Radio Better Offline: Mia Sato & Dave Lee

31:55I imagine it's chicken and egg because I had this theory about a year ago, maybe actually 2023, where it's like at some point, how much of content is just going to be geared towards what they think the algorithm wants? And because the algorithm, with good reason, they don't want to just publish exactly what would work because then people would only do that. And I think that there's just this weird battle between, I think, any content creator. I think all of us, like, there's a certain degree of what's going to do well. And personally, as everyone knows from this show, I've just done what I want since the beginning, regardless of what people said.

32:25But there is a pull of, like, what will do well, what do people want, and what is a person in this case. and so you've just got this people probably i reckon for the most part people are making honest content i think it's impossible to quantify yeah it's impossible to quantify and also i don't think it's that like it makes a lot of sense when you think of the internet or these platforms as a workplace which for a lot of these people it is for me it is in some ways the verge employs me and pays my bills but part of my work part of my how my work travels is based on my ability to ride algorithmic waves when needed right and it's the same way that like you still see journalists on threads i don't really post on threads very much but um you see journalists on threads post screenshots of their articles and then in the replies they'll post the link because they think that they're going to get downvoted right or down down ranked for putting a link in there which is insane um and that's the same way that like you know twitter's twitter's like that as well now yeah yeah um and i mean elon musk has just come out straightforwardly and said like you know it's i can't remember the term he used but yeah he's acknowledged that um but you know the same practices sort of carry over to video platforms where you need to start a video in a certain way if you want it to get traction there are different ways is that well there are different ways to do it some some stuff that goes really does really well is like you know selfie style selfie style video and it starts okay story time I'm sure you've seen what's the Gen Z shake oh where you put it down millennials get it ready right and have it and there's a pause hello everyone the Gen Z shake is the is like so you guys well that's a perfect example of like people the shake is this thing where people were I guess surmising that if you put your camera down like you start recording and you put your camera down in a way that feels like you were just caught spontaneous in the moment Yeah, and you were just jumping in to record a video.

34:19That is effective for people, or it makes it feel organic, or it makes it feel relatable, like whatever. But yeah, everyone does some level of optimizing. I think the dark side of this is that trying to predict what works is turning people completely loopy. Yes. So I saw, and I won't say who it is, because my assessment on how this person feels might be wrong. but I saw a singer who made a short video, maybe 30 seconds, where she had like one verse of a song, and she's like, oh, guys, you like this. And it was wonderful, and it got like over a million views, and everyone's going, oh, record this, record this, record this.

34:54And so she did, right? She sort of took time off the platform, made like an EP, and put the songs out there, came back on TikTok to make the content about the song being ready, and it got next to nothing engagement. And you can just see, at least my impression was, you could see her kind of going, why? like why like i've done the song i've done the actual work of releasing a song and the algorithm for some reason maybe it seems less organic or maybe people just didn't like the song maybe i'm ugly now maybe like all these and people go what is it that's preventing it and i think that's where it's kind of troubling i i agree and i think that it's really hard sometimes to see the difference between the algorithm and the reader or the viewer right because it's like what did you like did people actually like it as well as the question there there was also a youtube video that went up a couple months ago where someone was investigating why lots of videos have a person holding the tiny microphone, the lavalier microphone.

35:46And it really... I do that. On the Bloomberg TikTok account, I do the whole micro thing and people take the mic out of me. It's weird though. Rightly so. Apparently the algorithm likes it. I also don't think so. Dan, over at Morning Brew as well, does he holds like a full scale like old newsman microphone. I think people need to go back to that. I love that. The Subway Takes guy has it on like a little thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, he has a lavalier. i think that that's lovely as well yeah but it's like i hadn't really thought about how it drives people insane but it does even early days of the newsletters i text matt weinberg a friend of the show i'd be like is this shit do people he's like just keep writing just ignore just keep writing it will grow naturally but we've been conditioned for this thing where we're constantly even me and i try and pretend i don't get affected by stuff like this but it's like you see something do well or don't do well your natural inclination is why what can i do to did am i wrong am i somehow and it's interesting how so much this comes back to the platform incentives right and the human inside you assumes people don't like it right yes that's your initial reaction to it i'd say i always find your boss neilay neilay uh he's always talking about how the verge is just has to be true to what it's doing and not sort of bow to any of the platforms as they go and i think that's always been a very good lesson because i think too many media outlets we we sit here we go oh okay this is the thing that's working on TikTok.

37:05We're going to sit down, we're going to act in a certain way, we're going to do it in a certain tone. And I've had previous employers where they're like, oh, just trying to do it off the cuff. And I'm like, well, when you work for and I stress a previous employer, I would argue with my editors in saying authentic for us was to not do that. And it's a very sort of hello fellow kids thing that happens. When these serious places tried to be all like, hey, you know, in the same way that when a politician like Chuck Schumer tries to do some TikTok joke, it's It's not real. It doesn't. And it's embarrassing and it's patronizing to the people.

37:38So, yeah. Also, yeah, can you just do something off the cuff? Oh, you would like me to fake spontaneity. Absolutely. I'll get it. But it gets back to credit to Neil. I hear the term Google zero, I think, is really interesting because this idea that, and as you wrote about recently, Dave, that Google is basically possibly taking away the traffic from everyone or dictating who gets traffic now in a very direct way. They're not one they control because it's a large language model or at least controlling it's indirect and i think it's it's almost like a final like boxer in animal farm being marched to the glue factory the final way you've outlived your usefulness and i feel like the media and i by the way i say this with a great deal of sympathy yeah you're gonna chase which would get you clicks for your click driven business but i think you've seen your where at the end or the beginning of a dark kind of like semi-dark era where we're seeing the cost of orienting journalism them around trends and clicks so aggressively and we're kind of now with the boobies and everything we're seeing the natural result of orienting things around trend chasing because it's like here's a thing that has no real resale value the owning it is just symbolic do you care about the show no why are you making these news stories well it's because people are going to be looking for them why are you covering the same thing as everyone else because everyone's looking and there's a fair argument for that if there is a big funding round or a big news story of course everyone's going to cover it.

38:59And it's like the functionality of journalism. And I think this Google AI thing is, it's scary, man. I think like, Neil, I got there early. I'll give him this one. One thing I'll say about the Google Zero, this idea that, you know, the traffic will go down until it hits nothing. I don't think it will hit nothing, I should say. Yeah, I think for some people it has basically hit nothing. However, I will say that like, and I posted this on Blue Sky, But this has just been the MO for Google and with search for years before AI overviews. The idea that Google is self-dealing, right, that it creates products that then replace the things that other people were doing in search.

39:41That is old news. And it's funny that, you know, people are kind of that the AI overview of it all is what kind of finally makes people realize it. When I worked at the markup, we ran this story by some great former colleagues that like measured the percentage of the first page of Google results on a phone screen. How much of that space was taken up by Google products itself? And it was like 41%. And that killed websites like Celebrity Net Worth. You know what I mean? Or like travel companies because Google had flights, shopping, right? Like all of these services that other sites were providing, Google just made its own version.

40:23And they were like, we're going to put this at the top. That's what's happening with AI. It's the exact same thing. In those cases, in Europe, they regulated against it. So when these companies come on and say, oh, Europe's being so overbearing, that's what they're talking about. They're talking about the fact that Google Shopping can't dominate the top 20 % of a search page when you search for iPad or whatever. So that's what they were so aggrieved by. But now with all the AI, I mean, I was on my mobile, on my smartphone the other day, and I was scrolling for days before I got to organic content.

40:54And now they're doing the entirely AI-generated whole page. Did you see this test that they announced? What AI mode? Oh, is this beyond AI mode? Yeah, I forget what it's called. I would have to look it up. But they announced it last Thursday or Friday, and basically it's separate from AI mode. You search for something, and it creates, honestly, exactly what webpages look like, websites. Oh, my God. And it is, you know, it'll have a section. If you search, I think the example they gave was like solo traveling in Japan. And the top part will be like Reddit and YouTube posts. So like communities or forums.

41:26Then there will be a whole different section of the SERP, the search engine result page. That is, yes. It's called web guide. Web guide, web guide. And then it'll be sort of like, you know, top places to go. And it will pull stuff in from Expedia or not Expedia, TripAdvisor, things like that. It basically subsections the SERP to look like an SEO-driven article. It's really crazy. It's the snake. That is actually. Who needs websites anymore? No, but it's all over, isn't it? But that's the thing. It's ironic as well because the origins of Google were based on this idea that there was too much original content for you to find alone.

42:04And it was kind of noble. And also within the original paper, they were like, yeah, if ads ever get involved with this, it's fucked. Man, were they right. But it's this sense of they've never had much gratitude towards the web. And you made me actually think of something with traffic dropping away. This is also, if you read like Search Engine Journal, and like these are great publications, by the way. You want to see some real like journalists, those journalists, people that read SEO and talk to SEO people all day. Jesus Christ, rusty over there. But there were so many situations where traffic has just disappeared from a concept.

42:36And they just Google went, no, not today. the idea that they're building pages like this is fascinating as well because it's like wow we don't need you anymore yes you fucking do dick what how is it going to generate the page what's it going to be based on and their their thought i imagine i'm i'm guessing is likely oh people won't notice i think people will i think they will i think people will see ai results which is why the traffic's dropping go okay that answers my question but i think an entire fake page people are going to be like okay and maybe they'll click them but they're not going to stick around on them they're not going to read much it's not going to be particularly enjoyable but maybe i'm wrong and i hope i'm not wrong because if this is an idea of something replacing the web that is google like that's more google zero-y than anything i've ever seen it's grotesque it's just it's just part of a pattern of um reducing any need to go off that yeah to get we need and one of the most egregious shams with it.

43:31It isn't even AI. Every time I see it, it annoys me more and more. So one of the things that some publications have been quite successful at, Bloomberg's one of them, the New York Times famous, is games, right? Wordle, connections, whatever. A little thing that would make people subscribe to the app, open the app every day, maybe catch a bit of news while they're there. Brilliant, right? And now, LinkedIn are doing mini games. What is it? Can you explain it? And I'm like, why? Can you explain this LinkedIn game thing? Leave us alone. Because I got the pop-up for the Apple News thing and I think I posted it on Instagram and I don't know what this shit is.

44:03It's just like, fuck that. But what are these LinkedIn games? Please walk me through. I mean, they're just little word games. I mean, there's nothing. They're just trying to sort of capture. Do you know what? I've not played the LinkedIn ones. But the Apple ones are just mini crossword, that kind of stuff. The thing with the LinkedIn ones, which I find quite funny, is it will tell you how many of your colleagues have that. And it's like, oh, 300 of your colleagues at Bloomberg have done the mini crossword. Oh, that's really useful information. I imagine the crossword answer for every single day on LinkedIn is just like hustle, rise, grind.

44:30or that would be quite fun though yeah that would make me sort of go for it that would require too much like charm and thought well linkedin if you're listening i can write your games i also they added vertical video to linkedin evil and i think that if you post one of those someone should come visit your house like that's wellness check they're like no i'm thinking more like the fbi it's like what do you what do you got on the laptop let me check that hard drive real quick uh but it's it's so funny as well because all of this is just coming down to please click our website please don't leave our website our website is the most important it almost feels just desperate like it feels that tiktok generally i don't say this with any i tiktok upsets me when i use it i need the at the page to end there's just a weird thing in my brain i'm like no infinite makes me i don't want to look at this forever have you ever reached the clip that says hey you've been scrolling for a while no see i i feel like i'm the only one who's ever seen this no i've hit it yeah yeah okay isn't that the most depressing it's so sad doesn't it yeah at that point i'm like god damn i need to go outside you know what we're talking about there's like a clip you get if you've been scrolling and it must be like an hour and a half maybe i get really anxious it will say please you know you've been doing this a long time i need to hit the end if i if i get the sense that there's no end i'm like i can't look at this like what i require time to end please.

45:49But that sort of limitless space is why we get derivative content. You know what I mean? Like that's, that's kind of - Because people want more. People want more. And also it just, if there's space, someone will fill it. And that was kind of what I was trying to get at in my dupe story, which is like the same thing that happens on an infinite scroll feed on recommendation-based social media platforms is happening to like our physical goods simply because there is Amazon space. There are Amazon pages to fill and you need ideas the same way that a content creator needs ideas to post every single day like when it is so algorithmic and recommendations based and taste based it's just like just throw whatever and i think space there and i hate to defend the platforms at all i think there's the thing you said earlier about people did make shit content before actually really did resonate because it's there's also a degree here of yeah there's a bunch of derivative content but there's also consumer demand and yeah as human beings we want to see more of a thing we're interested in i do think part of the unhealthy parts of the internet is we can feel just about anything perhaps not for the best but it's and there's a goodness to it as well as many alternative communities that have found good things online and then others but it's interesting because it's fulfilling the need of needing an infinite scroll which is a need that they created on the platforms themselves and i I also found that story interesting because you didn't really have sympathy with any, like it felt like you were empathetic for everyone, but not sympathetic to anyone.

47:15It was like you recognized why people did these things and why people want dupes of expensive things is probably because the things are too expensive. But then you had the skirt worn by Taylor Swift. Yeah. And the skort. The skort. It's a skort. Thank you. Sorry, my bad. Yeah. I really like stories where you read it and your allegiance changes. I think that's like one of my favorite things to write. and when I can figure out ways to put it into that format, I really enjoy it. But yeah, I mean, like, I don't really love the debate going into, like, who's right and who's wrong because it's just, like, not that helpful or not that interesting.

47:52That feels more like, you know, just gossip or something. But I like this idea that, like, everyone is a little bit being taken advantage of and everyone also sucks a bit here.

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51:04And I also think that there is a certain degree of Human beings take advantage of other human beings too They rip off the I'm the person I'm the labubu whisperer Great quote there I'm the person that can help you find the thing There are all of these channels about How you can Like gambling tips About how you can buy and resell stuff There are ethically dubious things that pop up on the internet But there's also hunger for it those people are taking advantage just as much as the incentives of the platform take advantage of people i think the platforms are generally more evil because they have more capacity for harm but that doesn't mean that these small-time people would not do evil things even given that scale i feel like the platforms the difference between how the platforms behaves and how what people describe as what the legacy gatekeepers from you know yesteryear is that they don't they don't have any sort of standards of what's good right right so if you're you know um you know you're running a children's television company, Nickelodeon, children's BBC, whatever.

52:02You're not commissioning a show like Mr. Beast or whatever, because you just, you, something makes you go, Oh, is this really what we want here? Is that, do we want to make it that everyone's obsessed with money and they're willing to sort of, um, do these crazy stunts, embarrass themselves or whatever. And you, you, you make those decisions despite knowing that people would lap it up. People would go crazy. And I think you can say the same thing about sexualized content. You can say the same things about gambling. I think, yeah, you could do a great show about people gambling on sports. Oh, we had one back during the Super Bowl, and many listeners did not like that I talked about sports.

52:38But it gets back to the same incentives, like you're saying, though, it's people take advantage of people. But I think there used to be this idea that the major companies, even down to, say, 60 Minutes on CBS, they would say, right, is this genuinely important, and do we need to do it? And I think when the platforms don't apply those same standards, what it means is that the people with just completely nonsense theories and opinions just get on that same surface where any TV producer worth their salt at all would go, okay, well, we're not going to put this guy on because what are his qualifications?

53:09We don't know if he's talking gibberish or not. So there's been problems with that in terms of who gets on, but I think it was better maybe in some respects. No, and I think that, but you're also touching on something, which is these platforms have, despite what they're doing right now, have always acted as if they're never going to be the arbiters of what is used as content. It's just like we're helping you find stuff. But it's very clear that they want to be the producer or at least mimic being a producer as well. And it's very interesting as well because everything we're discussing is just incentives.

53:41It's incentives and how people are drawn by it. Because you mentioned nutters. Sorry, what? did i mention nutters no i mean just like people of dubious intent and content people like curtis jarvin or eliza yudkowski or these less wrong freaks they were 10 years ago they would have never had them i would say they would have likely not got a new york times whatever but i think what that is is actually a mashing between everything we're talking about which is 10 years ago there wasn't perhaps the pull of seo there wasn't the pull of tons of online content suggesting that we need to talk to this guy and humor him seriously there was tons of reporting saying saying these people were evil but now i genuinely think some of these things also might get clicks or they'll see the interviews that these people get 500 000 views so they're drawn by all these new incentives versus having an actual quality bar i do think it is uh funny though that these companies to this day are still pretending that they have no responsibility for the content they they have no they have no quality standards they need to maintain and indeed they will tweak them to whatever level.

54:45I'm not even saying that anything has changed. I mean, there's been changes in the sense that they, I think, well, I struggled to give Facebook too much credit on this, but they definitely have made tweaks around just having a regular family member talk on Facebook and that being driven to, but what they've kind of pivoted to, and maybe they've done it not out of any sort of obligation to improve the problem, but because they realize now that content made by people you don't know, that's sort of made in a certain way. You're going to look at that for longer anyway, so they don't care. There's more of it.

55:20There are more people you don't know than do. Which is really interesting. I find now, the only time I get any utility from the Facebook app is when it says, here's what you're doing 10 years ago. And I'll take a screenshot of that, send it to whoever it was, and go, look, can you believe that was 10 years ago? And that's going to start running out soon, I think. I'm going to run out of those sort of memories because people don't post it. But that time when it used to be a platform where you'd have like a party, and the next day there'd be, you know, a hundred photos of people tagged in. I mean, that feels like a completely different website.

55:47It was so nice. It's great. It's so good. That's the thing. As angry as I am at these platforms, it's brokenhearted romantic because when I got on Facebook, it was genuinely magical. Like you said, you'd go to a party, someone like 10 shit webcam photos would be up there. You'd say, oh, yeah. I'm tagging me in that one like an idiot. Or just like you'd see someone that you talked to for a minute and you were friends. I had tons of friends at Penn State, for example, and there was something like nice about that And I guess that that was just before they realized how much money they could make or before they went public.

56:17And they realized, too, that, you know, humans have an endless appetite for slop, not even AI slop. It's just like if you give them a scrolly feed, they will just keep going until we hit the danger zone pop up. Does Facebook have a danger zone pop up? I don't think it does. I don't think so. I don't think so. I've never looked at it that long. They're just like, don't look at this. Yeah. no it's and i think it's the shift away from their claimed utility towards their real one that they want which is they all want to be entertainment networks because this concept of we ran out of stuff that is it it's like you go on facebook you check facebook and you go oh this this and this okay i'm done because my utility here is social networks on google like i go and look for something people might do idols idol looking but they're like generally with a target now you've tiktok was i think created within the realm of people want to see stuff like it was it never tried to sell itself as a place where you meet your friends a place where you interact with others yeah in fact it was distinctly this is a place where you are not by people you know you know what i mean you're posting things to a to an assumed audience that does not include your parents or your social network yeah yeah and tiktok doesn't compare to the other networks TikTok doesn't really encourage you to post, right?

57:34If you do one video, then it will say, oh, do this, this, this, this, this. But it's quite content for people just to consume if that's what their pattern is. But it's an entertainment now. There's not like a huge sort of, you know, nudge in the app to say, oh, get posting. Yeah. And I think we're, and even with Google now, it's like, what is Google anymore? Is it, are they trying to not making it a search? Is it going, is it a place where Google, I mean, it always was a place where Google served you ads. but now it's you're in the google zone and i have to wonder if i say this with some optimism whether someone might go huh what if we made a search engine that helped you find things that could be a billion two billion annual revenue business you know it's not a hundred billion but we also don't need to do antitrust shit every year i'm being i'm even saying these words out i'm like no that's not gonna happen i mean people are trying to make different i mean duck duck goes kind of in that vein.

58:28Yeah, I like that. But people just don't use them. That's the problem. And that's the thing. It's like, do they not use them or is just not as many as Google use them? I'm not even saying you're wrong. It's just when you say people, you mean most people. And yeah, most people use Google. Most people stop their internet journey on Google. I mean, the thing that ties a lot of these platforms as problems together is the point in which they go public. It all just goes nutso, right? Because you have, I mean, Facebook is the classic example of this. Then it just became massive growth every single quarter.

59:03And this is such a sort of basic observation, I guess. But I think if you applied that model to, say, the bodega on your street, right? Okay, every year you need to grow by 10%. Imagine that business is going to go mad, isn't it? It's going to be selling porn and it's going to be selling drugs just to get the margins up, right? And you're thinking, well, hold on a second. That sounds like my bodega. Respectfully and with love. No, this is the rot economy. This is the growth. It's everything driven around growth. It's the moment that growth must be perpetual. Because in 2017, there was an internal Facebook thing I put out last year.

59:36Big up to Jeff Horwitz, Broken Code, great book, where there's a whole thing where Zuckerberg needed 12 % perpetual growth. When you just really sat and thought about this, that is an insane fucking thing to put on a social network. That's crazy. I must have more friends. I must connect with more. and it's and that now when you look at everything that is the incentive everything it's not really about do we buy toys do we search thing is how do we keep people here or get the credit card which is i mean the age-old capitalism thing the problem was with facebook is that people didn't have enough friends yes exactly you run out the constant yeah is that you'd run out of stuff and so then it became okay well how do we make them when they're looking at this site look on it for longer and that's when we started to get all the mad and it's crazy it was profitable before they took it public i have read stories which suggest that mark zuckerberg didn't want to take it public and i i'm like 50 50 on whether he did because there's enough evidence that suggests that he was quite happy with it being a 50 billion dollar public a private company and then i think he realized oh wait i control this whole thing i can never be fired but it's like trying to give a soul to there's there's regret though i mean jack dorsey is the probably the famous one there right he's and he's going to say it should never have been a uh a public company and he's right if only someone Twitter could have been a fine business but people the VCs need their their payday right that's the whole ecosystem it could have I always wonder whether we don't have more interesting venture capital models with like revenue shares or like like something that is more interesting than if I give you a bunch of money this might you might sell this in the future it's it's sad but it's you know what I want to ask a good question are there any parts of the internet you enjoy right now I truly want to know you should have prepped me with this one before it's interesting having the gap like i'm sort of gravitating towards old style blogs like web blogs do you ever see and i think i don't know how to pronounce i think it's kotka.org oh yeah kotki and it's just it's just a blog there's maybe three or four entries a day and he's been doing it and he's got a team like 20 years for a long long time yeah and and it's just a beautiful design and the stuff is just interesting stuff it's kind of reminds you of the days when you just have a few weblogs that you that you'd write and he sends real traffic as well yeah i imagine it does but it doesn't be you couldn't launch that site today and gain popularity i think you have this sort of legacy of people that have always visited that website i actually i although i'm a new reader so maybe i don't know but i i kind of i agree with 98 of it other than i think you could do something like this it's just that starting a new thing fucking sucks like that i went and i have some personal experience with this in i went and looked back where i was five years ago 300 subscribers 60 views on my first piece but you have to have the ability to do a bunch of shit until it makes money and i had a main job had a pr firm and i think just making money and creating anything is so difficult but i love cook i actually i had not thought of it in a while but it's just a place where someone thoughtful has said you should check this out kind of mimics i don't know friendships or iconoclasts like the idea of someone yeah there's a tone as well you always kind of know you're going to get it's going to be sort of mildly nerdy but not too much so like and and that's what you get when you go there and i think it's yeah it's when people get nostalgic for the web i think it's that kind of discovery that they're they're thinking about yeah and it's it is the thing that i think a lot of listeners miss as well it's like we're not we don't just hate arbitrarily we're not just angry it's just there's something taken away like we mentioned facebook the quality it also used to be google you used to be able to dick around on google and find some bizarre stuff stuff i remember back in college i lost this 2006 i want to say i was in my in my dustin pangonis college roommate we randomly typed in you know you're right by nirvana into YouTube and there was just this i think it's like i don't even remember it had view it was this grainy video of this like young Asian guy singing this like really kind of like slightly out of tune version of something it was so interesting and grim like he seemed very sad can never find it again.

1:03:37But that was the kind of internet I kind of missed. Like just these arbitrary moments where you find these weird things. You can't find that clip on YouTube, but would you be interested in two hours of Joe Rogan instead? Yeah, five hours of Lex. Because it will help you find that. Lex Fridman. And then if you watch that, then maybe Charlie Kirk. And then you're in. Or you've learned three times the racism. You get Lex Fridman going, how you are on computer on website. I won't do that for too long. That's why the episodes are so long. It's 10 minutes per question. So Mia, what are you enjoying?

1:04:11Oh man, I feel like there are a few content creators that I really like and really tune into. There's a woman who makes like sort of YouTube video essays that are very well researched. Her name is Mina Lay and she does sort of like fashion and consumerism and culture and art and stuff. And And I think she is really fun. And just like clearly – I saw this thing the other day that someone was like, if you can't write a normal essay, you should not try to do video essays. And she can do – it's clear she can do both. And I'm like, thank you so much. That's very good. You know what I mean? So I really like her.

1:04:51There's another person that I follow on TikTok and other platforms named Ryan Finn. And she is also really great. Also kind of writes about like kind of like a she she she talks about fashion and clothing and culture in a really like heady kind of it's it's it's the type of content that people who don't read would see it and be like, it's really not that deep. But it is, you know, and I appreciate that someone takes things seriously like that. There are also like corners of the Internet, even on platforms like TikTok or Instagram, that I just like find the nerds and they still are just plugging away and doing whatever they want.

1:05:31And their posts get like 50 views and they're fine with it. And like that's I think where it's special where I don't like it when I follow a creator and suddenly everything is SponCon or I follow a creator and clearly they're just sort of like jumping on trends. I also like websites where there's still like new content being posted but you can clearly find the markings of like 2006. Like I'm a big knitter and Ravelry is the – was the place to find knitting patterns in like the early to mid 2000s. and sometimes I'll find photos clearly from that era and it's like really delightful you know what I mean like they were posting to a different internet they were thinking of the web as a completely different space before the before the algorithms I imagine before the algorithms and Ravelry also like it has some algorithmic stuff but like a lot of it is sort of pure I think um they're like forums you know what I mean that people post on but this is why one of my favorites is baseball prospectus I know you're a you're a Dodger fan right Dodgers they suck right now i know it's everyone's everyone bats are dead but baseball prospectus i think has looked the same way since it was made and it's just like really specific nerdy stuff but i think you can even see it in sports you've got people like chad maruyama over at dodgers digest i think it is you've got these like really specific and you know that they're really doing okay but they're not like millions of views every month or anything but you've got this kind of niche strength and my hopium i i snort aggressively is that these will never stop being made because they're still being made now there's never been a more bleak time to make niche specific content and keep making it but people keep doing it i mean carl brown from internet of bugs he like does the most straightforward thing and just talks and it's great and he has a growing audience but you can he does um very specific developer focused stuff with a very straightforward explanation lovely fella and it's nice seeing those and it's what gives me a bit of hope because if those people if you never find any of that stuff anymore if everything is just mainstream.

1:07:29I think that's terrifying. But even look at Gamers Nexus big hot Steve Burk over the legend hard run box as well. You've got millions of subscribers. There is hunger for this stuff. There's hunger for like passionate people storytelling. Yeah. Even I mean I was always a big fan of British guy Tom Scott. I feel like you might have and he's done that for years and years made YouTube videos and he did like 20 minutes on the design of the British plug for like an outlet and how it's got three prongs. I really want to see this video. And he makes the case that it's, you know, one of the finest things that Britain's ever come up with because, you know, you can't electrocute yourself by putting it in.

1:08:05And I remember watching it thinking, God, I've just watched 15 minutes about the history of the plug. But he's just such a sort of resting, interesting guy, bona fide nerd, but a great presenter. One of the things I take from the sort of sub-stack era, if you like, is like I imagine, and I'm not going to make you get into numbers, I imagine The Verge with its paywall now has a lot of people saying, oh, why are you paywalling? And I find it really interesting that when big publications put up a paywall, everyone gets a little bit mad, right? They say that's, you know, and like whenever I post a link to Bloomberg, it's always paywall.

1:08:39And yet when one person launches a sub stack and says, right, this is 10 bucks a month. Oh, my God. They kind of go, oh, great. Good for you. I'll definitely get behind you. And I think what that's showing us is one, it's a kind of, you know, middle finger to the mainstream media. Fine. But then the second thing maybe is that I think people have respect for depth and niche. And love for content as well. Yeah, because I think they want to sort of, they love the idea that someone gives up, and gives up a steady thing, goes into a sub stack. I mean, I think of Paul Krugman who left the New York Times.

1:09:12I remember thinking, oh, there's a - Come on the show, Paul. Well, I remember thinking, okay, Paul, you're being a cranky old man just because the editors don't want you to do that. But now his sub stack is brilliant. It goes to such length. If you know Paul Krogman, please get him in touch. But it's great. And I think I'm much more inclined to Chuck. When the New York Times wants to upgrade my subscription, I'd rather send that to Paul on his own than get the entirety of the New York Times. Because you're incentivizing this individual voice, and you know the person kind of parasocially. And the way that I think bigger publications kind of lean into that is to have these sort of niches.

1:09:45Well, Vurge just added following, right? Oh, yeah. Everyone should follow me on TheVurge.com. You should follow me. and all the topics I write about. But I'm glad you said that, Dave, because I think that is, it shows a thing that mass media or big media companies have failed to do, which is explain what we're actually doing day to day. And that's why I am active on TikTok. You know what I mean? I talk to people who will never probably read my story and probably will never subscribe to The Verge, truthfully. Some do, thank you so much. But a lot of them will just watch my videos and that is a way for me to explain to them what it takes for me to write a story.

1:10:19this is how I talk to people this is like I think people don't realize that like when I'm writing stories I'm actually sometimes going in person to interview the person you know what I mean like it's and I don't blame them really for not knowing because media has done a really bad job of explaining it historically and I hope that you know folks who read my work know that like I'm an I'm a one I'm one person and I write these stories and obviously there's copy editors and editors and photo editors and um you know dev like dev folks who make my stories come to life but like we are just people making shit that we like and we think is worth your time and every media company should be showing that off you made a really you made a post quite like maybe it was last year forgive me where it was saying we're kind of journalists are ceding ground to content creators who are reusing their stuff and i think it comes down to a failure of i'm not saying anything specifically about any given outlet but a fail to failure to realize that people want people they want to read people they and i think that large broadsheets tend to fail actually i will give big props to the ft for doing this that they let their freak flags fly brice elder the legend uh and like alphaville as well because people want to read people and i think that what should be table stakes now is that every outlet should get everyone a good microphone get everyone a good camera media train them zhuzh them up a bit so that they can sound good and represent the work of the publication in a personal way that makes people more willing to understand there's a paywall yeah which is a reasonable thing whether however you feel about the verge or any other out there yeah money things cost money to do money money it's so expensive it's really fucking expensive to write 6 000 word features that's like months of my time many many people's you know work and resources and i think also like if we don't feel that i and i know a lot of people disagreed with me when i said like we're seeding ground and people didn't like it for a lot of valid reasons but if we are not there something will fill the space i was i was basically just sick of seeing my stories super you know behind someone's head and you made this point very clearly it's what you said like it's someone taking my stuff it's someone taking my Yeah, exactly.

1:12:31It's someone taking my stuff. They're misrepresenting it, getting basic facts wrong. And like I have 30 minutes in my day. I will just make the fucking video. You know what I mean? Like I don't care. But they should get – there should be the space for – they should have like IHOL Radio gives me a studio at least because it's like, oh, imagine I might want to do an in-studio thing. Might make for good content. It's just when you have resources, share them. You were going to say something. Well, I think part of all of this as well is showing the process. is the most, it travels almost more than the story.

1:13:00Totally. And it breeds a ton of trust. I mean, I'm always surprised you can be, you know, in rooms of people who are, you know, incredibly successful and they'll ask the most rudimentary questions about the journalistic process, like, oh, who tells you what to write? Yes. And I'm like, God, my job would be much easier if someone did tell me what to write as opposed to it being the other way around. Things like, do you let people read things? I think just going into the process is really, really useful. And I always, there was a dinner thing once and this one guy made this point that I thought was, I've always thought of when I'm talking about this, is if you said to somebody, when was journalism in America the most trusted, right?

1:13:35Well, in some reason, most people would say Watergate. Yeah, yeah. It was a thing. And he said, no, it wasn't Watergate that made journalism trusted. It was a very good film about Watergate that made journalism trusted because all that film was was just them trying to get this stuff in the paper and them going through hell to make it happen. And if you want a more modern example, the book She Said by the New York Times reporters that did the Jeffrey Epstein – sorry, no, it was Harvey Weinstein. I get all these different questions. Different perverts. Yeah, disgusting men. But their book, they knew what Harvey Weinstein had done within about 10 pages of the first chapter.

1:14:13The rest of the book was get it in the newspaper. And I just think that is the more of that process that journalists share off the cuff constantly is super powerful. That's what Twitter used to be very good at. There was a big shift in newsrooms among bosses that went, hold on a second, the official account is getting no engagement. But when this random person on one of our UK desks starts tweeting about it, that gets loads of pickup. Why is that? It's because people respect hearing the process more than the end result, the eventual story. They want to also know, and I know that this is difficult for different.

1:14:45like your opinion stuff is fucking fantastic by the way at bloomberg it's really like bloomberg has actually been very impressive in how they've grown out the opinion stuff so this is not a detraction of that i at least in my writing have found that people really like to know why you care and i think that explaining that even on here talking about your work mate it's like hearing it just a little bit about the things that draw you into the story i think it's so powerful it's also people love it i mean after ces i know i see like victoria song and uh shirlin lowe both of them get the loveliest comments from people i just found you work for the show it's lovely and it's also i feel like most readers like to know and appreciate it's not like most people are like these fucking idiots just when they actually know what goes into it i feel that there's more goodness in people around this than they know and now you've made that comment about watergate and be thinking about it all fucking day i'm obsessed with it no it's such a good point so i'm gonna wrap it there it's been so wonderful having you both me and what can people find you um i'm on blue sky tiktok instagram and the verge.com where again you can follow me dave i'm on all those places except theverse.com i'm blueberg.com slash opinion but instagram the rest yeah and uh i must recommend both of their work both of you are two of my favorite right i've no like i'm actually so excited i got this one of my favorite episodes to ever recorded i'm just gonna be honest um i am ed zitron you can find me on the podcast better offline you go better offline.com click newsletter click all the stuff uh get the challenge coin if you want uh but really just i'm so grateful to have all of you love you all thank you for listening and then you're gonna hear it say thank you for listening again i'm gonna get an email i'm gonna ignore it i'll respond thank you for listening but thank you for listening

1:16:33Thank you for listening to Better Offline. The editor and composer of the Better Offline theme song is Matt Ossowski. You can check out more of his music and audio projects at You can email me at or visit to find more podcast links and of course my newsletter. I also really recommend you go to chat.wheresyoured.at to visit the discord and go to r slash better offline to check out our reddit thank you so much for listening better offline is a production of cool zone media for more from cool zone media visit our website coolzonemedia.com or check us out on the iheart radio app apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts

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