Why YouTubers Love Apple Vision Pro

0:00The Colin and Samir Show is supported by Microsoft Copilot. This is something I thought I would never say, but can I share with you my favorite prompt? I mean, like when you say something like that, I have to say yes. Were you going to say no? No, but okay. Just let me hear it. So when I'm researching for a guest or I need to know a lot about a subject matter, I say, make me a podcast about. And when you do that, you're going to get a short blurb about that subject. And then in like two minutes, you're going to get a podcast. So check this out. Welcome to Co-Pilot Podcasts. Picture this, a guy working the front desk at a hotel, making lacrosse videos in his spare time, completely unaware that he's about to become one of the most influential voices in the creator economy.

0:38Today, we're diving into the remarkable story of Colin Rosenblum. Wow. Did you pay it to say that? That's crazy. That's very kind. It's crazy, but it's my favorite way to learn about a subject matter. I'm learning about so much more now that I can turn this research into like a seven minute podcast that I can listen to just when I'm walking. Did you tell it that I worked at the front desk of a hotel? Dude, the prompt is just make me a podcast about Colin from Colin and Samir. That's it. I may be biased, but I'm on the edge of my seat. I'm hooked. So if you guys haven't checked out Copilot, check it out.

1:10Try it for your research. Try it for getting variations of your titles, your ideas. It's one of my favorite tools on the internet right now for our creativity. And now back to the show. The Apple Vision Pro launch is one of the biggest tech launches in the past decade. And it took over our feeds from Instagram to YouTube to Twitter. You really couldn't get away from this. There's people in cars with this thing on. There's people at lunch. There's people walking around. $3 ,500. What is this thing, literally? So on this episode of The Colin and Samir Show, we're going to talk about the economics of making a tech review like this.

1:46How many Apple Vision Pros can you buy from making a video about Apple Vision Pros? That's what we're going to figure out today on the show. We're going to talk about the unique relationship between Apple and content creators and dive into our prediction for what the future looks like between content creators and the Apple Vision Pro. I do feel weird that we don't have one. It makes me feel weird. I'd like to try one. Hopefully before this episode comes out at some point during post-production. Yeah, we've tried it on. We've tried it on. All right. Turns out we actually did get access to Apple Vision Pro right after we recorded.

2:15And we'll give you our thoughts on using it at the end of the episode.

2:22I want to start the episode with a question for you. Okay. If I were to give you an Apple Vision Pro and you were to get used to it, you were to like it, would you wear it in a coffee shop in public? That's a no. I can tell with your hesitation. My hesitation is that I would and that I'm not happy about that answer. But we're on the really early side of this. And we'll talk about that more, about what that even means. But the reason I hesitated is because I am not typically an early adopter of tech. I'm part of the early minority. And I am willing to do that once it becomes a little more normalized.

3:04I'm not willing to do it at a time where it's a meme. I'm with you on that. AirPods come out, I'm a huge hater. Now I love them. Right. Okay, so we're going to break this episode down into four parts. And the first part is monoculture. Monoculture is a very important term to talk about in today's reality. Today's reality of this sea of content creates a lot of niche subcultures, right? We all have our own different world on the internet that we engage with. And it's very few and far between that we have monocultural moments that take over our feeds and drive conversation across the entire platform, whatever platform you're on.

3:46the Apple Vision Pro launch was one of the first times in a very long time I feel like we've experienced monoculture. It's one of my favorite times to be a creator and specifically a consumer of video because we have conversational video. People are making videos that are sort of talking to each other, even with the memes that come out. It's like, okay, here's someone wearing an Apple Vision Pro on the subway. Take it a step further. Here's someone courtside at a basketball game. Take it a step further. Here's someone in the shower. Shout out to Eric. And here's someone driving in a Tesla Cybertruck.

4:25Those videos are sort of happening at a pace where they are speaking to each other. Now, most of these videos are created by YouTube creators, people who understand the internet very well. And it is a massive opportunity to drive attention. Whenever a new tech product is released, there's this conversation around the future. This is a product that looks exceptionally futuristic. And it speaks to the future because not only from the outside does it look futuristic, but the screen recordings of what it looks like to live inside of that reality, this new virtual reality or mixed reality, is super futuristic.

5:07So when you think about this curve of like, innovation. And now is a good time to bring this up. The curve of essentially how innovation is accepted, you start with the very small percentage of innovators. Then you go to early adopters on this curve. It's like, who are the people who immediately are willing to take this new tech, take the Apple Vision Pro and play around with it and actually use it? Then you go to the early majority, which is where I would say I'm a part of that larger bucket. The people who are like, okay, this is accepted. Then you go to the late majority, which is people who are like, once it's really trusted and everyone's using it, I will start using it.

5:47Then you go to the laggards, who are the people who kind of reluctantly end up using the tech. And I think this, in order to push through this curve, you need a level of normalization. And this monocultural moment where so many people are wearing the Apple Vision Pro in very loud videos, even though they're comical, actually accelerates normalization. And historically, that's what YouTube creators have done for Apple. In the past, Apple has always launched a product. And the first thing we see are memes because they're the easiest to create. It's literally just like image, quick video, and copy.

6:23And Apple's products have always been a little bit strange at first. You know, even the three cameras on the phone was weird at first. and that was getting memed. The notch. The notch was getting memed. The computer that looks like a cheese grater and is often just called the cheese grater, right? But it was memes that initially started to normalize these products. So for Apple, that's incredibly beneficial that creators will pay money to buy the Apple Vision Pro because they'll make a video that'll capture a ton of attention. And then that in turn supports the normalization of futurism or innovation for Apple.

7:02But the question is, why is this beneficial for creators? So if you have that monocultural moment, then you have the opportunity to make conversational video, to take part in the conversation. All of this attention is on this one moment. And obviously, creators can monetize that attention. And specifically on YouTube, there is a very direct way to monetize that attention. And the interesting thing is that the attention is available. Yeah. The viewership was there from smaller creators to much larger creators. If you look at Jacqueline from Nothing But Tech, the video that she made clearly exceeded some of the viewership from her other videos.

7:40Our friend Shervin showed us. Clearly, it was a one out of 10 for him. And then you look at creators like Marques. He put out three videos in a row that, at least at the time of this recording, have just about 40 million views. And that was just on his main channel. He also did waveform videos. about it. Like if you capture the zeitgeist at the right moment, then you're rewarded with attention. But to take it a step further, YouTube creators are not just rewarded with attention, they're rewarded through monetization. So you have this really interesting economic ecosystem that goes, Apple releases product, very high priced.

8:16Creator goes out and buys it for$3 ,500, makes a video about it, drives monetization through platform revenue share that can exceed$3 ,500, right? And that means that Apple is getting advertising through creators without having to pay for it. Other advertisers will pay to put advertisements on this video that is supporting Apple. And if you dig into the economics a little bit, we were talking about our episode with Marquez that we had filmed two years ago. He shared with us that his CPM at the time was$11.90. Now, this is two years ago. If we're being conservative, let's say the revenue he makes is...

9:02The RPM is$5. With 40 million views, that's$200 ,000. And again, that's being really conservative because most likely the rate is higher than that right now. So at a$3 ,500 price point, how many Apple Vision Pros do you think he can buy? Well, I know because it's right here in your notes. Yeah. Crap. Yeah, but if someone else wants to do the math, it's very fun to do. All right, we'll wait for a second. Take a guess. That's about 57 Apple Vision Pros. Yeah. Now, these are rough estimates of numbers, but it's not far off from what I think is the reality. The only additional reality is that these bumps, like one of his videos did 20 million views about the Vision Pro, something like that drives the viewership into the library.

9:48And viewership into the library then in turn, you know, boosts the revenue of the entire channel for the month. So it's a very, very good business decision to make a ton of videos about the Apple Vision Pro. And that is one of the most fascinating relationships between company and, you know, content creators that I guess has existed in the past with like blogs covering releases and magazines prior, like PC Wire or whatever would cover something like this. And we have a modernization of that. It's just way more lucrative to do it now than it used to be. And it brings into this understanding of the economics of a tech review channel.

10:31We had a conversation with Marquez about CPMs for tech. And, you know, tech audiences have high purchase intent. Like the assumption is that this is someone considering a$3 ,000 plus purchase. So an advertiser wants to get in front of that person who has that type of disposable income, right? Someone who is considering buying a phone or a headset or a computer is a great candidate to buy something else because they have the money. So CPMs are going to be higher for that audience base. And because it's kind of a Super Bowl-style event, the ads are actually really premium. The ads are like Verizon, Wells Fargo, banks.

11:16It is a moment where I would assume ad rates are actually really high because people want to be a part of this moment. So Tech Review YouTube is this wildly symbiotic relationship between tech companies and creators. But specifically Apple. Yeah, I guess specifically Apple. Apple has this impact that not many other companies have. Apple is a company that I'm not familiar with doing any level of like paid deals with creators for marketing. I could be wrong. If you're a creator, you've done an Apple deal, you know, please let us know. But from my understanding, that has not really been a thing. That's different from a Samsung or a OnePlus or, you know, other phone companies and other tech companies are willing to spend for marketing with creators.

12:02But Apple is this one company that just doesn't have to. Because the creators can get paid through another medium. There was speculation that Apple was paying people, hip-looking people, to walk around wearing Apple Vision Pros. And we were talking this morning, even if that were true, they don't need to. They don't need to because it was already happening. Right now, there are already so many people, creators specifically who have audiences, who are going out in public and basically doing at this point performance street art. Doing strange things that have never been done before in public wearing the product.

12:35So this is what we refer to as the Apple product content loop, where Apple releases a product, a ton of content gets created, which then in turn normalizes that product, pushes that product out to the masses. And then more and more people are willing to buy it. Now, we're not suggesting that is the only way that Apple's marketing works. Apple's one of the greatest marketing companies in the world. But this modernization of how their products and their innovations are communicated is fascinating. So now thinking about the future of where this all goes and what it means for creators. As I was watching all of the reviews and the videos, I found myself on the edge of my seat watching because I'm internally having a discussion with myself of like, is this actually what's going to happen?

13:25Are we going to adopt this? And if not, is it just some version of this reality where I have something on my face and I'm looking at you, I'm speaking with you, but I'm also like doing something else over here to the right and you can't see it. Yeah, so I think when we talk about the future of video, there's a few important things to talk about. One is virtual reality. One is mixed reality, right? Mixed reality is an augmented version of what I'm seeing right now. You and I have played around with this quite a bit where when we went to Meta, when we used their MetaQuest, we were actually able to look at each other and play a game in the room we were in that only existed because we were wearing the headset.

14:11So that's mixed reality. A lot of what we're seeing is actually mixed reality. It's not full virtual reality, right? Which is, I think that that technology has been emerging in this way that's making us feel more comfortable where it's like, oh, you put on the headset, but you can still see the world. That's why the videos of people walking around are existing right now, people driving, people eating, people able to see the world still, but see a mixed version of the world. So I think that it's something that Casey said in his video around like, this is showing us the future of computing. The idea that I can have my whole like computer digital online world that exists in the real world, that's what feels like is bigger than AR or VR.

14:54This feels like a little glimpse into the future of what computing could be like down the road. I feel like it proves to us that we are willing to be distracted or we're able to handle multiple things in the face of distractions. It's coming at a point where a single source of media is like not enough for people. Right. When you're scrolling TikTok, there's the subway surfer in many TikToks where you're really watching two TikToks at once. Which is insane. That's crazy. I found myself watching one of those TikToks while I was watching a YouTube video on my TV. Right. So I have three different sources of media in front of my face.

15:35Yeah. And yet I can kind of handle it. Yeah, that is crazy. Right? I think we've gotten to a point where that experience that I just described, I'm not in a headset, but I have the same number of inputs as if I was in a headset and I was looking at a YouTube video while texting someone, while talking to you. Now, there is one dramatic difference there, though, that like if you and I are sitting next to each other. Now, this is a very common occurrence, like two friends or husband and wife or boyfriend and girlfriend, whatever, sitting on a couch watching a movie, but both are on their individual phones and are living in an individual world, right?

16:11Essentially by scrolling their own Instagram feed that's curated to them or their own TikTok feed that's curated to them or watching their own YouTube videos that are curated to them. So I think the world of Apple Vision Pro and what we're seeing now in VR and AR is the rise of radical individualism, where what we're about to see is, we talked about monoculture at the top of the show. The inverse of that is that we've been moving deep into these subcultures. I think we're going to move into sub-realities. So there's this interesting stat that Kevin Alaka shared on our show when he came on from YouTube.

16:47He said that more than 50 % of Gen Z watch a creator that none of their friends also watch. So that suggests that they live in these subcultures that none of their friends exist in. Now you think about the reality where it's like, is that stack going to go up further where over 50 % of people will exist in realities that none of their friends exist in? Because if you and I are sitting next to each other on the couch, even if we're on the phones, there's a lot of our world is similar. But if we're both wearing Apple Vision Pro, we're both wearing headsets, our worlds are actually, could look completely different.

17:24And that's what I think is a interesting version of what the next chapter is. Casey said it when he's sitting in Times Square in his video. He turns to Jordan Stoddard and he says, it's hard for me to imagine that you can't see what I'm seeing right now. Yeah. Because our minds and our eyes are trained to believe that what's in front of us is real. And the longer you have that on, the more real it becomes. And I think that's actually the real danger of mixed reality versus like fully immersive virtual reality where you put on the headset and you're in a virtual reality environment. Yeah, that's like crazy, but it's like, okay, yeah, I put on the headset.

18:07Now I'm in a new world. I take off the headset, I'm out of the world. But when you put on the headset and you're in the same world, but it's different, that's, I think, you know, confusing. Like that's dangerous to our health. To our minds, yeah. To our minds. To our minds. Now, I will say that the rise of VR headsets is it's possible that it's going to have an impact on how we create as they become more and more normalized. We shot a VR video with Canon. It's going to come out on Canon's YouTube channel soon. But it's a tour of our studio. And like immersive environments, again, fully VR video where you put on the headset and now you're inside of our studio.

18:45I think that's really cool. It can place you where you've never been able to be placed before. Yeah, there's something about the headset as a camera also that is interesting in terms of truly putting you in the place of the creator or the filmmaker. Like, you know, GoPro sometimes. It's amazing when you watch someone with a GoPro strapped to their chest or whatever it is and you feel like you get to experience them. But it's a pretty different thing when you feel like you're inside their head. Like when you're watching Casey walk down the street in New York City and he's talking to people, you're like, wait, from this viewpoint, it feels like I'm talking to that person as Casey's voice.

19:25It's very bizarre. It's this next level of connection and empathy that you can have with the storyteller. Totally. Or you're like stepping into their shoes. And I'm sure that was like the early promise of VR. Sure. But when it's with mixed reality and you're in a real life environment, it does confuse you. It's very bizarre, but also cool. Like there's a lot of promise, I think, to getting to walk in someone else's shoes. I think what could be interesting is like, we no doubt will see exclusive immersive content launch in these headsets, right? Like there will be, you could definitely predict out like a movie or a movie trailer that's exclusively available in Apple Vision Pro.

20:11or you start to recognize like there's maybe windowed content like we talked about before. Like these are just additional platforms where the same rules apply. I will get the thing if there is an exclusive experience I can have. Right now, the mixed reality experience of like, oh, do you want to live life with your apps in front of your face? You can only get that with Apple Vision Pro. I think the biggest problem as I see it is that scenario where you're in a coffee shop. even if it gets normalized to wear the headset in public there is something so dystopian when you put someone with a headset in a community space it feels way worse to me than looking at someone in their living room who's using it to like watch tv like someone who's not plugged into the rest of the world but is yet but is in that environment yeah i think the only time i've seen multiple people with headsets on together was in Shervin's video with Colt Carwin and Tejas Hallure.

21:14They are together wearing Apple Vision Pros. I'd never seen that before. And I think one of my challenges with all of Apple's marketing has been that it's typically someone by themselves or someone having a very individual experience. And to start imagining a family of four watching a movie together. What does that look like? Is that everyone in headsets? Probably. That's strange, right? That doesn't feel like human. Family time. Yeah. That doesn't feel very human. Yeah. So I think that's a big question. I think we're still on such the early side of all these questions about spatial computing, all these questions about mixed reality, all these questions about virtual reality.

21:57And I think human beings have always been fascinated by what the future is, right? Like what is the future going to look like? And I think now because we'd prefer to hear news and opinion from our favorite YouTube creators rather than from, you know, the news, you're going to have a lot of opportunity as a YouTube creator right now to talk about the future, right? Like when a futuristic product launches, AI, when that was a hot topic last year, there was a lot of videos that came out that were really, really popular about predicting the future with AI or showing the future with AI. And now when you look at these types of products, there is an inherent symbiotic relationship between futurism and YouTube creators.

22:45And I think that is being shown right now and will continue to be shown as we're on this exponential growth curve of innovation and futurism. I'm just in it for the memes. Yeah, yeah. I mean, just listen. That was well put, but. Yeah, hop on the track. I'm just going to like look for the memes. Hop on the track. The other thing I do want to say is like, this is, again, the Apple product cycle is typically make fun of new product, normalize it, then basically you are weird if you don't have it, right? Like the product's weird. Then it gets normalized. And then you're the weird one if you don't have it, right?

23:26So there's a great bit from Scott Galloway. And this is from a while ago. And we had this in an old video. But he talks about how Apple is sex. And I think we should let him explain that. Apple is sex. We want to signal how elegant, how smart, how creative we are. This isn't a phone. It's my attempt to signal to women that if you mate with me, your kids are more likely to survive than if you mate with someone carrying an Android phone. It's an interesting concept. And it's interesting to talk about like the normalization and the status symbol that is Apple. And I wonder, is this product going to make it across the hump of weirdness?

24:07Because this is one of the first products that is, I don't know, am I wrong? Like this is, there was a meme that I saw that was like a guy in a coffee shop with Apple Vision Pro on. and the copy was like the best form of contraception, right? Like it's pretty weird to see someone in a headset. I showed it to my wife, Katie, and she's like, this is so weird, I would never wear one of those. My take is that it is not going to get over the hump. You don't think so? I think we will look back and think this product was amazing, but it was strange, and I think it's going to feel outdated quickly. That's not to say that Apple and the industry will come up with something better, sleeker, that feels normal.

24:48But I think right now, we will look back at this and go, those ski goggles that people were wearing with the battery pack in their pocket? Yeah, that was weird. Yeah, it's going to get sleeker, smaller. It does show us, though. I wonder, as content creators, how much of this should we be thinking about? Of like, okay, eventually, we're going to have to produce content for heavy immersion. for people who are heavily immersed. Yeah. Yeah. In a digital environment or a hybrid. Yeah. I think it puts into question attention, right? Is what you said. Like, I think attention will be so fragmented in the future because you will be living in the world and consuming something.

25:30Or able to at any time. Yeah. And able to visually consume something. Like Casey watching the Mr. Beast video waiting for the subway was pretty wild. And like the start-stop nature of it, that it automatically stops when he starts walking. And it's like, that was strange. And I think that was a moment that deeply showed the sub-realities, like the radical individualism, that he's sitting there in the headset and that world looks completely different to him. Like YouTube is up in that world for him, but not for anyone else. Okay, so now it's been four days since we first recorded this episode. We were able to get our hands on an Apple Vision Pro.

26:08So the whole office has been experimenting with it. What was your first reaction? Well, first of all, thank you to Eric for letting us borrow his. We realized after we recorded, we have a bunch of friends who are YouTubers. So obviously there was one in our vicinity. The thing I was really interested in is that because this is Eric's, it was calibrated to his eyes. So we could use it in guest mode, but it's actually not very easy to do. Yeah, it doesn't feel super transferable. It's not transferable. Which makes it less of a group experience. It's not a group experience. It already feels isolating.