The Talk Show

00:00:00 ◼   ► I'm worried because I feel like whenever you're on the show we always go and

00:00:03 ◼   ► you're the by far the longest guests like I feel like we could go like if we

00:00:07 ◼   ► ever needed to do like a charity talk-a-thon me and you would be the two

00:00:11 ◼   ► we can go for 12 hours and then this time we actually have a lot to talk

00:00:16 ◼   ► about so I'm a little concerned but well maybe not start moving did you hear we

00:00:21 ◼   ► don't talk anymore that that you got to me and that that somehow it with the

00:00:27 ◼   ► Specifics are kind of vague as to how how you got to me and what that means

00:00:31 ◼   ► But somehow you got to me and we don't talk anymore

00:00:34 ◼   ► Has five people said that if there's been further speculation that we're on the out. Oh my god, I mean

00:00:42 ◼   ► Fortunately, it's it's died down in the last few days. I think people have finally moved on

00:00:46 ◼   ► From the peace saga, which is good

00:00:49 ◼   ► The internet has a very short attention span and that that is both a blessing and a curse

00:00:54 ◼   ► It is it is definitely a blessing when you are on the receiving end of it

00:00:57 ◼   ► so that is nice, but

00:00:59 ◼   ► Yeah, I heard I read and got emailed and heard lots of interesting theories about the conspiracy between you and I

00:01:07 ◼   ► Or that that you?

00:01:09 ◼   ► Got to me or paid me off

00:01:12 ◼   ► Because people couldn't possibly believe

00:01:14 ◼   ► That the story was what I said it was which is that I didn't want to be in this business after all so I exited it

00:01:22 ◼   ► Right. You told this story on on your podcast the ATP

00:01:27 ◼   ► probably not what is now the last episode.

00:01:29 ◼   ► I'm guessing you have an episode coming out tomorrow,

00:01:32 ◼   ► but the one from last week. - Today, it's already out.

00:01:35 ◼   ► - Well, I have not listened, so you can stop me

00:01:38 ◼   ► if we start covering this time and stuff.

00:01:39 ◼   ► But last week's episode where you covered the peace thing,

00:01:41 ◼   ► your more or less long, very long story, very short,

00:01:44 ◼   ► is that what you wrote, as always, is exactly the truth.

00:01:49 ◼   ► You are one of the most, almost painfully honest people

00:01:53 ◼   ► I have ever met.

00:01:54 ◼   ► Like, you almost can't even bring yourself

00:01:57 ◼   ► to tell white lies, you know what I mean?

00:02:01 ◼   ► If you go through something like this

00:02:03 ◼   ► and then you explain yourself in public,

00:02:05 ◼   ► what you say is the honest to God truth.

00:02:07 ◼   ► So it's very funny that everybody would just assume

00:02:11 ◼   ► that it could be, it was something else.

00:02:13 ◼   ► And I think the part of the story that is the best

00:02:15 ◼   ► was that, and again, people who listened to ATP last week

00:02:19 ◼   ► know this, that you, I guess it was what, last Thursday?

00:02:23 ◼   ► Or was it Friday?

00:02:24 ◼   ► I don't know what day of the week it was,

00:02:26 ◼   ► But I was at the dentist and I was waiting to go

00:02:30 ◼   ► and you texted me and you were like,

00:02:31 ◼   ► I think I'm gonna pull Peace from the app store.

00:02:34 ◼   ► And I texted you, don't do it, don't be rash, wait.

00:02:38 ◼   ► Wait 'til I'm out of the dentist.

00:02:39 ◼   ► And I got home and it was already pulled

00:02:41 ◼   ► from the app store and the thing was there.

00:02:44 ◼   ► So I literally, you did not pull a lot of people.

00:02:47 ◼   ► You had kind of made up,

00:02:48 ◼   ► obviously you'd made up your mind

00:02:49 ◼   ► because I told you not to do it, which we will get to.

00:02:53 ◼   ► I will explain why I thought you should not do it.

00:02:55 ◼   ► But it did amuse me greatly though then afterwards

00:03:00 ◼   ► when I did notice immediately afterwards

00:03:02 ◼   ► that there were an awful lot of people

00:03:03 ◼   ► who assumed that it was pressure from me.

00:03:05 ◼   ► Somebody more or less said that it was like

00:03:07 ◼   ► that me and Kudol showed up with baseball bats.

00:03:11 ◼   ► - I would have loved to see that.

00:03:12 ◼   ► (both laughing)

00:03:14 ◼   ► It was especially funny because I was literally

00:03:17 ◼   ► just hanging out with you and Kudol like four days earlier.

00:03:20 ◼   ► (both laughing)

00:03:23 ◼   ► Yeah, it was interesting.

00:03:24 ◼   ► I also heard, when I was briefly on ATP,

00:03:27 ◼   ► like I heard people thought that Apple paid me off,

00:03:30 ◼   ► which is the funniest, I think.

00:03:32 ◼   ► 'Cause like, I was making them a ton of money,

00:03:35 ◼   ► you know, promoting their platform,

00:03:38 ◼   ► doing everything they wanted me to do.

00:03:40 ◼   ► - And it wasn't also, it also wasn't one of those things

00:03:44 ◼   ► like today view widgets, right,

00:03:49 ◼   ► where they say, okay, now over here on this today screen

00:03:54 ◼   ► on iOS, what's that called?

00:03:56 ◼   ► - It doesn't even matter.

00:03:57 ◼   ► - Well, whatever, you know what I mean,

00:03:58 ◼   ► but you can put a-- - I think it's called

00:03:59 ◼   ► Stadu actually.

00:04:00 ◼   ► - You can put a widget in there.

00:04:02 ◼   ► And when they first opened this up,

00:04:05 ◼   ► there were people who made things that did things

00:04:07 ◼   ► that were creatively outside the purview

00:04:12 ◼   ► of what they expected people to make.

00:04:15 ◼   ► And then, you know, so like, I think one of the ones

00:04:18 ◼   ► that was an early victim of this was, I think,

00:04:21 ◼   ► PCALC, the calculator, made it so you can actually do your computation over there.

00:04:25 ◼   ► Well, that was more than, they kind of, I think they envisioned it as more just like

00:04:28 ◼   ► a status view, like it would show you the weather or whatever.

00:04:33 ◼   ► And when people were actually doing real things over there, Apple, you know, reacted.

00:04:39 ◼   ► This isn't that sort of, and it wasn't like they were breaking, you know, it wasn't like

00:04:43 ◼   ► they were using private APIs.

00:04:44 ◼   ► They were using the public APIs in ways that Apple didn't envision.

00:04:47 ◼   ► Well, peace was not like you use the content blocking

00:04:51 ◼   ► APIs in a way that they didn't envision.

00:04:53 ◼   ► It was almost like right down the middle, the canonical,

00:04:57 ◼   ► this is exactly the sort of thing that they envisioned

00:05:00 ◼   ► would be made.

00:05:01 ◼   ► Yeah, I mean, I got a couple of responses here and there

00:05:04 ◼   ► from inside of Apple, and they were all extremely positive.

00:05:08 ◼   ► Like, they definitely did not want

00:05:11 ◼   ► me to pull it from the App Store as far-- based

00:05:13 ◼   ► on the implication that they would have hated it

00:05:16 ◼   ► for some reason. Like, I mean, you know, they're not very generous with their communication,

00:05:21 ◼   ► but it sure seemed like people in Apple were big fans of it. And when I pulled it and placed

00:05:28 ◼   ► the burden on them to try to issue all these refunds first manually and then eventually

00:05:32 ◼   ► they did that batch thing, that couldn't have been pleasant for them either and certainly

00:05:37 ◼   ► couldn't have been cheap to have to process all those refunds. And, you know, just the

00:05:41 ◼   ► manpower alone of processing all those refunds was getting to be probably significant. So,

00:05:46 ◼   ► yeah, the idea that Apple paid me off to do all this was pretty entertaining. I also heard that

00:05:53 ◼   ► advertisers somehow paid me off. Man, an app that sits at the top of the App Store paid app chart,

00:06:01 ◼   ► if that could have sat there for like a month, I don't know if anyone else would have been able

00:06:05 ◼   ► able to afford to pay it off.

00:06:07 ◼   ► I mean, it would have made a ton of money.

00:06:10 ◼   ► And that's assuming a lot, of course,

00:06:12 ◼   ► but if you could have sat there for a while,

00:06:15 ◼   ► that would have been a good amount of money.

00:06:18 ◼   ► But the whole reason I canceled it was that it would have

00:06:22 ◼   ► felt like making a ton of money off of drug dealing

00:06:25 ◼   ► or something, it didn't feel right.

00:06:27 ◼   ► That was the whole point.

00:06:29 ◼   ► - I am looking right now, I actually have not been

00:06:32 ◼   ► paying attention to see what is atop the top charts.

00:06:36 ◼   ► So the top paid is, hooray, Tweetbot 4.

00:06:40 ◼   ► - Well, I think today's probably Tweetbot.

00:06:42 ◼   ► - Yeah, but number two is Purify.

00:06:46 ◼   ► - Yeah, but I think Crystal was up there for a while,

00:06:48 ◼   ► or Purify, I forget.

00:06:50 ◼   ► - I think you gotta look at Grossing, though,

00:06:52 ◼   ► but Grossing, they don't even register, it's all Candy Crush.

00:06:56 ◼   ► - Yeah, that's been up there for a while.

00:06:59 ◼   ► Well, I was on piece's top day, the one full day

00:07:03 ◼   ► on the chart, it was grossing at, I think,

00:07:04 ◼   ► like number 17 or 18 for a little while.

00:07:07 ◼   ► Not for the whole day, but that was the peak.

00:07:09 ◼   ► And then it was able to fall down the grossing ranks

00:07:12 ◼   ► pretty far while still being number one in the paid chart.

00:07:15 ◼   ► To give you, you know, like the volumes

00:07:17 ◼   ► are much lower, obviously, in paid.

00:07:19 ◼   ► But yeah, I mean, any app that's gonna sit there anywhere

00:07:23 ◼   ► like in the top 20 paid is gonna be making

00:07:25 ◼   ► really good money for a while.

00:07:27 ◼   ► So and I don't you know, if other people want to go in there and make a ton of money making ad blockers

00:07:32 ◼   ► That's fine. Like I'm willing and happy to yield that ground to other people. That's why I did it

00:07:37 ◼   ► You know, it's I got there realized I really didn't like being there and left

00:07:43 ◼   ► Yeah, I actually haven't looked in a while. It seems weird to me though

00:07:47 ◼   ► I thought that there would be a couple up there, but it looks like it's all down to

00:07:49 ◼   ► purify now

00:07:52 ◼   ► It doesn't I don't see any of the others although maybe maybe they're on the free list in there

00:07:56 ◼   ► I don't know which one's popular

00:07:58 ◼   ► I thought there were a couple that would be popular though for a while crystal and purify were neck-and-neck and then I think maybe

00:08:04 ◼   ► pure foot maybe crystals

00:08:06 ◼   ► Thing with the acceptable ads that's I mean that's a whole other

00:08:09 ◼   ► Drama that I don't really want to get into because I'm not involved happily anymore

00:08:13 ◼   ► But it that's the kind of thing

00:08:16 ◼   ► where it just shows how incredibly messy and difficult this business is and

00:08:21 ◼   ► That's a perfect example of why I don't want to be in it after all because it is just very messy and very difficult

00:08:27 ◼   ► as we record on on Thursday October 1st crystal is all the way down at 32 on the top paid and

00:08:34 ◼   ► Like I said purifies number two

00:08:37 ◼   ► So obviously there's been some divergence there, but you you you know, and and there is this weird

00:08:43 ◼   ► perpetuating, it's this, you know, we've talked about this

00:08:46 ◼   ► in so many different contexts ever since the App Store opened

00:08:48 ◼   ► but once something is atop these charts,

00:08:51 ◼   ► it tends to stay there because one of the ways that people,

00:08:54 ◼   ► people hear, hey, I hear there's odd ad blockers for iOS.

00:08:57 ◼   ► They go to the App Store, what do they do?

00:08:58 ◼   ► They go to the top chart, they see one that looks reasonable

00:09:01 ◼   ► at the top of the chart and they get it.

00:09:02 ◼   ► And by that time, then they get it.

00:09:05 ◼   ► Purify works, it, you know, it definitely does

00:09:07 ◼   ► what it says on the tin, so then they're done.

00:09:09 ◼   ► You know, they've just spent two or three bucks

00:09:11 ◼   ► or whatever it costs on their thing and they're done

00:09:13 ◼   ► and then none of the other, you know,

00:09:14 ◼   ► so being at top is a huge advantage.

00:09:16 ◼   ► So you, you know, peace having started at the top,

00:09:19 ◼   ► I think there's a very good chance

00:09:20 ◼   ► that it would still be there today if you hadn't yanked it.

00:09:24 ◼   ► - Maybe, but at the same time, like, you know,

00:09:26 ◼   ► right now you could see like Purify

00:09:27 ◼   ► has already fallen to number two.

00:09:29 ◼   ► You know, we'll see, you know,

00:09:31 ◼   ► how much it stays at the top

00:09:32 ◼   ► or how much it falls over time.

00:09:34 ◼   ► I mean, it's only been a couple of weeks.

00:09:35 ◼   ► It's been a pretty short time.

00:09:37 ◼   ► So I don't even know if I would have been able

00:09:38 ◼   ► to be there for a month.

00:09:39 ◼   ► I don't even know if that would have happened.

00:09:40 ◼   ► You know, there's no way to know.

00:09:42 ◼   ► - Yeah, and I also-- - It doesn't matter.

00:09:44 ◼   ► - I also wonder how much this is gonna be

00:09:46 ◼   ► one of those things where it's not like sustain,

00:09:49 ◼   ► not that it's not a sustainable business,

00:09:51 ◼   ► 'cause I don't think it's that much

00:09:52 ◼   ► development work to keep it going.

00:09:54 ◼   ► But that, let's say 15 to 20% of iOS users

00:10:00 ◼   ► might be interested in a content blocker.

00:10:03 ◼   ► Well, how soon until all of them already have one?

00:10:05 ◼   ► And then what?

00:10:07 ◼   ► I'm not quite sure if it's gonna be

00:10:09 ◼   ► a chart topper in perpetuity.

00:10:12 ◼   ► - Yeah, and we tried speculating on that on ATP,

00:10:15 ◼   ► like what percentage of iOS people are likely

00:10:17 ◼   ► to actually install and critically enable an ad blocker?

00:10:22 ◼   ► And we came to about 10% being our estimate

00:10:25 ◼   ► of people who would actually enable it also,

00:10:27 ◼   ► 'cause you have to like go through the settings menu

00:10:29 ◼   ► and dive down to the Safari settings

00:10:31 ◼   ► and actually turn it on in that convoluted settings thing.

00:10:34 ◼   ► So then like the idea that ad blockers are going to,

00:10:38 ◼   ► all of a sudden ruin everyone's lives,

00:10:41 ◼   ► I think is unlikely and probably exaggerated.

00:10:45 ◼   ► - Yeah, I think it's likely,

00:10:47 ◼   ► I don't think it's likely that it would be

00:10:50 ◼   ► that much different than on the desktop.

00:10:52 ◼   ► And on the desktop, I pulled the 15% from

00:10:56 ◼   ► what I think is what people estimate as the desktop number.

00:11:00 ◼   ► And obviously that changes a lot.

00:11:01 ◼   ► - Yeah, that seems reasonable.

00:11:02 ◼   ► - Changes a lot based on the audience.

00:11:04 ◼   ► I know Ars Technica, for example,

00:11:07 ◼   ► is really, really hit hard by that

00:11:09 ◼   ► because their audience is technically adept.

00:11:11 ◼   ► My site probably is, to some extent,

00:11:14 ◼   ► just because at least there's a high percentage

00:11:16 ◼   ► of people who read my site who know what an ad blocker is

00:11:20 ◼   ► and feel very, very confident installing an extension.

00:11:24 ◼   ► - It's also worth pointing out,

00:11:26 ◼   ► there's a lot of people, sorry,

00:11:30 ◼   ► it's also worth pointing out that there's a lot of,

00:11:33 ◼   ► like all those people who installed the ad blockers

00:11:36 ◼   ► who are more likely to install ad blockers like Nerds and your site, how likely were

00:11:42 ◼   ► they to click on the display ads to begin with? I bet the -- I mean, I've always kind

00:11:47 ◼   ► of suspected that display ads on the Internet are mostly supported by inadvertent accidental

00:11:55 ◼   ► clicks or people who don't realize they're clicking on an ad, who are misled into clicking

00:12:01 ◼   ► on it by it looking like content or by one of those like stupid story ads like, you know,

00:12:06 ◼   ► top 10 ways to lift your face up like all those crazy things like I've always kind of

00:12:10 ◼   ► suspected that the bulk of display advertising online was being clicked through and funded

00:12:16 ◼   ► by really accident or novices, you know, fueled by ignorance and confusion. Yeah, it's really

00:12:24 ◼   ► and you know, I'm sure that's I'm sure that's not all of it. But I bet it's a lot more than

00:12:30 ◼   ► both the advertisers and the publishers

00:12:32 ◼   ► would like to believe?

00:12:34 ◼   ► - Yeah, well, it is truly a,

00:12:37 ◼   ► they truly opened a Pandora's box way back in the '90s

00:12:42 ◼   ► when they first started measuring clicks in the first place.

00:12:46 ◼   ► And I've linked to this over the years

00:12:48 ◼   ► in numerous contexts talking about ads,

00:12:49 ◼   ► but it's come back up again.

00:12:51 ◼   ► It is absolutely a case of be careful what you measure

00:12:56 ◼   ► coming to bite them.

00:12:59 ◼   ► because at first, when nobody was trying

00:13:01 ◼   ► to game the system at all,

00:13:03 ◼   ► the idea of counting the actual clicks on the ads

00:13:06 ◼   ► was amazing because nobody ever knew

00:13:09 ◼   ► when you put an ad in a magazine,

00:13:11 ◼   ► you have a good guess that the circulation numbers

00:13:16 ◼   ► are probably pretty accurate

00:13:17 ◼   ► because they were industry standards,

00:13:19 ◼   ► and maybe they tried to fudge them a little bit.

00:13:21 ◼   ► For the most part, it was so expensive to print magazines,

00:13:24 ◼   ► they couldn't be that far off.

00:13:25 ◼   ► But how many people actually read your ad

00:13:28 ◼   ► if it's on page 13, or how many people skip right past it,

00:13:32 ◼   ► what was the register?

00:13:34 ◼   ► To actually be able to measure it in a meaningful way,

00:13:36 ◼   ► TV commercials could never really be measured.

00:13:39 ◼   ► If there was no gaming, if everybody was honest in the world

00:13:44 ◼   ► which is probably the biggest, stupidest,

00:13:46 ◼   ► if I've ever put forward,

00:13:48 ◼   ► counting the clicks on ads would be great.

00:13:51 ◼   ► And it did at first, web advertising was super,

00:13:56 ◼   ► super expensive, like in a per customer,

00:14:00 ◼   ► you know, however you wanna measure that,

00:14:01 ◼   ► because it could be measured.

00:14:03 ◼   ► But then as soon as people could, you know,

00:14:06 ◼   ► as soon as that started working,

00:14:08 ◼   ► people immediately started gaming it in various ways.

00:14:11 ◼   ► So it's, you know, once they started going down that path,

00:14:14 ◼   ► it was doomed, and still is to this day,

00:14:17 ◼   ► the fact that they try to measure it.

00:14:19 ◼   ► - Right, 'cause then you have all these problems

00:14:21 ◼   ► with click fraud and botnets doing click fraud

00:14:23 ◼   ► and all this stuff.

00:14:25 ◼   ► It's this whole world of people trying to rip each other off.

00:14:30 ◼   ► It's just disgusting to me.

00:14:32 ◼   ► Again, it's one of the reasons why I didn't want to be in the business after all.

00:14:35 ◼   ► It's just a dirty, messy world.

00:14:37 ◼   ► At a fundamental level, the way I view advertising, even online, is that it's fundamentally no

00:14:43 ◼   ► different than advertising in print or on TV, which is to say that it is primarily about

00:14:49 ◼   ► awareness, making people aware.

00:14:52 ◼   ► be people who've never heard of your product,

00:14:53 ◼   ► making them aware of it for the first time,

00:14:55 ◼   ► or if they have heard of it, reinforcing it with your brand,

00:15:00 ◼   ► if it's some kind of visual ad,

00:15:03 ◼   ► or with some kind of message about it.

00:15:05 ◼   ► Like for example, like the ads I'll be reading

00:15:07 ◼   ► during this podcast, where you're not seeing anything,

00:15:10 ◼   ► but you can hear these talking points,

00:15:12 ◼   ► here's what they want you to know about it,

00:15:15 ◼   ► so that you have it in your head,

00:15:17 ◼   ► so that if you need a new mattress, you can think,

00:15:19 ◼   ► well, what about that one that all these podcasts

00:15:21 ◼   ► you're talking about or something like that.

00:15:23 ◼   ► Just so it's in your head, awareness.

00:15:25 ◼   ► The fact that online ads can actually lead

00:15:28 ◼   ► to engagement quicker, meaning you can just click on an ad

00:15:33 ◼   ► and go and you're already at the Field Notes website

00:15:37 ◼   ► and you can buy the notebooks right there.

00:15:39 ◼   ► That's great, but that should just be,

00:15:42 ◼   ► anybody who's deciding how much to spend online

00:15:44 ◼   ► versus print or on TV, that should just be icing

00:15:47 ◼   ► on the cake.

00:15:48 ◼   ► It still should primarily be, look,

00:15:50 ◼   ► If we put an ad on this website, we can expect 100,000 people will see it, and we roughly

00:15:57 ◼   ► know that their demographics are like this.

00:16:01 ◼   ► That's really all they should be looking at.

00:16:03 ◼   ► But the fact that they think that they can identify people, "We'll spend this money,

00:16:07 ◼   ► and it'll only go to people who've searched in Google Maps for an oil change in the last

00:16:13 ◼   ► 25 days," it's just crazy.

00:16:16 ◼   ► And it leads to all sorts of sickness.

00:16:18 ◼   ► yeah and all sorts of really creepy and perverse incentives and behavior like

00:16:24 ◼   ► it's it's one of those worlds where anybody who who is kind of privacy and

00:16:31 ◼   ► sensibly minded or anybody who has really strong ethics I think is often

00:16:37 ◼   ► driven out of that business like because if they won't do it someone else will

00:16:43 ◼   ► you guys on ATP you guys compared it to the pornography industry and then I

00:16:49 ◼   ► think you guys kind of backed away from it because it's almost like wow that's

00:16:52 ◼   ► a really strong comparison but I actually think it's actually really I

00:16:55 ◼   ► think that's not a bad comparison at all in terms of that you're it it's not you

00:17:02 ◼   ► know remove any judgment of whether the existence of pornography in and of itself

00:17:06 ◼   ► has any sort of moral you know any kind of moral quandary that you should be

00:17:14 ◼   ► pondering it's just that you end up in programming and doing things that are

00:17:20 ◼   ► you know whoever is implementing it is unhealthy right that if you know if it's

00:17:28 ◼   ► some kind of paper thing for porno you you're you know that they're they're set

00:17:33 ◼   ► up in a way. Somebody had to program the system that enables somebody who's got like an addiction

00:17:38 ◼   ► to the stuff to just keep spending as much money as they can. That is absolutely immoral.

00:17:45 ◼   ► I mean, either somebody feels really guilty about that or somebody who wrote that code

00:17:50 ◼   ► just doesn't have a moral compass that points that way. A lot of the stuff, the programmatic

00:17:55 ◼   ► stuff in advertising is down that path. It's maybe not quite as far, but it's pretty bad.

00:18:03 ◼   ► You know that you're doing things that you know that the user isn't happy about that isn't good for them

00:18:08 ◼   ► And that they wouldn't want to know exactly what's going on

00:18:12 ◼   ► Right and and one of the problems that that you know

00:18:16 ◼   ► So that's the side of the advertiser the side of the ad blocker of like the person or company

00:18:21 ◼   ► Making and running the ad blocker itself

00:18:24 ◼   ► That faces an interesting dilemma

00:18:27 ◼   ► where and I think you see this playing out with this acceptable ads thing with adblock plus and crystal and the

00:18:33 ◼   ► the controversy that has stirred up,

00:18:35 ◼   ► and some things you've said about the deck and everything

00:18:37 ◼   ► and how the deck had their privacy policy and everything

00:18:39 ◼   ► and whether, you know, the question of whether the deck

00:18:41 ◼   ► should be, should count as an advertiser

00:18:43 ◼   ► that should be blocked.

00:18:44 ◼   ► One of the problems here,

00:18:46 ◼   ► I faced this with Instapaper back forever ago.

00:18:49 ◼   ► I faced the problem that what people actually wanted

00:18:55 ◼   ► was to get the articles without ever viewing the ads,

00:18:58 ◼   ► even once.

00:18:59 ◼   ► They wanted me to go out and scrape new articles for them

00:19:02 ◼   ► they had never seen before and show them immediately

00:19:05 ◼   ► in the ad-stripped text view.

00:19:08 ◼   ► Like, that's what people actually want.

00:19:10 ◼   ► And what's actually healthy for publishers and for the world

00:19:12 ◼   ► and for me legally was not to do things like that.

00:19:15 ◼   ► It was to say, you know, okay, well,

00:19:17 ◼   ► I'm gonna save things you have viewed in your web browser.

00:19:20 ◼   ► You know, like, that's different.

00:19:22 ◼   ► And it was always a really tricky balance

00:19:24 ◼   ► because the user base, you know, the customer, the market,

00:19:28 ◼   ► was pushing me to go over that line.

00:19:31 ◼   ► and I would always try to hold back a little bit.

00:19:33 ◼   ► But not all my competitors did, and that hurt me.

00:19:35 ◼   ► And I think in the ad blocker industry,

00:19:37 ◼   ► I think you see the same thing, which is,

00:19:40 ◼   ► you know, we can talk all we want about how,

00:19:43 ◼   ► like, you know, well, like I also on ATP,

00:19:45 ◼   ► I compared it kind of to piracy, and it's not,

00:19:48 ◼   ► these aren't great comparisons, so please don't email us,

00:19:50 ◼   ► but you know, it has some overlap,

00:19:53 ◼   ► is what I will say about that.

00:19:55 ◼   ► And in the sense that, like, you know,

00:19:56 ◼   ► making an ad blocker is kind of like

00:19:58 ◼   ► making money from piracy, it's like, well,

00:20:00 ◼   ► People are going to pay me to hide everyone else's ads.

00:20:04 ◼   ► And I can say, well, I can justify it with reasons X, Y,

00:20:07 ◼   ► and Z, many of which are perfectly valid,

00:20:09 ◼   ► things like security, tracking, creepiness, et cetera.

00:20:12 ◼   ► Those are all very valid reasons.

00:20:14 ◼   ► But if I made an ad blocker that only blocked tracking

00:20:19 ◼   ► and still showed ads, nobody would want it,

00:20:23 ◼   ► because what people actually want is to block all the ads.

00:20:27 ◼   ► And all the tracking and the security and the creepiness,

00:20:30 ◼   ► those are all convenient justifications for them.

00:20:32 ◼   ► Just like when people pirate stuff, they say,

00:20:34 ◼   ► well, it wasn't available in my country yet,

00:20:36 ◼   ► or it wasn't available without DRM in the format I wanted,

00:20:39 ◼   ► on the box I wanted to play it on, whatever.

00:20:41 ◼   ► People can rationalize all sorts of reasons for piracy,

00:20:44 ◼   ► while also knowing, yeah, it's also kinda not right.

00:20:47 ◼   ► And so that's how I was feeling about ad blocking

00:20:49 ◼   ► when I quit, was like, I could rationalize

00:20:53 ◼   ► a whole bunch of reasons why this needs to exist,

00:20:55 ◼   ► and why I might even wanna still run one,

00:20:57 ◼   ► which I do right now.

00:20:58 ◼   ► I still run Ghostery on my computer,

00:21:00 ◼   ► and I still run, I'm switching between various blockers

00:21:04 ◼   ► on my phone trying to find a good one.

00:21:05 ◼   ► I'm currently using one blocker.

00:21:07 ◼   ► You know, people will rationalize these reasons,

00:21:10 ◼   ► but to be the person making it and enabling this

00:21:13 ◼   ► and making money from it even,

00:21:15 ◼   ► it puts it on a different level.

00:21:17 ◼   ► And there's always gonna be this tension between,

00:21:20 ◼   ► you know, trying to make it seem morally acceptable,

00:21:24 ◼   ► but also the reality of what the market really wants

00:21:28 ◼   ► To get everything for free and to not see any ads ever and no matter what they say if they if they say it's all

00:21:33 ◼   ► About something else. It's all about tracking whatever

00:21:35 ◼   ► Some people are honest about that most aren't most people just want to block all the ads. I disagree. I really do disagree

00:21:42 ◼   ► I think there's definitely some subset of people who really do want to block the ads really do

00:21:47 ◼   ► you know sort of the

00:21:49 ◼   ► What's that? There's even a magazine was that called?

00:21:52 ◼   ► Sort of like an anti-advertising magazine

00:21:57 ◼   ► We need the consumer reports. No, no, no used to sell it at Whole Foods, but they don't need more but it's

00:22:02 ◼   ► It'll come to me we need a goddamn forum like you guys have

00:22:08 ◼   ► It's the people who are opposed to advertising in general not just online advertising

00:22:14 ◼   ► But who actually are crusaders about the you know that that advertising is a perverse force on on

00:22:20 ◼   ► on our society

00:22:23 ◼   ► You know and obviously you don't have to go far to find cases

00:22:25 ◼   ► There are some cases where it is, you know, the cigarette companies and the way that legislation

00:22:36 ◼   ► has been passed that they really can't advertise anymore.

00:22:39 ◼   ► And that when they used to be able to, they really did.

00:22:41 ◼   ► You could prove it that they targeted their ads to children.

00:22:47 ◼   ► you know, famously the Joe Camel cartoon mascot for Camel cigarettes was, if there

00:22:57 ◼   ► were polls where they would go and, you know, talk to kindergartners and

00:23:00 ◼   ► they're amazing, amazing brand awareness in kindergarten age kids of the mascot

00:23:06 ◼   ► for a cigarette company. That's really sick and it wasn't an accident. It was

00:23:10 ◼   ► actually planned. So yeah, that's it, you know, there's an example. There are people

00:23:13 ◼   ► who kind of feel that way about all ads and maybe it's not even the

00:23:18 ◼   ► messaging, but there's others who are clearly online who really care about

00:23:22 ◼   ► every single byte of data. Every byte. Somebody pointed out to me, for example,

00:23:28 ◼   ► and with Daring Fireball and the deck, the deck ads are so small compared to

00:23:33 ◼   ► online ads, you know, in general. But because Daring Fireball has almost no

00:23:39 ◼   ► images, oftentimes has no images other than like the logo on the whole home

00:23:45 ◼   ► page, the deck actually comprises a significant portion of the average page

00:23:51 ◼   ► view, especially if you don't even look at the whole home page where there is a

00:23:54 ◼   ► whole big wall of text, but if you just go to like an individual short entry a

00:24:00 ◼   ► significant portion, maybe even a majority portion of the bytes that get

00:24:04 ◼   ► downloaded on the page view go to the ad. I think looking at that as a percentage

00:24:08 ◼   ► which is kind of unfair just because of the design of Daring Fireball.

00:24:11 ◼   ► But if you really want to look at it that way, okay, fine.

00:24:14 ◼   ► I say go ahead and block the ads.

00:24:16 ◼   ► But I don't think a lot of people feel that way.

00:24:18 ◼   ► I think people, the thing that's opening people's eyes with this, with the content blocking,

00:24:25 ◼   ► are the performance numbers that people are seeing.

00:24:28 ◼   ► I think when I see people whose eyes have been opened by some of the stuff that Ben

00:24:32 ◼   ► Brooks has been publishing when he's doing the yeoman's work of testing all these things,

00:24:38 ◼   ► and the New York Times published a thing today

00:24:40 ◼   ► where they tested a bunch of sites with ad blockers.

00:24:43 ◼   ► And when you see that you can save 30 seconds

00:24:46 ◼   ► on a mobile page view when you go to Boston.com

00:24:49 ◼   ► by having an ad blocker,

00:24:50 ◼   ► I don't think it's about blocking ads.

00:24:52 ◼   ► I want that speed increase.

00:24:54 ◼   ► - Yeah, and that's certainly a major part of it.

00:24:59 ◼   ► That is a major justification and a major motivator,

00:25:02 ◼   ► especially on mobile.

00:25:03 ◼   ► On desktop, it was easier to get wasteful

00:25:05 ◼   ► and kind of ignore it, but on mobile it matters more.

00:25:08 ◼   ► On mobile also, screen space matters more.

00:25:10 ◼   ► You know, like the ads that would come in

00:25:11 ◼   ► and take over a massive chunk of the screen

00:25:13 ◼   ► or do these stupid overlays or break when you zoomed in.

00:25:17 ◼   ► So many bad ad things out there,

00:25:19 ◼   ► but it's a major motivator,

00:25:21 ◼   ► but I think it comes down to like,

00:25:24 ◼   ► if you ask people, would you rather see this thing

00:25:28 ◼   ► with ads or with no ads,

00:25:30 ◼   ► they would choose no ads every time.

00:25:32 ◼   ► You know, obviously there's some exceptions,

00:25:34 ◼   ► like, you know, like certain magazines where like the ads are kind of the point, but for

00:25:38 ◼   ► the most part, most content, I think if people were given the option to take it with no ads,

00:25:42 ◼   ► they would take that option, you know, assuming the cost was equal and probably both free.

00:25:47 ◼   ► And so what you have in the ad business is this kind of tension, this kind of balanced

00:25:51 ◼   ► tension, well, usually it's balanced, where the people really want the stuff for free

00:25:58 ◼   ► and they don't want to pay, they don't want to pay for it and they also don't want to

00:26:01 ◼   ► see ads. And the publishers, you know, they obviously can't operate for free. So like,

00:26:06 ◼   ► they say, "All right, well, we'll kind of reach this equilibrium like, okay, well, we're

00:26:10 ◼   ► going to show ads and most of you are going to tolerate them. And you're going to tolerate

00:26:15 ◼   ► it because you don't want to pay us. And it's kind of okay." And for the most part, both

00:26:19 ◼   ► sides of that, usually it's this relationship of tolerating you, not actually wanting the

00:26:28 ◼   ► the ads or enjoying the ads. You know, most people, if given the choice, again, they would

00:26:33 ◼   ► say, "Well, I don't have to see the ads, then don't show them to me or don't waste my time

00:26:37 ◼   ► with them." So it's always this kind of tension. And in the grand scheme of things, I think

00:26:42 ◼   ► people do like free content better than they like paywalled stuff. So ultimately, I think

00:26:48 ◼   ► this is a necessary evil. Like it's, and obviously this is always evil, you know, but it's a

00:26:54 ◼   ► It's a necessary compromise of how content is viewed and paid for and everything.

00:27:00 ◼   ► And I run the deck ads on my site, I run ads on my podcast, just like you do on here, and

00:27:06 ◼   ► those are both choices where it's like I also, I would love to do an ad-free podcast

00:27:13 ◼   ► where people just paid us, but that would make a lot less money and reach a lot less

00:27:18 ◼   ► people.

00:27:19 ◼   ► And if you put a paywall up in front of a podcast, that is just death.

00:27:23 ◼   ► nobody listens. So it's really, it's never a great relationship. It's never perfect.

00:27:32 ◼   ► It's never really what all sides want, but it's this compromise that all sides have reached

00:27:37 ◼   ► most of the time. And anything you do to throw that out of balance, like making the ads really

00:27:41 ◼   ► obnoxious or really creepy or really overreaching or really slow or have other major problems,

00:27:48 ◼   ► there's gonna be pushback from that.

00:27:49 ◼   ► But the basic notion of I'm gonna show you ads

00:27:54 ◼   ► and you're gonna tolerate them,

00:27:56 ◼   ► it's a little bit uncomfortable even from the start.

00:27:59 ◼   ► And I've always kind of felt mildly irritated

00:28:04 ◼   ► by the fact that I make my living on ads

00:28:08 ◼   ► because I don't like ads.

00:28:12 ◼   ► But I think this is the best solution we have

00:28:14 ◼   ► given all the variables.

00:28:15 ◼   ► - I think that's where the comparison to piracy works,

00:28:17 ◼   ► I've always seen piracy as a negotiation. It is, you know, somebody if they're pirating

00:28:27 ◼   ► an app or a game, they're, you know, that whoever makes the game is saying here, it's

00:28:34 ◼   ► here's a new game for your PC, it's $40. And the person who pirates it instead of paying

00:28:40 ◼   ► for it is saying no, it's $0. And at some point, and I know that, you know, with piracy,

00:28:47 ◼   ► are absolute diehards, you know, and there are people, you know, kids, I when I was,

00:28:51 ◼   ► you know, in college, I pirated all sorts of stuff. And it wasn't wasn't like if Adobe

00:28:57 ◼   ► had halved the price of Photoshop, I was going to pay for it instead of pirating it. I realized

00:29:04 ◼   ► that but you know, for some things at some point, it's it and I think that that was the

00:29:09 ◼   ► The key to the iTunes Music Store making online music a success is that they were saying,

00:29:17 ◼   ► "Here's a better deal.

00:29:18 ◼   ► We'll have all the music.

00:29:19 ◼   ► You'll get your album art.

00:29:20 ◼   ► It'll all have good metadata right there.

00:29:23 ◼   ► You'll be sure of the quality, and it's a fair price, 99 cents."

00:29:28 ◼   ► Did it stop music piracy?

00:29:29 ◼   ► No, definitely not, but it definitely turned some people who might have otherwise or previously

00:29:35 ◼   ► using Napster or whatever the stuff that came after Napster was, to instead just say, "You

00:29:40 ◼   ► know what?

00:29:41 ◼   ► I'll just buy it from iTunes."

00:29:42 ◼   ► It's a negotiation.

00:29:44 ◼   ► I think what you see, and it's the same thing with a lot of piracy, and you see it with

00:29:47 ◼   ► the entertainment industry and the way they approach movies and stuff like that, and music

00:29:53 ◼   ► and games and software.

00:29:56 ◼   ► And I think it's very true with the advertising industry, is that the industry, the publishers

00:30:00 ◼   ► and the advertisers or the entertainment companies.

00:30:03 ◼   ► They don't see it as a negotiation.

00:30:05 ◼   ► They see this as a problem that could be solved

00:30:07 ◼   ► so that they can do whatever they want

00:30:09 ◼   ► and them, the people, will just take it.

00:30:13 ◼   ► We can show you whatever online ads we want

00:30:16 ◼   ► and you'll just suck it up.

00:30:17 ◼   ► And that there's some, you know,

00:30:21 ◼   ► I'm sure that there's a whole bunch of people who are,

00:30:24 ◼   ► if they're looking at, wow,

00:30:26 ◼   ► our mobile numbers are down this month,

00:30:28 ◼   ► you know, this iOS content blocking thing is totally real.

00:30:32 ◼   ► You can see it here, you know, five, six, seven percent down,

00:30:35 ◼   ► you know, over where we were before this came out.

00:30:39 ◼   ► You know that there's people right now who are thinking

00:30:44 ◼   ► or who are demanding of their engineering teams

00:30:46 ◼   ► to find a way around this.

00:30:48 ◼   ► So not like how do we, you know,

00:30:50 ◼   ► how do we start selling ads that people don't wanna block?

00:30:53 ◼   ► It's how do we defeat the content blockers?

00:30:57 ◼   ► And I think that's the wrong attitude.

00:30:59 ◼   ► That's not gonna win.

00:31:01 ◼   ► - Exactly.

00:31:04 ◼   ► Right, but on the other side,

00:31:10 ◼   ► when they make new kinds of ads,

00:31:13 ◼   ► then the ad blocker people are gonna say,

00:31:15 ◼   ► well, now we need to block this new kind of ad.

00:31:18 ◼   ► Neither side is willing to agree

00:31:20 ◼   ► to the other side's terms here.

00:31:21 ◼   ► Like the advertiser is not gonna say,

00:31:23 ◼   ► well, I guess we better stop publishing ads

00:31:25 ◼   ► 'cause nobody likes ads.

00:31:27 ◼   ► And the ad blockers aren't gonna say,

00:31:29 ◼   ► "Well, you know what?

00:31:31 ◼   ► "That ad is fine, we're gonna publish that one."

00:31:32 ◼   ► Because if they do, the users revolt

00:31:35 ◼   ► and they go to something else.

00:31:36 ◼   ► - So I don't know what the ultimate solution is,

00:31:40 ◼   ► but it's absolutely some form of having a basic respect

00:31:45 ◼   ► for the user and for your product.

00:31:47 ◼   ► And I've been saying the following for years as well,

00:31:51 ◼   ► is to me, as somebody who's always been sort of obsessed

00:31:54 ◼   ► publishing and advertising and graphic design and branding and things like this, whether

00:32:00 ◼   ► it's print or TV or online, it has always been, right from the very get-go, it has always

00:32:07 ◼   ► been very clear to me that the traditional companies, either from TV or from print, when

00:32:13 ◼   ► they went online, by and large, they had very little to no respect for the web. They either

00:32:20 ◼   ► treated it as like, at some point they had to stop treating it as maybe a fad. But clearly

00:32:26 ◼   ► at the beginning a lot of them thought maybe this is a fad. And they never ever treated

00:32:31 ◼   ► it with the respect that they treat their main products. They would never put a pop-up

00:32:38 ◼   ► that actually covered the actors faces on a TV show. Whatever you want to say about,

00:32:45 ◼   ► even when they put, they do some stuff that still annoys me on TV, where they'll put little

00:32:49 ◼   ► things up at the bottom of the screen, but they don't do something that covers the

00:32:52 ◼   ► actual whole content of the show while the show is playing. Magazines don't allow advertisers

00:33:00 ◼   ► to make ads that like tape pages.

00:33:03 ◼   ► Jared: Well, they're getting worse every year with that.

00:33:05 ◼   ► Pete: Well, now that print is getting desperate, it might be out of desperation, but certainly

00:33:10 ◼   ► while they were profitable, they wouldn't do it. They wouldn't make you like, let's

00:33:13 ◼   ► say a popular page like the Op-Ed page in the New York Times. They weren't going to

00:33:17 ◼   ► to seal that with some kind of tape

00:33:19 ◼   ► so that you have to sit there and spend 30 seconds

00:33:22 ◼   ► looking at whatever logo is on the tape

00:33:25 ◼   ► while you carefully cut across it to do it.

00:33:27 ◼   ► But they've treated online ads like that all along.

00:33:31 ◼   ► - Give it time.

00:33:33 ◼   ► - I really do, but here's the thing.

00:33:36 ◼   ► I'm gonna go back and I'm gonna tell you,

00:33:38 ◼   ► I feel like I have to explain why I thought

00:33:41 ◼   ► you shouldn't have taken piece out of the store.

00:33:44 ◼   ► And at the time I didn't realize that

00:33:46 ◼   ► Having read your piece, your article explaining it,

00:33:50 ◼   ► I would have said, okay, you're right.

00:33:51 ◼   ► If that's the way you feel, then just get out.

00:33:53 ◼   ► I didn't know when you called me,

00:33:54 ◼   ► I didn't know what you were thinking the problem was.

00:33:57 ◼   ► I think the idea of that once it was out

00:34:02 ◼   ► and once you saw that this was,

00:34:04 ◼   ► that there was controversy to be had

00:34:07 ◼   ► and arguments to be made

00:34:08 ◼   ► and that it was going to be a nonstop,

00:34:10 ◼   ► never-ending slog of what deserves to be blocked

00:34:14 ◼   ► and what doesn't,

00:34:15 ◼   ► the realization that he didn't want to be in this business

00:34:18 ◼   ► was, you know, I think it was the right call.

00:34:21 ◼   ► I didn't know that that's what you were thinking.

00:34:23 ◼   ► I also think that this is why you're still getting shit

00:34:26 ◼   ► from people out on the internet,

00:34:28 ◼   ► 'cause I have seen this, where there are people who,

00:34:30 ◼   ► you know, are like LOLing at

00:34:33 ◼   ► how could you build a content blocker all summer long

00:34:36 ◼   ► and not imagine what it was like to have a content blocker?

00:34:39 ◼   ► I can imagine that very easily,

00:34:42 ◼   ► that you didn't really think about it.

00:34:44 ◼   ► I thought your explanation, here's a cool API,

00:34:47 ◼   ► I'd like to build one myself.

00:34:48 ◼   ► I like to build things, so I'll build a thing.

00:34:51 ◼   ► And you don't think past that.

00:34:53 ◼   ► - Exactly, that was really it.

00:34:55 ◼   ► It's like, I explained all of it on ATP.

00:34:57 ◼   ► It's like all summer long I was focused on

00:35:00 ◼   ► how to make a really cool app using this stuff.

00:35:02 ◼   ► And I was not focusing on what will it actually be like

00:35:06 ◼   ► if I make this cool app succeed

00:35:09 ◼   ► and become a major person influential in this business

00:35:12 ◼   ► and having everyone look at me this way.

00:35:15 ◼   ► And I didn't think about that.

00:35:16 ◼   ► You know, I should have, but I was naive

00:35:20 ◼   ► and I wanted to do the cool thing

00:35:23 ◼   ► where I make the cool app and then, you know,

00:35:25 ◼   ► I didn't, you know, it didn't really matter

00:35:27 ◼   ► what the app did.

00:35:28 ◼   ► I just, I had this cool app idea and I tried it

00:35:31 ◼   ► and it worked really well.

00:35:33 ◼   ► And so I was motivated to keep going with it

00:35:35 ◼   ► and I just didn't think about, you know,

00:35:37 ◼   ► what would happen.

00:35:38 ◼   ► And, you know, I mean, a lot about this is,

00:35:41 ◼   ► A lot of the frustration and anger that I've received over it from other people is really

00:35:46 ◼   ► about like, you know, they just can't believe that I got to that position and that I then

00:35:54 ◼   ► gave it up for very few.

00:35:56 ◼   ► That's one of the reasons.

00:35:58 ◼   ► One of the other reasons is like, how do you walk away from all that money?

00:36:00 ◼   ► And it's like, well, you know, money isn't everything and I felt bad about it, etc.

00:36:05 ◼   ► And I mean, just once I decided to take it off the store, and when I had it, once I decided

00:36:15 ◼   ► that, like you said you were at the dentist, it was the moment I decided, oh, I should

00:36:20 ◼   ► take this off the store.

00:36:21 ◼   ► It was like 10 30 in the morning.

00:36:23 ◼   ► It was down by 12 30.

00:36:25 ◼   ► It was like two hours.

00:36:26 ◼   ► Like all I had to do was I talked it over with my wife.

00:36:30 ◼   ► I ran it by you and I ran it by the ghostery people to make sure that I even could do it

00:36:33 ◼   ► without breaking the contract,

00:36:35 ◼   ► and that they weren't gonna be horribly mad about it.

00:36:38 ◼   ► And that was it, and I was like, you know what?

00:36:41 ◼   ► Yeah, I wanna do this, I'm done.

00:36:42 ◼   ► Like, as soon as I even had the idea to do it,

00:36:43 ◼   ► I felt a million times better.

00:36:45 ◼   ► Like, it was like this giant weight off my shoulders.

00:36:49 ◼   ► And that night when I was working on Overcast again

00:36:51 ◼   ► for the first time in a couple of weeks, it felt so good.

00:36:54 ◼   ► Because Overcast will probably not make,

00:36:59 ◼   ► in its entire next year,

00:37:02 ◼   ► what peace could make in two or three days.

00:37:04 ◼   ► - But it's funny because--

00:37:07 ◼   ► - But I felt so much better about it, you know?

00:37:09 ◼   ► - And you and I have talked about this,

00:37:10 ◼   ► that one of the things some people

00:37:12 ◼   ► have a very hard time believing is that anybody,

00:37:17 ◼   ► obviously, I don't think everybody thinks this way,

00:37:19 ◼   ► I don't even think a majority,

00:37:20 ◼   ► but there are clearly some people

00:37:21 ◼   ► who cannot get it through their heads

00:37:23 ◼   ► that pure money is not a primary motivating factor for us.

00:37:31 ◼   ► It's great, I am successful right now,

00:37:33 ◼   ► and I do appreciate that, and it's important to me

00:37:36 ◼   ► 'cause I have a family, and so it is certainly

00:37:38 ◼   ► a significant motivator, and it is a very high priority

00:37:42 ◼   ► for me, but it's not, number one.

00:37:44 ◼   ► And maximizing it, getting every single dollar that I can,

00:37:47 ◼   ► absolutely, positively is not.

00:37:50 ◼   ► Number one motivator for me is,

00:37:51 ◼   ► professionally, is doing good work that I'm proud of.

00:37:56 ◼   ► And number two is probably just what I feel like

00:37:59 ◼   ► the overall quality of my life. Am I happy? Money obviously plays a factor in that, but

00:38:05 ◼   ► making the most money possible definitely doesn't.

00:38:07 ◼   ► Right. And you and I are both fortunate that you and I have made enough money and make

00:38:13 ◼   ► enough money through other means that we can say no to things that don't feel right to

00:38:17 ◼   ► us. And there's all these studies done. There's a threshold for everybody and it's surprisingly

00:38:25 ◼   ► low where additional money that you make above that threshold doesn't really make you happier.

00:38:32 ◼   ► So there is this concept of what is enough and in most cultures that aren't Americans,

00:38:38 ◼   ► that number is way lower. But even Americans have this concept of what is enough beyond

00:38:43 ◼   ► which it stops really adding to your happiness in a proportional way. And I've heard estimates

00:38:49 ◼   ► of that number being as low as like $75,000 a year,

00:38:53 ◼   ► which in the software business

00:38:55 ◼   ► is a pretty mid-range to low salary.

00:38:57 ◼   ► So it's pretty, for people who are listening to the show,

00:39:00 ◼   ► it's not that hard to achieve that.

00:39:02 ◼   ► It isn't that unheard of.

00:39:04 ◼   ► So the idea that if you already make a six-figure salary

00:39:09 ◼   ► and the idea that you could turn away money

00:39:13 ◼   ► from something that makes you feel terrible,

00:39:17 ◼   ► that actually there's a lot of like widespread surveys

00:39:22 ◼   ► and psychology and stuff to back that up

00:39:24 ◼   ► where yeah, that actually is plausible to do.

00:39:26 ◼   ► And in fact, people do it frequently.

00:39:28 ◼   ► Like that once you've reached a certain level of income,

00:39:32 ◼   ► you don't have to say yes to everything.

00:39:36 ◼   ► And in fact, and a lot of people choose poorly on that scale

00:39:40 ◼   ► and say yes to everything and are miserable for it.

00:39:43 ◼   ► And they don't necessarily realize that

00:39:45 ◼   ► they don't have to do that.

00:39:46 ◼   ► - Yeah, and there's a lot of people who,

00:39:48 ◼   ► you know, here are people who do it

00:39:50 ◼   ► not just because they're well off enough

00:39:52 ◼   ► and they can keep their lifestyle,

00:39:53 ◼   ► people who downgrade their lifestyle

00:39:55 ◼   ► and are delighted by it.

00:39:57 ◼   ► You know, somebody who is just killing themselves

00:39:59 ◼   ► in a corporate attorney job, you know,

00:40:01 ◼   ► 100 some hours a week doing this mind numbing work

00:40:06 ◼   ► and then they leave and become, you know,

00:40:09 ◼   ► a teacher or something.

00:40:11 ◼   ► - Yeah, or like, you know, you take a job

00:40:13 ◼   ► with a much shorter commute that's way close to your house,

00:40:15 ◼   ► even if it pays less than the job all the way in the city,

00:40:18 ◼   ► you're way happier taking the job that's a shorter commute

00:40:21 ◼   ► and you're able to rationally say,

00:40:24 ◼   ► "Yes, I can turn down the extra money

00:40:25 ◼   ► "for the job in the city because I will be way happier

00:40:28 ◼   ► "and probably healthier and probably have

00:40:30 ◼   ► "a better family life if I choose this one."

00:40:33 ◼   ► It's the same kind of thing, it all plays in.

00:40:35 ◼   ► - Or somebody who leaves a six-figure engineering job

00:40:39 ◼   ► at Apple or any of the big companies out there

00:40:43 ◼   ► and it just opens up their own coffee shop,

00:40:45 ◼   ► which is opening up a restaurant, notoriously low margin,

00:40:50 ◼   ► difficult business to be in,

00:40:52 ◼   ► but that all they've ever wanted to do

00:40:54 ◼   ► is roast their own coffee and make a cool place

00:40:57 ◼   ► where people can hang out.

00:40:58 ◼   ► - I've thought about that many times.

00:41:00 ◼   ► - If that's what you wanna do,

00:41:01 ◼   ► I mean, that could be so much happier,

00:41:02 ◼   ► and you're making way less money, way less.

00:41:05 ◼   ► But anyway, people don't think.

00:41:07 ◼   ► I'll give you a concrete example

00:41:08 ◼   ► of money that I have passed up.

00:41:11 ◼   ► And I don't think it's a thing.

00:41:12 ◼   ► It certainly wasn't sustainable.

00:41:14 ◼   ► I think Google's search algorithms have gotten around it.

00:41:16 ◼   ► But at some point in the late last decade,

00:41:20 ◼   ► I'm gonna guess that it peaked

00:41:21 ◼   ► somewhere around 2008 to 2010 or so.

00:41:24 ◼   ► It was a nonstop barrage every week

00:41:30 ◼   ► where I got offers from people

00:41:32 ◼   ► to place text ads on Daring Fireball.

00:41:35 ◼   ► - Oh yeah, the big text ad thing, yep.

00:41:37 ◼   ► - Either they wanted them on the homepage

00:41:39 ◼   ► or it would be some specific page

00:41:42 ◼   ► that ranked highly for a certain keyword,

00:41:44 ◼   ► a post that I had written,

00:41:45 ◼   ► and they would offer thousands of dollars.

00:41:48 ◼   ► I mean, I remember one time it was a guy,

00:41:51 ◼   ► and I actually pursued it,

00:41:52 ◼   ► not because I thought I would take it,

00:41:53 ◼   ► but I honestly, it was something like $20,000

00:41:56 ◼   ► for, I don't know, a couple of months.

00:41:58 ◼   ► And it just seemed like such a large amount of money,

00:42:01 ◼   ► but I just wanted to see, is this a scam?

00:42:03 ◼   ► This is a scam.

00:42:04 ◼   ► But then I thought, how can it be a scam?

00:42:05 ◼   ► Because if I don't get the money,

00:42:06 ◼   ► I'm gonna take the text ad down.

00:42:08 ◼   ► And it's, you know, it's the,

00:42:10 ◼   ► And I thought, well, maybe the scam is that they think

00:42:12 ◼   ► that Google will index it once.

00:42:15 ◼   ► And I was like, no, it can't be, because this is an article,

00:42:17 ◼   ► like let's say a year old article.

00:42:19 ◼   ► If they think that there's value to be gained

00:42:21 ◼   ► by putting a text ad there now,

00:42:23 ◼   ► they must know that Google re-indexes these pages.

00:42:26 ◼   ► And so therefore they must know

00:42:28 ◼   ► that if I take the text ad down, that it'll re-index

00:42:31 ◼   ► and they won't have that Google juice.

00:42:34 ◼   ► And I just researched the company

00:42:35 ◼   ► and it really seemed like, yes,

00:42:36 ◼   ► this is a company that pays publishers

00:42:38 ◼   ► tens of thousands of dollars to place these text ads.

00:42:41 ◼   ► And then you could do things, they didn't even care.

00:42:43 ◼   ► All they cared about was the search engines.

00:42:44 ◼   ► And you could do things like use CSS

00:42:47 ◼   ► to make it display none or fix position

00:42:51 ◼   ► at 4,000 pixels off screen, whatever you wanted.

00:42:53 ◼   ► They didn't care.

00:42:54 ◼   ► So it wasn't like anybody would know.

00:42:56 ◼   ► It wasn't like anybody would see it.

00:42:58 ◼   ► But it was thousands of dollars from just nonstop for years.

00:43:02 ◼   ► And I'd say no to all of them.

00:43:04 ◼   ► Or the other thing I would do is I would write back

00:43:08 ◼   ► and they would be like, a lot of them would say,

00:43:10 ◼   ► what would you want?

00:43:12 ◼   ► How much would you want for me to put a text ad on a page?

00:43:17 ◼   ► And I would write back $100,000.

00:43:21 ◼   ► And then they would say, that's too much.

00:43:22 ◼   ► 'Cause they're looking at Alexa numbers

00:43:25 ◼   ► or something to gauge my traffic.

00:43:27 ◼   ► But before I got to ridiculous numbers like that,

00:43:30 ◼   ► I remember I would write back as a joke

00:43:33 ◼   ► and just say like $10,000.

00:43:35 ◼   ► And they'd be like, well, how about seven?

00:43:37 ◼   ► be like oh shit yeah it's like you thought you were throwing out this

00:43:41 ◼   ► obscene number that they would laugh at right and they were actually like yeah

00:43:44 ◼   ► that's pretty close actually yeah we can do that now these are ads that weren't

00:43:51 ◼   ► all they wanted was the text all they wanted to do is trick Google and other

00:43:55 ◼   ► search indexes there was a major industry for a while I think I think it's

00:43:59 ◼   ► finally probably died down as Google got smarter but that was a major industry it

00:44:03 ◼   ► - It was a major industry,

00:44:04 ◼   ► and the money was truly significant.

00:44:06 ◼   ► I mean, I don't know what I could've if I'd pursued it,

00:44:09 ◼   ► but easily tens of thousands a month.

00:44:11 ◼   ► - Yeah, I ran those.

00:44:12 ◼   ► Back when Market.org had like 100 visitors a month,

00:44:16 ◼   ► I ran those from a company called TextLink Ads.

00:44:18 ◼   ► It was like TextLink Ads with hyphens in it,

00:44:19 ◼   ► and that was the company name.

00:44:20 ◼   ► They might even still be around.

00:44:22 ◼   ► I'm sure they've been bought a million times.

00:44:23 ◼   ► - I don't think, but I think TextLink Ads were,

00:44:25 ◼   ► I think that in particular, they weren't so scammy.

00:44:28 ◼   ► They wanted-- - No, it was very similar.

00:44:31 ◼   ► Like, you embedded this PHP thing.

00:44:32 ◼   ► I remember I even, I was still very into PHP at the time,

00:44:35 ◼   ► but I even modified the code to add nofollow to the links.

00:44:39 ◼   ► And I think that eventually got me kicked out.

00:44:42 ◼   ► 'Cause I was aware of what they were doing,

00:44:43 ◼   ► and I was like, well, I'm gonna add nofollow

00:44:45 ◼   ► because that's the right thing to do.

00:44:48 ◼   ► And they didn't have an explicit rule against it

00:44:50 ◼   ► that I could find at the time I wrote that code.

00:44:53 ◼   ► - But this wasn't doing any tracking.

00:44:54 ◼   ► It wasn't going to, I mean, literally it was just HTML.

00:44:57 ◼   ► So it wasn't even going to have any measurable effect

00:45:01 ◼   ► on download size.

00:45:02 ◼   ► We're talking about not even kilobytes, but bytes.

00:45:05 ◼   ► Actual, just extra bytes.

00:45:07 ◼   ► - Right, although it would, if it loaded synchronously,

00:45:09 ◼   ► which it would have had to do what they wanted with Google,

00:45:11 ◼   ► it would block the page load

00:45:13 ◼   ► while it fetched it on your server side.

00:45:15 ◼   ► - I don't even think, I think they just wanted me

00:45:17 ◼   ► to actually just paste, here,

00:45:18 ◼   ► paste this little snippet of HTML into the article.

00:45:21 ◼   ► - It wasn't even dynamic.

00:45:22 ◼   ► It was like static. - No, it wasn't even dynamic.

00:45:23 ◼   ► Most of the offers.

00:45:24 ◼   ► Now, I think that there were some services

00:45:26 ◼   ► like TextLink ads where it was dynamic

00:45:28 ◼   ► 'cause they wanted to keep selling it,

00:45:29 ◼   ► but I used to field these offers

00:45:30 ◼   ► from people who just wanted to buy a month of, you know,

00:45:34 ◼   ► just put this snippet of HTML in this article for a month,

00:45:39 ◼   ► you know, for significant money.

00:45:41 ◼   ► And I didn't do it.

00:45:42 ◼   ► I turned it down because it just felt gross.

00:45:44 ◼   ► And it just, and I didn't need it.

00:45:46 ◼   ► I do have to admit, 'cause you know,

00:45:47 ◼   ► the whole RSS sponsorship thing at this point

00:45:50 ◼   ► was taking off and it was doing well

00:45:52 ◼   ► and the deck was, you know, I was already in the deck.

00:45:54 ◼   ► So I didn't need it.

00:45:55 ◼   ► I was already at the point where I could say

00:45:57 ◼   ► Daring Fireball is supporting my family.

00:46:00 ◼   ► I don't need to pile this on with things that I'm not proud of.

00:46:02 ◼   ► Exactly.

00:46:03 ◼   ► So I didn't.

00:46:06 ◼   ► But there's other examples.

00:46:08 ◼   ► I've fielded offers from people like other ad networks.

00:46:12 ◼   ► Effectively, I would have had to quit the deck and go to them, who offered me way more

00:46:17 ◼   ► than the deck has ever paid me per month.

00:46:22 ◼   ► I just said no to all of them because I was just dancing around switching ad networks

00:46:28 ◼   ► and going to the highest bidder and looking,

00:46:29 ◼   ► and their ads, obviously they just weren't,

00:46:32 ◼   ► they weren't little nice static ads like the deck.

00:46:34 ◼   ► They were big and ugly.

00:46:36 ◼   ► - Right, like the standard IAB, big rectangles and everything.

00:46:38 ◼   ► I mean, the idea of looking,

00:46:40 ◼   ► like the deck has this amazing lock-in

00:46:43 ◼   ► because once you are accustomed

00:46:45 ◼   ► to the way your own site looks with the deck,

00:46:47 ◼   ► and once your readers are accustomed

00:46:49 ◼   ► to the way your site looks with the deck,

00:46:51 ◼   ► just imagine what your site would look like

00:46:53 ◼   ► with the giant skyscraper ad on the sidebar,

00:46:56 ◼   ► like the regular, like a big white,

00:46:58 ◼   ► like that would look horrendous.

00:47:00 ◼   ► Like it wouldn't look like your site at all.

00:47:03 ◼   ► It would look like you were like on some crazy wifi

00:47:06 ◼   ► that was like injecting ads into every page you visited.

00:47:08 ◼   ► Like it would look like a scam or malware had taken over

00:47:12 ◼   ► or something.

00:47:13 ◼   ► It would, you would never say,

00:47:14 ◼   ► oh, that's Daring Fireball, that's normal.

00:47:16 ◼   ► Like, and that just goes to show, I think,

00:47:18 ◼   ► like the different worlds that are possible here

00:47:22 ◼   ► in the advertising space.

00:47:22 ◼   ► Like you have, you know, fully native stuff

00:47:25 ◼   ► like your RSS sponsorships that now everyone's doing,

00:47:28 ◼   ► that the podcast do, then you have like the very, very

00:47:31 ◼   ► subtle model like what the deck does,

00:47:34 ◼   ► and then you have everything else.

00:47:36 ◼   ► It's mostly like these giant, horrible things.

00:47:40 ◼   ► - But I can say for certainty that it wasn't like

00:47:46 ◼   ► the other ones that would come to me were offering me,

00:47:48 ◼   ► well, it would be 25% more than the deck or 30,

00:47:50 ◼   ► it wasn't like a percentage more,

00:47:52 ◼   ► it was a factor of like three, four, five times more,

00:47:54 ◼   ► like five times more than what I was making from the deck.

00:47:56 ◼   ► It was significant money.

00:47:58 ◼   ► The way I always chalked it up,

00:47:59 ◼   ► and Amy completely supported me on this,

00:48:01 ◼   ► is that to me, the money that I was leaving on the table

00:48:05 ◼   ► by not using those ads was effectively investing

00:48:08 ◼   ► in the brand of Daring Fireball.

00:48:10 ◼   ► - Yeah, that's totally right.

00:48:12 ◼   ► I mean, 'cause your site has always had that look.

00:48:15 ◼   ► It's always, even in the age now where, you know,

00:48:18 ◼   ► you might wanna consider a mobile layout

00:48:20 ◼   ► in a bigger font someday, maybe,

00:48:21 ◼   ► but your site has always had this look.

00:48:25 ◼   ► And that definitely does help.

00:48:27 ◼   ► It definitely does contribute.

00:48:28 ◼   ► It makes your site look higher class, more valuable.

00:48:32 ◼   ► Certainly it's much more pleasant to read

00:48:34 ◼   ► as long as you hit the plus button a few times

00:48:35 ◼   ► on the keyboard.

00:48:37 ◼   ► It is very, it very much contributes.

00:48:39 ◼   ► - You know, if you go to slash prefs,

00:48:42 ◼   ► you'll get a little pref,

00:48:43 ◼   ► it's actually, there used to be multiple prefs,

00:48:45 ◼   ► which is why--

00:48:46 ◼   ► - You think I'd do that on all my devices?

00:48:47 ◼   ► - Yeah, and then--

00:48:48 ◼   ► - Do you sync via iCloud?

00:48:49 ◼   ► I doubt it.

00:48:50 ◼   ► It sets a cookie on your device, but anybody who doesn't know this you can go to during fireball dotnet slash

00:48:55 ◼   ► Prefs and you can set the font size and it'll save it in a cookie on that device

00:48:59 ◼   ► Yeah, maybe maybe I should get to you sometime and make you finally update your font

00:49:04 ◼   ► Add a responsive layout maybe well, you know what though?

00:49:08 ◼   ► All right, not to it's we can keep going on this

00:49:12 ◼   ► I wanted I got a sponsor break but one of the things that

00:49:16 ◼   ► If I do if and when I do I want to change it once I want to change the layout to during fireball

00:49:22 ◼   ► Once and then have it last at least another 15 to 20 years

00:49:27 ◼   ► No pressure. Well, I the last design, you know has gone close to

00:49:32 ◼   ► What so I changed it like 2003 or 2004 there wasn't early there's like a for the first year during fireball

00:49:41 ◼   ► It's a slightly different design. So

00:49:43 ◼   ► 11 years

00:49:44 ◼   ► I feel like I could get one that goes for 15 and maybe I'll need to tweak it like I have this one

00:49:50 ◼   ► You know here and there subtly over the years, but you know, I want to do it once but to do it once

00:49:56 ◼   ► I think it would require web fonts and

00:49:58 ◼   ► I've

00:50:00 ◼   ► procrastinated for years on web fonts because I just

00:50:03 ◼   ► Can't get over the fact that to me they feel a little slow and one of the things that I really love about tearing fireball

00:50:09 ◼   ► That's how fast is one of my favorite things I get from people from email or tweets or something like that

00:50:13 ◼   ► It's every once in a while

00:50:14 ◼   ► Like if Daring Fireball does go down or if there's like a DNS outage on the net,

00:50:23 ◼   ► which makes really weird things and it's like some people, you know, like people say,

00:50:27 ◼   ► "Hey, is Daring Fireball down?" And I check and it's definitely not down. It's right there really

00:50:31 ◼   ► fast, but I keep, I get like three or four of these. It's usually like a DNS problem and people

00:50:36 ◼   ► who are somewhere on some chunk of the internet can't get there. And when people say the following

00:50:42 ◼   ► to me. It always makes my day. They say, "Daring Fireball isn't just one of my favorite sites.

00:50:46 ◼   ► It's also the thing I always go to when I want to check my Internet connection."

00:50:49 ◼   ► That's great.

00:50:50 ◼   ► Yeah, but they expect that it's always up and they expect it to load instantly. And

00:50:57 ◼   ► web fonts definitely change that. So I've put off on that. And that's funny because

00:51:01 ◼   ► with the content bloggers, a lot of them have an option to block web fonts specifically

00:51:05 ◼   ► just to make things faster, not because nobody's opposed to good-looking fonts and nobody's

00:51:12 ◼   ► opposed to nice design, but people, some people favor fast page loads over, you know, pristine

00:51:21 ◼   ► designer, however you want to put it.

00:51:23 ◼   ► Yeah, I mean, I was I was doing that in from the early builds of peace that was like one

00:51:27 ◼   ► of the very first things I built was I built one that blocked all third party JavaScript,

00:51:31 ◼   ► which was insane, but worked. And, and I and it had an option to block all web fonts, and

00:51:37 ◼   ► It broke my site, it broke a lot of other sites,

00:51:39 ◼   ► but it was so much faster.

00:51:41 ◼   ► It was a massive speed difference.

00:51:45 ◼   ► And so now, as much as I love this wonderful

00:51:47 ◼   ► HFJ ideal sans font that I use on my site,

00:51:51 ◼   ► and as far as I know, I've seen a couple of benchmarks

00:51:54 ◼   ► here and there that suggest that the HFJ web fonts

00:51:57 ◼   ► are not as fast as Typekit, but either way,

00:52:00 ◼   ► none of them are what I would call fast enough.

00:52:03 ◼   ► You know, like you're still loading a few hundred kilobytes

00:52:07 ◼   ► of fonts for most people that, you know,

00:52:10 ◼   ► and it's from some other CDN that is off host,

00:52:13 ◼   ► so it's like making another connection and everything

00:52:15 ◼   ► and another opportunity for weird latency or DNS issues.

00:52:19 ◼   ► And, you know, the fact is web fonts are really nice.

00:52:23 ◼   ► They're very much like a nice to have,

00:52:25 ◼   ► but if they're gonna come at a big cost,

00:52:28 ◼   ► they're probably not worth it for most sites.

00:52:30 ◼   ► And what I found when I would, like,

00:52:32 ◼   ► when I've been browsing with web fonts disabled

00:52:34 ◼   ► on my phone for a while now.

00:52:36 ◼   ► And even with Ghostery on the desktop,

00:52:38 ◼   ► I would turn off Typekit,

00:52:40 ◼   ► 'cause that's one of their trackers that they can block.

00:52:43 ◼   ► I've been doing that for a couple months too,

00:52:44 ◼   ► and you really don't miss much.

00:52:47 ◼   ► Like, you can tell on certain sites

00:52:50 ◼   ► where they didn't have a good fallback,

00:52:52 ◼   ► so it defaults to Times New Roman.

00:52:53 ◼   ► You can tell, like,

00:52:55 ◼   ► oh, this wasn't supposed to look like Times.

00:52:57 ◼   ► But for the most part,

00:53:00 ◼   ► things load really fast and nothing looks that bad.

00:53:03 ◼   ► And many times it looks pretty good

00:53:05 ◼   ► 'cause it falls back to something sensible.

00:53:07 ◼   ► So, you know, I would say if I redesign my site

00:53:11 ◼   ► any time soon, I would almost certainly go back

00:53:16 ◼   ► to a regular system font and not use any more web fonts.

00:53:18 ◼   ► Just for speed, because it just isn't worth it.

00:53:21 ◼   ► And that being said, in defense of your ancient site design,

00:53:24 ◼   ► I will say that a couple months ago,

00:53:27 ◼   ► I decided to be a smart ass and to try to like,

00:53:32 ◼   ► just write like 10 lines of CSS or whatever

00:53:36 ◼   ► that I could just like text you

00:53:39 ◼   ► and have you inject it in your template.

00:53:40 ◼   ► Like here's your fricking responsive layout.

00:53:43 ◼   ► Here, like here, just modernize your site

00:53:45 ◼   ► with this little thing I just wrote in an hour.

00:53:47 ◼   ► So that was my plan, I was gonna do this.

00:53:48 ◼   ► And I tried, I started.

00:53:50 ◼   ► And your site is surprisingly complex.

00:53:53 ◼   ► Like I tried doing that and realized

00:53:55 ◼   ► it was gonna be way more work than what I had planned for.

00:54:00 ◼   ► This is a common theme with me.

00:54:01 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:54:02 ◼   ► It was gonna be way more work.

00:54:04 ◼   ► And I was like, "Eh, okay, now I understand

00:54:05 ◼   ► "why you haven't done this yet."

00:54:07 ◼   ► - Yeah, that's a pretty, well, I mean, it's been so long

00:54:10 ◼   ► that I don't really have an excuse, but it's--

00:54:11 ◼   ► - Well, you've probably started it like 10 times.

00:54:13 ◼   ► - Yeah, and it's a lot of boring backstories there,

00:54:17 ◼   ► but it'll happen sooner or later.

00:54:19 ◼   ► But yeah, there's no way to just take the current HTML

00:54:21 ◼   ► and easily do it.

00:54:24 ◼   ► I mean, you can make a new one that looks,

00:54:26 ◼   ► that on a wide screen looks the same,

00:54:27 ◼   ► but the way that everything is structured right now

00:54:30 ◼   ► is actually sort of fights against responsive layout.

00:54:34 ◼   ► It'll happen.

00:54:36 ◼   ► Well, the other thing, probably the worst thing

00:54:38 ◼   ► that ever happened was the fact that with a very,

00:54:41 ◼   ► a very short amount of, I think it's just like that one

00:54:44 ◼   ► viewport meta tag, and the fact that a double tap

00:54:49 ◼   ► on the main text column is pretty good,

00:54:52 ◼   ► and it has been since the original iPhone in 2007.

00:54:55 ◼   ► I mean, like two lines of code in 2007

00:54:58 ◼   ► made it easy to just double tap on the center column

00:55:00 ◼   ► of text and have it reasonable,

00:55:02 ◼   ► pretty good size and a pretty good width.

00:55:04 ◼   ► It's not nice and fixed so that you can still slide

00:55:07 ◼   ► around sideways when you scroll.

00:55:09 ◼   ► But it's actually pretty good for a,

00:55:12 ◼   ► for a non mobile optimized layout.

00:55:16 ◼   ► And that's probably the worst thing that ever happened

00:55:17 ◼   ► because if it had been terrible on iPhone,

00:55:20 ◼   ► I would have done something in 2007 or 2008.

00:55:23 ◼   ► - Yeah, I mean, and that's, I mean,

00:55:26 ◼   ► your site works the way every site worked in 2007, you know,

00:55:29 ◼   ► and that's, this was the problem

00:55:30 ◼   ► that I created Instapaper to solve.

00:55:32 ◼   ► Like one of the problems is like,

00:55:34 ◼   ► I didn't want to keep zooming in on everyone's pages

00:55:36 ◼   ► and then like, I would scroll, scroll, scroll

00:55:38 ◼   ► as I was reading and I'd accidentally get misaligned

00:55:40 ◼   ► a little bit side to side.

00:55:41 ◼   ► And then I, oh, let me try to realign back

00:55:43 ◼   ► to the center column and never quite get it right.

00:55:44 ◼   ► Have to zoom back out, zoom back in.

00:55:46 ◼   ► 'Cause I'm, you know, just retentive like that.

00:55:49 ◼   ► And I talked to a couple of people

00:55:54 ◼   ► about a year ago with this.

00:55:55 ◼   ► I think if I was designing Instapaper from scratch today,

00:55:59 ◼   ► like if I was designing a thing

00:56:00 ◼   ► that would solve this problem from scratch today,

00:56:03 ◼   ► I don't think I would do the text view.

00:56:06 ◼   ► I think I would just save what was there on the page,

00:56:08 ◼   ► like the full layout, because responsive design

00:56:11 ◼   ► and modern sensible design on most of the sites

00:56:15 ◼   ► that I wanna read, and especially now

00:56:17 ◼   ► with content blockers existing,

00:56:18 ◼   ► if there was a way to hook into that kind of system,

00:56:21 ◼   ► responsive design really solved the problem pretty well

00:56:25 ◼   ► most of the time.

00:56:25 ◼   ► Like these, like back in 2007, 2008,

00:56:28 ◼   ► when I was designing Instapaper at first,

00:56:30 ◼   ► the text view was necessary

00:56:32 ◼   ► because no sites had mobile layouts.

00:56:34 ◼   ► Responsive design didn't even exist yet.

00:56:37 ◼   ► Like the spec wasn't even there.

00:56:39 ◼   ► Like the media queries I don't think even existed back then

00:56:41 ◼   ► or at least were not widely supported.

00:56:43 ◼   ► So like you couldn't do responsive design back then,

00:56:46 ◼   ► But that has really removed a lot of the need

00:56:49 ◼   ► for things like Instapaper's TextView

00:56:52 ◼   ► and Safari's ReaderView.

00:56:54 ◼   ► - Yeah, prior to the iPhone,

00:56:56 ◼   ► the only thing that had ever been done

00:56:58 ◼   ► in web standards for mobile were completely different sites.

00:57:01 ◼   ► WAP, I guess, was the big one.

00:57:03 ◼   ► W-A-P, I don't even know what it stood for.

00:57:05 ◼   ► But it was so, the devices pre-iPhone

00:57:09 ◼   ► were so primitive computationally

00:57:12 ◼   ► and displays were so small that it wasn't even feasible.

00:57:15 ◼   ► nobody had even really considered how would we make a dynamic layout that this

00:57:19 ◼   ► you could just have one URL one web page and it would look this way on a big

00:57:24 ◼   ► monitor this way on a smaller monitor and this way on a on a tiny little phone

00:57:28 ◼   ► nobody had even thought about that all right and that's why you still have

00:57:32 ◼   ► sites today that have like mobile dot blah blah blah URLs and that don't

00:57:35 ◼   ► redirect well and yeah and that's a little different because they usually

00:57:39 ◼   ► don't go to like a WAP type site but still there and still annoying but

00:57:42 ◼   ► Anyway, let me take a break here.

00:57:44 ◼   ► I gotta thank our first sponsor.

00:57:45 ◼   ► And this is a good one.

00:57:46 ◼   ► So don't skip ahead.

00:57:49 ◼   ► This is gonna be a good read.

00:57:51 ◼   ► It's the Brawer Group, B-R-A-W-E-R.

00:57:56 ◼   ► Now they sponsored during Fireball before.

00:57:58 ◼   ► I think they actually sponsored the talk show too.

00:58:02 ◼   ► And it was a great success.

00:58:03 ◼   ► So they're back to announce.

00:58:04 ◼   ► These are the guys behind an app called,

00:58:06 ◼   ► this is a Mac app called Ubar.

00:58:08 ◼   ► Just like a lowercase U-B-A-R.

00:58:11 ◼   ► Ubar3 and it implements a ton of suggestions from,

00:58:16 ◼   ► he even says specifically from listeners at the talk show

00:58:19 ◼   ► and readers at Daring Fireball.

00:58:20 ◼   ► It's a doc replacement for the Mac.

00:58:22 ◼   ► The purpose of Ubar is to vastly increase your productivity.

00:58:26 ◼   ► Pro users love it, but it's also, you know,

00:58:29 ◼   ► it's not just like a pro only tool.

00:58:30 ◼   ► You can definitely, you know,

00:58:32 ◼   ► see how a normal person in your family

00:58:34 ◼   ► would totally get into this.

00:58:36 ◼   ► And it sort of modeled more on the Windows taskbar

00:58:41 ◼   ► bar. So if you or anybody in your family has switched from Windows and sort of

00:58:46 ◼   ► doesn't like the ways that the Mac OS X dock isn't like the Windows taskbar,

00:58:51 ◼   ► U-bar is exactly the sort of thing you should look at. It looks good. It's not

00:58:56 ◼   ► ugly. It's very, very cool-looking, very beautiful. It's pure OS X style design.

00:59:01 ◼   ► And it's got, for power users, tons of shortcuts. You can do things like hold

00:59:05 ◼   ► down control and you can see the CPU and RAM usage for any of the apps that are

00:59:10 ◼   ► in there that are running.

00:59:11 ◼   ► Hold down shift and you can quit any app

00:59:13 ◼   ► or close any window from that app just by clicking it.

00:59:16 ◼   ► Apps that are unresponsive, get a red background

00:59:20 ◼   ► so you can spot hanging apps immediately.

00:59:22 ◼   ► You don't have to go and launch.

00:59:24 ◼   ► So it's sort of like it's adding features

00:59:26 ◼   ► from activity monitor right there in the taskbar.

00:59:29 ◼   ► Tons and tons of customization.

00:59:32 ◼   ► You can set the size, there's different themes,

00:59:36 ◼   ► dark and light, exactly what you would think.

00:59:39 ◼   ► You get the idea when you listen to the you know the idea of this type of app, you know, there's a lot of customization

00:59:44 ◼   ► You can put on any side of any monitor including the top you can pin it to a corner

00:59:49 ◼   ► Just unbelievable stuff so that here's what you do go to you bar app

00:59:55 ◼   ► Com and they have a four week trial. You can download it start running it you get four weeks

01:00:01 ◼   ► And the cost is only 20 bucks. So this is a great utility

01:00:05 ◼   ► typical Mac utility price 20 bucks

01:00:09 ◼   ► But and I think they're actually crazy because I think 20 bucks is a great price, but

01:00:12 ◼   ► Here's the deal. This isn't my idea, but they have a code retina Gruber

01:00:17 ◼   ► Retina than my last name retina Gruber

01:00:21 ◼   ► I don't know if that's a reference to retina graphics or my eye problems or both

01:00:24 ◼   ► But either way that's good the way could go either way

01:00:26 ◼   ► 50% off so you can get it for just 10 bucks

01:00:30 ◼   ► so you get four weeks to try it and then it's 10 bucks to get it and

01:00:34 ◼   ► Then this is the part that's amazing one more thing

01:00:37 ◼   ► The developer of the app, his last name is Brauer.

01:00:42 ◼   ► I actually forget his first name.

01:00:44 ◼   ► Let me look it up real quick.

01:00:45 ◼   ► Seems like a shame, I don't know it.

01:00:49 ◼   ► He has, the app and saw Edward, Edward Brauer.

01:00:53 ◼   ► So the app and software development, that's his primary,

01:00:56 ◼   ► that's how he supports himself, he's a programmer.

01:00:59 ◼   ► But he has the most amazing hobby.

01:01:01 ◼   ► His hobby is watchmaking.

01:01:04 ◼   ► He makes real mechanical watches.

01:01:07 ◼   ► So he's actually launching a new timepiece

01:01:10 ◼   ► right here on the show.

01:01:11 ◼   ► It's called the Mirage.

01:01:13 ◼   ► It is a limited edition of only 300 pieces,

01:01:16 ◼   ► each with an engraved number on the back.

01:01:19 ◼   ► He has sent one to me.

01:01:21 ◼   ► It's really, really nice.

01:01:24 ◼   ► I think my number is, I forget what number I got,

01:01:28 ◼   ► 104 or something like that.

01:01:29 ◼   ► Really nice dial, beautiful typography.

01:01:33 ◼   ► I mean, this is like a real serious watch.

01:01:37 ◼   ► I think, here's the price, 750 bucks.

01:01:41 ◼   ► So we're talking about, this is not like a joke.

01:01:44 ◼   ► It looks like a $750 watch.

01:01:47 ◼   ► It is really, really amazing, very, very nice.

01:01:49 ◼   ► It has a totally serious strap.

01:01:53 ◼   ► It's made by a company,

01:01:54 ◼   ► I'm never gonna pronounce this right,

01:01:55 ◼   ► Camille Fornay in Paris.

01:01:58 ◼   ► It's a lizard-like alligator leather strap.

01:02:02 ◼   ► They make OEM straps for actual serious watch companies

01:02:06 ◼   ► like Patek Philippe and others.

01:02:09 ◼   ► It has a single deployment clasp,

01:02:12 ◼   ► single fold deployment clasp.

01:02:14 ◼   ► That only means something if you're a watch person,

01:02:16 ◼   ► but if you are a watch person, you know what it means.

01:02:18 ◼   ► It's really, really nice.

01:02:19 ◼   ► It is like a serious dress watch,

01:02:22 ◼   ► but not so dressy that you couldn't wear it casually.

01:02:24 ◼   ► So go to, for the watch, go to Brauer,

01:02:29 ◼   ► V-R-A-W-E-R, timepieces.com.

01:02:34 ◼   ► And the same code works there, RetnaGruber.

01:02:37 ◼   ► And you can get that watch for 40% off.

01:02:42 ◼   ► So it's a $750 watch, but you can get it for 40% off

01:02:45 ◼   ► using that code.

01:02:47 ◼   ► Shipping is free in the USA and Canada.

01:02:50 ◼   ► And it comes in a real watch box.

01:02:53 ◼   ► Again, if you've ever bought like a fancy watch

01:02:55 ◼   ► or even like the Apple edition watches,

01:02:58 ◼   ► know that like you know thousand dollar ish watches supposed to come in a nice

01:03:01 ◼   ► box this thing comes in a really nice box you the thing that I can't believe

01:03:06 ◼   ► it's not that I can't believe that somebody made a nice watch there's lots

01:03:08 ◼   ► of nice watches out there I just can't believe that this guy designed and made

01:03:13 ◼   ► it and did all this stuff and you know did all the machining to actually

01:03:18 ◼   ► machine out the stainless steel frame of the watch and everything as like his

01:03:22 ◼   ► hobby it's absolutely crazy that this is like the second thing that the same guy

01:03:27 ◼   ► does who makes this amazing U-Bar app. So my thanks to them for the U-Bar, which is probably

01:03:33 ◼   ► something an awful lot of you ought to go look at and maybe buy, and for the new Mirage watch,

01:03:38 ◼   ► which probably isn't going to sell to a lot of you, but for those of you who are into watches,

01:03:43 ◼   ► it's absolutely positively worth looking at. Also, it's not too big. I hate big watches. I don't know

01:03:47 ◼   ► what I would say if it was real big, but it has a diameter of only 40 millimeters. So it's a

01:03:52 ◼   ► perfectly standard, not too big watch. A woman could get away with it. It would be like a

01:03:58 ◼   ► nice big watch for a woman. Totally normal size for men. It comes in three colors, white,

01:04:03 ◼   ► blue, and black. So my thanks to them. Check them out. Is that the craziest sponsor? That

01:04:08 ◼   ► might be one of the craziest sponsors I've ever had.

01:04:10 ◼   ► Jared Polin, " That is pretty impressive. Also, I want to give you all my French words

01:04:15 ◼   ► to pronounce whenever I need that."

01:04:16 ◼   ► Tim Cynova, " I have no idea if I pronounced that right. It's not even that hard. All right.

01:04:21 ◼   ► And here's the thing, I want to tell you why I think you were...

01:04:26 ◼   ► Here's the mistake I think you made with peace.

01:04:28 ◼   ► And I feel guilty about this because I knew over the summer that you were working on this

01:04:32 ◼   ► thing and I didn't test it until like the night before or something like that.

01:04:37 ◼   ► And I feel bad that I didn't because I would have called you out on the fact that it wasn't

01:04:42 ◼   ► whitelisting the deck or automatically.

01:04:44 ◼   ► And in fact, I was confused because I could swear that the night before when I did install

01:04:49 ◼   ► the beta, the first thing I did was check during Fireball and I could swear that it

01:04:53 ◼   ► did show the ad. And then you told me that there's some flakiness when you first enable

01:04:57 ◼   ► these things and sometimes you have to restart. And I think that's what I saw. I don't want

01:05:03 ◼   ► to put words in your mouth, but here's what I think you were thinking. You were thinking,

01:05:09 ◼   ► I'm not, A, I don't want to have a whole bunch of Fidli settings. So I don't want to have

01:05:14 ◼   ► thing that says block all ads, block most ads, block half ads, just block the worst

01:05:21 ◼   ► ads. I'm just going to say, here's a switch, block ads. I think you were thinking I would

01:05:28 ◼   ► be a hypocrite if I had whitelisted the deck just because that's what my site is in. I'll

01:05:36 ◼   ► do the thing that's not being a hypocrite and just include the deck, which is mine,

01:05:40 ◼   ► which is sort of, I don't know, magnanimous?

01:05:44 ◼   ► I don't know what the word is.

01:05:45 ◼   ► I think that by not white listing the deck,

01:05:51 ◼   ► you are committing an entirely different form of hypocrisy,

01:05:55 ◼   ► which is that all, everything is content.

01:06:00 ◼   ► And everything that you publish from marco.org

01:06:10 ◼   ► You're you're you're standing behind so by publishing ads from the deck by sending them to your users

01:06:16 ◼   ► You're implicitly saying this is an ad that's worth your

01:06:20 ◼   ► Seeing and it's worth your device that you're accessing this site downloading and rendering and putting on the page

01:06:28 ◼   ► So I feel like you you painted yourself into by releasing piece with the deck not being included

01:06:35 ◼   ► You have two things. You've got a website that is implicitly saying this is a thing

01:06:40 ◼   ► this ad is worth you seeing and is okay.

01:06:44 ◼   ► And then you have this other thing,

01:06:45 ◼   ► which is saying this is something that should be blocked.

01:06:48 ◼   ► And there's no way to square that circle.

01:06:52 ◼   ► - Yeah, that's true.

01:06:53 ◼   ► I mean, that was part of the problem,

01:06:55 ◼   ► is that this was an unsolvable problem.

01:06:59 ◼   ► You know, it was, I could say that I no longer

01:07:03 ◼   ► want any web ads to exist and I could leave the deck,

01:07:06 ◼   ► I could quit the deck and remove them from my site.

01:07:08 ◼   ► I could try to differentiate and I could say,

01:07:13 ◼   ► well, I'm gonna allow acceptable ads,

01:07:19 ◼   ► but we see the problems that causes.

01:07:21 ◼   ► When other sites try that or when other blockers try that,

01:07:24 ◼   ► we see that that's extremely messy and controversial

01:07:28 ◼   ► and I didn't wanna be in that business.

01:07:32 ◼   ► Or I can try to differentiate between,

01:07:37 ◼   ► well, I'm gonna block ads but not trackers.

01:07:40 ◼   ► And I said that's an ATP too.

01:07:42 ◼   ► You can't really make that differentiation

01:07:44 ◼   ► because if you want to block tracking,

01:07:47 ◼   ► you have to block almost all ads.

01:07:50 ◼   ► And trying to keep up the list of what belongs

01:07:56 ◼   ► on the other side of that almost

01:07:58 ◼   ► is very politically charged, it is very subjective,

01:08:04 ◼   ► It's very messy and arguable and vague

01:08:07 ◼   ► as to what kind of ad is okay,

01:08:10 ◼   ► what kind of ad is safe and is not a tracker,

01:08:12 ◼   ► what does tracking include?

01:08:15 ◼   ► It's such a messy world of vague distinctions

01:08:21 ◼   ► and impossible problems,

01:08:23 ◼   ► and whatever decision you make,

01:08:26 ◼   ► people are going to disagree with it.

01:08:28 ◼   ► And so actually, the safest, most defensible position

01:08:33 ◼   ► that an ad blocker can take is to just block everything.

01:08:36 ◼   ► Like that is the most defensible position

01:08:39 ◼   ► that I think that most of them can take.

01:08:41 ◼   ► And they just have to then own what they actually are.

01:08:44 ◼   ► And this is the part I had a problem with.

01:08:45 ◼   ► Like you can't just say, I'm gonna block trackers

01:08:48 ◼   ► and I'm gonna serve only good.

01:08:50 ◼   ► You have to hit some people

01:08:53 ◼   ► in the process of being effective.

01:08:55 ◼   ► Like some people have to lose

01:08:57 ◼   ► and some of them are gonna be good people.

01:09:00 ◼   ► Like the deck, you know, we know all these people

01:09:02 ◼   ► Like these are good people.

01:09:03 ◼   ► But if you're saying I'm selling an ad blocker,

01:09:06 ◼   ► it has to block the deck.

01:09:07 ◼   ► And it's weird, and if you sell an ad blocker

01:09:11 ◼   ► and you know about the deck and you know the deck is ads

01:09:16 ◼   ► and you whitelist it or you explicitly like go and omit it

01:09:20 ◼   ► from your database once it was already there

01:09:23 ◼   ► and you're selling people an ad blocker,

01:09:25 ◼   ► then you're lying to your customers.

01:09:27 ◼   ► - That's why I don't think you should call it an ad blocker.

01:09:29 ◼   ► I think, and I've--

01:09:30 ◼   ► - Right, but if you don't call it an ad blocker,

01:09:31 ◼   ► nobody buys it.

01:09:32 ◼   ► That's the problem. It's a terrible business.

01:09:35 ◼   ► I think that, I don't know. I don't know if that no one would buy it. I mean, what did

01:09:41 ◼   ► the marketing materials for Peace describe it as?

01:09:45 ◼   ► It said Peace block ads and trackers powered by Ghostery, something like that. Block web

01:09:50 ◼   ► ads and trackers.

01:09:51 ◼   ► I would have said something to the effect of, well, I wouldn't use the word crappy,

01:09:57 ◼   ► but block crappy ads and trackers.

01:09:59 ◼   ► And think of, put that off the top of my head,

01:10:03 ◼   ► I can't think of the way I would say that,

01:10:05 ◼   ► but that would be the gist of what I would get across

01:10:07 ◼   ► in very few words, block crappy ads and trackers.

01:10:11 ◼   ► And then that lets you whitelist.

01:10:13 ◼   ► And there are like one of the most popular ones right now.

01:10:17 ◼   ► And the one, if anybody wants my recommendation right now,

01:10:19 ◼   ► the one I'm using is One Blocker.

01:10:21 ◼   ► By default, One Blocker does not block the deck.

01:10:26 ◼   ► I've actually exchanged some emails with Ben Brooks,

01:10:29 ◼   ► who's doing a lot of work at the Brooks Report,

01:10:31 ◼   ► like really serious yeoman's work,

01:10:34 ◼   ► especially if he's, you know,

01:10:35 ◼   ► he's like restarting his iPhone

01:10:37 ◼   ► in between testing these things,

01:10:38 ◼   ► just to sort of get it to his neutral estate

01:10:40 ◼   ► and clearing the cache.

01:10:41 ◼   ► - That's good, because as you said,

01:10:42 ◼   ► like the system is buggy,

01:10:43 ◼   ► and it's really hard to know for sure

01:10:46 ◼   ► whether something's enabled or not,

01:10:47 ◼   ► and sometimes the system will,

01:10:49 ◼   ► like I had to make a test URL that like,

01:10:52 ◼   ► on Peace's website, a test URL that would load

01:10:55 ◼   ► and would try to redirect to something that piece blocked

01:10:58 ◼   ► and then would detect whether the redirect succeeded or not

01:11:01 ◼   ► and so like I had this button in the app

01:11:03 ◼   ► that would just test installation

01:11:04 ◼   ► and it would like slide up a web view for a second

01:11:06 ◼   ► and test something and slide it back down

01:11:07 ◼   ► and tell you what happened.

01:11:09 ◼   ► But it's very buggy, it's a very buggy system.

01:11:13 ◼   ► - What I'm looking for in an ad blocker

01:11:18 ◼   ► or a content blocker, whatever you wanna call it for iOS,

01:11:20 ◼   ► is I want one that is fast

01:11:21 ◼   ► and noticeably improves the browsing experience

01:11:25 ◼   ► on my iPhone,

01:11:27 ◼   ► blocks as much pernicious stuff,

01:11:33 ◼   ► like the type of ads that cover up, pop up, and full page,

01:11:37 ◼   ► block the page I'm looking at,

01:11:39 ◼   ► block stuff like that,

01:11:42 ◼   ► doesn't block the deck by default, and that's it.

01:11:48 ◼   ► And the fact that-- - See, the problem is

01:11:50 ◼   ► that nobody agrees on where that line is.

01:11:53 ◼   ► - I agree, I agree.

01:11:54 ◼   ► And that's, you know, obviously that's gotta go.

01:11:55 ◼   ► So one of the other ways to look at it is,

01:11:57 ◼   ► no ad blocker is going to be perfect, absolutely not.

01:12:01 ◼   ► And even if you could say, right now at this moment,

01:12:04 ◼   ► as I submit to the App Store,

01:12:05 ◼   ► I think it's as close to perfect as I can get it

01:12:07 ◼   ► in terms of what it blocks and what it doesn't,

01:12:09 ◼   ► by next week that's gonna be different.

01:12:12 ◼   ► Because some of the people you block

01:12:13 ◼   ► are going to find workarounds,

01:12:15 ◼   ► and some of the ones you don't

01:12:16 ◼   ► might clean up their policies.

01:12:18 ◼   ► It's totally dynamic.

01:12:19 ◼   ► But what I would suggest and what I really think

01:12:23 ◼   ► is possible, and what I think, for example,

01:12:25 ◼   ► one blocker right now is evidence of,

01:12:28 ◼   ► is that what you have to do is pick which side

01:12:30 ◼   ► of perfection you're going to be on.

01:12:32 ◼   ► Are you going to be, is your blocker going to be

01:12:34 ◼   ► on the side of letting through some stuff

01:12:37 ◼   ► that probably should be blocked,

01:12:39 ◼   ► or is it going to be on the side of,

01:12:41 ◼   ► erring on the side of blocking some stuff

01:12:43 ◼   ► that shouldn't be blocked?

01:12:45 ◼   ► And I think it's possible.

01:12:46 ◼   ► I think it's possible to build an ad blocker

01:12:49 ◼   ► or a content blocker, whatever you wanna call it,

01:12:51 ◼   ► that isn't over-aggressive.

01:12:55 ◼   ► And so therefore, errors on the side of maybe there

01:12:57 ◼   ► will be some things that get through

01:12:59 ◼   ► that you wish didn't get through,

01:13:00 ◼   ► but that overall gives you a really fast browsing experience

01:13:03 ◼   ► and blocks most of the stuff you want

01:13:05 ◼   ► and doesn't punish people who are doing it the right way

01:13:09 ◼   ► and are serving things that shouldn't be blocked.

01:13:11 ◼   ► I think that's possible.

01:13:14 ◼   ► one blocker is is the best proof of it today that it could be done but the fact

01:13:20 ◼   ► is that what's amazing to me is that in Ben Brooks testing and he's I think he's

01:13:24 ◼   ► up to like 32 of these I was content blockers that he's tracked in his

01:13:29 ◼   ► testing one blocker isn't just fast it's the fastest I don't know where peace was

01:13:34 ◼   ► on that because he you know he's taken peace out of that but the only one

01:13:37 ◼   ► that's faster it was roughly in the middle when he still had it in the only

01:13:41 ◼   ► one that's faster is some crazy one that I think is sort of like the one you wrote this

01:13:45 ◼   ► summer that just blocks all third party JavaScript. There's one that makes that is head and shoulders

01:13:51 ◼   ► faster than anything, but it breaks half the internet. Like Ben Brooks, I forget the name

01:13:57 ◼   ► of it. It's got like a funny name too, but there's a whole bunch of like mainstream sites

01:14:02 ◼   ► that just render as a white box.

01:14:03 ◼   ► white box. No I actually I had that issue with with my first one because I when my

01:14:10 ◼   ► first version of peace before I negotiated the deal with ghostery it

01:14:14 ◼   ► literally just blocked all third-party JavaScript and the funny thing is how

01:14:18 ◼   ► well that works most of the time. It's called script scrap. That's a

01:14:23 ◼   ► wonderfully awkward name. No I mean like it that approach actually works the vast

01:14:30 ◼   ► majority of the time. But, you know, it's one of those things where, like, if the error

01:14:34 ◼   ► rate, like, if the pages it breaks, if it breaks on 10% of pages, well, that's actually

01:14:39 ◼   ► very annoying in practice. Like, that's too high of a breakage rate. And the reason I

01:14:43 ◼   ► went with Ghostery instead was because it was the solution I found that had the lowest

01:14:50 ◼   ► rate of sites that broke, like, things that actually just stopped working. Because, like,

01:14:55 ◼   ► Like a lot of sites will tie in in weird ways,

01:14:58 ◼   ► especially analytics packages and especially Adobe Omniture.

01:15:02 ◼   ► That is one like Apple's site breaks without that.

01:15:04 ◼   ► A bunch of sites, functionality actually stops

01:15:08 ◼   ► if you don't have certain trackers enabled.

01:15:10 ◼   ► And Ghostery actually keeps a database of that

01:15:13 ◼   ► and builds it into their extension to try to whitelist,

01:15:18 ◼   ► to try to whitelist things like that

01:15:21 ◼   ► that are fairly innocent on certain sites

01:15:24 ◼   ► that are required for them to work properly.

01:15:27 ◼   ► And they maintain a list of sites that break

01:15:29 ◼   ► with, for example, Omniture disabled,

01:15:32 ◼   ► and that's automatically whitelisted by default.

01:15:34 ◼   ► - I forget what it was that I couldn't,

01:15:36 ◼   ► there's a part of Apple's developer website

01:15:39 ◼   ► that I couldn't get working,

01:15:40 ◼   ► and I was like, what the hell's going on?

01:15:41 ◼   ► - Yep, that's why.

01:15:42 ◼   ► - And it just occurred to me, it was like,

01:15:44 ◼   ► ooh, maybe I should whitelist this in Ghostery,

01:15:46 ◼   ► and I did, and it worked, and I was like,

01:15:48 ◼   ► oh man, of all the sites I never thought

01:15:49 ◼   ► that I would have to dick around in Ghostery,

01:15:51 ◼   ► it was apple.com.

01:15:52 ◼   ► literally has no ads, unless you consider the entire website an ad, has no ads that

01:15:59 ◼   ► you would think of as web ads, but it actually breaks without it being emphasized. I think

01:16:03 ◼   ► it was exactly that Adobe amateur, whatever the hell that is.

01:16:06 ◼   ► Well, and that's, I don't even know. I think it's some kind of analytics thing, but one

01:16:11 ◼   ► of the problems, one of the reasons why we have such obscenely rampant and over-the-top

01:16:16 ◼   ► tracking on the web is this this culture of data people where like everything it

01:16:21 ◼   ► is considered outrageous and obscene and and reckless if you run a website today

01:16:28 ◼   ► that doesn't do very detailed analytics and behavioral tracking like if you if

01:16:33 ◼   ► you have access to quote data and you're not collecting it and you're not mining

01:16:38 ◼   ► it and analyzing it for eyeballs and various other body parts like it is like

01:16:43 ◼   ► that you're considered like negligent almost

01:16:45 ◼   ► in an owner of a website, not doing all this tracking.

01:16:48 ◼   ► Like the standard industry wisdom

01:16:50 ◼   ► and the pressure from everywhere in the industry

01:16:52 ◼   ► is to track as much as you possibly can.

01:16:55 ◼   ► And this is, and we can get into it here if you want,

01:16:58 ◼   ► one of the issues with this

01:17:01 ◼   ► that is still mostly under the radar

01:17:04 ◼   ► is tracking happening inside of apps

01:17:06 ◼   ► that can't be blocked by Safari content blockers.

01:17:09 ◼   ► - Yeah, no, definitely.

01:17:11 ◼   ► like Twitter is famous for like always pushing the boundaries of like like they they they had this database of

01:17:17 ◼   ► Like something like over a thousand

01:17:19 ◼   ► URL schemes custom iOS app URL schemes that they that they would call can open URL on the system API

01:17:26 ◼   ► And that would tell them which of these URL schemes were registered and they could then derive

01:17:31 ◼   ► Which apps does each user have installed and they could tailor their ads?

01:17:35 ◼   ► And they could sell their as they could they could actually sell people the idea of we can show your Twitter ad to people who?

01:17:41 ◼   ► who have this particular app installed.

01:17:43 ◼   ► It's crazy.

01:17:45 ◼   ► And then, that was so egregious of a privacy violation

01:17:48 ◼   ► that Apple severely restricted that in iOS 9,

01:17:51 ◼   ► and they actually kind of broke it for uses like that.

01:17:54 ◼   ► - So in other words, just to explain that,

01:17:58 ◼   ► I know exactly what you're talking about,

01:17:59 ◼   ► but just for anybody who, if that went over your head.

01:18:02 ◼   ► So the way sandboxing works on iOS,

01:18:06 ◼   ► an app that plays by the rules and uses,

01:18:10 ◼   ► passes the test that they do

01:18:11 ◼   ► that you're not using private APIs,

01:18:12 ◼   ► can't really look outside at Sandbox

01:18:15 ◼   ► and look at the file system

01:18:16 ◼   ► and see what's in your iPhone's slash applications folder.

01:18:21 ◼   ► You can't do it.

01:18:25 ◼   ► But what Twitter did, and I'm sure other people did,

01:18:27 ◼   ► but Twitter I guess really went far,

01:18:30 ◼   ► is when a custom-- - Twitter got caught.

01:18:31 ◼   ► - When a custom app, like if Instapaper

01:18:33 ◼   ► has an Instapaper colon slash slash URL scheme,

01:18:37 ◼   ► And then the idea of the URL scheme is,

01:18:40 ◼   ► hey, that way another app can integrate with Instapaper.

01:18:44 ◼   ► And this was really common in the pre-sharing sheet days

01:18:47 ◼   ► where apps would, the only really way

01:18:49 ◼   ► that apps could communicate with each other,

01:18:52 ◼   ► Instapaper communicating with Tweetbot

01:18:55 ◼   ► or something like that was through a URL scheme.

01:18:57 ◼   ► So if Tweetbot was going to integrate with Instapaper,

01:19:02 ◼   ► it used a URL scheme.

01:19:04 ◼   ► Did it?

01:19:04 ◼   ► I admit, you'd know.

01:19:06 ◼   ► Is that how Tweetbot used to integrate with Instapaper?

01:19:09 ◼   ► - As far as I remember, yeah.

01:19:10 ◼   ► I mean, almost all the Twitter clients

01:19:12 ◼   ► integrated with Instapaper eventually.

01:19:13 ◼   ► - But through a custom URL scheme.

01:19:15 ◼   ► But then to make a nice user experience, there was an API.

01:19:18 ◼   ► So Twitter, Tweetbot, or whatever app,

01:19:21 ◼   ► Twitter, whoever, would call.

01:19:24 ◼   ► If I send an Instapaper colon slash slash URL,

01:19:28 ◼   ► is it going to be handled?

01:19:30 ◼   ► Yes or no?

01:19:31 ◼   ► And then if the answer is no, it's like,

01:19:32 ◼   ► oh, well they don't even have Instapaper installed,

01:19:33 ◼   ► I won't even give them the option.

01:19:35 ◼   ► So Twitter used it to survey whether any of a thousand apps

01:19:39 ◼   ► were installed on the system and used it.

01:19:42 ◼   ► And then they of course know your Twitter account

01:19:44 ◼   ► 'cause you're logged into Twitter, you're using Twitter.

01:19:46 ◼   ► - And they would transmit that data back to Twitter

01:19:48 ◼   ► and they would save it probably forever on your account

01:19:51 ◼   ► in their ad analytics database.

01:19:52 ◼   ► All this creepy stuff that was made possible

01:19:55 ◼   ► by this relatively innocent intending system API.

01:19:58 ◼   ► - Yeah, and so that, but this, it's sort of a tangent,

01:20:01 ◼   ► but it absolutely gets to something

01:20:03 ◼   ► and that is a false accusation against me,

01:20:06 ◼   ► which is that in my defense of,

01:20:10 ◼   ► I think the problem that some people seem to have

01:20:14 ◼   ► with my take on this is that I'm not an absolutist,

01:20:17 ◼   ► that I don't feel like,

01:20:20 ◼   ► and I feel like there's some people who wanna say

01:20:24 ◼   ► that if you're gonna block some ads,

01:20:25 ◼   ► you have to block them all,

01:20:26 ◼   ► and if you're going to whitelist some ads,

01:20:28 ◼   ► you have to see them all.

01:20:30 ◼   ► And I think that's bullshit.

01:20:33 ◼   ► I think it's provably bullshit because people are doing

01:20:37 ◼   ► just what I'm suggesting, which is try to use white lists

01:20:41 ◼   ► and defaults for your ad blocker that strike a middle ground.

01:20:45 ◼   ► And again, who defines that middle ground

01:20:47 ◼   ► and whether different people have significantly

01:20:50 ◼   ► different tastes on where that line is drawn?

01:20:52 ◼   ► Absolutely, who knows how it's gonna shake out,

01:20:54 ◼   ► but I absolutely think that someone who wants to take

01:20:57 ◼   ► the absolutist all or nothing approach

01:21:00 ◼   ► is being stubbornly idealistic.

01:21:05 ◼   ► I don't know what the word is,

01:21:07 ◼   ► and they're fooling themselves.

01:21:08 ◼   ► But the false accusation against me is that I'm somehow,

01:21:14 ◼   ► because I'm in the bag for Apple and pro-Apple,

01:21:17 ◼   ► I'm on board with Apple destroying the open internet

01:21:22 ◼   ► and taking us to a world where there's nothing

01:21:24 ◼   ► but apps from the App Store.

01:21:25 ◼   ► And that falls for a couple of reasons.

01:21:28 ◼   ► Number one, my life's work is on a website

01:21:31 ◼   ► and I don't have an app for it.

01:21:32 ◼   ► There is no daring fireball app.

01:21:35 ◼   ► And I still have no plans to make one.

01:21:36 ◼   ► My site is in Apple News.

01:21:40 ◼   ► I haven't done anything related to it.

01:21:43 ◼   ► I really don't even understand how Apple News works.

01:21:45 ◼   ► I might do something with their stuff.

01:21:49 ◼   ► I haven't really looked at it yet.

01:21:55 ◼   ► I would not be in favor of most people reading my site through Apple News. I'm not in favor

01:22:00 ◼   ► of that. And lastly, I don't think I'm just as suspicious and concerned about the tracking

01:22:07 ◼   ► that's going on in native apps as I am on the web.

01:22:09 ◼   ► Right, because native apps, like, the web can do a lot more egregious things. They can

01:22:16 ◼   ► do a lot more cross-site tracking, like tracking between different sites by third parties.

01:22:21 ◼   ► the web makes a lot more of that possible.

01:22:23 ◼   ► Apps, you're mostly, I mean,

01:22:26 ◼   ► depending on what they've integrated,

01:22:27 ◼   ► but you're mostly in apps limited to

01:22:30 ◼   ► the maker of the app tracking you themselves.

01:22:33 ◼   ► - Right. - You know?

01:22:34 ◼   ► And again, there are some exceptions,

01:22:36 ◼   ► like with third-party packages,

01:22:38 ◼   ► but for the most part, that's what's going on.

01:22:40 ◼   ► And so you do have to worry about things like,

01:22:43 ◼   ► like the big social apps, which,

01:22:46 ◼   ► again, like when you're talking about,

01:22:48 ◼   ► if you wanna block tracking, you gotta block social.

01:22:51 ◼   ► and all the social widgets that are in all the sites.

01:22:54 ◼   ► You have to block the fancy richly formatted Twitter embeds

01:22:57 ◼   ► that people embed in blog posts.

01:22:59 ◼   ► You would probably also have to block

01:23:01 ◼   ► embedded YouTube players because that's owned by Google,

01:23:04 ◼   ► a massive ad and tracking company.

01:23:06 ◼   ► You know, there's a lot you have to block

01:23:07 ◼   ► if you wanna truly block tracking.

01:23:10 ◼   ► - Yeah, and if you just take a look,

01:23:11 ◼   ► YouTube's a good example because it's so ubiquitous.

01:23:15 ◼   ► I mean, it's central to the modern web landscape.

01:23:19 ◼   ► But if you ever just do a view source on a page

01:23:21 ◼   ► with a YouTube embed and just start going down

01:23:25 ◼   ► the rabbit hole of the iframe and what's going on there,

01:23:29 ◼   ► I mean, it's almost impossible to follow along,

01:23:31 ◼   ► but you can see that it is nothing even vaguely resembling

01:23:36 ◼   ► a video tag where the source pointing to a URL.

01:23:40 ◼   ► - Exactly.

01:23:40 ◼   ► - I'll bet like a single YouTube embed

01:23:45 ◼   ► would probably involve more markup, let alone JavaScript,

01:23:49 ◼   ► just more markup than the entirety of like a typical

01:23:52 ◼   ► Daring Fireball page.

01:23:53 ◼   ► - Exactly, yeah.

01:23:55 ◼   ► But you know, with app tracking,

01:23:57 ◼   ► they can do more detailed tracking of you,

01:24:03 ◼   ► but in a narrower scope.

01:24:04 ◼   ► Like you're not usually,

01:24:06 ◼   ► like if you just open up a random app,

01:24:10 ◼   ► like if you're, you know,

01:24:11 ◼   ► there's a new game from the Crossy Road people,

01:24:14 ◼   ► like Shooty Skies or something today.

01:24:16 ◼   ► And I downloaded that and knowing like, you know,

01:24:19 ◼   ► what's the most they can really do here like I know Ios is so sandboxed and

01:24:22 ◼   ► everything like they're not gonna be able to get to all my other data they're

01:24:25 ◼   ► not they're gonna be able to have like a unique identifier tied to me that they

01:24:28 ◼   ► can use in you know fifty other apps that aren't even published by them and

01:24:32 ◼   ► you know some other third-party thing to do it like the crossy road people have a

01:24:35 ◼   ► new app yeah it's called shootie skies oh is it good I haven't lost you yet oh

01:24:40 ◼   ► I mean I was gonna play it in bed tonight important planning play it in

01:24:45 ◼   ► second half of the talk show. I'll play during all your ad reads. Yeah. No, I always pay

01:24:53 ◼   ► attention to podcast ad reads. Never skip them. So is it nice? Do you like, do you enjoy

01:24:59 ◼   ► not having to do them? Because you do them on ATP. Yeah, this was, this was great. Like

01:25:04 ◼   ► it's great to just show up to a podcast and just talk and not have to worry about like,

01:25:08 ◼   ► all right, got to get the sponsors ready. Got to make sure I have all the scripts for

01:25:11 ◼   ► all of them. And if I don't, I got to write some and, you know, review them and everything.

01:25:14 ◼   ► has there ever been any discussion about letting casey do some of them.

01:25:17 ◼   ► I don't think we've ever actually talked about it. I think he kind of

01:25:21 ◼   ► assumed yeah he's he's so much nicer than me john you should do it, but john

01:25:26 ◼   ► does the toaster ones, which is yeah is the greatest single greatest ad campaign.

01:25:31 ◼   ► In my opinion in podcast history is there's a it's a good one this week to

01:25:36 ◼   ► this. This is a toaster week this week. It's a good one.

01:25:38 ◼   ► It's a really good one.

01:25:42 ◼   ► It's Cards Against Humanity's campaign.

01:25:45 ◼   ► For any of you, I'm guessing an enormous number

01:25:47 ◼   ► of the people listening to this episode listen to ATP as well.

01:25:50 ◼   ► But for those of you who don't, on the Accidental Tech podcast,

01:25:54 ◼   ► there's a year long, maybe over a year long--

01:25:58 ◼   ► It's this whole calendar year.

01:26:00 ◼   ► It's almost over.

01:26:02 ◼   ► --from Cards Against Humanity.

01:26:04 ◼   ► And the entirety of the ad campaign,

01:26:06 ◼   ► there is absolutely no talking points about the game itself.

01:26:11 ◼   ► They just send John Siracusa a toaster oven

01:26:15 ◼   ► every time an ad is coming up.

01:26:17 ◼   ► - Yeah, once a month.

01:26:18 ◼   ► - Once a month, they send him a toaster oven

01:26:20 ◼   ► and he just tears into it on air.

01:26:25 ◼   ► - Yeah, it's like the entire role of the ad

01:26:27 ◼   ► is for John to just review a new toaster oven every month.

01:26:30 ◼   ► - Talk about the dials, talk about how well it works.

01:26:33 ◼   ► - The knob feel.

01:26:35 ◼   ► - You know, what egregious design mistakes

01:26:37 ◼   ► that they've made.

01:26:38 ◼   ► - Yeah.

01:26:39 ◼   ► Turns out there's a lot of really badly designed toaster

01:26:41 ◼   ► ovens out there.

01:26:42 ◼   ► [LAUGHTER]

01:26:44 ◼   ► And he takes it totally seriously,

01:26:46 ◼   ► as of course he does.

01:26:47 ◼   ► It's fantastic.

01:26:48 ◼   ► But anyway, it must be nice.

01:26:50 ◼   ► I don't know.

01:26:50 ◼   ► I enjoy it when I'm a guest on somebody else's podcast

01:26:52 ◼   ► as well.

01:26:53 ◼   ► Yeah, it is quite nice.

01:26:54 ◼   ► Even though I do enjoy--

01:26:55 ◼   ► I actually enjoy doing these reads, though.

01:26:57 ◼   ► I think I've gotten better at it.

01:26:59 ◼   ► And I enjoy it because I've gotten to the point

01:27:01 ◼   ► now where I feel like it's a game where

01:27:03 ◼   ► I'm trying to keep people from hitting the 30-second skip.

01:27:08 ◼   ► And if you do, it is what it is.

01:27:11 ◼   ► And you know, it's funny, 'cause that's ad blocking, right?

01:27:15 ◼   ► I mean, it ties into it.

01:27:16 ◼   ► The 30 second-- - It's very similar.

01:27:19 ◼   ► It's like, it's not quite the same, but it's very similar.

01:27:21 ◼   ► It's in the ballpark for sure.

01:27:22 ◼   ► - I actually saw somebody on Twitter

01:27:26 ◼   ► at Peak Peace Controversy.

01:27:29 ◼   ► I still think that's so funny.

01:27:31 ◼   ► I think it was such a good name for a blocker.

01:27:33 ◼   ► And I think it's so funny that the way that it played out

01:27:37 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:27:39 ◼   ► So unpeaceful for you.

01:27:41 ◼   ► But I saw somebody who tweeted something to the effect of,

01:27:49 ◼   ► it's actually a pretty clever idea

01:27:52 ◼   ► that somebody who writes a podcast client could,

01:27:55 ◼   ► for any given episode of a show,

01:27:59 ◼   ► if you tracked people's use of 30 second skip,

01:28:02 ◼   ► you could probably very easily pinpoint where the

01:28:06 ◼   ► the sponsor breaks are in the episode.

01:28:10 ◼   ► - Right, and this is like,

01:28:12 ◼   ► I thought of this feature two years ago.

01:28:14 ◼   ► I think everybody who has made a podcast app

01:28:16 ◼   ► has thought of this feature,

01:28:17 ◼   ► especially once Amazon launched their shared highlights

01:28:21 ◼   ► for Kindles, 'cause it's very similar to that.

01:28:24 ◼   ► It's like you kind of track what people highlight

01:28:26 ◼   ► and then things that get highlighted a lot,

01:28:28 ◼   ► you can say are important

01:28:29 ◼   ► and you can default to highlight them.

01:28:31 ◼   ► Well, in a podcast app, yeah,

01:28:32 ◼   ► you could track what's being skipped

01:28:34 ◼   ► and sections of a podcast that are skipped a lot,

01:28:35 ◼   ► you can have an option to just automatically just skip them.

01:28:38 ◼   ► And first of all, it would be hard to make that work

01:28:42 ◼   ► very well in a way that wouldn't annoy people,

01:28:45 ◼   ► and that would be obvious what's happening.

01:28:47 ◼   ► But second of all, I think, like I've talked to other

01:28:51 ◼   ► podcast app makers and mentioned this before,

01:28:54 ◼   ► and everyone always says the same thing,

01:28:56 ◼   ► the same thing I thought, which is,

01:28:58 ◼   ► I don't want to do that to podcasting,

01:29:01 ◼   ► because I know like, that would by nature

01:29:05 ◼   ► hurt podcasting and I don't want to do that.

01:29:08 ◼   ► - I, you know, and I feel like the other thing

01:29:12 ◼   ► is that it's so respectful, you know, it's just time,

01:29:17 ◼   ► you know, and it's, you know, I've gone to four

01:29:20 ◼   ► on some of these summer episodes

01:29:22 ◼   ► just because I've fallen way behind a weekly schedule,

01:29:24 ◼   ► but my episodes are very long.

01:29:26 ◼   ► And so I absolutely, I do stick to never more

01:29:30 ◼   ► than one and a half hour, which I feel like is pretty fair

01:29:34 ◼   ► and compares extremely favorably to Terrestrial Radio.

01:29:39 ◼   ► - Oh my God, yeah, not even close.

01:29:41 ◼   ► - And even compares, I think, very well

01:29:43 ◼   ► to the Howard Stern show on Sirius.

01:29:46 ◼   ► Like Amy, Amy's a huge Howard Stern fan.

01:29:51 ◼   ► And she's still annoyed by the fact that the whole thing

01:29:54 ◼   ► that pitched her on Sirius in the first place

01:29:56 ◼   ► is that it was commercial free,

01:29:58 ◼   ► and they were like, except for Howard Stern,

01:29:59 ◼   ► because we can sell a lot of very expensive ads on his show.

01:30:02 ◼   ► You know, I think in the history of--

01:30:06 ◼   ► - Well, they aren't very expensive.

01:30:07 ◼   ► I've bought them before.

01:30:08 ◼   ► - Well, but from their perspective,

01:30:10 ◼   ► in the aggregate, they are.

01:30:11 ◼   ► I'm not saying each spot is,

01:30:13 ◼   ► but I think that, I don't think that they could do,

01:30:15 ◼   ► I don't think they could,

01:30:16 ◼   ► I don't think they could pay his salary

01:30:18 ◼   ► if it wasn't for that.

01:30:19 ◼   ► I don't know.

01:30:20 ◼   ► - Yeah.

01:30:22 ◼   ► - You disagree?

01:30:23 ◼   ► You think they could go, you think--

01:30:24 ◼   ► - I paid less for a live read on his show

01:30:27 ◼   ► than what you and I charge for live reads

01:30:29 ◼   ► on our shows right now.

01:30:30 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:30:32 ◼   ► I'm serious.

01:30:34 ◼   ► - That's amazing.

01:30:35 ◼   ► And you got Howard to actually read it.

01:30:38 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah, it's a live read.

01:30:40 ◼   ► That's why it's valuable.

01:30:42 ◼   ► - That was really great.

01:30:43 ◼   ► It was a really cool thing.

01:30:44 ◼   ► But anyway, I just feel like that, again, it's negotiation.

01:30:49 ◼   ► And I'm sure there are people out there listening right now

01:30:52 ◼   ► who, even though I told them not to,

01:30:54 ◼   ► hit the 30 second thing during the Brower thing before,

01:30:57 ◼   ► and they're probably gonna hit it

01:30:58 ◼   ► on some of the ones that I'm about to do.

01:31:00 ◼   ► And that's okay.

01:31:01 ◼   ► I mean, you know, it's my job,

01:31:03 ◼   ► but I feel like I've gotten better enough at doing this,

01:31:05 ◼   ► and I feel like I'm still attracting

01:31:07 ◼   ► an interesting enough group of sponsors

01:31:10 ◼   ► that it's a fun game for me when I do 'em

01:31:13 ◼   ► to try to, you know,

01:31:14 ◼   ► and when I'm doing 'em, I'm imagining a listener

01:31:19 ◼   ► with his thumb hovering over the 30-second skip,

01:31:21 ◼   ► and I'm trying to keep him from pressing it,

01:31:24 ◼   ► or at least only having him press it once.

01:31:26 ◼   ► - Yeah.

01:31:27 ◼   ► - And I still think there's some value in it.

01:31:28 ◼   ► Like for example, I'll break right into one right now.

01:31:32 ◼   ► And here's one that I'll bet a fair number of people

01:31:35 ◼   ► will 30 seconds skip because they are here

01:31:38 ◼   ► almost every single week.

01:31:39 ◼   ► It's our friends at Fracture.

01:31:40 ◼   ► They'll fracture the people who print your photos on glass.

01:31:46 ◼   ► They sponsor the show all the time.

01:31:51 ◼   ► And the reason they keep coming back

01:31:52 ◼   ► is 'cause you guys out there keep buying pictures from them.

01:31:57 ◼   ► so you're probably familiar with them.

01:31:59 ◼   ► Really high quality printing.

01:32:00 ◼   ► They print on the back of the glass.

01:32:02 ◼   ► You send them a photo.

01:32:03 ◼   ► They print it on the back of the glass.

01:32:04 ◼   ► It's right there on the glass,

01:32:05 ◼   ► not like a piece of paper stuck to it.

01:32:07 ◼   ► It's not a frame where there's a piece of paper

01:32:09 ◼   ► behind glass.

01:32:09 ◼   ► It's right there on the glass.

01:32:11 ◼   ► Really, really nice.

01:32:12 ◼   ► The best way to get actual analog versions of your photos

01:32:15 ◼   ► that I've ever seen,

01:32:16 ◼   ► because there's no work involved on your part.

01:32:18 ◼   ► You just upload the photo and then it comes back to you

01:32:20 ◼   ► and it's all nice and ready to go.

01:32:22 ◼   ► They do have, they actually have a special message

01:32:25 ◼   ► that they want me to get across.

01:32:27 ◼   ► It's only October 1st as I record.

01:32:29 ◼   ► Clearly a big part of Fracture's market is gifts,

01:32:35 ◼   ► people buying photos for gifts.

01:32:37 ◼   ► And obviously the holiday season's coming up.

01:32:40 ◼   ► October 1st does not sound like it's close to the holidays.

01:32:42 ◼   ► Nobody's, I don't think, even though the holiday decorations

01:32:46 ◼   ► seem to go up earlier and earlier in retail.

01:32:48 ◼   ► Usually people at least wait till Halloween.

01:32:50 ◼   ► - Yeah, we're still in pumpkin spice season right now.

01:32:52 ◼   ► - Yeah, exactly.

01:32:53 ◼   ► You gotta wait till pumpkin spice goes away.

01:32:55 ◼   ► But, Fracture wants me to remind you

01:32:59 ◼   ► that they do get backed up at the holidays.

01:33:02 ◼   ► And so, this might be a good way

01:33:05 ◼   ► to just knock out a couple of your Christmas gifts

01:33:08 ◼   ► really, really early and not worry about cutting it close

01:33:11 ◼   ► and getting caught behind because by the end of December,

01:33:14 ◼   ► they actually can't keep up and you can't do it last minute

01:33:17 ◼   ► and get it in time for Christmas

01:33:19 ◼   ► because they're so, so busy.

01:33:20 ◼   ► So think about it.

01:33:23 ◼   ► about the people who you might want to give a fracture image to for the

01:33:27 ◼   ► holidays and get it over with now just do it and you'll feel better you'll know

01:33:31 ◼   ► you have you know somewhere sitting in your office you've got these boxes

01:33:33 ◼   ► packed up you've already got some of your Christmas gifts knocked out ready

01:33:37 ◼   ► to go really is a good gift we do it every year I can't even imagine until

01:33:42 ◼   ► fracture isn't even around anymore I can't imagine that a holiday season is

01:33:46 ◼   ► gonna go by where we don't get some of these for some of the people in our

01:33:48 ◼   ► family. Really, really great stuff. Where do you go to find

01:33:53 ◼   ► out more? Their website is fracture me.com. And their URL

01:34:01 ◼   ► code is, I think, daring fireball. And if you've never

01:34:06 ◼   ► ordered for them before, use that code daring fireball, and

01:34:09 ◼   ► you will save 15% off your listeners first order. And if

01:34:14 ◼   ► you're listening to the show, if you're like a Marco fan, you

01:34:16 ◼   ► could use the code ATP and you'll save the same amount and you'll give the

01:34:20 ◼   ► the mojo to to the accidental tech podcast ATP 15 ATP 15 what did that

01:34:30 ◼   ► change used to be ATP right or did they I think I think in 2015 I think it became

01:34:34 ◼   ► me to be 15 anyway you could do that long-term that you know they were

01:34:37 ◼   ► sponsors before 2015 they've been long-term sponsors anyway it's all good

01:34:41 ◼   ► they're a great company with a truly truly great product and you know

01:34:46 ◼   ► If you've ever wondered why in the world do they keep sponsoring these podcasts?

01:34:49 ◼   ► I swear it's because people keep buying the fractures from them

01:34:52 ◼   ► So so keep it up and really really can't say enough about I just bought one as a gift a couple weeks ago

01:34:56 ◼   ► I'm about to do another one. They make great gifts

01:34:58 ◼   ► Yeah, you get you do get because most of the people in your family probably don't listen to your podcast just like mine

01:35:04 ◼   ► I don't say they have no idea and when they see them they there really is like a whole like well

01:35:09 ◼   ► How did in the world did you make this and you just say, you know, you could tell them just tell them

01:35:14 ◼   ► go to fracturedme.com.

01:35:16 ◼   ► - Yeah, no, I have severe gift giving anxiety every year.

01:35:21 ◼   ► And to have an easy solution that's kind of like

01:35:24 ◼   ► a go-to thing, like if I don't know what to get

01:35:26 ◼   ► somebody in my family, I can get them a cute picture

01:35:28 ◼   ► of my grandparents or my kid or something.

01:35:32 ◼   ► That works out well.

01:35:33 ◼   ► Yeah, I don't know.

01:35:35 ◼   ► I'm always envious of your ad reads.

01:35:37 ◼   ► You and Hello Internet, I think,

01:35:39 ◼   ► do the best live reads I've heard.

01:35:41 ◼   ► - Those bastards, those guys.

01:35:42 ◼   ► - Aren't they frustratingly good?

01:35:44 ◼   ► - Yeah.

01:35:45 ◼   ► - They really are.

01:35:45 ◼   ► - That actually, 'cause again, I do,

01:35:47 ◼   ► I don't, like I listen to yours, you know,

01:35:49 ◼   ► because I wanna see how you do it, you know,

01:35:51 ◼   ► like it's a challenge.

01:35:52 ◼   ► - That's why I listen to it.

01:35:54 ◼   ► - It's just, it's, you know, like, okay,

01:35:55 ◼   ► it's Squarespace again, what are you gonna do?

01:35:57 ◼   ► You know, it's a challenge, it is,

01:35:59 ◼   ► 'cause I wanna keep it fresh for people who aren't skipping.

01:36:03 ◼   ► I don't wanna say the same thing every time.

01:36:05 ◼   ► The Hello Internet guys, God,

01:36:06 ◼   ► they're fricking really good at it.

01:36:08 ◼   ► - Yeah, like it's frustrating enough

01:36:10 ◼   ► that their podcast is so good in general,

01:36:12 ◼   ► but that they also just kill it on the ad reads

01:36:14 ◼   ► and that they record, like I've always wanted

01:36:17 ◼   ► to try recording the ads separately from the show

01:36:19 ◼   ► and dropping them in afterwards.

01:36:21 ◼   ► - I just thought about it.

01:36:22 ◼   ► - I don't like doing it during the show

01:36:24 ◼   ► because it makes me pay attention to something else

01:36:28 ◼   ► during the show rather than what my co-host

01:36:30 ◼   ► is talking about.

01:36:31 ◼   ► And so like I always have in my mind,

01:36:32 ◼   ► oh, I gotta do another ad now,

01:36:33 ◼   ► and I, oh, what's it gonna be, load it up on screen,

01:36:36 ◼   ► maybe read it a couple times first, like,

01:36:38 ◼   ► and I'm having to do all that as Casey or Jon

01:36:40 ◼   ► talking about something that and so I'm not listening to them I'm looking at an

01:36:43 ◼   ► ad and so I feel like that makes the show worse but I I don't know I I

01:36:48 ◼   ► haven't figured out how to do it well yet maybe I'll have to try it sometime

01:36:51 ◼   ► and see I've I've been given serious thought to that exact same thing and I

01:36:54 ◼   ► might play with it cuz I feel like it's the sort of thing I can I can play with

01:36:57 ◼   ► and it's not irrevocable you know yeah but I feel like you do need some kind of

01:37:02 ◼   ► sound effect to start and end it and I don't have one of those ready and

01:37:05 ◼   ► that's one of the reasons I haven't done it yet because like if you just try to

01:37:07 ◼   ► drop it in you sound different and everyone notices like it is very obvious

01:37:12 ◼   ► like this is recorded at a different time your voice is more or less tired

01:37:16 ◼   ► and raspy than it was and like in the surrounding parts of the show you can

01:37:19 ◼   ► hear maybe the room sounds a little bit different maybe it's like a little bit

01:37:22 ◼   ► more echoey or you were using the mic a little bit further away or a different

01:37:25 ◼   ► mic that you were using two weeks ago or something like you can always tell when

01:37:28 ◼   ► it's when it was recorded at a different time have you ever noticed me I've done

01:37:32 ◼   ► that a few times have you ever noticed yeah every time I'll bet you did I

01:37:36 ◼   ► - I notice every time.

01:37:37 ◼   ► And I listen to podcasts on terrible headphones.

01:37:40 ◼   ► And I notice every time.

01:37:41 ◼   ► But that's just me, I'm a nerd.

01:37:43 ◼   ► - Yeah, if I switch to that, when I have done it,

01:37:45 ◼   ► it's because something has changed.

01:37:47 ◼   ► Either I've made a terrible mistake,

01:37:49 ◼   ► or somebody else has made a mistake,

01:37:51 ◼   ► or I didn't get it in time.

01:37:55 ◼   ► That there was some kind of communication problem

01:37:57 ◼   ► and it's like, crap, I told Marco,

01:37:59 ◼   ► we're gonna record at nine, I don't have it.

01:38:01 ◼   ► I'll just fill it in later.

01:38:02 ◼   ► And then when I've done that in the past,

01:38:04 ◼   ► I've tried to fake it as best we can to do it.

01:38:07 ◼   ► And if it doesn't come out perfectly, so what?

01:38:09 ◼   ► If I were to switch, I would switch to something

01:38:11 ◼   ► where it's obvious and it's, you know,

01:38:12 ◼   ► there's a little, you know, sound effect or something.

01:38:15 ◼   ► - Yeah, a jingle or a sound, yeah, something like that.

01:38:17 ◼   ► 'Cause I really do think it would, like,

01:38:20 ◼   ► one of the reasons, like, I've always been interested

01:38:23 ◼   ► in the idea of trying an ad-free show.

01:38:26 ◼   ► But ATP is so big now, and it's not just me,

01:38:28 ◼   ► that I, like, you know, I'm willing to gamble

01:38:32 ◼   ► with large amounts of money of potential future income,

01:38:35 ◼   ► but I can't make that decision for two other people alone.

01:38:38 ◼   ► And so I don't wanna rock the boat there.

01:38:41 ◼   ► But one of the reasons I was motivated

01:38:43 ◼   ► to even consider rocking the boat there

01:38:44 ◼   ► is because I don't like doing the ads in line,

01:38:47 ◼   ► because I'm afraid of the attention it's taking away,

01:38:51 ◼   ► of my attention it's taking away from the conversation.

01:38:55 ◼   ► And I think that makes it worse, so I should try that.

01:38:57 ◼   ► I gotta figure out what sounds to bookend it with

01:38:59 ◼   ► and just try it.

01:39:00 ◼   ► And I also like, I heavily edit the ad reads because,

01:39:04 ◼   ► see this is why you frustrate me.

01:39:07 ◼   ► Because I try to cap my ad reads to three minutes.

01:39:11 ◼   ► And ideally it's at least one and a half,

01:39:14 ◼   ► and it's at most three minutes.

01:39:16 ◼   ► And if I, I almost always end up running way over that.

01:39:19 ◼   ► I'll usually do it on the live show,

01:39:22 ◼   ► I'll usually do a four minute ad read.

01:39:24 ◼   ► And then in the edit, I edit it down to fit three.