ATP

00:00:00 ◼   ► Anyway, this is boring, let's move on, I'm gonna cut all this.

00:00:02 ◼   ► Although, yeah, well, that's good because I only started recording four minutes ago.

00:00:06 ◼   ► All right!

00:00:07 ◼   ► Casey!

00:00:08 ◼   ► Come on, man!

00:00:09 ◼   ► All right, so let's move on to some follow-up.

00:00:12 ◼   ► We have some follow-up from fee5ofum.

00:00:14 ◼   ► John, would you like to tell us about this?

00:00:16 ◼   ► What?

00:00:17 ◼   ► Yeah, I gotta undo my pronunciation here, but, uh, so we got an email from the dog collar

00:00:21 ◼   ► people, the company name, or the product name, and I guess the company name as well is spelled

00:00:26 ◼   ► F.I. and I was pronouncing it "fee" because that seems reasonable, but Lucy from the company

00:00:32 ◼   ► spelled F.I. tells us that it's pronounced like "fi-do" or "wi-fi" so it's "fi" like

00:00:38 ◼   ► "fee-fi-fo-fum" or "f" with the word "i" after it.

00:00:42 ◼   ► Lucy says, "Many, many people go for fee first.

00:00:45 ◼   ► We should probably put it as the banner at the top of the website, you think?

00:00:48 ◼   ► Every company that has a weird name should have the pronunciation prominently placed

00:00:53 ◼   ► on the website."

00:00:55 ◼   ► Some people don't have it at all, which is bad, but some people have it like, "Oh, if

00:00:57 ◼   ► you dig and go to the about page and read all the text, we'll tell you how to pronounce

00:01:02 ◼   ► it," right?

00:01:03 ◼   ► That's better than nothing.

00:01:04 ◼   ► But if you have a weird name and people instinctively go for the "wrong" pronunciation first, you

00:01:10 ◼   ► have to address that in an obvious way right in front of people.

00:01:14 ◼   ► Otherwise, you're just going to be called "Fee" forever.

00:01:16 ◼   ► It's going to be so hard for me to change this into my mind because I don't know if

00:01:19 ◼   ► I can say "Fie."

00:01:21 ◼   ► I think "Fee" might be a better name.

00:01:22 ◼   ► I mean, it makes sense with the Fido,

00:01:23 ◼   ► like I understand where it's coming from.

00:01:25 ◼   ► Anyway, so there's that.

00:01:27 ◼   ► Also, I can't even, I'm like Casey now,

00:01:30 ◼   ► I go for the right pronunciation and I put the wrong one.

00:01:33 ◼   ► The Fi company created a discount code just for us.

00:01:38 ◼   ► I actually put it in last week's show notes

00:01:39 ◼   ► because they got it to us in time for that.

00:01:42 ◼   ► But it's ATP 100, that's the $100 off thing.

00:01:46 ◼   ► There's a bunch of other codes,

00:01:48 ◼   ► there's all the same $100 off.

00:01:49 ◼   ► If you go to their website, at the bottom of the website

00:01:52 ◼   ► is the $100 off code, different $100 off codes.

00:01:54 ◼   ► This is not like a secret that you can only get

00:01:55 ◼   ► through this podcast, blah, blah, blah.

00:01:56 ◼   ► They continue to not be a sponsor.

00:01:58 ◼   ► This is not a sponsored spot at all, period, whatever.

00:02:01 ◼   ► But if you want an NJP 100,

00:02:04 ◼   ► you can get $100 off their collar,

00:02:05 ◼   ► or you can just enter the code that's at the bottom

00:02:07 ◼   ► of the webpage that you go to buy it on.

00:02:09 ◼   ► So I just thought I would include that here.

00:02:11 ◼   ► Collar's still working out fine.

00:02:12 ◼   ► I actually charged it for the first time since having it.

00:02:15 ◼   ► It was only down to like 38%.

00:02:17 ◼   ► I think it probably would have made it one month

00:02:18 ◼   ► on a charge, but definitely not the three months

00:02:21 ◼   ► that they say is possible if your dog, I guess,

00:02:24 ◼   ► stays within WiFi range all the time, but my dog doesn't.

00:02:27 ◼   ► She goes out on the doggy playdate four days a week,

00:02:30 ◼   ► and that is probably draining the battery a lot.

00:02:32 ◼   ► - Good deal.

00:02:34 ◼   ► We also got word, I think we saw this

00:02:37 ◼   ► from a couple of different people,

00:02:37 ◼   ► that a new Mustang is in the works for 2023 or 2024.

00:02:41 ◼   ► So actually, I should've looked this up,

00:02:43 ◼   ► and I completely forgot.

00:02:44 ◼   ► Is the Mustang available brand new right now,

00:02:46 ◼   ► you know, the chip shortages and whatnot, notwithstanding--

00:02:49 ◼   ► It is, but it's an older model that they're just still selling

00:02:52 ◼   ► and putting new model years out with different options

00:02:55 ◼   ► or trim or whatever.

00:02:56 ◼   ► But reportedly, there actually is going to be a new Mustang.

00:02:59 ◼   ► So Ford will actually sell cars.

00:03:01 ◼   ► Lots of other people who are outside the US

00:03:03 ◼   ► point out that Ford does sell cars as opposed

00:03:06 ◼   ► to trucks and SUVs.

00:03:07 ◼   ► Outside the US, we should have been more clear

00:03:09 ◼   ► in our typical US-centric thing when we say,

00:03:11 ◼   ► Ford doesn't sell cars anymore.

00:03:13 ◼   ► We meant in the US.

00:03:14 ◼   ► But yeah, they sell lots of cars elsewhere in the world

00:03:16 ◼   ► because no one else in the world is so obsessed

00:03:19 ◼   ► with trucks and gigantic SUVs as we are.

00:03:21 ◼   ► - That is true.

00:03:23 ◼   ► All right, and then we lied about something else.

00:03:27 ◼   ► Apparently the PSR, the Sony PSVR2, that is a mouthful,

00:03:32 ◼   ► they did show the controllers off somewhere.

00:03:35 ◼   ► - Yeah, in their press release,

00:03:36 ◼   ► they didn't have any pictures.

00:03:37 ◼   ► And in the presentation, they didn't have any pictures,

00:03:39 ◼   ► but on their website and like the pictures for media,

00:03:42 ◼   ► they did have pictures of the controllers.

00:03:44 ◼   ► They look like, I forget which other, maybe Marco knows,

00:03:47 ◼   ► These look like the Quest controllers.

00:03:49 ◼   ► There are existing VR controllers that are like this.

00:03:50 ◼   ► Maybe it's the Valve Index.

00:03:51 ◼   ► - Yeah, the Quest controllers are,

00:03:53 ◼   ► I mean, sorry, whatever, is it called the Quest now?

00:03:55 ◼   ► What the hell is this called?

00:03:56 ◼   ► - Quest 2, isn't it?

00:03:57 ◼   ► - Well, yeah, whatever the thing formerly called

00:03:59 ◼   ► the Oculus Quest 2. (laughs)

00:04:02 ◼   ► Yeah, the controllers look pretty similar to this.

00:04:04 ◼   ► They're just white, but otherwise they're pretty similar.

00:04:06 ◼   ► - Yeah, and if you look at the controls,

00:04:07 ◼   ► it's got similar to the PlayStation buttons

00:04:09 ◼   ► with the different shapes on them,

00:04:11 ◼   ► and those thumbsticks are like PlayStation thumbsticks.

00:04:13 ◼   ► So they did show this.

00:04:14 ◼   ► I don't think they showed the thing itself.

00:04:17 ◼   ► One of the technologies they mentioned,

00:04:19 ◼   ► which is worth noting, is that they're moving

00:04:21 ◼   ► to what they call inside-out tracking,

00:04:22 ◼   ► which I think maybe the Quest does as well,

00:04:24 ◼   ► a bunch of other ones do,

00:04:26 ◼   ► where the way it keeps track of where your body

00:04:30 ◼   ► and head and hands are positioned in space

00:04:33 ◼   ► is not with external sensors

00:04:35 ◼   ► that you have to put around your room,

00:04:36 ◼   ► but rather with sensors on the headset thing

00:04:41 ◼   ► and also on the hands, so they see each other,

00:04:44 ◼   ► so they position themselves relative to themselves.

00:04:46 ◼   ► That's why they call it inside-out tracking instead of having like fixed locations around the room

00:04:50 ◼   ► They're trying to keep track of where your hands are

00:04:52 ◼   ► Again it's not not a notable new technology, but it's notable for Sony to be switching to that from their previous system

00:04:58 ◼   ► so all the tech and everything looks pretty good, but

00:05:01 ◼   ► you know no price no picture of the headset that I could find and

00:05:06 ◼   ► I think no real release date yet, but it's coming along

00:05:09 ◼   ► All right, and then Justin Krohn wrote in with regard to Canon DSLRs and someone to read a little bit of this

00:05:16 ◼   ► A major advantage of mirrorless that isn't often discussed is the dramatically reduced

00:05:20 ◼   ► Flange Focal Distance, or FFD. Having a smaller FFD allows lens designers more flexibility in

00:05:25 ◼   ► designing lenses for the camera, as they can place lens elements closer to the camera's sensor than

00:05:30 ◼   ► was possible with DSLRs, and that's because they need the additional distance for the mirror to

00:05:34 ◼   ► flap. This has enabled some unique lenses exclusive to the Canon RF or mirrorless line of cameras,

00:05:40 ◼   ► including and according to Justin, his new personal favorite zoom lens, the 2870 F2L.

00:05:47 ◼   ► From Canon's white paper on the RF system, quote, "The reduction from a 44mm flange back

00:05:52 ◼   ► distance in the EF mount system to the 20mm of the new RF mount system opens important

00:05:56 ◼   ► additional degrees of freedom in lens designs.

00:05:58 ◼   ► The pivotal innovation offered by this short distance combined with the large 54mm diameter

00:06:02 ◼   ► RF mount is the freedom to deploy large diameter optical elements at the very rear of the lens

00:06:08 ◼   ► and closer to the large image sensor. So back to Justin. While Canon simply said that they

00:06:13 ◼   ► don't plan on making additional flagship DSLRs like the 1DX etc, I would still be extremely

00:06:19 ◼   ► surprised if the 3 or 5 series get any additional DSLR models. The R5, which is the mirrorless

00:06:24 ◼   ► 5D replacement, has been extremely well received both in terms of reviews and in sales, to

00:06:30 ◼   ► where they had a difficulty in keeping it in stock for the first year of production.

00:06:34 ◼   ► Same for the more recent introduction of the R3. Plus all Canon R&D is focused on the RF

00:06:38 ◼   ► line of lenses as opposed to EF, so any DSLR purchases are buying into a static system.

00:06:43 ◼   ► Into the road for those lenses that are far away from the sensors.

00:06:48 ◼   ► That's one of the advantages of the small, the APS-C sensor I have that's small.

00:06:55 ◼   ► Small sensor also means you can have small lenses, and I think the distance from the

00:06:58 ◼   ► lens also helps everything be a bit more compact with the mirrorless cameras.

00:07:05 ◼   ► Some people who were replying to our discussion last week were really just extolling the virtues

00:07:09 ◼   ► of being able to see through the lens that's going to take the picture.

00:07:12 ◼   ► And they said, "No, no electronic viewfinder has to come close to that."

00:07:15 ◼   ► Electronic viewfinders continue to get better and better in terms of responsiveness.

00:07:19 ◼   ► They have like 120 frames per second, very high resolution.

00:07:22 ◼   ► No, it's probably not going to be exactly the same for a little while as literally looking

00:07:27 ◼   ► through the lens because that's real time, real light going to your real eyeballs.

00:07:31 ◼   ► But there are advantages to the electronic viewfinder as well in that the electronic

00:07:35 ◼   ► viewfinder can be brighter than what you see through the lens because it's an emissive

00:07:39 ◼   ► screen that you can adjust the brightness of.

00:07:42 ◼   ► And sometimes that is useful.

00:07:45 ◼   ► And if you have really bad vision, there are probably about, you know, there are like retina

00:07:49 ◼   ► screens at this point for my eyeballs and really good cameras as well.

00:07:53 ◼   ► So I think the tradeoff is well worth it for the compact size and apparently there's an

00:07:57 ◼   ► advantage to lens design as well.

00:07:59 ◼   ► - I would say, having spent a lot of time with both,

00:08:02 ◼   ► I don't think electronic viewfinders will ever be

00:08:07 ◼   ► as good as optical viewfinders in the ways

00:08:10 ◼   ► that people care about when they make this distinction.

00:08:12 ◼   ► However, I think there's just so many other advantages

00:08:15 ◼   ► to electronic viewfinder-based cameras,

00:08:17 ◼   ► like the whole mirrorless, that whole world.

00:08:20 ◼   ► There's so many advantages there

00:08:21 ◼   ► that we're just gonna let that go.

00:08:23 ◼   ► Not everybody will, there's always gonna be some people

00:08:26 ◼   ► who keep the optical viewfinder,

00:08:27 ◼   ► just like some people still use.

00:08:29 ◼   ► things like range finders today,

00:08:30 ◼   ► even though there's more modern alternatives

00:08:32 ◼   ► that most people use.

00:08:34 ◼   ► But there's always gonna be something like that,

00:08:35 ◼   ► but I think it's gonna become a narrower

00:08:37 ◼   ► and narrower part of the market,

00:08:39 ◼   ► because everyone's choosing mirrorless,

00:08:41 ◼   ► despite the fact that electronic view finders

00:08:43 ◼   ► are worse in certain ways,

00:08:45 ◼   ► because of the other value

00:08:46 ◼   ► that they're getting as a result.

00:08:48 ◼   ► - Which ways do you think they're worse, though?

00:08:49 ◼   ► Like, it used to be the thing was basically frame rate.

00:08:52 ◼   ► Like, reality doesn't have a frame lag behind it,

00:08:54 ◼   ► you're just literally looking through the thing,

00:08:56 ◼   ► so as soon as you move the camera, you see the change.

00:08:57 ◼   ► but at 120 frames per second, I feel like that has basically

00:09:02 ◼   ► gotten that one good enough that most people can't tell.

00:09:04 ◼   ► So the only thing left is color reproduction and resolution.

00:09:07 ◼   ► And I think the advantages of the viewfinder,

00:09:10 ◼   ► like the fact that it can light up and be brighter

00:09:12 ◼   ► than what you're actually seeing,

00:09:14 ◼   ► probably balance those out.

00:09:16 ◼   ► I know people just want it 'cause it's traditional

00:09:18 ◼   ► and because 120 frames per second

00:09:20 ◼   ► is only on a few high-end cameras

00:09:22 ◼   ► and it drains the battery faster

00:09:23 ◼   ► so you don't use it all the time.

00:09:24 ◼   ► We're not quite there yet,

00:09:26 ◼   ► but I think we're getting close to the point

00:09:27 ◼   ► where there won't be a strong argument

00:09:30 ◼   ► for why you need the optical viewfinder,

00:09:33 ◼   ► especially because there is like,

00:09:34 ◼   ► oh, I like being able to look through the thing,

00:09:36 ◼   ► but you can't look through it when you're taking the picture

00:09:38 ◼   ► because the mirror blocks you, right?

00:09:40 ◼   ► And like, oh, that's only for a short period of time.

00:09:42 ◼   ► Well, if you're trying to shoot at 30 frames per second,

00:09:45 ◼   ► you know, it's gonna be blacked out

00:09:47 ◼   ► for a very long portion of that time

00:09:49 ◼   ► until the mirror goes flap, flap, flap, flap, flap.

00:09:51 ◼   ► And then I don't think you can really look

00:09:53 ◼   ► through the viewfinder at all

00:09:54 ◼   ► while you're taking video on one of these cameras,

00:09:56 ◼   ► which is a big application of a lot of these,

00:09:58 ◼   ► the big interchangeable lens cameras, is to do video.

00:10:01 ◼   ► And yeah, the mirror has to be up the whole time

00:10:03 ◼   ► during video and you're not seeing anything then, right?

00:10:06 ◼   ► - Yeah, but I've always enjoyed

00:10:09 ◼   ► how the optical viewfinder system is just direct and simple.

00:10:14 ◼   ► And there are advantages.

00:10:17 ◼   ► You quickly mentioned battery life.

00:10:19 ◼   ► And I think that's one of the reasons why mirrorless cameras

00:10:24 ◼   ► rather, have had such horrendous battery life

00:10:27 ◼   ► for the first portion of their takeover of the market

00:10:30 ◼   ► compared to regular SLRs because they're having

00:10:34 ◼   ► to run these screens all the time

00:10:35 ◼   ► and having to run the image sensors

00:10:37 ◼   ► to capture the data for the screens

00:10:38 ◼   ► and display the screens and light them up and everything.

00:10:39 ◼   ► And that's such a more power hungry process

00:10:42 ◼   ► than what a DSLR is doing when it's not taking a picture

00:10:46 ◼   ► which is almost nothing.

00:10:48 ◼   ► And so there are advantages in practice to optical,

00:10:52 ◼   ► But, as you mentioned, there are also advantages

00:10:55 ◼   ► to electronic that optical systems can

00:10:57 ◼   ► and will never achieve, and mirrorless will never

00:11:01 ◼   ► really have an optical system, and so, you know,

00:11:03 ◼   ► the industry has moved on, and everyone holding on

00:11:07 ◼   ► to the optical systems will be forced to move on

00:11:09 ◼   ► at some point as well, unless they just want to keep

00:11:13 ◼   ► being relegated to decreasingly useful parts

00:11:16 ◼   ► of the product line.

00:11:18 ◼   ► - All right, John, tell me about TV technology.

00:11:21 ◼   ► some self-follow-up. I'm listening to myself in the last episode. I got a few things slightly wrong.

00:11:25 ◼   ► I heard myself stumbling over them when I was saying them, but I just pulled the wrong answers

00:11:31 ◼   ► out. So first thing, WRGB OLEDs have white backlights, not blue. The QD OLEDs have blue

00:11:38 ◼   ► backlights, but WRGB have white. And I stumbled because I realized what I was saying didn't make

00:11:41 ◼   ► sense unless they were white. So the white backlights in WRGB OLEDs, it's a big white

00:11:46 ◼   ► field of LEDs, every one of them is the size of a pixel, so they're individually controlled,

00:11:51 ◼   ► but each one of those white lights shines through a thing that has a color filter,

00:11:56 ◼   ► and it takes white light and it goes through the red color filter, and that red color filter only

00:12:00 ◼   ► lets through the red portion of the white light, the red wavelengths. And then there's a blue

00:12:04 ◼   ► filter that only lets through the blue wavelengths, and there's a green filter that only lets through

00:12:08 ◼   ► the green wavelengths. When you're filtering light in that way, when you're taking white light and

00:12:12 ◼   ► only letting through the red, the green, or the blue, you're losing brightness because

00:12:16 ◼   ► you're just discarding all the other wavelengths of light.

00:12:19 ◼   ► The backlight is emitting a bunch of different wavelengths of light.

00:12:22 ◼   ► And then of course WRGB has the W pixel that's just less through the white light, right,

00:12:25 ◼   ► straight through, but that washes out the colors.

00:12:28 ◼   ► So that's why one of the reasons that OLEDs have trouble getting bright, they are intentionally

00:12:32 ◼   ► filtering around a lot of the light from their backlights.

00:12:34 ◼   ► And remember the magic of QD OLED is the backlight is blue because that's cheap to make and you

00:12:40 ◼   ► you can make it super duper bright.

00:12:41 ◼   ► And then the quantum dots don't filter out wavelengths

00:12:44 ◼   ► 'cause it's just blue light.

00:12:45 ◼   ► It's like pure blue, just blue wavelength.

00:12:48 ◼   ► The quantum dots change the light.

00:12:50 ◼   ► The light hits this material that excites it

00:12:53 ◼   ► and we put the link in the show last week

00:12:55 ◼   ► of the little electrons changing energy states

00:12:57 ◼   ► and stuff or whatever.

00:12:57 ◼   ► But it essentially changes the wavelength of the light

00:13:00 ◼   ► from blue into red, from blue into green

00:13:03 ◼   ► and then just lets the blue through on the blue side.

00:13:06 ◼   ► But apparently QDL ads do have quote unquote filters on them

00:13:10 ◼   ► which act as diffusers to make sure the light goes out in all directions.

00:13:14 ◼   ► The thing is, the diffusers don't end up blocking the light of light because by the time the

00:13:17 ◼   ► light gets through the QD layer, it is very purely blue, red, or green already.

00:13:23 ◼   ► And so the red filter is just blocking out any wavelength that didn't get converted by

00:13:27 ◼   ► the quantum dots.

00:13:28 ◼   ► And the quantum dots are very efficient, much more efficient than the filter.

00:13:31 ◼   ► So you're taking 100% of your backlight and putting it through the QD layer, maybe you

00:13:35 ◼   ► get 80% of it out, and then that gets diffused.

00:13:38 ◼   ► Whereas in WRGB OLED you're taking 100% of your white light and cutting off like 60%

00:13:43 ◼   ► of it to just get the blue wavelength or whatever.

00:13:45 ◼   ► So that's why in theory QD OLEDs have the potential to be much brighter.

00:13:50 ◼   ► And of course there's no white subpixel to wash out the saturation of the light.

00:13:53 ◼   ► So the QD OLEDs have better viewing angle because that diffuser is the very last layer

00:13:56 ◼   ► in the layer cake and spreads the light out in all directions.

00:13:59 ◼   ► So you have amazing viewing angles.

00:14:02 ◼   ► Especially it's also especially a problem in WRGB OLEDs that off axis, even before the

00:14:06 ◼   ► brightness changes, you tend to get a tint to it, like the most recent high-end LG WRGB

00:14:14 ◼   ► OLEDs get a reddish tint off axis, which is kind of annoying, and QD OLEDs don't have

00:14:18 ◼   ► that.

00:14:20 ◼   ► And they could potentially be brighter.

00:14:22 ◼   ► And I found an old story when looking at this from 2019 about Samsung's investment in their

00:14:28 ◼   ► QD OLED factory.

00:14:29 ◼   ► They put $11 billion into this in 2019 to be able to make QD OLED panels.

00:14:36 ◼   ► So yeah, this is kind of, it was almost like silicon fabs where like it takes a lot of

00:14:39 ◼   ► money just to be able to eventually many years later get a factory that can make these things.

00:14:44 ◼   ► And finally, I think we mentioned it briefly in the last show, but it's worth mentioning

00:14:47 ◼   ► again.

00:14:48 ◼   ► Micro LED is still the holy grail.

00:14:50 ◼   ► That's where every single sub pixel is like a red LED, a green LED and a blue LED.

00:14:54 ◼   ► Instead of this business where there's a white LED behind the color filters or a blue LED

00:14:58 ◼   ► behind quantum dots, why not just have a red LED, a green LED and a blue LED?

00:15:02 ◼   ► You're done, right?

00:15:03 ◼   ► The answer is because it's insanely expensive to do that.

00:15:05 ◼   ► That's what we want.

00:15:06 ◼   ► That's what everybody wants.

00:15:07 ◼   ► But those screens are five and six figures at this point.

00:15:11 ◼   ► But they look amazing.

00:15:12 ◼   ► So if you're super, super, super, duper rich, and you have a really big house, because it's

00:15:16 ◼   ► actually kind of hard to make these things small, get a micro LED TV, but be prepared

00:15:20 ◼   ► to pay as much as a Lamborghini for one.

00:15:22 ◼   ► No, no, it's worth noting.

00:15:24 ◼   ► So you put a video in our notes, which I've put in the show notes, and it's some individual

00:15:29 ◼   ► like recapping CES and talking about the $180,000 or something like that.

00:15:35 ◼   ► It was over $100,000, which I know you just said,

00:15:37 ◼   ► but really, think about that, people.

00:15:39 ◼   ► 100 plus thousand dollars for a television

00:15:41 ◼   ► that some people are apparently able to

00:15:44 ◼   ► and willing to spend the money on,

00:15:45 ◼   ► like a 90 inch, $150,000 or whatever it is, TV.

00:15:48 ◼   ► It's bananas.

00:15:49 ◼   ► - And they're more expensive when they get smaller.

00:15:50 ◼   ► They used to sell them that they were 700 inches,

00:15:53 ◼   ► 'cause as you can imagine,

00:15:54 ◼   ► if you make the screen bigger and bigger

00:15:55 ◼   ► and it's still 4K resolution,

00:15:57 ◼   ► it's much easier to make a red, a blue, and a green LED

00:16:00 ◼   ► when they're not that small.

00:16:01 ◼   ► - At that point, I believe you have a scoreboard.

00:16:03 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:16:04 ◼   ► - Exactly, that's the same technology, right?

00:16:07 ◼   ► But when you try to say, I want it to be 4K,

00:16:09 ◼   ► or even worse, 8K, and also be only, quote unquote,

00:16:12 ◼   ► only 90 inches diagonal, you have to make those things

00:16:15 ◼   ► so tiny, and it's so expensive.

00:16:18 ◼   ► And even now, the way they do it,

00:16:20 ◼   ► there is a segmented display technology.

00:16:22 ◼   ► Like, they can't make one screen like that.

00:16:25 ◼   ► They have to make these sub screens,

00:16:26 ◼   ► and then they just tack them together.

00:16:27 ◼   ► They make like tiles, basically,

00:16:29 ◼   ► and they just tack the tiles together

00:16:30 ◼   ► and hope that you can't see the seams between them.

00:16:32 ◼   ► And they do a pretty good job of covering it up,

00:16:33 ◼   ► but it's very expensive.

00:16:36 ◼   ► And it's expensive because of the manufacturing.

00:16:37 ◼   ► They have like robots,

00:16:38 ◼   ► like putting down these microscopic little red, green,

00:16:40 ◼   ► and blue LEDs.

00:16:41 ◼   ► And you know, they all have to be right next to each other

00:16:42 ◼   ► with no spaces between them and uniform and bright,

00:16:45 ◼   ► and they all have to work and it's expensive.

00:16:47 ◼   ► But yeah, that's the ideal where everything is its own LED.

00:16:52 ◼   ► Here's the big thing about why micro LED is great.

00:16:54 ◼   ► Notice the O is not anywhere in this.

00:16:56 ◼   ► There's no organic elements in it.

00:16:58 ◼   ► The organic stuff in OLEDs,

00:17:00 ◼   ► that's the stuff that wears out,

00:17:01 ◼   ► that causes burn-in, image retention, all that,

00:17:04 ◼   ► because the more you run it,

00:17:05 ◼   ► that you wear it out over time,

00:17:07 ◼   ► and if you have something that's on the screen all the time

00:17:10 ◼   ► that wears out those pixels faster than everything else,

00:17:12 ◼   ► then you get image retention.

00:17:14 ◼   ► No organic stuff in a microLED.

00:17:16 ◼   ► It is just plain old inorganic LEDs of the kind we all have,

00:17:19 ◼   ► and we all know those things last forever,

00:17:21 ◼   ► and maintain their brightness, and do not decay.

00:17:24 ◼   ► So, you know, it's gonna be a while

00:17:27 ◼   ► before microLED comes down from the $180,000 price,

00:17:30 ◼   ► But boy, when it does, those screens are gonna be amazing.

00:17:33 ◼   ► - So I don't really follow this kind of stuff

00:17:35 ◼   ► the way you do.

00:17:36 ◼   ► I'm curious, on an infinite time scale,

00:17:40 ◼   ► on what kind of time scale do you think micro LED TVs

00:17:45 ◼   ► might be accessible?

00:17:46 ◼   ► Are we talking about a decade from now?

00:17:50 ◼   ► Five years, 20 years, what are we talking about?

00:17:52 ◼   ► - I think a decade is reasonable.

00:17:53 ◼   ► If you remember, Apple was investing in micro LED.

00:17:56 ◼   ► I think the rumor was for the Apple Watch,

00:17:57 ◼   ► because it's way easier to do a watch

00:17:59 ◼   ► than an 89 inch 8K television, right?

00:18:02 ◼   ► Because there's just fewer pixels.

00:18:03 ◼   ► But if you notice, Apple didn't release a watch

00:18:06 ◼   ► that's micro LED, so it's, everyone wants this technology.

00:18:10 ◼   ► I think a decade is a reasonable timeline.

00:18:12 ◼   ► Like if you look at QD OLED, like you'll find all the Q,

00:18:15 ◼   ► the, you know, Quantum Dot explainer videos

00:18:17 ◼   ► from six, seven years ago, and just now,

00:18:20 ◼   ► we're getting the very first televisions

00:18:22 ◼   ► with QD OLED in them, although we did get

00:18:24 ◼   ► Quantum Dot LCD before that, so I think a 10-year timeline

00:18:26 ◼   ► for micro LED to come down in price is very reasonable

00:18:29 ◼   ► because every year, micro LEDs have been at CES

00:18:33 ◼   ► for the past five years and they used to be 300,000

00:18:36 ◼   ► and 200,000 and 100,000,

00:18:37 ◼   ► I think there was a five figure one this year.

00:18:40 ◼   ► So they are coming down and every year they brag about,

00:18:43 ◼   ► we've made it like 1,500 times less expensive

00:18:46 ◼   ► to manufacture but it still costs as much as a car, right?

00:18:48 ◼   ► So we're getting there, everyone wants to go there

00:18:52 ◼   ► because this solves so many problems

00:18:53 ◼   ► that they have to deal with

00:18:54 ◼   ► with these other display technologies.

00:18:56 ◼   ► but tenure time horizon seems conservative to me.

00:19:00 ◼   ► - All right, Mo Rubinsall writes,

00:19:01 ◼   ► "I was okay with the explanation of chroma subsampling

00:19:04 ◼   ► until John Insigna insulted analog TV

00:19:07 ◼   ► as quote, 'weird and complicated,' quote.

00:19:09 ◼   ► 'I am older than even John,' that's possible,

00:19:12 ◼   ► 'and worked with analog broadcast video

00:19:14 ◼   ► back in the dark ages.

00:19:15 ◼   ► It is a very clever system.

00:19:17 ◼   ► The reason for the signal structure is compatibility.

00:19:19 ◼   ► When color came along, RCA and CBS had competing systems.

00:19:23 ◼   ► CBS's was simpler,

00:19:24 ◼   ► but demanded a different broadcast spectrum

00:19:26 ◼   ► which would obsolete black and white TV sets.

00:19:28 ◼   ► RCA system was compatible with black and white bands

00:19:30 ◼   ► because it broadcast color on a chroma subcarrier,

00:19:33 ◼   ► which a black and white TV would not see.

00:19:35 ◼   ► A color TV would add or subtract the different signals

00:19:37 ◼   ► to get the color signals.

00:19:39 ◼   ► That's cool, I didn't know that.

00:19:40 ◼   ► - Yeah, I would strongly recommend watching

00:19:42 ◼   ► the "Technology Connections" video series on analog TV.

00:19:45 ◼   ► The way it works is fascinating.

00:19:48 ◼   ► However, I think both Mo and John are correct.

00:19:53 ◼   ► analog TV is very clever and also weird and complicated.

00:19:57 ◼   ► You are both correct.

00:19:59 ◼   ► - Yeah, I mean, that's the legacy, compatibility, tech debt,

00:20:03 ◼   ► like the standards that win often have to do weird stuff

00:20:06 ◼   ► and bend over backwards to accommodate existing conditions.

00:20:10 ◼   ► And whoever set up the first system

00:20:12 ◼   ► didn't have color in mind.

00:20:15 ◼   ► And the standard that didn't obsolete all those TVs

00:20:18 ◼   ► was obviously gonna win even if it's weirder

00:20:20 ◼   ► and more complex or quote unquote worse.

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00:22:02 ◼   ► - We should at least quickly mention

00:22:07 ◼   ► that Apple is apparently going to allow

00:22:09 ◼   ► alternate payment systems in the App Store

00:22:11 ◼   ► in South Korea as per laws there.

00:22:14 ◼   ► asterisk, asterisk, asterisk.

00:22:17 ◼   ► - This was discussed a lot when this was going around

00:22:19 ◼   ► of basically saying, okay, well,

00:22:21 ◼   ► even if Apple follows this law,

00:22:22 ◼   ► they're probably gonna charge a fee anyway,

00:22:24 ◼   ► which threw a lot of people for a loop

00:22:26 ◼   ► who hadn't been following the trial closely,

00:22:27 ◼   ► 'cause Tim Cook said this flat out in the trial

00:22:29 ◼   ► and people flipped out about it then,

00:22:30 ◼   ► 'cause he was like, well,

00:22:31 ◼   ► if they don't go through our payment system,

00:22:33 ◼   ► we'll have to find some other way to collect the money.

00:22:34 ◼   ► And everyone's like, what, what?

00:22:36 ◼   ► No, the whole point is if we use our own payment system,

00:22:38 ◼   ► we don't have to pay you.

00:22:39 ◼   ► And Apple was like, oh no, you have to pass.

00:22:41 ◼   ► And so here is finally a concrete version of that where Apple has proposed to the South

00:22:48 ◼   ► Korean lawmakers, "Here's how we're going to comply with your new law.

00:22:51 ◼   ► We're going to do X, we're going to do Y, we're going to do Z."

00:22:53 ◼   ► And part of how they're going to comply is they say, "Oh, and of course we're going to

00:22:57 ◼   ► take a fee for all of these payments that are made through payment processes that are

00:23:02 ◼   ► not ours."

00:23:03 ◼   ► I don't think they said what the fee is or anything like that, but they said they're

00:23:06 ◼   ► going to do that.

00:23:07 ◼   ► So I think this is basically confirmation that if you thought Apple was going to allow

00:23:11 ◼   ► third-party payments and not also take a fee,

00:23:14 ◼   ► no, they're definitely taking a fee.

00:23:15 ◼   ► - Yeah, and to be clear, this is actually,

00:23:17 ◼   ► Google had the same law applied to them in South Korea.

00:23:20 ◼   ► In fact, I'm pretty sure they're much bigger there,

00:23:23 ◼   ► and this law was actually meant really

00:23:24 ◼   ► to change Google's behavior, not necessarily Apple's.

00:23:27 ◼   ► But Google is doing this exact same thing, basically.

00:23:31 ◼   ► I forget the exact numbers, but it's something like,

00:23:33 ◼   ► instead of charging 15%, we'll charge you 13%

00:23:35 ◼   ► or something like it's, and then you can apply

00:23:38 ◼   ► the rest to your credit card fees.

00:23:40 ◼   ► So, yeah, so when people say alternative payment systems,

00:23:44 ◼   ► what we're actually getting in these places

00:23:48 ◼   ► where this exception is being made

00:23:50 ◼   ► is not a monetary savings.

00:23:53 ◼   ► It's the ability to use other systems for other reasons.

00:23:57 ◼   ► Their features, their flexibility,

00:23:59 ◼   ► their customer service implications.

00:24:00 ◼   ► - Yeah, the ability to give people refunds,

00:24:02 ◼   ► like visibility into who's actually buying your stuff.

00:24:06 ◼   ► - Right, but Apple will, I mean, as they said,

00:24:09 ◼   ► And as it blew all of our minds with rage,

00:24:13 ◼   ► they will presumably devise some kind of system

00:24:16 ◼   ► where in order to comply with their app store rules,

00:24:20 ◼   ► you as the app using an external payment system

00:24:22 ◼   ► will have to somehow report your transactions to Apple

00:24:26 ◼   ► so that they can collect their commission.

00:24:29 ◼   ► - I don't know, like what Google did

00:24:30 ◼   ► is they made you use an API.

00:24:31 ◼   ► Like it'll go through an API that sees the amount

00:24:35 ◼   ► and it doesn't do anything with it except for note,

00:24:37 ◼   ► uh-huh, I see you're charging someone X amount

00:24:38 ◼   ► and then it knows how much the Apple says you owe them.

00:24:41 ◼   ► - Right, and you can imagine the massive amounts

00:24:43 ◼   ► of edge cases and complexities that this will bring up.

00:24:46 ◼   ► So for instance, what if the rate that you are paying

00:24:51 ◼   ► in something like foreign currency exchange

00:24:53 ◼   ► is slightly different than what Apple's paying?

00:24:55 ◼   ► What if you issue a refund?

00:24:57 ◼   ► What if the customer issues a chargeback

00:24:59 ◼   ► and you lose that money later?

00:25:00 ◼   ► Like there's so many weird complexities

00:25:04 ◼   ► that will make this pretty much impossible

00:25:07 ◼   ► to, for most people to use this ability

00:25:11 ◼   ► to run their alternative payment system,

00:25:12 ◼   ► that this is gonna be limited only to the largest

00:25:15 ◼   ► of large companies and BS game companies.

00:25:18 ◼   ► Like that's gonna be who uses it and it's gonna be a mess.

00:25:22 ◼   ► And it's ultimately going to change,

00:25:25 ◼   ► probably as far as I can tell,

00:25:27 ◼   ► roughly nothing for the better for almost anybody.

00:25:31 ◼   ► Like I can't imagine this is actually going to help

00:25:35 ◼   ► pretty much anything.

00:25:37 ◼   ► - It has the potential to make customer support better.

00:25:39 ◼   ► For big companies that can navigate all these things

00:25:42 ◼   ► and also want to have better customer support,

00:25:44 ◼   ► they will be able to have better,

00:25:46 ◼   ► they have no ability to influence customer support

00:25:48 ◼   ► whatsoever when they go through Apple's payment

00:25:50 ◼   ► 'cause they literally can't issue any refunds,

00:25:52 ◼   ► have no visibility into it, they have nothing, right?

00:25:54 ◼   ► So if you are a big company

00:25:56 ◼   ► and you want to give a better customer experience

00:25:58 ◼   ► that will make your customers like buying from you,

00:26:00 ◼   ► you'll be better about refunds and customer support

00:26:03 ◼   ► and troubleshooting and being able to contact

00:26:05 ◼   ► customers to like that but really the main reason most developers care about

00:26:10 ◼   ► this is money it's not the customer experience it's not being able to not

00:26:14 ◼   ► even be able to like run metrics on the customers and getting customer data it's

00:26:17 ◼   ► we want to not give someone 30% and so they make this law and I I think the

00:26:24 ◼   ► intention and a lot of people are looking at this law thing this will save

00:26:28 ◼   ► us money and it will kind of because it seems like the fees are going to be less

00:26:33 ◼   ► Well, that's not a given Apple could charge more for this if they wanted

00:26:35 ◼   ► I don't see anything stopping Apple from saying yeah with like a 90% commission on all third-party payments

00:26:39 ◼   ► Right, like that would follow the letter of the law probably

00:26:42 ◼   ► but

00:26:44 ◼   ► They're not getting what they wanted. It's like wait a second. We the whole point is we didn't want to have to pay Apple

00:26:48 ◼   ► Anything it's like oh you're gonna pay Apple and who controls how much we pay Apple Apple still controls that I'm just lucky

00:26:54 ◼   ► That there that seems like they're gonna say we will charge you less than 30% because we understand

00:27:00 ◼   ► I mean, obviously you can't kill the golden ghost here.

00:27:03 ◼   ► If Apple did try to charge 90%,

00:27:05 ◼   ► that becomes economically unfeasible.

00:27:06 ◼   ► People would lose money in every transaction

00:27:08 ◼   ► because these people do have to pay

00:27:09 ◼   ► the actual payment process or whatever they're using, right?

00:27:12 ◼   ► Some amount of money.

00:27:13 ◼   ► And then they would have to pay Apple

00:27:15 ◼   ► and there has to be something left for them, right?

00:27:17 ◼   ► So Apple's not going to make the fee too high.

00:27:19 ◼   ► I think by making it lower,

00:27:21 ◼   ► they're acknowledging that there is another party

00:27:23 ◼   ► in the middle here taking a cut.

00:27:25 ◼   ► So again, there has to be enough left

00:27:27 ◼   ► for the company to stay in business,

00:27:28 ◼   ► otherwise everybody loses.

00:27:30 ◼   ► But otherwise, yeah, it just seems like

00:27:32 ◼   ► this has made things more complex for a lot of people

00:27:36 ◼   ► and has not really made anyone, including Apple,

00:27:38 ◼   ► particularly happy, 'cause Apple has to implement

00:27:40 ◼   ► these stupid APIs and support them, right?

00:27:42 ◼   ► - And have some kind of program to go chase people down

00:27:45 ◼   ► and get, like, that's-- - They have to collect money.

00:27:47 ◼   ► - Yeah, that's kind of, that's a big operation.

00:27:51 ◼   ► And this is why I don't think anyone is happy with this,

00:27:54 ◼   ► including Apple.

00:27:55 ◼   ► I think Apple is reluctantly doing this in this way,

00:27:58 ◼   ► Almost in a way, it's like when a jerky spouse

00:28:03 ◼   ► loads the dishwasher poorly so they won't be asked

00:28:06 ◼   ► to load the dishwasher anymore.

00:28:08 ◼   ► Apple was asked to make something quote better

00:28:11 ◼   ► that they were doing in a way that angered

00:28:13 ◼   ► a lot of regulators and things like that.

00:28:15 ◼   ► And so they're like fine, we told you our system is great

00:28:19 ◼   ► and our system is best and best for everybody

00:28:21 ◼   ► but if you really want to go out there in the wild west

00:28:24 ◼   ► we will finally comply with your law

00:28:26 ◼   ► and they're gonna do it in the crappiest way possible

00:28:30 ◼   ► that will, just the most half-assed,

00:28:35 ◼   ► poorly implemented way so that they can then point to that

00:28:38 ◼   ► and say, look, this doesn't work.

00:28:40 ◼   ► Like now, everywhere else around the world

00:28:43 ◼   ► that tries to pressure them into,

00:28:46 ◼   ► or tries to force them into doing this,

00:28:48 ◼   ► they can point to South Korea and say,

00:28:49 ◼   ► look at this huge mess that we have

00:28:52 ◼   ► when this actually happens,

00:28:53 ◼   ► even though it's a mess that they themselves

00:28:55 ◼   ► have created by inserting themselves into the process

00:28:58 ◼   ► and requiring that they somehow deserve this commission

00:29:00 ◼   ► over all commerce that happens in their platform.

00:29:02 ◼   ► But the reality is, it's gonna suck

00:29:05 ◼   ► for all the companies involved, it's gonna suck for Apple.

00:29:09 ◼   ► It might be, the only way I can think of

00:29:11 ◼   ► that it's actually going to be better

00:29:13 ◼   ► is that a lot of times, the primary concern

00:29:17 ◼   ► why a lot of people wanna use their own payment system

00:29:19 ◼   ► is usually money, but a secondary concern

00:29:22 ◼   ► is not just customer support, which is no small thing,

00:29:25 ◼   ► But integration, like I know just from running my own stuff,

00:29:28 ◼   ► I don't wanna have two different payment APIs

00:29:32 ◼   ► and providers and platforms to the same product.

00:29:35 ◼   ► It's much easier to run a product

00:29:37 ◼   ► if you have one payment system and one user account system

00:29:41 ◼   ► and one shared thing, one platform.

00:29:44 ◼   ► And right now, if you want to offer something

00:29:47 ◼   ► through Apple's system and on the web somewhere,

00:29:50 ◼   ► you have to have two different payment systems.

00:29:51 ◼   ► And that is complex and causes customer support

00:29:54 ◼   ► headaches and generally sucks.

00:29:57 ◼   ► So I understand the argument of like,

00:30:01 ◼   ► well we want it on our own system,

00:30:04 ◼   ► even if the money difference is not that big or not at all.

00:30:07 ◼   ► Because having something on one shared platform

00:30:10 ◼   ► is easier to develop, easier to support,

00:30:13 ◼   ► easier to do customer service and maintenance stuff

00:30:16 ◼   ► over time and everything.

00:30:17 ◼   ► And there are things that, like I've said before,

00:30:20 ◼   ► if Overcast ever wanted to do something

00:30:22 ◼   ► like the readability thing where you pay overcast

00:30:25 ◼   ► some flat fee and it gets divided up into donating

00:30:28 ◼   ► to the podcast you listen to.

00:30:29 ◼   ► By the way, I'm not going to do this.

00:30:30 ◼   ► I don't want to do this.

00:30:32 ◼   ► I'm not going to do this.

00:30:33 ◼   ► I have no plans to do this.

00:30:35 ◼   ► But part of the reason why that kind of idea

00:30:38 ◼   ► never got off the ground is because I knew

00:30:40 ◼   ► that it would suck to have to give Apple 30%.

00:30:42 ◼   ► And another part of the reason that never got off the ground

00:30:44 ◼   ► was the way the payment system works with Apple

00:30:47 ◼   ► makes it very hard for you to be able to know for sure

00:30:51 ◼   ► exactly how much money you got from a particular person.

00:30:55 ◼   ► And that difficulty is one of the reasons

00:30:58 ◼   ► why every music streaming service

00:31:00 ◼   ► doesn't work on that basis.

00:31:02 ◼   ► It works on the giant pool of money basis,

00:31:04 ◼   ► where they pool all the money together

00:31:06 ◼   ► that they get from everybody,

00:31:08 ◼   ► count the number of streams,

00:31:09 ◼   ► and then people get paid by the number of streams,

00:31:12 ◼   ► by the giant pool divided by the number of streams.

00:31:15 ◼   ► Not like your $5 gets divided into 250 each

00:31:20 ◼   ► for the two bands you listened to this month.

00:31:21 ◼   ► That's not how it works on almost anything.

00:31:24 ◼   ► And so to make that kind of system,

00:31:26 ◼   ► which is how I would want to do such a system

00:31:28 ◼   ► if I were to do it, which I'm not,

00:31:29 ◼   ► but if I were to do it, that's how I wanna do it.

00:31:33 ◼   ► But you have to know exactly how much money

00:31:35 ◼   ► you got from each person every month.

00:31:36 ◼   ► And things like failed charges or chargebacks or refunds,

00:31:41 ◼   ► or especially international currency conversion,

00:31:43 ◼   ► make that very difficult to know.

00:31:45 ◼   ► If you had your own system, things like that

00:31:48 ◼   ► would become easier or possible

00:31:50 ◼   ► that weren't easy or possible before.

00:31:53 ◼   ► And all the other advantages, customer service,

00:31:55 ◼   ► refunds, shared payment,

00:31:57 ◼   ► like having one unified payment system,

00:31:59 ◼   ► all of those things are strong advantages,

00:32:01 ◼   ► but the reality is, both the California lawsuit

00:32:05 ◼   ► and the Korean law do not say

00:32:08 ◼   ► Apple can't charge a commission.

00:32:09 ◼   ► They were very clearly about alternative payment systems,

00:32:13 ◼   ► not commission-free alternative payment systems.

00:32:17 ◼   ► And I didn't follow the Korea law creation that much,

00:32:20 ◼   ► but in the California case, the Epic case,

00:32:22 ◼   ► the judge specifically called out Apple's ability

00:32:25 ◼   ► to still collect a commission.

00:32:27 ◼   ► Whatever movement we've had on that front

00:32:30 ◼   ► is not touching the 30% or the 15%.

00:32:32 ◼   ► That's not being addressed at all

00:32:35 ◼   ► with these recent regulation things.

00:32:37 ◼   ► All that's being addressed with those

00:32:39 ◼   ► is the alternative payment processing system.

00:32:41 ◼   ► Now, I wonder if this is the same thing they're doing

00:32:45 ◼   ► for the Japan Trade Commission thing.

00:32:48 ◼   ► I don't know if we've heard anything about that.

00:32:50 ◼   ► - I don't think so.

00:32:51 ◼   ► - They mentioned with the Japan Trade Commission thing

00:32:54 ◼   ► that they were going to be implementing that sometime

00:32:56 ◼   ► like in this, I believe this spring,

00:32:58 ◼   ► like sometime in the next few months,

00:33:00 ◼   ► and that they had to like do work required to support

00:33:04 ◼   ► that one link to a payment system that they would allow,

00:33:07 ◼   ► or to an account creation system that they would allow.

00:33:09 ◼   ► And I wonder if this is the same system.

00:33:11 ◼   ► Like I wonder if they're developing like one API

00:33:14 ◼   ► that they can use for both of these regulations

00:33:18 ◼   ► in both of these regions, or the Japan thing,

00:33:19 ◼   ► I think, is everywhere, but I don't know.

00:33:22 ◼   ► This whole thing, as long as Apple is still able

00:33:26 ◼   ► to demand attacks on all transactions

00:33:30 ◼   ► that happen on their platform

00:33:31 ◼   ► of the types they can enforce it on,

00:33:34 ◼   ► they're going to keep doing that.

00:33:35 ◼   ► And so I don't think we're much better off here.

00:33:39 ◼   ► This is not a win for the little guy.

00:33:41 ◼   ► This is not a win for consumers or most developers.

00:33:46 ◼   ► This is a small number of big companies getting things

00:33:49 ◼   ► to be a little bit more convenient for them.

00:33:51 ◼   ► That's about it.

00:33:52 ◼   ► And a huge pain in the butt to anybody else

00:33:54 ◼   ► who tries to go anywhere near it.

00:33:56 ◼   ► - I don't think Apple's gonna do a bad job on this, though.

00:33:58 ◼   ► I think they'll make the APIs good.

00:33:59 ◼   ► - Oh, they're gonna do a terrible job.

00:34:01 ◼   ► - Like, not intentionally, you know.

00:34:02 ◼   ► Like, the things that'll be bad about it.

00:34:04 ◼   ► - Their in-app purchase APIs are terrible.

00:34:05 ◼   ► Like, even their official system is horrible.

00:34:08 ◼   ► - Well, hold on.

00:34:10 ◼   ► The things that will be bad about it

00:34:11 ◼   ► are the things that are already bad

00:34:12 ◼   ► about Apple's current system.

00:34:13 ◼   ► And those are things that Apple doesn't want to be bad,

00:34:16 ◼   ► but they just are.

00:34:17 ◼   ► Apple's own in-app purchase and its own system

00:34:20 ◼   ► of handling money and accounts and all that

00:34:22 ◼   ► is creaky in a bunch of ways due to its heritage

00:34:24 ◼   ► as the iTunes Music Store.

00:34:26 ◼   ► And that I don't expect to improve.

00:34:28 ◼   ► But the rest of it, I think they'll

00:34:29 ◼   ► try to make as good as they can.

00:34:30 ◼   ► No.

00:34:30 ◼   ► It's like the DMV.

00:34:32 ◼   ► It's like the reason why you go to get your driver's license

00:34:36 ◼   ► renewed and you have really mediocre service

00:34:40 ◼   ► most of the time, is that the government has a monopoly

00:34:43 ◼   ► on that service and you have no choice

00:34:45 ◼   ► and they have very little incentive

00:34:47 ◼   ► to make that really good.

00:34:48 ◼   ► That's Apple and their payment system.

00:34:50 ◼   ► Apple's payment system has always been really mediocre,

00:34:53 ◼   ► really weird at certain supporting things,

00:34:54 ◼   ► totally doesn't support a lot of common requests at all,

00:34:57 ◼   ► and that's how it has always worked

00:35:00 ◼   ► because they have no competition.

00:35:03 ◼   ► I mean, this might change things in a very small way,

00:35:05 ◼   ► but not in a big way, they have no competition

00:35:08 ◼   ► and they have no incentive to make that really great.

00:35:11 ◼   ► - So I agree with the broad strokes of what you're saying,

00:35:15 ◼   ► but you clearly have not touched StoreKit 2,

00:35:17 ◼   ► which is a brand new API this year

00:35:20 ◼   ► that is actually pretty good.

00:35:22 ◼   ► It's not perfect, but it's pretty good.

00:35:24 ◼   ► And it uses async/await, it's all swifty and all the best

00:35:28 ◼   ► in sometimes not so best ways,

00:35:30 ◼   ► but all in all, it's really pretty good.

00:35:33 ◼   ► And I have no idea why they did this other than the fact that StoreKit 1 was a pile of

00:35:38 ◼   ► garbage.

00:35:39 ◼   ► But I can't help but wonder if, what is it, RevenueCat that has the really good front

00:35:45 ◼   ► end in front of all this stuff, so you can basically just use the RevenueCat API, which

00:35:49 ◼   ► was designed by humans rather than the weirdos that designed StoreKit 1.

00:35:55 ◼   ► Nobody designed StoreKit 1.

00:35:56 ◼   ► Well, fair enough.

00:35:57 ◼   ► Fair play.

00:35:58 ◼   ► But you know what I'm saying.

00:35:59 ◼   ► like here's a bunch of humans who have learned lessons

00:36:01 ◼   ► from store kit one and said,

00:36:03 ◼   ► what should this API look like?

00:36:05 ◼   ► And that's what I believe revenue cat API is.

00:36:07 ◼   ► I haven't actually used it.

00:36:09 ◼   ► And I believe they're a past sponsor,

00:36:10 ◼   ► but I'm saying this to you, not because they've sponsored,

00:36:12 ◼   ► but because this is what I've genuinely heard.

00:36:14 ◼   ► But anyway, store kit two,

00:36:16 ◼   ► which I'm using in my forthcoming thing is pretty good.

00:36:19 ◼   ► Again, it's not perfect, but it's pretty good

00:36:21 ◼   ► and fixes most of the problems I had with store kit one,

00:36:24 ◼   ► which is to say all of store kit one.

00:36:26 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:36:27 ◼   ► It's hard to tuck StoreKit and make it not better

00:36:31 ◼   ► than StoreKit 1.

00:36:32 ◼   ► But no, to be fair, I haven't used StoreKit 2 yet.

00:36:35 ◼   ► But I'm talking not only about the app level API, but also

00:36:39 ◼   ► like the entire back end system, the capabilities it offers

00:36:43 ◼   ► at all, how it offers certain capabilities, certain things

00:36:47 ◼   ► that are possible versus not possible, the limitations

00:36:50 ◼   ► that it has.

00:36:51 ◼   ► Like famously, how Amazon couldn't use Apple payment

00:36:54 ◼   ► system if it wanted to for e-books,

00:36:55 ◼   ► because they have too many SKUs,

00:36:57 ◼   ► and they literally can't put that many in Apple's system.

00:37:00 ◼   ► There's problems like that.

00:37:02 ◼   ► The system is very old and creaky.

00:37:08 ◼   ► There's lots of weird gotchas and bugs.

00:37:11 ◼   ► And a new API on the client side helps some of that,

00:37:15 ◼   ► but it doesn't fix most of the core problems.

00:37:18 ◼   ► I think there's two aspects to Apple putting

00:37:21 ◼   ► this API in front of it.

00:37:22 ◼   ► The second one is kind of getting

00:37:24 ◼   ► to what you're talking about is that they're essentially,

00:37:28 ◼   ► they're sabotaging third-party APIs

00:37:30 ◼   ► by giving them the best that Apple has to offer, right?

00:37:33 ◼   ► 'Cause as you noted, like, the best that Apple has to offer

00:37:36 ◼   ► is not competitive in the grand scheme of things

00:37:38 ◼   ► with APIs like Stripe or things that actually

00:37:40 ◼   ► have competition that are developed like in a meaningful way

00:37:42 ◼   ► without tons of tech debt, right?

00:37:44 ◼   ► And so by putting an API in front of third-party ones,

00:37:48 ◼   ► that API, best case, is going to be as good

00:37:51 ◼   ► as Apple's current offerings, and Apple's current offerings

00:37:53 ◼   ► are a little bit feature poor and creaky

00:37:55 ◼   ► and old and weird, right?

00:37:57 ◼   ► So that necessarily drags down the competing ones.

00:38:00 ◼   ► But the first reason they're doing this,

00:38:02 ◼   ► and we just mentioned before, is because they want

00:38:04 ◼   ► to get a cut and they're not gonna use the honor system.

00:38:07 ◼   ► They need to, like the rule is gonna be,

00:38:10 ◼   ► if you use third party payments,

00:38:11 ◼   ► you must use whatever API Apple's gonna come up with

00:38:13 ◼   ► and that lets us see all of your transactions.

00:38:16 ◼   ► So we drag your interface down to sort of the level

00:38:19 ◼   ► that we're at because you have to go through us anyway

00:38:22 ◼   ► and when you go through us, you use our API

00:38:24 ◼   ► that has our limits and our weird bugs

00:38:25 ◼   ► and behaviors, whatever, and also,

00:38:27 ◼   ► we get to see everything that goes by

00:38:28 ◼   ► because we want to charge you.

00:38:30 ◼   ► If Apple wanted to comply with this law,

00:38:32 ◼   ► they could say, the way we're gonna comply with this law

00:38:35 ◼   ► is we're gonna add a new sentence

00:38:36 ◼   ► to our App Store guidelines that says

00:38:37 ◼   ► you can use third-party payment processes if you want,

00:38:40 ◼   ► and then Apple's done.

00:38:41 ◼   ► They don't need to do anything.

00:38:42 ◼   ► If they didn't wanna collect any money,

00:38:43 ◼   ► they could say, oh, we're not gonna collect any of this.

00:38:44 ◼   ► Just go do whatever you want, right?

00:38:46 ◼   ► And then every individual developer would be able to use

00:38:48 ◼   ► whatever payment system they wanted to use,

00:38:50 ◼   ► And some of them would be way better than Apple,

00:38:52 ◼   ► some of them would be way worse,

00:38:53 ◼   ► but Apple wouldn't be involved at all

00:38:55 ◼   ► because they didn't have to take a cut.

00:38:56 ◼   ► That would have been the least work for Apple

00:38:59 ◼   ► and the most benefit for developers,

00:39:01 ◼   ► but they didn't do it because then you don't get any money

00:39:03 ◼   ► and Apple likes money, right?

00:39:04 ◼   ► So I really wonder how Apple's going to spin this,

00:39:06 ◼   ► what their safety argument's gonna be,

00:39:09 ◼   ► because they're gonna have to say,

00:39:11 ◼   ► we added this great new API for third parties,

00:39:13 ◼   ► but third parties don't want that.

00:39:14 ◼   ► Like the whole reason they're adding the API,

00:39:16 ◼   ► it's not primarily to drag them down to their world,

00:39:19 ◼   ► the whole reason they're ending

00:39:20 ◼   ► because they want to cut.

00:39:21 ◼   ► And whenever Apple says anything about App Store

00:39:24 ◼   ► and the way they run it, they never

00:39:26 ◼   ► say we're doing this because it makes us the most money.

00:39:29 ◼   ► Even though we all know, like, it's the elephant in the room.

00:39:33 ◼   ► Why are you doing this?

00:39:34 ◼   ► Because it makes us money.

00:39:35 ◼   ► So hey, Apple, why didn't you just say, OK,

00:39:37 ◼   ► you can use whatever payment processor you want?

00:39:39 ◼   ► They're going to have to come up with a reason it doesn't say

00:39:41 ◼   ► because we wanted your money.

00:39:42 ◼   ► They're going to have to say, oh, we

00:39:44 ◼   ► felt it was the safest because if we use this as a gateway

00:39:46 ◼   ► and there's a malicious actor, we

00:39:48 ◼   ► can shut them down by turning off their API access

00:39:50 ◼   ► or they're going to come up with some reason like that.

00:39:52 ◼   ► Or maybe they just won't say anything at all.

00:39:54 ◼   ► The little quote we have from Apple here is fun,

00:39:58 ◼   ► I thought, because--

00:40:00 ◼   ► all right, so this is the Apple PR statement.

00:40:03 ◼   ► "We look forward to working with the KCC," which is Korean

00:40:06 ◼   ► something or other, "and our developer community

00:40:08 ◼   ► on a solution that benefits our Korean users."

00:40:10 ◼   ► And then Apple goes on to say, "Apple

00:40:12 ◼   ► has a great deal of respect for Korea's laws."

00:40:15 ◼   ► [LAUGHTER]

00:40:17 ◼   ► - Yeah, right.

00:40:18 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:40:19 ◼   ► - Great deal of respect for Korea's law

00:40:19 ◼   ► and a strong history of collaboration with Apple,

00:40:22 ◼   ► with the country's talented app developers, blah, blah, blah.

00:40:25 ◼   ► - Maybe Korea's other laws.

00:40:26 ◼   ► - When a company has to say,

00:40:28 ◼   ► "We have a great respect for your laws."

00:40:30 ◼   ► They say that as if it's optional, as if,

00:40:32 ◼   ► well, we know we don't have to necessarily follow your laws,

00:40:36 ◼   ► but Apple has always had a great deal of respect

00:40:38 ◼   ► for Korea's laws in particular.

00:40:40 ◼   ► Other countries' laws, we don't care.

00:40:41 ◼   ► We do whatever we want.

00:40:42 ◼   ► We don't even look at the laws.

00:40:43 ◼   ► We just do what we want.

00:40:44 ◼   ► But we've always had a great deal of respect

00:40:46 ◼   ► for Korea's laws.

00:40:47 ◼   ► we've decided that we're going to follow your laws.

00:40:50 ◼   ► It's like, like it's an open question.

00:40:51 ◼   ► - Apple has, like Apple's going to do this

00:40:54 ◼   ► in the most begrudging way possible.

00:40:58 ◼   ► Because they, not only are they cheap,

00:41:01 ◼   ► they are offended that they even have to do this.

00:41:05 ◼   ► They are offended that anybody would think

00:41:07 ◼   ► that A, they don't deserve every penny they can extract

00:41:11 ◼   ► from everything happening on iOS,

00:41:12 ◼   ► and B, that somehow other companies

00:41:15 ◼   ► are going to do a better job in any way

00:41:18 ◼   ► that there's any possible benefit to this.

00:41:20 ◼   ► Both of those things are deeply offensive to Apple

00:41:23 ◼   ► from every level, top to bottom.

00:41:25 ◼   ► - Now, Apple knows its payment APIs suck.

00:41:29 ◼   ► I guarantee they don't.

00:41:30 ◼   ► - No, they don't.

00:41:31 ◼   ► I'm telling you they don't.

00:41:33 ◼   ► In the same way that like, the money angle

00:41:36 ◼   ► really corrupts like all the crypto discussion, you know?

00:41:39 ◼   ► In the same way, the amount of money Apple

00:41:43 ◼   ► is able to skim off the top of the App Store,

00:41:46 ◼   ► corrupt their thinking so much and their culture.

00:41:48 ◼   ► They really, I mean we saw this in the trial,

00:41:50 ◼   ► we've heard this from their executives.

00:41:52 ◼   ► Apple really thinks, honestly, I don't think they're,

00:41:55 ◼   ► I don't think they're just putting on this show for lawyers,

00:41:58 ◼   ► they really truly believe from everyone executives

00:42:01 ◼   ► top to bottom that they deserve a cut of all commerce

00:42:06 ◼   ► that happens on this computing platform.

00:42:08 ◼   ► - But they don't think they have the best payment APIs

00:42:10 ◼   ► in those same emails. - No, they really do.

00:42:12 ◼   ► - No, in the same emails, - They really, truly do.

00:42:14 ◼   ► - In the same emails, they were always very honest

00:42:16 ◼   ► when a competitor had a better thing.

00:42:17 ◼   ► What they would say is, "We can't let this happen

00:42:19 ◼   ► "because competitor X has a better Y than we do.

00:42:22 ◼   ► "Therefore, we must change the rules to make sure

00:42:24 ◼   ► "that we don't have to compete with them."

00:42:26 ◼   ► I think they're clear-eyed about

00:42:27 ◼   ► when they have worse things.

00:42:28 ◼   ► Like, our payment system is not as good as Stripe's.

00:42:31 ◼   ► Our API is not as good as Stripe's.

00:42:32 ◼   ► Therefore, we have to do something else

00:42:35 ◼   ► to make sure, to negate that advantage.

00:42:37 ◼   ► So I think--

00:42:38 ◼   ► - Well, I think the story they tell themselves with that is,

00:42:41 ◼   ► our payment system is best for our users,

00:42:44 ◼   ► therefore nothing else matters as much.

00:42:47 ◼   ► Like that's the way they say,

00:42:48 ◼   ► what they tell the public,

00:42:50 ◼   ► and I think they tell themselves the exact same thing,

00:42:53 ◼   ► is like any other payment system is going to be worse

00:42:56 ◼   ► for privacy, for user control, for scams,

00:43:00 ◼   ► even though the App Store is full of scams,

00:43:02 ◼   ► and is still exploding with scams to this day somehow.

00:43:05 ◼   ► But like that's what they're gonna tell themselves.

00:43:07 ◼   ► - I see a lot less of that in the trial emails.

00:43:09 ◼   ► Did you see that?

00:43:10 ◼   ► What you just said is what they say in public,

00:43:12 ◼   ► but in private, I don't see them saying to each other,

00:43:14 ◼   ► "We have to do this because it will protect

00:43:16 ◼   ► "our customers' privacy."

00:43:17 ◼   ► - No, they do. - All the emails we saw,

00:43:18 ◼   ► maybe it's just because of the selection of like,

00:43:20 ◼   ► the juicy ones are all about dealing with competitors,

00:43:23 ◼   ► but it was all about how can we protect revenue streams,

00:43:27 ◼   ► how can we find new revenue streams.

00:43:28 ◼   ► There was, when I just saw it today,

00:43:29 ◼   ► someone was sent around, it was in that

00:43:31 ◼   ► letters of note Twitter account of saying,

00:43:33 ◼   ► the email where Apple was saying,

00:43:34 ◼   ► "Hey, Uber and Lyft have these memberships.

00:43:37 ◼   ► "We should try to get 30% of those.

00:43:38 ◼   ► "We're not currently collecting that money."

00:43:40 ◼   ► - There was no mention of user privacy

00:43:42 ◼   ► and how it would be better for users

00:43:44 ◼   ► to be able to go through Apple API to take a cut.

00:43:46 ◼   ► No, they're just saying like there's money out there

00:43:48 ◼   ► and we're not getting any of it.

00:43:49 ◼   ► Can we get some of that?

00:43:50 ◼   ► - They're so gross.

00:43:52 ◼   ► Like Apple is a company,

00:43:53 ◼   ► they just do so much gross stuff now

00:43:55 ◼   ► in the name of relatively small amounts of money,

00:43:58 ◼   ► like relative to their whole company.

00:44:00 ◼   ► It's just, it's so unfortunate.

00:44:01 ◼   ► - I mean, the people in those emails,

00:44:03 ◼   ► that's their job is increase revenue from the app store.

00:44:06 ◼   ► Like it's not the whole company that's the type of thing.

00:44:08 ◼   ► - Then they're gross people.

00:44:10 ◼   ► - Well, they're called salespeople, Marco.

00:44:11 ◼   ► Lots of companies have them.

00:44:12 ◼   ► - Well, but look, no, I think this goes to the top.

00:44:16 ◼   ► I really do.

00:44:17 ◼   ► I think there's this, again, this prominent culture

00:44:21 ◼   ► in the company of entitlement to everyone else's money.

00:44:25 ◼   ► And I think Apple has been well-rewarded for the platform,

00:44:29 ◼   ► but because they still can collect a tax on every,

00:44:34 ◼   ► a large tax on everything that happens

00:44:36 ◼   ► on a platform financially,

00:44:38 ◼   ► their brains get infected with money.

00:44:39 ◼   ► It's like a drug addiction.

00:44:40 ◼   ► Like they can't see any other possibility

00:44:43 ◼   ► than we deserve this.

00:44:45 ◼   ► 'Cause it's so easy to think that

00:44:47 ◼   ► when you're profiting from something

00:44:49 ◼   ► that you're in the right.

00:44:50 ◼   ► And you're so easily rationalizing every part of it.

00:44:53 ◼   ► Of course, this is ours.

00:44:54 ◼   ► We have to go out and find this money

00:44:55 ◼   ► that belongs to us in everyone else's pockets.

00:44:58 ◼   ► And it's so gross 'cause it's so unnecessary.

00:45:02 ◼   ► They keep making these missteps in recent times

00:45:08 ◼   ► that they do something that really lands like a lead balloon

00:45:12 ◼   ► or that is really gross in some way

00:45:14 ◼   ► that doesn't actually really affect

00:45:17 ◼   ► their bottom line that much.

00:45:18 ◼   ► And they don't necessarily need to be doing

00:45:20 ◼   ► as much or at all.

00:45:21 ◼   ► See also, by the way, a lot of the controversy

00:45:23 ◼   ► with AirTags recently.

00:45:25 ◼   ► They keep having these stories of this bad PR

00:45:27 ◼   ► with AirTags being used for stalking and carjacking

00:45:30 ◼   ► or whatever and there's so many of these stories

00:45:33 ◼   ► building up now and a lot of people are starting

00:45:35 ◼   ► to ask the question, should Apple have even made AirTags?

00:45:38 ◼   ► should they keep making AirTags?

00:45:39 ◼   ► Is the whole Find My network actually worth it

00:45:43 ◼   ► for them to be doing?

00:45:44 ◼   ► Or is it bringing on too much negative attention

00:45:47 ◼   ► and too much liability?

00:45:48 ◼   ► And I think that's a good question

00:45:50 ◼   ► because you can look at that

00:45:51 ◼   ► and you can look at what portion of the business

00:45:53 ◼   ► it is for them and be like, you know,

00:45:55 ◼   ► really is this worth dragging them through the mud constantly

00:45:58 ◼   ► and expose them to all sorts of possible problems

00:46:01 ◼   ► in the public or legal areas

00:46:03 ◼   ► for something that's like this little $30 accessory

00:46:06 ◼   ► that they're probably not selling in massive quantities.

00:46:09 ◼   ► And I think the App Store,

00:46:10 ◼   ► their incredibly money-grabbing attitude of the App Store is,

00:46:15 ◼   ► and believe me, I don't use the term money-grabbing lightly

00:46:18 ◼   ► because I'm an App Store developer,

00:46:20 ◼   ► and we get that term used against us all the time

00:46:24 ◼   ► in customer reviews.

00:46:25 ◼   ► Believe me, I'm not using this term lightly,

00:46:27 ◼   ► but no other word can possibly describe

00:46:30 ◼   ► Apple's tightening of the fists

00:46:32 ◼   ► over the last couple of years,

00:46:33 ◼   ► scrounging around trying to extract even more money

00:46:36 ◼   ► from companies' activities that happen to have an app

00:46:38 ◼   ► on the App Store or need to have an app on the App Store.

00:46:40 ◼   ► Like, it's just been so gross and it has cost them

00:46:44 ◼   ► so dearly in so many areas that are not money

00:46:48 ◼   ► that I wonder, like, who is deciding that this,

00:46:51 ◼   ► that this, you know, little amount of money

00:46:54 ◼   ► that the difference here is making them

00:46:57 ◼   ► is worth all of this?

00:46:59 ◼   ► - I mean, you mentioned ago, like Tim Cook

00:47:01 ◼   ► in his statements, it's made it clear that he actually

00:47:03 ◼   ► seems to believe that they deserve the money,

00:47:06 ◼   ► that they deserve a cut of everything,

00:47:07 ◼   ► including third party payments.

00:47:08 ◼   ► So if you're wondering like, where does this go?

00:47:10 ◼   ► It's Tim Cook, but I feel like if you trace the--

00:47:13 ◼   ► - And I think it's Phil Schiller,

00:47:15 ◼   ► and I think it's a lot of the people down below as well.

00:47:17 ◼   ► - Maybe Phil Schiller, but I think if you trace this,

00:47:20 ◼   ► I was talking about the part of the organization,

00:47:21 ◼   ► like with people whose job it is to increase revenue

00:47:23 ◼   ► with the App Store, it's their job to do this, right?

00:47:25 ◼   ► But you need to have a counterbalance to that.

00:47:27 ◼   ► Like okay, it's your job to maximize revenue,

00:47:29 ◼   ► but there's someone else's job to be like

00:47:30 ◼   ► the product manager to make the user experience good,

00:47:32 ◼   ► and it's someone else's job to look over the whole company

00:47:35 ◼   ► and make sure we're going the right direction, blah, blah,

00:47:36 ◼   ► blah, and so I don't fault salespeople for selling.

00:47:40 ◼   ► Like it is literally their job.

00:47:41 ◼   ► You don't want them to be too slimy,

00:47:42 ◼   ► but their job is to sell.

00:47:44 ◼   ► But if the top person in the company

00:47:47 ◼   ► subscribes to the belief that we really deserve

00:47:50 ◼   ► to take whatever cut of revenue we want

00:47:51 ◼   ► from this entire thing, that's where you end up

00:47:54 ◼   ► getting in situations where Apple makes bad decisions,

00:47:56 ◼   ► because it's coming from the top.

00:47:59 ◼   ► So it doesn't really matter what everybody between Tim Cook

00:48:01 ◼   ► and the salespeople believes.

00:48:02 ◼   ► If Tim Cook believes it, it's going to trickle down

00:48:05 ◼   ► to everyone below who are just trying to do their job,

00:48:07 ◼   ► which is to implement the will of the CEO

00:48:11 ◼   ► and the corporate plan for doing things.

00:48:13 ◼   ► So that's definitely a problem that starts at the top.

00:48:15 ◼   ► So the AirTags, 'cause you brought them up,

00:48:17 ◼   ► I feel like Apple was trying to do the right thing there,

00:48:19 ◼   ► and your point there is like, okay, well, you tried,

00:48:21 ◼   ► you screwed it up, let's reconsider,

00:48:23 ◼   ► 'cause in the end, maybe it's not worth taking the hit

00:48:26 ◼   ► for what is probably a piddling amount of revenue

00:48:28 ◼   ► as far as Apple's concerned.

00:48:29 ◼   ► I'm not totally signed up to the belief

00:48:31 ◼   ► that AirTags are making this worse and not better

00:48:34 ◼   ► compared to their competitors

00:48:35 ◼   ► that don't notify you about this,

00:48:37 ◼   ► but it's worth considering for Apple,

00:48:39 ◼   ► is this, you know, how much are we really making off AirTags?

00:48:43 ◼   ► Do we really think we can defeat this

00:48:44 ◼   ► or do we wanna like take a reset

00:48:45 ◼   ► and think more about it, right?

00:48:47 ◼   ► But that's not from a place of like, you know,

00:48:50 ◼   ► greedy motivation, like they didn't make AirTags

00:48:52 ◼   ► 'cause they're just like,

00:48:53 ◼   ► ah, now we're gonna be in the money.

00:48:54 ◼   ► They're trying to make a genuinely good and useful product

00:48:57 ◼   ► and they knew that there were going to be problems

00:48:59 ◼   ► with stalking and everything like that,

00:49:01 ◼   ► and they tried to make features to mitigate that.

00:49:04 ◼   ► Maybe they weren't successful,

00:49:05 ◼   ► but that's all coming from a place of we're trying

00:49:08 ◼   ► as best we can to do a good thing.

00:49:10 ◼   ► It's not coming from the place of Tim Cook saying,

00:49:12 ◼   ► you know what, anything that happens in the platform,

00:49:14 ◼   ► we deserve to take whatever we want

00:49:15 ◼   ► and don't tell us otherwise.

00:49:16 ◼   ► - No, and that's a whole separate,

00:49:19 ◼   ► like the AirTags is not one of these crazy money grabs.

00:49:22 ◼   ► The AirTags is more like this thing that we're doing

00:49:26 ◼   ► is causing us problems in these other areas,

00:49:28 ◼   ► is it really worth what we're getting out of it

00:49:30 ◼   ► to expose ourselves to those problems?

00:49:33 ◼   ► - Yeah, or do we think we can figure it out?

00:49:35 ◼   ► Like, you know, we thought we had a good handle on it,

00:49:38 ◼   ► we made a good try, like no one else has solved this.

00:49:40 ◼   ► It's not like Apple's doing something

00:49:41 ◼   ► that everyone else has figured out how to do.

00:49:42 ◼   ► No one else has even come as close to Apple

00:49:44 ◼   ► to solving this problem, like when, you know,

00:49:45 ◼   ► with tile trackers or whatever, they don't tell you anything.

00:49:47 ◼   ► The reason you don't hear about it

00:49:48 ◼   ► is because nobody knows they have a tile in their car

00:49:50 ◼   ► because it doesn't notify you that it's there.

00:49:52 ◼   ► So that's kind of, you know,

00:49:53 ◼   ► a problem with Apple's own creation, but--

00:49:55 ◼   ► I mean tiles also suck.

00:49:57 ◼   ► - Yeah, there's that, and that's it.

00:49:58 ◼   ► - It's a very different amount,

00:50:00 ◼   ► like the scale that we're operating at between,

00:50:03 ◼   ► these things can be found if somebody happens

00:50:05 ◼   ► to launch the tile app, which nobody does,

00:50:07 ◼   ► relatively speaking, compared to every iPhone out there

00:50:11 ◼   ► is automatically finding the air tiles.

00:50:13 ◼   ► It's a massive difference in what that thing actually is.

00:50:16 ◼   ► - Yeah, they're a victim of their own success.

00:50:19 ◼   ► For their positive use case of like people doing

00:50:21 ◼   ► all the right things, they're great.

00:50:24 ◼   ► But for the negative use case, all of the pod aspects

00:50:26 ◼   ► work against Apple.

00:50:28 ◼   ► But it's definitely worth Apple considering,

00:50:31 ◼   ► do we think we have a way to fix this,

00:50:33 ◼   ► or should we take a break?

00:50:36 ◼   ► And I'd say, the problem is they have a bunch of product

00:50:40 ◼   ► out there, so they have to do something about it.

00:50:42 ◼   ► They can't just say, oh, never mind.

00:50:43 ◼   ► We're not selling those anymore.

00:50:44 ◼   ► Kind of like the big home pod, just never mind.

00:50:46 ◼   ► They can't actually do that.

00:50:48 ◼   ► They do have to, at this point, figure out a way to make these

00:50:51 ◼   ► Safer than they are or to improve the safety of them, and I'm sure they're working towards that

00:50:55 ◼   ► I believe it is possible for Apple to fix air tags to the point where they are you know our net good

00:51:02 ◼   ► But you know obviously some smartphones themselves are always going to be you know the tools of bad people

00:51:09 ◼   ► You know lots of things that are out there

00:51:11 ◼   ► Can be used badly and it's no reason you know we shouldn't carry cell phones because they can be used by bad people and the government

00:51:16 ◼   ► Can he's drop on us, and you know like that's that's true. You just need mitigations right now

00:51:21 ◼   ► I feel like AirTags can get there.

00:51:22 ◼   ► But I see your point of like,

00:51:25 ◼   ► sometimes you do things and they start causing problems

00:51:28 ◼   ► and in the grand scheme of things

00:51:29 ◼   ► is this really important enough to be worrying about?

00:51:32 ◼   ► Unfortunately for us, the App Store is big enough

00:51:35 ◼   ► for Apple to be worrying about.

00:51:37 ◼   ► They make a lot of money from that,

00:51:38 ◼   ► so I don't think they're gonna cut their losses there.

00:51:41 ◼   ► - Well, but the thing is,

00:51:42 ◼   ► whenever anybody looks at how much money

00:51:44 ◼   ► Apple makes from the App Store,

00:51:45 ◼   ► the thing is, if they loosened up some of these rules

00:51:48 ◼   ► and changed some of these rules

00:51:49 ◼   ► that would alleviate the vast majority of the problems,

00:51:52 ◼   ► it wouldn't actually drop that revenue

00:51:55 ◼   ► they're making to zero.

00:51:57 ◼   ► It would create the ability for it to be reduced,

00:52:01 ◼   ► but it wouldn't be 100% reduced.

00:52:04 ◼   ► Suppose they allowed all apps, including games,

00:52:07 ◼   ► to offer whatever payment systems they wanted

00:52:09 ◼   ► and Apple wasn't involved, so Apple got no commission.

00:52:12 ◼   ► I think enough people would still be paying

00:52:15 ◼   ► with in-app purchase because it is easy.

00:52:18 ◼   ► And suppose, for instance, Apple also required them

00:52:20 ◼   ► to offer both, in-app purchase or your own system,

00:52:23 ◼   ► if you're gonna have your own at all,

00:52:25 ◼   ► which I don't think would be that unreasonable.

00:52:27 ◼   ► I don't think their numbers would actually go down

00:52:29 ◼   ► that much in practice.

00:52:31 ◼   ► Now, if you did, I think, what is probably a smarter thing,

00:52:34 ◼   ► which Ben Thompson talked about this a lot in "Strathecary,"

00:52:36 ◼   ► of treat apps and games differently,

00:52:39 ◼   ► which, by the way, the Epic lawsuit,

00:52:41 ◼   ► the judge was clearly on board with that ability

00:52:45 ◼   ► of a possible way Apple could do this,

00:52:47 ◼   ► is just treat apps and games differently

00:52:48 ◼   ► and apply the mandatory in-app purchase only to games

00:52:53 ◼   ► and let non-game apps have their own business models

00:52:56 ◼   ► if they want to.

00:52:56 ◼   ► That, I think, would have an even smaller impact

00:52:59 ◼   ► on Apple's actual numbers because such a massive majority

00:53:03 ◼   ► of app store revenue is from in-app purchases and games.

00:53:07 ◼   ► The numbers came out in the trial,

00:53:08 ◼   ► I think it was something like 80%

00:53:09 ◼   ► of their in-app purchase revenue is games.

00:53:11 ◼   ► And even that, it's not that many games,

00:53:13 ◼   ► it's like the top, the big top winners.

00:53:17 ◼   ► And so if they let games, or if they make games

00:53:21 ◼   ► keep using their system, and let other apps,

00:53:24 ◼   ► like Spotify and whatever, Netflix,

00:53:26 ◼   ► if they let other apps use their own payment systems,

00:53:29 ◼   ► I feel like that's both much more defensible

00:53:32 ◼   ► of a position for Apple to maintain over time for regulators

00:53:35 ◼   ► and also that alleviates so many other problems

00:53:40 ◼   ► and I think ultimately that would cost Apple

00:53:44 ◼   ► a very tiny percentage of their app store revenue.

00:53:47 ◼   ► And so that's what I'm saying,

00:53:48 ◼   ► the balance here of risk versus reward

00:53:52 ◼   ► of continuing on the path they're going down

00:53:54 ◼   ► versus making a change like that,

00:53:56 ◼   ► it doesn't seem to make sense to me.

00:53:57 ◼   ► They would still have most of their app store revenue

00:54:00 ◼   ► and it would still be growing like crazy,

00:54:03 ◼   ► but they would relieve all this regulatory pressure

00:54:04 ◼   ► and eliminate so many problems

00:54:06 ◼   ► and dramatically improve developer goodwill

00:54:07 ◼   ► and so many other things.

00:54:08 ◼   ► And I don't understand why they keep

00:54:12 ◼   ► shoot themselves in the foot for like two cents.

00:54:15 ◼   ► - Because it's not about the two cents.

00:54:17 ◼   ► So I'm going to try to speak with authority

00:54:21 ◼   ► about something I don't really have authority

00:54:23 ◼   ► to speak about, but--

00:54:24 ◼   ► - Welcome to the show, Casey, that's all of us.

00:54:25 ◼   ► - Yeah, I know, right?

00:54:26 ◼   ► - That's everybody in life, go ahead.

00:54:28 ◼   ► - Well, so I agree with what you're saying in principle,

00:54:32 ◼   ► but something I've had to wrestle with

00:54:35 ◼   ► over the last couple of years is,

00:54:38 ◼   ► even though I haven't been riding the apple cart,

00:54:41 ◼   ► I'm already hating this analogy, but here we are.

00:54:44 ◼   ► Even though I haven't been on the Apple cart since '82

00:54:47 ◼   ► or whatever that John has been, I still

00:54:51 ◼   ► am a big fan of the company.

00:54:52 ◼   ► And I still have been paying attention

00:54:54 ◼   ► since right around the time of the first iPhone,

00:54:56 ◼   ► which at this point is, what, 15 years ago, as of a few days

00:54:59 ◼   ► ago?

00:55:00 ◼   ► And so I have a fair part of my life invested in Apple.

00:55:03 ◼   ► And I think of them-- and so I can't imagine how John feels.

00:55:07 ◼   ► I think of them still as like a plucky upstart.

00:55:10 ◼   ► And that's really just not reality.

00:55:12 ◼   ► It's just not.

00:55:13 ◼   ► And Apple is, if not the biggest,

00:55:16 ◼   ► and I know it goes back and forth,

00:55:17 ◼   ► but is one of the top four biggest companies in the world.

00:55:20 ◼   ► I think they are the biggest right now.

00:55:22 ◼   ► And even though the plucky upstart Apple

00:55:26 ◼   ► that I like and care about and think about a lot

00:55:30 ◼   ► probably agrees with you, Marco,

00:55:32 ◼   ► and probably thinks,

00:55:32 ◼   ► "Why are we nickel and diming developers?

00:55:35 ◼   ► Why are we being such stingy jerks?"

00:55:38 ◼   ► to be honest, the plucky upstart might also believe that they're entitled to all the money

00:55:41 ◼   ► that's ever generated on any iPhone ever, but that's neither here nor there. But the

00:55:45 ◼   ► problem is that Apple isn't the plucky upstart and Apple isn't the little company anymore.

00:55:49 ◼   ► They are by value the biggest company in the world. And if they said to a bunch of app

00:55:55 ◼   ► developers, "Hey, we're going to make your lives better and you decide how. Maybe it's

00:55:59 ◼   ► alternate payments, maybe they take less money, whatever the case may be," then the hundreds

00:56:04 ◼   ► of thousands of app developers start cheering. But the millions question mark of shareholders

00:56:12 ◼   ► aren't going to be too happy about that. Potentially. If the cost of making us happy,

00:56:17 ◼   ► the app developers, is making shareholders upset, if I'm Tim, my duty is not to app developers.

00:56:25 ◼   ► It's not really to anyone but shareholders, right? And this is where I'm a little fuzzy because I...

00:56:30 ◼   ► - Yeah, that's, I mean, his duty is whatever

00:56:32 ◼   ► he decides to think it is.

00:56:34 ◼   ► There's no legal thing making him do crap like that

00:56:36 ◼   ► within reason.

00:56:37 ◼   ► - I don't mean it in a legal sense.

00:56:39 ◼   ► What I mean to say is--

00:56:40 ◼   ► - It's a question of attitude,

00:56:41 ◼   ► but like the thing you described has happened though.

00:56:43 ◼   ► Apple has reduced it, as they said many times in the trial,

00:56:46 ◼   ► Apple has reduced the cut for developers

00:56:47 ◼   ► and each time Apple has done that,

00:56:49 ◼   ► they have not been punished by people driving

00:56:51 ◼   ► their stock price down.

00:56:53 ◼   ► - Well, because the way they did it

00:56:54 ◼   ► affected almost nothing, again.

00:56:55 ◼   ► - That's exactly right.

00:56:56 ◼   ► - I'm just saying like it's a thing that they've done

00:56:58 ◼   ► and surely they did leave revenue on the table

00:57:01 ◼   ► by implementing all the plans they did

00:57:02 ◼   ► for the 85-15 and everything or whatever,

00:57:04 ◼   ► and aside from any one or two day volatility,

00:57:09 ◼   ► their stock prices continued to go up since then.

00:57:11 ◼   ► - Yeah, and their services revenue

00:57:12 ◼   ► has stayed exactly the same, because--

00:57:14 ◼   ► - That's exactly what I was gonna say.

00:57:16 ◼   ► - Again, look at how many people that affected.

00:57:18 ◼   ► I got a raise last year, 'cause it was great,

00:57:21 ◼   ► I'm so happy.

00:57:23 ◼   ► That affected almost every developer I know,

00:57:26 ◼   ► And yet it cost Apple effectively nothing,

00:57:29 ◼   ► like relative to everything else,

00:57:31 ◼   ► because they're making all their money

00:57:34 ◼   ► from a handful of giant games.

00:57:35 ◼   ► And so by changing App Store policy

00:57:39 ◼   ► in ways that don't affect giant games,

00:57:43 ◼   ► it basically costs them nothing.

00:57:45 ◼   ► And yet even that, even the App Store

00:57:48 ◼   ► small business program that we're talking about,

00:57:50 ◼   ► they did that in the most half-assed, hostile way

00:57:54 ◼   ► they could have possibly done it.

00:57:55 ◼   ► - You are not wrong.

00:57:56 ◼   ► - Even that, they clearly did extremely reluctantly

00:58:00 ◼   ► and I think for cynical reasons

00:58:02 ◼   ► because of all the regulatory things.

00:58:03 ◼   ► They wanted something they can point to.

00:58:04 ◼   ► Say, "Look how good we are."

00:58:06 ◼   ► And you can see how they did it.

00:58:09 ◼   ► And you can see, okay, they have this convoluted system.

00:58:12 ◼   ► It's not automatic.

00:58:14 ◼   ► It has this weird revenue cliff thing

00:58:16 ◼   ► that you have a strong incentive to not make

00:58:19 ◼   ► between like one million and 1.2 million or whatever it is.

00:58:22 ◼   ► they did it in a pretty bad way,

00:58:26 ◼   ► and it affects so many developers,

00:58:28 ◼   ► but nobody that makes them tons of money, really,

00:58:31 ◼   ► relative to the tons of money they're making

00:58:32 ◼   ► from the handful of big games.

00:58:33 ◼   ► And so that just shows their attitude right there.

00:58:36 ◼   ► I'm sure there are some people in the company,

00:58:41 ◼   ► I'm sure there are many people in the company

00:58:42 ◼   ► who have good intentions at heart

00:58:43 ◼   ► and are trying to give developers

00:58:48 ◼   ► the best chance of success

00:58:50 ◼   ► and give us the most money they can and everything,

00:58:52 ◼   ► But that's clearly not the priority up top.

00:58:55 ◼   ► Now Casey, you're right.

00:58:57 ◼   ► That doesn't necessarily need to be Tim Cook's priority,

00:59:00 ◼   ► both professionally or legally.

00:59:02 ◼   ► But there are knock-on effects.

00:59:05 ◼   ► If all this pressure from them squeezing the pennies

00:59:10 ◼   ► out of all of us results in more regulation,

00:59:13 ◼   ► then Apple could lose control of critical parts

00:59:16 ◼   ► of their infrastructure and critical parts

00:59:17 ◼   ► of their product line.

00:59:18 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:59:19 ◼   ► - That's what I'm saying.

00:59:20 ◼   ► What they're risking by continuing to be

00:59:23 ◼   ► really money grabbing jerks in a lot of these ways,

00:59:25 ◼   ► what they're risking is something like

00:59:28 ◼   ► governments force them to allow sideloading

00:59:29 ◼   ► or governments force them to allow alternate app stores

00:59:32 ◼   ► and other governmental interventions into iOS

00:59:35 ◼   ► that we probably don't want,

00:59:37 ◼   ► that probably would result in worse outcomes

00:59:39 ◼   ► for everybody including them.

00:59:41 ◼   ► But by continuing on the path they're continuing on,

00:59:44 ◼   ► they just keep inviting this over and over again

00:59:46 ◼   ► because they don't think they're ever gonna lose.

00:59:48 ◼   ► But at some point they will

00:59:50 ◼   ► And then we all will.

00:59:51 ◼   ► And I really don't want that to happen.

00:59:53 ◼   ► - And I think what Tim Cook's actual motivation is,

00:59:55 ◼   ► is he's not trying to make shareholders happy

00:59:58 ◼   ► or anything like that.

00:59:59 ◼   ► I think his motivation is what Mark said before,

01:00:00 ◼   ► that he believes we built this platform

01:00:02 ◼   ► and we deserve to take a cut of it.

01:00:03 ◼   ► So it's the principle of it, right?

01:00:04 ◼   ► And as a CEO, he's one of the few people in the company

01:00:07 ◼   ► who is allowed to have principles.

01:00:09 ◼   ► Because if you're below that, it's like,

01:00:11 ◼   ► yeah, you can have your principles,

01:00:12 ◼   ► but in the end, your boss kind of dictates

01:00:13 ◼   ► a lot about what you're gonna be doing.

01:00:15 ◼   ► - And we should have a few more.

01:00:17 ◼   ► - But his principles may not be the ones

01:00:18 ◼   ► that are the same as yours,

01:00:19 ◼   ► but he has his principles.

01:00:20 ◼   ► And one of them is, we built this,

01:00:22 ◼   ► we deserve to take cut of it,

01:00:24 ◼   ► and he doesn't want to be regulated.

01:00:26 ◼   ► He wants to make the decisions for himself

01:00:27 ◼   ► because he wants to, it's like, we built the thing,

01:00:29 ◼   ► we should be able to steer it.

01:00:30 ◼   ► And that I feel like comes from the top,

01:00:32 ◼   ► and every time he makes a statement,

01:00:33 ◼   ► the more honest he becomes, the more it becomes so clear

01:00:35 ◼   ► that Tim Cook really believes that,

01:00:37 ◼   ► why are you messing with us?

01:00:38 ◼   ► Like, this is a thing we made,

01:00:40 ◼   ► and we're trying to make it the best we can

01:00:41 ◼   ► according to our principles,

01:00:43 ◼   ► and that means we should get to decide how it runs.

01:00:45 ◼   ► Don't tell me how to run it.

01:00:47 ◼   ► And of course he also wants to make money,

01:00:49 ◼   ► and he's a businessman and everything like that,

01:00:51 ◼   ► but it's sort of intrinsic motivation.

01:00:53 ◼   ► He's not running scared of like,

01:00:54 ◼   ► oh, I have to do things to make the shareholders happy.

01:00:56 ◼   ► No, it is all his sort of internal motivation, right?

01:01:00 ◼   ► And part of that motivation is,

01:01:02 ◼   ► if we have the most control,

01:01:04 ◼   ► that means this is another businessman type thing

01:01:07 ◼   ► and not driven by shareholders,

01:01:08 ◼   ► but just being a good business person.

01:01:10 ◼   ► Just because we make all our money from games today

01:01:12 ◼   ► doesn't mean that it's gonna be like that in the future.

01:01:16 ◼   ► The best thing for the company

01:01:18 ◼   ► is not to hem ourselves in by narrowly carving out

01:01:22 ◼   ► like the rules such that we're okay for now,

01:01:25 ◼   ► but if suddenly the next big thing turns out to be

01:01:28 ◼   ► selling like holo skins that technically aren't games

01:01:31 ◼   ► or something or like, I don't know,

01:01:33 ◼   ► whatever the next big thing is.

01:01:35 ◼   ► It's not necessarily true that App Store revenue

01:01:37 ◼   ► will be 80% games forever and ever and ever, right?

01:01:40 ◼   ► So we shouldn't hem ourselves in by making that carve out

01:01:45 ◼   ► even though it seems okay today

01:01:46 ◼   ► because it's just future proofing.

01:01:47 ◼   ► It's just like a good idea, I'm running the company,

01:01:49 ◼   ► I don't wanna do anything that puts us

01:01:51 ◼   ► in a bad position in the future.

01:01:52 ◼   ► Again, not because he's like,

01:01:53 ◼   ► oh, I have to make the shareholders happier,

01:01:55 ◼   ► I wanna make more money 'cause I need that 17th house

01:01:57 ◼   ► or whatever, like that's not his motivation at all,

01:02:00 ◼   ► but he is motivated to do what's best for Apple.

01:02:02 ◼   ► And it is not good for Apple to quote unquote,

01:02:06 ◼   ► unnecessarily constrain itself by narrowing its rules.

01:02:09 ◼   ► But as we've said, every time we discuss it,

01:02:10 ◼   ► the market decided again, yeah,

01:02:12 ◼   ► but those aren't the only two possibilities.

01:02:14 ◼   ► There's a third one, which is the government comes in

01:02:15 ◼   ► and screws you over big time.

01:02:17 ◼   ► You should be doing whatever you can to avoid that.

01:02:20 ◼   ► And we kept having this debate when the trial was going on,

01:02:22 ◼   ► I was like, does Apple really believe

01:02:24 ◼   ► that there's still the possibility

01:02:25 ◼   ► that they're just not gonna get regulated at all?

01:02:28 ◼   ► Like that they're gonna win it all?

01:02:29 ◼   ► And so far, that bet has mostly, at least in the US,

01:02:33 ◼   ► mostly paid off for Apple.

01:02:34 ◼   ► Like they're playing chicken saying,

01:02:36 ◼   ► we know, like they have to know,

01:02:38 ◼   ► there are lots of really bad scenarios

01:02:40 ◼   ► where Apple regulates them to the point

01:02:42 ◼   ► and makes them do terrible things

01:02:43 ◼   ► that they would never do in a million years.

01:02:44 ◼   ► And it's like, avoid them by giving concessions.

01:02:46 ◼   ► Apple's just like being steely-eyed and saying nope. I think we're I think I'm gonna make it

01:02:51 ◼   ► I think we're gonna come out of this scot-free

01:02:53 ◼   ► And so far they seem like they've mostly been right so it would definitely be the safer bet to

01:03:01 ◼   ► Make more concessions to avoid regulation

01:03:04 ◼   ► I think the other possibility I think I mentioned on a pass through is that show is that Apple has been convinced through their internal

01:03:09 ◼   ► Conversations with you know lawmakers that there is no amount of concessions that they can provide that would be satisfactory

01:03:14 ◼   ► Right like that what we're proposing if you do some of these small changes the layoff and they won't do the big changes

01:03:20 ◼   ► That's not actually true, and there's nothing Apple can give up to stop these people from trying this and then you know of course in

01:03:26 ◼   ► Our country it's usually a safe bet to

01:03:28 ◼   ► It's usually safe to bet that no actually functional good laws will ever come out of our lawmaking bodies

01:03:34 ◼   ► Because they're just so dysfunctional that they can't do literally anything

01:03:37 ◼   ► So that's that may be a safe bet is like no matter how much and how many people want to do this it is impossible

01:03:44 ◼   ► to make happen because our system no longer functions. There was some paper

01:03:49 ◼   ► someone put out recently showing the there is no connection whatsoever, no

01:03:54 ◼   ► statistically significant connection between things that the American people

01:03:57 ◼   ► want and the laws that get passed. Things that have like a 90%

01:04:05 ◼   ► favorability rating across the entire country cannot get passed as

01:04:09 ◼   ► laws. There is no longer a connection between what people want and what laws

01:04:12 ◼   ► are made. Laws that get made are made because some rich person wants it somewhere and has

01:04:16 ◼   ► nothing to do with what people in the country actually want, which is depressing but true

01:04:20 ◼   ► to our experience and someone did an actual study on it and has some numbers behind it.

01:04:24 ◼   ► I wish I could find that link but I think I saw it somewhere on Twitter.

01:04:28 ◼   ► In related news, I paid $1,000 for the last 11 days of not having health insurance because

01:04:33 ◼   ► the health insurance company just messed up and so I'm just out that $1,000 for that part

01:04:37 ◼   ► of the policy that I just didn't have coverage and if I happen to have gotten an injury or

01:04:42 ◼   ► or sick or anyone in my family did in the last 11 days,

01:04:46 ◼   ► we would have had no coverage,

01:04:47 ◼   ► we would have had to pay 100% out of pocket

01:04:48 ◼   ► and be totally liable for everything,

01:04:50 ◼   ► not because I failed to book an insurance policy,

01:04:52 ◼   ► but because they failed to activate it,

01:04:54 ◼   ► and then took 11 days to do it.

01:04:56 ◼   ► Oh, and am I getting my discount

01:04:57 ◼   ► on half of my $2400 a month of premium?

01:05:00 ◼   ► No, of course not.

01:05:00 ◼   ► - Oh, God, I'm so sorry.

01:05:02 ◼   ► - And that's because we can't pass laws that everybody wants.

01:05:05 ◼   ► - Yeah, but Republicans like small business,

01:05:08 ◼   ► so surely they're going to come and save the day, right?

01:05:11 ◼   ► Mm-hmm.

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01:06:53 ◼   ► (upbeat music)

01:06:57 ◼   ► - All right, so moving right along,

01:06:58 ◼   ► Jon, tell us about your gross printer.

01:07:00 ◼   ► - I got a gross printer.

01:07:01 ◼   ► I bet a lot of people have gross printers.

01:07:03 ◼   ► - What makes your printer gross?

01:07:05 ◼   ► - I have a crappy printer, I wouldn't say it's gross.

01:07:06 ◼   ► - Yeah, exactly.

01:07:07 ◼   ► - Well, also here, I'll tell you why.

01:07:10 ◼   ► I have a printer that we had for a long time

01:07:13 ◼   ► and it stopped printing recently.

01:07:15 ◼   ► You never wanna hear about printing problems.

01:07:16 ◼   ► Why can't I print?

01:07:17 ◼   ► It's been a little flaky lately for a bunch of reasons,

01:07:20 ◼   ► mostly related to software and drivers,

01:07:21 ◼   ► but when someone can't print, the call goes out,

01:07:24 ◼   ► why can't I print?

01:07:25 ◼   ► And that's my signal to come and fix the printer

01:07:28 ◼   ► because that's my life.

01:07:31 ◼   ► But this time it was different.

01:07:32 ◼   ► This time it was like a hardware error on the machine.

01:07:34 ◼   ► Like you go up to it and there's a little screen on it.

01:07:36 ◼   ► It said error code, you know, whatever,

01:07:38 ◼   ► one, two, three, four, five, you know,

01:07:40 ◼   ► contact support, blah, blah, blah.

01:07:41 ◼   ► So of course I Googled for the error

01:07:43 ◼   ► and it was, you know, it was not, it wasn't a--

01:07:45 ◼   ► - IM support.

01:07:46 ◼   ► - It wasn't a driver problem.

01:07:47 ◼   ► It wasn't, it was like a mechanical issue with the printer.

01:07:49 ◼   ► I didn't know, very quickly found that what it wants you

01:07:51 ◼   ► to do is clean some stuff out in there, right?

01:07:55 ◼   ► This is an inkjet printer, okay?

01:07:57 ◼   ► - Oh, wow.

01:07:58 ◼   ► Well, that's your first problem.

01:07:58 ◼   ► - We've had it for many, many years.

01:07:59 ◼   ► Now, if you ever look inside an inkjet printer

01:08:03 ◼   ► that someone has had for many years,

01:08:04 ◼   ► it's like what I imagine the inside

01:08:06 ◼   ► of one of those Theranos machines is like.

01:08:08 ◼   ► With just blood splattered everywhere,

01:08:12 ◼   ► but it's not blood, it's printer ink.

01:08:14 ◼   ► Like if you think of the printer as like,

01:08:15 ◼   ► oh, I put these little ink cartridges in

01:08:17 ◼   ► and then the little bits of ink go

01:08:19 ◼   ► and they squirt out onto the page

01:08:20 ◼   ► in these microscopic little dots

01:08:21 ◼   ► and that's how you think the printer works,

01:08:23 ◼   ► but then you look inside and you're like,

01:08:24 ◼   ► why is the inside of this printer covered with ink?

01:08:27 ◼   ► Like it's like there was an ink murder inside there.

01:08:30 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:08:31 ◼   ► So that, I mean, that's bothersome

01:08:33 ◼   ► just from the perspective of like,

01:08:34 ◼   ► how does anything ever work when ink is just leaking

01:08:37 ◼   ► and spraying and going everywhere?

01:08:39 ◼   ► But yeah, eventually after many years of this,

01:08:42 ◼   ► it just gunks up the printhead, right?

01:08:43 ◼   ► So I took the printhead out and I cleaned it carefully

01:08:46 ◼   ► and got all the gunk off and like the gunk was just like,

01:08:49 ◼   ► like solidified, sticky, thick, disgusting caked on ink

01:08:54 ◼   ► from years and years of use.

01:08:56 ◼   ► I cleaned all that out, put everything back together,

01:08:58 ◼   ► and it worked again, right?

01:08:59 ◼   ► But as per my usual policy of once a device

01:09:03 ◼   ► starts to betray me, it's gonna get replaced.

01:09:05 ◼   ► Like I can't afford the printer to just not work

01:09:09 ◼   ► and stop working permanently, right?

01:09:10 ◼   ► When some kid has to print something out,

01:09:12 ◼   ► I'm gonna be driving to Kinko's in the middle of the night

01:09:14 ◼   ► to get something printed before school or some crap,

01:09:15 ◼   ► although that doesn't happen, they do it all online now.

01:09:17 ◼   ► But anyway, when we need the printer to work,

01:09:19 ◼   ► we need it to work.

01:09:20 ◼   ► So I'm like, all right, printer,

01:09:22 ◼   ► now that I've seen what you look like on the inside,

01:09:25 ◼   ► it's served its time.

01:09:26 ◼   ► I don't know how long we've had this printer,

01:09:27 ◼   ► many, many years.

01:09:29 ◼   ► It's done what it had to do,

01:09:30 ◼   ► but I'd like, I should get a replacement.

01:09:31 ◼   ► I looked at the replacement in the past as well,

01:09:33 ◼   ► but this time I was like, well, okay,

01:09:36 ◼   ► well now you're actually breaking,

01:09:37 ◼   ► I think it's time to get a replacement.

01:09:38 ◼   ► So I did, everyone including Mark was gonna say,

01:09:43 ◼   ► should have got a color laser or something like that.

01:09:45 ◼   ► I wanted one, but the problem is,

01:09:46 ◼   ► I don't have a place in my house for,

01:09:49 ◼   ► well, I don't have a place in this room,

01:09:51 ◼   ► in the quote unquote, the computer room,

01:09:53 ◼   ► for a printer that big.

01:09:54 ◼   ► And so I asked my wife, what's more important to you?

01:09:56 ◼   ► a better, faster, more problem-free printer

01:09:59 ◼   ► that you have to walk someplace to,

01:10:01 ◼   ► and that place would probably be the basement,

01:10:04 ◼   ► or just get another crappy inkjet

01:10:06 ◼   ► that fits in the space we have in this room.

01:10:07 ◼   ► And she said--

01:10:08 ◼   ► - How big do you think a color laser is?

01:10:10 ◼   ► - I know how big they are, 'cause I read the dimensions.

01:10:13 ◼   ► I know how much room we have, I know how big things are,

01:10:15 ◼   ► I have a tape measure.

01:10:16 ◼   ► - To be fair, yeah, to be fair,

01:10:18 ◼   ► modern inkjets, especially the kind that fold up

01:10:20 ◼   ► when you're not using them, can be very, very small.

01:10:23 ◼   ► And color lasers, while they have gotten very small

01:10:25 ◼   ► relative to where they used to be,

01:10:27 ◼   ► they are still, like you still can't get a color laser

01:10:29 ◼   ► anywhere near the size of a small inkjet.

01:10:31 ◼   ► But, I mean, they do get pretty small these days.

01:10:35 ◼   ► Like I'm kind of surprised you couldn't,

01:10:36 ◼   ► like you know, like the low end models,

01:10:38 ◼   ► I'm kind of surprised you couldn't fit one of those in.

01:10:40 ◼   ► - But the use case here is, my wife demands,

01:10:44 ◼   ► and I kind of agree with her,

01:10:45 ◼   ► not just a printer, but a printer scanner copier.

01:10:48 ◼   ► - Ah, okay, there we go.

01:10:50 ◼   ► - And you can get them, you can get combination

01:10:53 ◼   ► color laser printer scanner copiers, but they are--

01:10:55 ◼   ► - I'm looking at one right now.

01:10:56 ◼   ► - Same. - But they are bigger still.

01:10:58 ◼   ► And my space is very constrained.

01:11:00 ◼   ► It could technically maybe fit,

01:11:02 ◼   ► but it would like dominate the room in kind of a gross way.

01:11:04 ◼   ► And it's on the-- - Wait, so how much space

01:11:06 ◼   ► do you have, just ballpark?

01:11:08 ◼   ► - About enough space for the printer I have there.

01:11:10 ◼   ► It's a bay window. - Yes, thank you.

01:11:11 ◼   ► - My room has a bay window on it, right?

01:11:13 ◼   ► And so you know the little shelf

01:11:14 ◼   ► that is like the floor of the bay window?

01:11:17 ◼   ► That's where the printer is.

01:11:18 ◼   ► So think of a typical bay window and that little floor.

01:11:20 ◼   ► And by the way, there's other stuff there,

01:11:21 ◼   ► not just the printer, right?

01:11:23 ◼   ► That's where the printer goes.

01:11:24 ◼   ► And so if you can imagine taking Marco your color laser

01:11:26 ◼   ► and putting it on the little floor area of a bay window,

01:11:30 ◼   ► it would be blocking your window, it would be ugly,

01:11:32 ◼   ► it's just, no.

01:11:34 ◼   ► So, I mean, 'cause those are the options.

01:11:37 ◼   ► Color laser, everything, blah, blah, blah,

01:11:39 ◼   ► but you have to go someplace else,

01:11:40 ◼   ► probably the basement for it

01:11:41 ◼   ► or another printer in this room.

01:11:42 ◼   ► And honestly, the inkjet multifunction that we got,

01:11:44 ◼   ► it's done its job.

01:11:45 ◼   ► We've used the scanner, we use the copier,

01:11:47 ◼   ► I don't think we ever use the fax.

01:11:49 ◼   ► We print things pretty rarely, but we do print them,

01:11:51 ◼   ► and it's fine, right?

01:11:53 ◼   ► It's fine.

01:11:54 ◼   ► And so I figured, it's not like we used color lasers

01:11:57 ◼   ► and they were terrible and they broke all the time.

01:11:58 ◼   ► We had this one for years and years.

01:11:59 ◼   ► I can't even remember when we bought it.

01:12:01 ◼   ► So I was just looking to replace it.

01:12:02 ◼   ► And I did, and I got another color laser

01:12:04 ◼   ► that is smaller than the previous one.

01:12:05 ◼   ► - The coloring jet?

01:12:06 ◼   ► - Yeah, sorry, yeah.

01:12:07 ◼   ► Coloring jet that is smaller than the previous one,

01:12:10 ◼   ► which is nice.

01:12:10 ◼   ► And apparently, I don't entirely understand this.

01:12:15 ◼   ► I think it's like the half sheet paper towel thing

01:12:19 ◼   ► that I always bring up, that someone came up with an idea

01:12:21 ◼   ► that makes consumers think they're saving money,

01:12:23 ◼   ► but in the end they end up spending more money or something.

01:12:26 ◼   ► But anyway, the new trend in the new fad, whatever,

01:12:31 ◼   ► the new way they sell you inkjet printers is,

01:12:34 ◼   ► they call it ink tank printers.

01:12:36 ◼   ► Have either one of you heard of that?

01:12:37 ◼   ► - Yep, I actually, I had one briefly.

01:12:39 ◼   ► I think I returned it, or it broke.

01:12:42 ◼   ► Yeah, I had one of the Epson ink tank ones

01:12:44 ◼   ► where the idea was to save money on ink,

01:12:48 ◼   ► you could, instead of spending $100 on a cheap printer

01:12:50 ◼   ► that had very expensive cartridges,

01:12:52 ◼   ► you could spend like $300 on a printer

01:12:55 ◼   ► that had these giant ink tanks

01:12:57 ◼   ► and that you would have a lower cost per page

01:12:59 ◼   ► than as a result.

01:13:00 ◼   ► - Yeah, and they don't sell you,

01:13:01 ◼   ► I mean, back in the day,

01:13:02 ◼   ► they used to sell you the entire print head plus the ink,

01:13:05 ◼   ► right, and then eventually they stopped doing that

01:13:07 ◼   ► and the print head would just be in the printer

01:13:09 ◼   ► and they would just sell you these little ink cartridges

01:13:11 ◼   ► that just were basically containers with ink, right?

01:13:13 ◼   ► - Well, and that varied per brand, by the way.

01:13:16 ◼   ► Like, I know, like Epson, I think,

01:13:17 ◼   ► always had permanent heads

01:13:19 ◼   ► and then little slot cartridges.

01:13:21 ◼   ► HP for a while, I don't know if they still do,

01:13:24 ◼   ► but their HP's ink cartridges contained the head

01:13:27 ◼   ► on the bottom of each one, which is actually very nice

01:13:29 ◼   ► in the sense that over time as the head would get

01:13:32 ◼   ► all permanently clogged up eventually,

01:13:35 ◼   ► you could just replace the ink cartridge

01:13:36 ◼   ► and you would also get a new head every time.

01:13:37 ◼   ► So that was actually, I preferred that.

01:13:41 ◼   ► - But it's more expensive for those cartridges

01:13:42 ◼   ► because they have the heads on them.

01:13:43 ◼   ► - Right, that's the downside then.

01:13:44 ◼   ► - And it was harder to get third party ones

01:13:46 ◼   ► for cheaper because they have the heads built into them

01:13:48 ◼   ► and stuff like that.

01:13:49 ◼   ► But yeah, the Ink Tank one, the idea is that

01:13:51 ◼   ► They don't sell you the head, they don't sell you a bottle that you essentially pour into

01:13:58 ◼   ► a tank.

01:13:59 ◼   ► And the theory is, oh, these bottles cost less per ounce of ink than the cartridges

01:14:06 ◼   ► did.

01:14:07 ◼   ► And that's true if you do the math.

01:14:08 ◼   ► If you say the cartridge holds this piddling amount of ink and this whole bottle that looks

01:14:11 ◼   ► like a soda can holds this amount of ink and do the division and you can see that it's

01:14:16 ◼   ► way cheaper, right?

01:14:17 ◼   ► And also the capacity is larger.

01:14:20 ◼   ► the capacity of my old one was like a couple hundred pages

01:14:22 ◼   ► in color before it ran out, and this new one is like

01:14:25 ◼   ► 6,000 pages before it runs out.

01:14:27 ◼   ► They just hold more ink, which I worry about

01:14:29 ◼   ► because we print so little, I'm like,

01:14:31 ◼   ► you know, are we ever gonna run through this ink?

01:14:33 ◼   ► Is it gonna dry inside the tank just from age?

01:14:36 ◼   ► We'll find out.

01:14:37 ◼   ► - By the way, my experience with ink tank printers, yes.

01:14:40 ◼   ► - Yeah.

01:14:41 ◼   ► - That's why I got rid of mine, because I remember now,

01:14:45 ◼   ► I had an Epson ink tank probably five, six years ago,

01:14:48 ◼   ► something like that.

01:14:49 ◼   ► it eventually just got permaclogged

01:14:52 ◼   ► because I wasn't using it on a regular basis.

01:14:55 ◼   ► I would print something.

01:14:56 ◼   ► So just quick aside, my printer philosophy is

01:15:01 ◼   ► I have a small, cheap color laser for most printing needs,

01:15:06 ◼   ► but we also keep an inkjet printer,

01:15:10 ◼   ► not usually a very good inkjet printer,

01:15:11 ◼   ► but we keep an inkjet printer in the house

01:15:14 ◼   ► for occasional photo prints.

01:15:16 ◼   ► Whether that's to make somebody a quick card,

01:15:19 ◼   ► or just print out some photos to stick in something else

01:15:22 ◼   ► that we're doing or some craft project

01:15:24 ◼   ► because color lasers are amazing in almost every way

01:15:28 ◼   ► except they suck at photos.

01:15:30 ◼   ► And it's not anything they can really ever overcome

01:15:33 ◼   ► because toner is just not as good as ink on paper

01:15:37 ◼   ► to make a really nice photo.

01:15:40 ◼   ► So inkjet is always gonna be better for photos than laser.

01:15:43 ◼   ► And I've even tried some of the other weird ones.

01:15:45 ◼   ► I used to have a Xerox Phaser wax printer.

01:15:47 ◼   ► That was interesting.

01:15:48 ◼   ► But yeah, Inkjet is great for photos.

01:15:53 ◼   ► It's ridiculous.

01:15:54 ◼   ► If you get a nice new Epson printer,

01:15:56 ◼   ► you don't even have to get a very high-end one.

01:15:58 ◼   ► Get one around the $150 to $200 range.

01:16:02 ◼   ► Usually it's the kind that has six ink cartridges,

01:16:06 ◼   ► but not eight, but not four.

01:16:09 ◼   ► Something like that, a mid-range photo printer.

01:16:11 ◼   ► And give it nice glossy photo paper,

01:16:15 ◼   ► usually from the same brand as the printer.

01:16:17 ◼   ► And you can get amazing photo prints out of that.

01:16:20 ◼   ► It looks so much better than anything a laser can produce.

01:16:24 ◼   ► But it's an inkjet and they don't last forever.

01:16:28 ◼   ► And in particular, the ones that have permanent heads,

01:16:30 ◼   ► like Epson's, if you don't use them very often,

01:16:32 ◼   ► you will get clogs.

01:16:34 ◼   ► Eventually those clogs will not be able to be blasted out

01:16:36 ◼   ► by the cleaning process and you'll have to replace

01:16:38 ◼   ► the whole printer.

01:16:39 ◼   ► So it's not great for infrequent use,

01:16:42 ◼   ► but I always keep one around anyway

01:16:44 ◼   ► because it's relatively inexpensive

01:16:47 ◼   ► and we end up printing, I don't know,

01:16:50 ◼   ► maybe like 20 or 30 photos a year on it.

01:16:53 ◼   ► And I know that if we planned ahead,

01:16:56 ◼   ► we could have those photos printed by somebody

01:16:59 ◼   ► that would just mail them to us,

01:17:01 ◼   ► or go to a drug store and have them print stuff or anything.

01:17:04 ◼   ► But we don't do that, that's not the kind of life we have.

01:17:06 ◼   ► And we know that about ourselves.

01:17:08 ◼   ► We have this stuff in house, literally.

01:17:10 ◼   ► But anyway, ink jets are great for photos,

01:17:14 ◼   ► but you have to understand that they're probably

01:17:17 ◼   ► not going to last many, many years.

01:17:19 ◼   ► I'm surprised your previous one did.

01:17:21 ◼   ► Or maybe you just don't have a high tolerance for,

01:17:24 ◼   ► or have a low tolerance for gaps in the print head

01:17:27 ◼   ► and stuff like that.

01:17:28 ◼   ► But lasers last forever and are perfectly happy

01:17:32 ◼   ► to be used very occasionally and are way less gross

01:17:35 ◼   ► because toner is just plastic powder with dye,

01:17:39 ◼   ► not liquid ink.

01:17:41 ◼   ► So you might have to vacuum up some toner

01:17:43 ◼   ► if something really bad happens,

01:17:44 ◼   ► but I've never even seen that happen.

01:17:46 ◼   ► So lasers are great in every other way,

01:17:49 ◼   ► they just kinda suck for photos.

01:17:51 ◼   ► - Yeah, we don't really print photos.

01:17:53 ◼   ► I would worry about an inkjet printed photo,

01:17:55 ◼   ► like the longevity of that ink,

01:17:56 ◼   ► especially with exposure to UV light and everything,

01:17:58 ◼   ► versus the dye sublimation printers

01:18:00 ◼   ► that you hope the actual photo processor place uses.

01:18:03 ◼   ► But either way, the printer we're replacing

01:18:07 ◼   ► did have permanent heads,

01:18:08 ◼   ► like the heads weren't on the ink cartridges,

01:18:10 ◼   ► and it lasted for years and years with the solanus used.

01:18:12 ◼   ► Now granted, it was gunking up right now,

01:18:14 ◼   ► but I did clean it out and restore it to health enough.

01:18:17 ◼   ► So like, I'm debating what we want to do

01:18:19 ◼   ► with that old printer, because it works.

01:18:21 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:18:22 ◼   ► And we have tons of ink for it.

01:18:25 ◼   ► 'Cause the good thing about, you know,

01:18:27 ◼   ► all the lawsuits with like the DRM ink cartridges

01:18:29 ◼   ► is the printer manufacturers lost those.

01:18:30 ◼   ► So you can go to Costco and get like really cheap ink for,

01:18:34 ◼   ► not really cheap, but cheaper than the official ink for sure.

01:18:37 ◼   ► Like half, less than half the price of the official.

01:18:39 ◼   ► It's still like the most expensive substance on earth, right?

01:18:41 ◼   ► but it is half the price of the official ink.

01:18:46 ◼   ► So we have all this ink and we have the printer

01:18:48 ◼   ► and it still works, but I think the main feature

01:18:51 ◼   ► of the new one that I care about is one,

01:18:52 ◼   ► that it actually is smaller, and two,

01:18:54 ◼   ► the DPI of the scanner is way up since the crappy one

01:18:57 ◼   ► that I had before.

01:18:58 ◼   ► I think that scanner we had was 600 DPI max

01:19:01 ◼   ► and this one goes up to 2,400 max optical

01:19:06 ◼   ► and 9,800 interpolated or something.

01:19:08 ◼   ► I do scan things probably more often than I print them.

01:19:10 ◼   ► Often when I'm scanning your old photo prints,

01:19:12 ◼   ► it's surprisingly, and then I'm trying

01:19:13 ◼   ► to clean them up and stuff.

01:19:16 ◼   ► And of course this one has a fax,

01:19:17 ◼   ► just like the old one I think did,

01:19:18 ◼   ► but I don't think we're ever gonna use that.

01:19:19 ◼   ► The only downside of the one I got

01:19:20 ◼   ► is it doesn't have a rear paper feeder,

01:19:22 ◼   ► it just has a top paper feeder,

01:19:24 ◼   ► and it's kind of, or a bottom,

01:19:25 ◼   ► like has a cassette, and then it has a paper feeder on top

01:19:28 ◼   ► for doing copies, but for prints it only has the cassette.

01:19:31 ◼   ► And you can put photo paper in the cassette,

01:19:33 ◼   ► and it's fine, but it's more convenient

01:19:34 ◼   ► to have a rear feeder as well.

01:19:37 ◼   ► So I don't know, maybe we'll keep the old printer around

01:19:39 ◼   ► just for the hell of it as a backup printer,

01:19:41 ◼   ► or if we ever wanna do something

01:19:43 ◼   ► that requires the rear feeder or something like that,

01:19:46 ◼   ► on the interface of this printer.

01:19:48 ◼   ► It's got a touchscreen, and I was like,

01:19:50 ◼   ► they still make, it's a pressure-sensitive touchscreen.

01:19:53 ◼   ► When's the last time you saw a pressure-sensitive touchscreen?

01:19:55 ◼   ► I had to bring back my old Palm skills

01:19:57 ◼   ► of using my fingernail to hit small buttons and everything.

01:20:00 ◼   ► It's like, wow, that's, it's terrible.

01:20:02 ◼   ► But it's a printer, it supports AirPrint out of the box.

01:20:05 ◼   ► You don't have to install any drivers to use it from a Mac.

01:20:07 ◼   ► Like it's all, you know, it just,

01:20:09 ◼   ► everything just works on it.

01:20:10 ◼   ► So we'll see how it goes.

01:20:12 ◼   ► Like I am worried about the EcoTank thing

01:20:13 ◼   ► with the ink running out, but you know, live and learn.

01:20:16 ◼   ► And it wasn't that expensive.

01:20:18 ◼   ► So it's not gonna be too big of a mistake

01:20:21 ◼   ► as opposed to the lasers where I bought this big heavy thing

01:20:24 ◼   ► and put it in the basement.

01:20:25 ◼   ► And then we, you know, made trips up and down

01:20:27 ◼   ► and decided we can't do this anymore, especially for scans.

01:20:29 ◼   ► You don't wanna be walking up and down

01:20:30 ◼   ► if you're scanning stuff to the computer.

01:20:32 ◼   ► - Yeah, that's true.

01:20:33 ◼   ► - I was like, oh, you can bring a laptop down.

01:20:35 ◼   ► It's like, nah, but I wanna use my big screen

01:20:37 ◼   ► when I do scans and so we'll see how it goes but I thought I'd bring it up for

01:20:41 ◼   ► the reason of like my shock about the inside of my printer looks like after

01:20:44 ◼   ► all these years like you don't think of computer you think of computer devices

01:20:47 ◼   ► it being exact thing especially since the job of the printer is to put very

01:20:50 ◼   ► precisely aligned tiny dots of ink on a paper carefully but then the whole

01:20:56 ◼   ► inside of the printer is like you know like this like I said like there's been

01:20:59 ◼   ► a murder in it's it's kind of amazing that the paper comes into goes into that

01:21:03 ◼   ► machining comes out and it isn't splattered rethink so which actual

01:21:07 ◼   ► printer did you get because you were gonna get asked a thousand like I put