How YouTube and ESPN control the future of everything
01:22:42 Share

Walk into the verge cast the flagship podcast of non exclusive distribution deals. I'm my friend David piers. It's about five, twenty five in the morning, and I amount on a walk with my eight month old of son and my dog because somehow along the way, they conspired and concluded to decide that this is the time that we get up and go for a lock.

I would affect a different time, but unfortunately I didn't get about. So every morning we get up. Arthur has a snack in the nps and stoller free to us, knifes every leaf within eight miles of our house.

And I listen to podcasts. So if you make an incredibly long and kind of wacky podcasts, just know that i'm probably listening and I love you for IT. Anyway, speaking of weak, our guests, we have a great show for you today. We're going to talk about sports, which we don't do a ton of on this show.

But I think at this moment in time, if you want to understand what's going on in streaming and maybe with the future of entertainment in general, one good way to understand IT is to look at a couple of things going on in sports. So we're going to dig in and see if we can figure out where all this is that then we're going to talk to alex winter, who you might know as an actor from the brilliant head movies, or as a director from things like the deep web and the panama papers. He just directed a new documentary called the youtube effect, all about basically what youtube has done to the world, good and bad.

And he has some really interesting ideas and thoughts about where I thought headed. So we're going to talk to him about that too. All that is coming up and just a sec.

But I think, yeah, our third just fell asleep a straw. So I have a little more walking idio, but i'll be back in the studio and just a minute. This is the verge cast we'll see in the sec.

Support for the verge cast comes from strike. Stripe is a payments in billion platform supporting millions of businesses around the world, including companies like uber, bmw and dordick. Stripe has help countless startups and establish companies alike reached their growth goals, make progress on their emissions and reach more customers globally.

The platform offers a sweet specialized features and tools to fast track growth like stripe billing, which makes IT easy to handle subscription base charges in voices and all reactions ring revenue management needs. You can learn how stripe helps companies of all sizes make progress at stripe dot com, that stripe dot com to learn more, make progress. Support for the show comes from service.

Now the AI platform for business transformation. You've heard the big hyper around A I, and the truth is A I is only as powerful as the platform is built into service. Now is the platform that puts A I to work for people across your business, removing friction and frustration for your employees, super charging productivity for developers, providing intelligent tools for your service agent to make customers happier, all builds into a single platform you can use right now.

And that's why the world works with service now. Visit service now. Dcom splash A I for people to learn more.

Welcome back. I mean, the studio. I've had several gallons of coffee. Let's get to IT. So you know how they say that porn is the forefront of the internet.

It's the place that a surprising amount of technical innovation happens before IT ever actually gets to the rest of the web. That's also how I feel about sports in T, V. Sports are the most valuable, the most expensive, the most watched thing on television.

And so what happens in the sports media landscape? Dict ates, a huge amount about how the whole entertainment world actually works, and the sports watching world is in an unusual amount of flux right now. There's a lot going on here, and I promise you don't have to be a sports fan to understand all the stuff are about to get into or care about what happens to S P, because this stuff matters to everybody.

That kind of the whole point. You could make the case that what happens to E S P N will affect everything. Everyone watches for a long time to come.

Anyway, we should sort through this all. So I grabbed the verge ous, Richard lawler and my cohl patel to talk all of this through. Oh, but before I bring them in, a quick thing, we recorded this a few days ago.

And just to prove health, this is all moving. A few things have all hitty changed since we added. We talk a bit in the conversation.

You're going to hear about E S P N being reluctant to get into betting, which IT has been for a long time. Well, E S P, N is now in betting. IT signed a big deal with pen entertainment to launch a gambling up 和 E， S, P, N.

Bet that's going to be interesting to watch in the coming month. Disney also just released earnings, which were pretty mixed this quarter. One big thing that happened was that disney plus subscribers were weighed down in india, in large part because disney lost the rights to indian premier cricket matches.

Sports and telling you they dictate everything. Like I said, this is all changing really fast. And however IT shakes out the future, sports will have a lot to say about the future of entertainment.

So let's just get into IT Richard dollars. Hi, hi, hello, hi. There are these two things going on.

There is a big story about the future of E. P. N. And there's a big story about the future of college football that the three of us have been following a lot over the last few weeks.

And I think IT turns out that those two stories between them kind of tell the whole story of what's happening in the streaming business and kind of like in the tech industry and in the whole world of entertainment right now. So I want to both like explain what's going on and see if we can figure out what to make of IT. Does that make sense? Does this sounds good, and I am I totally insane here.

How do we feel I think you are goal to try to explain what's going on in college football is a optimistic, doomed, perhaps doomed, but confident. And i've always appreciated your confidence, David.

Well, the good news, I have decided to force this goal upon .

Richard and I have been waiting. Yeah.

you've have been in a slack thread, just drop in tweet for like two weeks now. So now, now is your moment. Explain to a sweat happening .

in coach foobar. This is the only thing that I want to talk about because I think what IT comes down to is that crypto killed the back twice, not in the way of thought, like a year ago, like I thought that crypto would kill college football because we would have too many shades, sponsors giving kids money that they didn't know the source of and like everybody went to jail and I was wrong I I admit I was wrong about cropt.

You're not wrong yet. There's still time on .

one could happen. But in case you don't remember, the economy went kind of bad last year. A lot of big companies had to kind of reevaluate their plans.

Banks crashed. IT was a whole thing. We came through IT. The bad news is not everyone is spending money like they were kind of talking that they were two years ago. And how does that connect to color football? Because when you look at these conferences, they sign their TV write deals, events.

And what happened to the petrol specifically is that last year, they were kind of in line to renegotiate their TV broadcast deal, I think starting for like twenty twenty four or twenty twenty five on and what they expected. They had some decent offers on the table from the various products netware you have like to cbs, to fox, the E S, P, S, and and whatever bidding against each other. But they didn't set up a deal at that time because they were looking at IT.

They thought that maybe they could get a Better deal in a year from someone like this, like disney sp n beating against someone like amazon. However, back to that home economic upset, what I talked about and all the big tech company, he suddenly tightening their wilds and those offers more there this year. And so when the various college presidents met specifically for the pack twelve to look at their deal, they get an offer.

And the best offer they got, apparently, according to reports from cnbc, sports business journal and others, was from apple TV. And apple was trying to set up a deal sort like IT has for mls, where they agree to pay a certain amount, they agreed to pay more if they get a certain number of describers to add the this particular sports back onto their apple TV plus subtypes, which is great. But as risk because love people don't add IT, you don't get all the money and so the president were like, yeah, no, we need to be on linear TV because that's what recruits have. And recruits want to be on the networks that their parents half that they can play there so you can recruit kids to be good so that people want to watch your games. And it's a whole snobling effect.

Can I just pause there? The colleges believe the teenagers across amErica have linyard TV their grandparents.

Their grandparents do, their grandparents are.

That's fine. I just want I wanted circle that because that's important. There's a twist on that.

that I I ve been reading a unch about that I was going to bring up later, but I think is really interesting and worth mentioning. And this is another piece of like the technical chaos that we're going through right now. Is this name imagine like this rates.

So as of very recently, players can now benefit from their name image, like to think its sponsorship, ship deals. And one of the things that universities and like students are saying is we want the best players. And what the best players want is the best distribution.

Because if they are on the things they get watched the most, they'll get more money in their N I L. deals. So the kids who want the most money will go to the schools that have the distribution, which will mean that they get more good kids to come.

And so IT becomes this crazy spiderling thing where it's like if we just get a lot of TV ratings, we're going to get good players because that's how the players make more money. And I just like spins in this insane circle where suddenly being linear, TV means more money for college foobar players and IT just like that, IT just blows my mind in a whole bunch of different actions as as this is going. But Richard, back to the story here. So basically what this is LED to is, like the entirety of the college mobile universe has, like exploded into a thousand pieces over the last two weeks.

So the landscape of college foot, all of college sports has changed. We ve gotten used to the kind of the conference system. We know what the big ones are, and now there's a few less of those big one.

The pack wheels is basically gone on and to down to four teams after this year. We'll see if IT survives or or those teams took around or bring in some new teams, the A, C, C could be next. So you're going to end up what kind of the big ten, the big twelve, the sec? And can we .

just back up for once? I, I, I grew up. I went to a big ten school that was the center of my universe for like a minute. But I think most people don't understand that the conferences and college sports are the there are like how of the competition between the colleagues is organized. So there's a conference like the big ten and IT goes and negotiates for TV rights and money and IT puts us up against all the schools and big ten. And what's happening is the smaller conferences are going away and the bigger conferences are getting bigger and there's fewer of them so that they can go negotiate for more money for a smaller pool is that that's what that feels like is happening to me.

Yeah and and that is exactly what's happening that you and especially because they want more geographic reach, they want more alarmed reach, they want to be able to negotiate Better deals.

And being able to have teens in, for example, los Angeles for the big ten now means that you can negotiate for much more money because you have teams in new york and los Angeles that doesn't make sense in terms of competition or location or history or heritage or anything like that. But IT doesn't sense in terms of money. So so that's why why they're doing that and also why they can't count because they haven't had ten teams for a long time.

Think yeah, the big ten is going to be eighteen team just to deal with that. But yeah, I think to your point, this used to be and was for a long time like a regional thing, right? Like i'm in Virginia, which is A C C country and here rates a lot schools from Virginia and north CarOlina and south CarOlina and georgia, and all these teams are kind of centered around each other.

And the idea was like, those are the rivalry. So these teams have been playing each other for decades. That's like all the teams that your college hates are probably the ones in your conference.

And now as far as I can tell, the whole reason this is all getting blown up is because these teams are chasing big TV deals that already exist. They got made before the economy turned around. Richard is IT more complicated than that.

IT really feels like if I am looking around and i'm saying, oh, there's a whole lot of money going to the big ten every year. If I go to the big ten, I will get a slice of that. If I stay in the packed twelve where the deal is up next year, deal is probably going to be a lot smaller because the business looks a lot worse than I used to.

I think that's true, but I I think is a little more complicated than that. And sometimes i'm not sure that I did IT in myself. Because i'm looking at the way that these leagues look, and I think they're still Operating under the idea that they are going to be able to get big deals from the tech companies to to compete with whoever s left in our traditional tva and that, that money is kind of still going to be there.

But just by getting bigger, that is the way that you get more money and by being part of the bigger hole and that really he's kind of how IT has always work. That's why the big ten, his head schools, that's why michigan, you know how they deal with. I were in minnesota .

really loose in this gan. I think it's important for everyone in this fodders that really losing this gan. If you're from my air ministry, just know that we love you too.

We love you. You just don't have that many people who watch T, V.

But this, this can set of hard to the matter. Actually that statement, not a lot of people watch TV because when you were regional, right, you have had regional sports in network. So you had no choice if you want a TV, but to sign up for your local cable system or put up in inta.

That was the eighties, right? Those are two choices. And that the cable system could go and sign a deal with the big ten industry, big ten games.

And IT was unlikely that they needed a deal to go distribute pack ten games because IT was unlikely that people in the midwest wanted to watch college foobar from west coast. And when they did, there was none games. There was lot of money.

And for everybody now, that's broken, right? If you wanted watch anything, you have the internet, which destroys that regional scarcity, which has made everything vastly sheep er and those regional cable companies are no longer the wealthy middle man in the middle. All of this in in fact, there television distribution business is headed inevitably to zero and particularly over the pandemics, seems they are taking a lot of shocks, bring IT closer to zero in a way that no one is even denied any more.

We could maybe five or ten years ago, people would deny cord cutting was a thing, and that's over. And so now what you have is okay, maybe apple or amazon has the pockets to support these kinds of TV deals. Richard, to your point is they don't seem that interested in IT. no.

And like apple, of course, we know that apple has basically infinite money. They could spend whatever they want to get a pack to a deal they just don't want to and they don't have to. And so they're like will give you deal where maybe if you attract them, the viewers.

Apple famously did not buy sunday ticket, which is actually like a crown jewel sports streaming package. And they didn't do IT. They were right. They were in the driver seat. They were onna, take IT. And then they didn't go out that something happened between apple on the nfl and the end, if I went with google, which is a much more Normal cable deal on youtube TV. Well.

and I think the example there is actually really instructive, because one of the things that IT broke down, do remember that whole are full for about how the deal broke down over A V. R. rights.

What what apple wants from these companies is basically complete control, right? Like what the M L S. Gave to apple was everything for two hundred and fifty million dollars year, which was like a multiple of what the mls had gotten before. So it's a huge number. But apple now completely controls the ml is broadcast if you want to watch a mls, you are going to subscribe to apple. Which is why when lean messy, the best ark play in the world, went to the M, L S, apple reportedly, like give, gave messy a special deal to be part of that, because IT was a win for the us, which is directly a big win for apple.

That's where we get to the S P N side of this, which I think is the other half of what's happening right now, which is E S P N, more than any other single company, is the one paying all of that money and and has essentially in a lot of ways run out or is starting to run out because of what you are talking about, the life we were at this point a few years ago where everybody was kind of looking at the cable business going. Eventually this will die. Um a lot of people, subway be the cable.

That number is slowly dwindling. They're still a lot of money in IT. Someday in the future, we're going to have to worry about what that transition looks like. That day in the future came much faster, I think, than anybody expected. And we are like deep in the thick of everyone is cancelling cable right now.

You know what's what's fascinating for me is all of that is based on physical scarcity. I love ranting and competition on the show. I try to do too much, but you are stuck with time Warner or contested, however, because they had the actual wires in the ground to your house and IT that meant can do whatever they want. Disclosure of cast in the and .

we all like foobar, that's a disclosure.

I guess I have not what football .

and too danger yeah because the lions no.

no, it's not because the lions suck. That's not that they're want to play off game in my lifetime.

They're never going to be in forever. The end of the story here is the scarcity went away and we have basically rebuilt all these cable bundles so that youtube TV is a cable bundle, who with lid is a cable one of whatever. But the cable companies utterly failed to do that for their customers.

I think this market looks different. If there was a great explanation APP or there was a great time Warner APP, and that's where you are still getting your programing from and they are competing and they just blew IT and others. Youtube TV, the ut TV is national.

That might be the pot of money. IT is growing really fast. It's reported on that. And IT just seems like there's an opportunity here for like people like bumbles, like IT signing up for a different streaming services sucks and no one has really seize that moment except for youtube TV, which is becoming more and more just a very standard cable package.

Yeah, I saw this amazing tweet the other day from, uh, river of blues tweet IT. Uh, I said you have to subscribe to four different services to watch the next five yankees game sunday peacock monday off day tuesday the yes network, which is the regional anche network wednesday amazon prime video thursday yes friday apple TV plus like that is dragging, like that is not how any of this is supposed to work.

And there are a lot of people who continue to sub ribe the cable just because IT is the best place to get sports right. Like that is and hasn't for a long time, the best reason to have cable as if you're sports then because it's gna have the most stuff for, Frankly, the lowest Price and it's all in one place and that's very useful and that's what a lot of these other bungles like youtube TV are building towards, right? Like that's why youtube spent all that money on sunday ticket, is reportedly paying two billion dollars a year.

yes. And it's because if you can have a good sports package, people will pay a lot of money for IT. But E, S, P N, I think more than almost anybody, is stuck in this really complicated place where sports is still a really good business on cable T V.

E S P N is still wildly profitable. IT has been funding disney for years, and IT still makes a lot of money. But that number is going down. It's going down really fast.

And E S P N is now at a point where IT has been pretty publicly saying that at some point we're going to go direct to consumer with flagship E S P N. right? E S P N plus exists. It's mostly like little sports and documentary and people don't really care.

But like the thing will be when like all of the big sports that S P N pays billion two dollars for, like the college football stuff that we're talking about, moves exclusively to streaming. And if usp n does that, they're walking away from this dragging tic pot of money that is the cable business. And if IT doesn't that, IT will kill the rest of the cable business because all the people who are sports, we will no longer want to be there. So it's stuck in this place. And like bbi, gager did this interview with C N B C, where IT sort of just sounds like they're throwing up their hands in me like we've known a what .

to do here that interview that argued with cdc people who watch IT. It's recent. He talked about the strikes.

Every answer was like a nuclear bomb that went off. I suspect we will not be hearing from my eager again for some time. But his answer about E S P N was eventually go direct consumer.

His answer about whether disney should sell parts of itself or yes, eventually we should tell parts of our linear, other linear networks, because we need to become a new kind of company. And what is funded all of disney this whole time has been E S P. N.

Disney owns marvel. Disney owns fox. And the rest of the marvel, even all the stuff the disney bought lucas film, all of that was wounded by excess cash.

Rome S. P. N. And at that number coming down made IT. So that boy, marvel needs to make a hot of money all time. And like you can see how they got to. We will just flood disney plus with marvel stuff because they were watching the E S P N. Cable revenue come down and they needed all those described to go to disney plus.

And they're just not going to. And even if they do, the finances don't seem like they work.

And I think that's one of the many things. Is that really none of the math works on this for E S P N, for disney, for streaming, for all of that. And no one is quite sure what's going to happen in the future.

And when you look at the S P N, people have said, oh, I would love to have sp. And be able to get that without cable in the future. If and when that happens, you might be paying like thirteen forty box a month for just S P N.

So let me here, i'll this out when we spin out a version of the future for you, Richard, you get to a place where IT is nonsensically for youtube TV, let's say, to have lifestyle programming on IT. Anything that is not time is sensitive, right? Is nonsensical for mtv to exist showing episodes of ridiculousness all day and all night.

You end up basically being like sports news in the Oscars. It's just live stuff like basically youtube. TV is there for things that are really important when they are alive, and that is basically like the news networks. Sports programing, in a word, shows.

Remember those bad shows on size five network. Ah you well.

you can see how that there's pressure on the list. Like I think if you pulled any virtual so what what would you pay for a cable system? It's like that list in some order of priority, right?

Things that are alive, there's we've lost another plane in CNN is going to go wall to wall coverage on planes and submarines. And you just need that thing. You just got to pull in on there.

It's the super boy you need to put in on its there everything else moves to uh, conStellation of streaming services like the future of max is a streaming service appears to be reality TV right? That's what David's as life wants you get to that. But and maybe that's fine IT just seems like no one can get out of their way or leave the money on the table to get to that end point.

Like I would happily pay for a youtube TV that was cheaper and totally focus on life coverage. It's the other way around that he used to be right. You would pay for E S P N, and you would get like CNN one of the right. And people like I don't want to pay for all these channels I don't need. It's just the order of what channels you don't need has radically changed because now you're practising live stuff.

I sort of by that theory, and I think to some extent that is kind of the world disney is hoping comes to fruition, right? That eventually E S P N plus can get all the best stuff that's on the S P N. A B C is a thing that disney owns and doesn't know to do IT.

IT gets a lot of the news coverage world shows like that's kind of what max is talking about doing a CNN. There's like there's a virgin in which you can put those things together in a way that kind of makes sense. I just think you would have to charge so much money for IT that you wouldn't get nearly ly the number of people you need to make that financially work.

And that's really the issue is like how do how do you make a work? Because the magic of E S P N and its magic money pile was that I was getting like ten fifteen dollars among single cable subscriber in the united states.

A hundred million people at one point, whether they watched sports or not. We're just giving that S P.

Every month didn't matter. And if that money was actually making everything else go. And so when you suddenly take that, when you don't have that e sp in kind of any package, if it's by itself, if it's in the disney bundle, wherever it's not propping everything else up.

So how much is there to pay for? How much is there to pay for esp? How much is there to pay for everything else? How does that could baLance out? You have, max, they've been talking over the last few days really about their sports programing that they hope to build up.

You've had netflix. They're going to broadcast this weird, or the at least they were before the strike, planning to broadcast this weird, like celebrity sports tournament as maybe they get in sports because there was a report they bid for f one, so they probably bid for something else. Apple TV, we know that you're doing sports deals, but do you do those as a part of your main package or as an ad on? And people don't get that at like we are to know that. So how much money is they really?

This is where we go back to the college football thing is college football people don't want a netflix deal like they would take IT as part of another bigger deal. But they don't want that deal because they want to be on linear television. They want to be in the biggest places that people are watching.

And even if there was a quote that I think that was the president of the university of washington gave the S. P. N, right after all, the pack twelve stuff broke down.

But he was basically like apple TV doesn't give us enough reach. They could give us all the money in the known universe. They don't give us enough reach.

And this is like this sort of the story of the whole business right now. I was listening to the podcast, the town, which is pox mp billing is a really great pocket about all things like the entertainment business. And he's starting to Richard Greenfield, who's an, uh, very smart illness on this stuff. And rich's big theory was that what every other content maker should do is have the first run of their shows on netflix, because netflix has the biggest distribution.

And if you want your IP to work, if you want to stuff to merchandise like disney, because IT needs people to care about his characters and watch them and see them and go care about the rides and by their toys, should actually be putting its stuff on netflix before IT puts IT on disney place. And that's never gonna happen. But I actually think is an incredibly interesting point, that is, bunkers, IT will never happen for a million reasons.

But in the sense that it's like, if what I want is for people to care about my shoes, IT actually makes a lot of sense that you should put them in the place, for most people will see them. And so for the football and sports people in general, who hold all the cards in all of these negotiations, because they are the live thing that people care about, increasingly, like the only one, they're just gonna go where the biggest audiences. And this has been S P S problem.

If IT cancels its cable network and just goes to streaming, IT will stop getting these deals. Even if IT has all the money in the world, that will stop getting these deals because IT loses the size and scope of what I can offer. And so like it's just another reason what we've do.

So there's another piece of, I think is important to note the big tech companies suck at broadcasting sports, yes, watching a foobar game being broadcast by amazon is IT sure not only because for whatever reason harMonically, they get the worst football games in the broadcast history. Last seen some of the worst games ever played. Ron amazon that someday is on for i'm just saying that's cormon.

There are also just not good at IT yet, right? The pages of a major national broadcast football game is a thing that helps those athletes get their endorsement deals. That is the scaffolding for the big advertisers to come in and put big fancy ads next to premium programing.

And you look at a baseball game on apple, there's gotten a little bit Better. It's so pretty low rent Operation, for example. They're not in for put that out there.

It's amazing to me. You look at amazon. Amazon is already the broadcast those games in the fork.

They own an entire streaming service that can do IT. They haven't done yet. Maybe we'll do IT this season.

And they're not paying the money for the biggest name broadcasters like the troy emds and joe bucks of the world. There they are on S. P. And right, they're doing monday night football on the S P.

Because that is the best distribution for of them. I mean, all mics basically retired .

to amazon is more he seems very there's just a piece of that puzzle where there's a product to be made here. There's a literal show to be put on and the athletes and the coaches and owners of the teams and the people who run the conferences, they want to be part of the fancy show and the tech companies, bizarre. I they paid a lot of money and they're kind of cheaping out on the show, part of IT, which is fascinating to me.

They don't know how to build the stage. Yeah like like that's a skill and and something that is has been built up in these networks over the years. They just have the institutional knowledge in the people to build this stage.

And I think that what they ve mentioned about like reach, it's not just like what you think of like all they have x number of viewers when they are talking about reach. Especially for these college presidents who run these high, these profiles universities who want to be seeing, who want to be on on the top level, is that E S P N and lure TV is just on and it's everywhere. And when you're on there, IT means that everyone is going to see you every week.

They're never going to forget about your university. University of western blaha blah is very important and you've heard of IT and you ve heard of IT your whole life and you know IT because they had a good football fifteen years ago. And if they're on apple TV, that doesn't happen. Um I think the other part of what what you mentioned when you talked about like a disney and going on netflix for the first season, like formula one, I think is a great example of that because they had their drivers to survive that boosted the profiles of the sport in the united states because so many people have netflix, ks and they started watching the sport they've never paid attention to because IT comes on at three him and they were like, actually love this and I need to see more of IT. And because they were on the biggest distribution platform, they got a huge boost and you can see .

that happened well. But that show is also really fasting. So we should drive for a minute. We should disclose that. There is another version and I show about called full swing, uh, the box media mix, which is a great you watch IT.

The drive to arrive is this fascinating phenomenon, because that is owned by one company, right? Liberty media owns f one. They own the whole league, and they are the ones who told their entire league you are gona participate in the show.

And the only teams in the first reason that could say no were the winning teams, right, like our cities for I said no, and everyone, I sort of participated. And then those teams saw how much play the drivers are getting, the league was getting, and IT came around in the second season and participate IT. And now everybody has to participate and the show is like turning into like a meta show.

But everyone constant talking about the show on the show, which was very funny. Yes, that did boost the profile league, but it's fascinating because it's happened because it's owned by one company. They could just make the deal and instruct all the participants like you're doing this.

And this is a strategy with open explicit strategy of boosting our profile. We're going to turn you into reality television in every episode is basically top done, right? A bunch of rich people run around their beautiful and then there's a race.

The stakes of the race are falsely amplified, which is great. I love IT every watch drive to arrive. You see netflix to doing this with other, other sports.

They've done IT with tennis. Theyve done IT with golf. And they said. They try to do with nfl as you show quarter back, but because the nfl insisted making the show themselves, it's not as good. Yeah right.

It's it's a very interesting that alone is like the league is so involved in on on that front. The nfl films made quarter back that the show isn't is good. And there I think there's just something there about trying to replicate these models. We're like eventually you have a generational copy loss, like you make a copy of a copy of a copy and you start with drivers surviving you. And with court act, we made too many copies.

You think that would drive to survive the subsequent seasons. As you mentioned, it's goten very medal, like even when you're in the season that people like all men, this is going to be on draft. And what you end up with is when IT actually comes out, it's completely disappointing or not in there in the way that people were expecting IT. And it's just you can you can do IT again. You can't go back to that first one.

Yeah, but I just think there's something fascinating about that cycle drive to survive happens after the season and IT. They released IT before the next season. IT just creates a caste characters that creates a set of things to follow in a way that I think kind of segway in the more conversation on E, S P N.

That's what E S P N is every day, right? Every day. E S P N is just even IT is basically just a twenty four hour podcast that is interpreted by broadcast of major sports.

But IT is increasingly becoming not that right. Like E S P N has gone through a bunch of layoffs the last couple years, including some of its really high profile talent. And IT seems like what E S P N has decided is that we are a place that air sports and Stephen a. Smith like that. They have a couple of really big name people that they really care a lot about and everything else that isn't live sports.

I think that the counter pointed that is that they just sign pat magazine and gave him all of the money that they .

took from laying off all of these yeah but they took an independent pod caster and they said, okay, you're you're the new face of sp. And pat took that deal. I watch a show.

Most of Rogers experience was, as David and I sure, no very transitioning for me these last few years. But pat took that deal. He left his gaming company deal and said, E, S, P, N is like the natural fit for what I do.

And I think that goes back to the prestige, right? It's the it's still the top. And so you might take the discount on attaching yourself to the brand that is at the top and that also has the massive distribution. I I think that question, like what is sp n going to be, is really stuck in the attention of, okay, there's gonna be youtube TV. And this is where a bunch of sports need to happens. So we going to collect the sports and we youtube TV and that's going to be the cable to over old or this is a network full of personality is talking about sports and it's comfort viewing free to have on in the background all the time. I don't think they've made that decision.

One answered that he was supposed to be therefore like what S P. And and some of these other sports network is supposed to be is something that you mentioned. Their gambling and gaming that was supposed to help fill the hole was expected to patch, mcafee said.

I think had his show with fan all or one of these other gaming companies. And espn had been talking about betting. We've rote about IT last year that gambling was going to be a huge business for these steepy networks, for foobar, for everyone else.

And he just has not worked out that way. Bob yager has not talked about gambling accept like one small code in a time interview evidence he came back football TV lunch, gambling kind features on their their network, on their streaming network. They're going they're out of their business.

Fox shut down their fox bet APP. The game playing companies are not making as much of money as people expected. Some of them are losing money because it's so expensive to acquire customers. And so that's another element of why everything has suddenly changed and flipped up so quickly because that was supposed to help kind of bridge that linear TV to streaming gap. And this just didn't happen.

Yeah IT turns out people want to gamble in casinos, not on E S. P. And 点 com。

And that is more fun to gamble when you're getting stimulus checks than IT is when .

the economy is bad. Also, the nodes aren't as good at running casinos as they think it's really hard to make money.

They out yes, we should that I I am I if we cast this out a couple of years, right? I think we're in this interesting place where like the nfl did this big deal a couple of years ago for like one hundred and ten billion dollars, all these college sports have giant deals. There's there forever coming up.

The next big one is the N. B, A, which a lot of people think is going to sign a gigging tic deal that's going to change the way the NBA works. But also E S P N is competing with like the Warner brother discoveries of the world and some of these tech companies to get IT. If we fast ford a couple of years, I just talk about E S P N specifically. Richard, give me like twenty twenty five predictions for what E S P N looks like.

Frankly, i'm a bit worry. The N B A thing is a great point because it's something i've been about. I I watched the N B, A.

I love the N, B A. I love N, B, A, T, V. I loved the transactions. I love the games, all of IT. And they are expecting a huge broadcast deal. As said, you have disney still, you have warned, you have all all the tech companies, but I don't know who is going to pay that.

I don't know they're going to have to expand their international deals or what they're going to have to do to find this money so that they can pay, uh, all all of the players in boston who maybe made the all in b eighteen once three hundred million dollars or something like that, but that's where we are. And I just I don't know if we're going to have the same sports landscape that we had the the kind of thing that grew up with the place where I saw the berry Sanders was retiring, and it's still traumatized me to this day. Just I don't know. I probably hear about IT on a podcast and that's that's going to be IT is just podcast and streaming. That's my prediction I would about you.

I think I agree with that. I think the idea that sports is the last thing driving the monoculture is gonna get pulled into a smaller handful of leagues like apple really want some of us to happen in the united states. Yes, in signing, messy is a great deal, and i've now seen a bunch of a messy highlights on my tiktok feed.

I haven't signed up rapper TV to watch m alsace ge like that hasn't converted me IT, but theyve instituted into the culture in a way, it's interesting now, but it's still the big moments, right? Like the nfl still dominate american sports. And that is the thing that I think will continue to just drive a bunch of stuff as people wanting nfl style deals.

And I just done after there there, I think the audience is fractured enough that that bet that everyone will pay for E S P N, and that will spend money out into all the leagues that enable lots of things happen that's gone, right? And more people are going to spend more money on watching the witcher on netflix or whatever, like the family is, are gna fracture and be more competition and more kinds of things in a way that I think is probably exciting over the long run just because I think we'll get more kinds of new upstart sports emerging or more opportunities like the emergence of f one has been great for racing fans like they ran a nice car race in chicago because they were like, we need to do some exciting stuff to captured the attention of a new class of race fans. And I was the coolest races i've ever seen IT.

And I was in chicken that weekend, so I was very loud. That's cool, right? Like a little kicking the pants to all these leagues. So not just a milk money out of big fat broadcasters is great. But I think that moment where all of my friends in school, we're always watching E S P N and kind of always talking about the same thing that's gone, that's that's got to be gone.

And with you, I think the thing that is remarkable about S P N is that IT continues to be as close to like a one stop sport shop as kind of anything. And that's just I agree, I think that's onna die like I don't see the making less money, at least not in the relative immediate future. There are just onna keep making more money and that they are going to keep going up.

And so what's going to happen? I was reading a bunch about all the different deals that have been happening. And there is this big, big ten deal to go back.

Color, foobar, that happened a couple years ago at seven and a half billion dollars. Al, for seven years. And IT happened across three different networks because basically no one network could afford this whole deal.

And so now if you want to want to speak ten football, you're gna have to like do a puzzle every saturday morning to figure out what channel your game is going to be on. You can't just like know where your sports are. And I think that's where we're had.

IT is like we're going to get more sports, more places, but this is going to be like vastly more distributed. And going forward, if you want to watch the and failure, you're going to be like a eleven different subscriptions because no one company, E S P N or otherwise, is going to be able to afford IT. Uh my my hottest take at the end of this is that I think youtube stands to be the biggest winner of all of this because I think youtube T V is like going to keep looking like a really compelling sports bumble to a lot of people.

But also I think that youtube does where you can subscribe to other streaming services through youtube is going to be really powerful. So it's like, okay, I might have to get paramo plus and peacock and netflix and n, fl plus or whatever the hell, all of that I might have to get to watch sports, but youtube wants to be this sort of interface through which I can do that. So it's going to be expensive and annoying.

But I will least have a single location for all of IT. And I think that is going to end up being the biggest fight is like the collector on top of the subscriptions. And I think over the course of the next like decade, youtube looks pretty good there. Amazon also gonna try pretty hard to win that fight. But I, I, I would bet on youtube more than anybody else in this space.

expensive and annoying. Welcome to the future .

of t ah is very obvious. We're just had to back to cable companies and that IT is, I think, important to note that none of the existing cable companies built any of this stuff that is just recapitulates the bundles. They were always worried about losing.

yeah. No, I think I think it's exactly right. And it's it's a shame because I think as a as a like fan and viewer, and this is true of the whole stream industry now it's like it's all going na get worse before IT gets Better.

Yeah just is where there is. There is too much money and too much stuff. None of IT makes any sense .

anymore and that's why I think you should strive to out screens. Is black server .

all the good stuff through cable bundle, right? Well, we will come back i'm surging foobar season and be sad about why we can't watch in the games um but thank you both. We need to take a break and then we're going to come back and talk to alex winter, the direction of the new documentation, the youtube effect in that.

Traveling to see your fave sports team is cool.

but traveling with M X platinum for the big game is even Better, right this way, with access to dedicated card member entrance at select events, you can skip the line. And with access to the arian round, you can touch the next game on the way home.

That's the powerful backing of american express terms apply, learn more at american express dog com flash with a max card member entrance access not limited to a max plat them card support for the show comes from crucible moments, a podcast for scope capital. We've all had turning points in our lives where the decisions we make end up having lasting consequences. No one knows this Better than the founders of some of today's most influential in critical moments.

Let's listeners in on the maker break events that defined major companies like dropbox, youtube, Robinson od and more told by the founders themselves. Tune in the season two of crucial moments. Today, you can listen at crucial moments. Stop com wherever you listen to podcasts.

All right, we're back. So there's this new documentary out called the youtube effect that I found totally fascinating. I. If you followed youtube over the years or even listen to the show, as we've talked about youtube over the years, there's not a ton about the history of the dog shows that will surprise you.

But it's still a really good look at how youtube became youtube and really what youtube has done to the world, both good and bad. I'd liked to the youtube effect because it's not one of those like loud screeds against the internet or a rosy story about disrupters. Changing everything is both those things and it's a bunch of other things.

And IT made me think a lot about what actually makes youtube unique on the web. There's something different about IT, and i've always had trouble putting my finger on what that thing is and the doctor a pretty good job of trying to figure out out. So I call the alex winter the director of the documentation.

to stop the sort of ministry of propaganda and misinformation. Information is really what the film is about. That is heart.

You might recognize alex from the bill and ted movies. He plays bill and a lot of other shows and movies he's done over the years. More recently, he's also directed a number of documentaries about things like the silk road and the panama papers.

He's just a guy who knows a thing or two about how video works and why it's effective from a bunch of different angles. So as soon as we got on the line, that's just what we started talking about. One of the things that really jumped out to me was there a couple of little spots in the movie where you talk about video as a medium and specific ally, sort of youtube as a medium.

And I think one of the things we debate a lot internally, the verge is a this question of, like is this a platform problem or a society problem, right? And I think i'm pretty resolute on the answer is groth. But platforms play a real role and we can t litigate that as much as you want.

But I think an arguable that's arguable bananas. yeah.

But I think the the really interesting question to me is kind of what is special about youtube as a place, right? Because if you want to talk about algorithms on facebook and twitter and tiktok and elsewhere, I think this idea of algorithmic recommendations is really interesting. But there's something different about like the style and structure of a youtube video even that makes IT. Yes, different. Can you explain how you think about that?

yes. In fact, I would say that I had an england about this going into the film and obviously being able to immerse myself in IT and go me. Everyone who was the smartest people in the world about these issues, which is what I always go seek out, did give me some concrete answers in this area that were very illuminating. And some of them were common sense, and some of them are, I went into the film feeling, feeling exhausted by hearing about the algorithm. I I was thinking, know, I know enough about technology and the way technology is spoken about to to be skeptical of so much weight being put on anything that fuzzy everybody talks about .

the algorithm is villain in the story and it's like that yes.

And you know, you be you could be very cruel and like, stop anyone made sense and sake and you just stop and tell me what you think and other of them is and they would they would spend other man sense, right? So, you know, most people don't know what an algorithm at all who are even using this term all the time. They don't even know what IT is.

They don't even know how IT works. Most people believe, know that the recommended algorithm in youtube has largely been remedied and has been not doing what IT used to do for a very long time. And so I started to examine what is IT that to do exactly to your point, because youtube has more views than any other platform that we debate.

IT gets a lot less attention, and I think largely because it's overwhelming to people. Some of its lobby power like they they spend a lot of money to get people to look elsewhere, but we spend a lot more time looking at meda and a lot more time looking at what used to be twitter and and tiktok and other platforms. But you time about four point six billion views a day on youtube.

You know number two, most build website after google being number one, both own by the same company. So that immediately what makes us special as scale, right? As you guys well know, scale is every day on the internet. And youtube has far more scale than any of these other platforms in terms of other interactivity. And then you get to the video component and how the video component works.

Specifically, there's different than any other platform in terms of how long these videos are, how promoted and viral a very select group of influencers are on all sides of IOS and and thought, which is one of the things about youtube I love, right? You can have Stephen crowd or over here and navy win and counterpoints over here, and they're both doing great. And one of them is you trying to promote civil war and the other ones kind of trying to stop civil war, but they're both get at getting a lot attraction.

They both have the para social connection of college was on your buddy hanging out in my bedroom of talking, you know, my webcam you feel you know me, but you don't at all. Hugely powerful component. So I think for me is the try factor of massive scale, very social connection um of these influencers and the power of that monetized for add dollars, right?

So it's an ad based model business model that is going to push. I wouldn't say without an algorithms help because I think that's going overboard because algorithm vide sly do things, but it's really not a technological issue. It's it's a business model issue.

You could change algorithms and you would still have these influence answer gaining enormous traction given the way solatium content catches fire going back to yellow journalism and in the eighty nineties. And then you attach the monodist ation to that, and then you attached, like whoever funding those influencers and giving them the power to be online all the time. And a powerful way, a message correctly natly really is like, you know, one woman band.

People like crowder entrepreneurs mean those are you huge entities with a lot of money behind. So I think of that try factor, and I think that makes youtube special in many good ways. I think that the way they've they've legitimately constructed a business model that allows creators to actually earn a living going back to small and some of the earliest players on the platform, I think has changed the world in many ways for the Better.

I think IT has democratized culture. I think IT has opened up people's ability to have a voice, you know, L, G, B, T, Q, people in marginal communities, people in small foreign tries you would never get, you know, on any broader days, entertainment platform. And I think a lot of stuff is good. I think obviously the dangerous, you know, we talk about quite a bit in the film.

yeah. And I think the the intersection of those three things you talked about is sort of forever fascinating to me. It's like youtube introduced mid doral ads and so videos get longer so that they can have mineral ads.

And thus the structure of those videos change and the way that people responded them changes and the youtube search rewarding watch time so they make very easy and longer. Yeah and so it's just these things like cycle each other forever and ever and it's just superfast tic. But I think the first social thing was the thing that like kept sticking with me as I was watching the like, like, I was watching with my wife. And we got to the section about ryan, the kid who, like, does the toy stuff, made twenty two million dollars wildly famous and super successful.

And he was just like, why would kids want to watch this kid on youtube? And IT was a moment of being like, all right, we're old people who don't get IT and also like these people like think he's their friend in like a really real way like they have an actual relationship in a way that like, I don't know, you were one twenty years people liked and cared about movie stars but didn't perceive them the same way. And I feel like we're still reckoning with this idea that, like, I can watch somebody on my screen who I know in some real way believe that I know because i've been inside their house and i've seen them eat dinner in a way that like watching something on a movie never did yeah .

and they're looking at they're looking at you. They're looking at a web cam and you're often watching them on your phone or on your laptop and not in a sort of ritual. Alister, way of like here is an icon a hundred feet tall on a movie screen that i've like gotten in my car and driven to the movie theater and gone to like, bot popcorn.

And then for being presented with this towering figure is the literal opposite of that in every conceivable way. And in fact, that's part of what we're dealing with, with the strike right now is like the advent of streaming has has broken that ritual to a degree that we're losing movie stars and and people don't feel that the opposite type of connection, I kind of epic connection with with your interest in someone that you feel as larger than life that you don't know. So and ryan, just so it's been said, it's a couple hundred million dollars a year.

So sorry, it's it's a vast song. So and they have been doing that year after year for a lunch time. So I mean, you are talking about an enormous, enormous um audience and and that has gotten hollywood scared you know because IT IT is they are drawing numbers that are not hofer able in terms of what what especially in the streaming world, which is doesn't really modified so well.

So I think that the best social thing can be understand. I think the work that bachelor is at a stanford is done in other people is really significant work. And IT was very important to me when I was making a dog, is kind of answered the question I had about, okay, the algorithms with the secret sauce, what is? And I think the secret sauce is really the Terry social relationships. And I think it's what draws people to youtube. I think that what makes people feel like it's what's influential, but it's also a big part what caused the societal impact because it's really much more than just a political pundit saying go do this, someone that you think is like your best friend saying go do this was youtube .

just first into that fray? Or is there is something about IT that is still different because like tiktok plays on the same sort? Of things now, but I feel like maybe just doesn't have the history to pull that off. Instagram was always kind of the opposite. It's like this airbrush version of everybody's life like why is IT that after all these years, no one else has figured out how to do this the way that youtube is on IT?

I think that IT would be possible to have competitors in the marketplace. I don't think tiktok is one for a number of of obvious reasons. The way they are algorithms ks, the way their videos work, the way they don't monodist creators um there they don't have the scale that youtube pass.

They don't have a google behind them, right? And we try this in the movies. The reason we spend time in the film and act one charting the actual business growth of youtube because I think it's very important. And I think that Susan wood sischy in other people's vision in two thousand and five, two thousand and six, I think you have to credit that vision, I think. And especially given how much flag SHE got and they got for for buying youtube for one point six plus billion dollars.

which sounds like nothing now, but at the time was like a proposers .

ly large amount that I was an number in the internet era of of that of that time when, I mean, when apple was still this kind of Ailing company trying to get fit, hold back in the business. And the patience that they had of understanding that google was becoming a dominant figure in what was gonna the jacking for the very few lanes of of the highway, which was true, only few companies did survive and and take those lines.

And google is one of them, in fact, that the largest in terms of user interaction, apple, like a sense of bigger market cap, that google has a lot more people using its tools. So I think that their vision was not complete. IT wasn't like we see the old picture, but I do think that that they knew that if you harness a video platform that work out how do U I.

That people were responding to, which I think was not happening in google play, you have such to the lot, you know, to one of the largest take companies on the planet with enormous reach and fluence and lobbying power, which is important that you would be able to dominate the market in that space and that more people, you would be able to create an entertainment infrastructure that people would want to use because they did start to monetize their influencers mediately. This wasn't like, you know, sashes making money almost immediately in the early days of youtube. And other people, obviously, those are are touch use case in the movie.

So I think that's really important because I think that is one of the things that we get is one of the problems that sort of how we raped the move up, not to boiled propose, you go see IT. But like you know, google is a monopoly, is one of the largest monopoly is on the planet. You to dominate the space because IT has the benefit of google's monopoly, ly power.

I don't think that if if google got broken up or if there were other equally large tech companies, I think you would see competitors in this space. And I do think honestly, I think you know i'm curious what what you all think know what you think about. There's given europe understanding of the space, I do think is where we're headed.

Even though I don't think is happening anytime soon, I do think we're headed into a more fractured space, know in terms and I think that's a healthy thing. We're like IT isn't just three, four companies running everything and there is more choice and there is more competition, which gives way to more policy and help you. A regulation, I think, is going to be a bit a dog fight because he wants to give up dominance.

But I do think we're heading that way. I think what's interesting to me is what twitter, what elon must kind of disastrous takeover of twitter has shown is that the public, everyone, I was interesting to watch people who who were smart, but the new had to spend a lot of time online. When must do that? They were like, all this is, I was kind of get entire of social media anyway.

So this is kind of the end. I'm going to party back off and not do the cinema. And within two weeks, those say people were like on masted on on post eventually on threads like theyve figured out with a lot of us new for years, which is like you don't need to be on one platform, it's okay, right? Giving communicate cross platform. So I think that that's the future on some level.

Yeah, I I agree in most cases, actually, we've talked to Better. A lot of the show actually is I think we are headed in kind of an unbundled ling phase. And it's where I think like things like massed on and the sort of decentralized social media stuff is really interesting.

We're headed back towards like protocols being really interesting and exciting. And I think the future of social is definitely lots of places, not one place. And I think that's probably a good thing.

I don't know about youtube though, because the thing the thing that jumps out to me, even as you talk about IT, is there's no good reason for anyone to want to leave youtube. It's monitise ing really well for everyone involved is the best platform technically. It's a very good search engine. IT has a very good video player like short of some sort of spectacular own goal from google at this point. I have a really hard time imagining what I would take to unwind youtube at this moment.

Yeah, I I agree with you. I mean, I think at this moment and I think in the immediate future and even then not so immediate future, there are me, don't give me this is not .

changing tomorrow unless you on musk buys youtube and then all Better off and .

coming and then just calls IT x and we all just go home and we do just get off the internet and give up. But no, I don't think it's gona change anytime. I mean, I feel pretty firmly that they aren't entrenched entity and that they have the power.

I don't know, they have the desire, but they have the power to eat hollywood without blank king, right? And you, they could gob up every single one of the conclusion and not that. And I I don't message something that they want to do that.

I think they're four ways into that level of content distribution, which they played within the past was not particularly fruitful for them and they don't seem to needed right, but they could do IT in a heart beat. I don't think google or youtube are going to is going to get smaller over the next few years. I think it's going to continue to get bigger, but I do think that there's going to be pushed in.

And I do think that harms are going to increase. And I think the general public will eventually, even though I think they don't understand the internet, even lawmakers understand the situation so well today, a lot of Younger people are coming up in law and government and and in tech, who absolutely do you understand much Better what's going on. So I think we will stop, hopefully stop seeing like really bad legislation being put forward. Like cosa and other you formers are like really misguided attempts to this mental section to thirty. I think we will stop seeing things like that soon and see a shift towards legislation and policy as even if they don't get implement the right way, that at least make more sense.

Yeah, I think that's right. And I I do think it's going to be good when a generation of people who grew up with this stuff becomes the one legislating the stuff that's that's going to go very a long way. But I think the the thing about youtube, i'm fascinated by youtube, just like as a as a product because not only does IT continue to be this sort of dominant video place, it's also making big plays into essentially being a cable bundle.

It's a music APP. Now it's IT really is, like you've said, sort of becoming all things to all people in a way that I don't even think most people see yet like this football. Now youtube has football.

How did that happen? And one of the things you've said in other reviews I was listened to is that one of the things you thought was funny is that nobody can quite explain youtube. And because it's hard to explain that why, like Susan wishes, I was never dragged in in front of congress because like it's not it's not social media, it's not entertainment. It's too big to understand in the course of doing this. Have you come up with like a good metaphor for youtube?

Yeah, it's is google media front end. That's what IT is OK. You know I mean because it's meet it's all media.

I mean, it's like, you know like our series to say i'm the king of all media. I mean youtube. Youtube is truly the king of all media. And it's it's absolutely it's not just login power though.

I think that they are very good at spinning a narrative that keeps people off their back because they don't understand how to define IT and they don't go to any legs to define IT. But no, I mean, on top of everything you just did, it's also an i've got a kid in middle school that is search Angel. He doesn't search on google. He searches on youtube, which is terrifying ed, the librarians, he told them that like, oh my god but it's all wrong information like IT may be but that's where no, he's writing a certain paper.

He's got youtube but he doesn't have google up right or wikipedia much to my students sometimes but you know this is not like know listen to Andrew date for like you know how to write your paper but fair yes but no but it's also our is our library alexAndrea means a repository for pretty much all of recorded human history isn't on youtube, almost nowhere else. When I when i'm looking for content of my own that i've created over the years, that's the only place I find IT like it's literally the best archive to for um from those of us in the arts as well and not just in the movie business but in all areas of the arts, as you said and including and music, I watched my old my now all this you know who is now out of college. I mean, as he was coming up, he sort of went from watching A T V when he was like seven, to watching A T V with a laptop, you know, on his lab, to not watching the T V.

And then and then all of his music, uh, was all of youtube, like all the time, you know, we have sartiges y we had all these other thing. And this is probably two thousand six. Two thousand seven, like early days of youtube, two thousand eight. And that was very fascinating to me. So I sort of watched the evolution of youtube through my son's eyes because he was getting pulled into its multiple users, I would say the least use of seen my kids using in forest social like, you know, they are on discord or they are on twitch or they're other areas where they can create their own servers and talk to the people they want to talk to. As you said, social needs for most internet users who were savy, it's moved off of these pilot platforms, I think, a while ago.

But I do think that that the for looking at the labor strike work right now in hollywood, I think that the one of the areas of disconnect between you know my gangs, the sort of the unions, I mean, all three of the unions that we're up for, contract negotiation, sag, W J D, G A and the amptp, is that I don't know how well the unions understand the level of threat the amp gp are under, right from larger tech entities, some of whom right are ready. The M B T V, like apple or amazon, whatever, but those are just little tiny pieces of their portfolio or hate like apples business is not making movies. And either is amazon. They have a little side of mussel.

but they can essentially swallow the movie business anytime .

they feel like IT completely. And and so like all this talk of A I and like negotiating contracts and like you know getting terms in or even regulation, like you know who are you regulating against and who is really the power and you know the the disruption that's coming over the next five to ten years, to your point about youtubes growth is largely going to be coming from these big monopoly companies that are going to shape in whatever they way they want the future. Yeah I mean, it's really .

interesting that that way of framing IT is really interesting to me because I think know one of the things we've heard a lot about from the union side is, is this fear that essentially A I will make real people irrelevant kind of in every step of the process, right? We'll be able to digitize extras so that they won't them in the background anymore, will use ChatGPT to generate scripts.

I think those are real fears, not necessarily founded in like how this tech works right now, but we're on a path where that seems reasonable. I am curious how you feel that. But also at the same time, all of the studios and distributors like you're talking about also fear being made a relevant by technology.

And they're just afraid they going to get eaten by these these handful of big companies that has so much money to throw at whatever they feel like that they could all just go away and become a rounding error in apple's budget. And it's just fascinated. They think that everybody is afraid of tech, but in completely different ways. And that's kind of why all of this becomes so hard to sort out.

IT does. And that also creates multiple conflicting conversations that don't make IT easier to have resolution, which is why the strike is going on so long in one area. Other areas is obviously terms of residuals pay structures based on streaming, which is also a result of big tech and their influence on on the entertainment ministry is why were in the stream method twor are in the first place? But no, I think that that's absolutely right.

I think that there's an existent al concern on the part of the creative community that A I um and sort of big technological uh, advances because some of those you know there's they're put under the bucket of A I aren't really about AI or about other things that are called AI, but that these advances are going to replace all workers with with robots, you know some of which is true. My fears are actually a little less grandiose, more in monae in ways that workers will be release by by sort of AI type technology because a lot of IT will be centered around scheduling and budgeting and using like how a lot of lawyers are going to get replace ed by certain types vi. I know I had this conversation with law, enthusiastic harvard.

We had called them dead. So getting his frame was like, what mostly is onna eat up. Lawyers, and we have too many layers anyway. So I really worried about IT.

But, but, but there are obviously these technologies are going to get used to cut corners and costs by companies at the expense of workers. So yes, labor wise, we are gonna have shrinkage. I wouldn't be blazy about IT. We are going going to have a shrinkage based on the advances in technology. We've all known that coming, coming for a long time.

There's actually there's very little we can do about IT other than you have extremely blunt contract terms ah that kind of shackle the studios or your or your boss or whatever from using these tools that exist because a lot of of these tools are open source. So there's very little you can do. You know I hear so much talk in in industry like we got to stop them from ingesting our material like that's not possible, right? You will not stop them from ingesting your material.

They will do that. And there are one hundred thems now.

Well, yeah, there's that. It's like that right? Just welcomed. And you're going to have a kid in in taiwan with an open source tool that's making star wars all day long and with staring meral streep and and you know a hung bogard and that's absolutely gna happen.

So you there are contract negotiations that you can get into. There is also, as you well know, there are realities about what these these technologies can do and there are fears about their potential that, that we're not at yet about what they can do. And I think it's important to try to stay focused on what they can actually do, because we do still need people to tell these stories, and we do still need to to document human beings to tell mostly stories.

And A I will will in is presented even is potentially a media future. Self will create mostly garbage or the regenerated maybe curiosities. I'm more concerned about IT being used for no calculation type stuff that will cut the work force. Things I know way I can do, do quickly. That will will shove a lot of people out of the workforce. But I think generally, the bigger concerns I have or the concerns the amp gp or having, which is huge disruption to the overall industry from these tech companies, I think it's a much bigger threat that will create much bigger disruption.

Yeah, I think you're right. And I think one of the things i've heard you say, and you can sort of feel in the youtube effect, is you you're interested in scale as a thing, right? That's like what happens when things get huge, I think is a really interesting question.

And as one you've explore in a bunch of different places, do you buy the idea that these platforms and these companies are just too big, that eventually you hit a tipping point of that kind of scale where it's impossible to be a good citizen of internet and due content moderation? Well, and I think there's one school thought that says these are the companies that have the resources to do this stuff well, and there's another school thought that says this is just too much stuff even if youtube tries the artist with all the available resources, IT is not going to be able to successful ly solve the problems that IT has. Which side of that you fall on?

I fall on the side that there is plenty of room for accountability and no one should expect perfection. I think a good example is youtube was removing content that pushed to stop the steal lie until about two weeks ago, and then they they reverse their policy and began to let that content back on platform, right as we head into an election cycle, which is bananas.

Yes, that's a really good example of content moderation that is doable that they were doing and then decided to stop doing. I don't think that the problem that I think there are too big for you in general, they're too big to not allow in competition and other reasons that when people are bad, but I don't think they're too big to self regulate. I think that they don't self regulate because it's not profitable to self is a business model, as we talked about the very beginning of this conversation.

So racist content draws eyeballs. I balls drive, draw I dollars. And that makes everybody lots of money.

You know, how are you going to boot Steven crowder off your platform when he got four million subscribers? And you can tag that, you know add to that and everyone makes lots of money and goes home happy and you go before your board, your shareholder and say, you know, stock is up. So I think it's a business model capitalist thing.

I that makes you different. That's why we need that's why IT took us so long as the auto makers start putting seat belts in their cars is the same old thing with industry over and over again. And IT does require a policy.

IT just does because no, no company, just like a little kid, you gave a kid, you know, bag a Candy and tell me, sure, whatever. And also, the stand they just aren't going to do that is just not the way human beings are wired. So they have to have a teacher or a parent or someone say, now add, i'm going to take some of those away and give them to the other kids and I think it's kind of wear or at .

yeah we need more grown ups is not a bad diagnosis of a lot .

of things in life. Yeah, exactly.

Yeah.

awesome. Well, alex, thank you again. I really enjoy the dr. And this really fun. I really appreciate you.

Yeah, likewise. Yeah.

thanks for heavy me.

right? We're going to take one more break and then we're onna come back and we're going to answer a question from the very cast hot.

Support for the show comes from clavo you're building a business clavo helps you grow IT livio S A I powered marketing platform puts all your customer data plus email s ms in analytics in one place with cvo tend fish fee on fishwife delivers real time personalized experience says that keeps their customers hooked. They've grown seventy times revenue in just four years with clivia. Now that scale, visit K L A B I Y O dot com to learn how brand like fish wife build smarter digital relationships with clivia. Some tack presents the ins and outs of caring for your home out, uncertainty, self out, stressing about not knowing where to start in, plans and guides that make IT easy to get home projects done out word art, sorry, live laugh lovers in knowing what to do, when to do IT and who to hire, start caring for your home with confidence down the same tack today.

Alright, we're back. Let's do the hot line. Tom warn is here to help us the hot line high time.

It's going to be very clear you very shortly what we have here. But first, the hot wine is eight, six, six verge one one call asks all your deepest, darkest questions. We do at least one every week.

It's very fun this time we have a windows question, which we don't get A A from. Jim once here reference, hi, this is jim. I'm calling asking about windows eleven.

I seem to have kind of memory hold everything I ever heard about IT is IT actually time to upgrade the windows even? Just let me know. thanks. So fairly straight forward question, right?

Like is IT time to upgrade to windows eleven, which is like the funniest windows question of all time everybodys like I have windows from eleven years ago, slash windows ninety five to any upgrade, put IT IT sent me down this weird, rabid hall of, I kind of forgot about windows eleven, and I kind of feel like microsoft is perfectly happy with that being the case. But let's just start the very tower. The question, what do you think is IT is IT time for everyone to be on windows eleven?

This one of these questions is like, can never know someone else. He wants the best laptop and you like, well, that's like A A very big question. So I guess the basic answer is IT depends what you you like talk for or you P C for where you need talk.

great. But on the flip side, it's like if you're upgrade, you're not going to like to lose anything potentially. I mean, I think initially when winner eleven came out, they are worth and issues is particularly around the tasper, but they they've kind of improve that.

So you're not going to lose some of that functional stuff. So yeah, I think my general very quick answer to them, we will see go very deeper into IT. But the very quick answers is, yeah, it's probably time talk right now because is a good time talk right now after after the visit two years now yeah yeah.

I just seem like I an the sort of standard Operating procedure for windows was like, wait for two security patches, right? And then I was like, that was like, okay, you can up date and IT feeling we're well past that. We're to the point now we're like if you get windows eleven, assuming your computer can support IT, whatever, it's not going to be broken.

Yeah used to be like weight for service packs and we've generally had those service packs used to be once a year and and they kind of changed them into updates now. And he is the naming of them. So they be like the twenty twenty two h two update, which which sounds very like a code name, but IT just means as the second half the year.

So essentially, we've had a couple of those and we've had a bunch of sort of updates in between as well. So much stuff been doing all sorts, really. So when I first reviewed winners eleven, I think the main negatives I had about IT was IT was a bit inconsistent.

IT felt like a workstation in progress and there was the missing stuff around task bar like for power users and just A A bunch of stuff related to to how you say he like dragon and drop files into photoshop p and and work on them like some that stuff just missing. And IT was just IT just felt like a little bit of a working progress. So I think like two years later, it's still a working progress, but it's got Better.

So like some of the U I stuff that was being inconsistent where they didn't have dark more than certain places like y've added IT to like the task manager, for example, and places where IT just hasn't had IT for years. So is is getting there with the inconsistency from I like to mention the a stuff like you use a tablet for example, you got a tablet that you're thinking of creating to new zealand. The touch experienced is A A lot Better now.

Then IT was when IT first shipped and theyve done stuff like attaboy file explorer and like tabs in apps like notepad and those sort of like small little things you might not notice them like immediately. But I think is one of those cases where if you upgraded to us eleven, you started using that stuff, then you win, use windows ten. You like a isn't my tags gone? You know like this stuff you get used to when I do that?

Yeah that's my experience to is there's not a tune about IT that is like immediately sort of slam dk life changing and IT seems like copilot, which I think is coming this fall just to window might be that thing.

But until then, IT does seem like it's it's like whatever the opposite of death by a thousand cuts, right? It's like a lot of tiny little things that add up to like my experience with windows eleven over time has gotten meaningfully Better. But not I couldn't point you to like one specific thing that has totally changed .

my yeah and I think that's exactly yet like this. There's not something I can say, right? You should get a eleven because it's going to do this view.

But you could say this is tiny bug of things to add into being like a meaningful update that you will get used to the recent changes, like the start button changes to the center. You can move IT back to the left, the stem stuff to talk you do in your first of upgrade. But once you you use to those sort of changes, I think IT does improve the way use windows for sure. Like of this is definitely is not the horror update they usually get.

IT is amazing to me how much I think vista and windows they have like left this scary in people's melts about upgrading because I also feel like it's just true that it's good to update for like security reasons, right? And I feel like that was my immediate answer to this is like you should always try to be on the latest version of software because IT will be Better and safer and more secure, if nothing else.

That's a Victory, and I think that's true. But I also think people's reluctance to upgrade their perfectly functional piece of software and gadget is well founded. And I think over the years, every company has given people reasons not to upgrade.

Yeah, you want something that working financial randomly break because you've got that in as a windows usually in in the past has been a bit clunky when you've got day at that. So but the other respect though is can you even up great to windows lemon like that, that this all bigger question because you might have hardware just isn't compatible.

I'll see Marks of cart there, the list of processes I need to, ones that were avAiling, the sort of lost by now, like for four to sort of five years. I talking roughly twenty eighteen omits I believe the process is about to amy. You might even be thinking all, but not great to windows eleven being might not actually be able to like in an official al capacity that there are work around out there and less so stuff, but who knows when they just started working and they're not officially supported and stuff.

So you might be thinking on upgrade, but good things about when does live in, but you have to get A U PC. Tennis ally to talk great, efficient. We want to see that good for mics pop line because they said another windows lessons and it's good very ams and stuff, but it's not good for a you is right? Where is the past windows?

You gave up great pretty much freely, you know unless you've got didn't PC you back? Is seeing increasingly people like the look of windows lemon and in the like, I can't update. So that's that's definitely another part of this question is like you might like the look of IT, but you need to go check to actually see if your system is actually capable of that .

yeah and they just seem to me that like if you're in a position where you can get another year out of your computer before you upgrade, but you can't yet get windows eleven like way to year, right? There's nothing to me so great about windows eleven that you have to sort of rush out to buy a computer to get IT. But also, if you can get IT IT IT Better, you should get IT for me, honestly, just the part where they've designed most of the settings menus in a new way and nothing falls back to like twenty year old windows designs when you click on a folder worth IT alone just is so much Better IT just makes me so happy. It's a nice little thing and there's a lot of things like that like we are talking about that IT feels worth IT, but don't break the bank for IT.

Yeah like one of the small additions they did. Those when when you like multitasking with different apps and you're trying to like lay them out is like a nice feature that will really guide you through lane amount in the perfect way. I snaps sist and I think that that's definitely worth upgrading for alone. And in the type stuff really pends how you use your PC, what SHE have laptop or timely to stop PC are often like stuff. There's some stuff in there like on the gaming side, like we've been saying, is not one of those sort of a big features where you go.

You should not great for this, but there is some improvements to window mode performance and lenny for gaming, which is actually kind of useful if you have a competitive ultra monitor, you N A game on in the window get the to see performance improvements rather than having to run IT full screen in that way. And a lot of games aren't oldest ly optimize to run out of ultra nas. So this is these improvements there as well, if you're thinking on the gaming side. So yeah, it's wait too many to to list, but is a bunch of of improvement civil light up?

And like you said, we're pretty much out of reasons to be afraid to upgrade. I think if if you can do IT is time you're good, you're safe.

Yeah I think so. Like, yeah, I think unless you really love the old look of windows that the old start menu, you really love these lifetime's I can't imagine as many .

people if you're the one person who loves lifetime's yeah like .

if you're in that very small category of people, then sure you might want to hold off. And if you want the windows ten PC, you like everything working fine. What do I really need then? Sure, you know, you can hold off because you're never going to buy A U.

P. C. At some point, which will then have probably windows top at that point, see what they do.

That 可是 rumors of windows twelve， and they going to do some AI stuff with the chips and stuff. So this going to be new hard. We are coming. I think if you if you've got a machine, when you you're curious about winners eleven and you seal the improvements and you're like suckle winners ten, you like i'm not getting in new features here because nothing is changing is just IT stays as is then. I think you are probably good .

to upgrade elegant gym. I hope that helps to thank you. appreciate.

no. All right. That is IT for the .

verge cast today. Thanks, ks, that everybody who's on the show today. And thank you, as always for listening.

There's lots more from all of our conversations, especially the chat with alex at the virgie tt com. We'll put some lives in the show notes, but you know good website there's on on right now. So surprisingly busy August.

So keep IT locked on the if you have thought, questions, feelings or youtube videos you really want me to see, you can always e mail us at verge, cast at the verge dot com, or call the hotline, like I said, six, six verge, one and one we'd love hearing from you. Send us all of your thoughts and questions, and we will do at least one hot line question every single website. Oh and specifically we're doing an episode in a couple of weeks all about cyber security.

So call us for sure if you have cyber er security questions. No question too small. No question too weird. Bring them all on this show is produced by Andrew marino and liam James.

Broke matters is our editorial director of audio verge cast is verge production in part of the box media podcast network. Me, I alex nail, be back on friday to talk about, presumably zacks berg in musk, fighting or not fighting, plus some news in the youtube world. Big stuff gone on an A I like I said, surprisingly busy summer. We'll see them rock and all.

Support for this episode de comes from A W S. A W S, generate A, A, I gives you the tools to power your business forward with the security and speed of the world's most experienced club.

Support for the show comes from a new york magazines. The strategist, the strategist helps people who want to shop the internet smartly. Its editors are reporters, testers and obsessives. You can think of them as you are shopaholic friends who Carry equally about function, value, innovation and good taste.

And their new feature that gives out, takes the best of their reporting and recommendations and uses that to surface, gives for the most hard to shop for the people on your list. All you have to do is type in a description of that person, like you are a parent who's swear they don't want anything, or your brother in love, who's an attack junky, or your knees with a sweet tooth. And the gift scout was scanned through all of the products they run about and come up with some relevant suggestions.

The more specific can make your request the Better, even down to the age range. Every single product you'll receive is something they written in about. You can be confident that your gift has a strategist silver approval. Visit the strategist document slash gives .

out to try IT out yourself.