Is Amazon Prime Too Hard to Cancel? & Tylenol-maker Tanks From Autism Claims

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0:29Good morning, Brew Daily Show. I'm Toby Howell. And I'm Kyle Heggie. The FTC is mad at Amazon. The DOJ is mad at Google. And I'm just happy to be here. And how Oura Ring is Oura Farming with a new fundraising announcement and valuation. It's Tuesday, September 23rd. Let's ride.

0:51Good morning and happy Tuesday. Neil is out today for some much needed R &R. So we have superstar sub Kyle filling in it today. And superstar sub Kyle, I have a question for you. I was reading this article about the gelato brand Talenti yesterday, and apparently customers have been complaining for years about how difficult their jars are to open. A Wall Street Journal article from 2018 found people were using screwdrivers and saws to hack into jars, while a scroll on TikTok today will yield videos of people using vice grips and banging jars on the counter to get inside. This year, people were hoping it would get easier after the brand posted a video saying, We have an entire team dedicated to finding a solution to this issue, but customers have yet to see results yet.

1:34So Kyle, my question is, one, have you run into this Talenti issue before? And then two, are there any jars or receptacles you have encountered that are particularly difficult to open? Well, I have not ran into the Talenti issue personally, but I kind of like it. It's like you enjoy things that are a little harder to get to. So maybe it's like, oh, maybe you're just not man enough to eat the Talenti, work a little harder. The hardest vessel I've ever had to open are those small ketchup bottles. They never open. So if someone could help me there, that would be much appreciated. Just spike it on the ground and wipe it up off the floor.

2:06But apparently the issue that Talenti is running into is the fact that after you seal the plastic, it contracts in the cold. And then, again, it can expand when you heat it up. So if you are having difficult getting into your frozen sweet treat, just run it under some hot water. and technically it'll be a little easier. And now a word from our sponsor, Remarkable. Toby, do you still have that note I gave you? Oh no, I threw that away. Why? It was the last letter my grandfather gave me. Ah, see, he should have used the Remarkable Paper Pro Move then. It's a portable paper tablet that helps you be more present, fit all your paperwork conveniently into your jacket pocket and digitize and organize everything you don't want to lose.

2:49Yes, if only I'd used the Remarkable Paper Pro Move. then maybe you wouldn't have to throw it away. Yeah, miscommunications like that can happen all the time when you're distracted by technology. It's even got two weeks of battery life, so you don't spend every few hours having to charge it. You can try Remarkable Paper Pro Move for 100 days for free. If it's not what you're looking for, get your money back. Get your paper tablet at Remarkable.com today. That's Remarkable.com. Big tech is back in a familiar place this week, as Amazon and Google are staring down separate court battles with U.S.

3:22regulators. First up in the burnt orange corner, Amazon is squaring off with the FTC over accusations it, quote, knowingly duped millions of consumers into buying Amazon Prime subscriptions without them realizing. The FTC suit dates back to 2023 after a business insider investigation found that Amazon execs were aware that its users found its Prime cancellation process more confusing than the signals your ex was sending you. One of the main findings from the report is that Amazon internally named its prime cancellation process Iliad after the famously long and winding Trojan War epic. According to the FTC, to brave the Iliad flow, customers had to navigate a four-page, six-click, 15-option cancellation process that also contained numerous pop-ups and warnings about losing benefits or missing special discounts seemingly designed to make them give up before finishing.

4:15Amazon has argued that the reason so many people end up buying and keeping their$14.99 a month Prime subscriptions is because they like it and they want to get next day delivery on 42 paper towel rolls. Regulators remain unconvinced leading to this high stakes trial. Kyle, jury selection kicked off yesterday, but is expected to take about a month to complete? Yeah, I mean, first, personally, I just want to know who's trying to cancel Amazon Prime. You're not thinking straight. I need Amazon Prime to live my life, but I think the heart of this matter is, in general, what companies are allowed and not allowed to do when it comes to disclosing terms, making it easier to cancel.

4:52There's legislation that came into force in 2010 called ROSCA, Restore Online Shoppers Confidence Act. And that's really a key piece of legislation here that makes it illegal for Internet services to not be clear with their disclosures. You have to get consent to opt people into these subscriptions. So that will definitely be coming up in the trial. The other interesting angle here is that there will be some internal Amazon documents, as you alluded to, that come up as well. And so I'm sure there'll be a lot of news about what they're saying internally at Amazon. And is that consistent with what they're saying to the media?

5:28And what the internal documents might show is that Amazon execs could be personally liable in this case. That's what's different from most of these antitrust case or big tech case that we've seen face the courts is that right now two of executives could be found personally liable if they were apparently aware of this issue and still continuing to roll out this Iliad flow. So definitely some sweaty necks in the Amazon boardroom right now. But I also you said you can't live without Prime and you're not alone. So Prime is insanely valuable both to people but also to Amazon itself. Amazon made$44 billion off of Prime subscriptions last year.

6:09Third-party estimates say that Prime members spend twice as much as non-Prime shoppers. So anything that goes after their baby, their golden goose of Prime, Amazon is going to defend very vigorously because it's just so important to how they operate as a business. That's right. And I think this is a clear trend of consumers getting a little fed up with these dark patterns and with the inability to cancel more easily. I think Amazon Prime personally is actually like fairly easy to cancel. I went through the cancellation flow last night in prep for this story. The only issue is when you cancel, it doesn't make it explicitly clear that you'll still retain your benefits kind of until you hit cancel.

6:48And it says, well, you'll still have them for the remaining of your time. But compared to like a gym membership, like Amazon Prime is a lot easier than that. Yeah, I remember some gym memberships forced you to go in person to cancel them. So yeah, see it eye to eye. So compared to that, you are right. Amazon Prime's a little easier. Next up in the multicolored corner, Google was also squaring off with regulators yesterday over its dominance in the ad tech market. Earlier this year, a US district court ruled that Google had a monopoly over the digital ad market, saying that the company used acquisitions and rigged ad auctions to build their illegal sway.

7:23The judge called out that Google willfully engaged in these acts to build immense control over the tools the websites use to serve you pop-up Range Rover ads while you try to follow a recipe for short rib. With that ruling in place, the trial has now moved to the remediations portion where the DOJ is once again fighting for Google to be broken up. This is separate from the trial that sought to cleave off Chrome from the company, but the outcome the DOJ wants is the same, a smaller alphabet via a structural divestment. Google is fighting back, saying that the DOJ's proposals are too extreme, offering up smaller, more targeted fixes in response.

7:59And Google already played dodgeball once when it comes to a breakup. Let's see if it's nimble enough to squeeze out of this one, too, without making any major divestments. Yeah, and if you had to Google how many lawsuits is Google in right now, don't worry, I did as well. At this point, it feels like Google is just one monopoly that's actually three monopolies in a trench coat. Like they're getting sued left and right, and they're trying to break up so many different divisions in their business. You alluded to the previous case that was centered around Chrome. Google did not have to sell that.

8:28And one of the reasons cited by the judge was that AI has changed the dynamic around browsers and how consumers interact with browsers. So like Google won't maintain its dominant position there. This, I feel like, is a little different where Google has a really strong footing in the ad market. Google Ad X dominant market share. It estimates that 54 to 65 % of the worldwide open web display ad exchange market. And they have their ad server product, Google Ad Manager, which also has an estimated over 90 % market share. So it's dominant and I don't see how AI or a new technology is disrupting that.

9:07So this one feels a little more serious to me. Yeah. Let's dive into those two terms because they're not necessarily terms you come into contact with every day. Ad exchanges are those marketplaces where websites can action off ad space to advertisers in real time. These are a very complex matching system where someone bids on an ad slot and then it's filled and that is managed by Google. And then there are the ad servers that actually the software that websites use to manage which slots they have available, the minimum prices they'll accept, which ads ultimately appear on your screens. And again, this is stuff that you just, when you're scrolling online, you see ads all the time, but you don't know everything that's going on behind the scenes.

9:45Google has a massive chunk of that. That is why it is such a big part of its business. Just in its U.S. ad revenue alone in 2025 is projected to reach$86 billion. And that is a small part of their overall business, but they have a global ad network as well. So there's a lot on the line here. Basically, the future of the open web, is it going to be one that is dominated by Google going forward? Or is it something that they do have to be broken up? And similar to the Amazon case, there's some internal documents that might come out during this trial that could be interesting because Google had previously offered to sell their ad exchange during private negotiations in a different EU case.

10:27And so as this trial proceeds, some of those internal documents, those internal studies on what the harm to Google would be by selling this might come out. So we'll actually see what Google thinks about this all. Another defining moment. I feel like we've been saying this on the show so much, but will the course actually force a big tech breakup or will they keep settling for kind of these half measures like just kind of data sharing and contract tweaks? Or will it be something where the alphabet is getting smaller? That's right. Stay tuned for that. Flanked by top health officials, including Health Secretary RFK Jr.

10:59and FDA Commissioner Dr. Marty Macri, Trump and the administration sought yesterday to draw connections between the use of Tylenol, or acetaminophen, and autism. However, almost all peer-reviewed scientific studies do not suggest that Tylenol causes autism. One of the largest studies in the space, which focused on 2.5 million children in Sweden, concluded there was no link between Tylenol and autism after removing confounding factors. And a meta-analysis of six studies on the matter, co-authored by Harvard School of Public Health's dean, concluded that there was an association, but finding an association is not the same as claiming a causal relationship.

11:37Quote, we cannot answer the question about causation. That is very important to clarify. That quote was from Dr. Didier Prada, who was the first author of that study. Scientists believe up to 80 % of a person's risk of developing autism is related to their inherited genetic factors. Now, the business angle, why are we talking about this? Well, Tylenol is a classic American brand, 70-year-old history, tens of millions of people using the product, and the company behind it, Kenvu, is a Johnson & Johnson spinoff company. This company is down approximately 17 % since the Wall Street Journal first reported about this upcoming announcement around a month ago, and the stock slid 7 % since this announcement yesterday.

12:17The company did release a statement saying, quote, we believe independent sound science clearly shows that taking acetaminophen does not cause autism, end quote. Toby, what do you think the Slack channel at Kenvu was like yesterday during this announcement? I mean, Kenvu is stressing just a little bit. They've been seeing kind of rumblings over the past few years that Tylenol has been linked to autism, but with no real definitive proof, but this time the Trump administration is kind of making a push to try to draw the link. There are a couple of major studies that you do need to be aware of here.

12:53One was this systemic review of six studies that actually the Harbour School of Public Health did that the Trump administration is signing, saying that there is an association between prenatal Tylenol use and autism. Explicitly noted in the study is that it is an association, It is a correlation, not a causation. And then the other major study that you touched on is this one out of Sweden. That is by far the biggest study that is diving into the link between these two. 2.4 million children over 20 years. 7.5 % were exposed to acetaminophen in utero. And they compared the results between those exposed and those unexposed.

13:33They even compared siblings. And they found no risk of autism, no increased risk of autism or any intellectual disability. So those are kind of the two studies you're going to be hearing a lot over the next few days as this is sort of debated. But you do see how the largest and longest running studies are contradicting some of these health claims put out yesterday. Yeah, and I think this has entered the zeitgeist, maybe rightfully so, because the rate of autism diagnosed has gone up. In 2000, it was approximately 0.5 % of U.S. children. Sorry, that was in the 1990s. In 2000, it's looking like it's about roughly 3%.

14:11Now, many scientists claim that this is because we've gotten better at diagnosing, and the definition of what counts as autism has expanded to much more of a spectrum approach, so more people fit a new definition. I also want to say, despite this announcement yesterday, the FDA issued a press release saying that, quote, it remains reasonable, however, for pregnant women to use acetaminophen in certain scenarios, end quote. So that was a little more muted announcement than what we heard from Trump and the rest of the administration yesterday. And that was basically the guidance of what you were supposed to do before.

14:45But it is fascinating to see Kenview now as this pharma maker. They are moving now more on political announcements and health announcements rather than peer-reviewed science or anything like that. So it's just a new reality for big pharma in general, which has been kind of beaten down by the Trump administration. A lot of these companies have had a little bit of a rough stock chart since, you know, RFK Jr. has taken aim at them. So add Kenview to the list of pharma stocks that haven't been doing so well recently. That's right. We're going to take a quick break, but come back and talk about Aura Ring.

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17:10With numbers so large, they would certainly make your smart ring register an increased heart rate. The company that makes Oura Ring is raising$875 million in new Series E financing, valuing the company just shy of$11 billion. Now, the company has sold over 5 million rings to date, which is double the 2.5 million rings sold they reported in June 2024. and the company is forecasted to generate over$1 billion in revenue this year, which has also doubled the$500 million it put on the scoreboard in 2024. Tom Hale, Aura's CEO, stated in an interview that Aura has been growing, quote, like a rocket ship and that he has never seen a stronger quarter and is 130 quarters working in business.

17:53Quick side note, I'm changing my resume from measuring in years to measuring in quarters. With the influx of cash, Aura is planning to scale up production, focus on international growth and invest in product development. Now, I want to zoom out for a second. Aura is just one player in the global wearables market, which is valued at over$70 billion and is projected to grow to over$150 billion by 2030. Samsung, Whoop, Apple, and many others compete in this space. For reference, analysts estimate the Apple Watch drove over$10 billion for the company in 2024. and in 2022 saw over 50 million watches purchased in just that year.

18:33Toby, are you a wearables guy? Because personally, I don't want to see my sleep score after waking up at 4 a.m. for the show. I am wearing two wearables as we speak right now. Neither one of them are an Oura ring, but this is a hot product right now. Some of the growth drivers that the company mentioned were female shoppers have been increasingly buying Oura rings, and then also HSA and FSA purchases these health spending accounts, have been able to contribute towards Aura Rings, which are pretty pricey and so have been driving increased sales. And then they're trying to expand internationally.

19:04They have more retail distribution, over 4 ,000 stores now carry Aura. So it's definitely this broad-based growth narrative that we're seeing. But I do want to call out one of their largest business customers, which is the U.S. military. Tens of thousands of service members actually use Aura rings for things like fatigue tracking, stress management, resilience training, fitness optimization. It makes a lot of sense. You want to see how your troops are doing and Aura gives a lot of insight into that health data. Back when the pandemic was at full force, they were seeing Aura rolled out this partnership with the military to do some pre-COVID tracking to see if any biological signs were showing COVID symptoms before they actually manifested.

19:46So it's been a fascinating partnership. Obviously, great retail growth, a lot of adoption from just normal, everyday people, but they also have this very, very robust military partnership. It's literally their largest business customer. Yeah, I think there's a famous quote that's like, first-time founders focused on products, second-time founders focused on distribution. And I think Aura had figured out distribution for their rings earlier than some of their competitors. They were one of the first companies that I saw that allowed you to use HSA accounts to purchase rings. That was a big driver.

20:17You mentioned this relationship with the U.S. military. The other thing that's great about this business is they've done a good job of shifting from purely hardware to software. About 20 percent of Aura's revenue now comes from subscriptions where you're getting your dashboards, you're getting the intel that the actual hardware the ring provides. So that is a really good sign for this business. The other theme that we're seeing emerge is companies staying private a lot longer. I mean, Series E financing, almost$900 million. In the past, this company would have gone public. The CEO said, like, there's real advantages of being a private company now, looking at SpaceX, looking at Stripe.

20:54Why go public and face more scrutiny when you can raise close to a billion dollars and stay private? And I do think that they have to be a little nervous, though, because big bad Apple is waiting in the wings. There's a lot. You mentioned, you know, Samsung launched its Galaxy Ring. That did pretty badly, actually. but you have Apple trying to create this health ecosystem. They've been investing a ton of money into health recently. They just released AirPods that have heart rate tracking ability that can pair with your Apple Watch. They've been rumored to be working on a smart ring as well. So Apple is one of those things that are just always lurking in the background.

21:28So I'd be a little bit nervous if I was Aura because right now they have mostly dominated this niche of ring. There's some other competitors out there. Ultra Human is another one. But I do think that if you have Apple filing patents for a ring-like device, you do have to be a little nervous because they've invested so much into health recently. Moving on, we're back with another edition of Toby's Trends, a segment where I take a deep dive into the business world to emerge with a trend that will help you win your next trivia night. And today's trend is about the app that is eating Yelp, Belly. Belly is a social review app that allows users to rate their meals with a catch.

22:06Instead of just asking someone how the experience was on a scale of one to five stars like a Yelp or a Google would, users are prompted to compare their meal with other restaurants they've rated. Then, much like chess players are assigned a rating based on how they perform against varying levels of competition, restaurants get a score assigned to them based on how they are reviewed relative to other restaurants. This is both a lot more fun than leaving traditional reviews and ends up giving a more uniform set of ratings across users. It's that level of granularity that has made Belly especially popular with younger foodies.

22:39According to the company, roughly 80 % of its users are under the age of 35, an audience they are stealing from legacy platforms. No one in my generation writes on Yelp, one 28-year-old told the New York Times. The data backs it up. In just four years, Belly has nearly caught Yelp. Users have logged 75 million restaurant reviews compared to 83.6 million over the same period for Yelp, but that includes all businesses, not just restaurant. Kyle, have you heard of Belly? And I'm not talking about the Belly who only dates brothers from Cousins Beach. That's right. I heard Jeremiah still uses Yelp personally.

23:12That's what I'm hearing. I've not used Belly, but I did my investigative journalism. You know, I like to go talk to my sources. I texted two friends that I know are power users of Belly. and one said, quote, the best part is delusionally pretending you're a food critic, a weird self-ordained credibility. They both referenced that the pictures of food on the app were like the best of any app. You could actually see what you're going to get and it was accurate. And then the other thing they liked is that you could look at friends' profiles who had similar tastes as you to find restaurants you needed to go to.

23:46So they loved it. I've seen very few apps that had that level of brand loyalty already. And this space is also heating up. The co-founder of Resi launched Blackbird, which is another kind of food discovery, food platform. So it seems like the next generation of food discovery is here. I think if we had to zoom out and call this a broader trend, it is life logging tools in general are becoming increasingly popular. One person in the New York Times article described Belly as it's like Letterboxd for lunch. Letterboxd is the movie review app. But this is kind of how young people go through life these days.