Waveform: The MKBHD Podcast - TikTok, on the Clock ⏰

Episode Date: January 17, 2025

This week, Marques, Andrew, and David start things off with the Model Y refresh (naturally, there are conflicting opinions) before digging deep into the potential TikTok ban. After that, it's all about the Nintendo Switch 2 announcement! We recorded this the day before the announcement but thankfully all of the most recent leaks that were discussed ended up being true! What luck. After that, we end it all with a new game that Adam is calling "Crown and Clown" before wrapping it all up with trivia. Enjoy! Links: Elektrek - Model Y refresh Cox Automotive - Best Selling EV's Verge - Great reporting on TikTok ban 91mobile - Nintendo Switch 2 leak Verge - DJI lifts restrictions on drones Music provided by Epidemic Sound  Shop the merch: https://shop.mkbhd.com Socials: Waveform: https://twitter.com/WVFRM Waveform: https://www.threads.net/@waveformpodcast Marques: https://www.threads.net/@mkbhd Andrew: https://www.threads.net/@andrew_manganelli David Imel: https://www.threads.net/@davidimel Adam: https://www.threads.net/@parmesanpapi17 Ellis: https://twitter.com/EllisRovin TikTok:  https://www.tiktok.com/@waveformpodcast Join the Discord: https://discord.gg/mkbhd Music by 20syl: https://bit.ly/2S53xlC Waveform is part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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He's the Hulk. He's the Hulk? He doesn't look like the Hulk. I know nothing about Marvel. He does not look like the Hulk at all. He's not even green. He must be an purple action, dude. All right, what is up people of the internet? Welcome back to another episode of the Waveform podcast.

We're your hosts, I'm Marques. I'm Andrew. And I'm David. And in today's episode, TikTok is in the news because it is maybe probably, I think, going to be banned potentially. Tick-tock on the clock. We'll talk about how that maybe affects us.

Thank you, David. Shout out, Kesha. I was hoping someone would make a pun. Nintendo Switch 2 may also be announced right after we record this. That's just the way news works now. We record on Wednesdays, and then Thursday goes absolutely insane.

A lot of Switch 2 hype, so we'll get there. And then we're wrapping up today with a little game that Adam has put together for us. But first, Tesla. Tesla did something. They refreshed the Model Y. Did you guys see the new design? For the Model Y?

So the Model 3 got that Highland refresh. Highland is like the internal code name for it, whatever. Model Y, we always assumed, would also get a refresh along the same lines. It's along some of the same lines, but I'll let you guys react to the way it looks, but it's called, what is called, the Juniper. This is all we really know, right?

Is this like exterior? No, we got a lot, actually. Oh, did we? There's a bunch of new stuff, yeah. Show us how much I know, okay, cool. Also, if you go to, you'll have to go to like the Australian Tesla website. Oh yeah, it's not bunch of new stuff. Yeah, also if you go to, you'll have to go to like the Australian Tesla website. Oh yeah, it's not available in the US, it's available.

China, Australia, later Europe, later US eventually. But if you go to like the Australian Tesla website, it's all the new specs, all the new stuff, new suspension, new interior layout, slightly bigger interior screen, bigger front screen and back screen. A lot of people are mostly talking about the aesthetics though. It's a new headlight bar and a new taillight bar that kind of looks a little bit more like that cyber cab than the Model 3 refresh.

What? Okay, I'll try and describe my best. Yeah. The difference is now I feel like all these new cars are doing these like super slim, really aggressive lights. And then this now connects them through the hood. And then on the back is again, almost the normal old tail lights with then a large red tail light that connects them again through the trunk.

So essentially it looks like it just has two big lights, one on the front and one on the back. My biggest issue with this, I usually like things that look aggressive. The Model Y was my favorite Tesla. Really? And how it looked. I just think it looked really good

for the type of car that it was. It looked sleek, it looked like modern, but not overly trying to be modern. And I feel like this looks, not that I hate it, I just don't like it as much as the old model. I think that's gonna be a common reaction. You think it looks amazing? I think it looks great.

It has shades of the Prius, the tail light. You know the new Prius tail light? It's like this big bar. It looks just like that. I think it'll look maybe cooler. I wanna see it in person, because these lights always look different in person than the renders but in general, yeah, it's like a slight

aesthetic refresh. There's like some new wheels, it should be quieter inside, new suspension, slightly better range, a whole bunch of efficiency improvements. So it's just a generally overall refreshed model. There's some reason some of the like non-glamour shots of it of like getting delivered I think it looks so much worse. That looks horrible, right? Okay, that's really bad We'll put this on the screen, but this is one with the front plate thing on front plates Look bad and I know in general but but for whatever reason when you go this like

Beauty glamour shot and then I think you can just see the truck the front lines so much more and see the dip in the head And between the lights in the light bar. That I think is the just see the trunk, the front lines so much more and see the dip in the head and between the lights and the light bar. That I think is the only thing I'm considering a miss because if you the Cybertruck has the same DRL across the front, it's one continuous bar and the front opens with the entire bar. It looks like with the Model Y they have attempted to have the same bar, but the front trunk has the middle part of the bar. So there's an interruption around the outside part. So that is maybe the only miss.

I think something I was looking at, because obviously Model Y, whenever we talk about Model Y, we have to remember it's the best selling EV in the world. It's one of the best selling cars on the planet. And I found this chart of electric vehicle sales to date. And looking at the list, I was kind of surprised by some of the rankings.

Like you can see all total sales from last year and this year. Model Y is number one. Model 3 is number two. Not a shocker there. Mustang Mach-E, IONIQ 5. Cybertruck. F-150 Lightning.

These are the ones we see on the street all the time. But then I was looking more into these and there's a couple surprises, I think. One, I remember when I reviewed the Lyric, I was like, this thing isn't getting enough attention. It's really good. I don't really see any on the road. Now, it is one of the most popular EVs.

It's top 10. Whoa. Cadillac Lyric, 28,000 sales. It is pretty, I mean, it's a Cadillac, yeah. It's top 10. Whoa. Cadillac Lyric, 28,000 sales. It's pretty expensive. It is pretty, I mean, it's a Cadillac. Yeah, it's pretty expensive. But as far as adoption from people who are buying new EVs, which are kind of all expensive, the Lyric has risen above a lot of the others.

Above Rivian. The base is like 60K, which is not that bad. Yeah, exactly. It's above all of the Rivians right now. It's above all of the BMWs, all of the Kia's. So it's out there. Honda Prologue is another one. This is like so random.

Have you guys seen the billboard campaign for the Honda Prologue? I have seen a lot of lease deals on billboards for the Prologue. I don't know, were they like dealership? I'm talking about like the Honda, like not for any specific dealership. So the vehicle, like in the city? I'm talking about the Honda, not for any specific dealership.

Like in the city? Yeah, oh my god. I don't even really like billboards that much, but it's just the font, they chose this blue color for the car. I just find myself on Canal Street staring up longingly at this Honda Prologue billboard. Yeah, you know what's weird is I don't really think

it looks that good. Oh, I like it. Wow, we're learning that you and I have very different taste in the exteriors of vehicles, I guess. What I do know is that just like the Prius, when it got the refresh, people trust brands that they know. Oh yeah, for sure.

And so when the Prius came out, that was like one of the highest tracked videos on autofocus. About autofocus, yeah. Top 10, yeah. Yeah, and so I think it makes a lot of sense that when Honda finally comes out with an electric car, people are like, let's go. Totally fair. Except the toy, well, the BZ-4X.

The Subaru. Okay, here's what's crazy. The BZ-4X sold pretty well, didn't it? The BZ-4X and the Subaru Soltera are both better selling than Tesla Model S. Really? Doesn't that sound crazy? That's what I'm saying, man.

Like, Model S is, in my opinion, I mean if you can deal with a big car, I guess people either want an SUV or a small car, they don't want a big car, but I think Model S is a great EV, and I don't think the Soltera is a great EV, but it's outselling Model S, BZ4X is. Unfortunately.

What I'm interested in that graph you have is, so it lists the 2024 sales where the Cybertruck's beating the Lightning, but the Lightning still went from 2023 to 2024, it's like a 38% growth year over year. So I wonder what Cybertruck's growth into next year will be. Yeah, I mean, coming from zero, you're always gonna have your initial big spike, and we know about all the demand that was talked about

with Cybertruck. So all the people who wanted it early put in their $100 reservations and all that. And to be fair, the Cybertruck's first year did way better than the F-150's first year. Totally. So now it's a, how will it shape out over time? How will it sustain TBD?

But it's having a great first year. Wow. Yeah. I saw two lightnings in Brooklyn this week, which was wild to me. Yeah, that sounds terrible. I saw my first cyber truck with work truck decals. It was a plumber.

It was like, it was a cyber truck and on the side was like Joe's plumber. I don't remember who the plumber was, but I just remember being like, wow, you really, You plumb. You're getting in that white interior with your dirty, Yeah. It could that white interior with your dirty clothes. Yeah.

It could have the new tactical gray, maybe, allegedly. Yeah, I think, well, almost every Cybertruck I've seen for work was wrapped. Like I had one guy, one contractor working at my house also had a matte black Cybertruck. And I remember seeing my driveway camera have a matte black Cybertruck in it. And I my driveway camera have a matte black Cybertruck in it. And I was like, that's not mine.

That's not mine. Yeah. Um, yeah. I have a question about this Model Y refresh. Yeah. Do we know if it is actually as shiny as these pictures make it look? Like it looks so reflective.

Shiny? I doubt, I mean, nothing's ever as shiny as- You talking about the silver? Yeah. Quicksilver. It's glistening. It is a, it is a beautifully rendered image of a car under But you really like some of the other things because I just googled it because I was like that

Maybe it's just this picture like some of the other stuff also looks very reflective like maybe not shiny, but it's like reflective Yeah car companies love their metallic fleck I think silver is one of those ones were in press images looks incredible and on the street looks very different. I've seen some good silvers and some bad silvers. The new silver on the Model S looks really good in my quick silver I think is what it's called. Yeah, I think it looks really nice. I think it'll be shiny.

I think we can all agree that it looks great. Yeah. I think that's where we left off. It's out there. I wanna see if we can get our hands on one in person though. It might be a while because it's not in the US yet, but speaking of not in the US. Uh oh.

That was pretty good. TikTok. On the clock. We, so the story with TikTok is it's, long and winding. It's been about to get banned before. Can I throw a disclaimer in here? Yes.

One, we're gonna talk about this being a US thing right now. I know we have a lot of international listeners. By the way, speaking of international listeners, this will tie in. India overtook the UK as the second highest country that listens to waveform. Wow. Funny enough.

You're slacking. Come on, you can. Bring your friends back. India also has had TikTok banned within the last couple of years. So they might know what's going on here since 2020. It got banned in 2020. So any India listeners out there, if you listen to this and things sound really familiar,

let us know what's going on over there. What's it like to have all that free time? I'll know soon. Their government moves going on over there. What's it like to have all that free time? I'll know soon. Their government moves much faster over there. So TikTok may be on the verge of getting banned in the US and there's a couple different ways to look at this. One is we make content creators, we upload things to TikTok, that's one version.

The other is we are people that watch TikToks or may use TikTok to varying levels. I think some people have successfully gotten rid of it from their life. David's addicted to it. I've never downloaded it. Congrats, damn. You might survive the whole life cycle.

Yeah. Yeah. And so yeah, TikTok's obviously super popular. Yeah. It getting banned, the story of it getting banned is to oversimplify, it's that TikTok is owned by ByteDance, a Chinese company, and the threat of a Chinese company potentially being asked

of its government to supply it with data from US users is enough for the US to decide it's a threat and should be banned. Can David do a two minute TLDR timeline? Timeline? How can that be two minutes? How we got here. No, no, no, no. I made it a timeline.

So long. David worked very hard on the timeline. So let's- I can't wait. Let's do a quick how we got here because it didn't just start though like eight months ago when the bill first got introduced, right? It's been going on for a while.

It's been going on for a while. All right, two minutes on the clock. Go. All right. Wait, who knows? Speed tour. This is intimidating. The story of the TikTok van goes back to August of 2020.

Which is October 4th, 1987. Yes, you're right. Okay, so Trump tried to force a sale of TikTok in August of 2020 via executive order. First it was like, Microsoft's gonna buy TikTok. And that was all the headlines. I don't know if you guys remember this. It was like, we're forcibly selling it to Microsoft.

I didn't realize that was that long ago. Yeah, it was a long time ago. And then all of a sudden Oracle showed up and we're like, we would own TikTok. And that's just like the match made in hell. Because the most boring company on the planet with TikTok, it's just not, that doesn't mesh as well. Right. Anyway, okay, but they did manage to get TikTok to route its US data through Oracle in

2022, which was supposed to be this like security safety net where Oracle would vet the algorithms and make it sure that it was secure from outside influence. I didn't know we trust Oracle like that. Oh, yeah. Okay. Unfortunately. Cool. They're so boring. In February, 2023, the Biden administration banned it from all federal devices. Then in March of 2023, there was congressional testimony

about it that didn't really sway anyone's opinions. You probably remember this, TikTok's US CEO, I believe. Oh my goodness. This was when they were being super racist. I tried to not remember that. Yeah. So that was chaotic. And then in May 23,

Montana officially banned TikTok from the state. But then a federal judge blocked the ban, so it couldn't actually happen. Why? Montana was about to be like, when you see those memes of like society, if we could successfully move on. If boomers could we could successfully move on, Montana would have been amazing. Yeah, well the Zoomers were very angry.

So yeah, March, 2024, the House of Representatives passed a bill to ban or divest TikTok. And then the next month in April, Biden signed the bill into law. In May, Biden sued the US saying that it was unconstitutional and violated their first amendment rights. In August, the FTC and the US saying that it was unconstitutional and violated their First Amendment rights. In August, the FTC and the Department of Justice sued them back saying it violated the Children's

Online Privacy Law, which just passed very recently. It's a very new law. And then on December 6, a federal appeals court upheld the ban. So now what has happened is that they made their case to the Supreme Court very recently, like very recently, a couple of days ago. And that was live streamed, I believe. So a lot of people watched it and just could get a sense of what the justices were feeling about the vibes.

Most people are saying that it is very unlikely that they are going to stop the ban from going through. The day in which TikTok has to sell or divest by is January 19th. If you're listening to this on the day it was released, it is January 17th. So that is two days from now. Another case of anything could happen. It's a wild card. Yep. In the last few days, we have had all of these things happen where there were reports that Chinese officials were discussing selling it to Elon Musk.

That was like something first thing this morning, I think that went out. It was yesterday. Oh, was it? Yeah. But you know, he would probably merge it with X and everything would be horrible again. I also heard that TikTok commented on that saying, we can't be expected to comment on total fiction. Right. Which is a comment.

Yes. Yeah. So they did comment on it, but they did call it total fiction. That's how I will be replying to every question from this point forward. I love that. Yeah. You can't expect me to make a comment. All of this said, there's also reports that like, apparently only 16.75% of their traffic comes from the US.

But that's also like, cause this, if you think about that as like, over 100%, it seems small, but look at our like, our audience on Waveform. If you see 16%, that is a significant portion. It is. So like, long tail. I'm assuming that means the US is one of the largest.

It is the largest by a factor of three. And if you're a company and you're like, we're about to lose 16% of something. Yeah. You're sad. Yeah. The US is 100% of their US market share. That's true. So another thing that could happen.

Good point. This ban goes into effect on the 19th. The inauguration is on the 20th. Yep. What could happen is that Trump cannot, can decide to not enforce the ban. But Apple and Google, who still have to technically play by these rules, the law lasts for I believe five years. So if Google and Apple do not take down TikTok,

then the next administration, if they are negative towards Apple and Google, could actually sue them for that. And the penalty is $5,000 per user that accessed TikTok. Damn. That's a lot of people in the United States. That downloaded TikTok. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Well, they accessed it, which through through Google and Apple. So like they're good. Let's go through. But I mean, if it's already on your phone, they're not going to charge. It's if you're re downloading it from the App Store. What I read was accessed. So I'm wondering if that means like opens. No, it should be.

So like we can think of this in an example we've kind of seen, which was we banned the DJI Fly app. Right in the US. You cannot get the DJI Fly app on the app store or the Play Store. I still have it on my phone. I can still use it to fly because I've had it before. Or through DJI, you can download it on their website,

but it's like, they won't be, it's not illegal for users to use. It's a fine for, I believe not just downloading it off that, but I believe hosting, and I don't know how that works in TikTok, who's hosting what, but I believe if an American somewhere in the US is hosting the content on there, they could also potentially get fined. But this is kind of one of the outcomes we could see here

is if the ban goes through, it's not gonna be this January 19th TikTok Y2K where everything just shuts down because it got banned. It would most likely be more along the lines of everyone can still access TikTok, whoever has it. And no one can downgrade it. And it deteriorates over time because they can't update the app

and the infrastructure starts deteriorating. Yes. Yeah. The other one is it could be like the Y2K because there are some rumors of ByteDance just full on shutting it down in the US on the 19th. But that would be them doing it, and I'm assuming attempting to strong arm or call the bluff of the US.

Right, I think that those are the options they can either go along with what the US wants to do or they can just shut it down. And I think their opinion, if they just were to shut it down is that all of the young people would be very angry at their government and that might add pressure for them to change it or not uphold it.

All those young people that can't vote. Well, I don't know, there's plenty of people who can vote. TikTok had probably a pretty big deal. There was an internal memo at TikTok US headquarters saying they're not shutting down yet, that it's not totally resolved. There's a couple of different ways this could play out. Probably the most obvious one is like,

it doesn't quite get banned, it gets delayed. I think there's already a rumor of like, it gets delayed. I think there's already a rumor of like, could be delayed up to 270 days. I would not be surprised if we just see this get delayed and delayed and delayed and delayed. For us as consumers, it just stays around. Exactly. Very possible.

If you're a content creator, I think there's several stressful places to be in this. One is if you work for TikTok right now, you're like, what's happening? Where is my job? I don't know. If you're a content creator, a lot of people, cause we saw this in a weird way with Vine,

where Vine got bought and then shut down. And if you were just a Viner, you had to immediately find a way to either move your audience somewhere or try to take your eggs out of one basket and spread them into other baskets. And a lot of them ended up on YouTube, you know, whatever you think of them, they're video creators,

they're on YouTube now. If you are just a TikTokker, you've probably already been in the process of going, hey, audience on TikTok, find me in this other place. TikTok right now is, there's a lot of nerves going around and a lot of TikToks are like, please follow me on these links or go over here, look for me on Red Note.

The weird thing with Vine is that there wasn't really an alternative, so when they went to YouTube, they had to completely change the kind of content they were making, whereas right now, Zuck is like foaming at the mouth. Of course. He's like, come to Instagram. We have, we copied your product

and our competitor will get banned and we will win everything. But the product is the algorithm for TikTok. Yeah, but. Instagram doesn't have that. They copied the like format. Twofold, but it's twofold. The product is the content and the algorithm. And if you have one and not the other,

it doesn't quite work. But if you have both, you have everything. They have a lot of content already. They would love to have all those content creators come over from TikTok and continue adding content. And then they're always working on their algorithm. I think lots of people scroll reels every day. And I think a lot of people who,

if they find themselves suddenly unable to use TikTok, would probably start scrolling reels a lot of people who, if they find themselves suddenly unable to use TikTok, would probably start scrolling reels a lot more. What's funny though is we've seen this, and this is like that Red Note has become like the most downloaded app on the app store, which is a... Red Note is the Chinese version?

Of like Instagram actually. Of Instagram? It's more like Instagram because it has videos and photos and posts. And I think some of that is because people are mad at potential, well, it's not popular enough yet, but like people are mad at Facebook meta because of like them lobbying for this ban and foaming at them out and mad that TikTok's leaving.

One of the trends on TikTok was people saying like, okay, so my options are go to Instagram or learn Chinese and then it hard cuts to them like practicing pronunciation. Like Mandarin. That is good. Oh boy. That is good.

Yeah, you know, we, at the end of the day, we don't exactly know what's gonna happen on the 19th or the 20th. We don't know, we won't know until it happens. Yeah. Next week we will have a lot more for you guys. Yeah, yeah, basically. We'll keep an eye on it.

Honestly, I feel like this is turning into like the couple years of, I really should stop using so much social media and they're pretty much just forcing me to do it anyways. So thanks, I guess. I'm enjoying my time. I mean, David, I'll let you talk about your use. I've used TikTok less and less over the years.

Yeah. I don't know if that's because I'm old. It's sucked way more now anyway. Okay. There's so much like earns commission, bulls**t videos and like so many ads. Wheels are full of that. YouTube shorts is full of that.

I found myself scrolling both of them and being like, wow, this algorithm is horrible. What am I watching? This is bad. And I remember back in the day around COVID, like TikTok was really popping off and like the algorithm was amazing. Yeah.

So me personally, I'm not gonna miss TikTok if it goes away, but I'm curious what you guys think. I mean, I have never downloaded TikTok. Everything that I know about TikTok and the algorithm I've learned through osmosis so I've heard it is a better algorithm but I think the incentives on social media apps are like a really important thing to consider. Yeah. And when there's not money involved the product of like the stuff that's on the platform is higher quality because people are just making it for fun or for popularity. With the exception of YouTube, I think.

Yeah. I don't know. I can't draw that straight line. I think, you have a point, but also look at Threads. Well, Threads is a cesspool. Threads, there's no money, but it's just engagement. There's a lot of money. Really? They pay people a lot of money to post on Threads, there's no money, but like there is just engagement. There's a lot of money. Really?

They pay people a lot of money to post on threads. Y'all are getting paid? Y'all are getting scammed because they did that with reels also and then just were like just kidding. They still pay people for reels. Barely. Yeah. No, didn't Adam Mazzari like a month ago be like, we're really trying, but it's pretty

hard guys. I get notifications every day that are like, we will pay you if you do reels. And it's like up to $3,000 and then it's like you get nothing after this for a while. For the month, it's per month. Are you sure? Yes, I'm absolutely sure. I have it on my phone right now.

But on the scale of like how much some creators are making, I think like you could argue Snapchat creators are like going way harder because of the monetary incentives. YouTube shorts, there isn't really much. You do have monetization now, but it's nothing like long- I would say they're going harder when it comes to they're making more stuff,

but I don't think the stuff is as good. Agreed. Yeah. I think David's bringing out that certain platforms, the big one being Twitter, when you introduce a monetization element into it, it really encourages engagement farming. Yeah.

It encourages whatever metric you're getting paid for. Exactly, which is why like, I think you could make the argument that like 75% of tweets are not worth reading, right? Like their replies, their bots, their like meaningless links, they're like things that are, the sole purpose is replies, their bots, their meaningless links, they're things that are the sole purpose is an impression. Right, yeah.

But, wow, I really lost my train of thought. That's why YouTube has S-tier. Well, and then, well, I would also argue that, leave me losing my train of thought in the podcast. Everyone needs to know how smart I really am. YouTube is the exception because I think a YouTube video often requires, even if you don't want to call it more effort, like more time, and thus like,

the more compensation is often required to like consistently put in that time. There's that, and then there's how intertwined the algorithm suggesting content is with the reward, because the reward on YouTube is so much more nuanced in that it's trying to reward a quality, satisfied viewer session. Not just max time or max engagement, which are a little more simple,

but an actually satisfied viewer. So if your video can tie into that algorithm and satisfy the viewer, that requires effort and making good quality content. Where if the algorithm's like, more engagement equals good content, then you're not gonna really be able to connect those things. Right.

I mean, yeah, I mean, like on TwitterX, it's really bad because they're both like, we will pay you for impressions, but also you have to pay us to be verified and if you are verified all of your comments go to the top of the thread which gives you more impressions so it just like it incentivizes engagement farming it incentivizes people to just comment stupid stuff or stuff that will make people angry just steal content just steal content all of that stuff, you could also make the,

you could make the, God, what word am I looking for? Argument. Argument, thank you. I'm gonna redo this. Oh, you should leave this in the podcast, too. We're all on it today. You could make the argument that it becoming very monetarily focused with

when people do sponsorships for Squarespace or whatever, that a lot of the times they just have to get the sponsorship thing out. So they kind of just push out a video that isn't that good or isn't really worth it. That's like why you see so many like, what's in my bag for May of 2025 when they don't really wanna do it.

I'm not calling you out, Adam. Thank you. You didn't have a sponsorship. I feel personally attacked. It does make the content quality go down, but I think like you said, the way that YouTube has formed their algorithm to focus on quality of time spent,

I think is a lot better than most of these other platforms. Yeah, and I think that problem of, I think that specific example might be at a smaller scale. I just think there's so many users that are at a small scale who are looking at what is my best path to maximum revenue. And if you're on Twitter and you're starting a new account today, your fastest path to maximum revenue

is having a Twitter Blue account and just spamming, just creating a character that is just grading and going around and being that character in as many places as you can and getting people to engage with that. And the more frustrating that character in as many places as you can, and getting people to engage with that. And the more frustrating that character is, the more replies you get, the more annoying you are, the more you get revenue.

It's just a system that eats itself, because then they can say, we have more daily active users, and then they have a higher stock. It's like, it's just, it makes no sense. It's too simple. None of this makes sense. It can't be that simple. And I think that's true on threads as well.

Again, you start from zero, you're like, what do I do? I'm going to go around replying to a bunch of accounts and this is how people will see what I do. We're on YouTube, especially because there are no video replies anymore. You can't leech as easily. You literally have to make content that people enjoy watching, sharing,

and come back for more and on their own, organically engage with, subscribe, comment, things like that. You can make an annoying, grating character on YouTube and some people might watch it, but they're not going to feel as defensive or attached if you're not replying to something. You know?

Bro, tell that to Fred. Fred? I have no idea who Fred is. I think if we went back and watched Fred today, we'd be surprised at how tame it was compared to what you see on Twitter. What a take. I think we'd went back and watched Fred today, we'd be surprised at how tame it was compared to what you see on Twitter. What a take. I'm not sure I disagree with you, but just like,

wow, when I woke up this morning, I never thought I'd hear you say that sentence. I have a thought experiment for you. Okay, think about what the experience of YouTube would be like if you got paid to comment on YouTube and got paid for. That is what is happening on every other social media platform. Let me tell you, you people are commenting like you're getting paid.

We just got used to it. We just got used to it. Right? Like Reddit has these natural incentives of like karma and Reddit gold, which are not real things, right? But they are still good motivators. It's enough to be a nuanced quality motivator. Because you can flex. Yeah. Right? That's what it's for. Like you can flex it and add take down vote right take up vote Okay, I want more good takes and if you want a lot of good karma You have to put in the work to actually develop a good thing because other people are saying this is good content

Yeah, well, yeah, I don't know. Anyway, my so tick tock is gonna get banned Wait, can I insert my TikTok realization from the other day? Yeah. Yes, sure. Okay, so everyone who has been on TikTok for a while, AKA the youngsters, will 100% already know this. But me, as an old person, just learned this the other day. I think TikTok, the reason it's so popular

and so irreplaceable is it was Twitter at its peak in like 09 and 2010. When something happened in the world, like an Apple event or a presidential inauguration, I would open up Twitter immediately on my phone to see what everyone was saying, to engage in a conversation. It's what's happening. That is, yeah, that is what TikTok is now.

Now people don't open up Twitter or X or Instagram or YouTube They go open up tick-tock to see what people are saying about said event. Well on threads you can see the event But it's three days later Yeah No, I like tick-tock is kind of like the up-to-date news followed by someone trying to sell me a weird weightlifting supplement Was the thing for Twitter back in the day too. It was like real time news. There was like people congregating and doing important work on Twitter.

And the incentive was to be good at that, to get more people to follow. Which is basically the Reddit, the old Reddit model. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Everything's bad. Anyway, as an old, that's what I realized. All right, I think we should all take a collective

deep breath. No, I'm glad we got on the weeds. That's what this podcast is for. No, I'm glad we got a week. That's what I know. We just we just need to yeah. Yeah to round it out I think that tick-tock was better because you basically couldn't make money on it. I Think that's the only reason it was sorry which to Nintendo switch to We miss vine. I think we should take a break. Yeah, if that TLDR recap of TikTok, like and subscribe. Yeah, we should make an even shorter vertical recap. I don't know if you could do that.

It's just that in a hundred times speed in 60 seconds. All right, we got more, we got switch to talk about, we got way more to talk about, but before we do that, trivia. Is it annoying yet? Trivia, dude. I'm gonna keep pausing for longer. Question number one. Tesla unveiled the new Model Y code name Juniper,

but did you know Juniper is actually an acronym in this case? In this case? I'm joking. Oh, I was like shocked by that. The Tesla Model Y is Tesla's first vehicle to use an acronym in this case. In this case? I'm joking. Oh, I was like shocked by that. The Tesla Model Y is Tesla's first vehicle to use what technology in its cabin heating system?

I have a guess. It's wrong. Do you now? Is it Juniper or tree? Juniper is a tree, but the tree makes berries and the berries are what you use to flavor. Gin. Gin, that's correct. Yeah, Juniper. a tree, but the tree makes berries and the berries are what you use to flavor. Gin. Gin, that's correct.

Giniper. One point. Ah! Ah! Ah! Leave that in the podcast. Are you paying attention? We're so on today.

What is happening? What is happening? I hit. I hit. Okay, we're good. Everything's fine. Answers will be at the end like usual. We'll be right back.

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So, hello. Today, as we record, it is January 15th, 2025. I feel like we need the like newspaper that we hold up to prove what day it is. That's the day that it is today, January 15th. Word on the street is that the Switch 2 could maybe possibly be unveiled on the 16th. So if you're watching this when this comes out on the 17th,

we look like we don't know what we're talking about or that we missed it or that we were ignoring the Switch. We didn't, we actually have thoughts on the Switch but we don't have any of the information. Sort of. We have a bunch of leaks. We do. And we're going on some leaks from OnLeaks and 91Mobiles.

The funny thing is if you're watching the video version of this, the b-roll on screen right now might be real from the real switch from the the announcement that we or have not seen or the word on the street is wrong and This will just be us trying to figure out what we think it'll actually look like or reacting to the leaks or rumors Believe what you want to believe what if the event tomorrow is just another alarm clock? Alarm 02. Nintendo alarm clock, I forgot about that.

They did make it. Yeah. So okay, I'm not a huge Switch user. Do you guys use a Switch a lot? I don't use it as often. I have one. It's good for flights, and that's the only time I've found a lot of use

in a Switch, but then I started using my iPad on flights. But it's very, it's an extremely popular console. You can dock it with your TV, you can use it anywhere. So people were very excited about this new Switch a couple years after the original, and there are some interesting rumors about what might be new about the new Switch. First of all, there was a Switch OLED.

My thoughts on the Switch were always like, wow, it's nice, but the screen's not that great. Then they had a Switch OLED, which had a better screen. It's not some incredible four-piece screen. It was a little bit bigger, too, the one from... I have the OLED, we're always like, wow, it's nice, but the screen's not that great. Then they had a Switch OLED, which had a better screen. Some incredible 4K screen. There's a little bit bigger too, one from... I have the OLED. Yeah. Yeah.

New Switch stuff, so there's a slightly updated design. It's again, I think slightly bigger. And then as I scroll down a little bit here, so USB Type-C on the top of the console, which is better. And bottom. Top and bottom. Yeah, even, okay. Which is great. So you have the choice. Yeah. It is an eight, from what I'm reading, is 8.4 inch screen. Top and bottom? Yeah, even, okay. So you have the choice.

Yeah. From what I'm reading is 8.4 inch screen compared to the 7 inch screen. Wow, so that's a pretty solid. That's pretty big. Yeah, yeah, that's super solid. That's both thinner bezels and bigger footprint, I think, a little bit of both.

There's these blue and orange accents on the Joy-Cons themselves, on the like, d-pad. Yeah, so to describe what we're seeing in the leak is the whole console itself is black and then the color pop you get is underneath the joysticks, but not only that, but from, and I believe this kind of looks like that, the way the connections for the Joy-Cons

to the screen is a magnetic switch, which sounds so good. It's really cool. And so the old Switch Joy-Cons slid down on a track. And that wasn't the worst, but the problem was is when you were using them as individual Joy-Cons and you had to slide this little LR button bumper on,

you could slide that on the wrong one and it would get stuck and be a huge, huge pain in the neck. Every Switch owner knows how annoying that is. So one thing with this magnetic Switch is it looks like there's a little more room above each Joy-Con and it looks like there's a little better button layout for not having to use something like that bumper. I didn't really like the bumper that you would attach to it

to be able to play a single Joy-Con. It was super cheap. It was super cheap, yeah. There's also some other leaks I saw that I don't have listed here where it looks like some of the joy cons potentially have an extra like ergonomic bump on the back of them. Have you seen that? No. Also, they are planning on probably switching them out for a hall effect. What do they call it? Oh my goodness, joysticks. Wow. What is going on today,

guys? Joystick. We need more brain power. Yeah, the previous Switch had a massive drift issue where over a long period of time, it would start drifting to the left or right. So if you're playing Mario Kart, your character would just be going in a direction you couldn't really do anything about it. It's like those shopping carts you get where one wheel's messed up

and you're always fighting against it. Yeah, and then it was $60 for another pair of Joy-Cons. So it was very frustrating. So it'd be very nice if these were Hall Effect instead. Like just imagine the Steam Deck where it has like the extra kind of like handles behind your like three fingers you're not using as joy cons. That would be awesome for a handheld,

but it might not be real. So yeah. USB-C on the top and bottom is very useful. Previously on the regular Switch, it was just on the bottom because you could mount it into the dock. And then that would be the whole point of the console as sometimes it's on your TV sometimes it is handheld but it was very frustrating if it was low on power and you were playing it handheld because you either had to hold it or if you wanted to have it on the table while also using the joy con separately it was very difficult to do because you had to plug it in from the bottom so you kind of had to like MacGyver this weird angle and like break your USB-C cable process.

So having it in the top and bottom, super sick. It should be a lot more powerful, obviously. We don't know if they're gonna debut any flagship games for the Switch 2 at the announcement, but. I'm not sure, one other thing is the stand on this looks way better. Oh yeah. It used to just be like one singular kickstand

out the back. According to these leaks, it looks like it's one giant U shape in the back, which will be so much more sturdy sitting on a table. The OLED was, the OLED kickstand was completely redesigned. Okay, I missed that. Yeah, so the original Switch had only like one little L bracket

that was plastic and really finicky that would pop out. The OLED one was a metal bracket that was actually pretty good. This looks like the... I liked it a lot. The Surface X, right? Yes, yeah, the Surface Pro. Surface Pro, yeah.

It was very similar to a Surface Pro design, and I liked it a lot, and it was also metal, which was really nice. This one looks even more different. It also looks like is that an extra button on the Joy-Con? The back side of one of these leaks look like you have your RL button but there's like almost potentially an inside one at the top of the back. Maybe. I'm always down for more buttons. It is very not Nintendo to like kind of add a bunch of new stuff like this, but. But like, if we're talking weird Nintendo controllers,

the N64 controller made no sense at all. So I wouldn't put it past Nintendo to do something a little weird. Yeah, Nintendo has been bringing a lot more games onto the Switch. There's a lot more indie titles, there's a lot more traditional console-esque titles because for a very long time,

Nintendo was sort of more focused on the cartoony aspects of video gaming, whereas now they're bringing in the more high fidelity stuff to Switch. So it would be beneficial to have these extra buttons because a lot of those high fidelity games use a lot of extra buttons. Yeah, I always picture the Switch

as like the king casual gamer console. Well, what's awesome about it though is because like you could still pick, do I want an Xbox or a PlayStation or a PC? And then be like, all three of those people also have a Switch because it's cheaper and like, it's got a bunch of other more casual games.

It's separate from Steam Deck audience. Yeah. I was gonna say, is this one gonna be cheaper, you think? That's my two main questions is- Well, cheaper than the PlayStation and Xbox. Yeah. But versus the Switch One. No.

So my two questions are, one, do we think battery will be significantly different in any way, and two, will the price be significantly different anyway? I never think battery will be significantly different anyway, because anyone, one day use or whatever, but like that's not even what this really was. Yeah, I mean, when you scale the size of something, generally the battery life gets better,

even if the screen is bigger. So there's that, it'll probably be better battery. But as far as the price, I would doubt it, because I would bet the components are much more expensive. Yeah, you're adding magnetic joy cons that by itself. The joy cons are actually good now. They have potentially hall effect. There's a giant OLED screen.

There's a more impressive, more powerful. What was the switch OLED MSRP when it came out? 350 I think. That can't be right. I think it was. 350. 349. 350.

So like, are we thinking 399? I could see 399. I was going to.50. $3.50. Yes. So like, are we thinking $3.99? I could see $3.99. I could see $3.99. I was gonna say $500. No, that's too much. I'm taking the under on all of those. Yeah? I think the Switch components have been in production

for so long and have come down in price for so long that that $3.49, they could have sold for $2.50 today and still made money on, but now that they've been making so many of them, they can relaunch this new one at 350. It has been close to eight years since the original Switch. 350 would be awesome.

299 was a great price for the first one. Yeah, that'd be a good sweet spot. It is 2025, so they could go crazy, but that'd be nice. I'm so sad that by the time this comes out, it will probably be announced. Everyone is yelling at us like, you idiots. Honestly? They're like yelling through the screen like, no!

No! There's two scenarios at us, like, you idiots. Honestly? They're, like, yelling through the screen, like, no. No. There's two scenarios. They're like, this is the most team general Switch coverage ever, or this is the most team general Switch coverage ever, and all of it's wrong, because we saw what happened yesterday. I'm sorry, guys. Thanks for listening.

Turns out it's just like a Switch OLED with, like, a different kickstand or something. Switch OLED 2. OK. You ready for the Fediverse corner? We're ready. Let's get the cheese. What? Yeah, this is the second time. I forget that every time.

Okay, this week on David's Fediverse corner, we have two new updates to the Fediverse that we're gonna talk about. Okay, first of all, there's a new Fediverse-oriented campaign starring Mark Ruffalo for some reason. What? Yeah. Whose pa- what? Yeah, yeah, okay, so there is this new campaign

called Free Our Feeds, and it's a new organization that is trying to raise $30 million over the course of three years to build out infrastructure on the AT Protocol to make it more billionaire proof. If you don't know, AT protocol is the protocol that powers Blue Sky. The thing about Blue Sky is that Blue Sky is a company. The AT protocol is an open source protocol

that anyone can build on top of, but Blue Sky, the company, uses the AT protocol to showcase what you can do with the AT protocol, and that is what blue sky the website is So theoretically you could build out tons of different types of social networks on AT. It's just that no one has really done that yet, right? people like Mark Ruffalo for some reason have decided that it is really scary and bad when billionaires take control of social media platforms and billionaires take control of social media platforms and

You've seen what's happened at every other social media platform So they've been like, okay We need to actually incentivize people to build on a t protocol to build other networks and other infrastructures to make sure that even if blue sky the company one day got bought by a billionaire and they decided to do what they wanted to do with it that the Infrastructure was separate from that and there was always going to be these other platforms running on a tee Okay, so there's a bunch of technologists underneath this Organization that is trying to do this They're seeking an initial donation of four million dollars to start the process

And they hope to raise 30 million over the course of three years I don't know why Mark Ruffalo is part of this. Me neither. But I appreciate it. Should I follow him on blue sky? Definitely. Also they want the AT Protocol and Activity Pub to be more interoperable and they list that on their website. They really should be talking to a new social which is the bridgie fed people who have been trying to make sure that these things can interconnect that we talked about briefly a few weeks ago. And this is what happens with protocols, my friends. Organizations and standards bodies pop up because they think they can do it better than the other guy, and then you have 15 competing organizations or standards.

All of that XKCD? Yes. I still think it's very good that this is happening, and I hope that they get the funding that they are looking for. Also, very good sign that this is positive is that everyone that's actually working at Blue Sky and on Blue Sky was like, this is amazing, and they were promoting it. And the whole point is that there's being infrastructure built outside of the company of Blue Sky, just on AT Protocol, and people that work at Blue Sky are like, it's good that people are building stuff

outside of Blue Sky. Cool, that's Fediverse update number one. Fediverse update number two. You've heard of Instagram. I have. But have you heard of Instagram federated over Activity Pub? What?

No. Okay. Did you say federated or fed greg gated federated federate is reg gated a word because I think we could figure it like irrigated but in the federal verse just like added just ignore okay keep going yeah okay if you've heard of Instagram federated over activity pub that's called pixel fed so. So we've talked, we talked in the Activity Pub and Blue Sky Fetaverse episode about how there's sort of a parallel of most platforms in the Fetaverse, but there's just not a lot of people using them yet.

When some decisions were made at Meta last week, a lot of people decided to flock away from Instagram and started looking for alternatives. The problem there's just hasn't been an Instagram alternative that has really taken off. And obviously, if you're leaving a platform now, you just like blue sky don't want to flock to something where a billionaire could just take it over again. So going to something that is on activity pub, or the AT Protocol is your best bet. There is an application in service called Pixel Fed which is basically Instagram but on the Fediverse. It's been around for quite a long time. Old Instagram, just photos. Yes, it's like old and yeah and it's got sort of the old Instagram UI as well. Probably not a purposeful move, probably just because

they don't have a lot of funding. But, you know, it's kind of, it's a nice experience. So a lot of people have been flocking over there, and just in time, just yesterday, they officially launched a Pixel Fed Android and iOS app. So they're official apps now. You still have to like choose your server just like you have to with Mastodon. So it's a little bit complicated, a little bit confusing. But just like old Twitter that had all of those API tokens for third party applications, there are third party Pixel Fed apps. So hopefully there'll be even more that are developed.

Whether or not this has staying power, like Blue Sky did when people were leaving X and now Threads, I have no idea. But apparently their servers have been getting really hammered this week because people are leaving Instagram and trying to find something different. I couldn't even log in yesterday.

Yeah, yesterday I had trouble even logging into PixelFed. I was gonna ask, is it not concerning, but this seems like a perfect opportunity for something like PixelFed to pop off. Yes. And a bunch of people were like, I'd rather something like Pixel Fed to pop off. And a bunch of people were like, I'd rather learn Mandarin and go to Red Note. Yeah, yeah. I feel like it's not great to be like,

here we are, we can do it. And they're like, what's this Red Note thing? Yeah, I mean, it's similar to what it was. I don't think people are gonna stay on Red Note, by the way. I think it's a funny thing that's going on right now. It's the meme of the moment. Yeah, it mean it's it's similar to what I don't think people are gonna stay on red note by the way I think it's like a funny thing that's going on right now. Yeah, it's a meme There were multiple like little social media networks that would pop up over the last like 10 years and people are like I'm here now And then nobody would come so they would just abandon one of them is actually lemonade Which is yeah a lot of people are going to which is

But like I hadn't heard that in so long. And then everyone on TikTok right now, their like top link in their profile is Lemony. And like to go find them on Lemony. Guys, this is not gonna go well for you. Yeah. Anyway, I am on Pixel Fed now. So I'm federating some pictures over there. If you wanna join me in the Fediverse.

Is that the official way that you say that? I'm federating some pictures over there if you want to join me in the Fediverse. Is that the official way that you say that? I'm federating some pictures over there. I'm distributing my pictures through a in a over a decentralized social in a decentralized way. Yeah. That you can find anywhere in the Fed. In the Fediverse. In the Fediverse. We got to shorten that. I know. The social well, there's an acronym thereverse. Yeah, the Fed-a-verse. We gotta shorten that. I know. The social web, y'all.

There's an acronym there somewhere. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Juniper. Nintendo Switch 2. And that's been your Fed-a-verse corner update for this week, the week of January 15th. All right. Look, I'm using Blue Sky, threads, X, lemonade,

TikTok, Instagram. When does it end? Are you on Red Note yet? That's bad. I'm not on Red Note yet. Don't get on Red Note. You gotta get on Red Note, man. Yet.

Yet. Don't do it. See, my problem is if I don't, someone's gonna take my username and then someone's going to be me on Red Note for at least a few weeks, it's probably already taken. It's definitely gone. By the time I say it out loud, it's taken.

It's definitely already taken. It was me. Then after you've got the underscore MKBHD it's probably already taken. It's definitely gone. By the time I say it out loud, it's taken. It's definitely taken. Yeah. It was me. Then after you've like the underscore MKBHD and then after like talk to someone who might know a way to get the username back and then it's the whole thing. Yeah, well, who are you gonna talk to at Red Note?

Yeah, I don't know anyone over there. So it's unlikely I'm ever gonna get my username. That's fine. That's fine. That's okay. Do you know what you might know? What? The answer.

To? Trivia. I don't like where this is going. Okay, trivia dude. So, second question. Nintendo has a ton of classic games, but what is their best selling game that they ever made? Whoa.

Singular game? Singular game. I will tell you right now, it has 64.27 million sales. Was that a hint? No. No. How would that be a hint? 64?

Just to get the number in your head. Yeah, no. So, if you can tell me the name of the game you will get a point hmm if it was bundled with the switch does it count as a sale no bundles don't count All signs seem to indicate that one week from today the United States will break from recent tradition and have a peaceful transition of power. It felt like a good time to assess Joe Biden's presidency, which his staff would have you believe is one of the most consequential in American history, FDR-esque. I admire their loyalty to their boss, but I think Biden is a pretty mid-tier mediocre

president. I don't think he's awful. I don't think he's a horrible threat to freedom the way that you might hear on Truth Social. The main way I would describe Joe Biden is that he was an unusually weak president. And he was, in many important moments, loathed to decide when we really needed a president to decide. And I think that ultimately made him less effective than he could have been in the moment.

The good, the bad, and the Biden. Vox's Dylan Matthews is going to help us assess on Today Explained. Monday to Friday, wherever you listen. This week on ProfGMarkets, we speak with Andrew Ross Sorkin, editor at large of Dealbook at the New York Times and co-anchor of CNBC's Squawk Box. We discuss the key economic trends he's watching for Trump's second term, the evolving landscape of the AI market and the rumours that China is considering selling TikTok to Elon Musk. If China is prepared to sell to Elon Musk and only to Elon Musk, what does that say about the leverage and influence that China must think that they have over Elon Musk by dint of his factories and Tesla business in the nation state that is China.

You can find that conversation and many others exclusively on the ProfG Markets podcast. Okay, we're back. And this is a new segment that I'm still working the name on. There's a theme there. I never know the names of these segments. I think we're going to go with crown or clown. Oh, I like that. We usually get a great comment.

Yeah, there's usually a good comment that's like, no, you should call it this. And then we all laugh about it. But the working draft is pretty good. Yeah. That's fine. Working draft, crown or clown. Okay. So basically you guys have to all agree

on the best thing that happened this week and the worst thing that happened this week. So the best thing will get the crown and the worst thing will be a clown. But you all have to agree, that's the key point. So you can talk about something that we've already spoken about in this episode as being the best or the worst thing.

Or you can bring something else in that's happening in the world that you think everyone should agree with you, that it is the best thing that happened or the worst thing that happened. The best thing is the Switch potentially coming out. I was like, I have a worst thing to pitch. I don't have a best and I just thought Switch 2 as well. But it might not even happen this week.

But it might not even, yeah. I still think it might be the best thing that happened this week. Even if it doesn't happen. You're not wrong. There's not a lot of good that happened this week. And I think even just the hope of the Switch 2 might be the best thing that happened this week. But we can get back hope of the Switch 2 might be the best thing that happened this week.

But we can get back to that. Seems like there's a lot of clown things. I mean that counts if you guys all agree on that. Well let's get back to that. We'll get back to agreeing on that. Can I throw my worst thing out? Sure. Okay, did any of you see this article headline

that DJI will no longer stop drones from flying over airports, wildfires, or the White House. The White House? Yeah. So I'm gonna TLDR this, but if you had a drone from DJI and you tried to fly over restricted areas, it physically stopped you in the app. For some reason, they're deciding to,

they still have an intense warning if you get to these areas, but it's a warning that you can now skip and it's just on the drone user. Why would they do that? I'm not totally sure. I kind of, the Verge article, and I kind of agree with this is like, there's been a growing distrust of drones and all of us New Jersey livers,

or the people who live in New Jersey, have seen some drone pandemonium over the last couple months. What is this year? I know. The 15th. It's, so that's been going on. But the reason this feels so tone deaf this week is we just saw someone flying a drone in LA

that came into contact with a plane that was dumping water on the wildfires and sidelined the plane, which is horrible. Like every hour that plane is out of commission, we're losing potentially hundreds of acres of land. And whoever that moron is that flew that out there, the amount of damage they did and they haven't found them yet is just immeasurable.

And it makes me so mad that somebody's doing something like that. So, you know, there's more to this story. There's like a lot of things in that DJI has been, you know, being on the safer side of what the FAA rules actually are. And first of all, I think that's okay if you're on the safer side of things.

Like there's nothing wrong with that. You don't have to push the limits. But so whatever they're doing is still within the laws of the FAA and the US. And there's still warnings to not do it. But I think we all know that people are just gonna skip those warnings, thinking they're... And one of the things they do have is a better way

of being able to track a drone and then where the controller is to be able to find someone possibly breaking that law. But I don't know if that works with all of the drones that are under the 250 gram limit, which is the hobbyist versus licensed drone pilot. So I don't know. All of this, maybe because of the timing

where it's coming out, feels even worse, but I just think this is really dumb I can't find a single possible upside To letting people fly over airports. Yeah, I just read this this article summarizing it and it's like this person asks Like these geofences were voluntary DJI built them It's good Which I think was a good thing to do And so if you tried to fly in a place

where they know that it is not legal, it just wouldn't let you. Good idea. They're voluntarily removing these geo-fences, which places the control back in the operator's hands. I don't see any upside to this, other than DJI being like, whatever you do wrong, it's not on us.

My biggest issue with this is like, if they're saying, let the people take the consequences, if the consequence is something that physically harms someone else or screws up a plane and potentially harms people, like I don't care if that person goes to jail, I wish it never happened in the first place. Yeah.

And maybe I don't know how much damage a drone could really do, but it feels not worth the risk. I don't understand why did they change this. I'm with you, this is the dumbest thing that's happened this week. I can't understand any possible upside to this. I think this- Who is just like, you know what we need to do?

You know how we prevent people from doing illegal things? You know how we voluntarily decided to do that? No. New update, we let them. Yeah. Yeah, I think it's a bad load. It's a play devil's advocate. Oh boy.

I'm sure there's, the only thing I can think of is that it's super. You're gonna get the sickest drone shot of the night. Oh gosh. Even saying that out loud feels weird. I know. I think they're just trying to, cause right now if something happens with the drone

It was because their geo fencing thing broke right? It's like someone went through it and then the blame is on them It's because the operator did something and didn't get stopped even though they were supposed to get stopped Yeah, that's supposed to get stopped. So in that slight in that sliver of possibility DJI is responsible. Exactly. So to reduce their responsibility, they let everyone do whatever they want. By making it also more, hopefully more trackable to who's the person flying, ideally. Great, so I'll know exactly who does all of these additional horrible things that will happen. Yes, exactly.

As long as it's not DJI, that's a win for DJI. I would love to hear from people who work with drones, like in their everyday job, what they think about this. Cause I would think it means the people who are licensed drone pilots using these responsibly shouldn't care about this too much because they're following the rules. But now you have the potential of more people

doing dumber things with drones to make you look bad. That'd be my guess, I don't know. I've flown a couple couple drones here and there, but nothing that intense and not by an airport. Well, you guys think that was the worst thing that happened this week. Wait till we hear what Ellis has to say. I'm gonna try my best to tell you guys this story,

but because it was just sent to me over and over and over again by waveform listeners in Thailand, there's a disclaimer that I need to drop, which is I've never been to Thailand. I don't speak Thai. I know very little about that country and their technology sector. So I did my best to research this, to get up to speed,

to make sure I was getting my news from Thai news outlets that have competing points of view and biases, most notably Times of Bangkok, which seems to be like a more conservative paper over there, and then Thai Inquirer, which is more of like a left-leaning paper. Anyway, this is all to say, if I get anything wrong, that's on me, Ellis Robyn, not Waveform, not my co-host.

This sounds like it's about to be a whole drop of that. What's happening right now? This is about to be so much worse. Let me know. Okay, so. Suit for defamation. Here we go. Here we go.

Okay. A few days ago, Uh-oh. I started getting all these DMs that Oppo and RealMe, via an over-the-air update, started installing as a system app, meaning like you can't delete it,

it's like baked into the OS, this app called FinEasy, FinEasy. And it's a financial services app, but most notably you can get loans from it. You can borrow money on this app. This is already horrible. So mandatory bloatware through an update that you can't uninstall.

Exactly. That could potentially trap you in debt. If you use it, yeah. People naturally started complaining, why is this on my phone? What the heck happened? Because it's a system app, it was granted access to user data automatically.

So contacts, like every... What? Like the... Yeah. So then get this, right? Not only does this app just appear, potentially trap people in that, do all sorts of bad things,

the more Thai reporters looked into it, the more no one knew who even owned this app. And when Oppo and RealMe were asked about it, they said, we don't know. What? They said, yeah, like we were just, we just signed a contract and we put it on the phones. We didn't ask any more questions.

Signed a contract with who? It doesn't make any sense, right? So according to, and this is now based off Thai inquiries reporting, they found, by the way, Thineasy's website taken down in the past few days. No way. Not around.

There's an old archived website which shows an old address in Singapore and the website before was taken down, showed an ownership group of a company called Wealthhope. If you went to Wealthhope's old website, which doesn't appear to be there anymore, the support address, like the tech support address for Wealthhope was an at oppo.com email address.

Bad, no, don't do that. So at this point, not that much info has come out, but obviously there's speculation. Is Oppo trying to run an illegal bank in a foreign country? Yeah, or did they just sign a deal with some shady group, or how did they get? And it seems like the necessary steps are being taken. Oppo phones are banned in Thailand right now unless they specifically do not have

the ThinEasy app installed on them. The government is looking, the Thai government is looking into this. People are rightfully so upset. And I felt like this was kind of an important thing to bring up on the show because. That's a crazy story. A few weeks ago, yeah a few weeks ago, November was a few weeks ago,

yeah a few weeks ago, November was a few weeks ago, like eight of them. Yeah. Yeah. My birthday was a few weeks ago. Yeah, so was mine. Isn't few three to five? My birthday is in July, so it doesn't really matter. That's what, few is three to me.

A few weeks ago in November, the United States went through something sort of adjacent, where the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau began to treat financial apps as being regulated the same way as banks, to which a lot of FinTech bros, most notably known smart and awesome guy, Mark Andreessen, threw a big giant hissy fit on Joe Rogan.

And so it seems like that is sort of central to this issue in Thailand too, where Finneasy, not a bank, but can also trap you in debt. So maybe they should be treated bank? Question mark? Maybe bank? I don't know. It does? Yeah.

I just have an article here saying that Oppo and Realme said that it will not be pre-installed on new devices from January 14th on and that tomorrow, which is the 16th, there'll be an OTA update that will remove it permanently. Wow. That is correct. So hopefully, so it seems like this whole chapter will come to a close soon. That's wild.

What are we here today? If you go back through Twitter, you can find, I found a few things, there were people saying, people finding beta versions of this app, like in code, Android's OPPO source code, all the way far back as May, people saying the source code was made by this company called Haytap,

which does a lot of cloud services in China. None of that has been corroborated. In my research though, of looking for things about FinEasy, I did find the funniest thing ever, which is, in the process of searching, I found this tweet from 2013. I was like, wow, this story goes all the way back to 2013. That's so crazy.

The tweet was, miramos finisifurb. And that's when I realized this is not about finis, the Spanish language speaker just forgot to put a space between finis spelled incorrectly, the word E, which means and in Spanish, and furb. They meant to say miramos finisifurb, which we're looking in Spanish, and Ferb. They meant to say, miramos, Finneas, E, Ferb, which we're looking at Finneas and Ferb. I just thought that was so funny.

Nice. Okay, well if you've been affected, don't ask us for help. But do DM at EllisRovan on Twitter and tell me everything I got wrong. That's true. Pre-installed apps that siphon your personal information and then disappear mysteriously is definitely bad.

And put you into debt. And potentially could put you into debt. Allegedly. However, my only asterisk is this appears to be more than just a this week story, in which case, I lean drones. That it's not the worst thing? Yeah. Okay.

I think it might've spiked. It's now being resolved this week, allegedly, which could have some- Yeah, maybe this is the good story, actually, because it's- Oh, it's all taking it. Yeah. It's being resolved.

A horrible thing is gonna end. Is this better than the Nintendo Switch 2 potentially being announced? I'm not sure. Similar vibes. Some, I think that all that to say, I'm leaning drones for the worst thing of the way What else have anything else first thing of the week is that I posted my freezer On blue sky that has a lot of film in it people got really mad and they all said that I was full of

Hyperprocessed foods and I need to let you guys all know that well, it was just film What else was in your freezer? Four Trader Joe's meals. Okay, thank you. Yeah, I got harassed. That's worse than the drones. That's my vote. I think drones wins.

Drones wins. And are we doing- Good. Finneasy. Finneasy resolution. Getting taken away. Well, Oppo real measers. The hard thing about calling it is the good thing is

the people who are correcting it are the people who caused the problem in the first place. So. Yeah. But justice has been served entirely. I'm happy that they're not dealing with it anymore. Picture being a company as big as Oppo, and they're like, so that app that you installed

in everyone's phone, who made it? And just being like, ooh. Have any of you watched Severance on Apple TV Plus? I know what you're gonna talk about. It's really, really good. Severance Severance show that came out and I think 2020 Super good. They are about to release the second season on the I think 19th And so they're hyping up all of this all this hype for it, which is really cool and at Grand Central Station Yesterday which would have been Tuesday of this week

And at Grand Central Station, yesterday, which would have been Tuesday of this week, Apple did like a little viral sort of like campaign where they put this glass box of part of the severance office where people could just walk around and kind of look inside. And then in the middle of the day, all of the actors and Ben Stiller showed up and all of the actors went inside the box and just pretended to be working.

Aww. And so people could just like walk around. Where was I? It was at Grand Central yesterday. I know, but I was here. And Adam Scott too, you love him in Parks and Rec. Yeah. Yeah, but I think that that was really fun and cute and cool and um.

Real quick. Yeah. This is a David fact. Oh. Real quick. Yeah. This is a David fact. Oh, about me. Yeah, because you like Severance and a lot of Severance was filmed. Oh yeah, at Astoria Kaufman Studios. Well I was gonna say,

a lot of it was filmed at the Bell Labs building here in New Jersey. Oh. And you love Bell Labs. Oh really? A lot of it, I love Bell Labs, sure. A lot of it was also filmed at Astoria Kaufman Studios, which is like a 15 minute drive from my apartment.

See, they should just call this Davaritz, because it's all your stuff. The Davaritz. I still think that Nintendo Switch 2, sorry, no, the Oppo thing is the winner, but I just wanted to call it that. I thought that was a really cool, it was really fun little thing.

If I had any idea what Severance was. Oh, it's a really good show. It's really good. It's like really good. As someone who doesn't usually say these words out loud, it's a pretty good show. Whoa! I watch like two episodes.

I'll watch it when I'm done with One Piece. That's crazy. Yeah. Oh, so never, so you'll never watch it. Markette, you had one more to throw in there. One more, ChatCPT is now a task manager app. Bad. Wait, that's a bad thing?

You think that's a good thing? No, that's a potential crown. It's a good thing that only two people are agreeing with it. It's bad for you guys, because you're gonna spend more time setting it up than it could actually help you. It could be amazing though. What if it's amazing?

But what if it's awesome? What if I just hold down the action button on my phone and I just say, remind me to blah blah blah, and then I get the notification later. How important is your task apps to you guys? It's the most important. Okay, how much do you trust ChatGPT? From the demo I saw with everything I have.

Really? From the demo? Yeah, no from the. I saw a demo of the Faraday Future once. No, there's a tweet. There's a tweet here, look the tweet, I'll play the video, is you ask it to remind you to do something and then at that time,

it gives you a notification just like you asked for. Wow. Boom, that should work, right? Should work. And then they've built this whole UI around like managing those tasks. So you can add like subtasks or description to the task. Does it do things for you?

Well, that's the thing is Chat CPT, you can ask it to do things and it might hallucinate or it might do the thing. It could be amazing. So give me an example of what you would do with this. At 12.30, send a message or draft an email for my cousin to ask him about his new job and tell him that I wished him happy birthday.

And then at that time you get a notification with the draft of the email and you can just send it off or at the day you want, for example. Or maybe you even ask it to initiate a call and it does something. Probably won't do that. But think about if it could. Potential crown is all I'm saying.

Okay, so we officially need to crown and clown something. Okay. I just want to say, so far I love this game. We definitely need to clean it up somewhere. So we'll take your suggestions. But I think that was a good start and provoked a lot of fun conversation. So clown, worst thing that happened.

I'm going with the drones. I can agree. Being able to do whatever they want for no reason. The users controlling the drones. Yeah, that's the clown for the week. That's the clown for the week. Clown of the week. Clown of the week. Clown of the week.

The clown of the week. The crown is going to, it could go to Oppo's resolution of that horrible thing they started. Let's wait until it's fully resolved. That's a good idea, it didn't happen yet. Before we even did the Switch. Tomorrow.

If they actually started it, I don't think that we should say good job. True. So it should go to the Nintendo Switch too, potentially. potentially that also didn't happen. So nothing good happened this week No, that's not true. So we could go with chat GPT. We could go with the model Y refresh We could go with oh my god. I vote Nintendo switch to I think we have to go I agree with the thing that didn't happen yet Just a thought of the Nintendo switch to you guys want to be the best thing that happened this week?

I can't get on with that. The best thing that happened to me this week. I'm holding on to that. It's the only thing giving me life right now. CES ended. That is good news. None of us got sick from CES. Yeah.

Also good news. None of us got really good news. No, it's not just got sick regularly. Yeah, answer me. We got sick from CES somehow. But not from CES. Not from CES. You can't prove it.

Were you in Vegas? No. No, but the cloud. I'm going with CES ended and none of us got sick from it. I'll give it that. As the crown of the week. We'll think of some better crowns for the future. For sure.

But we all know who the real winner was, David. Well, we know. You're never getting me on that one. Okay, well, without any further ado, we should do... Trivia. ["Summer's Ending Theme"] What was that sound?

Sorry. Okay. Yeah! I was... This is not gonna end well. Trivia Do you know you got to play the trivia music Anyway question number one the Tesla Model Y of which we just saw the new Juniper variant, which I love that name. The new Tesla Model Y, or excuse me, the Tesla Model Y in general was the first Tesla to incorporate what technology into the cabin heating system. I don't think I'm right, but I don't know what else it would be. I'm really mad.

I wanted to write, what were we memeing on earlier where it was like, you can't expect me to know. What were we talking? The planets. Calculus. I forget. Can't expect you to know. What were we talking? The planets. Calculus. I forget. Can't expect me to know stuff about Tyler. There's something about TikTok.

I have literally nothing. Wow, you literally did put nothing. I don't know. Oh man, that was, if that's right. David and Marques, can you say your right answers at the same time? Three, two, one. Heat pump.

Heat pump. So easy. Is it really? Yeah, so. Model 3 doesn't have a heat pump? No, it does. It's so easy. Is it really? Yeah, so. Model 3 doesn't have a heat pump? No, it does. It's just the way I got it slightly earlier. I don't know, I haven't confirmed that,

but the big thing is that resistance heating, where your car's a toaster, is really inefficient in cold temperatures. Yes, the Rivian Gen 2 just got a heat pump as well. Yeah. We love heat pumps. Do you just got a heat pump as well. Yeah. We love heat pumps. Do you know how a heat pump works? It moves heat.

But it's- It pumps it. It's up the jam. No, it's like picture like a window AC unit and then just flip it so that the cold part is outside and the hot part is inside. I think that's so nifty. It is. Yeah

um They added it to the 2021 model 3 alongside the heated steering wheel fun fact Okay, well without further ado I'm glad I got the point but I was trying to catch david so I hope you don't get the next one My lovely co-host adam lucas Damn put my whole government out there I'll get the next one. My lovely co-host, Adam Lucas. Damn, put my whole government out there. That's literally not your government.

That's true. Okay, so after that correct answer, quick update on the scores, Marquez with four, Andrew with one, two, David with five in the lead. David's carrying the one right now. I'm on the point ahead. I'm on the point lead. Nintendo has a ton of classic great games,

but what is the best selling game they've ever made? Not bundled with a console. Video game. That's a huge difference versus what I was gonna say. Playing cards. And I just. Dang it. Wait, what were you gonna say?

He literally wrote playing cards. Oh my God. Which I think is probably right. Probably, I don't know, man. It depends if you count all 52 as individual games. No. The number eight is not a game, Ellis. Nintendo's full playing cards. It depends if you count all 52 as individual games. No, I think- The number eight is not a game, Ellis. Nintendo's full playing cards?

Sounds like you don't have enough imagination, David. They sold playing cards for decades. I'm sure they sold 60 million playing cards. Alright, flip them and read. What do we got? Mario? It's not a game. It's a category. Marquez, you're gonna have to be a little more specific. Lincoln now. Mario 64.

Is that a game? It was a game. Nice job. Andrew? I wrote Tears of Kingdom. Tears of the Kingdom. Nope, never even heard of that. That just came out.

I know. I'm thinking of the other one, but I don't remember what it's called. Breath of the Wild. Thank you. I wrote Mario Kart 8. That is correct! Correct! 8?

Mario Kart 8 has been on three consoles So it's been on though or maybe two consoles the Wii U I was close the switch That's why I said you had to be a little more specific. I pictured Mario Yeah, but Mario somehow is not even remotely specific to Mario hot take really dropping a hot take right here Mario Kart 8 is a cheap knockoff of Sonic Racing Transform. Fight me about it. Sonic Racing Transform is a cheap knockoff

of Garfield Racing. Mario Kart 7. Also Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, which is on the Switch, is just like an updated version with all the DLC of Mario Kart 8, which was on the Wii U. Well, the correct answer was Mario Kart 8 Deluxe. Yeah. But I just put Mario. No, that's, he just said those two different things. Well, the correct answer was Mario Kart 8 Deluxe. Yeah. But I just put Mario Kart.

No, that's the same. Well, he just said they're two different things. No, I did not. I said they're the same thing with DLC. Yeah. That's crazy that you knew that and didn't roll it. You are? Yeah.

Huh. Interesting. Oh my God. We'll let it slide. We'll let it slide. That's a two point lead, though I won't forget about that. Just like you can slide in Mario Kart. That's it for this week though.

Hey, let us know what better name you have for Clown or Crown. And then if we read through all the comments and there aren't any better names, then we're gonna keep calling it that. So no pressure, but that's on you. Is that a threat? Thanks for watching and listening.

And of course- And subscribing. And subscribing and for sure using CHIHTBT to do all those things in one single button click Which I'm sure you're doing and we'll catch you guys after the switch to face Hopefully now you love the switch to See way for miss Bruce by Adam Elena and Ellis Irvin were part of the box media podcast network and our tractor music was created by Vaincel. ["Spring Day", by Vaincel, playing in background.] Damn, we would have been friends. Support for Waveform comes from Coda.

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