Snap's Specs look good on nobody

18:30Nilay Patel:Google Glass couldn't do that.

18:32David Pierce:But like eventually they did a bunch of the Enterprise Edition stuff and it started to work for some of these features. People use it to like scan codes in factories as you're like running around moving stuff or in warehouses. You can scan the code that you've picked up the product just by looking at the Google Glass. Like that is a great use case for these glasses. It's also a very specific thing that you then take them off after. And Evan Spiegel is once again making this grand case that what we are doing is we're bringing computing into the real world. We're taking you away from looking at a screen and we're making the world and the screen one in the same.

19:08David Pierce:And like on the one hand, you look at some of these things and it's literally designed as if there's just a floating computer monitor in front of your face, which is the wrong UI. Like some of these things are just giant displays in between you and what you're attempting to look at, which is not what this is supposed to look like. But then on the other hand, it has four hours of battery life. It's going to smush your ears to bits. It costs$2 ,200. Like, I just, I don't, I don't see any evidence that this clears the boundary to like, yes, this is a thing I will just wear in my day-to-day life.

19:42Nilay Patel:Yeah. And again, the only reason I'm offering the benefit of the doubt is most people have never experienced this thing. Like, I'm not sure I've experienced the full, full vision of what they have here. And I've tried almost all of these tenos. Like, we're going to look at the world and we're going to augment it with digital information in real time in self-contained glasses is just not a thing that has existed before, really. True.

20:05David Pierce:And Snapchat's AR prowess is real. Like, this company has been at this longer than most and a lot of the stuff that it's built is very cool and very popular, right? Like, we don't talk that much about Snapchat on this show, but it's a weirdly sort of unsuccessful company that has built a massively, like generationally important app for communication. Like Snapchat is culturally central to lots and lots of people in the world. And they've built some really interesting stuff with the camera. They've been way ahead on a lot of things. So like, I want this stuff to work. And I was really excited about these glasses.

20:41David Pierce:And then the minute I saw them on somebody's face, it's like, this doesn't seem like it's right.

20:45Nilay Patel:To do the thing you wanted to do, the technology doesn't exist yet. And so the form factor is compromised in very real ways. Yeah. And we've been talking about that for how long? Here's things they didn't demo. They didn't demo facial recognition. They didn't talk about what it means to be constantly recording the world around you to augment it with digital information. They didn't demo, they didn't talk about the privacy implications of having two cameras on either side of your head all the time that are looking at the world. There's a lot here you have to really consider. And I think people are already pushing back on with the metaglasses and other glasses.

21:18Nilay Patel:If you want to build this device, there's no way to get around the fact that you have to be constantly ingesting the world so that you can augment it with digital information. Another thing I didn't demo, my favorite question I ask all these folks, if you look at the Capitol building and say, what happened here on January 6th? What is the answer you're going to get? Is it an insurrection or not? You have a content moderation problem staring at your augmented reality glasses that no one wants to acknowledge. So yeah, I think they put all of their emphasis on let's build the dream and this is the form factor that they can execute now because I don't think anyone else has gotten any closer than this.

21:56Nilay Patel:But then the actual problems are like, I mean, you know, Snap is a content business. They run content moderation. They do it. They know what to do. But boy, are these like an entirely new set of problems to have when you are altering the physical experience people have through their eyes, right? It's not a screen. It's like, I'm really looking at this and there's really an arrow pointing at the Capitol building being like, notably on January 6th here, a number of people got a tour of this building. Like, that's not what you want. A number of people got a tour.

22:26David Pierce:Technically accurate in a certain way. Some people wandered the building. Yeah, look, I think a lot is going to, you're right, be very clear the minute we are able to put one of these things on. And I'm like, I'm genuinely excited that Snap is shipping these, right? We've watched this company sort of toil in the background and keep shipping stuff, but not actually shipping it. And like, kudos for actually just putting the thing out in the world. Like, I think it's cool.

22:54Nilay Patel:They can't think they're going to sell a lot of these. They have to believe that they needed to put a stake in the ground that they got there first. I think that's right. I think that's right.

23:00David Pierce:And then in theory, you sell some of these and it makes it easier to both build and sell the next one. And like, I can see the playbook. And also I think they promised they were going to do it this year. And they just like it probably, if you're a company like Snap, who has had the business track record they have, it was very important to ship these things. I get all of those things. I just look at this and I'm like, if this is the best anyone can do, and I think it probably is, are we actually anywhere?

23:24Nilay Patel:And we'll see. You're right. We should wait and see. I think, just to be 100 % clear, I think the answer is no, but I'm also willing to say very few people, if any, have ever actually experienced a product like this. Yeah, agreed. And that there's something to just keeping your mind open to that. Like maybe people are going to lose their minds. I doubt it, but I'm not willing to just close it off before that actually happens.

23:48David Pierce:I really hope somebody makes a cool accessory that straps it around the back of your head, and we just go full cyberpunk croquis situation. It's going to be awesome. That's a free idea for anybody who wants it. All right, we should take a break, and then we're going to come back, and we're going to talk about a product everyone uses against their will, which is Roku. We'll be right back.

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26:56David Pierce:the future of Roku and we can get into some of those. But Neil, give me your immediate reaction to this deal.

27:03Nilay Patel:This is a sort of nightmare vertical integration and distribution that maybe Lena Kahn was like the most opposed to and the Trump administration loves the most. Loves so much.

27:13David Pierce:Yeah. Wait, explain what is the like, I think people have had a hard time this week as I've been talking to people and reading about it, sort of imagining what these two companies do for each other in that like company that makes content buys other company that makes content. You're like, oh, I get that. Now it's a bigger company that makes content. This is like a bunch of ostensible puzzle pieces all sort of smushing together. Like, what is your sense of how these things all combine?

27:38Nilay Patel:I think when media companies buy each other in an effort to get scale, they almost always doom themselves. You only need to listen to the Vergecast to know that I believe this in my heart.

27:46David Pierce:This is Neal's Warner Brother, Time Warner, AOL theory way back when.

27:50Nilay Patel:It's possible that the only antitrust policy this country needs is to prevent AT &T from buying anything ever and to prevent anyone from buying Time Warner. And like, maybe we'll be fine. Like maybe that's all we need to accomplish is preventing those two things from doing anything and we'll be fine. So, you know, big content companies buy big content companies, Paramount buy CBS. Like who cares? They don't have any distribution. This is actually the problem for all of these companies. Audiences wake up, they pick up their phones and they push a button that is owned by a big tech company and they distribute all the content to you.

28:24Nilay Patel:And if Mark Zuckerberg wants you to see one thing on Instagram, he can turn the knob and he can deliver it to you. If YouTube wants you to see one thing on YouTube, Neil Mohan can turn the knob and deliver one thing to you. And they all deny that this is true. Yeah. But it's true. Like they control the distribution. And they might have built systems to prevent them from having such direct control. But the reality is that they have control. And so it doesn't matter how much content you make or how good it is. You're subservient to the distribution. I just, I believe this with all my heart. Yeah.

28:54Nilay Patel:And most companies try to deal with this by buying enough scale, having enough stuff people want that they can roll up to YouTube or Instagram or whatever and saying, look at how much stuff we have. Pay us more money.

29:05David Pierce:Right. Because we have the stuff that you need, you have to negotiate with us. It's not competition. It's leverage.

29:11Nilay Patel:It's leverage. If we go away, the thing your audience loves will come with us. And mostly the platforms have like looked at that, laughed and killed those companies. Yes. Like, she looked him dead in the eye and be like, what if we kill you instead? This is the BuzzFeed story. Jonah Prattie was on Decoder, and I was like, the original sin of the internet is you thought you could make stuff so viral Facebook would pay you money, and then we argued about that for a full hour. Go listen to that episode. That's the original sin. Okay, so feel how you want about Fox. Feel how you want about the Murdochs.

29:41Nilay Patel:It's weird that every now and again I agree with them. It's weird that every now and again on the show I agree with the Wall Street Journal editorial page. They've understood this from the beginning. They are always, their companies are always yelling about Google search. They have been since the start. They are suing these companies. They, you know, the Murdochs are Australian. There's a reason that Australia was the first country to pass the laws requiring social media companies to pay for links, which is maybe dangerous and bad. Like maybe as a policy decision for the internet, very bad. But the Murdochs made sure that links to their content got paid for.

30:17Nilay Patel:They have understood their relationship with distributors from the beginning, and they have been the most aggressive. So here we are at whatever end of whatever internet we're looking at, and they're like, oh, most video is distributed on these platforms, on Roku, Fire TV, Google TV, whatever it is. And they just went and bought one. They bought the only independent one because they can't buy Google TV. They can't buy Fire TV. I think Samsung would let you do anything you want with Tizen, but no one's going to do that. What are you going to do? What is the only independent platform for watching television that exists?

30:51Nilay Patel:It's Roku. And they went and bought it. And the quotes surrounding this deal are naked about their ambition. Anthony Wood, CEO of Roku, on a call said, promoting Fox-owned and operated properties on the Roku home screen is a key component of the company's plan to increase profits. What are they doing? They own the interface. They bought the platform that has all the apps on it. They've made a bunch of noises about remaining neutral. But they're going to use that to put their content and their services first. This is what every platform does. Right. And again, you can feel however you want with these companies.

31:21Nilay Patel:I think it's pretty obvious how I feel about some of these companies. But they're the only ones who understand that owning the point of distribution is the way that you compete with the Googles of the world. Everyone else is trying to get leverage over Google and trying to get Google to pay them more money. And they never will. Right. They simply will not do that. And I think Fox figured that out early and said, OK, we're going to find lots of other ways to get leverage over you. So on the one hand, this deal is very smart. On the other hand, Fox is going to own everyone's streaming box, and they're going to promote a lot of Fox content.

31:49Nilay Patel:I bet a lot of Roku customers are going to have a lot of feelings about that in a huge variety of ways. Roku is already being in Shedified, which is something you complain about all the time. There's a data component here where I don't think a bunch of streaming service providers are going to want their competitor in Fox to have the analytics that Roku provides because Roku tracks everything. Roku is also the advertising provider. If you have an app on a Roku platform and you want to serve ads in that app, Roku gets a cut. Do all of those streaming service providers now want to start giving a cut to Fox, which competes with them for advertising.

32:23Nilay Patel:There's like layers and layers and layers of why people will be angry at the deal. But just from the very abstract strategic point of view, Fox is the only media company. It's like, oh, we need to buy distribution. And they went out and they bought it.

32:36David Pierce:Well, and all the reasons everybody else would be mad about this deal are kind of exactly the reasons to do the deal, right? Like, Roku, I think, has been this fascinating thing for a long time, which is that it started as Switzerland, right? Like, it started as a thing inside of Netflix. And then Netflix was like, okay, well, actually, doing this inside of Netflix is going to make it very hard to do the thing that we want to do, which is be a good partner to the entire streaming ecosystem, because we will be perceived to be biased towards Netflix. So they spun it out. Roku becomes its own thing.

33:07David Pierce:And part of the way that it won is exactly what you're just saying. It is the only one of these that is not owned by somebody with bias, right? Like, of course you go on a Fire TV and it's going to sell you Amazon stuff. Like it would be insane if they did anything else. Same goes for Apple TV. Same goes for all of these other platforms. And Roku was the only one that could with a straight face be like, we actually don't have a dog in this fight. We just want you to use our product. Whatever you want to do on it is up to you. And that was like, that was a pitch they made to users. That was a pitch that they made to streaming services.

33:37David Pierce:And it worked for a super long time. And then Roku became fundamentally an advertising business and started to compete with all of those people. But by then it was so big that where are you going to go?

33:47Nilay Patel:I mean, they basically reinvented the cable box in like a cell phone framework. So they gave all the hardware away essentially for free. Like there are expensive high-end Rokus.

33:58David Pierce:But you can buy it for$19 in the checkout line at CDS. Like it's easy.

34:03Nilay Patel:If you sign up for a checking hat, you get a Roku. Like they mass distribute the hardware.

34:07David Pierce:Every shitty TV you buy is Roku inside.

34:09Nilay Patel:Yeah, they sell really cheap TVs that run their operating system. And they went to all the service writers and said, look at all the scale we have. put your apps here. We won't preference any of them. But if you want to sell ads, we will be the ad provider. And then we will have the scale to sell your ads. And there's, we don't talk about connected TV ecosystems on the show really ever, but that is where all the action is right now in ad world. Like there's tons of money flowing to CTV. So Roku just has this big play where they are a massive connected TV advertising provider and they squeeze the app makers.

34:46Nilay Patel:So if you want to do something else or something innovative, they're like, no. And the relationship looks a lot like Apple and the App Store.

34:52David Pierce:Oh, that's interesting. Yeah.

34:54Nilay Patel:Right? It is the same kind of model there. And consumers get all the benefit for free because Roku's like, as long as we have all the hardware, the app makers won't have any choice but to deal with us. Right. Well, you add Fox to that mix, and it's like, well, a bunch of those people are going to say, no, we don't want to be in business with our competitor this directly. Right? Like, actually, we want different terms. Actually, maybe we'll find an antitrust lawsuit to block this deal. Like, there's just like real business concerns of having the supplier by the distributor in this way that in a normal administration, you would already hear.

35:26Yeah.

35:27David Pierce:Well, and I mean, we'll see. To your point, some of the reporting that's come out since this deal was announced is that Netflix also sniffed around buying Roku and in fact walked away from it because it was worried about the antitrust concerns. that it was like, I mean, and this is, you know, Netflix that ran into like a buzzsaw of weird antitrust stuff when it tried to buy Warner Brothers, looked into this, was like, okay, we're going to get the same smoke and just decided not to do it. Fascinating. But I agree with you, like this whole, this whole idea of Roku being so big, it is undeniable and you can't walk away even if you want to, because this is what the business has become.

36:05David Pierce:A, I think is true. And B is like central to this whole idea working, right? Because if there were a bunch of other good platforms people could go to, this would not be nearly as appealing to Fox because it's like, okay, we can unshittify this to the point where people will just leave. Like, no, you can't. Like that TV right behind my computer here runs Roku and I literally can't stop it without buying a new television.

36:26Nilay Patel:Well, you can. You just disconnect with the internet and plug an Apple TV into it. This is more of a danger. I don't want to buy an Apple TV. But this is, well, have you heard of the Nvidia Shield? this is more of a danger to all of this than I think either of these companies believe right there's a lot of free TVs out there running a lot of Roku software yeah and maybe you're locked in and maybe you can put Fox Sports programming on the home screen of that thing and you're gonna win or maybe Roku is already getting in shitified it's already pushing people towards the Roku channel it's already making people feel bad about how much tracking it's doing and what people are going to do is they're going to turn off the Wi-Fi on their TV and plug in anything else because the screen still works just as well as the day as they bought it.

37:07Nilay Patel:And I think Amazon can deliver a lot of free fire sticks to an audience like that and play that game. I think if Apple had any sense at all, it would have a cheaper Apple TV. There's a lot of ways you can get away from the Roku ecosystem without having to buy a whole new TV. Especially when many people enter the Roku ecosystem by buying a$19 streamer.

37:29David Pierce:All of that is true in theory and I think like demonstrably not true in practice, right?

37:33Nilay Patel:No, I think the switching cost of TV streamers is way lower than anyone thinks. Yeah, but people don't. This is my point.

37:40David Pierce:Like I have been arguing that Roku has gotten steadily worse for like five years as Roku watch share and market share has just continued to climb. Because I mean, if what you were saying is true, dumb TVs would be on sale. Do you know what I mean? Like there's just, you're describing a world that doesn't exist where people will do something other than buy the cheapest possible television that is very bright in a Best Buy. Like, that's actually not how people shop for these products.

38:07Nilay Patel:I think people are totally, like, unaffected by shitty interfaces. Yes. We're surrounded by them all day and all night. I think they might be a little bit more affected by, I don't want to see Fox News on this home screen. Maybe. Right? I don't want literally the Murdoch family to own this surveillance device in my home. I actually think that is a higher order consideration for people, then this interface is pretty bad now.

38:32David Pierce:That's very possible. I will say, I think Fox has done a pretty good job historically of keeping Fox News in front of Fox News people and away from other people. Like Fox Studios and Fox News have actually not overlapped in the way that you would think if this company was not as savvy about this stuff as it has been. But that said, it's not a hard... The studios are gone now. They're Disney. Yeah, but like it's, there's still some stuff. But anyway, it's not a hard thing to imagine this company putting Fox News on people's home screens. And I think they will rebel against that. But like, it wasn't that long ago that Roku just rolled out this huge redesign that instead of your home screen being just a grid of apps, it's now a few apps and then a bunch of like recommended content, which like spoiler alert, all of which will eventually be sponsored.

39:20David Pierce:Like Roku is going to turn into Amazon in that you're going to search for something and the first 17 things are going to be ads and you're not going to know which is which. That is where this company is going. And to the extent that six of them are just going to become Fox properties. Sure. I just have a hard time imagining that being like the thing that turns a bunch of people towards buying an Apple TV. I hope I sincerely hope I'm wrong.

39:42Nilay Patel:Again, I just think I think bad interfaces are one thing. And we are maybe you and I are not tolerant of them, although you have a Roku TV for some insane reason. I have a Google TV streamer plugged into it, which I never use because I can't find the remote anymore. Perfect. I would just say, like, you know, on the cold strategic logic of this, this makes sense, right? Yeah. The content creator is buying the distribution because they get leverage over all the rest of the distribution. Probably the only play that will ever work. I know, like, there are people who are like, at the end, this will get swallowed by an even bigger player because the connected TV marketplace is so important.

40:16Nilay Patel:And maybe this will all get acquired yet again. But that's the business logic of it. I think the execution of this, where there is a political component to literally the Fox brand and the Murdoch family and the point of this deal, in the quotes in the press conference, is to promote that content, that is a buzzsaw. Like, America's deeply polarized and politicized. However you feel about bad interfaces is one thing. How you feel about the Fox business channel is another. And here's my, do you want another my hottest take? Please. I was just at home on the farm where I was with Becky's whole family.

40:56Nilay Patel:Do you know why all of Becky's older aunts and uncles have fire sticks? Why? Because they run Android and they can be jailbroken to steal TV on IPTV services. Oh, interesting. Like, there's another exit ramp. Becky's family just gets cooler and cooler, man. I mean, this is why I actually wrote the Ionko Rucker story, Everyone's Stealing TV, because I was like, this is wild. Like, I'm on the farm.

41:17David Pierce:Wow.

41:18Nilay Patel:And we are pirating television. Like, they're not, though. Not those. if the police are listening, they pay the money. Also, motion smoothing was on all of their TVs and they didn't have the heart to turn it off because then they would note it. You know? Anyway, home. This is what happens when I go home. It's lovely. And then I'm like, I need to fuck with all your TVs. Anyhow, all I'm pointing out is like there's another exit ramp here that people care a lot about that is not on the books. And maybe more people are going to take that exit ramp.

41:47David Pierce:Yeah. No, I think that's fair. I like, I sort of hope you're right that there is a check on this for Fox that is like, okay, it makes sense that you want to own the distribution and have something that feels like a more closed ecosystem. If you ruin it, people will run. I'm just not positive. I think that's true. There is one other thing about this deal that I just want to talk about briefly before we switch gears here, which is there is some sort of huge new streaming service potential brewing inside of this thing. We've talked a bunch about Fox has had a weird relationship with streaming services over the years.

42:24David Pierce:They've like tried a bunch of different things to be really worked. That was an acquisition, I think four or five years ago. Fox one is now kind of having a moment because it's where you can watch the world cup, but like it never had the sort of high end S VOD streaming service, but what it now might have is like a titanically huge free streaming service. So I went and looked and the, The numbers for both the Roku channel, which Fox is buying, and Tubi, which it already owns, are like shockingly huge. So the Roku channel, this is according to the Nielsen gauge, which tracks all kinds of TV viewing.

42:59David Pierce:The Roku channel accounted for 3 % of total monthly TV viewing in March of this year. Tubi accounted for 2.2%. If you combine the two, which they have not said they intend to make it one streaming service, but if you combine these two free streaming services, you have a streaming service about the size of Disney Plus. Just like that. which is nuts. And as everyone is running towards advertising, you have the Roku channel, which is already a really successful advertising business. You have Tubi, which is already a successful advertising business. You can make this thing just a monster of a free streaming service, kind of all at once if you want to.

43:35David Pierce:And they're different in interesting ways. Like a lot of people on the Roku channel watch fast channels. Tubi is much more on demand. They have lots of like, I'm deep in the world of licensing deals for a story I'm working on about why I can't stream the movie The Nice Guys. This story has like slowly taken over my life, but I've learned how companies acquire content. This company would be hugely powerful in doing that. Like if they decide to fold the Roku channel into Tubi or do some combination of the two, we suddenly have another like A-list streaming service at Fox, which I just think is underrated and fascinating.

44:07Nilay Patel:They have so far said they're going to run them independently.

44:10David Pierce:Yeah, but that's what they always say. Everybody has always said that about every acquisition ever. And I don't think it has ever once successfully been true?

44:17Nilay Patel:Tubi is a shocking success story. It just works. The fact that you can open that app and watch it without any kind of login, I think is one of the smartest strategic decisions in all of streaming. Anjali Su, the CEO of Tubi, has been on Decoder. I've been like, what's it like working for the Murdochs? And she deferred. She's like, nope. She's a pro. I appreciated it, but she was like, nope. But she used to be a CEO of Vimeo. She's basically figured out, Like, oh, we need to put free streaming in front of a lot of people. This is a huge opportunity for us. And they've managed to grow at a pretty huge clip without the benefit of being the Roku channel, the default free thing that runs in your$19 streaming box.

44:57David Pierce:Which Roku advertises to death. Like, you cannot avoid the Roku channel every time you turn on your Roku. And that is very much on purpose.

45:04Nilay Patel:Yeah. So, I mean, imagine if you can take the Roku channel and the benefit of just being the default and, oh, we've learned how to market the free streaming service. It's pretty good. Like you can see the opportunities there. I suspect they will combine the advertising reach for the two without the service itself because all of this is just ad based.

45:21David Pierce:Yeah, you can sell them both on the back end, like together without smushing them together as one product.

45:27Nilay Patel:And then maybe you leave your antitrust concerns alone.

45:30David Pierce:Maybe. Synergies, baby. That's what we do here. Should we go 90 these things? Just this is a useful clarifying exercise. Is it time to bust out the go 90 scale of doom streaming services for all of this stuff happening here?

45:43Nilay Patel:You're talking about Tubi and the Roku channel, right?

45:45David Pierce:So I want to do Tubi and I want to do the Roku channel and I want to do just this whole deal. You sort of alluded to the idea that like maybe this is being bundled up to be re-bundled to some even bigger player, which would presumably be a tech company. Like could YouTube buy this combination and have that kind of make sense?

46:02Nilay Patel:YouTube has connected TV. Like the thing that most of the players have already is some big connected TV play. Apple has one. They have the Apple TV. They have their service. Like, they are able to get, I mean, Apple doesn't care about advertising so much, although they run an app store on the TV and the same economics. But Google has massive connected TV reach with YouTube and YouTube TV and Google TV. Roku obviously has it. Amazon obviously has it. They run Prime video. So it's Microsoft. Microsoft doesn't have one. Meta doesn't have one. There are lots of big digital advertising ecosystem players where, like, oh, this would be the thing you'd buy for connected TV.

46:39Nilay Patel:Now, I think Meta has no institutional focus on its core business right now. So who knows? But yeah, maybe.

46:49David Pierce:Okay. All right. Well, let's just do these three quickly before we get out of here. So 2B, I think we both agree, probably belongs toward the zero of the list. Yeah, 2B survives. Yeah. It's hard to imagine a world in which we come out of this deal and 2B is completely gone. So are we putting it at, do you want it at zero? It's at zero. 2B is great. And it's Fox's baby. Fox doesn't kill its own baby, right? That's fair. Yeah, I agree with that. All right, so Tubi goes to a zero on the Go90 scale of Doom streaming services. Named, by the way, after the Verizon streaming service, Go90, which immediately went 90 because it was a disaster.

47:24Nilay Patel:Yes, zero is alive and 90 is dead.

47:27David Pierce:90 is dead. So if you Go90, you die. You keel over and you die. All right, Tubi's a zero. Where do you put the Roku channel?

47:35Nilay Patel:I'm going to put it at 90. 90? And here's my argument. Maybe the words the Roku channel exist as an app icon somewhere. Okay. But there's no world in which Tubi and the Roku channel compete in the marketplace for content because they got to go buy stuff, right? Yeah. They got to buy shows and movies and whatever to stream on these services. If they compete, the prices go up. So there's, they're going to unify the content acquisition. Sure. Right? They're going to go out in the market and say, we're going to run this. They're going to unify the advertising. And eventually you're basically going to get a skin on Tubi called the Roku channel.

48:06Nilay Patel:Oh, that's interesting.

48:08David Pierce:I could see that. So it's kind of like in the old way of television, it would be like having like Nickelodeon and Nick Jr. Where it's like these are technically different things, but they exist only to have more places to put things acquired by Nickelodeon.

48:24Nilay Patel:I think that's right.

48:25David Pierce:Okay. I don't want to go all the way to 90 just because the Roku channel is so shockingly successful that maybe if you're Fox, you're just like, we're just going to leave this alone, sell some ads, try to make our money back. but spiritually I like it we'll put it at 88 88 feels good

48:41Nilay Patel:right I think they're going to hollow out its business operations and they'll it's successful but nobody cares about the business operations of the Roku channel no

48:49David Pierce:and Tubi is a vastly better brand like it had a big moment with the Super Bowl they're going to keep getting stuff like that like Tubi has a really interesting bunch of creator plays going on like if you're going to pick a streaming service it's obviously Tubi

49:01Nilay Patel:yeah Charles Polly Amore did a story for us about how Tubi goes and courts black creatives specifically and that is a market they've identified.

49:08David Pierce:Yeah, it's really interesting. Anjali, their CEO is really interesting to hear talk about how they think about content, which is very different from any other platform that I've talked to. All right, so that's fun. So this means I would say the whole Fox Roku tie-up has got to go somewhere in the middle. And this really depends on like, do you think this is being packaged to be sold for$100 billion to some giant tech company or do you think there's a real competitive streaming player here? What do you think?

49:38Nilay Patel:I think the Murdoch family does not want to be owned by anything else. Fair.

49:42David Pierce:They're certainly not hurting for money.

49:44Nilay Patel:And like I said, I think Meta maybe is a buyer. Microsoft maybe is a buyer. The people who don't have connected TV advertising stories are potential buyers here, but they all lack any kind of focus on anything human beings want. They're all totally distracted by super intelligence or whatever.

50:01David Pierce:I feel like Microsoft has tried the Xbox TV thing too many times to want to do that again. Right.

50:08Nilay Patel:This makes no sense for them. And they're going to sell Xbox. By the way, that's my super hottest take. But you put Xbox on the Go90s scale. Like, it feels like they're just paring it down to sell it, right? So they want out of this game. So I think right now you've got to leave it at 45. Dead center? I don't know. Yeah, dead center. I don't know if this deal will close. I don't know if the Attorney General of California is going to file an antitrust lawsuit. I don't know if the other studios will. I don't know if Netflix will show up and be like, here's more money. Right? Like, there's a lot here.

50:36David Pierce:Yeah.

50:37Nilay Patel:So I would say$45. Like, they go either way right now. Okay.

50:41David Pierce:I would say if the deal goes through, like, if you could tell me 100 % this deal is going to get done, I'd put it at, like, a$25. Because I do think this thing is, like, it might be too expensive a deal, but it's powerful enough as a platform that it might work. but if you throw in the just possible for political insanity over this deal including around the world by the way. Roku is a big global platform that is going to make a lot of people feel a lot of things. There's been a lot of fulminating in Europe.

51:12Nilay Patel:There's always fulminating in Europe. I think 45 feels right.

51:15David Pierce:Full coin toss for what this thing gets to be in the future. I like it. Alright. By the way, one last button on this. Did you see the story this week about what happened after Stephen Colbert's show went off the air to the ratings of CBS.

51:31Nilay Patel:This is Byron Allen doing Comics Unleashed and just like tanking CBS.

51:36David Pierce:They basically, they sold Stephen Colbert's time slot to Byron Allen, essentially, like he's doing an infomercial. And they found that Stephen Colbert's ratings were super high at the very end and then they immediately lost two thirds of the audience and that actually it's having a ripple effect because one of the things that happens is a lot of people turn off their TVs at night and then they turn it back on in the morning and the channel that it's on winds up being important. So like if they're watching Jimmy Kimmel at night, they're gonna watch ABC's morning show instead of CBS's morning show.

52:07David Pierce:So there's like, there's just this, it just, it goes back to the same thing we're talking about of a distribution, by the way, right? Like being the place where people go to find you is vastly more important than anybody realizes. And it's actually very hard to just content your way through that problem. And this is just a tiny little microcosm of that thing. Nobody is watching Byron Allen's show. And as a result, it's hurting the rest of CBS because people have changed the channel.

52:34Nilay Patel:And that is just the audience of people who have linear television, either broadcast or cable. Right. And they turn on their TVs and it just starts playing stuff. Yep. And that's enough.

52:47David Pierce:Wild. Yeah. And CBS's response is like, well, we're making money from that time slot.

52:51Nilay Patel:Whatever. I mean, yeah, can we look at CBS and then go 90 scale? They're like 85.

52:57David Pierce:Oh, God, yeah. And sprinting towards 90. Like at a dead run towards 90. All right, we should take a break. Then we're going to go back. We got the hype desk. We got a lightning round. We'll be right back. Support for the show comes from BetterHelp. Summer can be a mix of things. For some, it's about travel, adventure, making memories. For others, juggling everything can feel overwhelming. Kids at home, packed schedules, shifting routines. It's easy to slip into survival mode and wonder where the days are going. Taking time for yourself can make a difference. And therapy can support that, helping you feel more confident, setting boundaries, and making space to recharge so that summer feels more balanced and enjoyable.

53:40David Pierce:With BetterHelp, you can connect with a licensed therapist online. You'll be matched based on your needs and can switch any time if it's not the right fit. With over 30 ,000 therapists and millions of clients worldwide, people are finding the support they need with BetterHelp. You don't have to say yes to everything this summer. Find guidance in therapy. Visit BetterHelp.com slash Vox Pods to get started. That's BetterHelp.com slash Vox Pods. Whoa, okay. This one says you get a free phone if you switch. Hey, this one also says you get a free phone if you switch.

54:16Nilay Patel:Yeah, they all do one. Huh. The T-Mobile one says their customers had the lowest wireless bills versus the other big guys over the past five years.

54:25David Pierce:And their latest experience plans have Netflix included, plus a year of Dash Pass by DoorDash. Mm-mm-mm. Hang on, let me see that. Oh, yeah, we're switching. That's what I'm talking about. Do we clap now, or...? At T-Mobile, get savings that keep stacking up.

54:40Nilay Patel:That's value you can feel every day. And right now, bring your phone to T-Mobile, and we'll give you$400 when you switch.

55:12All right, we're back.

55:13David Pierce:It's time now for the Hype Desk, where our friends Ross and Ashley come and tell us what's cool on the internet and in the world. You're both here this week. Ross, Ashley, hello. Hello.

55:24Nilay Patel:Reunited.

55:25David Pierce:How does it feel?

55:26Nilay Patel:Bleak.

55:30David Pierce:That sounds about right. I'm told you guys have both been to movies that you both have feelings about this week. Ashley, I want to start with you because I am reliably told that you have what I would call an extremely surprising take about a movie.

55:44Nilay Patel:hit us with it. You gotta hear me out, everyone. Which is, He-Man is a sleeper hit and everyone should go see it and you're totally missing out on it. Masters of the Universe is so much fun. It is...

55:57David Pierce:I just don't believe you. I don't believe you.

55:59Nilay Patel:So here's the thing, okay. I agree that the trailers did not sell this movie the way that it should have. I think they did a little bit. So He-Man, the guy who plays Adam is so good and so charming. It is the perfect summer himbo movie. Like, it is the perfect summer himbo movie. This movie— Wait, can I just stop you? This implies that that is a thing that I'm after, but go ahead. No, no. Okay. I argue that we could all use a little joy, right? Like, a little joy. I'm with you. And I feel like this movie is just, like, especially if you are a kid of the 80s, but even if you're not, it's, like, it's still really entertaining.

56:39Nilay Patel:You really cannot— Jared Leto plays Skeletor and I was like very dubious about this. Oh, I'm immediately out then.

56:45David Pierce:I was like, I hate this. You should have led with that.

56:48Nilay Patel:So this movie has gone through development hell. Like it was, there was like multiple different versions of the script. There were different actors attached. Like it's gone through some stuff. Like there was a whole other version of this movie that was happening not three years ago, I feel like.

57:01David Pierce:This is a hell of a sales pitch for Masters of the Universe, actually.

57:04Nilay Patel:So that's okay. But I'm selling it because I'm saying I was so skeptical about it coming into it. I was just like, I don't know. I think it's going to be so bad that I want to go see it. Like, it's going to be so... And I was so pleasantly surprised. It really has Thor Ragnarok vibes. It's, like, very fun. It's just, like, it's a light romp. The movie is, like, two hours and 15 minutes long. That's not a light romp. That's a full commitment. Never felt like it dragged at all. Pacing was great. Felt like the movie kept going. Like, there wasn't any, like, weird side quests. Like, I never felt like the movie, like, got into a weird, like, oh, the movie needs to be longer, so like let's make them have some obstacle that they have to go do a fetch quest.

57:44Nilay Patel:There's none of that. It's like he gets the sword, he goes to Eternia, like it's a whole thing. So everything like leans into the conceit of this being ridiculous. And it is, like there's a moment early on where like Skeletor's like laughing and it's sort of very Austin Powers where like he's like laughing and then he looks around and he's like, I didn't stop laughing, like or whatever. And so, and Alison Brie plays Evil Lynn and she is like very good. And it's wild how much this movie came together when it absolutely against the, like against all odds, this movie should not be entertaining and it absolutely is.

58:18Nilay Patel:And I highly recommend everybody go see it for a fun summer rump.

58:21David Pierce:All right. Ross, you also went to a movie theater. Yes. What did you see? Speaking of 80s nostalgia that looks different on paper, I went to go see Disclosure Day, the new Spielberg film. I don't want to go after Master of the Universe because that's such a good case and I do not have the same case for a Spielberg film. That sounds really wild to say. But it is interesting because, again, it's Spielberg doing aliens. It's all back in the aliens. The question is, how would humanity react if we all just found out at the exact same time on social media or wherever we're looking in modern times that aliens are real and we've been lied to for years?

58:58David Pierce:And it is, a lot of people call it classic Spielberg. And I think for the first half, it is classic Spielberg. You've got car chases, men in black. it's two kind of disparate narratives that spoiler kind of come together in one you've got josh o 'connor as like the whistleblower who knows the truth and wants the world to know and in the other you've got emily blunt as a random local meteorologist in kansas city who just starts speaking alien language and then all of a sudden is just committed to going drive somewhere she doesn't even know where there are big shadowy figures organizations colin firth uh is like the head of like an ominous corporation when you get to the first half of the movie it is the most beautiful it the first half is theater it is theater tier it is some of the best like car chase scenes and explosions and destruction that spielberg has done Thanks go ahead.

59:45David Pierce:Right now, you may think is important. Alright, even if you're doing something new with that kind of micro channel or continue Thank you. And I really want to tell you the rest of the movie is good. And there's a reason it's not in the marketing because it's a spoiler. But Spielberg's done this before. He did Close Encounters, right? I am Richard Dreyfuss. I saw a UFO. Holy shit. I am so fascinated by it. I have nothing but hope and optimism and really want this to happen. And it almost feels like in many ways like Spielberg kind of trying to recreate that moment. But in modern times. And modern times are just so much more cynical.

1:00:09David Pierce:It's not, are aliens real? It's more, yeah, we all know aliens are real. But how much is the government covering it up? and how angry will I be to find out? Do you remember that movie, Don't Look Up, that came out during COVID that was like every great actor you've ever heard of, basically. And it was like an allegory for how we experience information. And it winds up being like the bleakest possible movie about the end of the world. I feel like you just described that movie to me again. Yes, but I will say, and this is not a spoiler, it is Spielberg. So in many ways, it does end on hope, right?

1:00:41David Pierce:Spielberg is a person of hope. If you look at these directors, They all have their thing, right? Christopher Nolan, it's going to be a movie about time and memory. Denis Villeneuve, loves cycles of violence. Spielberg, aliens exist, and if you live in the suburbs, you're probably going to see one. But ultimately, humanity is pretty cool. Like, that's every film he's ultimately made. And this is no different, but it just has that such a bleak political thriller start that it just has this shift. And I love it. It is also a great airplane movie. It's a perfect airplane movie.

1:01:11Nilay Patel:I'm going to sum up the hype desk in four words. Skip Spielberg, C. Skeletor. Wow.

1:01:19David Pierce:That's a lot. Tough. Same. Tough. All right, before we get out of here, Neelai, I'm told you have a contribution to the Hype Desk.

1:01:26Nilay Patel:I do. I'm very excited about this. So as you may or may not know, the New York Knicks have won the NBA Finals. They're the champions of the league. Very exciting to be anywhere close to New York right now. I could hear the screams in California. It's amazing. And friend of the Verge, Chris Person, who's written for us, is now Aftermath, which is a great indie game site. Go subscribe to Aftermath. Read everything Chris does. He posted on Blue Sky that he was at a techno festival during game five. That's so great. And I guess one person put a laptop on a chair on a table and the entire techno festival basically stopped and watched the Knicks win on a single tiny, like itty-bitty laptop.

1:02:07Nilay Patel:This is one of the funniest pictures I've ever seen. It's like the most verge way into the NBA finals I can think of. This video is incredible. Just run the video clip.

1:02:16David Pierce:Yeah, I will say before we get to the video, I just want to say if you're not watching this, A, I'm sorry. And B, click on the link because Chris takes us through a truly incredible journey. It starts with a picture of like a few people gathered around a laptop watching the Knicks at this festival. And then a few minutes later, a bunch more people are watching a laptop at the festival. And then Chris just tweets, OK, they put one of the laptops on a chair now. and like a crowd starts to build. And then a few minutes later, it is literally, I don't know, 150 people. 100 people.

1:02:46Nilay Patel:That's like 150 people all watching a single laptop.

1:02:50David Pierce:And then it culminates in this video.

1:02:55David Pierce:Literally like massive festival level cheering for a laptop. Because the next one. It's very good.

1:03:03Nilay Patel:That is incredible. It's very good.

1:03:10Nilay Patel:I know you've all heard the Let's Go Nicks chants across the country and world, but they're cheering it on a laptop on a chair, which is just beautiful. A tiny 13-inch laptop screen. That is absolutely incredible. Chris also posted somewhere else in that thread that the other thing that was supposed to be happening at the Techno Festival was an artist who was just playing a pair of giant subwoofer cones with a sheet of plastic. And he's like, I don't know how this is music, but it also kind of rules. Oh, my God. amazing like I was like I know how to bring the NBA finals onto the Verge cast and it is through the post of Chris Person so thanks Chris I asked if we could show that stuff so thanks to Chris go read Aftermath you know you know all the rest of it yep that's the hypest thing that happened this week

1:03:56David Pierce:it's good stuff that was amazing

1:03:57Nilay Patel:that was incredible

1:03:58David Pierce:it's a big week maybe we should all watch Disclosure Day and Masters of the Universe on a laptop at a music festival that goes on the scale somewhere I don't accept I don't accept. All right, Ross, Ashley, good to see you guys. Thanks for being here. Cheers, y 'all. All right, now it is time for America's Favorite Podcast within a podcast, Brendan Carr is a dummy.

1:04:23Nilay Patel:Brendan Carr is a dummy.

1:04:29David Pierce:Shout out to Viola Dagoomba who created that and also to the people who email us about all the funny places that you are when that theme song appears and whether it fits the vibe.

1:04:39Nilay Patel:Maybe the next week, the entire segment is just us reading those emails.

1:04:43David Pierce:Oh, I like that. We can definitely do that. But this week, Brendan's doing stuff. What did he do this week? He's always doing stuff.

1:04:49Nilay Patel:He is always doing stuff. So first, I'm angry at Brendan. What? Because he's shocking. In an indirect way this time. This is like a second order Brendan effect. Okay. I'm upset that Brendan has forced me into agreement with Ted Cruz. Oof. It's rough. It's just rough stuff.

1:05:08David Pierce:Yeah.

1:05:09Nilay Patel:So, you know, the actions of this administration have scrambled political lines all over the place.

1:05:15David Pierce:I think this is actually the second time you've agreed with Ted Cruz on this podcast.

1:05:19Nilay Patel:Ted Cruz is, for his many, many faults, does not like it when you screw with the First Amendment. True. So Senator Cruz and Senator Ron Wyden introduced a thing called the Jawbone Act, which would let individuals sue the government when they meddle with their speech and create transparency requirements for government communications with social media, AI, and broadcast companies. And what they're saying that they're worried about is the government messing with AI because if the government can go to Google and demand that Gemini say some things but not other things, what happened at the Capitol building on January 6th?

1:05:53Nilay Patel:That's a real problem. And so if your speech is interfered with illegally, there should be some remedy. And so the Jawbone Act would create that remedy. It would allow Jimmy Kimmel to sue the FCC for jawboning his speech. And it would allow all of us to see what these government agencies are saying. Now, there's like layers and layers of complication here. Like, is this built off of some bad faith readings of how the Biden administration talked to Facebook about public health initiatives at the tail end? Of course it is. Did that case also go to the Supreme Court and did the Supreme Court say all that was above board and was fine because ultimately Facebook said no a lot and it was fine?

1:06:32Nilay Patel:Sure. Or do most companies feel as emboldened as Facebook to say no? Like they do not. So this law sort of like creates the balance. But I'm just upset that I've been forced into agreement with Ted Cruz in this way.

1:06:45David Pierce:This bill is co-sponsored by Ted Cruz and Ron Wyden, two people you would not expect to be simultaneously excited about the same thing.

1:06:54Nilay Patel:Ron Wyden wrote 230. Yeah. Right? Like, these are free speech warriors for the internet in a very particular way. They've got a pool of supporters, the ACLU, FIRE, which is another free speech organization, the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia. All people we've talked to, all people that are, you know, we know to be defenders of the First Amendment in particular ways. but Trump is particularly mad at Brendan Carr here. And so he's just issuing fiery quotes of Brendan Carr. Of course, like I said, there's also some nonsense about the Biden administration weaponizing the blah, blah, blah.

1:07:26Nilay Patel:It's like, whatever, man. Maybe you believe that, but actually that case did go to the Supreme Court. We did read all the emails. Yeah. And we did see that the tech companies were like, no.

1:07:38David Pierce:Yeah, it turns out it's not illegal to ask somebody questions, generally speaking.

1:07:41Nilay Patel:Yeah, it's totally fine.

1:07:42David Pierce:I just want to say, by the way, Jawbone in this case is a backronym. It stands for Justice Against Weaponized Bureaucratic Overreach to Networked Expression. A, very good. And B, if you are the person in any of these offices responsible for coming up with the name to make the acronym make sense, you're the only person in the world I care about. My white whale story is how bills get named because they start with the acronym and work backwards. and I want those stories. It's all I care about. But the Jawbone Act is very good.

1:08:14Nilay Patel:That story was great five years ago and you 100 % know the answer right now is Claude.

1:08:19David Pierce:Oh, that sucks. Yeah. They're like, we want to call it the Jawbone Act. What could it actually be called? Yeah, fire up those GPUs, buddy. Justice against weaponized bureaucratic overreach to networked expression.

1:08:30Nilay Patel:Yeah, like Ted Cruz is like walking on the plane just going to come up with us and whispering into his phone. All right, one other thing. We talk about this a lot. the notion that everything is owned by a tiny handful of Trump allies in media. There are some rules preventing people from owning too many radio stations or too many broadcast TV networks in an area. Those rules are getting waived over and over again.

1:08:52David Pierce:Brendan loves those rules until he waives them.

1:08:55Nilay Patel:He loves those rules. This week, a bunch of radio CEOs are meeting with Carr and saying they need to quickly and substantially relax the radio ownership rules so they can own more radio stations in given areas. How are there any left?

1:09:09David Pierce:Didn't we like just combine all of them into one company?

1:09:12Nilay Patel:Oh, no, that was the TV channels. Now we're doing it with radio. Yeah, we did it with TV channels. We're doing it again. And their big argument is that local radio doesn't just compete with other local radio stations. They compete with YouTube. And so what have I been saying about the ill-fated way to compete with YouTube? You need enough scale to bring YouTube to – it's never going to happen for you guys. That you just want to own all the local radio stations and monopolize local media.

1:09:32David Pierce:We compete with sleep is like everybody's argument about everything now.

1:09:37Nilay Patel:Brendan loves to characterize this as like the scrappy independent local news. And it's like, no, these are billionaires with political viewpoints. So they want to foist on everyone in a given region. And we actually want this competition. Anyhow, that's Brendan this week. The corruption is naked. The stupidity is high. Brendan, as always, if you want to come on the show or any show and defend yourself or just issue whatever gobbledygook nonsense that usually comes out of your mouth, you're welcome to. I'm available. I'll answer the call. Anyway, that's been Brendan Carr as a Dummy, America's favorite podcast.

1:10:07Nilay Patel:from the podcast. Brandon Carr is a dummy.

1:10:16It's beautiful.

1:10:17David Pierce:The corruption is naked. The stupidity is high is a merch idea waiting to happen. And I just want to mark that right here in the podcast.

1:10:25Nilay Patel:That's like the pool status sign outside the reflecting pool. Exactly.

1:10:31David Pierce:Corruption status. Hi. That's pretty good, actually.

1:10:35Nilay Patel:How are the waves naked? It's very good.

1:10:39David Pierce:All right. My first landing round item is about Threads. And I have a number to throw at you that I have been trying to figure out what to make of for a couple of days. And I want to know what you think about it. So it's about to be Threads' third birthday. It came out in July of 2023. And they just announced that they have 500 million monthly active users on Threads. On the one hand, this is a very big number. On the other hand, I think there are a lot of ways in which it is not a very big number, which I am happy to explain. But I'm curious, like 500 million threads users, how does that number hit you?

1:11:15Nilay Patel:I wonder how many of them clicked on an Instagram carousel and didn't realize they were opening threads. Yes.

1:11:21David Pierce:I assume the answer is like three quarters of them, right? Like, I honestly think that is right. Like, there's a way to look at it that says, OK, 500 million people use threads every month. Kick ass, growing really fast, doing great. Like we used to talk about how threads adds a blue sky every day. That number seems to probably still be at least true. On the other side, there are about 3 billion people in the meta family of products. Meta is unusually good at getting people between products and unifying the products and sort of making you exist across its many platforms. That is like meta's whole thing.

1:12:01David Pierce:It's like, okay, well, Facebook is dying. we're just going to get everybody onto Instagram. And that works. That's a game they can keep playing. So the idea that after three years only a sixth of that user base even touches threads once a month feels kind of like failure. I don't know. This is what I mean. It's a huge number and a tiny number all at the same time.

1:12:20Nilay Patel:Yeah, it's much bigger than X. X is in decline. Blue Sky is stagnant to decline. Threads is growing. Are they growing because screenshots of tweets on Instagram aren't as good as a carousel of Threads posts and you can kick them out to Threads and that's a user behavior you can kind of get into? Maybe. Meta says almost all of the daily users on Threads increase because of communities, right? So like NBA Threads is like rocking or like whatever it is. I think that, you know, we talked about it for a long time on the show last week that making these big networks feel smaller is what everyone is chasing.

1:12:55Nilay Patel:And so here's more evidence that Threads is going to lean into communities that's going to make that thing feel smaller and that's where the growth will come from. Connor Hayes, who runs Threads at Meta, says right now all of their communities are made by Meta, but soon they will let users make their own communities, which might unlock even more growth. There's something there.

1:13:13David Pierce:They're doing a Reddit too. Everybody's doing a Reddit right now.

1:13:15Nilay Patel:I actually think the opportunity for Threads is to be like, we're the only social network that isn't going to turn into TikTok because Instagram already exists and Instagram is doing a fine job of turning into TikTok.

1:13:24David Pierce:It really is.

1:13:25Nilay Patel:So we don't need to turn into TikTok.

1:13:27David Pierce:Or if you look at it and you say, well, all of our money is in Reels. What if we just put reels on threads?

1:13:32Nilay Patel:But then you can just make Instagram again. I think like they'll put reels on threads, but it'll kick you back into Instagram. And that little dynamic is actually an opportunity for them.

1:13:39David Pierce:That that may be true. Yeah, I'm I'm forever trying to figure out the extent to which threads has been a hit versus like kind of a subtle failure. Like, to the extent that Mark Zuckerberg wanted to create something as culturally central as Twitter once was, like, that was a big part of it, right? That there was a lot of good reporting that Mark Zuckerberg was always sort of jealous of Twitter and the fact that cable news was people reading tweets and that that was where people went for real-time information on real-time events, that it was like, it was the heartbeat of the internet in a way that Facebook, even though it was much larger, never was, and he wanted to do threads to make that.

1:14:16David Pierce:Threads is not that at all.

1:14:17Nilay Patel:No.

1:14:18David Pierce:That thing largely doesn't exist. And to the extent that it does, it's still on X. But it largely doesn't exist. It really doesn't exist. And so I think in that sense, Threads has not achieved the goal. But on the other hand, 500 million people use it every month. I'm sure it's a brisk advertising business that is growing fast for Meta.

1:14:36Nilay Patel:And they think they can get to a billion. I think maybe the question is just how much text-based posting is going to grow at all compared to the thing people are doing all day long, which is watching social videos.

1:14:47David Pierce:Yep. Yep. Wait, actually, can we, we can end on your lightning round item, but I have, I have another meta one to talk about. Sure. Uh, which we should talk about. So, uh, this week Facebook announced a new AI mode, uh, which is basically its answer to Google's AI mode, which, you know, tries to, instead of giving you links to search results, tries to sort of stitch together a narrative for you from your search results. meta's ai mode uh it just sounds insane to say this out loud meta's ai mode instead of synthesizing the web synthesizes all of the public posts across meta's various networks to give you information about things and nila if i were to say what is the least reliable corpus of information on the internet wouldn't you say people's facebook posts right like facebook

1:15:37Nilay Patel:limiting itself to the content that people post on Facebook is just this thing will be insane from the jump. Yeah. Like my community's local Facebook posts are some of the wildest conspiracies. And this is like a it's like a nice community. Yeah. It's going to be great. I'm super excited for everyone's drunkest uncle to be the source of Facebook's AI training.

1:16:03David Pierce:It's very funny because they, Allison Johnson and our team tried it and had a couple of funny experiences with it. But the way they frame it is the same way everybody frames everything, which is like trip planning and find stuff to do around me.

1:16:14Nilay Patel:Always trip planning. It's Napa. In their example, it's her going to Napa.

1:16:18David Pierce:Yeah. And what's funny is on the one hand, I actually think a bummer about the internet is a lot of that stuff did for a time get moved to Facebook. Like for a long time, if you wanted to see if the restaurant you wanted to go to was open or closed, the most up-to-date source was probably their Facebook page, right? That was like when Facebook was ascendant, a lot of that stuff just moved there. And so a lot of the like, what is going on around near me moves to Facebook and then it died. So now you have this like incredibly old, outdated set of information about all of the places around you. And for me, the idea of like, what's going on that would be fun for the kids nearby this weekend is a good idea that I want very badly.

1:17:04David Pierce:I just, I don't think there is any chance. And Alison seemed to have the experience of it not really working because meta is just not a reliable source of information in any sense.

1:17:16Nilay Patel:No, no, no, no. It's, I mean, again, we had a power outage here on Sunday night and my local Facebook groups were like, there was an explosion and then just like wild speculation about what was there. Yeah.

1:17:28David Pierce:My neighborhood, that just makes me think of like my next door, which is just like pictures of people in hoodies being like, are they criminals? And it's like, nope, they're teenagers. It's fine.

1:17:39Nilay Patel:We'll misidentify criminals at the highest rate of any AI system.

1:17:43David Pierce:It's very true. All right. You get, you get the last lightning round item. What do you got?

1:17:48Nilay Patel:Is this a lightning round item? All right.

1:17:50David Pierce:Oh no.

1:17:50Nilay Patel:Jen Toohey, the nation's number one matter and thread reporter, has struck again. I mean, I love this. This is what I'm hearing. Why do we run the verge? She believes in matter so much. I believe in matter so much. You're both idiots. What are we doing here? Why does the verge exist? It's to make sure that someone covers matter as hard as Jen covers matter. Absolutely. This is the most important thing. So if you don't know what matter is, why are you listening to the show? Matter is a universal smart home connectivity platform that's supposed to bring everything together. And the experience of using matter for five years now, more, has been to assume it can do things it cannot do.

1:18:31David Pierce:Well, sometimes to assume that because they directly say that.

1:18:34Nilay Patel:Right, because the literal obvious promise of a universal smart home standard is that everything will work together. And every step of the matter journey has been like, well, what if it didn't? Yes. What if it was slightly and yet completely broken? And then, not to downplay how complicated it is to make everything work together, we end up in this situation where like Matter 1.3a will introduce Thread network credential sharing so that my Eero routers can pick up the password for the Thread network created by my Apple Home Hubs. Like none of this makes sense to any human being. Literally the only person who understands it is Jen.

1:19:12Nilay Patel:And I think Jen understands it better than the people who run Matter. Oh, I 100 % agree with that. So this is just like a huge, and Thread is like a different network. So this is all crazy all over the place. Anyhow, Matter 1.6 was announced this week at Unify, the Connectivity Standards Alliance inaugural conference in Austin, Texas. Jen is there. She's on the ground. Matter 1.6 includes a new spec, David, called Joint Fabric. Do you get it? Thread? Fabric? Joint Fabric?

1:19:44David Pierce:They are good with the silly names. I respect that.

1:19:48Nilay Patel:And in 1.6, when everything is updated to 1.6, there will just be one smart home system that all of the different things can talk to at once. So you won't have to set up the device in Apple and Samsung and Google and Alexa. You will finally be able to be like, there's a smart plug. I set it up in Apple and my Google can see it just as well from the jump without having to set it up all over again.

1:20:12David Pierce:You're just describing Matter.

1:20:14Nilay Patel:This is again

1:20:15David Pierce:That's what matter is supposed That's the whole This is legitimately What I thought it would do

1:20:19Nilay Patel:Five years ago When it was announced Yes But we're here buddy Matter 1.6 We're finally doing matter Excuse me It's called joint fabric I want you to get it right Oh god There are other There are other features In matter 1.6 There's something called Thermostat suggestions Which is obviously Very important There's NFC set But joint fabric is going to finally unify the smart home. Just as soon as it is implemented in the spec, the spec is launched and all of the smart home makers support it all at once. So 10 years from now, joint and fabric will operate. I will say there is a lot of pressure on these platforms to get this right because bringing the AI assistant into your house and saying, turn on the lights and it not happening is a problem for all of them.

1:21:06Nilay Patel:And they have more incentive to just solve it so they can all get access to the same system than ever before because this is all a product they want to make. And if you're Apple and you're going to relaunch Siri on a new HomePod this fall or whatever you're going to do and everyone's stuff is already in Alexa, your incentive to support joint fabric and get the Alexa stuff into your system is actually really high. Will that actually happen? Will people respond rationally to the incentives put in front of them for interoperability? I would say question mark. But the incentives are there.

1:21:41David Pierce:I agree. I also wonder if any of these companies care at all. Like, is Google announced this week that their home speaker is finally about to start shipping? Does Google give a crap if you use it for home things? Like if you buy the speaker and use it to talk to Gemini and that makes you a more dedicated Gemini user for other Gemini things. Like what if smart home just remains the 11th most important thing that any of these products do? And like what if Jen is the only person on earth who actually cares about the smart home? This is a word I increasingly have. Yeah, but I also care about you like wired your house with Ethernet and got weird into home assistant.

1:22:27David Pierce:You're off on like a different road.

1:22:28Nilay Patel:I mean, the people who are in a home assistant, they're like another level. Like they will never, none of this will ever matter to them because they have figured out their own joint fabrics. Yeah. Like if you want to homebrew a joint fabric, you can do that today with a raspberry pie and a couple of beers. Like you can get it done. That's absolutely right. But this is like, I think the fact that it is not a priority is the incentive. Do you know what I mean? Sure. Like if you have a vision for how it should work, being like we're going to put the resources behind going to every weird Chinese smart plug vendor and making sure they work with us versus we're just going to support matter and everything will work.

1:23:07Nilay Patel:It's way easier to support matter. And that's the CSA, the Conductivity Standard Alliance, is made up of engineers and product people from all these companies. Right.

1:23:15David Pierce:I just think I'm starting to worry there's a real sort of tragedy of the commons problem here in that the only way this works is if everybody sort of equally decides to hold hands and do it together. And there's not anyone really with so much incentive to like drag everybody else along with them. It's like Phillips Hue is maybe the one who has the most to gain from all of this working together. Everybody intellectually understands this to be a good idea. I'm just increasingly struck by like, there aren't that many parties for whom it is like crucially important for this to work. And I hope you're right that as more people get these new devices with Gemini for home and the new Apple home stuff, which seems to be very good, and Siri AI and all of the stuff coming from Alexa.

1:24:03David Pierce:Plus like as more people get those things into their home and they start having higher expectations of their smart home, maybe that forces all these companies to raise their game. But so far, it's like everybody thinks this is a good idea. Everybody believes in matter. Everybody wants matter to work. Nobody really needs matter to work. And I feel like that is the thing that worries me the most right now about matter.

1:24:24Nilay Patel:You see more smart home stuff in your house today.

1:24:27David Pierce:I'm going to come over.

1:24:27Nilay Patel:I'm going to come over with a big pile of light switches, some of those Govi outdoor bulbs. I'll change your mind.

1:24:33David Pierce:Dude, I'm down. I have spent a lot of time shopping for Govi things recently. they have it's like what if Philips Hue but cheaper and a lamp it's like I'm after it it's Philips Hue

1:24:43Nilay Patel:but cheaper and runs on matter and that's their whole company and they are winning like straightforwardly winning no I mean look they care insofar as that we're at 1.6 in years and years of development and it's the companies that fund it and the products exist now at scale you know the fact that it doesn't actually do the thing you want it to do is very silly but we're way past this device only works with Google Home and this device only works with HomeKit and this device only works with Alexa. Like that core problem is solved. You just buy the one light bulb from Govi and it works with everything because matter just works with everything.

1:25:19Nilay Patel:Yes. The next problem is

1:25:21David Pierce:Unless you buy it from Ikea and then it's like mostly broken for reasons no one understands. It just doesn't work at all.

1:25:24Nilay Patel:Yeah. A different set of problems. Anyway, look, I don't know when joint fabric is going to change the world but I'm hoping it does.

1:25:34David Pierce:I'm trying to end on a high note. It's beautiful. Look, again, this is the thing. Matter is the right idea. It is filled with the right ideas. And God, I hope at some point I get a product filled with all of those right ideas. Look, she's in Austin.

1:25:48Nilay Patel:She's at the conference. Yeah. If anyone can get them in line, it's Jen. She's, you know, she's a mom. She's ferocious. She's raised teenagers. She can get these companies in line. Yeah, absolutely right.

1:26:02David Pierce:Jen will save everything, I think, is basically where we've landed.

1:26:05Nilay Patel:Yeah, she's got the accent. There's a lot of pieces where it's like, Jen will solve it.

1:26:11David Pierce:There's the title of the episode. Don't worry, Jen will fix it. All right, we should get out of here. Two quick things before we go. One, version history is back. The Harmony Remote episode was super fun. If you didn't hear it, I would say there is a non-zero chance you're going to hear it on the Vergecast feed very soon because we're going to be off tomorrow for Juneteenth. We'll be back, normal scheduled programming next week. Roomba is this weekend on Version History. Super fun episode with Colin Engel, the co-founder of iRobot. It's good times. Neelai, who's on Decoder next week?

1:26:43Nilay Patel:So we are off this week. We took our little July 4th break early because on the 3rd of July, we are running our annual grill episode. We did it again? Which is a full circle victory for me. Our first grill episode was Roger Dahl, the CEO of Blackstone, the griddle company. And it was like right when they were starting, like pandemic darling a little company it's figuring it all out and they got so big that they bought Weber so he's back but now he's the CEO of Weber and we wanted to have him last year but he was an antitrust review so he couldn't come on so this is the full circle moment for the Dakota Grill episode that's very good when we started our producers and I were like we gotta get Weber like eventually we're gonna get our way to Weber and we got there because our first guest ever bought Weber I can't decide can't be happier about this

1:27:32David Pierce:that's that's like an equal victory lap on both sides it's pretty good decoder and for the ceo of you literally heard it here first that's awesome that's really good um listen to that it's gonna be very fun we'll make sure you you know it comes out when it comes out um as always you can subscribe to the verge to get all of our podcasts including the ones we just talked about ad free plus all of our exclusive newsletters all of our coverage everything else verge.com subscribe we get a lot lot of people asking us how you can support like us and the show. And we're grateful for all of you. And that is the single best thing you can do.

1:28:06David Pierce:That is how you make me lie ungovernable. And also someday buy him a yacht. That's the one someday far in the future.

1:28:12Nilay Patel:The yacht's called Sunday.

1:28:14David Pierce:Oh, I like that. There you go. Also, send us email vergecast to the verge.com call the hotline 866 verge one one. Truly love hearing from you about anything and everything, including your thoughts about grills. My dad, Dad, by the way, is currently in the market for a grill. If you have grill thoughts, hit me up so I can sound smart when I tell my dad what grill to buy.

1:28:32Nilay Patel:I'm sorry, we've had Blackstone, obviously, in 2021. Then we had Traeger. We've had Big Green Egg. Last year, we had Shark Ninja. This is a real series that we have done now. This is our fifth one.

1:28:45David Pierce:Next up is like a, I don't even know. We're going to have to start a Verge grill. And then that's the move. We build our own grill is the end of the project.

1:28:53Nilay Patel:If you ever want to hear me just desperately try to hang on in a decoder, go listen to that Shark Ninja episode. I'm like, wow, my man likes to sell Shark Ninja products.

1:29:04David Pierce:Yeah, judging by their TikTok ads, that does not surprise me. All right. The Verge Cast is a Verge production and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Today's show is produced by Josh Cajas, Eric Gomez, Brandon Kiefer, Travis Larchuk, and Aaron Locasio. We'll see you next week, Nealai. Rock and roll.

1:29:22Nilay Patel:When I got a new car, I thought my insurance premium would increase and empty my bank account. Like if Fetween won the lottery.

1:29:29David Pierce:I've invested most of my winnings in chicken tenders because they're bomb. But bro, I bought a house and it's sick, bro. I'm thinking the floor is going to be all trampoline, bro. With the helipad on the roof. The contractor said it's structurally unsound. They're just being babies.

1:29:44Nilay Patel:But switching to Geico saved me hundreds, so my bank account is safe. It feels good to save some hard-earned cash. It feels good to GEICO.

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