It's going to, it's going to be insane, but I kind of feel like everyone on Earth is going to watch it. It's also, it's like the biggest thing that Netflix will have maybe ever, right?

Like this is the single biggest show they've had, at least like culturally. This conclusion has been coming for years. I think a lot of people are very hyped about it. I'm very hyped for it. I'm not even necessarily sure it's going to be amazing. But yeah, I'm excited. So yeah, I think that's a good get for you. I feel good about it.

I'm a little worried it's not going to come out this year because it has been, like imminent for a very long time. But I have faith. Yeah. And I choose to believe that it's going to happen, I think. They can get it there. I almost picked Ted Lassau season four, but then I knew Nini, I would make fun of me for a really long time.

Yeah. And I just don't need that in my life. Well, I just want to tell you that K Kallescape streams in 65 megabits per second, which is higher than a 4K blue radius. I knew when you had not said anything in a minute. It was because you were reading about Kalyzer. We've lost Niel. And lossless audio, my man.

Come on. It's just a $15,000 initial. Look, I love this for you. All right, we're going to take one more break, and then we got two more categories to do. We'll be right back. Support for the show comes from MongoDB. If you're tired of database limitations and architectures that break when you scale, it's time to think outside of rows and columns.

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Get started by posting your job for free at LinkedIn.com slash track. Terms and conditions apply. Buzzwords like progressive and affordability are thrown around all the time in politics. But what do they actually mean? For me, being a progressive means at least two things. one, being willing to unite lots and lots of people, all of the folks that are getting screwed over against the powers that be that are making your life worse.

And then second, being progressive is essentially a hopeful enterprise that you think, I think, that the world can be much better, that we don't have to settle for crumbs or settle for the status quo. And is there a difference between what it means to the elected officials and what it means to the people? So money is essentially the root of everything. I don't care if you're gay. I don't care if you have all that.

That's like secondary, third. That's not a priority. That's this week on America Actually. Let's begin. All right, we're back. We're five categories in. We got two more to go. Quick recap before we finish.

Jake has picked To be Netflix, Hulu, Instagram Live, for some reason, and PBS Passport. Some choices in there. Nelai has picked TikTok, Max, Disney Plus, NFL Sunday ticket and Collidescape and has ceased paying attention to this podcast since he picked Collidescape.

I've done everything I need to do. Nilai is finished. And I have Peacock, Amazon Prime Video, YouTube Premium, YouTube TV, and Stranger Things Season 5. We have two more categories each. Jake, you're up. All right, guys.

It's going to be a stressful year. We all need something to kind of chill out, relax too. I'll also note that, you know, we're talking about video here, but I don't know what this does for our ability to listen to music. So I've been thinking about that. I don't have YouTube. So I'm going to grab

Lofi Girl. Oh. Listen, lock that in while the world is burning. I'm going to be in my bedroom studying, a little scarf around my neck, just sort of zanning out. I think this is going to be a good one for 2025. It's a strong pick, actually. Because if if the stick here is these are the only things you're allowed to consume this year, you do need that. That's a. That's a, That's a strong pick. I like that for you. I think it's not covered by anything else

that I've got. You know, it's providing, I think, a very distinct service. So, yeah, I feel good about Lofi Girl. Which Lofi Girl station

do you listen to? There's like three or four of them now. We're just going to go with the main for this pick. I'm not a connoisseur. You can have the whole channel. I'll give you the whole channel. I'm just curious which one you listen to.

Whichever one comes up. I mean, I don't be honest, not personally a big Lofi Girl listener. Which maybe defeats the purpose of this draft, but I'm trying to think holistically here, right? Sure. I want to get some music in. This is, I think, the single hottest music channel on streaming services that I know of.

I don't think I can pick the entire, like, channel for, God, does it even exist anymore? What was the YouTube music video service? Vivo? Vivo. Yeah. That was it. Yeah, they broke it up into individual artists. So you would have to pick, like, Billy Elish Vio.

Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Billy Iish's YouTube channel is not a bad pick. Probably can just go with that. No, Lo-Fi Girl. Listen, it's not necessarily my constant jam, which maybe defeats the purpose of this pick, but I think it is the right tone for 2025.

I like it. That's why I'm locking it in. I support it. I also, for anyone who spends all of their time on the regular Lo-Fi channel, which is very good, the synthwave channel also very good. Not nearly as popular. I'm looking at it now. It's like a tenth as many

people on the channel right now. But it's called synthwave radio on Lofi Girl. It's very good. I highly recommend. There's also a jazz one that I'm not nearly cool enough to listen to. But Jake, you could be. You wear good sweaters. You could listen to jazz. Listen, now that I have Lofi channel, I want to find out. I love this for you. All right, Nelai, what do you got? I'm realizing that I made an error. In that I did not pick Clyde Escape for every one of these. So for content, could I have picked just NFL and gotten the out?

No. Okay. Could I have picked like Reddit slash NFL live streams and gotten the out? Can I pick that for Wildcard? Do you see what I'm saying? Interesting. Because I made a very important pick for live. And I'm thinking, oh, I could have, I might, there's only one reason I needed it.

I'm going to say no, because I think Lofi Girl qualifies as more or less a piece of content. Like, I think if you were to say under content, you're going to pick the Super Bowl. I'd give you the Super Bowl. But I don't think the NFL sees, I think it's too big. Too big.

Yeah. And the collected catalog of Lofi Girl is not too big. That's a nonstop stream. That thing doesn't, she doesn't sleep. Sometimes she gets a murder, apparently. But what I understand is some sort of like LARP situation. The meta story of the fly girl. Every now again, she disappears and people have to do a quest.

It's like a thing. I've got gamification built in here, too. Oh, yeah. The lore is so much deeper than you know, Jake. So the one thing I don't really have here is any kind of news content. True. Except for whatever extremely weird version of CNN they run on Max, which is like not worth watching because it's not actually CNN.

It's like, what if this was worse? You're like, I don't want this. So here's what I'm picking. I'm going to throw it in content. I'm going to throw, I've got to put a news service here, right? That's what you need live television for, especially in this moment. And I feel like the regular cable news channels, I have just become weird podcasts onto themselves. So if I'm going to pick a weird news podcast, I'm picking my pals at CNBC.

I'm just putting that here in content. Okay. Because if Lyme's going to go down. And I'm going to panic with a bunch of weirdos. It's my buddies. Okay. So that's my content. I'm glad we got a podcast in here.

Yeah. Is it a CNBC, like, podcast stream? Like what? See, the CNBC literally, if you go onto their homepage right now, there's a button that says watch live stream, which is an incredible button for a cable channel to have. And then it says prefer audio, because I think they've realized that it is just a weird podcast about a chart.

Like, what does CNBC make every day? a podcast about a chart. The hosts come and go, but they're making a podcast about a chart. Sure. And so there's a button where you can just listen to it and they put out all the shows

as podcasts in various. I don't know if any of this is working strategically, and obviously they're being spun out of Comcast into their own. They're going to live whatever weird life in a company called literally Spinco. Yeah.

I don't think it's going to happen. But I do know that if I want to listen to people panic about line go down, I prefer that over the general interest news channels. I can get that for my bastardized CNN and Max. You see what I'm saying? Yeah, I like it. And I think CNBC is like, it's got to be weird to program a thing that you know.

Many of your viewers are going to watch with no sound and many of your viewers are only going to listen to. It's like very few people seem to actively sit and listen and look at cable TV. It's one or the other. It's like you're in an airport with no sound. Oh, you put audio stream here. I'm just saying. Well, yeah, you can have the live stream. I don't care.

You can have whatever you want. My point is all cable news broadcasts are now weird podcasts. Like, if you just look, if you look at what we do every week, it's like, here's some people talking to each other for a while about stuff. And you like watch any major cable news. They're like, here's 35 people in a grid talking about stuff. And it's just a podcast. And like, everything is converging on this form. But you do need the like live reactive to news in your content mix.

We need more charts on the Virchcast. is what I'm hearing. A live podcast where we panic about a chart is like, that's cable news in 2025. I'm not ready for it. All right, that's a good one. I will be watching as little news as possible over the rest of these years.

So I will skip on that one. All right, I'm up next. I have niche and wild card left. I think I'm going to pick wild card. And I'm going to go Paramount Plus with great sadness and trepidation. But I need sports. And Paramount Plus has a lot of very good sports.

Paramount Plus is how I watch March Madness. It's how I watch the Masters. It's how I watch Champions League soccer. It is like, there's just this like steady drumbeat of very important sports to me on CBS that I can only get through Paramount Plus. And I don't love giving them my money because it's not a good service other times. Although they do also have the Mission of Possible movies. So that helps. Guys going to be big this year.

They got another one coming up. You're going to have a rewatch marathon. I think there's something there. Yeah. So I'm taking Paramount Plus, but like I will probably cancel it three separate times over the course of this year. That's right. But I want to have it available to me. Also, this is the Alex Cranes Memorial Pick.

And you know what? Turn out to be a winner. So might be a strong option. Yeah. Whoever picks Paramount Plus. Yeah. Listen, if they finally make the great Star Trek show, I'm sitting pretty. It's going to be amazing.

Yeah. All right. We got one round left. Jake, you have wildcard left. Nelai, you have wildcard left, and I have niche left. Jake, you're up. All right, folks.

I'm going to pick a service that I do not believe has appeared in the Vergecast streaming draft to date. This is one of the greatest streaming services I've ever used, but is also not widely available. And that is Canopy. Canopy is the service that you can get through your library. This thing is free for you. because your library pays for it.

They have an excellent library of movies, including, you know, new stuff, old stuff. This is, once again, the library that you do not find on Netflix because Netflix doesn't want to pay for this because it's a bunch of weirdos who watch this stuff. The only downside to the service is

your library has to be a partner of Canopy. But if your library is a partner of Canopy, you just watch as much as you want for free, and it's great. What's the bit, right? Like 480P probably? What are we talking about? Like I don't know.

You got a privatized library, Jake. That's what I realized I did not check out the bit rate requirements in that. I'll be honest, the New York Public Library does not currently sport canopy. So I do need to pretend I live somewhere else and get another library card in order to take advantage of this pick. However, there was a brief period of time when I had canopy access and my God. It was a shining star. It was the best service I've ever used. I'm not saying I recommend this,

but I'm also saying it's not very hard to get a library card somewhere you don't live. It's all I'll say. Wow. Have you ever been to Reddit.com or library cards? There we go. That's a good thing. Canopy is sneakily very good.

And the whole sort of stuff you can get with your library card on the internet ecosystem is perpetually way better than it gets credit for. Canopy is great. Blibi is great. It's like there's a whole universe of good digital content out there that you can get with your library card.

Please don't close all of our libraries. Support your libraries, people. That's a good pick. I think Canopy has come up before, but I don't think anyone has ever picked it. So you've done it. You've also really, between Canopy and PBS Passport and Lofi Girl,

you've really like Brooklynized your draft in a way that I very much approve of. There are some ups and downs in my selections, but, you know, I'm feeling good about about, about a few of these. It's strong. I love it for you.

All right. Nil, last pick. What do you got? All right. Because I was not allowed to just pick an entire sports situation as content,

this really changed my dynamic. So for my wild card, I'm picking F1 TV. That's good. It's good. And really, I've been inspired by how much sleeping we're all doing. And that's what I sleep.

But those middle 15 laps, I'm out like night. Yeah. Middle 30 even. I saved niche for last because I was positive no one was going to pick F1 TV and I was going to pick it. Oof. Yeah. Rough.

You and I have been dancing around the sports situation this whole time. David, can I tell you Instagram Reels is still out there? F1 TV is also a very good streaming service. In the like, how should sports be broadcast? It's like show me a million different angles. Show me all the data. Show me none of the data. Just like make it chaotic and cool, interesting sportsy ways.

F1 TV does a very good job. I was looking in a Reddit thread for a bar around. me that would like show races, which is a weird thing because it's either very early in the morning or you got to everyone's got to agree to watch a replay. And there's a number of comments there that are like, I will never watch this in a bar because I need to be locked in with data from F1 TV. And it's like not, does anyone want to go to a bar? It's like locked in with an Excel spreadsheet measuring tire degradation live from F1 TV. That's how I prefer to experience the sport. It's like, okay, so I'm going to be taking a nap at home.

It's very good. Strong correlation, by the way, between people who love video games and F1 because they're just doing video game stuff. Like, they're just like min-maxing, like, European boys. It's very good. The Polygon people love F-1. They're always like, is it a spreadsheet game? It's a lot of it.

It is very much. It is like the nerdiest sport you could possibly imagine in all of the best ways. Well, this sucks. because now I don't know what I'm going to pick. I want to say, by the way, this officially means Apple TV is going to go undrafted. I was wondering. I thought about taking it in Wildcard, but I think I need, I need, like, Severance already happened. So, like, I'm good on Apple TV for a while.

Did anything happen, David? I'm not doing this with you again. Same conversation on White Lotus, by the way. It appears Netflix has issued rules where everyone just has to be doing like bold-faced exposition. And Apple and Max have been like nothing happens for three episodes in the middle. But it's beautiful. So people can look at their phones. Yeah.

Yeah. Like huge, gorgeous establishing shots. The end. The end of episode. Will this monkey murder someone? No. Actually, nothing. Nothing will happen.

Okay. Also, ESPN Plus. drafted. Interesting. And I think ESPN Plus doesn't count as a niche streaming service. That feels too mainstream, right? I don't think I can get away with that. I'm going to take Britbox as mine.

Britbox is just an unbelievable repository of, I believe, BBC-specific British content. A, a lot of good stuff. Like, oh, boy, do you want people, like, quietly solving murders in beautiful countryside's Britbox has you covered forever. A lot of good house shows on Britbox. But really I'm taking it because I think in a time where people are looking for less America in their lives, we're all going British. It's just going to be me and my Britbox homies. Just checking it out.

Is that what we're doing? That's what it's going to be. That's the bet I'm making here. I feel like you ought to pick a Russian streaming stream. We want this again. Like what's going on over there? Is it cool? because it seems like we ought to know.

Yeah, I'm just looking at this now. There's a show called Douglas is canceled that I think I can watch. Anytime people tell me what they're watching on Brit Box, truly just shows I've never known existed. I'm sure they're delightful, but it's very goofy names. They've been on for a decade.

I've just never heard of them. Jake, there's a show on here called Gardner's World that I'm pretty excited about. Oh, you know, that is a hit, though. Gardner's world is the number one worldwide gardening competition series. Monty and the team are back, full of the best practical tips and advice for gardeners. Five seasons. Yeah.

Let's go. This is the cozy TV I'm looking for. There was a big contract negotiation issue with Monty, so that actually was a big deal. Monty actually got replaced in season three silently. Look, David, an extremely weird pick. That's what I actually tell you. We really, really fizzled out here at the end where David just started Googling

cool streaming services and realized that both canopy and low-fi curl were taken. In person, Nilai gave a very solemn sigh after you did bootbox, just like scooping up the bottom of the barrel. All right, that's fine.

You picked this over Apple TV Plus. I think that's really saying something. Apple TV Plus doesn't count in niche. If I, if I had, truly, if I had known you were going to pick F1 TV, I would have done it backwards. And then I would have had a real Paramount Plus versus Apple TV plus debate to have. But I played myself. Only one of those has both top gun movies, David. That's not a debate. I don't know what you're talking about. Ted Lasso season four is coming

someday in the future. Do you think he's going to be optimistic? Listen, do I every once in a while tap a wall and say believe to myself? Yeah, I do. Do I walk into a bars and just blow people out of it? of the water at darts every couple days. Yeah. That's why. That's my... Be curious, not judgmental, meanwhile.

All right. To recap, the 2025 Vercast streaming draft. Jake, in cheap, you picked Tooby. In awards, you picked Netflix. In 4K, you picked Hulu. In live... Let's pause there. Let's pause there.

A really winning selection right there. In live, you picked Instagram Live. In niche, you picked PBS Passport. In content, you picked LoFi Girl. and in wildcard you picked Canopy. I think most of those are strong picks. David described this as very Brooklyn. I would describe this as guy who insists they don't watch TV.

No, this is straight up. This is actor. This is the cheapest slate, right? I'm paying for two of these. PBS Passport, you just make a donation. Like, once. I mean, it's good. I'm not saying I wasn't the kid who did have a TV.

But there's a real vibe here. No, that's completely right. I want to watch a bunch of old movies that nobody else cares about that are only available with ads on Tubey because nobody else wanted to pay for them. I'm going to the library because it's the only place you can check out

the Peter Greenaway movies I want to watch. And then I don't know, I'm not in touch culturally, and so I'm like, what's happening? Let's check Instagram Live. I just feel like you've also won the unofficial how many of these companies

will send me a tote bag race in pretty hand the way. You get a lo-fi girl tote bag. That's the move. There we go. There we go. You're the winner. All right.

So, Nil, in cheap, you pick TikTok. In awards, you pick Max. In 4K, you pick Disney Plus. In live, you picked Sunday ticket. In niche, you picked the kaleidescape. In content, you picked CNBC. And in Wildcard, you picked F1 TV. This is a real, like, content monster lineup.

Yeah, it's strong. I feel like I've outed myself as a dad in the worst possible way with this. This is like you have five TVs on a wall and they've all got something going on. Yeah, it's a lot. And I, yeah, I needed one cool one and I didn't pick one. Instead, I picked C and I see. But I'm okay with it.

F1's up there. F1 one's cool. F1 is cool. It is in its way. You're like, I'm a nerd who watches cars at three in the morning. That's me. It's a deeply me. But, yeah.

And you have TikTok, so you still get trucks jumping over stuff. So I think, I think you've represented your. self fairly accurately here. Yeah, as a dad. Yeah, that's my choice. And I have a Cloud Escape server, which is sick. I've won on strength of streaming quality alone. In terms of like number of bits delivered to the house, you've won and it's not close.

No question about that. It's so many. You need an $11,000 server just to download them overnight. Do you understand what I'm saying? You know, it pre-downloads a bunch of movies so you can buy them locally and watch them right away. they're just assuming you're going to give them another 200 bucks every week. Yeah, they're just like, we're just going to preload your Terra Prime so you're ready to go. That's why you need the server in the basement.

That's good service. Look, if you're out there, I'm guessing it's Steve Kaleid Escape. Just give me a call. Let's work something out. I give it like 12 days before you reappear on the show. So let me tell you what I've been up to. All right. And then my picks were in cheap.

I picked Peacock. In awards, I picked Amazon Prime. in 4K, I picked YouTube premium, live, YouTube TV, niche, writ box, content, Stranger Things Season 5, and Wildcard Paramount Plus. I would call this the like

basic parentheses derogatory set of picks. Yeah, this is David has passed out in the aisle of the Best Buy. Like, stuff is just happening to you and you don't know why. There's a real like B tier selection to the streamings. I don't mean to criticize you as a person, David.

You're great. No, I'm looking at this and I'm like, no, this is pure. just like the algorithms get to decide. Like I don't, I don't care what I watch, just put something on is like the energy I'm getting from my picks here. There's an argument that YouTube alone tops everything else. Like if you have YouTube, you can, you have access to the entire world of content in

some ways. Frankly, the combo of YouTube premium and Amazon Prime video, like, who is going to run out of content last? It's me by lifetimes. So I'm good on that. Yeah. But like, I don't know. The ceiling's pretty low on David's picks over here.

The combo platter of Peacock and Paramount Plus ending up on your board, but not Apple TV Plus, is perfect. You're like, I could have, but I did not choose the one that is won an Oscar. Yeah. It's good. There's that. You do get all of the weird Jurassic Park movies. And I'm not saying that they weren't successful. They've made billions of dollars.

Super weird movies. Can you name the titles of any of them? It happened again. Oh no, more dinosaurs. Whoops. All right. We're done. We've got to get out of here.

Tell us who you think won the draft. I guess we have like a year to really figure this out, right? So like maybe we'll ask a bunch of overtime. But we should put a poll in the in the post on the site about who won the draft. Spoiler alert, it's me. I won the draft. But I don't know. I don't know that any of us did great this year.

But we'll see. And we have 12 months to figure it out. Maybe TikTok will still be here, and maybe Instagram live will have taken over the internet. We will see. I just feel like my choices are very good. I'm like by rights on the winter, but I'm also wearing a quarter zip. You know what I mean? It's like, it's rough.

Yeah, like the net worth of your picks is very high. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. It's like I have a golf sponsorship now. Yeah. I won. I'm saying I won as, but you know. But you're sad about it.

I'm caveating my own victory. I'm saying I could have won in a cooler way. Yeah. All right, we got to get out of here. Jake, Nelai. Thank you guys so much. This is really fun. All right, that's it.

That's the show for today. Thank you to Jake and Nelai for doing that with me. And thank you, as always, for listening. For lots more on everything we talked about, if you want to see our picks again, if you want to see previous drafts, if you want to just yell at us in the comments about who won, head over to the verge.com.

And seriously, I honestly do want to know who won. You can also send us an email, Vergecast to the verge.com. Call the hotline, 866, Verge1, all of your feelings, everything about who we should have drafted sooner. If you think it's like nuts that Disney Plus didn't go first, if you think I'm a lunatic for picking Brit Box, which I'm not.

But if you think that I am, tell us. We want to hear from you. Leave us comments, everything we see it all, and we love hearing from you. This show is produced by Eric Gomez, Brandon Kiefer, and Will Poor. Vergecast is Verge production and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Neil and I will be back on Friday to talk about AI news,

politics, news, tariffs, chaos, and everything else going on right now. We'll see you that. Rock and roll. Guys, I think this went poorly for most of us.