ATP

00:00:00 ◼   ► All right, we should move on before I get cranky again.

00:00:01 ◼   ► All right, let's do some follow up.

00:00:03 ◼   ► - Have another donut, move right along.

00:00:04 ◼   ► (laughs)

00:00:05 ◼   ► - It's time to have another donut.

00:00:06 ◼   ► If you don't understand that, ATP.fm/join.

00:00:09 ◼   ► Moving right along, we had talked last episode,

00:00:14 ◼   ► I think the context was you jump starting the FJ

00:00:18 ◼   ► via the Model S, and we were curious if that was possible,

00:00:22 ◼   ► you know, what would the mechanism for that be?

00:00:24 ◼   ► And Jesper Weltz wrote in--

00:00:26 ◼   ► - I don't even know where the battery is.

00:00:28 ◼   ► That's why YouTube exists.

00:00:30 ◼   ► - Yeah, exactly.

00:00:31 ◼   ► So Jesper Wells wrote in and pointed us to a video

00:00:34 ◼   ► wherein you have to dismantle half the Tesla

00:00:36 ◼   ► in order to get to the battery terminals,

00:00:38 ◼   ► but it is possible. - There you go.

00:00:39 ◼   ► - Big Tesla energy there.

00:00:40 ◼   ► And then somebody else,

00:00:42 ◼   ► whose name I don't have in front of me, I'm sorry.

00:00:44 ◼   ► Jameson sent us a second video.

00:00:46 ◼   ► Each of these videos is like two and a half minutes,

00:00:48 ◼   ► so they're quick to watch.

00:00:49 ◼   ► And this reminded me of like a year ago,

00:00:52 ◼   ► James May of Top Gear and the Grand Tour,

00:00:55 ◼   ► he has a Model S among his many other cars.

00:00:57 ◼   ► And he apparently, at the beginning of lockdown, basically stopped driving it, as basically all of us did, we just stopped driving.

00:01:04 ◼   ► And especially in the UK where they really took lockdown seriously, where they actually had actual lockdown, not what Americans think of as lockdown.

00:01:11 ◼   ► Anyways, so the Model S sat for a long time, Marco, and it was not on any sort of charger of any kind.

00:01:18 ◼   ► And if I recall correctly, I watched this video like a week ago, he went to get in the car,

00:01:24 ◼   ► but because the door knobs, the door handles are inside the car until you walk up to it,

00:01:29 ◼   ► he couldn't get in the car because the door handle knobby things wouldn't pop out.

00:01:33 ◼   ► So then he assumed that the key fob battery was broken or dead or flat in Britishisms,

00:01:38 ◼   ► and it was not, so, you know, he put in a different battery and that didn't do it.

00:01:42 ◼   ► Come to find out that, you know, there's two different battery systems in a Tesla, or at least in the Model S.

00:01:47 ◼   ► There's the 12-volt battery and then the big, big battery.

00:01:49 ◼   ► It would appear if I understand things right and now I'm gonna get everyone writing me. Trust me. I really don't care everyone

00:01:55 ◼   ► But anyways one way or another the big battery doesn't exactly always

00:01:58 ◼   ► Totally charge the little battery and so what he had to do in order to get into his car

00:02:05 ◼   ► Was he needed to pop the frunk and in order to do that you needed to crack open the the wheel well

00:02:11 ◼   ► Trim in the front of the car on each side and squeeze your hand in there and pull a cable on each side

00:02:17 ◼   ► That would let you get the frunk open.

00:02:19 ◼   ► Once you get the frunk open,

00:02:20 ◼   ► you have to remove four different panels,

00:02:23 ◼   ► a smattering of ducting,

00:02:25 ◼   ► and then eventually at that point,

00:02:27 ◼   ► you can actually get to the terminals.

00:02:29 ◼   ► So you can put a charger, like a trickle charger,

00:02:31 ◼   ► which we talked about last week,

00:02:32 ◼   ► like a trickle charger onto the battery

00:02:34 ◼   ► to get enough juice so that you can actually

00:02:36 ◼   ► open the driver's side door.

00:02:37 ◼   ► Excellent work, excellent job Tesla.

00:02:41 ◼   ► Just great work there.

00:02:42 ◼   ► - Yeah, I have heard from a number of Tesla owners

00:02:46 ◼   ► problems with the 12 volt battery.

00:02:49 ◼   ► And this is, they seem, over time they have seemingly

00:02:53 ◼   ► improved this with software updates and things like that.

00:02:56 ◼   ► But even-- - That's also big Tesla energy.

00:02:58 ◼   ► - Yeah, right.

00:02:59 ◼   ► But yeah, definitely like, so the problem is like,

00:03:03 ◼   ► you know, the way electric cars use or don't use

00:03:07 ◼   ► 12 volt batteries is totally different

00:03:09 ◼   ► from the way gas cars use them.

00:03:11 ◼   ► The batteries aren't necessarily designed

00:03:13 ◼   ► for the kind of use electric cars are using them for.

00:03:16 ◼   ► 'Cause this again, this is not the battery

00:03:17 ◼   ► that they're using to power the wheels.

00:03:19 ◼   ► This is just the battery they use

00:03:20 ◼   ► to do all the accessory stuff in the car.

00:03:22 ◼   ► And so many people have the 12 volt battery

00:03:26 ◼   ► just totally die within a few months

00:03:28 ◼   ► of buying a brand new electric car.

00:03:30 ◼   ► Because it's failing 'cause the usage pattern

00:03:33 ◼   ► is totally wrong for it or whatever.

00:03:34 ◼   ► And this is actually a problem

00:03:35 ◼   ► that other electric car manufacturers have.

00:03:39 ◼   ► And this is something that Tesla has finally

00:03:41 ◼   ► pretty much solved, I think.

00:03:44 ◼   ► But then you start seeing problem reports of this

00:03:46 ◼   ► from other car manufacturers who have launched

00:03:48 ◼   ► more recent electric car models.

00:03:49 ◼   ► Like they're all going through this stupid learning curve

00:03:51 ◼   ► of learning like, wait a minute, these batteries

00:03:53 ◼   ► are totally wrong for this purpose.

00:03:55 ◼   ► And we don't really have a good solution for that

00:03:56 ◼   ► except that I think Tesla now does a little bit smarter

00:03:59 ◼   ► management of its charge level in software.

00:04:02 ◼   ► - Yeah, these videos show, you know,

00:04:05 ◼   ► jump-starting a gasoline-powered car from your Tesla.

00:04:08 ◼   ► It's not so bad to get the battery in some of the cases.

00:04:09 ◼   ► I think one of them shows a Model 3

00:04:11 ◼   ► where it's really just pop off a panel

00:04:12 ◼   ► and there are the terminals.

00:04:13 ◼   ► And I like the idea of the person getting into the Tesla

00:04:15 ◼   ► and revving the engine, you know,

00:04:17 ◼   ► just make sure there's enough juice.

00:04:18 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:04:20 ◼   ► - Indeed.

00:04:21 ◼   ► - Oh, I saw, what's the big Porsche thing

00:04:23 ◼   ► that you guys were trying to get me to buy?

00:04:25 ◼   ► - The Taycan?

00:04:25 ◼   ► I always pronounce it wrong.

00:04:26 ◼   ► I think that might be wrong as well.

00:04:28 ◼   ► Taycan, Taycan?

00:04:29 ◼   ► - I finally saw one in real life.

00:04:30 ◼   ► - Really?

00:04:31 ◼   ► I'm surprised it's taken that long.

00:04:32 ◼   ► They're all over the place around here.

00:04:33 ◼   ► - So first of all, it was basically on the ground.

00:04:37 ◼   ► It's a very low car, way lower than mine appears to be.

00:04:42 ◼   ► And second of all, it looked certainly very large.

00:04:47 ◼   ► Now, this wasn't right next to my car,

00:04:50 ◼   ► this was like I was walking towards the ferry

00:04:51 ◼   ► and I saw one coming into the parking lot.

00:04:54 ◼   ► But it looked like a,

00:04:56 ◼   ► I don't know how the dimensions compare,

00:04:57 ◼   ► but it looked bigger than my car and it looked very low.

00:05:02 ◼   ► So again, I don't know,

00:05:03 ◼   ► maybe this was just like my perspective at the time,

00:05:05 ◼   ► but it looked like something that was probably not

00:05:09 ◼   ► gonna be a good thing for any of my near future needs.

00:05:12 ◼   ► - Your car is two inches longer

00:05:14 ◼   ► and it is identical in the other dimensions.

00:05:16 ◼   ► - Cool, all right.

00:05:17 ◼   ► (laughs)

00:05:18 ◼   ► Then this is totally wrong.

00:05:19 ◼   ► - So leaving the money aside--

00:05:22 ◼   ► - Which is substantial.

00:05:23 ◼   ► - Which is substantial.

00:05:24 ◼   ► Is this even a possibility to you or not even close?

00:05:27 ◼   ► - I don't even know what my needs are gonna be right now

00:05:30 ◼   ► with like, you know, beech vehicles and stuff like that.

00:05:33 ◼   ► So right now I am not looking to buy any new electric vehicles

00:05:38 ◼   ► unless they happen to be like trucks or SUVs at this point.

00:05:41 ◼   ► But hopefully in a few years when I no longer am here

00:05:44 ◼   ► full time, that will hopefully change things.

00:05:48 ◼   ► I mean, I'm trusting the Google results on this, by the way.

00:05:51 ◼   ► It's eerie how close they are, because this is in inches.

00:05:53 ◼   ► They're literally down to the inch of the same,

00:05:55 ◼   ► except for the Model S is two inches longer and one inch

00:05:59 ◼   ► wider, depending on which trim level you got on the Porsche,

00:06:02 ◼   ► I think.

00:06:02 ◼   ► That's that you can tell when one car is targeting another car when they're like

00:06:06 ◼   ► Inch basically the same size. I wonder if the EQS is similar

00:06:09 ◼   ► The EQS is much more like the model S and it's got the lift back as well

00:06:13 ◼   ► So it was like it's just basically a Mercedes model S. Is there a substantial difference in ground clearance? I

00:06:18 ◼   ► Don't know. I agree with you. They definitely look lower and of course the Porsche because it's a Porsche you can get with

00:06:24 ◼   ► 8,000 different options. So I'm sure there's one of them that actually is lower but maybe the plaid is lower too

00:06:29 ◼   ► It goes into cheetah stance, right?

00:06:31 ◼   ► Doesn't it lower with the air suspension on the Model S

00:06:34 ◼   ► when you go into the super fast mode?

00:06:36 ◼   ► - I think when you're going above 70 miles an hour,

00:06:38 ◼   ► it has an option to go extra low.

00:06:41 ◼   ► I believe you can set the threshold,

00:06:43 ◼   ► the speed threshold when that happens,

00:06:45 ◼   ► but it only goes down like a half inch.

00:06:47 ◼   ► It's not a big difference.

00:06:48 ◼   ► - All right, moving right along.

00:06:50 ◼   ► We talked about AirTags in the past

00:06:52 ◼   ► and how they can be used for nefarious purposes,

00:06:55 ◼   ► and Apple has posted an update on AirTag

00:06:57 ◼   ► and unwanted tracking.

00:06:59 ◼   ► And Apple has detailed some steps they're going to take in the future in order to make this better.

00:07:03 ◼   ► New privacy warnings during AirTag setup that basically says,

00:07:06 ◼   ► "Hey, among other things, it's probably illegal for you to stalk somebody with this."

00:07:10 ◼   ► Addressing alert issues for AirPods.

00:07:12 ◼   ► So I haven't personally seen this, but apparently it's very common for you to get an alert for an AirPod

00:07:18 ◼   ► that's on the Find My network that was... or if you're near an AirPod that's on the Find My network

00:07:23 ◼   ► that doesn't belong to you, you'll get an alert on your phone, "unknown accessory detected,"

00:07:26 ◼   ► which is not particularly helpful in the vein of most Apple errors. And so they're going to fix

00:07:33 ◼   ► that and say, "Hey, there's an AirPods Pro near you," or whatever the case may be. There's going

00:07:37 ◼   ► to be better support documentation. I believe that when I see it. And then additionally, later on

00:07:43 ◼   ► this year, they will allow precision finding, even if it's not your AirTag. So this is the like

00:07:48 ◼   ► thing where you wave your phone around and it'll point an arrow in the direction that the AirTag is.

00:07:55 ◼   ► that will display alert with sound.

00:07:58 ◼   ► And so I'm going to read a little bit from their post.

00:08:00 ◼   ► When AirTag automatically emits a sound to alert anyone nearby

00:08:02 ◼   ► if it's present and is detected moving with your phone,

00:08:04 ◼   ► iPad, or iPod touch,

00:08:06 ◼   ► we will also display an alert on your device

00:08:07 ◼   ► that you can then take action on,

00:08:09 ◼   ► like playing a sound or using precision finding if available.

00:08:12 ◼   ► This will help in cases where the AirTag may be in a location

00:08:15 ◼   ► where it is hard to hear or if the AirTag speaker

00:08:16 ◼   ► has been tampered with.

00:08:18 ◼   ► Additionally, refining unwanted tracking alert logic,

00:08:20 ◼   ► so they're going to futz around with the logic there

00:08:23 ◼   ► if they think that you're being tracked.

00:08:26 ◼   ► And then finally, tuning the AirTag sound.

00:08:28 ◼   ► Currently, iOS users receiving an unwanted tracking alert

00:08:30 ◼   ► can play sound to help them find their unknown AirTag.

00:08:34 ◼   ► We will be adjusting this tone sequence

00:08:35 ◼   ► to use more of the loudest tones

00:08:39 ◼   ► and to make an unknown AirTag more easily findable.

00:08:42 ◼   ► It's a tough thing, right?

00:08:43 ◼   ► Because AirTags, I only have one of them so far,

00:08:45 ◼   ► and they are super cool.

00:08:47 ◼   ► And when used as intended, it works really well,

00:08:50 ◼   ► and it's really well done.

00:08:51 ◼   ► But the problem is people are terrible.

00:08:53 ◼   ► and people are using them not as intended

00:08:55 ◼   ► and they're ruining it for everyone.

00:08:56 ◼   ► - Yeah, it's like the better they make it

00:08:58 ◼   ► for the people who are using it as intended,

00:09:01 ◼   ► the worse it gets for the bad people and vice versa, right?

00:09:05 ◼   ► So as they're trying to make it sort of safer,

00:09:07 ◼   ► it is getting worse for you, the normal user, right?

00:09:09 ◼   ► It's complete, it's like security,

00:09:11 ◼   ► like security and convenience, right?

00:09:13 ◼   ► The more security you make it,

00:09:14 ◼   ► the less inconvenient it is.

00:09:15 ◼   ► It's difficult.

00:09:16 ◼   ► Like the line I'm trying to walk here in particular

00:09:18 ◼   ► with most of these changes is,

00:09:21 ◼   ► Air tags are increasingly not for helping you when your stuff gets stolen.

00:09:27 ◼   ► Because all the stuff that we just described is going to alert the thief that there is

00:09:31 ◼   ► an air tag traveling with them.

00:09:34 ◼   ► It's about you losing things, which is someone didn't take them, you just lost them and misplaced

00:09:40 ◼   ► them.

00:09:41 ◼   ► So it's even further narrowing the use case of like, "Aha, I'll put this air tag on so

00:09:45 ◼   ► if someone steals my thing I'll find it."

00:09:47 ◼   ► No, if they actually steal it, now it's going to be more aggressive about alerting the thief

00:09:50 ◼   ► on their, the thief's iPhone to say,

00:09:52 ◼   ► "Hey, you might not know this,

00:09:53 ◼   ► but you're now traveling with somebody else's AirTag."

00:09:55 ◼   ► And they'll be all, "Thank you, phone,"

00:09:56 ◼   ► and they'll take it off and then have your thing, right?

00:09:58 ◼   ► That's not the use case, Apple.

00:10:00 ◼   ► Apple just has to basically say,

00:10:02 ◼   ► "If you're looking for something to help you find

00:10:04 ◼   ► stolen stuff, this ain't it," right?

00:10:06 ◼   ► Because of the safety concerns,

00:10:07 ◼   ► because of it being used for stalking or whatever.

00:10:09 ◼   ► So the use case gets narrower.

00:10:11 ◼   ► It becomes a little bit less convenient,

00:10:13 ◼   ► but it also becomes that much slightly more safe.

00:10:16 ◼   ► Yeah, and it is -- I think when we talked about this

00:10:20 ◼   ► the first time. I give Apple a lot of credit for trying very hard to think of and account

00:10:25 ◼   ► for the bad scenarios with this product, but it's difficult to think of all the bad scenarios

00:10:33 ◼   ► and to know exactly how to tune all these parameters that Casey just read, like how

00:10:37 ◼   ► aggressive should it be about this? What should this sound be? When should it do this? And

00:10:41 ◼   ► it takes some experience in the real world to figure out the right balance of those things.

00:10:46 ◼   ► So I still think it's definitely a valid product to have,

00:10:49 ◼   ► but it's good for people to understand what it can do well

00:10:52 ◼   ► and what it can't do.

00:10:53 ◼   ► And I think Apple's moving in the right direction

00:10:56 ◼   ► by saying even if it makes this less useful

00:10:59 ◼   ► for certain cases like stolen items,

00:11:01 ◼   ► it's better for it to be safer for more people.

00:11:04 ◼   ► - Yeah, I mean, I can see both sides of it.

00:11:07 ◼   ► Like, I'm glad they're making this

00:11:10 ◼   ► a little bit safer for people.

00:11:12 ◼   ► I don't know if it's possible for them to ever make it safe enough that it can't

00:11:19 ◼   ► be used in a widespread way for bad people doing bad things.

00:11:24 ◼   ► I still question whether it was worth them making this product at all because of that

00:11:29 ◼   ► risk and because it really does seem like that's going to have a really hard time being

00:11:35 ◼   ► possible.

00:11:36 ◼   ► That being said, as a customer of AirTags, for things that I was hoping would get tracked

00:11:42 ◼   ► and casual theft, this update is going to make it significantly worse at that. And that

00:11:48 ◼   ► kind of like I'm kind of annoyed about that. I see why they're doing it. And it's probably

00:11:53 ◼   ► for the best for you know, the abuse reduction. But as a customer of these things, they're

00:11:58 ◼   ► actually making this product worse for me now, to the point where it's going to only

00:12:02 ◼   ► barely serve the purpose I wanted it to serve. So having that happen after purchase is kind

00:12:08 ◼   ► of crappy as well. So I don't see a great way out of the situation for them. It seems to me that

00:12:15 ◼   ► the AirTags are a tough product to not cause problems and maybe they shouldn't have been

00:12:24 ◼   ► released at all. Do you think the drunk people will notice when they're stealing your bike that

00:12:27 ◼   ► their phone is going off? They'll probably just keep going. I don't think they're gonna scour

00:12:31 ◼   ► your bike for the AirTag if they even notice the notification. I think it still works for your use

00:12:34 ◼   ► case. Yeah well I've heard the notifications like the audible ones like

00:12:38 ◼   ► like the air because the air tag makes a little chiming sound when you when you

00:12:42 ◼   ► move it away from its phone for a while because I have one on my wagon that I

00:12:47 ◼   ► pulled a town to get packages and every the wagon lives like on my deck next to

00:12:52 ◼   ► my house so it is always maybe 20 or 30 feet away from my phone like when we're

00:12:58 ◼   ► just sitting in the house that's apparently far enough that it doesn't

00:13:02 ◼   ► I think the phone is connected to it.

00:13:03 ◼   ► So almost every time I go grab the wagon to walk to town,

00:13:07 ◼   ► I hear (mimics waggon)

00:13:09 ◼   ► a little sound coming from the speaker.

00:13:11 ◼   ► And even though I am there with my phone in my pocket,

00:13:15 ◼   ► like I approach the wagon with my phone in my pocket,

00:13:17 ◼   ► I grab the wagon and I start moving it

00:13:19 ◼   ► with the phone in my pocket,

00:13:21 ◼   ► the phone is often even on with its Bluetooth active

00:13:23 ◼   ► playing a podcast into my headphones,

00:13:25 ◼   ► and I'm still hearing (mimics waggon)

00:13:27 ◼   ► because it takes so long to recognize that,

00:13:30 ◼   ► oh, oh, the phone is here.

00:13:32 ◼   ► Oh, nevermind, we're okay.

00:13:33 ◼   ► So these are already products that just barely work.

00:13:38 ◼   ► And so I'm a little bit disappointed

00:13:43 ◼   ► that they're going to be made worse for my purpose.

00:13:46 ◼   ► But I think, John, you are right,

00:13:47 ◼   ► that considering that this is mostly,

00:13:50 ◼   ► for my use, this is mostly to solve casual drunk theft,

00:13:53 ◼   ► it will still probably work okay enough for that.

00:13:56 ◼   ► But it is kind of annoying.

00:13:57 ◼   ► And again, it's annoying that, kind of like Tesla,

00:14:00 ◼   ► they're making my product worse after purchase.

00:14:03 ◼   ► Real time follow up according to the random results

00:14:06 ◼   ► that Google chucks up when you try to do a search

00:14:08 ◼   ► and you're too lazy to follow a link.

00:14:10 ◼   ► Model S ground clearance, 4.6 inches.

00:14:12 ◼   ► Porsche Taycan ground clearance, 5 inches.

00:14:16 ◼   ► Again, again with the caveats that both of these cars, I

00:14:19 ◼   ► think, can change their ride height.

00:14:20 ◼   ► Yes.

00:14:21 ◼   ► And the Model S, I think, can go up to like 6 point something

00:14:24 ◼   ► on the max height.

00:14:25 ◼   ► Don't take either one on the beach.

00:14:27 ◼   ► No.

00:14:27 ◼   ► But I do, I leave it.

00:14:28 ◼   ► So one thing about Long Island is that it's pretty low

00:14:33 ◼   ► across the whole thing, or at least most of it.

00:14:36 ◼   ► And so Long Island, like the regular parts of the island

00:14:40 ◼   ► where regular suburbs are, floods all the time.

00:14:43 ◼   ► - Well, if you're near the water,

00:14:46 ◼   ► no place that I ever lived growing up on Long Island flooded

00:14:48 ◼   ► because I was in the middle of the island.

00:14:50 ◼   ► - Well, that's fair.

00:14:51 ◼   ► But yeah, so all these places on the South Shore.

00:14:53 ◼   ► So one thing I have to be concerned about

00:14:55 ◼   ► is during the biggest flood season,

00:14:57 ◼   ► which is I think usually the fall,

00:14:59 ◼   ► you have to be careful that if you leave your car

00:15:03 ◼   ► parked at the ferry terminal, it might get flooded out.

00:15:06 ◼   ► So I learned through habit, I learned like,

00:15:09 ◼   ► all right, the parking lot is very slightly sloped,

00:15:13 ◼   ► and so I know like where the tallest part is.

00:15:15 ◼   ► Yeah, so I park on the high ground,

00:15:17 ◼   ► and I raise the air suspension all the way up

00:15:20 ◼   ► when I leave the car.

00:15:20 ◼   ► - On its little tippy toes.

00:15:22 ◼   ► - It looks ridiculous, like it does not look

00:15:24 ◼   ► like an attractive vehicle in this stance.

00:15:26 ◼   ► However, that extra inch might be enough

00:15:30 ◼   ► to save my car from being flooded sometime.

00:15:31 ◼   ► - Yeah, you gotta get the functional high ground.

00:15:33 ◼   ► - Oh, God. - There it is.

00:15:35 ◼   ► That's a deep cut.

00:15:36 ◼   ► Oh my gosh, you know, I genuinely hope

00:15:39 ◼   ► that there is a time that I can come visit y'all

00:15:41 ◼   ► on Fire Island because the way you describe it,

00:15:43 ◼   ► it seems like everything about this

00:15:46 ◼   ► is made to be inconvenient and basically intolerable.

00:15:49 ◼   ► And I bet that if I were there, I would say,

00:15:51 ◼   ► "Oh, no, no, no, I totally get it now."

00:15:53 ◼   ► But from afar, everything about this sounds terrible.

00:15:56 ◼   ► You can't get mail or shipments in a quick way.

00:15:59 ◼   ► It's certainly not exactly cheap.

00:16:02 ◼   ► You can't drive anywhere, which in some cases is a benefit,

00:16:05 ◼   ► not a downside.

00:16:06 ◼   ► It randomly floods random hurricanes,

00:16:09 ◼   ► but no, other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, the play is great.

00:16:11 ◼   ► - So actually, it's about to get worse.

00:16:14 ◼   ► - Oh, and the sound or whatever freezes over

00:16:17 ◼   ► and then you can't get off the island.

00:16:18 ◼   ► - It's not the sound.

00:16:19 ◼   ► - Whatever it is.

00:16:20 ◼   ► Whatever it is.

00:16:21 ◼   ► - Okay, so two things.

00:16:22 ◼   ► For one, it's about to get worse in one way, but I'm about to tell you why it's great.

00:16:25 ◼   ► But the way it's about to get worse, the ferry company told us a couple days ago that they're

00:16:32 ◼   ► going to cut off all servers to us starting March 1st indefinitely because they can't

00:16:36 ◼   ► reach an agreement for a contract with the village.

00:16:39 ◼   ► Oh my gosh.

00:16:41 ◼   ► So that's fun.

00:16:42 ◼   ► And then…

00:16:43 ◼   ► You've got to talk to your village people over your PA system.

00:16:45 ◼   ► Hey, there it is.

00:16:46 ◼   ► And say, "Hey, get a deal because you'll be stranded here without our SAND license."

00:16:52 ◼   ► - No, it's like when a cable or satellite provider

00:16:57 ◼   ► drops a channel or threatens to drop a channel

00:16:59 ◼   ► and then so they drop it for a few weeks,

00:17:01 ◼   ► everybody complains and eventually they work it out.

00:17:03 ◼   ► It's gonna be like that.

00:17:04 ◼   ► So anyway.

00:17:05 ◼   ► - You realize this is just like incrementing

00:17:07 ◼   ► the doomsday clock on Marco getting a boat, like one more.

00:17:10 ◼   ► Like five more minutes, right?

00:17:12 ◼   ► - You know, there aren't a lot of people who have boats

00:17:15 ◼   ► on the Long Island in the Great South Bay in March.

00:17:18 ◼   ► That's not--

00:17:20 ◼   ► - I know, well you have to put them somewhere

00:17:22 ◼   ► for the winter, but then they go back in the water.

00:17:24 ◼   ► - Don't they marshmallow wrap them for the winter

00:17:26 ◼   ► and put them on land somewhere?

00:17:27 ◼   ► - Getting a boat is the inevitable conclusion

00:17:30 ◼   ► of your complete transformation into a Long Island man.

00:17:32 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:17:33 ◼   ► - Anyway. - I was just listening

00:17:35 ◼   ► to Downeaster Alexa earlier today.

00:17:37 ◼   ► And before you tell me the good part,

00:17:38 ◼   ► I want you to be clear, hand to God,

00:17:41 ◼   ► I really do believe it is an amazing, wonderful place.

00:17:43 ◼   ► I'm not trying to actually yuck your yum.

00:17:45 ◼   ► It's just so funny to me the way you describe it,

00:17:47 ◼   ► is that it sounds terrible from a distance.

00:17:50 ◼   ► And I don't doubt that when you're there,

00:17:52 ◼   ► all of that goes away.

00:17:53 ◼   ► - Well, the ferry parking lot is not the cool place,

00:17:56 ◼   ► to be clear. - Right.

00:17:57 ◼   ► - That's also true. - It's a parking lot

00:17:59 ◼   ► for a ferry, it's not. - Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:18:01 ◼   ► - Yeah. - A ferry that isn't gonna

00:18:02 ◼   ► run much longer. - Yeah, right.

00:18:04 ◼   ► - Yeah, but anyway, but you know,

00:18:06 ◼   ► so I noticed I went last week on Thursday.

00:18:11 ◼   ► The reason why the show came out

00:18:12 ◼   ► a couple hours later than usual

00:18:14 ◼   ► is because I had to schedule all these errands on Thursday

00:18:16 ◼   ► where in one day I went off the island,

00:18:19 ◼   ► drove all the way back to Westchester,

00:18:21 ◼   ► brought hops in for service, then drove all the way back.

00:18:23 ◼   ► And I was editing the show on the ferry on the way there,

00:18:28 ◼   ► sitting at a supercharger, sitting in my passenger seat

00:18:30 ◼   ► in front of a Whole Foods, and then back on the ferry back.

00:18:33 ◼   ► That's how I edited last week's show.

00:18:35 ◼   ► So if anything, it sounded like if there was some

00:18:39 ◼   ► slight transition between words that were edited

00:18:42 ◼   ► that I couldn't quite hear somebody's wrong breath on,

00:18:44 ◼   ► it's because I was editing it on a very loud boat

00:18:47 ◼   ► while wearing AirPods Pro,

00:18:48 ◼   ► which while they have great noise cancellation features,

00:18:53 ◼   ► are not as good as sitting in my quiet office

00:18:55 ◼   ► doing it that way.

00:18:56 ◼   ► Anyway, so during this day where I was going back

00:19:00 ◼   ► and back to my old neighborhood and getting things done

00:19:02 ◼   ► and then coming back,

00:19:03 ◼   ► every time I spend time off the island,

00:19:05 ◼   ► I realize that the entire rest of the world

00:19:10 ◼   ► that most people live in is designed for cars first

00:19:14 ◼   ► and people second.

00:19:16 ◼   ► - Yeah, which is not a good thing for the record

00:19:18 ◼   ► and I agree with you.

00:19:19 ◼   ► - And in many ways, like there's so many things

00:19:21 ◼   ► wrong with this, but that's the, like,

00:19:23 ◼   ► the place I live, like, to be clear,

00:19:26 ◼   ► maybe I'll put a picture in the art, I don't know,

00:19:28 ◼   ► but to be clear, like, we have,

00:19:31 ◼   ► there's a bunch of houses packed together here.

00:19:33 ◼   ► You know, most of the house lots here are like

00:19:37 ◼   ► 30 to 50 feet wide by about 50 to 80 feet deep.

00:19:42 ◼   ► And so these are not large house plots.

00:19:45 ◼   ► The houses are all close together, it's very dense.

00:19:47 ◼   ► And instead of having streets,

00:19:50 ◼   ► we basically have wide sidewalks that are,

00:19:54 ◼   ► I don't know exactly how wide they are,

00:19:55 ◼   ► maybe eight or 10 feet wide.

00:19:58 ◼   ► It's wide enough that a regular US pickup truck

00:20:03 ◼   ► can fit as a road, but just barely.

00:20:07 ◼   ► and the side view mirrors on the truck

00:20:10 ◼   ► will brush against everyone's hedges as they go by.

00:20:14 ◼   ► That's how tight it is.

00:20:15 ◼   ► And so here I'm in a place that is designed for people first

00:20:20 ◼   ► and will just barely accommodate cars when necessary.

00:20:26 ◼   ► The rest of the world is designed to accommodate cars

00:20:29 ◼   ► as easily and great as possible

00:20:31 ◼   ► and just barely accommodates people when necessary.

00:20:34 ◼   ► That's the difference.

00:20:35 ◼   ► And it is so different, even just like walking my dog

00:20:39 ◼   ► in the regular suburbs on regular land,

00:20:42 ◼   ► I'm constantly having to look around for cars

00:20:44 ◼   ► and oh, stop here at this intersection,

00:20:46 ◼   ► wait for the cars to go by, cross the street,

00:20:48 ◼   ► look for the car, I'm squeezing onto this little tiny

00:20:50 ◼   ► sidewalk and the cars have all this nice space.

00:20:53 ◼   ► And here, I have this space 'cause I'm the person

00:20:57 ◼   ► and my dog and I can walk down this super wide sidewalk

00:21:00 ◼   ► and have room, I can bike easily without having to worry

00:21:04 ◼   ► that I'm gonna get hit by a car on my bike and die.

00:21:07 ◼   ► Like, it's really, it's so different.

00:21:10 ◼   ► And the sad part is that there aren't more places like this.

00:21:15 ◼   ► - Well, but before we get the entire rest

00:21:17 ◼   ► of the planet riding us, there's not more places like that

00:21:19 ◼   ► in America, and surely there are other countries

00:21:21 ◼   ► that are similar to the way we are,

00:21:23 ◼   ► but there are many, many, many places on the planet

00:21:25 ◼   ► that are people first and are not car first

00:21:29 ◼   ► like so much of America is.

00:21:30 ◼   ► - That's fair, but honestly,

00:21:32 ◼   ► there's not a lot of those places.

00:21:33 ◼   ► most places are car first.

00:21:36 ◼   ► And usually, to have anything that is not car first,

00:21:40 ◼   ► you have to be somewhere that is so old

00:21:42 ◼   ► that it was all laid out and built before cars.

00:21:45 ◼   ► And there aren't that many of those places.

00:21:46 ◼   ► - No, I mean, you just need people

00:21:48 ◼   ► who are willing to make that change.

00:21:50 ◼   ► I mean, there's the big meme of,

00:21:51 ◼   ► what country is it they were showing?

00:21:53 ◼   ► Like, is it Amsterdam or something?

00:21:54 ◼   ► And they're like, you know, it's a constant meme

00:21:57 ◼   ► of people saying, well, you know, in America,

00:21:59 ◼   ► we can't all be like Amsterdam.

00:22:01 ◼   ► Or I'm sorry if it's not Amsterdam, who knows whatever it is.

00:22:03 ◼   ► But then the follow up is, well, here's what Amsterdam looked like in 1975.

00:22:07 ◼   ► And it looked just like America.

00:22:08 ◼   ► It was filled with cars, filled with street, you know, cars parked along the line,

00:22:11 ◼   ► along every single street in all directions, cars, cars, cars, cars.

00:22:14 ◼   ► And they changed it. Right.

00:22:16 ◼   ► You can make you can change the way your city works

00:22:18 ◼   ► by changing the laws and doing construction.

00:22:21 ◼   ► And as a lot of the the COVID stuff, you know, came down,

00:22:25 ◼   ► a lot of places and cities were closed to cars or had much less traffic.

00:22:29 ◼   ► And it was an opportunity to change the way things were.

00:22:32 ◼   ► and a lot of the cities decided to keep it that way.

00:22:35 ◼   ► I think Paris actually is now, you know,

00:22:37 ◼   ► they shut down a whole bunch of roads

00:22:39 ◼   ► and made no cars allowed anymore on these streets,

00:22:42 ◼   ► and then people filled the streets,

00:22:43 ◼   ► and instead of just going back to normal,

00:22:45 ◼   ► they're trying to make that permanent and say,

00:22:46 ◼   ► actually, those roads are shut down permanently,

00:22:48 ◼   ► and now they're gonna be for people,

00:22:50 ◼   ► and sidewalks, or whatever.

00:22:51 ◼   ► It is possible to do that in countries

00:22:53 ◼   ► with mildly functioning governments,

00:22:55 ◼   ► and a citizenry not 100% brainwashed by fascists,

00:22:59 ◼   ► but that's not where we live, so.

00:23:01 ◼   ► that we take what we can get.

00:23:03 ◼   ► But anyway, change is possible.

00:23:05 ◼   ► But it's-- yeah, cars--

00:23:07 ◼   ► and it's mostly for a good reason that cars--

00:23:09 ◼   ► we built everything around cars because they're super convenient

00:23:12 ◼   ► and they make a lot of new things possible.

00:23:14 ◼   ► But we obviously went way too far

00:23:16 ◼   ► in that direction in this country.

00:23:17 ◼   ► We need to reel it back in and probably

00:23:19 ◼   ► are going to have a difficult time doing that.

00:23:21 ◼   ► Yeah, it's a shame.

00:23:22 ◼   ► Because when all you've ever known

00:23:25 ◼   ► is car-focused design, which is all I ever knew before this,

00:23:30 ◼   ► You don't realize quite what you're missing.

00:23:33 ◼   ► And once you have a taste of people first design,

00:23:37 ◼   ► effectively, it kinda ruins you, kinda like the XDR.

00:23:42 ◼   ► It kinda ruins you. (laughs)

00:23:43 ◼   ► It's really nice, and now I just,

00:23:46 ◼   ► maybe I'll become an activist to try to get that done

00:23:50 ◼   ► in more places in the US, because it really is,

00:23:53 ◼   ► it really is a breath of fresh air, on many levels,

00:23:56 ◼   ► including literally, because you have fewer cars

00:23:58 ◼   ► polluting the air that you're breathing.

00:23:59 ◼   ► But it's really, it's so nice,

00:24:02 ◼   ► and I wish everyone in America could experience

00:24:05 ◼   ► this kind of life so that you could know,

00:24:08 ◼   ► A, what you're missing, and B, what we can maybe aspire to.

00:24:12 ◼   ► - Yeah, part of the reason that I like visiting

00:24:14 ◼   ► Cape Charles so much is because,

00:24:15 ◼   ► although it is not car-free,

00:24:17 ◼   ► the downtown or the historic district is,

00:24:20 ◼   ► I think it's a square mile or something like that,

00:24:22 ◼   ► and there are roads all over the place,

00:24:25 ◼   ► but there are fewer cars than almost anywhere else

00:24:29 ◼   ► that I go on a regular basis.

00:24:31 ◼   ► And so it is kind of de facto people first.

00:24:35 ◼   ► It's not the same as Fire Island.

00:24:36 ◼   ► I'm not trying to say it's one-to-one,

00:24:38 ◼   ► but it's spiritually similar, I think.

00:24:40 ◼   ► And oftentimes when we go for a week,

00:24:42 ◼   ► we will park Aaron's car on whatever day we arrive.

00:24:45 ◼   ► And the next time we climb in is when we get to go home.

00:24:48 ◼   ► And we'll walk the rest of the time.

00:24:51 ◼   ► Or perhaps if we were feeling lazy, we could,

00:24:53 ◼   ► although we haven't done it yet,

00:24:54 ◼   ► we could rent like a golf cart for the week.

00:24:57 ◼   ► And people will do that.

00:24:58 ◼   ► And I do agree with you that it is quite lovely

00:25:01 ◼   ► to walk to dinner instead of driving to dinner,

00:25:04 ◼   ► you know, and stuff like that.

00:25:04 ◼   ► So I hear you, it's just so funny to me hearing

00:25:08 ◼   ► all the woes and issues that you have,

00:25:10 ◼   ► particularly in the wintertime,

00:25:11 ◼   ► which is certainly not when Fire Island's

00:25:12 ◼   ► putting its best foot forward.

00:25:13 ◼   ► Again, I don't mean that to be a turd,

00:25:14 ◼   ► I'm just saying it's clearly not designed

00:25:17 ◼   ► by your own admission for many year-round residents.

00:25:20 ◼   ► - Oh, yeah.

00:25:21 ◼   ► - So yeah, so it's just funny to hear.

00:25:23 ◼   ► (upbeat music)

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00:27:10 ◼   ► Thank you so much to Linode for hosting all my stuff

00:27:13 ◼   ► and for sponsoring our show.

00:27:14 ◼   ► - You know what was great to hear though,

00:27:20 ◼   ► or read actually, was a blog post

00:27:22 ◼   ► by our very own John Sirahusa.

00:27:24 ◼   ► - Hey! - Imagine that.

00:27:25 ◼   ► It's that time of year, and I mean that

00:27:27 ◼   ► in every sense of the phrase.

00:27:29 ◼   ► It is that time of year, 'cause we usually

00:27:30 ◼   ► only get one a year, and we got a blog post from John.

00:27:33 ◼   ► And you know what?

00:27:35 ◼   ► There are times on this show that I'm a host,

00:27:37 ◼   ► and there are times that I am simply just listening.

00:27:40 ◼   ► And as far as I'm concerned, John,

00:27:42 ◼   ► if you wanna just talk the rest of the episode,

00:27:45 ◼   ► I am happy to hear it.

00:27:47 ◼   ► I loved this blog post, and this is the one

00:27:50 ◼   ► that you've been threatening to write

00:27:51 ◼   ► for a couple of years now

00:27:52 ◼   ► about how to make a decent streaming app.

00:27:55 ◼   ► So as deep or as wide or both as you'd like to go,

00:28:00 ◼   ► tell me, Jon, about your unsolicited

00:28:02 ◼   ► streaming app specification.

00:28:04 ◼   ► - To be clear, it's not one blog post a year,

00:28:06 ◼   ► it's an average of one a year,

00:28:07 ◼   ► and those are two different statements.

00:28:08 ◼   ► One a year means that in every calendar year

00:28:10 ◼   ► there should be one post.

00:28:11 ◼   ► An average of one a year means that over the course

00:28:13 ◼   ► of 10 years there should be 10 posts.

00:28:15 ◼   ► It's around an average of one a year.

00:28:17 ◼   ► I think I'm over 1.0.

00:28:19 ◼   ► Anyway, yeah, I missed 20, I didn't do anything in 2021.

00:28:24 ◼   ► Sorry, everyone.

00:28:25 ◼   ► So maybe I'll do a second one

00:28:25 ◼   ► to follow up on this eventually in 2022.

00:28:28 ◼   ► So what I wrote about was I was just trying to have an outlet

00:28:33 ◼   ► for my frustration with streaming video apps

00:28:36 ◼   ► like on any platform, on your phone, on an iPad,

00:28:39 ◼   ► on Apple TV, on your television,

00:28:41 ◼   ► things you use to watch Netflix, Prime Video, Hulu, HBO,

00:28:45 ◼   ► like whatever.

00:28:46 ◼   ► I think we know what streaming video apps are.

00:28:50 ◼   ► I subscribe to a whole bunch of those services.

00:28:52 ◼   ► I subscribe to them all the time.

00:28:54 ◼   ► I can't even keep track of how many I subscribe to.

00:28:56 ◼   ► I'm getting better about unsubscribing when

00:28:57 ◼   ► I'm done watching shows on them.

00:28:59 ◼   ► But sometimes they just have enough good content

00:29:01 ◼   ► that I just keep my subscription going.

00:29:02 ◼   ► Anyway, and that means I get to use a lot

00:29:04 ◼   ► of these different apps.

00:29:05 ◼   ► And it boggles my mind how annoying they are in basic ways.

00:29:10 ◼   ► Like obviously everyone's gonna have their own peeves

00:29:13 ◼   ► about some feature that one has that another one doesn't

00:29:16 ◼   ► and I wish it did this cool thing or whatever,

00:29:18 ◼   ► but I'm just talking about like the super duper basics.

00:29:20 ◼   ► What I originally planned for this post

00:29:21 ◼   ► probably last year or the year before that was

00:29:24 ◼   ► just the playback screen,

00:29:25 ◼   ► like the screen where you've got a play button, right?

00:29:28 ◼   ► And you're watching the thing and you can press it

00:29:29 ◼   ► and you can pause and then you can press it

00:29:30 ◼   ► and you can play that, like the playback screen.

00:29:33 ◼   ► That screen alone, it amazes me how many apps get that

00:29:37 ◼   ► just entirely wrong by omitting some major feature.

00:29:39 ◼   ► Most of them, you know,

00:29:40 ◼   ► I haven't found one that omitted play and pause,

00:29:42 ◼   ► so good, thumbs up.

00:29:44 ◼   ► You got the play and pause thing,

00:29:46 ◼   ► but pretty much any other feature you can think of,

00:29:48 ◼   ► there's some streaming video app that doesn't implement it.

00:29:52 ◼   ► And I find that, you know, so it was like,

00:29:53 ◼   ► I was gonna say here, just,

00:29:55 ◼   ► here's a list of things you have to have

00:29:56 ◼   ► in your sort of now playing video player, whatever screen.

00:30:01 ◼   ► And then you could go through all the streaming video apps

00:30:03 ◼   ► and see that none of them fulfill that, right?

00:30:05 ◼   ► That eventually expanded into,

00:30:07 ◼   ► oh, what happened was I was gonna write that

00:30:08 ◼   ► and someone else wrote it.

00:30:09 ◼   ► Someone else wrote like, it was like a year or two ago.

00:30:11 ◼   ► Someone else wrote essentially that exact article.

00:30:12 ◼   ► I'm like, ah, someone else already did it, it's fine.

00:30:14 ◼   ► Even though what they wrote was not exactly the same,

00:30:17 ◼   ► it was the same idea.

00:30:18 ◼   ► Like, here's the controls that should be

00:30:20 ◼   ► in every streaming video app or something like that.

00:30:22 ◼   ► But time has passed and people forgot about that article.

00:30:25 ◼   ► And I said, you know, I should write about this too,

00:30:26 ◼   ► but I shouldn't just limit it to the now playing screen,

00:30:28 ◼   ► I should talk about the entire app experience.

00:30:31 ◼   ► But how am I gonna do that?

00:30:31 ◼   ► Am I just gonna go like, here are, you know,

00:30:34 ◼   ► things that annoy me about the apps that I use,

00:30:36 ◼   ► or here's some stuff people could do

00:30:39 ◼   ► to make their apps better?

00:30:40 ◼   ► And I was still sort of concentrating on

00:30:42 ◼   ► how frustrated I am that these things can't get the basics right.

00:30:45 ◼   ► So instead of what I decided to do was write a sort of informal specification

00:30:50 ◼   ► that you could hand off to a development team at a company that has a streaming

00:30:54 ◼   ► app and say, here, we're a streaming service.

00:30:57 ◼   ► Please make an app that people can use to use our service.

00:31:00 ◼   ► Here are the requirements.

00:31:01 ◼   ► Here's the specification of just the basics.

00:31:04 ◼   ► It's not a complete spec.

00:31:06 ◼   ► It's not like if you make this, you make an awesome app.

00:31:08 ◼   ► It's like you have to do these things.

00:31:11 ◼   ► After that, you can do all sorts of awesome stuff

00:31:13 ◼   ► on top of it.

00:31:14 ◼   ► Fun things, things that are branded,

00:31:17 ◼   ► things that differentiate the app,

00:31:18 ◼   ► things that make, as Apple would say,

00:31:20 ◼   ► your app surprise and delight the user.

00:31:23 ◼   ► That's not what I'm talking about.

00:31:24 ◼   ► I'm saying, before you even get into all the cool stuff,

00:31:27 ◼   ► make sure at the very least,

00:31:29 ◼   ► your streaming video app does these things.

00:31:31 ◼   ► And it's such a boring list.

00:31:33 ◼   ► Like it is just, you read it, you're like, great,

00:31:36 ◼   ► so people should be able to find video and play it?

00:31:39 ◼   ► okay, thanks, why did you even need to write this?

00:31:42 ◼   ► But then you look at any real app,

00:31:44 ◼   ► pick whatever your favorite app is,

00:31:45 ◼   ► and you realize how many of these things it doesn't have.

00:31:48 ◼   ► And it's not like this is a list of optional stuff.

00:31:51 ◼   ► I feel like every single thing on this list

00:31:53 ◼   ► should be mandatory because it's so simple.

00:31:57 ◼   ► And if you don't have it,

00:31:58 ◼   ► if you don't have even just one of these things,

00:32:00 ◼   ► using it is frustrating because like the things

00:32:03 ◼   ► that we're using to watch during video apps,

00:32:06 ◼   ► they're computers, like even the TV,

00:32:08 ◼   ► Like Apple TV is a computer, right?

00:32:09 ◼   ► Your phone, your iPad, those are computers.

00:32:12 ◼   ► And we all know computers can do things with digital video.

00:32:15 ◼   ► Like for example, computers can skip forward and backwards

00:32:18 ◼   ► by some number of seconds.

00:32:20 ◼   ► Like you don't have to hold down the fast forward

00:32:22 ◼   ► and rewind button like you're on a VHS player, right?

00:32:25 ◼   ► You can skip any number of seconds backwards and forwards.

00:32:28 ◼   ► If you're using a streaming video app

00:32:30 ◼   ► that does not have that feature, you get angry,

00:32:32 ◼   ► because you're like, "You're a computer!

00:32:33 ◼   ► "I know you can do this!

00:32:35 ◼   ► "Why does this feature not exist?"

00:32:36 ◼   ► Right?

00:32:37 ◼   ► And other things, I didn't really delve too much into this,

00:32:40 ◼   ► but I tried to put these features in a way that doesn't

00:32:44 ◼   ► dictate their implementation.

00:32:46 ◼   ► It's just like, look, the app needs to let the user

00:32:48 ◼   ► be able to do these things.

00:32:49 ◼   ► How you let them do it is kind of up to you.

00:32:51 ◼   ► Some of these can be implemented in different ways, right?

00:32:54 ◼   ► So I didn't want to be too prescriptive.

00:32:56 ◼   ► But one example of that is a lot of the features

00:32:59 ◼   ► can be satisfied by using the timeline thing.

00:33:02 ◼   ► Like most video players have a timeline

00:33:04 ◼   ► that goes along the bottom.

00:33:04 ◼   ► There's a little scrubber, like the little play head

00:33:06 ◼   ► that you can grab and move around,

00:33:08 ◼   ► to move among the video.

00:33:09 ◼   ► A lot of these features, if you implement a timeline,

00:33:12 ◼   ► a video timeline with a little scrubber,

00:33:14 ◼   ► it satisfies a lot of these.

00:33:16 ◼   ► So that's one way to do it.

00:33:16 ◼   ► I didn't wanna say you have to have a timeline,

00:33:18 ◼   ► you have to have a scrubber or whatever,

00:33:20 ◼   ► but in practice, that satisfies a lot of these things.

00:33:24 ◼   ► But a lot of video apps put that timeline

00:33:27 ◼   ► with a scrubber in it and they're like,

00:33:29 ◼   ► well, we're done, this solves all of our problems.

00:33:31 ◼   ► Skip forward and back is a good example.

00:33:32 ◼   ► We don't need a skip forward and back button

00:33:35 ◼   ► because we've got the little timeline.

00:33:36 ◼   ► If you wanna go back 30 seconds,

00:33:38 ◼   ► just grab the little scrubber thingy

00:33:40 ◼   ► and move it backwards 30 seconds.

00:33:41 ◼   ► - No problem, no problem.

00:33:42 ◼   ► - And to that I say, if I'm watching a two hour movie,

00:33:45 ◼   ► do you know what kind of like magical dexterity

00:33:48 ◼   ► you would need to move the play head backwards

00:33:51 ◼   ► 10, five, 10, 20, 30 seconds precisely?

00:33:54 ◼   ► I was, speaking of this,

00:33:56 ◼   ► getting off the streaming house for a second,

00:33:58 ◼   ► I was taking photos of a,

00:34:00 ◼   ► it was like a document that I wanted to have a picture of

00:34:02 ◼   ► or whatever I do that frequently just have,

00:34:03 ◼   ► you know, put it in my phone,

00:34:05 ◼   ► especially now with text recognition in iOS,

00:34:06 ◼   ► which is neat.

00:34:07 ◼   ► And I didn't get my camera lined up exactly.

00:34:10 ◼   ► Yes, I know you can do the documents, scanning thing,

00:34:12 ◼   ► and notes, but I was just using the phone app, right?

00:34:15 ◼   ► And so I went into edit and I'm gonna straighten,

00:34:17 ◼   ► I'm gonna straighten the picture,

00:34:18 ◼   ► 'cause it wasn't exactly at 90 degrees.

00:34:20 ◼   ► Like the corners was a little bit twisted.

00:34:22 ◼   ► But the control to straighten things

00:34:25 ◼   ► on my fancy amazing computer phone thing

00:34:28 ◼   ► is that like the little bar in the photos app

00:34:31 ◼   ► with the little notches on it,

00:34:32 ◼   ► it's like a sliding bar that you slide left and right

00:34:34 ◼   ► and it rotates the photo, and that bar has a kind of

00:34:39 ◼   ► snap to center field, you know what I'm talking about?

00:34:41 ◼   ► Like, you know, the default, like the way you took

00:34:44 ◼   ► the picture, it snaps into that, right?

00:34:47 ◼   ► So if you take that little thing, if your thing is only off

00:34:51 ◼   ► by like a very tiny amount, you grab that little line

00:34:55 ◼   ► and you move it, and all of a sudden your picture

00:34:56 ◼   ► starts rotating, you're like, whoa, that's way too much,

00:34:57 ◼   ► so you start moving it back towards the middle,

00:34:59 ◼   ► because it's like, it's just a little bit off,

00:35:01 ◼   ► I just need it to be rotated a little bit.

00:35:02 ◼   ► And as you get closer and closer to the middle,

00:35:04 ◼   ► all of a sudden it snaps back to the middle again.

00:35:06 ◼   ► So you yank it out again and it yanks,

00:35:09 ◼   ► okay now it's twisted too much,

00:35:10 ◼   ► let me put it back back towards the middle,

00:35:11 ◼   ► almost almost straight,

00:35:12 ◼   ► oh it snapped back to the middle again.

00:35:14 ◼   ► It is literally impossible as far as I can tell,

00:35:16 ◼   ► with even if you had a robot

00:35:17 ◼   ► with a tiny little fleshy thing,

00:35:19 ◼   ► the size of like the minimum size needed

00:35:21 ◼   ► to activate the capacitive touchscreen,

00:35:23 ◼   ► it's literally impossible to rotate an image

00:35:25 ◼   ► less than the minimum degree they decide is reasonable

00:35:28 ◼   ► because then it snaps back to the center.

00:35:29 ◼   ► That's why a scrubber thumb timeline thing,

00:35:32 ◼   ► especially with touch controls,

00:35:34 ◼   ► is not a replacement for a skip forward and back

00:35:37 ◼   ► X number of seconds button.

00:35:39 ◼   ► And that's why it's listed as a separate thing.

00:35:41 ◼   ► And that's why I say these are minimum requirements,

00:35:43 ◼   ► because these are things that people frequently need to do,

00:35:47 ◼   ► want to do, and expect to be able to do

00:35:50 ◼   ► because they're using a computer.

00:35:51 ◼   ► So if you decide no one will ever want to skip forward

00:35:54 ◼   ► or backward by some fixed number of seconds

00:35:56 ◼   ► in your TV thing,

00:35:57 ◼   ► 'cause they can always just swipe on a touch pad

00:35:59 ◼   ► grab the scrubber thong, you're wrong,

00:36:02 ◼   ► and you're making a mistake, and your app is bad.

00:36:04 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:36:06 ◼   ► That's why I listed all these things.

00:36:08 ◼   ► I'll just read off a few of them

00:36:09 ◼   ► just so you can see what the features are like.

00:36:11 ◼   ► For the video player, this is what I talked about earlier,

00:36:14 ◼   ► a play and pause button, skip forward and backwards.

00:36:17 ◼   ► I didn't even say button.

00:36:17 ◼   ► Play and pause, skip forward and back

00:36:19 ◼   ► some small number of seconds.

00:36:21 ◼   ► Skip to the beginning or end of video.

00:36:23 ◼   ► Again, why do you say, why do you need these buttons?

00:36:24 ◼   ► Why can't you just grab the little scrubby thing

00:36:26 ◼   ► and go all the way to the left or all the way to the right?

00:36:27 ◼   ► You don't need buttons to skip to the end of the beginning.

00:36:30 ◼   ► Well, two things, one, grabbing the little thing,

00:36:32 ◼   ► dragging it can sometimes be annoying and fidgety.

00:36:34 ◼   ► And two, if the thing you're using is like a remote,

00:36:37 ◼   ► even if it has a swipey pad,

00:36:39 ◼   ► that requires some dexterity and finesse

00:36:42 ◼   ► that a lot of people either don't have

00:36:43 ◼   ► or don't wanna deal with.

00:36:45 ◼   ► If you could just have a button that says

00:36:46 ◼   ► skip all the way to the beginning

00:36:47 ◼   ► and all the way to the end,

00:36:48 ◼   ► that's way easier than activating, putting pause,

00:36:51 ◼   ► swiping on the touchpad, especially if it like,

00:36:53 ◼   ► again, if you're watching a two or three hour movie

00:36:55 ◼   ► and if the acceleration on your touchpad isn't right,

00:36:57 ◼   ► You're going swipe, swipe, swipe, swipe, swipe, swipe,

00:37:00 ◼   ► especially if while you're swiping

00:37:02 ◼   ► it is scrubbing through the movie,

00:37:03 ◼   ► then maybe you're spoiling yourself if you hadn't seen it

00:37:05 ◼   ► and your spouse had left it in the middle,

00:37:06 ◼   ► but you wanna go back to the beginning,

00:37:08 ◼   ► skip to beginning event.

00:37:09 ◼   ► Why?

00:37:10 ◼   ► Because it's a thing computers can do.

00:37:11 ◼   ► Select the audio tracks, select the subtitle back,

00:37:14 ◼   ► subtitle track, things like answering the question,

00:37:18 ◼   ► what am I watching?

00:37:20 ◼   ► I forget, I can't even keep track of which app this is,

00:37:22 ◼   ► but it frustrates me every time.

00:37:23 ◼   ► Like we'll start watching it

00:37:24 ◼   ► and for a variety of terrible reasons

00:37:25 ◼   ► not listed in this spec. We won't know whether the thing is showing us the next episode in

00:37:30 ◼   ► the series we've been watching every single night for the past month, right? Is this the

00:37:34 ◼   ► next episode or is this showing us the one we already saw last night? I don't know what

00:37:39 ◼   ► episode are we looking at? And then you pause it and it pauses and it shows the little timeline

00:37:45 ◼   ► on the bottom with a little thumbnail where you're paused and no other text is on the

00:37:49 ◼   ► screen. So you swipe and you press and you're just like, "What am I watching?" Put text

00:37:53 ◼   ► on the screen that tells me what am I watching.

00:37:55 ◼   ► And not just what I'm watching, what is the TV show?

00:37:59 ◼   ► What season number is it?

00:38:00 ◼   ► What episode number is it?

00:38:01 ◼   ► Why are you hiding this information?

00:38:02 ◼   ► You know this information is there.

00:38:04 ◼   ► It's a question people might wanna know.

00:38:06 ◼   ► You must show this on the screen.

00:38:08 ◼   ► It must be possible to tell what am I watching

00:38:11 ◼   ► without leaving the thing.

00:38:12 ◼   ► And then leaving a thing is a whole other problem

00:38:13 ◼   ► because how do you leave the thing that you're watching

00:38:15 ◼   ► and where do you go when you leave it?

00:38:16 ◼   ► Anyway, it's all in the post.

00:38:18 ◼   ► It's very boring and dry of like,

00:38:20 ◼   ► these are the minimum things that you should do.

00:38:22 ◼   ► And then at the very end, I look at three representative apps,

00:38:26 ◼   ► one on iOS, one on iPadOS, and one on Apple TV.

00:38:29 ◼   ► And I see how they measure up.

00:38:30 ◼   ► And you can see how even these extremely famous, extremely

00:38:32 ◼   ► well-funded apps fail in a few ways

00:38:35 ◼   ► to meet even this most basic spec.

00:38:39 ◼   ► Beyond the basic spec, there's tons of awesome things

00:38:42 ◼   ► that you can do.

00:38:42 ◼   ► And a lot of the feedback I got from people is, oh, I

00:38:45 ◼   ► think you should have put more things on even your basic spec

00:38:47 ◼   ► because I think this feature is essential

00:38:49 ◼   ► and you didn't list it or whatever.

00:38:50 ◼   ► but I was really trying to limit it to the basics.

00:38:52 ◼   ► The closest I got is saying that one of the basics

00:38:55 ◼   ► should be a button to enable and disable subtitles

00:38:58 ◼   ► that essentially nobody does.

00:39:00 ◼   ► But it annoys me so much that nobody does it

00:39:02 ◼   ► that I put it on my basic list.

00:39:03 ◼   ► It's my list, I'm allowed to have one given for me.

00:39:05 ◼   ► Because if you have occasion to enable subtitles briefly,

00:39:12 ◼   ► which I personally have occasion to do

00:39:14 ◼   ► and I am also frequently asked to do by other people

00:39:16 ◼   ► to figure out what somebody said

00:39:18 ◼   ► or how something is spelled or what the hell that name was

00:39:20 ◼   ► and that weird accent or whatever,

00:39:22 ◼   ► you don't want subtitles on the whole time.

00:39:24 ◼   ► Say you don't want,

00:39:25 ◼   ► some people do want them on the whole time, fine.

00:39:26 ◼   ► But for people who don't want them on the whole time,

00:39:29 ◼   ► you want to be able to turn them on,

00:39:31 ◼   ► use that 30 second skip back feature,

00:39:32 ◼   ► turn subtitles on, watch that line

00:39:34 ◼   ► that you didn't understand

00:39:35 ◼   ► and then turn them back off again.

00:39:36 ◼   ► But if every time you need to turn them on

00:39:38 ◼   ► or turn them off, you need to do tap, swipe, swipe,

00:39:41 ◼   ► tap, swipe, scroll, scroll, scroll, English,

00:39:43 ◼   ► tap, swipe, tap, okay, play,

00:39:46 ◼   ► and then go through that whole thing again

00:39:47 ◼   ► to turn them off, that's bad.

00:39:49 ◼   ► There's so much room on the screen.

00:39:50 ◼   ► Put a single button that enables and disables subtitles

00:39:53 ◼   ► and then a separate thing to pick

00:39:54 ◼   ► which subtitle track you want.

00:39:55 ◼   ► Anyway, that was my only sort of minor pet peeve

00:39:58 ◼   ► that I put in there, but instead of people complaining

00:40:00 ◼   ► about the subtitle peeve that I had,

00:40:01 ◼   ► they had their own stuff that they demanded

00:40:03 ◼   ► be in the basics, so I think the overall theme

00:40:06 ◼   ► and probably what I will write about

00:40:08 ◼   ► if I do a followup on this is, how do people feel?

00:40:11 ◼   ► How do people who use streaming video apps

00:40:14 ◼   ► feel about the apps?

00:40:15 ◼   ► Do they love the apps?

00:40:16 ◼   ► Do they have an affectionate feeling towards them

00:40:18 ◼   ► or do they hate them with the fiery passion?

00:40:19 ◼   ► Now obviously, when you write a post like this,

00:40:22 ◼   ► you're gonna hear mostly from the people who hate them,

00:40:24 ◼   ► but usually when you write a post like this,

00:40:25 ◼   ► you're also gonna hear from at least a few people who say,

00:40:28 ◼   ► "I know you were complaining about streaming apps,

00:40:30 ◼   ► "but I actually really, really like streaming app X.

00:40:33 ◼   ► "Nobody has sent me that.

00:40:34 ◼   ► "I've got zero feedback from anybody telling me,

00:40:38 ◼   ► "yeah, most streaming apps are bad,

00:40:40 ◼   ► "but I really love this one.

00:40:41 ◼   ► "Nobody loves them."

00:40:42 ◼   ► And I touched on this towards the end,

00:40:44 ◼   ► maybe I should have emphasized it more

00:40:46 ◼   ► because people won't get through a long post or whatever,

00:40:48 ◼   ► But like some of the reason these apps are annoying

00:40:50 ◼   ► are misaligned incentives, right?

00:40:52 ◼   ► In particular, the thing I emphasize very early on is

00:40:56 ◼   ► when you launch a streaming video app,

00:40:57 ◼   ► the most important thing that it should do

00:40:59 ◼   ► is quickly allow you to continue watching

00:41:01 ◼   ► whatever you were watching before.

00:41:03 ◼   ► 'Cause that's the sort of job to be done.

00:41:05 ◼   ► Every night we're gonna sit down

00:41:06 ◼   ► and we're gonna watch an episode of my favorite show, right?

00:41:08 ◼   ► They drop the whole season

00:41:09 ◼   ► and we'll just watch an episode per night, right?

00:41:11 ◼   ► I, you know, for the past five days,

00:41:13 ◼   ► all I've done is at night, I sit down, turn on the thing,

00:41:16 ◼   ► I watch the next episode.

00:41:17 ◼   ► And then you sit down the next night,

00:41:18 ◼   ► you turn into the thing, you launch the app,

00:41:20 ◼   ► and it's like, what do you wanna do?

00:41:22 ◼   ► You're like, what do you think I wanna do, app?

00:41:23 ◼   ► I wanna watch the next episode of that show

00:41:26 ◼   ► that I've been watching every single night for a week,

00:41:28 ◼   ► and it's like, I don't know what you're talking about.

00:41:29 ◼   ► What do you wanna do?

00:41:31 ◼   ► People want to find the thing

00:41:33 ◼   ► that they were previously watching and continue watching it,

00:41:35 ◼   ► and the apps make that more difficult

00:41:38 ◼   ► because the incentives of the company

00:41:42 ◼   ► that makes the streaming apps are not the same

00:41:44 ◼   ► as the incentives of the people who are using it.

00:41:47 ◼   ► You know that and what did I think I phrased it in a very sort of

00:41:50 ◼   ► neutral way in the article of saying like

00:41:53 ◼   ► Emphasizing new content versus continuing content that you're already watching the streaming app wants to show you

00:41:57 ◼   ► Hey, I've got these new shows

00:41:59 ◼   ► You should check them out because you know the more shows you get into

00:42:02 ◼   ► The better it is if you just keep watching the show you want to watch and you finish it

00:42:06 ◼   ► Maybe you'll unsubscribe from the app, right?

00:42:08 ◼   ► So just to confirm what should be obvious to everyone which is why I didn't delve too much into it

00:42:14 ◼   ► I had some anonymous feedback.

00:42:17 ◼   ► This person said, "There was an experiment at Hulu last year

00:42:20 ◼   ► "to move the continue watching section below the fold

00:42:23 ◼   ► "down two rows from where it is."

00:42:24 ◼   ► Below the fold being like it's off the screen.

00:42:27 ◼   ► You launch the app and you can't even see

00:42:29 ◼   ► the continue watching section.

00:42:30 ◼   ► You have to scroll down to find it.

00:42:32 ◼   ► This was done with a very small group of users.

00:42:35 ◼   ► "It was so successful that the increased engagement

00:42:37 ◼   ► "was projected to generate more than $20 million a year.

00:42:41 ◼   ► "The experiment was immediately ended

00:42:43 ◼   ► and the new position was deployed to all users.

00:42:45 ◼   ► While I understand and largely agree with your frustration

00:42:48 ◼   ► that your in progress isn't at the top feature,

00:42:51 ◼   ► isn't the top feature, you could argue

00:42:53 ◼   ► this even provides more value to the user

00:42:55 ◼   ► as they discover content they wouldn't have otherwise,

00:42:57 ◼   ► hence the increased engagement, right?

00:42:59 ◼   ► So this last bit about, well, isn't it great

00:43:02 ◼   ► that you learn about new stuff?

00:43:04 ◼   ► Isn't that better than you just finding the show

00:43:06 ◼   ► that you wanted to watch and watching it

00:43:07 ◼   ► and then getting done?

00:43:08 ◼   ► This will let you see stuff that you never would have discovered

00:43:09 ◼   ► because we're constantly throwing it in your face.

00:43:12 ◼   ► That's not what I hear from people who are sending feedback.

00:43:16 ◼   ► And also, what they're doing in testing here and saying,

00:43:19 ◼   ► hey, we move, continue watching down so it's below the fold,

00:43:21 ◼   ► and we got more quote unquote engagement.

00:43:25 ◼   ► Well, some percentage of that engagement is people flailing,

00:43:28 ◼   ► wildly trying to find the thing

00:43:29 ◼   ► that they were previously watching.

00:43:31 ◼   ► Some percentage of that engagement

00:43:32 ◼   ► is people giving up finding it.

00:43:34 ◼   ► Some percentage of it is just,

00:43:35 ◼   ► well, I can't see the thing that I want,

00:43:37 ◼   ► so I'll try this other thing.

00:43:38 ◼   ► What is not measured by this thing,

00:43:40 ◼   ► if you're just measuring engagement,

00:43:42 ◼   ► What is not measured is the frustration being induced

00:43:44 ◼   ► in people that have to hunt for the thing

00:43:46 ◼   ► they were previously watching.

00:43:47 ◼   ► There is no sort of measure of that frustration really,

00:43:50 ◼   ► except maybe abandonment before watching or whatever,

00:43:53 ◼   ► but maybe even that would show increased engagement

00:43:55 ◼   ► because if you just go launch the app

00:43:57 ◼   ► and click the show you're watching,

00:43:58 ◼   ► that's a limited amount of quote unquote engagement

00:44:00 ◼   ► versus hunting for it.

00:44:01 ◼   ► If you hunt for it briefly and bail on the app,

00:44:04 ◼   ► that may count as more engagement in your measurement

00:44:06 ◼   ► than finding it successfully and watching it.

00:44:09 ◼   ► So as with any with metrics,

00:44:11 ◼   ► Be careful what you measure,

00:44:12 ◼   ► because if you're measuring the wrong thing

00:44:14 ◼   ► or you're ignoring something that you should be measuring,

00:44:16 ◼   ► you're gonna end up with an app that frustrates users

00:44:19 ◼   ► that nobody loves, right?

00:44:20 ◼   ► So again, while I understand there is lots of motivation

00:44:24 ◼   ► to show you the new show they paid $100 million for

00:44:27 ◼   ► at the top of the screen, filling the entire screen,

00:44:29 ◼   ► rather than showing you the next episode

00:44:31 ◼   ► of the show you're watching, it's a bad choice long-term.

00:44:35 ◼   ► People will have affection for an interface

00:44:38 ◼   ► that lets them do the thing they wanna do.

00:44:39 ◼   ► The example that I didn't dive too much into

00:44:41 ◼   ► because it's like old man news or whatever,

00:44:43 ◼   ► is the TiVo interface.

00:44:45 ◼   ► Tons of people use TiVo and loved it.

00:44:47 ◼   ► And if you ask them, they loved the interface.

00:44:50 ◼   ► They let them do what they wanted to do.

00:44:52 ◼   ► They didn't feel lost, it was responsive.

00:44:55 ◼   ► The playback experience was good.

00:44:56 ◼   ► It had all the controls they wanted on it.

00:44:59 ◼   ► And it made a user base that was so loyal

00:45:01 ◼   ► that essentially kept the company alive

00:45:02 ◼   ► for way longer than it should have been.

00:45:04 ◼   ► It's still alive technically now,

00:45:05 ◼   ► but it's a bit of a corpse.

00:45:07 ◼   ► So it is possible and also valuable and important

00:45:11 ◼   ► to have users who love your interface

00:45:13 ◼   ► and I think no streaming service has that today.

00:45:15 ◼   ► So I really hope somebody somewhere reads this,

00:45:18 ◼   ► realizes that their app doesn't measure up

00:45:20 ◼   ► to even the basics and then I hope they go beyond

00:45:23 ◼   ► these basics and do all the things

00:45:25 ◼   ► that a good video player should do.

00:45:28 ◼   ► I said good to great, like maybe a great video player

00:45:30 ◼   ► should do, so to give an example,

00:45:31 ◼   ► I talk all about like, oh when an episode is over,

00:45:34 ◼   ► when you finish watching an episode,

00:45:36 ◼   ► the next thing it should offer you to do

00:45:38 ◼   ► is to watch the episode that is next in the series, right?

00:45:41 ◼   ► But I didn't say, how do you tell when an episode is over?

00:45:44 ◼   ► I think we all know and understand that a really good app

00:45:48 ◼   ► will have good heuristics for determining

00:45:50 ◼   ► whether you've completed an episode,

00:45:52 ◼   ► 'cause most people don't sit through all the credits, right?

00:45:55 ◼   ► You get to a certain point and you're like,

00:45:56 ◼   ► well, we're done with the episode.

00:45:57 ◼   ► But if you looked at the progress bar,

00:45:59 ◼   ► oh, you're not really done 'cause there's 17 minutes

00:46:01 ◼   ► of international credits on this Marvel show, right?

00:46:03 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:46:04 ◼   ► And so then if you launch the app the next day,

00:46:08 ◼   ► and it says, "Do you wanna continue watching?"

00:46:09 ◼   ► And you say, "Yes," and it just keeps showing you

00:46:11 ◼   ► the credits, like, "No, no, I finished that episode.

00:46:14 ◼   ► "Show me the next one."

00:46:15 ◼   ► We expect an app to go above and beyond the basic spec

00:46:19 ◼   ► of when the episode is over, show the next one.

00:46:21 ◼   ► We expect it to know, and by over, I mean,

00:46:25 ◼   ► what a person would think of as over.

00:46:28 ◼   ► Like this is what Boggess and I,

00:46:29 ◼   ► like we talk about on the show,

00:46:30 ◼   ► when we talk about app development

00:46:32 ◼   ► or what Mark was doing with Overcast or whatever,

00:46:34 ◼   ► any decent software developer,

00:46:37 ◼   ► this is all they spend their time thinking about.

00:46:39 ◼   ► These details, how do I tell when the show is over?

00:46:42 ◼   ► What is the right balance of how far into the credits

00:46:45 ◼   ► did they get?

00:46:46 ◼   ► Does it look like it's over?

00:46:47 ◼   ► Is there a post-credit sequence?

00:46:48 ◼   ► And if I send them to the next episode,

00:46:49 ◼   ► are they gonna miss the post-credit sequence?

00:46:51 ◼   ► Oh, now it seems like I need to have metadata to understand

00:46:54 ◼   ► on a per episode basis.

00:46:56 ◼   ► If there's a post-credit sequence,

00:46:58 ◼   ► this is the thought that goes into making an application.

00:47:00 ◼   ► This is not the basics.

00:47:01 ◼   ► I don't mention this anywhere in this article.

00:47:03 ◼   ► I'm just saying like basics, let people launch the app,

00:47:06 ◼   ► find the thing they wanna watch, watch it, right?

00:47:09 ◼   ► But to actually make a really great app,

00:47:11 ◼   ► you have to go beyond the basics

00:47:13 ◼   ► and these apps don't even get the basics right.

00:47:15 ◼   ► So that's why I tried to limit myself to the basics

00:47:17 ◼   ► to say, look, you're not even in the ballpark yet.

00:47:21 ◼   ► Make sure your app has the basic functionality

00:47:24 ◼   ► and then please, please spend a lot of time

00:47:27 ◼   ► on every single one of these individual things,

00:47:28 ◼   ► finding out how you can do a better job of that.

00:47:32 ◼   ► Most actual apps are a mix.

00:47:33 ◼   ► Like some apps do a really good job of one thing,

00:47:36 ◼   ► like the Amazon Prime app has that x-ray thing

00:47:38 ◼   ► where at any time you're watching something

00:47:40 ◼   ► on the Amazon Prime video player and someone says,

00:47:42 ◼   ► what is that person from?

00:47:44 ◼   ► You just hit pause, it shows the faces and names

00:47:47 ◼   ► of all the actors who are in the current scene

00:47:49 ◼   ► you're watching and you can drill down into them

00:47:50 ◼   ► and see the other stuff that they were in.

00:47:53 ◼   ► Why has nobody copied that?

00:47:54 ◼   ► I mean, the snarky answer is because Amazon owns IMDb

00:47:57 ◼   ► and because potentially there's patents about it,

00:47:59 ◼   ► but I'm just saying like,

00:48:00 ◼   ► that's an example of surprise and delight.

00:48:03 ◼   ► That is way above and beyond the basics.

00:48:05 ◼   ► Amazon's been doing it for years and years.

00:48:07 ◼   ► No one else seems to care.

00:48:08 ◼   ► Even though you know,

00:48:09 ◼   ► everyone's sitting on their captors watching a show

00:48:11 ◼   ► and saying, "What is that person from?"

00:48:12 ◼   ► And then we take out our phones

00:48:14 ◼   ► and we have to look it up

00:48:15 ◼   ► in the stupid IMDb app that's terrible

00:48:17 ◼   ► or we have to Google it or whatever.

00:48:18 ◼   ► It's like, oh God.

00:48:20 ◼   ► Anyway, there's a lot of room for improvement here.

00:48:23 ◼   ► My angle is just try to go to the basics

00:48:25 ◼   ► and I really hope these things get better over time.

00:48:27 ◼   ► I'm a little bit pessimistic

00:48:29 ◼   ► because of the misaligned incentives,

00:48:32 ◼   ► but I feel like there's so many of these apps,

00:48:36 ◼   ► at least one of them needs to be in there and say,

00:48:39 ◼   ► rather than chasing what we think of as engagement

00:48:41 ◼   ► at all costs, maybe we should try to make an app

00:48:44 ◼   ► that people actually like using.

00:48:46 ◼   ► Or maybe we should just start measuring user sentiment.

00:48:48 ◼   ► Do you love our app or do you hate it?

00:48:50 ◼   ► No, not one star through five star,

00:48:51 ◼   ► but like some kind of user sentiment analysis,

00:48:54 ◼   ► some kind of net promoter score,

00:48:57 ◼   ► some kind of business jargon mumbo jumbo that says,

00:49:00 ◼   ► do people like using our thing?

00:49:01 ◼   ► because the answer right now is mostly no.

00:49:04 ◼   ► - It's so true.

00:49:07 ◼   ► One time sponsor channels, they did a victory lap

00:49:11 ◼   ► saying that they think they fit your criteria pretty well.

00:49:14 ◼   ► And to the best, I use channels regularly,

00:49:16 ◼   ► and to the best of my recollection,

00:49:17 ◼   ► I think that's mostly true, if not accurate.

00:49:20 ◼   ► I had a couple people write in say that Plex

00:49:22 ◼   ► does most, if not all, of this.

00:49:24 ◼   ► You use Plex enough that you would know.

00:49:26 ◼   ► I didn't have the chance to go through and verify myself,

00:49:30 ◼   ► but I think a lot of it they do right.

00:49:31 ◼   ► certainly not all of it, but a lot of it.

00:49:33 ◼   ► So there's hope to be had,

00:49:35 ◼   ► but I think that that is the problem,

00:49:37 ◼   ► and you've nailed it,

00:49:38 ◼   ► is that the misaligned incentives

00:49:40 ◼   ► for anything like a Netflix causes them to make decisions

00:49:44 ◼   ► that are contrary to what I want

00:49:47 ◼   ► as a just regular schmo that wants to watch some TV.

00:49:50 ◼   ► - That's one of the things about,

00:49:51 ◼   ► the things you mentioned, channels, Plex.

00:49:54 ◼   ► Very often you hear people deriding

00:49:56 ◼   ► or sort of developer interfaces, right?

00:49:59 ◼   ► Like, oh, it looks like a developer made this UI.

00:50:01 ◼   ► You know because it's very kind of

00:50:03 ◼   ► By the numbers, you know boring straightforward

00:50:07 ◼   ► No frills. No real creativity, right?

00:50:11 ◼   ► Especially like perhaps, you know

00:50:13 ◼   ► Navigational even think of like old iOS apps of like a master detail view or a simple straightforward

00:50:18 ◼   ► Hierarchy with the expected number of steps between A and B and it's like okay fine, but that's very sort of computer in developer

00:50:24 ◼   ► II and things like Plex or

00:50:27 ◼   ► XBMC before it or was that other one especially the K like these sort of

00:50:31 ◼   ► Mostly nerd derived media player thingies, which did not start life as streaming video

00:50:36 ◼   ► So I know Plex has some streaming or whatever. That's not but Plex does not start its life as a streaming video service

00:50:42 ◼   ► I think it started before that's that thing even existed

00:50:44 ◼   ► Or even channels, which is kind of a nerdy thing for setting up to you or whatever

00:50:49 ◼   ► They tend to have interfaces that have a lot of features

00:50:53 ◼   ► so then they tend to also have the basics.

00:50:55 ◼   ► Because if they're made by tech nerdy people,

00:50:58 ◼   ► like, well of course, it's a computer,

00:50:59 ◼   ► we'll put in all the features the computer can do.

00:51:01 ◼   ► Why would we not have skip to beginning

00:51:02 ◼   ► and skip forward back?

00:51:04 ◼   ► In fact, we're computer users,

00:51:05 ◼   ► we're not afraid of having a setting screen.

00:51:07 ◼   ► Maybe we'll have a setting screen

00:51:08 ◼   ► that lets you choose how many seconds

00:51:10 ◼   ► backwards and forwards you can skip,

00:51:12 ◼   ► and nobody in the room says,

00:51:13 ◼   ► whoa, whoa, whoa, we can't have settings, that's madness.

00:51:16 ◼   ► Users will not be able to figure this out.

00:51:18 ◼   ► Whereas they put that one little feature in there

00:51:20 ◼   ► and then anyone who uses them is like,

00:51:21 ◼   ► oh thank God, I can pick the number of seconds

00:51:22 ◼   ► forward and backwards. In fact, maybe I'll only go backwards, you know, seven seconds

00:51:27 ◼   ► and forward 30 seconds. I can pick different amounts. It's amazing and that makes them

00:51:30 ◼   ► happier. Anyway, the reason those apps tend to do better is because they have those sort

00:51:34 ◼   ► of straightforward interfaces. No one in those meetings is saying, we should have an algorithmic

00:51:39 ◼   ► timeline that figures out what we think they want to watch and shows them that. And it's

00:51:44 ◼   ► like, no, let's just make a hierarchy. You have TVs and movies. TV shows are broken down

00:51:48 ◼   ► into seasons and there are specials that are out of the seasons and they're ordered sets.

00:51:52 ◼   ► can be in series and we can have trilogies.

00:51:54 ◼   ► And they just do the straightforward hierarchy.

00:51:58 ◼   ► And the navigation is like down, down, down, up, up, up.

00:52:01 ◼   ► And it's not the smoothest thing in the world,

00:52:04 ◼   ► but it's the obvious way that this could work.

00:52:07 ◼   ► And that's one of the things I say is here.

00:52:09 ◼   ► You have to support the obvious intrinsic hierarchy

00:52:12 ◼   ► of the material, right?

00:52:14 ◼   ► Above and beyond that, if you wanna do this cool,

00:52:16 ◼   ► like here's what we recommend for you

00:52:18 ◼   ► or based on what your friends are watching

00:52:19 ◼   ► or we built in a social network.

00:52:21 ◼   ► Yeah, sure, by all means do that,

00:52:23 ◼   ► but you also have to support the idea

00:52:25 ◼   ► that there are TV shows that have seasons

00:52:27 ◼   ► and seasons have episodes,

00:52:28 ◼   ► and episodes are made by people and have titles

00:52:30 ◼   ► and have durations.

00:52:32 ◼   ► There is an intrinsic hierarchy to this stuff.

00:52:35 ◼   ► And you can spend hours and hours making it better saying,

00:52:37 ◼   ► "Okay, but what about series that have special episodes

00:52:41 ◼   ► inserted, what about the Doctor Who Christmas special,

00:52:43 ◼   ► where does that fit in and how do we?"

00:52:45 ◼   ► Yes, you can go, like we talked about with music,

00:52:47 ◼   ► you can spend a lot of time making the data model

00:52:50 ◼   ► just perfect, but let's just start with the basics.

00:52:53 ◼   ► And I think the smaller the app,

00:52:55 ◼   ► and the more it predates streaming video services,

00:52:58 ◼   ► the more likely it is to pass this basics test,

00:53:00 ◼   ► because no one was there to tell them

00:53:03 ◼   ► that it's wrong to make a simple usable app

00:53:06 ◼   ► with a few settings.

00:53:08 ◼   ► Whereas the streaming video apps all look like

00:53:09 ◼   ► they were made with like, we have a blank canvas

00:53:12 ◼   ► and we've never heard of hierarchy,

00:53:13 ◼   ► throw a bunch of squares on it, good, we're done.

00:53:15 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:53:18 ◼   ► Is that it for that topic?

00:53:20 ◼   ► - Unless Marco's gonna announce a streaming video app.

00:53:23 ◼   ► - Oh God, no, well the problem is that

00:53:25 ◼   ► there is no way, you know, right now we have

00:53:30 ◼   ► this wonderful situation in the podcast app market

00:53:35 ◼   ► where anybody can make a podcast app.

00:53:38 ◼   ► And the world of podcast content that's out there

00:53:42 ◼   ► with some, a growing number of exceptions unfortunately,

00:53:45 ◼   ► but the world of podcast content is mostly available

00:53:48 ◼   ► to anybody who wants to make an app.

00:53:50 ◼   ► So we aren't stuck with only a small number

00:53:54 ◼   ► of big companies as the content owners

00:53:57 ◼   ► being the ones who can make the apps

00:53:58 ◼   ► that play that content.

00:54:00 ◼   ► That is the case where we're stuck in that kind of situation

00:54:04 ◼   ► for most other forms of media today.

00:54:06 ◼   ► Most of the forms of media, especially video,

00:54:08 ◼   ► like the reality is that Apple tried with the Apple TV

00:54:13 ◼   ► to have standardized players and everything like that.

00:54:15 ◼   ► Actually, the old Apple TVs before tvOS

00:54:19 ◼   ► actually achieved this in a much better way,

00:54:21 ◼   ► in part because it was simpler and capable of less,

00:54:24 ◼   ► and also in part because I believe Apple

00:54:27 ◼   ► was actually writing all that software themselves

00:54:29 ◼   ► and just making deals with content providers

00:54:31 ◼   ► to access some of their stuff on the backend or whatever.

00:54:33 ◼   ► But now we're in this world where,

00:54:36 ◼   ► only, say, only the programmers at Netflix

00:54:41 ◼   ► are going to be able to make the apps

00:54:44 ◼   ► that can play the Netflix content.

00:54:46 ◼   ► Only the programmers at Disney

00:54:47 ◼   ► are gonna make the Disney Plus content playable and so on.

00:54:50 ◼   ► And so we have this unfortunate situation where,

00:54:53 ◼   ► first of all, we have a million different apps

00:54:55 ◼   ► to play this now, which, where like,

00:54:58 ◼   ► and not in a good way, like what I mean by that is like,

00:55:01 ◼   ► if you as a consumer wanna watch six different TV shows,

00:55:05 ◼   ► you probably have to use four different apps to watch them.

00:55:07 ◼   ► And all those apps are gonna behave differently,

00:55:10 ◼   ► and they're all gonna be written by different people

00:55:11 ◼   ► with different priorities and different skill levels.

00:55:13 ◼   ► And so they're gonna have all these different experiences

00:55:16 ◼   ► that are gonna drive John nuts.

00:55:18 ◼   ► In part because they're bad,

00:55:19 ◼   ► and also in part just because

00:55:20 ◼   ► they're different from each other.

00:55:22 ◼   ► But you also have this problem of now that things

00:55:24 ◼   ► are so siloed and locked down by these giant corporations

00:55:29 ◼   ► that don't wanna work together with anybody else,

00:55:31 ◼   ► no one else can make another app to play it.

00:55:34 ◼   ► I can't make a streaming video app if I wanted to

00:55:36 ◼   ► because I wouldn't be able to play any video.

00:55:38 ◼   ► Music is almost that bad.

00:55:40 ◼   ► Like back when we all were playing MP3s

00:55:43 ◼   ► that we pirated off a Napster and stuff,

00:55:45 ◼   ► excuse me, that we ripped legally

00:55:48 ◼   ► from our own CD collections,

00:55:49 ◼   ► that you could have other MP3 players,

00:55:53 ◼   ► anybody could make a music player

00:55:55 ◼   ► and have a chance of it getting traction.

00:55:57 ◼   ► Yes, I know when iTunes came out,

00:55:59 ◼   ► it kind of crushed the market,

00:56:00 ◼   ► but for the most part,

00:56:02 ◼   ► there was a time span there with music

00:56:04 ◼   ► where anybody could make a music app.

00:56:06 ◼   ► And as somebody who uses the music app

00:56:10 ◼   ► on my devices every day,

00:56:13 ◼   ► I would love to make a new music app that,

00:56:18 ◼   ► how do I put this gently?

00:56:22 ◼   ► I would love to make a music app where it appears

00:56:24 ◼   ► that the person who makes the app uses the app, ever.

00:56:28 ◼   ► - Well done, well done, 'cause oh my gosh,

00:56:31 ◼   ► in my continued attempt to force myself to like Apple Music,

00:56:35 ◼   ► (exhales)

00:56:36 ◼   ► The music app is so bad, and it's so bad everywhere.

00:56:40 ◼   ► It's not like--

00:56:42 ◼   ► - There are third party music apps though.

00:56:44 ◼   ► I mean, like Marco said, the existence of Apple's app

00:56:47 ◼   ► kind of makes that market tough,

00:56:48 ◼   ► and so there's not a lot of entrants,

00:56:50 ◼   ► but to Apple's credit, it is possible

00:56:53 ◼   ► to make a third party music app for iOS and the Mac,

00:56:55 ◼   ► and they do exist.

00:56:56 ◼   ► - Well, yes, and it is possible, however,

00:56:59 ◼   ► the market for them is very small,

00:57:02 ◼   ► because in a large part, because what customers are accessing

00:57:09 ◼   ► in their music apps is so frequently now a streaming

00:57:12 ◼   ► service and not their own collection.

00:57:14 ◼   ► Now, there are some exceptions to this.

00:57:16 ◼   ► You can make an app for iOS and Mac that accesses Apple Music.

00:57:21 ◼   ► There are some limitations on what that app can do then,

00:57:24 ◼   ► for various DRM reasons and everything like that.

00:57:27 ◼   ► But you could make an app, a third party app,

00:57:30 ◼   ► for Apple Music playback.

00:57:32 ◼   ► And if I were to ever make my own music app,

00:57:34 ◼   ► this is not an announcement,

00:57:35 ◼   ► I haven't written a single line of code

00:57:37 ◼   ► or even decided to do this ever, let alone anytime soon.

00:57:42 ◼   ► But if I were to make a music app,

00:57:45 ◼   ► that is probably what I would make.

00:57:46 ◼   ► I would probably make something that could either

00:57:49 ◼   ► integrate with the API to play Apple Music for that demand,

00:57:52 ◼   ► or I would say, eff it, I'm not gonna integrate

00:57:56 ◼   ► with any streaming service.

00:57:57 ◼   ► if you can somehow find a folder of MP3s

00:58:01 ◼   ► that you either brought from the 90s with you until now,

00:58:05 ◼   ► or somehow, I don't even know if people,

00:58:08 ◼   ► like do people even pirate music anymore?

00:58:10 ◼   ► Like there's no point.

00:58:11 ◼   ► But anyway, like that's how I've always thought

00:58:15 ◼   ► about it in my head.

00:58:16 ◼   ► Like if I were to make a music app,

00:58:17 ◼   ► it would either be using the Apple Music API

00:58:19 ◼   ► and being very limited and tied to this thing

00:58:21 ◼   ► that I'm sure is a buggy mess.

00:58:23 ◼   ► Because think about like an API that's A,

00:58:27 ◼   ► based on an Apple web service,

00:58:29 ◼   ► and B, almost certainly not at all the same API

00:58:33 ◼   ► that Apple's own apps use.

00:58:34 ◼   ► So the chances of that being good

00:58:37 ◼   ► and long-term stable are very low.

00:58:39 ◼   ► - It probably is the same one that Apple's apps use

00:58:41 ◼   ► because the Apple's apps are also laggy and weird,

00:58:44 ◼   ► and so they are probably dog fooding it.

00:58:46 ◼   ► That'd probably limit the quality of your third-party app

00:58:49 ◼   ► is that in the end, you have to make a bunch of HTTP calls

00:58:52 ◼   ► to get the music that you have to play,

00:58:53 ◼   ► and if those stall out and are slow,

00:58:55 ◼   ► then your app suddenly is slow when you hit the play button.

00:58:58 ◼   ► - That's fair.

00:58:59 ◼   ► But anyway, so yeah, so my plan would either be that,

00:59:01 ◼   ► or again, like, just, just plays files.

00:59:04 ◼   ► Like, maybe it will sync to an S3 bucket

00:59:07 ◼   ► so you can have them on multiple devices,

00:59:08 ◼   ► but like, literally just plays DRM-free files

00:59:12 ◼   ► that you happen to have.

00:59:13 ◼   ► How you get those, that's up to you.

00:59:15 ◼   ► 'Cause honestly, that's what I use most of the time.

00:59:17 ◼   ► Most of the time, I am playing my fish concerts

00:59:20 ◼   ► that I download legally from them.

00:59:23 ◼   ► And those are all just DRM-free MP3 files.

00:59:26 ◼   ► And that's, the vast majority of my collection

00:59:28 ◼   ► is not stuff I've added from Apple Music.

00:59:31 ◼   ► It's mostly stuff I either bought legally or ripped legally

00:59:35 ◼   ► that I had before streaming services became a thing,

00:59:37 ◼   ► or it's fish concerts that are legal

00:59:40 ◼   ► and totally outside of that system.

00:59:41 ◼   ► But the problem is, getting back to the point,

00:59:44 ◼   ► the problem is, the reason I'm probably never

00:59:46 ◼   ► gonna make this app is because there is basically

00:59:48 ◼   ► nobody else who would wanna use it.

00:59:50 ◼   ► Like I know all dozens of you are saying,

00:59:53 ◼   ► oh, I would, I would, but the problem is,

00:59:55 ◼   ► this is an app for almost nobody.

00:59:58 ◼   ► Relatively speaking, like percentage wise,

01:00:01 ◼   ► of today's music listening population.

01:00:03 ◼   ► Almost everyone now, first of all, listens to music

01:00:06 ◼   ► I don't even understand anymore.

01:00:07 ◼   ► So why should I even make this app?

01:00:09 ◼   ► This is not obviously my expertise area.

01:00:11 ◼   ► But also, most people are listening on a streaming service.

01:00:15 ◼   ► And so to launch a music app today,

01:00:19 ◼   ► when you don't own a major streaming service

01:00:24 ◼   ► is market suicide probably.

01:00:26 ◼   ► Well that's the problem you have with video.

01:00:28 ◼   ► - There is a market for that though.

01:00:29 ◼   ► Like the companies, two of the companies we listed.

01:00:32 ◼   ► So Plex obviously, I mean I think they have

01:00:35 ◼   ► their own streaming thing or whatever.

01:00:36 ◼   ► But the Plex's deal is, if you can somehow get the video

01:00:41 ◼   ► to me, Plex, I will organize it for you

01:00:44 ◼   ► and let you play it and let you, you know,

01:00:47 ◼   ► Mark it up and get the artwork and do all the things right and then channels which former sponsor my understanding of the way

01:00:53 ◼   ► Their things work is they will also say look, you know, if you if you pay for cable

01:00:58 ◼   ► Sign in with your credentials because a lot of the cable providers have a way that they show video on the web and we will extract

01:01:05 ◼   ► That and then and so it's like you get everywhere you get to use our player the channels player

01:01:10 ◼   ► Even though they don't own the streaming service. They don't own, you know

01:01:13 ◼   ► Xfinity or Fios or you know over-the-air antennae or

01:01:17 ◼   ► or like the HD home run things like,

01:01:19 ◼   ► it is plausible and possible and these companies do it

01:01:23 ◼   ► to say, I'm gonna try to make a player interface

01:01:26 ◼   ► to this video that like Marco said,

01:01:28 ◼   ► is locked up in these third party services,

01:01:30 ◼   ► but man, do they not make it easy.

01:01:32 ◼   ► Like the companies that actually own the video

01:01:34 ◼   ► do not want those other companies putting their player

01:01:38 ◼   ► or system on top of them.

01:01:39 ◼   ► Plex is like, okay, well, you know,

01:01:41 ◼   ► we have other ways to get that video,

01:01:42 ◼   ► so screw you streaming service, right?

01:01:44 ◼   ► But things like channels are trying to play along

01:01:48 ◼   ► as best they can with things like cable cards

01:01:50 ◼   ► and over the air video and your cable subscription

01:01:53 ◼   ► and the web interface.

01:01:54 ◼   ► But the companies that own that stuff

01:01:58 ◼   ► don't want that to happen and will stop it

01:02:00 ◼   ► any way they legally can.

01:02:01 ◼   ► So it is an extremely tough market.

01:02:03 ◼   ► - Yeah, and that's why I like,

01:02:06 ◼   ► it's really hard to have usability or experience innovation

01:02:13 ◼   ► in an area where you are beholden to content

01:02:17 ◼   ► provided by a small number of large companies.

01:02:20 ◼   ► Because the reality is that it's very difficult

01:02:25 ◼   ► or impossible to build an app as somebody

01:02:28 ◼   ► who is not one of these big companies

01:02:30 ◼   ► to access other people's content today,

01:02:33 ◼   ► unless that content is an existing,

01:02:35 ◼   ► already wide open medium, and the number of those

01:02:37 ◼   ► is dramatically shrinking and isn't large to begin with.

01:02:41 ◼   ► I have to say I'm kind of heartened to see that there was so much feedback from people

01:02:48 ◼   ► having dissatisfaction with the first launch experience.

01:02:51 ◼   ► Because I had feared when I was writing this that an entire generation of people had been

01:02:55 ◼   ► conditioned to the idea that when you launch a streaming service app, of course it's not

01:03:00 ◼   ► going to give you an obvious way to continue watching the show you're watching.

01:03:03 ◼   ► Like that you will always be presented with essentially a splash screen promoting a bunch

01:03:07 ◼   ► of things that it thinks you might like.

01:03:09 ◼   ► that you will always have to dig or scroll or search

01:03:13 ◼   ► or do a voice command or whatever

01:03:16 ◼   ► to find the show that you've been watching, right?

01:03:18 ◼   ► But no, even though essentially every big streaming service

01:03:22 ◼   ► does that, again, for user engagement reasons,

01:03:24 ◼   ► 'cause it's important for them.

01:03:26 ◼   ► If you're one of these companies, what's more important,

01:03:29 ◼   ► that the user finish watching the TV series

01:03:32 ◼   ► that they really wanted to watch when they signed up

01:03:35 ◼   ► or that they start watching a new thing?

01:03:37 ◼   ► If they finish watching the series,

01:03:38 ◼   ► Maybe they say, "Oh, that's done.

01:03:39 ◼   ► "Now I can unsubscribe from Power Hunt Plus.

01:03:41 ◼   ► "I've finished the Star Trek."

01:03:43 ◼   ► They don't want that.

01:03:44 ◼   ► They want you to start a new thing.

01:03:45 ◼   ► So it is so in their interest to hide that.

01:03:48 ◼   ► But despite the fact that every single streaming service

01:03:51 ◼   ► makes it degrees of difficult for you to continue

01:03:54 ◼   ► watching what you're watching,

01:03:55 ◼   ► that is still what everybody wants to do.

01:03:57 ◼   ► And that is absolutely the number one complaint

01:04:00 ◼   ► I heard echoed is like,

01:04:01 ◼   ► nobody can find, where was the thing I was just watching?

01:04:05 ◼   ► Nobody can find it.

01:04:06 ◼   ► Even though the answer is often, it's right there,

01:04:09 ◼   ► or it's down two rows, or you don't see it,

01:04:10 ◼   ► it's over, some hide it really well,

01:04:13 ◼   ► some hide it just a little bit,

01:04:15 ◼   ► but the bottom line is people go in there

01:04:17 ◼   ► trying to accomplish a task, which is,

01:04:19 ◼   ► let me watch the next episode of "Ted Lasso,"

01:04:22 ◼   ► and the apps fight them, the apps fight them.

01:04:25 ◼   ► They launch the app and it's like,

01:04:26 ◼   ► I don't know what you're talking about with the "Ted Lasso,"

01:04:28 ◼   ► but what about this show?

01:04:29 ◼   ► Or it shows the big banner for "Ted Lasso,"

01:04:31 ◼   ► and you click it and it starts playing

01:04:32 ◼   ► episode one of "Ted Lasso," and it's like,

01:04:34 ◼   ► God, you have one job, but I guess that counts as engagement.

01:04:37 ◼   ► Anyway, so I'm glad that people have not been conditioned

01:04:41 ◼   ► to accept that this is how it has to be.

01:04:44 ◼   ► With streaming music, I think people have,

01:04:45 ◼   ► unfortunately, been conditioned to accept it,

01:04:47 ◼   ► because honestly, I think streaming music apps are better

01:04:50 ◼   ► in the grand scheme of things than streaming video apps.

01:04:52 ◼   ► But streaming video, despite--

01:04:53 ◼   ► - Are they?

01:04:54 ◼   ► - Despite apparently all going to the same conference

01:04:58 ◼   ► where they all agree to suck in exactly the same ways,

01:05:00 ◼   ► users still don't like it.

01:05:03 ◼   ► They just wanna watch their show.

01:05:05 ◼   ► - Well, and the problem too, as you talked about earlier,

01:05:08 ◼   ► is that when it's only big companies making these apps

01:05:12 ◼   ► or even able to make these apps,

01:05:15 ◼   ► it's so much easier for them to justify the decisions

01:05:19 ◼   ► they make based on quote data.

01:05:21 ◼   ► And it's not that they're not being evil

01:05:24 ◼   ► or stupid or anything, that's just how large companies work.

01:05:29 ◼   ► - They're being a little bit stupid though,

01:05:30 ◼   ► 'cause like I said, data,

01:05:31 ◼   ► it depends on what you decide to measure.

01:05:33 ◼   ► You have to be careful with what you're measuring.

01:05:35 ◼   ► - That's fair, but for the most part,

01:05:36 ◼   ► like if they have some data that shows like,

01:05:39 ◼   ► hey, this kind of less user friendly

01:05:43 ◼   ► or less graceful design actually resulted

01:05:47 ◼   ► in higher performance on whatever metrics we're tracking,

01:05:50 ◼   ► it's really hard if you're in a company to argue,

01:05:53 ◼   ► hey, but why don't we do the nicer thing instead?

01:05:56 ◼   ► Like that doesn't, when you're in a company,

01:05:58 ◼   ► that kind of logic does not get rewarded

01:06:01 ◼   ► and does not succeed.

01:06:02 ◼   ► Because everyone's like, well,

01:06:04 ◼   ► I'll make more money this way.

01:06:05 ◼   ► That's it.

01:06:06 ◼   ► And when you're an individual or a small group

01:06:10 ◼   ► that is less focused on extracting every penny of profit

01:06:14 ◼   ► and more driven by like,

01:06:16 ◼   ► hey, let's make the best thing we can make,

01:06:18 ◼   ► you make different decisions, you think differently,

01:06:20 ◼   ► you have different priorities.

01:06:21 ◼   ► And you can because you're smaller.

01:06:24 ◼   ► But it's very different when you are like

01:06:26 ◼   ► a very small cog in a very big machine

01:06:28 ◼   ► where you are rewarded only for making money and that's it.

01:06:32 ◼   ► - I think it's a little bit subtler than that.

01:06:34 ◼   ► A lot of the cases where when you're small,

01:06:38 ◼   ► you think the way to make money is to make an app

01:06:41 ◼   ► that people like using.

01:06:42 ◼   ► Like that's the connection that you make, naively make.

01:06:45 ◼   ► You know, like okay, well,

01:06:46 ◼   ► if I'm gonna make a word processor

01:06:48 ◼   ► and I want my word processor to be really great,

01:06:50 ◼   ► I want people to love my word processor,

01:06:52 ◼   ► I wanna make the best word processor I can make

01:06:53 ◼   ► because if I make the best word processor I can make,

01:06:56 ◼   ► I'll make money, right?

01:06:57 ◼   ► When you're big, that connection,

01:06:59 ◼   ► quality of product equals making money,

01:07:01 ◼   ► that's not how you make money in the big leagues, right?

01:07:03 ◼   ► It's different than that.

01:07:04 ◼   ► It's like, okay, but how do we actually make money?

01:07:06 ◼   ► Show me the path from make a really good

01:07:09 ◼   ► streaming interface to making money.

01:07:11 ◼   ► And they'll say, well actually,

01:07:12 ◼   ► the streaming app is not that big a deal,

01:07:14 ◼   ► we just need a giant play button, right?

01:07:15 ◼   ► What we really need is content,

01:07:16 ◼   ► and how do you get content?

01:07:17 ◼   ► And what we really need is distribution,

01:07:18 ◼   ► how do we get it installed on everybody's TVs?

01:07:20 ◼   ► And there's so much more to making money.

01:07:23 ◼   ► The connection between making money means

01:07:25 ◼   ► doing these things gets farther and farther

01:07:27 ◼   ► from the simple thing of like,

01:07:28 ◼   ► if I just make a really good app or piece of software,

01:07:32 ◼   ► that's it, especially for things like streaming services.

01:07:33 ◼   ► Honestly, we're complaining about these interfaces

01:07:36 ◼   ► or whatever the bottom line is,

01:07:37 ◼   ► if there's not good TV shows on it or not good movies,

01:07:39 ◼   ► you're not gonna watch it no matter how good the app is.

01:07:41 ◼   ► So the most important thing is content

01:07:44 ◼   ► and that's a whole other ball of wax.

01:07:46 ◼   ► But I don't think that even the app itself

01:07:48 ◼   ► is like second or third or fourth,

01:07:49 ◼   ► or if it is, the purpose the app is serving

01:07:53 ◼   ► is not let the user accomplish their intended task

01:07:57 ◼   ► with the least amount of frustration.

01:07:59 ◼   ► That's not the thing that is going to make the money.

01:08:02 ◼   ► Because they say, okay, say our app is 10 times better

01:08:04 ◼   ► than the next person's.

01:08:05 ◼   ► They're still going to do better

01:08:07 ◼   ► because they're making that extra $20 million

01:08:09 ◼   ► from extra engagement by putting up the big promo

01:08:12 ◼   ► for their new show and we need to do that, right?

01:08:14 ◼   ► And so it's, I think everyone in it wants to succeed

01:08:17 ◼   ► or make money or whatever you wanna say,

01:08:19 ◼   ► but it's the way, it's the sophistication

01:08:22 ◼   ► of the connection between what I do

01:08:25 ◼   ► and how that translates into money.

01:08:26 ◼   ► And this small developer,

01:08:29 ◼   ► it can usually hold on to the,

01:08:33 ◼   ► right or wrong, can hold on to the connection

01:08:34 ◼   ► between the quality of their app

01:08:36 ◼   ► and how much money they make

01:08:37 ◼   ► much longer than a large corporation can.

01:08:40 ◼   ► - Yeah.

01:08:41 ◼   ► - I think it was that Dilbert strip

01:08:43 ◼   ► where there was some character

01:08:44 ◼   ► having an existential crisis and saying,

01:08:46 ◼   ► "Oh no, I just lost the connection

01:08:47 ◼   ► "between my performance and how much I'm paid."

01:08:49 ◼   ► Like having a thought in your head is like,

01:08:52 ◼   ► If you lose that, if you're just like,

01:08:54 ◼   ► I know I've lost it, I can't see it anymore.

01:08:56 ◼   ► 'Cause when you're, especially when you're first starting

01:08:58 ◼   ► at a job, you think, if I do well in my job,

01:09:00 ◼   ► I will succeed.

01:09:02 ◼   ► And there are various times in one's long career

01:09:04 ◼   ► where you will lose that connection and say,

01:09:06 ◼   ► how well I do my job seems to have no connection

01:09:09 ◼   ► to how much I'm paid or how I'm promoted, right?

01:09:12 ◼   ► And you just lose it.

01:09:13 ◼   ► You're like, what even is anything?

01:09:15 ◼   ► And then maybe you get it back.

01:09:16 ◼   ► Anyway, it definitely seems like the connection

01:09:21 ◼   ► between the quality of the streaming app and how streaming companies make money essentially

01:09:25 ◼   ► doesn't exist.

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01:11:20 ◼   ► (upbeat music)

01:11:23 ◼   ► - All right, so there was some slightly breaking news

01:11:26 ◼   ► that happened, I believe this morning as we record.

01:11:29 ◼   ► Akamai, which is a, if not the CDN,

01:11:34 ◼   ► content delivery network, has announced

01:11:35 ◼   ► that they are going to acquire a very frequent former

01:11:39 ◼   ► and probably a future sponsor, Linode.

01:11:41 ◼   ► - They're literally sponsoring this episode.

01:11:43 ◼   ► - I was gonna say, I was about to look,

01:11:44 ◼   ► are they sponsoring tonight?

01:11:46 ◼   ► So we are obviously all big fans of Linode here.

01:11:49 ◼   ► And we certainly have a financial interest

01:11:53 ◼   ► in what happens with Linode in the sense

01:11:55 ◼   ► that they sponsor us.

01:11:57 ◼   ► But that being said, I think-- and I would hope that you all

01:11:59 ◼   ► know us well enough to know that we'll call it like we see it.

01:12:03 ◼   ► And so Akamai has announced that they're

01:12:05 ◼   ► going to acquire Linode.

01:12:06 ◼   ► Reading from their announcement, just a couple of quick things.

01:12:10 ◼   ► It says, "Together with Linode, Akamai

01:12:11 ◼   ► will become the world's most distributed compute platform

01:12:14 ◼   ► from cloud to edge."

01:12:16 ◼   ► And then the Akamai CEO, Tom Leighton,

01:12:18 ◼   ► said, "We are excited to begin a new chapter

01:12:20 ◼   ► "in our evolution by creating a unique cloud platform

01:12:23 ◼   ► "to build, run, and secure applications

01:12:24 ◼   ► "from the cloud to the edge.

01:12:26 ◼   ► "This is a big win for developers who will now be able

01:12:28 ◼   ► "to build applications on a platform

01:12:29 ◼   ► "that delivers unprecedented scale,

01:12:32 ◼   ► "reach, performance, reliability, and security."

01:12:37 ◼   ► - I hope nothing happens.

01:12:40 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:12:41 ◼   ► So here's the thing.

01:12:42 ◼   ► So my concern here is less, you know, selfishly,

01:12:46 ◼   ► It's less about them sponsoring our show in the future

01:12:50 ◼   ► and more, 'cause I think we perform pretty well for them

01:12:52 ◼   ► and I think if they continue doing sponsorships at all,

01:12:54 ◼   ► I think they'll probably stick with us.

01:12:56 ◼   ► But I think my concern for them is more as a customer

01:13:00 ◼   ► that I have everything hosted there.

01:13:02 ◼   ► And I have been through web host acquisitions

01:13:07 ◼   ► as a customer before.

01:13:09 ◼   ► I've also been through Linode's own migrations before

01:13:12 ◼   ► where maybe they're trying to retire some old hardware

01:13:16 ◼   ► and move everybody onto newer hardware.

01:13:17 ◼   ► I've been through those before.

01:13:19 ◼   ► Linode has always handled those very well.

01:13:23 ◼   ► I'm not concerned that Linode will,

01:13:25 ◼   ► as they're almost certainly going to start moving stuff

01:13:29 ◼   ► into Akamai's infrastructure on some level,

01:13:32 ◼   ► I'm not worried they're gonna do a bad job of that.

01:13:35 ◼   ► They've done a great job of that in the past,

01:13:37 ◼   ► and so that's been fine.

01:13:40 ◼   ► I'm also, again, having been with other hosts

01:13:43 ◼   ► when they've gotten acquired,

01:13:45 ◼   ► Normally what happens is for a while everything is the same

01:13:50 ◼   ► and then eventually the new owner of it

01:13:54 ◼   ► makes everybody move over to their plans,

01:13:57 ◼   ► whatever their structure is, their plans,

01:13:59 ◼   ► and they shut down all the old stuff eventually.

01:14:01 ◼   ► So that might happen here, but in this case,

01:14:04 ◼   ► Linode was not acquired by another web hosting company.

01:14:08 ◼   ► They were acquired by a large CDN that has other solutions,

01:14:11 ◼   ► but they don't really, like Akamai does not sell

01:14:15 ◼   ► what Linode is.

01:14:16 ◼   ► And if you look at the statements

01:14:18 ◼   ► from the Akamai people and everything,

01:14:21 ◼   ► it seems like their main interest in Linode

01:14:24 ◼   ► is to have a server platform and server solutions

01:14:29 ◼   ► that they can sell their other customers

01:14:33 ◼   ► through their massive sales channel.

01:14:35 ◼   ► This was covered very well in the Stratechery article

01:14:38 ◼   ► for subscribers this week or today about this.

01:14:41 ◼   ► I strongly recommend anybody out there, check it out.

01:14:43 ◼   ► Sign up if you want, it's a great thing, it's worth it.

01:14:46 ◼   ► Anyway, so we'll link to it in the show notes.

01:14:47 ◼   ► But the Akamai position on this publicly seems to be like,

01:14:52 ◼   ► they want a server platform or solution

01:14:55 ◼   ► that they can sell to their other customers

01:14:57 ◼   ► through their big sales channel.

01:14:59 ◼   ► Now, what this means to existing Linode customers

01:15:03 ◼   ► is that it sounds like we are not super important to Akamai.

01:15:08 ◼   ► Now that can be good and bad.

01:15:11 ◼   ► In one way, it can be good in the sense that

01:15:14 ◼   ► we probably don't matter enough for them to mess with us.

01:15:18 ◼   ► It can be bad in the sense that as they choose

01:15:20 ◼   ► what directions to go in the future,

01:15:22 ◼   ► they might not consider our needs,

01:15:24 ◼   ► or they might not prioritize us

01:15:25 ◼   ► over their other larger goals.

01:15:27 ◼   ► But I imagine, you know, they paid Linode

01:15:30 ◼   ► a decent amount of money to buy this

01:15:32 ◼   ► decently sized company for a reason.

01:15:34 ◼   ► Like, it wasn't just to, you know,

01:15:37 ◼   ► sell stuff and get a commission or whatever,

01:15:39 ◼   ► like they could have done that

01:15:40 ◼   ► through some kind of affiliate marketing deal.

01:15:42 ◼   ► They didn't have to buy the company to do that.

01:15:44 ◼   ► So I think this will probably be okay for a while.

01:15:48 ◼   ► If it ends up that what I use and need about Linode

01:15:54 ◼   ► is somehow ruined or no longer available,

01:15:59 ◼   ► then I'll be really sad and I'll be forced to move

01:16:01 ◼   ► and that'll suck because when you look around,

01:16:03 ◼   ► like I looked around today to see like,

01:16:05 ◼   ► well, what does the competitive landscape look like?

01:16:08 ◼   ► And there's not that many companies like this left.

01:16:13 ◼   ► You know, it's basically like DigitalOcean

01:16:15 ◼   ► and then this one that Ben Thompson linked to

01:16:16 ◼   ► that with the V, I hadn't even heard of them before.

01:16:19 ◼   ► But apparently they're huge.

01:16:20 ◼   ► I had never heard of them.

01:16:22 ◼   ► But I looked at their offerings and everything

01:16:24 ◼   ► and yeah, I would have some stumbling blocks

01:16:28 ◼   ► moving to either of these companies

01:16:29 ◼   ► because as I mentioned in every single ad,

01:16:32 ◼   ► Linode's really good and they solve my needs really well.

01:16:36 ◼   ► And I currently, I spend something like $5,000 a month

01:16:40 ◼   ► on overcast servers there.

01:16:42 ◼   ► - Oh, God, that makes my heart hurt.

01:16:45 ◼   ► - Yeah, and if you look at Linode's prices,

01:16:47 ◼   ► they're like, you know, 20 bucks a month, 40 bucks a month,

01:16:51 ◼   ► you know, look at the plans, it's a lot of servers.

01:16:54 ◼   ► To reach those numbers, it's a good number of servers.

01:16:57 ◼   ► And so to move to another host would not only be

01:17:01 ◼   ► a very large technical ordeal that just, you know,

01:17:05 ◼   ► again, I've done this before, I could do it.

01:17:08 ◼   ► It's a pain in the butt to move hosts.

01:17:10 ◼   ► But you know, I could do it.

01:17:12 ◼   ► But it's just, it's a big pain for something

01:17:15 ◼   ► that I really don't wanna do.

01:17:16 ◼   ► And also, I don't have a track record

01:17:18 ◼   ► with somebody else established now.

01:17:19 ◼   ► Like I know, I know that with Linode,

01:17:22 ◼   ► I don't really have to think about my stuff

01:17:24 ◼   ► most of the time.

01:17:25 ◼   ► Like, as somebody who runs this by myself,

01:17:28 ◼   ► I am my own server admin.

01:17:30 ◼   ► I am the one who's always on call if anything breaks.

01:17:33 ◼   ► And I know that I can do things like go to sleep at night

01:17:36 ◼   ► and not have to worry that I'm gonna be woken up at 2 a.m.

01:17:41 ◼   ► or worse, not woken up at 2 a.m. when a database breaks

01:17:44 ◼   ► and my entire site's down.

01:17:46 ◼   ► I know that I don't have to worry about that

01:17:48 ◼   ► most of the time because I know Linode is reliable

01:17:50 ◼   ► and I know I have a long history with them now

01:17:53 ◼   ► and I know what I can count on.

01:17:55 ◼   ► Anytime, if I'm gonna be forced to move anywhere else,

01:17:59 ◼   ► like if my Linode solutions go away or get ruined,

01:18:02 ◼   ► I would have to relearn all of that

01:18:04 ◼   ► and take risks at a new host.

01:18:05 ◼   ► And frankly, what I would be very tempted to do,

01:18:10 ◼   ► or at least to try, is to just move to AWS at that point.

01:18:14 ◼   ► But moving to AWS would probably, again,

01:18:17 ◼   ► I said $5,000 a month for what I have at Linode.

01:18:21 ◼   ► If I moved to AWS, that would probably multiply

01:18:25 ◼   ► by at least three or four.

01:18:26 ◼   ► - You are correct.

01:18:27 ◼   ► - And that's why I'm not there now.

01:18:30 ◼   ► Because AWS is a great deal if your usage fits certain profiles and mine doesn't.

01:18:36 ◼   ► Here's the thing about AWS.

01:18:38 ◼   ► AWS is a role-playing game.

01:18:40 ◼   ► [laughter]

01:18:43 ◼   ► If you go into—it's like Progress Quest, kind of.

01:18:45 ◼   ► If you go into AWS and naively re-implemented your Linode stuff there, you would pay so much money.

01:18:51 ◼   ► Yes.

01:18:51 ◼   ► But it's a game.

01:18:52 ◼   ► And it's a game that can be played, and the game is essentially,

01:18:55 ◼   ► "How do I get this functionality while spending the least amount of money?"

01:18:59 ◼   ► and it's a hard game.

01:19:00 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:19:02 ◼   ► The only good thing about this game

01:19:04 ◼   ► is that essentially everybody who works for AWS

01:19:06 ◼   ► in my experience wants to help you win the game,

01:19:09 ◼   ► which is weird.

01:19:10 ◼   ► Like they're telling you like,

01:19:10 ◼   ► here's how you can get that functionality

01:19:13 ◼   ► by paying less money to us,

01:19:15 ◼   ► but I swear that's what they do,

01:19:17 ◼   ► but it's a hard game.

01:19:18 ◼   ► You need their help.

01:19:19 ◼   ► And so yeah, if you went in there and you're like,

01:19:21 ◼   ► how is this possible?

01:19:23 ◼   ► Why does this cost so much money?

01:19:24 ◼   ► And it's like, you don't know the secret ways

01:19:26 ◼   ► of you use this service with that

01:19:28 ◼   ► and do this and get these discounts and this thing

01:19:30 ◼   ► and that, and it's like, when you win the game,

01:19:33 ◼   ► when you solve it, you're like,

01:19:34 ◼   ► "Wow, I'm paying one eighth what I was

01:19:36 ◼   ► "and I get better performance and it's more reliable."

01:19:38 ◼   ► But it took me a year to figure out how to win this game.

01:19:41 ◼   ► So anyway, get ready for that

01:19:43 ◼   ► if you ever decide to go over there.

01:19:44 ◼   ► - But, and I hope I don't, because like,

01:19:46 ◼   ► the reason I haven't gone to AWS yet,

01:19:49 ◼   ► yeah, I mean, to be fair, I use S3,

01:19:52 ◼   ► but I've never used EC2 or, you know,

01:19:54 ◼   ► their various compute services.

01:19:56 ◼   ► I've only ever used S3 from their services.

01:19:58 ◼   ► - There's so much beyond EC2, you don't even know.

01:20:00 ◼   ► - I know, I know.

01:20:01 ◼   ► - One of the secrets to winning the game is don't use EC2.

01:20:03 ◼   ► - Yeah, that's true.

01:20:04 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:20:05 ◼   ► But, so, one of the reasons I haven't gone over there yet

01:20:08 ◼   ► is that, or, you know, ever really,

01:20:11 ◼   ► is that I know that cost would be a big difference.

01:20:14 ◼   ► But another one is that I always loved the idea

01:20:17 ◼   ► with being with somebody like Linode.

01:20:19 ◼   ► And by the way, the chat says that the one

01:20:21 ◼   ► I was thinking of earlier and couldn't remember the name

01:20:22 ◼   ► is Vulture, or Vulture, it's V-U-L-T-R dot com.

01:20:25 ◼   ► And yeah, apparently they're huge

01:20:27 ◼   ► and I've never heard of them.

01:20:28 ◼   ► But yeah, as far as I can tell,

01:20:30 ◼   ► the big names in this space are Linode, Vulture,

01:20:32 ◼   ► and DigitalOcean, and I don't know of any others

01:20:35 ◼   ► that are substantial and are good deals.

01:20:38 ◼   ► And so, the reason I ever went to AWS with my server needs

01:20:41 ◼   ► is that I never liked the idea,

01:20:44 ◼   ► besides the price issues which are substantial,

01:20:46 ◼   ► I never liked the idea of moving my stack

01:20:49 ◼   ► to something that is pretty proprietary,

01:20:51 ◼   ► that if the host ever went bad,

01:20:54 ◼   ► if AWS ever went bad in some way,

01:20:56 ◼   ► it would be hard to move something off of AWS

01:20:59 ◼   ► because it's all this kind of custom tooling,

01:21:04 ◼   ► custom stuff that like,

01:21:06 ◼   ► it isn't just a bunch of EBSs

01:21:07 ◼   ► if you're not just using dumb EC2 stuff.

01:21:09 ◼   ► Like you're using some of their more high level

01:21:11 ◼   ► or managed services in some way

01:21:13 ◼   ► and so it's harder to move away from it

01:21:16 ◼   ► and that reduces my portability and that locks me in

01:21:19 ◼   ► and that could screw me later if pricing or quality

01:21:23 ◼   ► goes south in some way.