ATP

00:00:00 ◼   ► Adam's gaming PC has started to regularly blue screen.

00:00:04 ◼   ► - Oh, you don't say?

00:00:04 ◼   ► So it's been, the Windows installation

00:00:06 ◼   ► has been there for six months or more?

00:00:08 ◼   ► - I have absolutely no idea what to do about it.

00:00:11 ◼   ► (laughs)

00:00:12 ◼   ► - Blow out the dust.

00:00:13 ◼   ► - Oh yeah, all kidding aside,

00:00:15 ◼   ► when I last regularly used Windows,

00:00:17 ◼   ► and we were talking before even the bootleg started,

00:00:19 ◼   ► Marco and I were, that I haven't regularly used Windows

00:00:23 ◼   ► in like a VM anyway since like 2018,

00:00:26 ◼   ► And I don't think I've had a Windows installation

00:00:30 ◼   ► since like the early 2010s.

00:00:33 ◼   ► Like I think I went maybe even earlier than that,

00:00:37 ◼   ► like late aughts, early 10s.

00:00:39 ◼   ► So it's been a long time since I've used Windows

00:00:42 ◼   ► for more than literally five minutes.

00:00:44 ◼   ► But when I was a devout or maybe avid,

00:00:47 ◼   ► I guess I should say Windows user,

00:00:48 ◼   ► it used to be the rule of thumb was every six months,

00:00:51 ◼   ► you destroy everything and put it back where it was.

00:00:55 ◼   ► and start anew so you would clean out all the cruft

00:00:58 ◼   ► and get all the junk out.

00:00:59 ◼   ► Now, it would not surprise me

00:01:00 ◼   ► if that is not at all the case today,

00:01:01 ◼   ► but how long has Adam's computer been operational?

00:01:04 ◼   ► - That was Tiff's first gaming PC

00:01:07 ◼   ► from like two and a half or three years ago,

00:01:10 ◼   ► something like that.

00:01:11 ◼   ► And so there's a number of factors here.

00:01:13 ◼   ► So number one, it was very well-specced at the time.

00:01:18 ◼   ► It has the mobile Nvidia 2080.

00:01:23 ◼   ► So it's actually a pretty well-specced computer

00:01:26 ◼   ► for two years ago, whenever we bought it.

00:01:29 ◼   ► The downside of the 2080 in a laptop

00:01:32 ◼   ► and whatever that giant version of it was to begin with

00:01:34 ◼   ► is that it's a very large, very hot running GPU.

00:01:39 ◼   ► And so already I'm thinking, oh no,

00:01:42 ◼   ► this laptop that worked totally solidly for two years

00:01:47 ◼   ► and that all of a sudden has started

00:01:48 ◼   ► blue-screening regularly while playing games,

00:01:50 ◼   ► Like, I don't feel great about that

00:01:54 ◼   ► from a hardware perspective.

00:01:55 ◼   ► But then I'm thinking like, well,

00:01:58 ◼   ► if it is something stupid and software related,

00:02:00 ◼   ► I'll feel really dumb if we ended up replacing it

00:02:02 ◼   ► or somehow getting it serviced.

00:02:03 ◼   ► I don't even know how it would do that.

00:02:05 ◼   ► (laughs)

00:02:06 ◼   ► And like, I'm so far from the PC world at this point,

00:02:10 ◼   ► I have no idea, like, can I sell this?

00:02:12 ◼   ► Can I trade it into somebody?

00:02:14 ◼   ► - That's the most Marco answer is,

00:02:16 ◼   ► ah, screw it, sell it and get a new one.

00:02:18 ◼   ► - You can sell anything that someone's willing

00:02:20 ◼   ► I don't think you need permission or knowledge

00:02:23 ◼   ► of the PC market to do that.

00:02:25 ◼   ► You can just put things for sale.

00:02:26 ◼   ► I mean, you just explained how to sell things on eBay.

00:02:28 ◼   ► This is a thing.

00:02:29 ◼   ► You can sell it on eBay.

00:02:29 ◼   ► - Yeah, but if the GPU might be flaking out,

00:02:32 ◼   ► I can't really in good conscience sell that to a person.

00:02:35 ◼   ► If there was some kind of trade-in thing,

00:02:36 ◼   ► I could do that, but--

00:02:37 ◼   ► - But you don't know that the GPU is flaking out.

00:02:39 ◼   ► You're just speculating.

00:02:40 ◼   ► It occasionally blue screens, but that could be anything.

00:02:44 ◼   ► - It regularly blue screens.

00:02:45 ◼   ► And it's so funny, because I'm so far

00:02:48 ◼   ► from using Windows regularly,

00:02:50 ◼   ► The last time I used Windows regularly,

00:02:51 ◼   ► the version I used was XP.

00:02:53 ◼   ► I never used Vista or anything after it

00:02:55 ◼   ► until getting these gaming PCs,

00:02:57 ◼   ► and we literally use them only for gaming.

00:03:00 ◼   ► So they're basically consoles to us.

00:03:02 ◼   ► We open them up and launch Steam or the Minecraft launcher

00:03:06 ◼   ► and go from there, and that's about all we do on them.

00:03:09 ◼   ► And so it's funny, all these years I hear,

00:03:12 ◼   ► you know, as nerds, you always hear stories of people

00:03:15 ◼   ► in your life, and you're like, oh, I don't wanna upgrade

00:03:17 ◼   ► to the latest software, it's gonna break everything.

00:03:20 ◼   ► And meanwhile, these PCs, they have Windows 10,

00:03:22 ◼   ► I think, on them, and they started asking

00:03:25 ◼   ► very aggressively for us to upgrade to Windows 11.

00:03:28 ◼   ► And I'm thinking of this, like from my point of view,

00:03:30 ◼   ► like, why?

00:03:32 ◼   ► Why would I want to touch anything?

00:03:34 ◼   ► It works, mostly.

00:03:36 ◼   ► It works now.

00:03:38 ◼   ► Why? - Except the blue screens.

00:03:39 ◼   ► - Well, yeah, okay, fair enough.

00:03:41 ◼   ► But the other two, they work totally fine.

00:03:43 ◼   ► So it's like, why would I want to do a software update

00:03:47 ◼   ► if everything works?

00:03:49 ◼   ► Whatever it's adding, I couldn't possibly care less about.

00:03:52 ◼   ► Like any features that's added into Windows,

00:03:53 ◼   ► I don't even know, I don't care.

00:03:55 ◼   ► These things are only gaming consoles to us.

00:03:57 ◼   ► And so like, the last thing I want is to

00:04:01 ◼   ► upgrade my version of Windows, which like,

00:04:03 ◼   ► best case scenario, nothing about my life changes.

00:04:07 ◼   ► That's the best case scenario.

00:04:09 ◼   ► And there's lots of worst case scenarios

00:04:11 ◼   ► where something that worked before doesn't now.

00:04:14 ◼   ► And I'm realizing like, this is how regular people

00:04:18 ◼   ► have thought about computers forever.

00:04:20 ◼   ► Like, it's so kind of funny and sad,

00:04:22 ◼   ► like, first of all, how many people never update

00:04:25 ◼   ► their software for this very good reason of like,

00:04:28 ◼   ► you know what, I did it once, it broke stuff,

00:04:30 ◼   ► I was burned and I don't wanna do it again.

00:04:32 ◼   ► And you know, asking analytically,

00:04:34 ◼   ► like, what's this thing gonna do for me?

00:04:36 ◼   ► And then also, like, how much hardware,

00:04:39 ◼   ► especially in the PC world, let's be honest,

00:04:42 ◼   ► how much hardware that's been perfectly fine

00:04:45 ◼   ► has been replaced due to software bugs

00:04:48 ◼   ► and the person would just like, look, I can't afford to

00:04:51 ◼   ► or don't have the skills to figure this out,

00:04:53 ◼   ► I'm just going to buy a new one.

00:04:55 ◼   ► Like, I can't tell you how many,

00:04:57 ◼   ► like when I was in the PC world,

00:04:58 ◼   ► I'm sure you both have seen this,

00:05:00 ◼   ► I can't tell you how many PCs I've saw people replace

00:05:03 ◼   ► that were just like, oh, it's old and slow

00:05:05 ◼   ► 'cause it was full of spyware.

00:05:07 ◼   ► And like, you could have just reformatted

00:05:08 ◼   ► and reinstalled Windows on it and it would have been fine,

00:05:11 ◼   ► like the hardware was fine, but people,

00:05:14 ◼   ► Like so much PC hardware has been discarded

00:05:18 ◼   ► and replaced over time, that was totally 100% fine

00:05:21 ◼   ► because people were misdiagnosing software problems

00:05:23 ◼   ► for hardware problems or that was the easiest way

00:05:26 ◼   ► out of the problem for them or the fastest

00:05:28 ◼   ► or the only thing they knew they could do,

00:05:30 ◼   ► you know, whatever it is.

00:05:32 ◼   ► And here I am like waffling over that same dilemma,

00:05:35 ◼   ► like what do I do about this damn computer?

00:05:36 ◼   ► Like it's not, it's now it's unreliable.

00:05:39 ◼   ► Do we, do we replace it?

00:05:41 ◼   ► It seems kind of wasteful to replace it at this point.

00:05:44 ◼   ► - But why aren't you using the old ways?

00:05:46 ◼   ► Wipe it and reinstall.

00:05:48 ◼   ► I mean, that's a reasonable first step,

00:05:49 ◼   ► especially if the only thing you ever do with it is game.

00:05:51 ◼   ► Everything is on Steam or whatever.

00:05:53 ◼   ► It's not like you need to preserve anything.

00:05:55 ◼   ► Wipe and reinstall, and if that cures it,

00:05:56 ◼   ► then yay, it was some weird software thing

00:05:58 ◼   ► that you didn't have to figure out.

00:05:58 ◼   ► But at the very least, do that, right?

00:06:00 ◼   ► - Well, so, I'm thinking of that,

00:06:03 ◼   ► and that might be what I do next,

00:06:05 ◼   ► but I don't know how to do that anymore.

00:06:07 ◼   ► I have no idea how to do that.

00:06:09 ◼   ► I don't know where games are storing their files.

00:06:12 ◼   ► I have no idea how to preserve all the progress

00:06:16 ◼   ► Adam's made in his games.

00:06:17 ◼   ► - That's why Steam is good.

00:06:18 ◼   ► I mean, we talked about Steam before.

00:06:19 ◼   ► What does it bring to you?

00:06:20 ◼   ► For Steam, at least, you don't have to worry about that

00:06:22 ◼   ► because Steam will take care of it all.

00:06:24 ◼   ► Pretty much everything has Cloud Sync saves

00:06:26 ◼   ► and all the games, obviously, themselves are on Steam.

00:06:28 ◼   ► Minecraft, I don't know the answer to that,

00:06:30 ◼   ► but I assume Microsoft does a reasonable job.

00:06:32 ◼   ► But if you had individually installed a bunch of games,

00:06:34 ◼   ► yes, that's where you'd be.

00:06:35 ◼   ► But still, as I'm sure you know,

00:06:37 ◼   ► you can reinstall Windows without erasing the hard drive.

00:06:41 ◼   ► - Honestly, I don't even know how to do that.

00:06:42 ◼   ► Like, I don't even, like, I know there's probably some kind

00:06:44 ◼   ► of like-- - There's probably

00:06:44 ◼   ► a wizard for it.

00:06:45 ◼   ► - I know, there's probably, I probably like, you know,

00:06:46 ◼   ► hold some key command at boot and it probably has its own

00:06:49 ◼   ► like system recovery thing.

00:06:49 ◼   ► - Yeah, then you'll see a big DOS screen with white text

00:06:52 ◼   ► on a black background that'll tell you to hit F2

00:06:54 ◼   ► if you wanna do this and F3 if you wanna do that

00:06:55 ◼   ► and you'll feel like you're using modern technology

00:06:57 ◼   ► as you look at your drive letters.

00:06:59 ◼   ► - Let me jump into my BIOS, that's where I see

00:07:01 ◼   ► my RAM count up.

00:07:02 ◼   ► - Yeah, and by the way, if you had said okay

00:07:04 ◼   ► to that Windows 11 thing, you just would've found out

00:07:06 ◼   ► that you don't have TPM 2.0 and you can't upgrade

00:07:08 ◼   ► to Windows 11 anyway.

00:07:09 ◼   ► - Well, I don't even know.

00:07:11 ◼   ► Is that the trusted platform module?

00:07:12 ◼   ► Is that like, we actually did that?

00:07:14 ◼   ► - Windows 11 requires TPM 2.0.

00:07:16 ◼   ► You probably have it.

00:07:17 ◼   ► I'm just making a joke and I'm kind of bitter

00:07:18 ◼   ► because I couldn't update it.

00:07:19 ◼   ► I was willing to update my Windows gaming PC installation,

00:07:23 ◼   ► which is an external SSD that I plug into my Mac Pro.

00:07:27 ◼   ► It has like, what, I think I have Windows 8 on it,

00:07:30 ◼   ► or no, I must have Windows 10.

00:07:31 ◼   ► Yeah, I have Windows 10 on it.

00:07:32 ◼   ► And I was like, oh, I'll upgrade to Windows 11,

00:07:34 ◼   ► what the hell?

00:07:35 ◼   ► And it said, no, sorry, you don't have TPM 2.0.

00:07:37 ◼   ► and then I did all this googling to see,

00:07:39 ◼   ► does the Mac Pro have something that can fool

00:07:44 ◼   ► the Windows into thinking it's TPM 2.0 Xeon, I don't know.

00:07:47 ◼   ► And I just, I gave up, so I'm stuck on Windows 10 as well.

00:07:51 ◼   ► - I remember when the TPM stuff was first floated,

00:07:54 ◼   ► and this was back when I was using PCs,

00:07:56 ◼   ► and let's say the PC enthusiast community

00:08:00 ◼   ► was not very thrilled with the idea of basically

00:08:03 ◼   ► DRM support in hardware in our computers.

00:08:06 ◼   ► And it's funny to think back, like now in today's world,

00:08:09 ◼   ► we carry around these phones and we have tablets,

00:08:11 ◼   ► we have computers, all of them have hardware DRM support

00:08:15 ◼   ► deeply, like there's so much hardware DRM support.

00:08:18 ◼   ► Everything with an HDMI port has hardware DRM support.

00:08:20 ◼   ► Like there's so much hardware DRM everywhere

00:08:23 ◼   ► and all the devices and we just like,

00:08:25 ◼   ► not only did we lose that fight,

00:08:27 ◼   ► like we were annihilated in that fight

00:08:30 ◼   ► and like no one cared.

00:08:32 ◼   ► - Not really because part of it, like the reason,

00:08:34 ◼   ► The main benefit we get from TPM stuff and all the secure stuff that we have on even

00:08:39 ◼   ► Macs today and iPhones and everything is not the one that the TPM, like the anti-TPM people

00:08:45 ◼   ► complain about.

00:08:46 ◼   ► They're like, "Oh, this is going to put DRM and everything, and we're not going to be

00:08:49 ◼   ► able to share all our songs through Napster and something."

00:08:51 ◼   ► They would spin out all these things about how it's going to make it more difficult to

00:08:55 ◼   ► pirate stuff and make our software not ours or whatever.

00:08:58 ◼   ► But the actual main important function of all these things is to provide a chain of

00:09:03 ◼   ► trust for booting.

00:09:04 ◼   ► so that the machine knows that it's booting something

00:09:06 ◼   ► that is trusted.

00:09:07 ◼   ► And that chain of trust has to go all the way down

00:09:09 ◼   ► to the hardware to try to make it--

00:09:12 ◼   ► it's much, much harder-- not impossible,

00:09:14 ◼   ► because there are bugs in these things,

00:09:16 ◼   ► but much, much harder to sort of get a root kit in there

00:09:18 ◼   ► that even if you wipe the OS, you're still infected.

00:09:22 ◼   ► And that whole secure boot thing that's on the modern Macs,

00:09:25 ◼   ► it's on all our iOS devices and iPads and everything

00:09:27 ◼   ► like that, that is a thing about being confident that you're

00:09:29 ◼   ► running the OS you're thinking you're running, which

00:09:32 ◼   ► no one has a complaint about.

00:09:34 ◼   ► Everybody wants that.

00:09:34 ◼   ► No one wants to be root-kitted or exploited

00:09:38 ◼   ► in a way that's deep in your hardware.

00:09:40 ◼   ► But in theory, that same hardware could be made to like,

00:09:42 ◼   ► oh, this program won't run unless it checks for a secret key

00:09:45 ◼   ► that we embed in the secure enclave equivalent

00:09:47 ◼   ► in the TPM, blah, blah.

00:09:49 ◼   ► And that just didn't really happen.

00:09:51 ◼   ► Plain old normal software-based DRM,

00:09:53 ◼   ► like Fairplay or whatever the hell Apple calls

00:09:56 ◼   ► their modern one, is we had that back then

00:09:59 ◼   ► and we have it now.

00:10:00 ◼   ► And that's mostly all Apple uses for this type of thing.

00:10:03 ◼   ► Like all the exploits on the iPhone and everything

00:10:06 ◼   ► aren't about like, oh, I can't sideload

00:10:08 ◼   ► because Apple has encryption.

00:10:09 ◼   ► It's like, no, if you jailbreak the OS,

00:10:11 ◼   ► you can sideload whatever the hell you want.

00:10:13 ◼   ► And the jailbreak doesn't involve,

00:10:15 ◼   ► well, sometimes it involves breaking the hardware level

00:10:16 ◼   ► or whatever, but the slippery slope fantasies of TPM

00:10:20 ◼   ► and having this security hardware on all our devices

00:10:24 ◼   ► that Dystopia was gonna bring, it didn't bring it.

00:10:26 ◼   ► All it brought us was secure boot,

00:10:27 ◼   ► which is a thing we all like.

00:10:29 ◼   ► The Dystopia of DRM or anything

00:10:32 ◼   ► doesn't require the hardware,

00:10:33 ◼   ► it just requires people being annoying and stupid

00:10:35 ◼   ► with how they sell things.

00:10:37 ◼   ► And people still do that all the time.

00:10:39 ◼   ► Copy protection, DRM on, music is DRM free,

00:10:43 ◼   ► but Apple's iTunes movies are still not DRM free

00:10:46 ◼   ► for some stupid reason, because it prevents piracy,

00:10:49 ◼   ► because everyone knows you can't find movies on the internet.

00:10:51 ◼   ► Thanks, Apple, that DRM made sure

00:10:53 ◼   ► that no one will ever pirate a movie again.

00:10:55 ◼   ► Success!

00:10:56 ◼   ► No, what it did was it made it so I can't take screenshots

00:10:58 ◼   ► of movies to make jokes on Twitter.

00:10:59 ◼   ► That's what the DRM did.

00:11:01 ◼   ► That's what we should have been fighting about,

00:11:02 ◼   ► but that didn't require TPM.

00:11:04 ◼   ► That just requires stupid software.

00:11:05 ◼   ► Anyway, rant over.

00:11:06 ◼   ► - You know, I have a tangentially related question,

00:11:10 ◼   ► which I'm now totally derailing the conversation, but--

00:11:13 ◼   ► - This conversation was never railed, Casey.

00:11:15 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:11:17 ◼   ► - When there's something, like let's say something

00:11:19 ◼   ► that's exclusive to Disney+, I don't know,

00:11:22 ◼   ► like "Hamilton" a year ago,

00:11:24 ◼   ► and there exists on the back of,

00:11:28 ◼   ► falling off the back of trucks,

00:11:29 ◼   ► there exists a copy of "Hamilton,"

00:11:31 ◼   ► How are those captured?

00:11:33 ◼   ► Like, are people playing this on some sort of like TV

00:11:38 ◼   ► and then using like some illicit HD capture card

00:11:42 ◼   ► that doesn't respect DRM or something?

00:11:43 ◼   ► Like, how does that work?

00:11:45 ◼   ► - No, no, that is very weak sauce piracy.

00:11:49 ◼   ► You don't want to take an encoded file of some kind,

00:11:53 ◼   ► decompress it and play it,

00:11:54 ◼   ► then send it over a wire and then try to capture it.

00:11:56 ◼   ► - Agreed, but like how else do you do it though?

00:11:59 ◼   ► - Is it, do people use like HLS hacks

00:12:01 ◼   ► or doesn't HLS have DRM, like, optionally?

00:12:03 ◼   ► - So there's a million ways to pirate things, obviously.

00:12:08 ◼   ► I think one of the most common used to be,

00:12:11 ◼   ► back in the day when we had physical media,

00:12:12 ◼   ► was they would send screener DVDs to everybody.

00:12:14 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah, totally, totally.

00:12:15 ◼   ► - And they would just get the actual digital files

00:12:17 ◼   ► off of there, and then they started watermarking them

00:12:18 ◼   ► and stuff like that.

00:12:19 ◼   ► Most streaming services either used to

00:12:22 ◼   ► or still have a way to send the actual encoded file

00:12:26 ◼   ► in pieces that you, you know,

00:12:28 ◼   ► and you can just sort of intercept those pieces

00:12:29 ◼   ► and stick them all together, probably with MFMpeg.

00:12:32 ◼   ► Kind of like what you do for the keynote streams, right?

00:12:35 ◼   ► If you can get the data as it would come into the decoder

00:12:39 ◼   ► to go onto your screen, capture it that way,

00:12:41 ◼   ► you don't have to play it and then recapture it.

00:12:43 ◼   ► - I mean, I think this is how,

00:12:46 ◼   ► so I'm actually talking a little bit outside my comfort zone,

00:12:49 ◼   ► believe it or not, but if I were to download something

00:12:52 ◼   ► from like nbc.com, you know, for, I don't know,

00:12:55 ◼   ► for example, like This Is Us or something like that,

00:12:57 ◼   ► Like I could use, hypothetically, YouTube DL,

00:13:00 ◼   ► or what is it, YTDLP is the blessed version now,

00:13:03 ◼   ► and I can log into my Verizon Fios

00:13:06 ◼   ► to show that I have access to this thing,

00:13:09 ◼   ► and it does magic, and I know that HLS is involved,

00:13:12 ◼   ► although now you know everything I know about HLS,

00:13:15 ◼   ► but one way or another, it does magic to do,

00:13:18 ◼   ► I think, exactly what you're describing, Jon,

00:13:19 ◼   ► but I had assumed and presumed

00:13:22 ◼   ► that it is not quite so simple for like a Disney+

00:13:24 ◼   ► or Netflix is another great example.

00:13:26 ◼   ► I just, I wonder how those are captured

00:13:30 ◼   ► if something, if a mature, reasonably mature tool chain

00:13:34 ◼   ► like YouTube DL can't do it, which I don't think it can.

00:13:37 ◼   ► - Well, I mean, the final way is just break the encryption.

00:13:39 ◼   ► I mean, it's easier said than done, obviously,

00:13:41 ◼   ► but like it only takes one person to do it.

00:13:42 ◼   ► And, you know, obviously DCSS broke

00:13:44 ◼   ► the DVD encryption ages ago, but every one of these things

00:13:46 ◼   ► that has some kind of DRM thing is crackable.

00:13:49 ◼   ► And getting back to the TPM thing,

00:13:52 ◼   ► maybe if there was a mandatory hardware component,

00:13:54 ◼   ► it would be slightly harder to crack these things.

00:13:56 ◼   ► And I say only slightly,

00:13:57 ◼   ► but there's a lot of security related hardware

00:13:59 ◼   ► that is just so thoroughly broken.

00:14:00 ◼   ► Like I think Intel stops shipping,

00:14:02 ◼   ► they announced they're gonna stop shipping

00:14:03 ◼   ► or stop supporting SGX,

00:14:04 ◼   ► which is one of their secure enclave things,

00:14:07 ◼   ► just because it was so thoroughly and massively broken.

00:14:09 ◼   ► And when it's in silicon at a bunch of chips,

00:14:11 ◼   ► you just have to basically say, yeah, that's over now.

00:14:14 ◼   ► We're not doing that anymore

00:14:15 ◼   ► because it's so thoroughly broken

00:14:17 ◼   ► and you can't change it 'cause it's in millions of chips.

00:14:19 ◼   ► And so it's like, that's not a thing anymore, right?

00:14:22 ◼   ► I wish DVDs had done that, but that industry moves slower.

00:14:24 ◼   ► But yeah, you can crack the encryption,

00:14:26 ◼   ► like they say in the movies.

00:14:27 ◼   ► Once someone gets through, it's open season and everything.

00:14:32 ◼   ► I think Fairplay was cracked pretty early on too.

00:14:34 ◼   ► I don't know if the current version of Fairplay is,

00:14:35 ◼   ► but that's the final way to do it.

00:14:37 ◼   ► It's like, you've got the file somewhere.

00:14:40 ◼   ► If I can download it in Disney+,

00:14:41 ◼   ► it's like, oh, but it's encrypted on your iPad.

00:14:43 ◼   ► How are you gonna play it?

00:14:43 ◼   ► Oh, we've broken that encryption already.

00:14:46 ◼   ► So there you go.

00:14:47 ◼   ► - All right, so where were we?

00:14:48 ◼   ► So how are you fixing your computer?

00:14:50 ◼   ► - We were pirating movies,

00:14:51 ◼   ► which is not possible because Apple puts DRM in everything.

00:14:55 ◼   ► - Right, and because of TPM,

00:14:57 ◼   ► I can't reinstall Windows possibly.

00:14:58 ◼   ► - Exactly.

00:14:59 ◼   ► - I have no idea.

00:15:00 ◼   ► - I mean, people complained about that,

00:15:01 ◼   ► but I think pretty much every modern PC supports TPM 2.0.

00:15:04 ◼   ► It was just people with some older PCs

00:15:06 ◼   ► or like enthusiast setups that didn't have TPM

00:15:09 ◼   ► or something locked out of Windows 11.

00:15:10 ◼   ► It's like, why do you even care?

00:15:11 ◼   ► Like, I don't know.

00:15:12 ◼   ► But anyway, it was a controversial move.

00:15:14 ◼   ► Anytime anything obsolete's hardware in the PC space,

00:15:16 ◼   ► someone complains.

00:15:17 ◼   ► - Yeah, I would imagine that's not gonna be

00:15:19 ◼   ► my limiting factor here.

00:15:19 ◼   ► My limiting factor is going to be,

00:15:21 ◼   ► A, am I ever really going to figure out

00:15:24 ◼   ► how to reinstall Windows on this laptop?

00:15:26 ◼   ► And then B, am I going to actually want to spend

00:15:30 ◼   ► probably a day, it's not gonna be a small operation for me,

00:15:34 ◼   ► 'cause I haven't done this in how many years?

00:15:38 ◼   ► I mean, 20 years maybe?

00:15:40 ◼   ► It's been a long time.

00:15:41 ◼   ► And I'm sure everything is like,

00:15:44 ◼   ► I'm sure all the crappy stuff is the same

00:15:47 ◼   ► as it was 20 years ago,

00:15:48 ◼   ► but I'm sure a lot of the other stuff is totally different

00:15:49 ◼   ► and so I'm gonna have to relearn the entire process.

00:15:52 ◼   ► This is why people buy new computers

00:15:55 ◼   ► when they don't have to.

00:15:56 ◼   ► Because that's honestly an idea

00:15:58 ◼   ► that if this computer was a little bit older,

00:16:02 ◼   ► I would probably strongly consider this site.

00:16:04 ◼   ► And if there was an easy way to trade it in somewhere,

00:16:06 ◼   ► I would probably strongly consider that idea.

00:16:08 ◼   ► But it's not, and it's not.

00:16:10 ◼   ► And so after that, I'll figure out,

00:16:13 ◼   ► oh, how the heck do I do this?

00:16:14 ◼   ► - Probably easier than it was.

00:16:16 ◼   ► - And then how do I put on all the drivers and everything?

00:16:18 ◼   ► I don't wanna.

00:16:19 ◼   ► Who wants to deal with that?

00:16:20 ◼   ► Who has time for that?

00:16:21 ◼   ► - But I was gonna say, if you just reinstall Windows,

00:16:23 ◼   ► you won't have to reinstall the drivers, son,

00:16:25 ◼   ► if they'll still be there, I think.

00:16:26 ◼   ► - Oh, I doubt that very much.

00:16:28 ◼   ► But I don't know.

00:16:29 ◼   ► I mean, I'm probably gonna have to find some me of today,

00:16:34 ◼   ► like teenage me who, like, people, I used to--

00:16:38 ◼   ► - Guess what, that's Adam.

00:16:39 ◼   ► - I know.

00:16:40 ◼   ► People used to pay me like 100 bucks

00:16:42 ◼   ► to reinstall Windows on their PCs.

00:16:43 ◼   ► You know, adults would, like, when I was in high school,

00:16:45 ◼   ► 'cause like, and now I understand why.

00:16:47 ◼   ► - Adam will probably give you the family rate.

00:16:49 ◼   ► - Yeah, right.

00:16:50 ◼   ► But now I totally understand why.

00:16:51 ◼   ► Like, if I could hire some kid to come here

00:16:54 ◼   ► and just do this for me and it would work for 100 bucks,

00:16:57 ◼   ► I would totally do that because--

00:16:58 ◼   ► - I'd do it for you for 100 bucks.

00:16:59 ◼   ► - That would save me a whole day.

00:17:00 ◼   ► All right, come on, come on over.

00:17:02 ◼   ► - As I mean, travel expenses are an issue.

00:17:03 ◼   ► - I'll pay the ferry.

00:17:04 ◼   ► That's it, you're on your own for gas.

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00:19:15 ◼   ► - All right, we should probably start the show.

00:19:16 ◼   ► And let's do that with some follow-up

00:19:18 ◼   ► as we are contractually obligated to do.

00:19:20 ◼   ► John Sambakos has a picture for us

00:19:25 ◼   ► with regard to their printer.

00:19:27 ◼   ► And oh my gosh, this is very distressing.

00:19:32 ◼   ► - Yes, this is his HP PhotoSmart 3100

00:19:36 ◼   ► Dexter Murder Room version.

00:19:38 ◼   ► This is an inkjet printer.

00:19:39 ◼   ► We will put a link to the tweet

00:19:40 ◼   ► and maybe Marco can make this chapter art,

00:19:42 ◼   ► or maybe not, you never know until you look.

00:19:44 ◼   ► Go look at the chapter art.

00:19:46 ◼   ► If your podcast player doesn't support chapter art,

00:19:48 ◼   ► try using Overcast, please, it does.

00:19:51 ◼   ► Yeah, inkjet printers are a mess on the side,

00:19:53 ◼   ► but turns out Richard Smith has a picture

00:19:56 ◼   ► of the inside of his printer,

00:19:57 ◼   ► and it happens to be the printer that Marco loves so much.

00:19:59 ◼   ► His HP M553 inkjet, color inkjet, whatever,

00:20:04 ◼   ► and it's a disaster inside there, too.

00:20:05 ◼   ► - It's a laser, it's a color laser.

00:20:07 ◼   ► It's massive, it's amazing.

00:20:09 ◼   ► How can you think it's an inkjet?

00:20:10 ◼   ► - No, I'm saying look at the picture.

00:20:12 ◼   ► Look at the show notes. - Oh, yeah, no, I saw,

00:20:13 ◼   ► - I saw, yeah.

00:20:14 ◼   ► - It's a mess.

00:20:15 ◼   ► - There's a little bit of magenta in the area.

00:20:17 ◼   ► - A little bit?

00:20:18 ◼   ► - A little bit?

00:20:19 ◼   ► Come on, man.

00:20:20 ◼   ► - I mean, this is what I mean.

00:20:22 ◼   ► You look inside a printer and it looks like, you know,

00:20:24 ◼   ► an ink murder room.

00:20:26 ◼   ► How does a paper pass through this

00:20:28 ◼   ► and not come out streaked with every color under the rainbow?

00:20:30 ◼   ► But apparently it does.

00:20:31 ◼   ► Apparently the paper path is clean,

00:20:33 ◼   ► but everything else is just destroyed.

00:20:35 ◼   ► - Oh yeah, those were slightly traumatizing.

00:20:38 ◼   ► And speaking of traumatizing, let's see who this was.

00:20:41 ◼   ► This is Brian Almeda, tweeted at me earlier today, and apparently there's a YouTube channel,

00:20:47 ◼   ► what is this called, Northridge Fix, and I believe this is a repair shop in Northridge,

00:20:52 ◼   ► California, and the proprietor will repair things and do videos showing him repairing

00:20:59 ◼   ► it.

00:21:00 ◼   ► And today, or actually yes, I think it was literally today, the proprietor repaired,

00:21:05 ◼   ► guess what, a broken USB-C connection on an LG Ultrafine 5K monitor.

00:21:09 ◼   ► works fine then what are you talking about you must be wrong these always work so anyway so

00:21:14 ◼   ► the monitor does not make an appearance but the motherboard does and in the span of about 15 video

00:21:22 ◼   ► minutes this gentleman uh and i found this fascinating because i my my electronics experience

00:21:28 ◼   ► was a little bit in college and then you know screwing around with raspberry pi what was it two

00:21:32 ◼   ► years ago now um and so i understand the general principles behind what's going on but if you had

00:21:37 ◼   ► had asked me to do any of these things it would have been a disaster. So anyways

00:21:40 ◼   ► he like you know repairs this connection including like you know removing some

00:21:45 ◼   ► solder, applying new solder, fixing some lines on the PCB like it's very

00:21:50 ◼   ► intricate and very interesting and in the span of 15 minutes this guy gets

00:21:55 ◼   ► this motherboard good as new. Meanwhile my LG 5k arrived at LG's repair center

00:22:00 ◼   ► in City of Industry California on the 22nd of December and I have heard

00:22:04 ◼   ► precisely **** about it since then. And I am getting more and more preferred by it.

00:22:10 ◼   ► So there's that. So that's my LG update for the day.

00:22:13 ◼   ► LG always has the best service case. This is totally an anomaly.

00:22:17 ◼   ► Yep, definitely an anomaly for sure.

00:22:19 ◼   ► This video shows the kind of repair that Apple does not allow or like to do, which means

00:22:23 ◼   ► changing components on the circuit board by re-soldering them or doing whatever. Apple's

00:22:29 ◼   ► solution is always new circuit board, fresh new circuit board, everything new. Because

00:22:33 ◼   ► this type of repair.

00:22:34 ◼   ► Inevitably, things will corrode later and blah, blah, blah.

00:22:37 ◼   ► If you've ever, I'm looking at this video,

00:22:39 ◼   ► if you've ever seen, what's his name, Louis Rossman,

00:22:43 ◼   ► the guy who was talking about it

00:22:44 ◼   ► in the right to repair thing,

00:22:45 ◼   ► he has a similar channel where he shows similar repairs.

00:22:48 ◼   ► Only he's got like the amount that this is zoomed in,

00:22:51 ◼   ► I think his is zoomed in maybe two to three times as much

00:22:54 ◼   ► for even tinier components.

00:22:56 ◼   ► And he's got these little tiny, tiny soldering,

00:22:59 ◼   ► iron needle-y things that look huge in the video,

00:23:03 ◼   ► but in reality are these tiny, you know,

00:23:04 ◼   ► because the smaller components get the harder this becomes.

00:23:07 ◼   ► So this looks like within the realm

00:23:10 ◼   ► that a human might be able to accomplish it.

00:23:12 ◼   ► But sometimes when Rossman does things,

00:23:13 ◼   ► I'm like, how far are you zoomed in?

00:23:15 ◼   ► It's like doing microsurgery where the tiny tip

00:23:18 ◼   ► of the hypodermic needle fills the entire screen

00:23:20 ◼   ► as if it's just like a tree trunk.

00:23:22 ◼   ► - So yeah, so anyway, it was interesting

00:23:26 ◼   ► and also depressing to see this.

00:23:27 ◼   ► So thank you to Brian.

00:23:29 ◼   ► So breaking yesterday, I believe it was,

00:23:32 ◼   ► Microsoft has decided to acquire Activision Blizzard for almost 70 billion dollars

00:23:38 ◼   ► so you might know you might have heard of Activision for a variety of reasons mostly their games but

00:23:43 ◼   ► Lately you might have heard about them because of the apparent frat house. That is their corporate culture and

00:23:49 ◼   ► So they Microsoft got them at a steal. They were worth like over 100 billion. I think like a year ago and

00:23:56 ◼   ► now they have acquired Activision Blizzard or are about to acquire Activision Blizzard and

00:24:01 ◼   ► And it seems like they're saying without saying

00:24:04 ◼   ► they're going to clean house of, at the very least,

00:24:06 ◼   ► the CEO, I think it's Bobby Kotick or something like that,

00:24:09 ◼   ► and potentially more of senior management at Activision,

00:24:11 ◼   ► which seems like a reasonable course of action.

00:24:14 ◼   ► - The numbers here are really big.

00:24:16 ◼   ► Someone, John Ehrlichman tweeted a list

00:24:19 ◼   ► of Microsoft's biggest acquisitions.

00:24:21 ◼   ► Number one is this one, the Activision Blizzard

00:24:23 ◼   ► for 70-ish billion.

00:24:26 ◼   ► Second place is LinkedIn.

00:24:27 ◼   ► I mean, this is like a list of companies

00:24:28 ◼   ► you forgot Microsoft bought.

00:24:29 ◼   ► Second is LinkedIn.

00:24:31 ◼   ► They bought them.

00:24:32 ◼   ► That was $26 billion, so less than half the size.

00:24:36 ◼   ► Nuance, the speech recognition company, they used to do Dragon Dictate, I think, but they

00:24:41 ◼   ► licensed their speech engine to tons of people.

00:24:43 ◼   ► That was $20 billion.

00:24:44 ◼   ► Skype was $8 billion.

00:24:45 ◼   ► ZeniMax, which no one has ever heard of, but I think we talked about on the show, was $7

00:24:49 ◼   ► billion.

00:24:50 ◼   ► ZeniMax bought id Software, Doomquake, all that things, and they owned a bunch of other

00:24:54 ◼   ► stuff as well.

00:24:55 ◼   ► Microsoft bought GitHub.

00:24:56 ◼   ► I'm not sure if people remember that, but they did.

00:24:58 ◼   ► That was also $7.5 billion.

00:24:59 ◼   ► - Nokia, I remember that too much.

00:25:02 ◼   ► 7.2 billion, A-quantive, I don't even know

00:25:06 ◼   ► what the hell that is, 6.3 billion,

00:25:08 ◼   ► and then Minecraft for 2.5 billion.

00:25:11 ◼   ► So Microsoft has purchased a lot of things,

00:25:13 ◼   ► but this Activision Blizzard thing is big.

00:25:17 ◼   ► If you think about what they're buying,

00:25:20 ◼   ► I like reading the articles about it,

00:25:22 ◼   ► because they would have to,

00:25:23 ◼   ► they're writing an article for a general audience

00:25:24 ◼   ► that doesn't know who Activision Blizzard is,

00:25:26 ◼   ► so they have to say,

00:25:28 ◼   ► You don't know the name of this company, but here are the things they own that you might

00:25:32 ◼   ► have heard of.

00:25:33 ◼   ► The Wall Street Journal listed in their article said that they're getting a stable of popular

00:25:40 ◼   ► game franchises including Call of Duty, World of Warcraft, and Candy Crush.

00:25:44 ◼   ► So there's three choices from the very large catalog they're getting.

00:25:47 ◼   ► People have probably heard of Call of Duty, maybe World of Warcraft, probably Candy Crush.

00:25:51 ◼   ► If you haven't heard of the other two, you've probably heard of Candy Crush.

00:25:54 ◼   ► Activision Blizzard as the weird name implies is a huge conglomeration of

00:25:59 ◼   ► things. Blizzard used to be its own company, Activision used to be a game

00:26:02 ◼   ► company, then a game publisher and Activision bought tons of things and

00:26:05 ◼   ► eventually they bought Blizzard and they just got bigger and bigger and had more

00:26:08 ◼   ► and more IP and then Microsoft gobbled them all up. And a lot of people were

00:26:13 ◼   ► comparing this to like when Disney went and bought all the things. Disney bought

00:26:18 ◼   ► Star Wars, then they bought Marvel and of course they have all the Disney stuff.

00:26:21 ◼   ► And it's like wow Disney owns everything that's why Disney Plus can be a streaming service that has all the things like they're not small franchises

00:26:28 ◼   ► Disney bought Star Wars for was it four billion. I don't remember

00:26:32 ◼   ► I think they bought Marvel for also four billion. I may be in this specific numbers wrong, but those are mid

00:26:39 ◼   ► single digit billions for Star Wars and all of Marvel

00:26:43 ◼   ► and

00:26:45 ◼   ► They bought this game company for 70 billion

00:26:48 ◼   ► I mean you always hear like games are bigger than movies, which is true

00:26:51 ◼   ► But that should give you some idea of what how much what they bought was worth

00:26:57 ◼   ► they didn't just buy Star Wars they didn't just buy Marvel they bought tons of extremely lucrative franchises and

00:27:01 ◼   ► Customers they bought because people in the world of Warcraft for what is it multiple decades now at least one and a half decades

00:27:08 ◼   ► Or something those are subscribers who pay every month to play a game

00:27:11 ◼   ► There's a bunch of other games that are like that and all these other important franchises that make tons and tons of money

00:27:16 ◼   ► Not to mention you know future games that could be made by

00:27:20 ◼   ► by the various game development studios

00:27:23 ◼   ► that are within Activation Blizzard.

00:27:25 ◼   ► So it is a huge purchase.

00:27:28 ◼   ► The Wall Street Journal article said that

00:27:30 ◼   ► this would make Microsoft the world's third largest

00:27:34 ◼   ► gaming company, don't look at the notes,

00:27:37 ◼   ► try to guess what the number one and two are

00:27:40 ◼   ► without looking if you didn't already read it.

00:27:42 ◼   ► - Ah.

00:27:43 ◼   ► - Oh gosh, I did not read it

00:27:44 ◼   ► and I don't have the faintest idea.

00:27:46 ◼   ► - I'm gonna say number two is probably Nintendo.

00:27:49 ◼   ► Is electronic art still a thing?

00:27:51 ◼   ► - Believe so.

00:27:52 ◼   ► - Number one, probably EA and then number two, Nintendo.

00:27:55 ◼   ► - Well, you gotta think like a Stratechery, come on.

00:27:59 ◼   ► - WeChat.

00:28:00 ◼   ► - I mean, you'd probably know that in the company.

00:28:02 ◼   ► Anyway, number two, Tencent.

00:28:04 ◼   ► - Oh, of course. - That makes sense, yeah.

00:28:07 ◼   ► - The other thing you have to remember is that mobile gaming

00:28:09 ◼   ► is the biggest part of gaming, right?

00:28:12 ◼   ► Which we don't think about when we think of gaming.

00:28:14 ◼   ► And number one, and this is kind of bogus,

00:28:16 ◼   ► number one, Sony.

00:28:17 ◼   ► - Really?

00:28:18 ◼   ► Yeah, but here's the trick question, right?

00:28:22 ◼   ► Would make it the third largest gaming company by revenue.

00:28:25 ◼   ► Yeah, Sony has a lot of revenue,

00:28:27 ◼   ► but not all that's from video games.

00:28:29 ◼   ► I mean, Sony makes other things besides video games.

00:28:32 ◼   ► So I think that's a little bit bogus.

00:28:35 ◼   ► But that's why everyone is sort of like feeling

00:28:38 ◼   ► the ground shake, especially the sort of hardcore gamers

00:28:40 ◼   ► who don't maybe care that much about mobile

00:28:42 ◼   ► is because now Microsoft, who as you might know,

00:28:45 ◼   ► has multiple gaming platforms,

00:28:48 ◼   ► PC gaming, which basically means Microsoft PC gaming,

00:28:51 ◼   ► and not so much Linux gaming, and of course, Xbox.

00:28:55 ◼   ► And their competitors are on the console side,

00:28:57 ◼   ► are Sony and Nintendo.

00:28:58 ◼   ► Nintendo is the tiniest drop in the bucket

00:29:00 ◼   ► you could possibly imagine that are not on this list.

00:29:03 ◼   ► But now, Microsoft owns tons and tons of IP, as they say,

00:29:09 ◼   ► tons and tons of franchises, many of which, I would say,

00:29:12 ◼   ► most of which used to be available on platforms

00:29:16 ◼   ► other than Microsoft's, right?

00:29:18 ◼   ► So you could buy many of the games

00:29:20 ◼   ► made by Activision Blizzard,

00:29:22 ◼   ► you could buy them for PlayStation.

00:29:23 ◼   ► And occasionally you could buy them for Nintendo consoles

00:29:25 ◼   ► when they felt like throwing some shovelware

00:29:27 ◼   ► of last year's game onto a Nintendo platform,

00:29:29 ◼   ► or they're just gonna cash in on the Switch craze or whatever.

00:29:33 ◼   ► So if you're a gamer and you look at this,

00:29:35 ◼   ► you're like, oh no, I don't currently have an Xbox.

00:29:38 ◼   ► I have a PlayStation or a Switch or whatever.

00:29:41 ◼   ► Will I be able to play the next version of

00:29:43 ◼   ► insert my favorite game here now that Microsoft owns it.

00:29:47 ◼   ► Because historically, one thing that especially console makers

00:29:51 ◼   ► have done is when they buy a franchise or a developer

00:29:54 ◼   ► or a publisher or whatever, the next version of that game

00:29:57 ◼   ► will only be for their platform.

00:29:58 ◼   ► It will be exclusive to their platform.

00:30:00 ◼   ► That's the point of buying them.

00:30:02 ◼   ► I will buy Rare, and the next version of Perfect Dark

00:30:04 ◼   ► will not be on Nintendo platforms.

00:30:06 ◼   ► It will only be on consoles, and it will stink,

00:30:08 ◼   ► and everyone will be sad.

00:30:09 ◼   ► But anyway, Microsoft does own Rare, by the way.

00:30:13 ◼   ► That, you know, it was the old move.

00:30:15 ◼   ► It's like, I bought the franchise,

00:30:17 ◼   ► and now it's only gonna be in our platforms.

00:30:18 ◼   ► That's another reason for you to buy our thing.

00:30:20 ◼   ► So if you're a gamer and you don't have an Xbox platform,

00:30:21 ◼   ► it might be kind of sad.

00:30:23 ◼   ► But even if you're not a hardcore gamer,

00:30:25 ◼   ► you look at these numbers, you're like,

00:30:26 ◼   ► is it really healthy for a company

00:30:29 ◼   ► that itself has gaming platforms,

00:30:32 ◼   ► you know, PC gaming and the Xbox gaming platform,

00:30:35 ◼   ► to also own so many of the most popular game franchises?

00:30:43 ◼   ► You know, in the entertainment world, like, Disney owns everything and that's terrible

00:30:46 ◼   ► and it makes us sad and it really controls a lot of what gets made.

00:30:50 ◼   ► But Disney doesn't own, you know, 40% of the movie theaters.

00:30:54 ◼   ► Not that this is particularly great analogy here, but I'm trying.

00:30:57 ◼   ► They don't own the means to watch those things, right?

00:31:01 ◼   ► They own the IP to make the movies, but you don't have to buy a special Disney console

00:31:06 ◼   ► to watch the movies.

00:31:07 ◼   ► If they owned both, all the TVs and DVD players, or half the TVs and DVD players in movie theaters,

00:31:11 ◼   ► and also all of the franchises that constitute the movies, that would be kind of upsetting.

00:31:19 ◼   ► So I look at this and I know there's not anything, well, I don't think there's anything particularly

00:31:24 ◼   ► to stop it from like anti-trust or whatever because in the grand scheme of things mobile

00:31:27 ◼   ► is still bigger and you can't really slice and dice the market and say, "Well, it's not

00:31:31 ◼   ► a big deal because the gaming market is so big and we can't say it's just, I only care

00:31:35 ◼   ► about the console gaming market."

00:31:37 ◼   ► You have to really get narrow.

00:31:39 ◼   ► It's kind of like, as I say all the time, "Oh, you know, Honda.

00:31:41 ◼   ► has a monopoly on Honda cars. Well they do, but like that's too, you're slicing the

00:31:47 ◼   ► market too narrowly or Apple has a monopoly on Apple computers. Yeah but

00:31:50 ◼   ► that's stupid. So if you look at the entire world of gaming, Microsoft is

00:31:58 ◼   ► still small, but if you look at the world of console gaming, they look a little bit

00:32:03 ◼   ► bigger and what I mainly look at is of Microsoft's competitors,

00:32:07 ◼   ► particularly on the console platform. How do their competitors look compared to them in terms

00:32:12 ◼   ► of stable of IP that they own and nobody comes close. Nintendo arguably comes to the close just

00:32:18 ◼   ► because they made all their own IP like the stuff that makes Nintendo Nintendo, Nintendo made,

00:32:23 ◼   ► but it's not a lot of it. Like there's not as many franchises as Microsoft owns.

00:32:29 ◼   ► Sony has also bought tons of studios and built up its IP catalog through acquisitions, but it has

00:32:34 ◼   ► fallen way behind Microsoft in terms of gobbling up other things in the industry.

00:32:40 ◼   ► So I look at this and I get a little bit frightened, but the thing that makes me feel a little

00:32:44 ◼   ► bit better is the thing that's usually safe to bet on is when a big company buys a smaller

00:32:50 ◼   ► company they screw it up.

00:32:52 ◼   ► When a company buys some IP they mess it up in some way.

00:32:57 ◼   ► Basically the shelf life of IP, especially for video games, is not guaranteed.

00:33:02 ◼   ► So you buy Call of Duty, you're like, "Great, we'll be minting money from Call of Duty for

00:33:07 ◼   ► the next 20 years."

00:33:09 ◼   ► You won't even make bad games.

00:33:11 ◼   ► To give an example, I don't want to crap on this, but Bungie made Halo and then split

00:33:16 ◼   ► from Microsoft, but Microsoft kept Halo.

00:33:18 ◼   ► It's like, "Great, well, we have the IP.

00:33:19 ◼   ► We don't need those stinky Bungie people.

00:33:21 ◼   ► We've got the Halo IP.

00:33:23 ◼   ► We can continue to make Halo games without them."

00:33:25 ◼   ► And they did continue to make Halo games without them.

00:33:27 ◼   ► And not that they were bad, and in particular, Halo Infinite is much better than the recent

00:33:31 ◼   ► But they never recaptured the magic of the original Bungie made series of three or four Halo games, right?

00:33:38 ◼   ► IP is like that. You can't just say well because we own it. We're gonna do a great job

00:33:43 ◼   ► But it's kind of the inverse of the Marvel effect, right?

00:33:45 ◼   ► Marvel IP was owned and optioned by various people at various times for years and years and nobody can make anything out of it and

00:33:52 ◼   ► They sold it for a song to you know

00:33:55 ◼   ► a company that said well actually we are going to make good movies with Marvel material and we're gonna start with Iron Man and they'd

00:34:00 ◼   ► like who? It's like, just trust me, it'll be good. They took IP that no one could do

00:34:05 ◼   ► anything with and made something good out of it. It's equally likely, probably more

00:34:09 ◼   ► likely to take IP that people have made amazing things with and make some duds. Because it's

00:34:15 ◼   ► hard to like just owning the IP doesn't mean you can actually do the thing and particularly

00:34:18 ◼   ► in creative fields. Can you make a good game? Can you make a good movie? You know, if you

00:34:23 ◼   ► own the characters, fine, that's a start and you get people in seats. But over the course

00:34:27 ◼   ► of many many years if you don't make good games based on these franchises people will

00:34:32 ◼   ► leave you behind.

00:34:33 ◼   ► So you know that's why it's important they didn't just buy the IP they also bought the

00:34:36 ◼   ► studios that made them and the people that made them and so on and so forth but even

00:34:39 ◼   ► within that I feel like in the games world there are very few with the exception again

00:34:44 ◼   ► possibly of Nintendo stuff very few sort of franchises that have stood the test of time

00:34:51 ◼   ► and not sort of withered and been replaced by other franchises and Nintendo has done

00:34:56 ◼   ► it by basically, yeah, it's Mario and all the games, but like what does, you know, Mario

00:35:03 ◼   ► Galaxy have in common with the original Super Mario Brothers in terms of game design and

00:35:06 ◼   ► gameplay?

00:35:07 ◼   ► Very, very little.

00:35:08 ◼   ► You think, oh, he's a guy, he's a plumber, he jumps around, but Nintendo has had to reinvent

00:35:13 ◼   ► its franchises over and over and over again to remain relevant and that is extremely difficult

00:35:18 ◼   ► to do.

00:35:19 ◼   ► So, you know, can Call of Duty make the leap to VR in 2075?

00:35:22 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:35:25 ◼   ► I mean, I feel like it'll just be defunct

00:35:27 ◼   ► and be replaced by other franchises.

00:35:28 ◼   ► So I'm kind of rooting for this ploy not to work

00:35:33 ◼   ► as well as it has for maybe, arguably, Disney

00:35:36 ◼   ► and for Microsoft to not become

00:35:40 ◼   ► the overwhelmingly dominant force in console gaming

00:35:43 ◼   ► 'cause I'm a console gamer

00:35:44 ◼   ► and I don't want Microsoft to have that much power.

00:35:48 ◼   ► - I know this is interesting.

00:35:49 ◼   ► I'm, I don't know, I'm actually,

00:35:52 ◼   ► because I'm not much of a gamer,

00:35:53 ◼   ► almost most interested to see if the cultural changes that Microsoft is hinting are coming

00:35:59 ◼   ► will actually do arrive and if they actually do make a difference. It's also interesting

00:36:04 ◼   ► for me because my little brother actually used to work there until this past summer,

00:36:07 ◼   ► I believe. And so it's kind of fascinating watching from the outside. And I spoke with

00:36:12 ◼   ► him very briefly earlier today, and I don't think he had really had time to talk to his

00:36:16 ◼   ► former coworkers at that point, but it's interesting to watch, to say the least.

00:36:21 ◼   ► Some people look at the story and think this shows the consequences for screwing up your

00:36:24 ◼   ► company by having a terrible culture that is abusive and disrespectful to your employees

00:36:29 ◼   ► and sexist and filled with harassment and all that stuff.

00:36:31 ◼   ► It's like, "Ha, see?

00:36:32 ◼   ► It tanked the value over their company and then someone swooped in and bought them out."

00:36:37 ◼   ► Everyone seems pretty sure that despite the announcements today or whatever, that once

00:36:42 ◼   ► the acquisition goes through, I mean, this would be true even if there wasn't a terrible

00:36:46 ◼   ► culture at Activision.

00:36:49 ◼   ► In general, when a company buys you because you, you know, your stock price was slammed

00:36:53 ◼   ► and you're doing really poorly and someone swoops in and buys you, they're not going

00:36:56 ◼   ► to keep the people who are running their company around.

00:36:59 ◼   ► They're going to replace them all with their people because you suck.

00:37:01 ◼   ► That's why we bought you.

00:37:02 ◼   ► That's why, you know, so that was going to happen no matter what.

00:37:05 ◼   ► But then on top of that, it's like, also, these are all terrible people.

00:37:08 ◼   ► And the reason their stock price tank was because these are all terrible people.

00:37:11 ◼   ► We found out about it.

00:37:13 ◼   ► I'm pretty sure they're going to clean house for multiple reasons here and hopefully get

00:37:16 ◼   ► rid of most of the bad people.

00:37:18 ◼   ► It's difficult to do that though, but everything I've heard, Microsoft's culture is way, way

00:37:23 ◼   ► better than Activision.

00:37:24 ◼   ► I mean, it's low bar, right?

00:37:25 ◼   ► Yeah, Activision's culture is terrible.

00:37:26 ◼   ► Microsoft's culture is better, so I have some faith that they're going to, like I said,

00:37:30 ◼   ► they're going to clean house for reasons nothing to do with culture, just because that's what

00:37:35 ◼   ► you do when you gobble someone up, you put your own people in charge, but hopefully they

00:37:38 ◼   ► will find and root out all of the very worst people in addition to putting all of their

00:37:45 ◼   ► good people in charge of things.

00:37:47 ◼   ► That should hopefully help because I feel like if they can make great games under these

00:37:52 ◼   ► terrible conditions, they can make even better games under conditions that are less terrible.

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00:39:56 ◼   ► - All right, so moving right along.

00:39:57 ◼   ► Hey, what's up with those green bubbles?

00:39:59 ◼   ► - I don't know,

00:40:00 ◼   ► do any of your conversations with the green bubbles

00:40:01 ◼   ► work anymore?

00:40:02 ◼   ► I mean, that was one of your long-standing complaints.

00:40:03 ◼   ► - Ugh, you know, it's funny you say that

00:40:06 ◼   ► 'cause it just kind of got fixed magically

00:40:09 ◼   ► months and months and months ago.

00:40:10 ◼   ► And then just like in the last month, either Aaron or I,

00:40:14 ◼   ► I forget which one, lost just a message or two.

00:40:17 ◼   ► And I almost was in such a big rage

00:40:19 ◼   ► that I flipped my entire home upside down.

00:40:22 ◼   ► And the only reason I didn't was because I was saving

00:40:24 ◼   ► that moment for the LG 5K, which is still broken.

00:40:27 ◼   ► But nevertheless, now if you recall,

00:40:29 ◼   ► basically all of Aaron's family,

00:40:32 ◼   ► some of whom are still speaking to us at this point,

00:40:35 ◼   ► are on Android phones.

00:40:36 ◼   ► and it's been frustrating to say the least.

00:40:40 ◼   ► And I have been petitioning very strongly

00:40:45 ◼   ► for them to buy iPhones in part

00:40:48 ◼   ► because I am so annoyed by MMS group chats,

00:40:52 ◼   ► but also because they're constantly complaining.

00:40:54 ◼   ► It's the standard thing, right?

00:40:56 ◼   ► Where the people with the PCs and the Android phones

00:40:58 ◼   ► need all the tech support.

00:41:00 ◼   ► And I have told all of them in no uncertain terms,

00:41:03 ◼   ► Yeah, you know if you want to get help on that that's not me because I don't run PC's

00:41:09 ◼   ► I don't have Android phones. You're gonna have to ask somebody else and

00:41:11 ◼   ► And that's mostly worked. Okay, but anyway, I digress so yeah, so if you live in the blessed life where

00:41:19 ◼   ► You don't have to interact with Android people this isn't really a thing

00:41:24 ◼   ► But for those of us who lived the cursed life of a mixed a mixed

00:41:28 ◼   ► Mixed OS world it is annoying the green bubbles

00:41:33 ◼   ► But apparently if you believe the Wall Street Journal the green bubbles are an evil lock-in that Apple is sitting there. Mr

00:41:39 ◼   ► Burns style, you know tenting their fingers and cackling all the way to the bank

00:41:42 ◼   ► Well, I mean the there's the cultural aspect of like Oh green bubble means you have a less expensive phone

00:41:48 ◼   ► You're poor like whatever like the whole sort of class system of fancy iPhones versus non fancy green bubbles things

00:41:55 ◼   ► which you can imagine teens certainly going in for because that's what being a teenager is all about whether it's your Reebok shoes or your

00:42:01 ◼   ► T-shirt with the alligator on it. I'm using bad references from the 80s. But anyway, we all sound like mr

00:42:08 ◼   ► Burns trying to describe like what the young people are doing

00:42:10 ◼   ► I did is I'm so far from this

00:42:14 ◼   ► I'm

00:42:15 ◼   ► Describing it as as we would have described it in the 80s making fun of older people who didn't know what an eyes on shirt was

00:42:20 ◼   ► anyway

00:42:21 ◼   ► That is definitely a thing but that and that does affect the numbers you see of like how many teenagers have an iPhone and how

00:42:28 ◼   ► Many teachers want an iPhone but it's like well how many teenagers want the expensive fancy thing like it's good that Apple

00:42:33 ◼   ► Has that image because you want to be cool with the teens because they eventually become adults and spend money on things

00:42:38 ◼   ► But that's not really the issue issue is what Casey was talking about even though he was kind of

00:42:43 ◼   ► Jokingly talking about the class stuff as well is that if you're trying to have a conversation like a group conversation using your phone

00:42:51 ◼   ► Bugs make that difficult, where someone will reply and you won't see the reply, or half

00:42:56 ◼   ► the people will see the reply, or you'll say something and they won't see what you said.

00:42:59 ◼   ► Like the basic function of having a group conversation is impaired by poor interoperability

00:43:04 ◼   ► between iMessage, which is Apple's service for messaging, and SMS, which is the old cell

00:43:10 ◼   ► phone messaging service back from before smartphones even, right?

00:43:15 ◼   ► And that bad interoperability is what makes the experience bad.

00:43:20 ◼   ► And it leads people to do things like, oh, everything would work better if everyone used

00:43:24 ◼   ► the same messaging service.

00:43:26 ◼   ► And if it's the majority of people have iPhones and there's one or two people who don't have

00:43:30 ◼   ► iPhones, the solution is to badger those people.

00:43:32 ◼   ► They just get an iPhone so we can have a productive conversation where everybody sees everybody's

00:43:36 ◼   ► other messages and we don't miss things and things don't get screwed up.

00:43:41 ◼   ► And that is a real phenomenon.

00:43:42 ◼   ► And this is, you know, starting a broader conversation about RCS, which is like, put

00:43:46 ◼   ► a link to it in here somewhere, which is a rich communication service.

00:43:49 ◼   ► It's like the successor to SMS, as in a cell phone messaging service that has more feature

00:43:55 ◼   ► rich than SMS, that is more modern, that doesn't have its origins in sideband, analog cell

00:44:03 ◼   ► radio stuff that SMS came from.

00:44:07 ◼   ► But importantly, it's still like a cell phone type thing where your phone number is your

00:44:10 ◼   ► identity and all that other stuff.

00:44:12 ◼   ► And lots of other companies have been getting on Apple saying, "Hey Apple, you should support

00:44:15 ◼   ► RCS."

00:44:16 ◼   ► If you don't, you're showing that you're using iMessage

00:44:18 ◼   ► for lock-in for your messaging service or whatever.

00:44:21 ◼   ► And there's some truth to that,

00:44:24 ◼   ► that like, it would be good,

00:44:26 ◼   ► well, start with Casey's thing.

00:44:28 ◼   ► It would be good if SMS and iMessage

00:44:32 ◼   ► worked better together,

00:44:34 ◼   ► as in you could have productive conversations

00:44:36 ◼   ► and not mess your messages.

00:44:36 ◼   ► Like, I don't see who would disagree with that.

00:44:39 ◼   ► I don't think Apple is intentionally sabotaging it.

00:44:41 ◼   ► I think it's probably a hard problem.

00:44:43 ◼   ► But if you pretend to support it,

00:44:46 ◼   ► like Casey can in theory have a group conversation

00:44:49 ◼   ► with Android phones and iPhones, it should work, right?

00:44:53 ◼   ► Like it just should.

00:44:54 ◼   ► Otherwise, why have the feature?

00:44:55 ◼   ► You know, is it supposed to work

00:44:56 ◼   ► or is it just not supposed to work

00:44:57 ◼   ► and it's like a decoy or something, right?

00:45:00 ◼   ► And then RCS is similar.

00:45:02 ◼   ► If RCS ever becomes a thing

00:45:04 ◼   ► and it becomes a feature that carriers,

00:45:07 ◼   ► and again, I'm mostly just talking about the US here,

00:45:09 ◼   ► we'll get to all your other messaging things in a second,

00:45:11 ◼   ► and most carriers support RCS,

00:45:13 ◼   ► Apple should probably support it

00:45:15 ◼   ► so that you can have a conversation,

00:45:17 ◼   ► maybe even a group conversation with multiple people,

00:45:19 ◼   ► some of whom are using RCS

00:45:20 ◼   ► and some of whom are using iMessage,

00:45:22 ◼   ► just like you can have one today

00:45:23 ◼   ► with people who are using iMessage

00:45:24 ◼   ► and people using SMS.

00:45:26 ◼   ► Seems like a reasonable thing too.

00:45:27 ◼   ► And by the way, it should work, like all the time,

00:45:29 ◼   ► and people should get all the messages.

00:45:31 ◼   ► I don't think that's particularly controversial,

00:45:33 ◼   ► but I think what most people are mad about

00:45:35 ◼   ► is the idea of like message platform lock-in,

00:45:39 ◼   ► which is funny to me because iMessage has one of the,

00:45:43 ◼   ► one of the weakest message platform lock-ins,

00:45:46 ◼   ► and like, who is it?

00:45:47 ◼   ► Maria, Marco was saying,

00:45:50 ◼   ► he heard this on what, Instratecary,

00:45:52 ◼   ► or was it Dithering Podcast?

00:45:53 ◼   ► - Instratecary, yeah.

00:45:54 ◼   ► - Yeah, talking about this,

00:45:56 ◼   ► I think a lot of people have,

00:45:59 ◼   ► talking about the larger conversation,

00:46:00 ◼   ► have hit on the real issue here,

00:46:01 ◼   ► which is what messaging service is popular where you live,

00:46:06 ◼   ► and why?

00:46:08 ◼   ► In the US, iMessage is very popular.

00:46:11 ◼   ► If you see someone on a cell phone sending tech messages,

00:46:14 ◼   ► the chances that are, especially if they're using an iPhone,

00:46:16 ◼   ► the chance that it's iMessages are pretty darn high.

00:46:18 ◼   ► Elsewhere in the world, different services have one.

00:46:20 ◼   ► I don't remember the exact affiliations, but I'll try.

00:46:22 ◼   ► I think Japan is Line is the most popular service.

00:46:26 ◼   ► WeChat is China, right?

00:46:28 ◼   ► A lot of Europe is WhatsApp.

00:46:31 ◼   ► I'm sure there are different ones in other countries.

00:46:35 ◼   ► And it's like, how did that come to be?

00:46:36 ◼   ► What is it about these services that make them so dominant

00:46:41 ◼   ► in these different places and why is it different?

00:46:43 ◼   ► Why isn't iChat popular across the whole world?

00:46:45 ◼   ► Why isn't WhatsApp popular across the whole world?

00:46:47 ◼   ► Why are these regionalities, right?

00:46:49 ◼   ► And I think what it highlights is how little

00:46:54 ◼   ► the messaging service itself has to do

00:46:57 ◼   ► with what everybody uses.

00:47:00 ◼   ► It's just basically like who got critical mass first?

00:47:03 ◼   ► And a lot of things in the computing world are like that.

00:47:06 ◼   ► Like why is Facebook popular?

00:47:07 ◼   ► Why was MySpace popular?

00:47:09 ◼   ► Why was AOL popular?

00:47:10 ◼   ► There's lots of legit reasons like,

00:47:11 ◼   ► hey, well send out free CDs

00:47:12 ◼   ► and here's this business study showing it's great.

00:47:14 ◼   ► But the whole point is,

00:47:15 ◼   ► if you're in the right place in the right time

00:47:17 ◼   ► and make reasonable enough moves,

00:47:19 ◼   ► you can get critical mass for things like this

00:47:21 ◼   ► that have network effects where,

00:47:24 ◼   ► you know, Facebook is only useful

00:47:26 ◼   ► if your friends are also on Facebook.

00:47:27 ◼   ► A messaging app like AIM is only useful

00:47:29 ◼   ► if your friends are also on AIM.

00:47:31 ◼   ► And if you can get that critical mass

00:47:33 ◼   ► of everyone I know is on this thing,

00:47:36 ◼   ► It snowballs and it becomes very difficult

00:47:38 ◼   ► to go someplace else because you need a huge meteor

00:47:41 ◼   ► or boulder or explosion or something to kick people off

00:47:44 ◼   ► of one and put them onto another, right?

00:47:46 ◼   ► It's very hard to dislodge people if everybody is there.

00:47:49 ◼   ► So why is Lion in Japan?

00:47:52 ◼   ► Because they got critical mass first.

00:47:54 ◼   ► Why is WhatsApp in these European countries?

00:47:56 ◼   ► Because they got critical mass first.

00:47:57 ◼   ► And there are things like SMS used to cost money there

00:47:59 ◼   ► and less money here and so on and so forth.

00:48:01 ◼   ► The whole point is whatever got critical mass,

00:48:03 ◼   ► that inertia is very difficult to overcome.

00:48:06 ◼   ► and you need something big to knock it out.

00:48:08 ◼   ► But what it also means is there's nothing specifically

00:48:11 ◼   ► about line versus WhatsApp that makes one better

00:48:16 ◼   ► than the other in terms of a messaging service.

00:48:18 ◼   ► Maybe there's better cultural fits in terms of how

00:48:20 ◼   ► they market it themselves, and of course,

00:48:21 ◼   ► there are economic ones of what was free

00:48:23 ◼   ► versus what charged money and how much the carriers

00:48:25 ◼   ► charge for things and so on and so forth,

00:48:26 ◼   ► but not the specific service, right?

00:48:29 ◼   ► And related to that, just before we came on the air,

00:48:31 ◼   ► I read Jason Steller, "Arcole Macworld,"

00:48:34 ◼   ► that talks about one point that I was gonna make in the show

00:48:36 ◼   ► was that iMessage is crappy.

00:48:38 ◼   ► We all know this, right?

00:48:40 ◼   ► It's not a good messaging service.

00:48:42 ◼   ► We already pointed out how it doesn't interoperate with SMS.

00:48:45 ◼   ► It has very few features compared to other services.

00:48:48 ◼   ► Even just within iMessage,

00:48:49 ◼   ► there can be weird bugs and stuff,

00:48:51 ◼   ► and it doesn't change much.

00:48:52 ◼   ► Every year, iMessage doesn't get that much better.

00:48:55 ◼   ► I mean, they tried to do the iMessage App Store,

00:48:56 ◼   ► and that didn't really go anywhere,

00:48:58 ◼   ► but lots of things that are in iMessage

00:49:00 ◼   ► have been the same as they have been for ages.

00:49:01 ◼   ► The search is still bad.

00:49:03 ◼   ► the way they do replies is still weird.

00:49:06 ◼   ► Jason pointed out the tap back feature

00:49:08 ◼   ► where you can put different reactions.

00:49:09 ◼   ► It's been the same like five or six reactions

00:49:11 ◼   ► for the entire life of that feature.

00:49:13 ◼   ► It's not a product that they're iterating on

00:49:15 ◼   ► and making better and better all the time.

00:49:17 ◼   ► So if you could say, okay, everybody's kicked off

00:49:20 ◼   ► all their messaging services,

00:49:21 ◼   ► none of your friends or any messaging service.

00:49:23 ◼   ► Let's start from a level playing field

00:49:26 ◼   ► and let's all decide what messaging service we should get on

00:49:28 ◼   ► and by the way, we erased your memory

00:49:29 ◼   ► so you don't remember iMessage

00:49:30 ◼   ► so you can't do it out of habit

00:49:31 ◼   ► and you looked at the messaging services

00:49:32 ◼   ► based on who has the nicest app,

00:49:34 ◼   ► who has the most features, like all that other stuff,

00:49:37 ◼   ► and price is most taken about it

00:49:38 ◼   ► because these are all these days internet powered things.

00:49:41 ◼   ► I don't think iMessage would do as well as it does.

00:49:44 ◼   ► It was a default messaging app on iPhones

00:49:45 ◼   ► and iPhone became popular and that's why iMessage is popular

00:49:47 ◼   ► but not because it's a good message service.

00:49:49 ◼   ► It's terrible, right?

00:49:51 ◼   ► And so this whole conversation about like,

00:49:54 ◼   ► oh, iMessage is giving you lock in,

00:49:56 ◼   ► everything with network effects gives you lock in

00:49:58 ◼   ► and it always feels terrible.

00:50:00 ◼   ► It's like why is everybody doing X

00:50:02 ◼   ► when Y is better than X.

00:50:03 ◼   ► It's like, well, it's too late.

00:50:04 ◼   ► Everybody's doing X and it's a social thing.

00:50:05 ◼   ► And so unless you have some way to get everybody off of X

00:50:09 ◼   ► and onto Y, like say X goes out of business

00:50:12 ◼   ► or X is overwhelmed with spam or it's very different.

00:50:17 ◼   ► I'm trying to think of like it's like conversation

00:50:20 ◼   ► I was having with Merlyn, what would get people off Facebook?

00:50:21 ◼   ► What would get people off of their messages

00:50:24 ◼   ► and servers of choice?

00:50:25 ◼   ► If everyone you know is on WhatsApp,

00:50:27 ◼   ► what gets you off of WhatsApp?

00:50:28 ◼   ► What gets you and everyone you know off of WhatsApp?

00:50:31 ◼   ► And it's very difficult.

00:50:33 ◼   ► We haven't been able to get everybody off of Facebook.

00:50:35 ◼   ► And I don't think you're going to get everybody who's

00:50:36 ◼   ► on iMessage off of iMessage.

00:50:37 ◼   ► That's why I feel it's imperative

00:50:39 ◼   ► that if you're going to do cross-protocol support,

00:50:41 ◼   ► that you make it actually work.

00:50:43 ◼   ► And if you're not going to do cross-protocol support,

00:50:45 ◼   ► then just don't do it at all.

00:50:46 ◼   ► And let your message--

00:50:48 ◼   ► make your own little bubbles in the world.

00:50:52 ◼   ► So all this is to say is that I guess Apple should probably

00:50:55 ◼   ► implement RCS.

00:50:56 ◼   ► But it's not going to really help anything.

00:50:58 ◼   ► Oh, and by the way, RCS is-- because it's a carrier thing--

00:51:00 ◼   ► It's kind of swimming against the tide

00:51:02 ◼   ► where modern messaging servers say,

00:51:04 ◼   ► we'll use the internet communicator,

00:51:06 ◼   ► which is a great idea because the internet is cool.

00:51:09 ◼   ► But having your identity be your phone number,

00:51:11 ◼   ► that's really crappy.

00:51:13 ◼   ► I mean, Apple, and speaking of half our things,

00:51:15 ◼   ► Apple did, can I send SMSs for my Mac?

00:51:19 ◼   ► Yeah, kind of through your phone

00:51:22 ◼   ► because you need a phone number.

00:51:23 ◼   ► Well, can I have a conversation

00:51:24 ◼   ► with blue and green bubbles on my Mac?

00:51:26 ◼   ► Sort of, with a little help from your phone

00:51:29 ◼   ► or a relay that converts the, it's like,

00:51:32 ◼   ► like if you use the internet,

00:51:34 ◼   ► anything connected to the internet can do it.

00:51:36 ◼   ► If you use your phone number,

00:51:37 ◼   ► there has to be a cell phone

00:51:38 ◼   ► or a phone number somewhere involved,

00:51:40 ◼   ► and in that respect,

00:51:41 ◼   ► RCS is sort of a retrograde type of service

00:51:45 ◼   ► where it's not forward-looking.

00:51:46 ◼   ► Like forward-looking services are all internet-based.

00:51:48 ◼   ► And so, although we'll probably have to support RCS

00:51:51 ◼   ► because it's better than SMS

00:51:52 ◼   ► and it's not as technically backwards,

00:51:54 ◼   ► if you're looking for a new service

00:51:55 ◼   ► for the entire world to communicate with each other on,

00:51:58 ◼   ► RCS is not it.

00:51:59 ◼   ► It's gotta be something on the internet.

00:52:01 ◼   ► - I don't know, I don't see Apple

00:52:04 ◼   ► being willing to implement RCS

00:52:06 ◼   ► unless they can explain away the lack of end-to-end encryption

00:52:11 ◼   ► because my limited understanding of RCS,

00:52:13 ◼   ► I might have this wrong, is I think Google layered on

00:52:16 ◼   ► like a superset or something of RCS or their own custom,

00:52:20 ◼   ► like Apple does with Bluetooth

00:52:22 ◼   ► and has their own custom stuff riding on top

00:52:23 ◼   ► of traditional Bluetooth.

00:52:25 ◼   ► Well, I guess Google, I think,

00:52:26 ◼   ► had put their own custom stuff on top of RCS

00:52:28 ◼   ► so they could get end-to-end encrypted messages.

00:52:30 ◼   ► And I don't see Apple being able to,

00:52:35 ◼   ► or perhaps willing to implement RCS

00:52:37 ◼   ► unless they have a good privacy story.

00:52:40 ◼   ► Because otherwise it's like,

00:52:41 ◼   ► well, why are you banging this privacy drum over there?

00:52:44 ◼   ► But then you totally throw it out the window over here.

00:52:47 ◼   ► And with SMS and MMS, I mean, it's like table stakes,

00:52:50 ◼   ► at least here in America,

00:52:51 ◼   ► that you have to support those things.

00:52:54 ◼   ► Otherwise you basically don't have

00:52:55 ◼   ► a functioning cellular phone.

00:52:57 ◼   ► but I know it's different the rest of the world,

00:52:59 ◼   ► but for here you have to have it.

00:53:00 ◼   ► But to add something that is,

00:53:03 ◼   ► I was gonna say inherently dangerous,

00:53:05 ◼   ► but that's a bit overblown,

00:53:07 ◼   ► that is certainly less secure than Apple would like,

00:53:10 ◼   ► it seems like it would be disingenuous for them to do that.

00:53:14 ◼   ► - Well, SMS already doesn't have any security,

00:53:16 ◼   ► so this would be just a replacement for SMS.

00:53:17 ◼   ► Like, I don't think Apple is raring to go on this.

00:53:19 ◼   ► I think if other people implement RCS

00:53:21 ◼   ► and it becomes an issue where it's like,

00:53:23 ◼   ► hey, everyone else is doing it at Apple,

00:53:24 ◼   ► then Apple should do it too.

00:53:25 ◼   ► but I don't think Apple has to lead here or anything.

00:53:28 ◼   ► You mentioned SMS, and the reason you have to have it

00:53:29 ◼   ► to have a functioning cell phone is just to give one example

00:53:32 ◼   ► is the current use of SMS for two-factor,

00:53:34 ◼   ► which itself has its own problems,

00:53:36 ◼   ► but it is still a common practice,

00:53:38 ◼   ► and the whole point of that being a second factor

00:53:39 ◼   ► is that it's a phone number, right?

00:53:42 ◼   ► And we sent through SMS because that is sort of the,

00:53:45 ◼   ► the base level lowest common denominator thing

00:53:48 ◼   ► that cell phones can understand.

00:53:50 ◼   ► Could people send two-factors using RCS?

00:53:54 ◼   ► They could, but you have to get to a point

00:53:56 ◼   ► where there is a reasonable chance

00:53:59 ◼   ► that that's going to work.

00:54:01 ◼   ► I don't think there are probably any cell phones

00:54:05 ◼   ► that people are still using that can't do SMS,

00:54:07 ◼   ► but RCS is nowhere, right?

00:54:10 ◼   ► - I don't think that's true.

00:54:11 ◼   ► I think it's implemented in lots of places, isn't it?

00:54:14 ◼   ► Maybe I have this all wrong,

00:54:15 ◼   ► but I could swear that it's been implemented

00:54:18 ◼   ► certainly on a lot of carriers.

00:54:20 ◼   ► And I thought like Android has had it for many more years

00:54:23 ◼   ► than I had thought.

00:54:24 ◼   ► I thought it was just coming out now,

00:54:25 ◼   ► and I think it's been there for like four or five years.

00:54:26 ◼   ► - The standard is certainly very old,

00:54:28 ◼   ► but I think everybody still sends two-factor stuff

00:54:30 ◼   ► using plain old SMS and not RCS,

00:54:32 ◼   ► just because it's guaranteed to be there.

00:54:34 ◼   ► At the minimum, the billions of iPhones in the world

00:54:37 ◼   ► can't get it, and so if you send it via RCS

00:54:40 ◼   ► and someone has an iPhone,

00:54:41 ◼   ► they can't log into your two-factor thing.

00:54:42 ◼   ► That seems like a big deal.

00:54:44 ◼   ► That's why they're going to, you know.

00:54:46 ◼   ► So anyway, if RCS replaces it

00:54:48 ◼   ► just because SMS is an ancient old standard

00:54:49 ◼   ► and eventually SMS is gonna go away

00:54:51 ◼   ► and RCS is gonna replace it, then yeah,

00:54:52 ◼   ► Apple has to do it because it's the lowest common denominator.

00:54:55 ◼   ► Same reason Apple, well, not the same reason Apple

00:54:57 ◼   ► has to do SMS, 'cause iMessages know it exists.

00:54:58 ◼   ► But the same reason Apple continues to support SMS,

00:55:01 ◼   ► not because Apple loves SMS, it's because

00:55:03 ◼   ► if they took it away, their phone becomes

00:55:04 ◼   ► significantly less functional for the users.

00:55:06 ◼   ► If RCS ever gets to that point,

00:55:08 ◼   ► then Apple will have to do it.

00:55:10 ◼   ► And that's, I feel like, that's what I'm saying.

00:55:11 ◼   ► Apple should do it probably before it becomes a problem,

00:55:15 ◼   ► but only just before it becomes a problem for them.

00:55:18 ◼   ► I'm not sure it's a problem right now.

00:55:20 ◼   ► I've certainly never encountered something in my life where my phone's lack of RCS support

00:55:26 ◼   ► has been a problem, but they should eventually implement it if, like, don't wait for it to

00:55:32 ◼   ► be a problem and then band-aid it, anticipate it by a little bit and then implement it.

00:55:35 ◼   ► And who knows, I hold out hope that RCS being a more modern protocol, and implementing it

00:55:42 ◼   ► in a more modern time, maybe with a more modern language even, there is a higher chance that

00:55:46 ◼   ► that the interoperability between iMessage and iMessage

00:55:49 ◼   ► will work better than the interoperability

00:55:51 ◼   ► between SMS and iMessage.

00:55:53 ◼   ► And hey, that's great for Apple.

00:55:54 ◼   ► They just never have to fix those bugs.

00:55:56 ◼   ► They can just let it sail off into the sunset

00:55:58 ◼   ► and replace it with the new, better,

00:56:01 ◼   ► actually functional, RCS and iMessage interoperability.

00:56:04 ◼   ► - If I may, again, take us on a small tangent,

00:56:07 ◼   ► something that really drives me nuts about my group chats

00:56:10 ◼   ► with one or more Android people is,

00:56:13 ◼   ► and I'm sure many Americans have experienced this,

00:56:16 ◼   ► If I'm in a group chat, like for example, Aaron and me,

00:56:21 ◼   ► and my brother-in-law who's an Android user,

00:56:23 ◼   ► and my sister-in-law who also has an iPhone,

00:56:24 ◼   ► because of my brother-in-law, whom I love dearly,

00:56:27 ◼   ► the entire damn chat is all green bubbles

00:56:29 ◼   ► because that one Android phone, it makes sense.

00:56:32 ◼   ► And if I were to slip up,

00:56:35 ◼   ► or let's say if Aaron were to slip up

00:56:37 ◼   ► and do a tap back on one of these messages,

00:56:41 ◼   ► which I would argue maybe shouldn't even be allowed

00:56:43 ◼   ► in the first place, but let's leave that aside for a second.

00:56:46 ◼   ► What I will receive is ErinLis liked,

00:56:49 ◼   ► and then like a quotation of the message

00:56:51 ◼   ► that she gave a thumbs up to, which, okay, fine.

00:56:54 ◼   ► I understand that when Erin's phone is trying to verbalize,

00:56:59 ◼   ► for lack of a better word,

00:57:00 ◼   ► or transmit her action to an Android phone,

00:57:03 ◼   ► the best it can do is say, "ErinLis liked,"

00:57:05 ◼   ► and then repeat the message.

00:57:06 ◼   ► Sure, totally makes sense.

00:57:08 ◼   ► But on my phone, I have an iPhone.

00:57:13 ◼   ► Why is Apple not parsing Aaron Liss liked

00:57:16 ◼   ► and then the exact message that she liked?

00:57:19 ◼   ► Why is it not, why is Messages not parsing this

00:57:22 ◼   ► and throwing a thumbs up on the message that she liked?

00:57:25 ◼   ► Do you understand what I'm saying?

00:57:26 ◼   ► - Yeah, well, I mean, you don't want it to be parsing.

00:57:28 ◼   ► What you want is sort of a dual rights thing

00:57:31 ◼   ► where your phone sends the iMessage

00:57:33 ◼   ► to the iMessage people and the SMS to the SMS people,

00:57:35 ◼   ► so you're doing everything sort of like the native way.

00:57:38 ◼   ► You wouldn't want it to be--

00:57:39 ◼   ► - Oh, I'm sure there would be no problems there, John,

00:57:41 ◼   ► with no one source of truth.

00:57:43 ◼   ► But what I'm saying is like the other way you're describing

00:57:46 ◼   ► is if an SMS comes in and the string is exactly one

00:57:49 ◼   ► of these five strings interpreted as a tap back

00:57:51 ◼   ► on the previous thing.

00:57:52 ◼   ► And that is not a great way to go about things.

00:57:56 ◼   ► 'Cause especially with localization and other stuff,

00:57:59 ◼   ► like it's weird, you know, like you don't want to sort of

00:58:01 ◼   ► like send text, interpret text that goes through SMS,

00:58:06 ◼   ► certain texts being special triggering commands to run.

00:58:11 ◼   ► Like, probably how you want to,

00:58:13 ◼   ► even if it's as simple as like,

00:58:14 ◼   ► well, when I see that, I'll interpret it as a thumb

00:58:15 ◼   ► and display it that way.

00:58:16 ◼   ► Not that SMS and iMessage aren't cracked

00:58:19 ◼   ► 10 different ways all the time anyway,

00:58:20 ◼   ► but I probably wouldn't choose to do that.

00:58:22 ◼   ► But the way they do it, you can see it making sense.

00:58:24 ◼   ► It's like, and look, how will we interoperate?

00:58:26 ◼   ► Oh, it's easy, we'll just convert everything into text.

00:58:29 ◼   ► And they just didn't go the extra mile to say,

00:58:30 ◼   ► but you know, can we make it better for the iMessage users?

00:58:34 ◼   ► And I guess the conspiracy theory is like,

00:58:36 ◼   ► see, they made it look annoying

00:58:37 ◼   ► so the green bubble people would be shunned

00:58:39 ◼   ► into getting an iPhone, but.

00:58:40 ◼   ► So that's the thing, right, is that I totally understand

00:58:44 ◼   ► that Erin's phone, when she likes the message, sounds good.

00:58:48 ◼   ► I totally understand that her phone emits

00:58:50 ◼   ► Erin-less liked, sounds good.

00:58:53 ◼   ► But where I start to be the conspiracy theorist

00:58:56 ◼   ► with the red yarn all over the bulletin board

00:58:58 ◼   ► is when my phone doesn't take that

00:59:02 ◼   ► and turn it into a thumbs up.

00:59:04 ◼   ► And I understand what you guys are saying,

00:59:05 ◼   ► but I feel like there's gotta be a way

00:59:08 ◼   ► to make this somewhat reliable.

00:59:09 ◼   ► Or you know what, even if somebody literally typed

00:59:11 ◼   ► the message, you know, Casey List likes such and such,

00:59:16 ◼   ► and like if there was an errant thumb,

00:59:17 ◼   ► like is that really the end of the earth?

00:59:19 ◼   ► - Oh, if there was an errant thumb attributed to you,

00:59:21 ◼   ► because the client would then interpret it

00:59:24 ◼   ► as you liking the thing, you'd need a little--

00:59:26 ◼   ► - Well, sure, but perhaps it would only do that

00:59:28 ◼   ► if I'm, like if I typed out Casey List liked sounds good.

00:59:31 ◼   ► - I know, I mean, anyway.

00:59:33 ◼   ► So there's two angles, one, the product design one

00:59:36 ◼   ► is doing it as text for everybody

00:59:38 ◼   ► is a uniform experience, adhering to a principle

00:59:42 ◼   ► that you may have for the UI that everyone

00:59:43 ◼   ► involved in group conversations sees the same thing.

00:59:46 ◼   ► And so you may not like that.

00:59:47 ◼   ► And it's like, well, why do we have to get dumbed down?

00:59:49 ◼   ► And it gets back to that whole argument.

00:59:50 ◼   ► But at least it's a consistent experience, in theory.

00:59:52 ◼   ► I mean, minus the bugs that we're talking about,

00:59:55 ◼   ► the whole point is we don't get a consistent experience.

00:59:57 ◼   ► But you can see the argument for the simplicity of just saying,

01:00:00 ◼   ► look, everybody in the group chat sees the same thing.

01:00:02 ◼   ► We're not giving special treatment to the Apple ones

01:00:04 ◼   ► where they know how to do the tap backs and the other ones don't,

01:00:07 ◼   ► just so we're all looking at the same stuff.

01:00:09 ◼   ► - Yeah, but I could swear that I read recently,

01:00:11 ◼   ► and I'm not gonna be able to dig up an article

01:00:13 ◼   ► to justify or verify this,

01:00:14 ◼   ► but I swear that Google is doing what I describe.

01:00:17 ◼   ► - Oh yeah, no, I'm saying like it could,

01:00:19 ◼   ► from a product design perspective,

01:00:21 ◼   ► you could make the decision

01:00:22 ◼   ► that everyone should see the same thing,

01:00:23 ◼   ► even if only just so you know what they're seeing, right?

01:00:27 ◼   ► So, because otherwise, how do you know

01:00:30 ◼   ► what other people are seeing on their screen?

01:00:31 ◼   ► If it looks good to you,

01:00:32 ◼   ► maybe you don't realize that it looks weird to them,

01:00:34 ◼   ► whereas just doing this text everywhere

01:00:36 ◼   ► shows it looks good to everybody.

01:00:37 ◼   ► So there is an argument to be made

01:00:38 ◼   ► for this sort of consistency,

01:00:40 ◼   ► even though it's lesser quality.

01:00:41 ◼   ► But the other thing is, and it's not a conspiracy theory,

01:00:43 ◼   ► it's just like, if Apple's gonna prioritize features,

01:00:46 ◼   ► they're not gonna prioritize

01:00:48 ◼   ► making really, really good integration with SMS,

01:00:50 ◼   ► just because they would prefer everyone to use iMessage.

01:00:53 ◼   ► So why are we, you know, it's not like,

01:00:56 ◼   ► you know, their mustache twisting,

01:00:58 ◼   ► ha, it's part of our dastardly plan,

01:01:00 ◼   ► it's just plain old prioritization.

01:01:02 ◼   ► like what do we care more about, like new feature X

01:01:05 ◼   ► or making SMS and iMessage work together better.

01:01:08 ◼   ► And clearly they don't care that much about making SMS,

01:01:11 ◼   ► iMessage work together, even just basic functionality

01:01:15 ◼   ► in terms of the messages go through and people see them,

01:01:17 ◼   ► like that has been a struggle.

01:01:19 ◼   ► This is way down on the list, like it's just prioritization,

01:01:23 ◼   ► sort of banality of, it's not even a banality of evil,

01:01:25 ◼   ► it's not actually evil, it's just like,

01:01:27 ◼   ► look we have to have priorities and this is a pretty low one

01:01:29 ◼   ► because Apple's solution would be just use iMessage, it comes with your phone.

01:01:33 ◼   ► "Oh, but my friends don't have iMessage."

01:01:34 ◼   ► "Oh, they should buy iPhones."

01:01:36 ◼   ► But if they don't, we try to interoperate too and we do the best we can, but it's not

01:01:41 ◼   ► going to be a high priority.

01:01:44 ◼   ► Apple is not going to win people over by making that integration better.

01:01:50 ◼   ► And that sounds evil to people.

01:01:51 ◼   ► It's like, "See, they're intentionally making it bad."

01:01:53 ◼   ► But I feel like there is a nuanced distinction between choosing your priorities based on

01:01:57 ◼   ► and what's important to the company,

01:01:59 ◼   ► versus an evil plan to punish bad people with green bubbles.

01:02:03 ◼   ► And even though they seem like they're the same thing,

01:02:05 ◼   ► I feel like it's important to understand

01:02:09 ◼   ► the distinction there, right?

01:02:10 ◼   ► Even if there are like two or three people

01:02:12 ◼   ► who are twisting their mustaches

01:02:13 ◼   ► or rubbing their hands together saying,

01:02:15 ◼   ► "Ha ha, this will really teach those Android users."

01:02:18 ◼   ► I don't think it's like corporate policy to do that.

01:02:21 ◼   ► If you look at the leaked emails and everything,

01:02:23 ◼   ► I think it was,

01:02:24 ◼   ► Eddy Cue was pushing for iMessage to be on all platforms,

01:02:26 ◼   ► and other people said, "Why would we do that?

01:02:28 ◼   ► "It's great platform lock-in.

01:02:29 ◼   ► "People use iPhones because they all have iMessage,

01:02:32 ◼   ► "and if we let iMessage be everywhere,

01:02:34 ◼   ► "that removes the differentiator."

01:02:36 ◼   ► And people think that's evil.

01:02:37 ◼   ► That's what everybody does in business.

01:02:39 ◼   ► It's like, "Why would we put Halo on the PlayStation?

01:02:41 ◼   ► "People buy an Xbox because it has Halo.

01:02:43 ◼   ► "Why would we put it everywhere?"

01:02:44 ◼   ► It's like, "See, you're trying to lock people

01:02:46 ◼   ► "into the Xbox."

01:02:46 ◼   ► Like, "Yeah, yeah, we're trying to make the Xbox

01:02:50 ◼   ► "be the best selling cup."

01:02:51 ◼   ► That's business, and it's not a life or death thing,

01:02:54 ◼   ► and it's not like, I don't think that's particularly evil.

01:02:57 ◼   ► And even then, the argument was had

01:02:58 ◼   ► with some high, big executives like EdiQ arguing,

01:03:01 ◼   ► it's like, that's all well and good,

01:03:03 ◼   ► but we should make iMessage be everywhere, right?

01:03:05 ◼   ► Because it would make us more successful,

01:03:07 ◼   ► like bringing the iPod to Windows, right?

01:03:09 ◼   ► That's always the push and pull,

01:03:10 ◼   ► especially in computer markets or whatever,

01:03:12 ◼   ► where it's like, should we try to be

01:03:15 ◼   ► the standard for everything,

01:03:16 ◼   ► or should we try to be a really cool feature

01:03:19 ◼   ► that makes you buy our product instead of theirs?

01:03:21 ◼   ► And it's not always easy to know

01:03:22 ◼   ► when you should cross over that bridge.

01:03:24 ◼   ► Like in hindsight, it's easy, like,

01:03:25 ◼   ► see how, can you believe they didn't wanna put the iPod

01:03:27 ◼   ► on Windows, how dumb would have that been?

01:03:28 ◼   ► Yeah, it's easy in hindsight,

01:03:30 ◼   ► but other decisions have gone the other way

01:03:32 ◼   ► and have also worked out.

01:03:33 ◼   ► So, you know, I'm not sure where iMessage is at this point,

01:03:38 ◼   ► as I think they were saying on dithering.

01:03:40 ◼   ► It may be too late to put iMessage everywhere.

01:03:43 ◼   ► Speaking of that, it's like, oh,

01:03:43 ◼   ► Apple can solve this problem

01:03:44 ◼   ► by just putting iMessage on every single platform.

01:03:46 ◼   ► Who the hell would want iMessage?

01:03:48 ◼   ► If you're using something that has better features,

01:03:50 ◼   ► which is basically anything that's in iMessage,

01:03:52 ◼   ► like Line, WhatsApp, probably WeChat.

01:03:54 ◼   ► All those things are better chat clients than iMessage.

01:03:58 ◼   ► They have more features, they're more useful,

01:04:00 ◼   ► they're, you know, and maybe some of them are also crappy

01:04:02 ◼   ► in ways that Apple wouldn't like in terms of being festooned

01:04:04 ◼   ► with ads or spam or whatever, but in terms of feature set,

01:04:08 ◼   ► it's not even close.

01:04:09 ◼   ► What I think about is Slack.

01:04:11 ◼   ► Slack is so much better at sending textual messages

01:04:13 ◼   ► back and forth to people and having conversations

01:04:16 ◼   ► and threads and reactions and inline previews

01:04:18 ◼   ► and all the things you do, and that's a frickin' web view.

01:04:21 ◼   ► And it's so much better than iMessage.

01:04:23 ◼   ► It's not even funny.

01:04:24 ◼   ► I would use Slack as my instant messaging app if that was an option, but of course,

01:04:29 ◼   ► to do that I would have to send the giant asteroid that would knock everybody I know

01:04:34 ◼   ► off of iMessage and onto some hypothetical iMessage replacement that has the same features

01:04:38 ◼   ► as Slack, right?

01:04:40 ◼   ► Oh, and I guess the other factor that we need to throw in here is who owns the thing?

01:04:46 ◼   ► A private company owning something like Facebook owning WhatsApp may be a factor in some people's

01:04:52 ◼   ► decisions and it certainly is in mine.

01:04:54 ◼   ► Not enough to change who goes where because network effects don't care about that.

01:04:59 ◼   ► But I would prefer not to switch from iMessage to a system owned by a company that I trust

01:05:04 ◼   ► less than Apple.

01:05:06 ◼   ► That doesn't mean that's what's keeping people on iMessage at all, but me personally, I don't

01:05:10 ◼   ► like the idea of switching to a better, more full-featured chat client that happens to

01:05:15 ◼   ► be owned by Facebook.

01:05:16 ◼   ► So I really hope that doesn't happen.

01:05:18 ◼   ► - I almost wonder how much any of this,

01:05:20 ◼   ► like Pete, giving people new options at this point,

01:05:22 ◼   ► I wonder how much that even matters,

01:05:24 ◼   ► because it seems like most people don't,

01:05:29 ◼   ► you were saying, John,

01:05:30 ◼   ► like how it would be pretty much impossible

01:05:32 ◼   ► to try to move everyone off of what they're using now.

01:05:36 ◼   ► And I think the reason why is that most people, I think,

01:05:38 ◼   ► have worked out their messaging platform

01:05:40 ◼   ► around the time that they got their first smartphone.

01:05:44 ◼   ► And all their friends got smartphones,

01:05:46 ◼   ► and they all message each other on something.

01:05:48 ◼   ► And I think most of the world that can have a phone at all

01:05:53 ◼   ► now has a smartphone and has a messaging platform.

01:05:59 ◼   ► And I think it's one of the things,

01:06:01 ◼   ► as you were saying three hours ago,

01:06:03 ◼   ► it's not that these platforms are competing

01:06:06 ◼   ► on features or anything.

01:06:07 ◼   ► They're mostly just like,

01:06:08 ◼   ► why do people use the ones they use?

01:06:09 ◼   ► Well, because their friends used it,

01:06:10 ◼   ► and that's how they talk to their friends.

01:06:12 ◼   ► And then it's just kind of,

01:06:14 ◼   ► certain groups fall into place with certain platforms,

01:06:17 ◼   ► and I don't think we're ever gonna change that.

01:06:20 ◼   ► I don't think, first of all, I'm surprised RCS

01:06:22 ◼   ► is even still being talked about,

01:06:24 ◼   ► because it had so many shortcomings

01:06:26 ◼   ► when it was first floated, however many years ago that was,

01:06:29 ◼   ► but no one's looking for text messaging to get better

01:06:34 ◼   ► without it being a totally different thing.

01:06:37 ◼   ► No one's looking for RCS.

01:06:39 ◼   ► That solves no problems people actually have.

01:06:43 ◼   ► And iMessage is great for the people who use it.

01:06:46 ◼   ► The people who currently don't use iMessage

01:06:48 ◼   ► will probably never use iMessage.

01:06:51 ◼   ► And I think you could say that

01:06:52 ◼   ► about almost all these platforms.

01:06:53 ◼   ► Whatever you use, your messaging needs,

01:06:56 ◼   ► if you have a smartphone,

01:06:57 ◼   ► your messaging needs are probably pretty well settled.

01:07:00 ◼   ► And you're probably not looking to change.

01:07:03 ◼   ► And so I almost wonder how much any of this discussion,

01:07:06 ◼   ► even if Apple launched iMessage on Android tomorrow,

01:07:10 ◼   ► would people actually even install it?

01:07:12 ◼   ► Would people use it?

01:07:13 ◼   ► Probably not.

01:07:14 ◼   ► People probably keep doing what they're doing already.

01:07:16 ◼   ► - Well, it has a chance in the US

01:07:17 ◼   ► just because so many people in the US still use SMS, right?

01:07:21 ◼   ► And SMS is so dire and so terrible and so old

01:07:25 ◼   ► that I think you could get some people,

01:07:27 ◼   ► if they put out iMessage for Android,

01:07:29 ◼   ► I think you could get a lot of Android people

01:07:30 ◼   ► off of SMS and onto iMessage.

01:07:34 ◼   ► Because in this country, we don't have a huge majority

01:07:36 ◼   ► of people on WhatsApp or WeChat or Line

01:07:38 ◼   ► or anything like that.

01:07:41 ◼   ► The other thing, I mean there's two other things

01:07:42 ◼   ► that can move people, like obviously the big asteroid

01:07:44 ◼   ► coming, you know, one version of the big asteroid is,

01:07:48 ◼   ► hey the company that runs Line,

01:07:49 ◼   ► yeah they went out of business.

01:07:51 ◼   ► Guess what, that'll get everybody offline,

01:07:53 ◼   ► that's the problem with these, like oh I'm on a messaging

01:07:55 ◼   ► platform, I'm never gonna move, you'll move if the company

01:07:57 ◼   ► goes out of business and doesn't get bought,

01:07:59 ◼   ► or you'll move if that company turns into like a,

01:08:02 ◼   ► you know, a blockchain thing and like starts spamming you

01:08:04 ◼   ► with NFT crap and just becomes a giant scam thing, right?

01:08:08 ◼   ► Or it becomes festoon with ads or someone buys it

01:08:11 ◼   ► and drives it into the ground.

01:08:12 ◼   ► That's the difficulty of having network effect

01:08:15 ◼   ► based platforms owned by individual companies

01:08:17 ◼   ► 'cause individual companies can screw up

01:08:19 ◼   ► and they can go out of business

01:08:20 ◼   ► or be bought by somebody worse and do terrible things

01:08:22 ◼   ► and just mess up.

01:08:23 ◼   ► Arguably that's kind of what happened

01:08:25 ◼   ► to Myspace versus Facebook, right?

01:08:27 ◼   ► We keep hoping that Facebook's gonna screw up

01:08:29 ◼   ► and wither away and die but they keep staying alive

01:08:31 ◼   ► and getting more money so it's difficult to kill them.

01:08:33 ◼   ► But that's one way you can get rid of things.

01:08:36 ◼   ► And the second way is people, like I said,

01:08:38 ◼   ► they're just never gonna change their platforms.

01:08:40 ◼   ► But they die and if young people are using a different platform Wow

01:08:43 ◼   ► right if young if young people are using a different platform like oh young people all message each other on snapchat and

01:08:49 ◼   ► snapchat becomes the dominant platform of the next 50 years because those young people started using snapchat when they were 9 and just

01:08:55 ◼   ► Never stopped right because that's what them and all their friends were on that type of the that's not an asteroid

01:09:01 ◼   ► It's more of a slow rollover that can also happen

01:09:03 ◼   ► We're just a generational thing

01:09:05 ◼   ► One thing is seen as cooler than something else.

01:09:07 ◼   ► Old people use X, young people use Y,

01:09:09 ◼   ► and the old people never change,

01:09:10 ◼   ► and the young people never change,

01:09:11 ◼   ► and you wake up 50 years later,

01:09:12 ◼   ► and all the old people are dead,

01:09:13 ◼   ► and everybody's using Snapchat for messaging.

01:09:16 ◼   ► But that presupposes that Snapchat's gonna stay in business

01:09:19 ◼   ► and not screw up their application and everything, right?

01:09:22 ◼   ► This is the danger of having something as important

01:09:25 ◼   ► as ubiquitous, instant message type text messaging

01:09:30 ◼   ► being owned by individual private companies.

01:09:33 ◼   ► If there was an individual private company

01:09:35 ◼   ► than on email, we would be on email seven by now, like whatever the seventh iteration

01:09:39 ◼   ► of email is.

01:09:40 ◼   ► Not that email is great, you know, no encryption, spam is a problem, blah blah blah, because

01:09:43 ◼   ► it wasn't owned by any single company, it's very difficult to kill.

01:09:49 ◼   ► Companies come and go, companies screw up, they fill their products with ads and spam

01:09:56 ◼   ► and malware and do all sorts of terrible things, but email survives because no matter what

01:10:01 ◼   ► any individual company does, email as a standard has network effect, is one of the original

01:10:05 ◼   ► network effects of the internet, right?

01:10:08 ◼   ► Everybody's got it.

01:10:10 ◼   ► It's difficult for any single company to replace it, lots of people tried really really hard

01:10:13 ◼   ► and they didn't pull it off.

01:10:15 ◼   ► And no matter how many companies go out of business, email stays.

01:10:19 ◼   ► That's not true of instant messaging.

01:10:20 ◼   ► So we're kind of in the early stages of that.

01:10:23 ◼   ► In 50 years, of all the companies I described, how many will still be in business?

01:10:27 ◼   ► How many will have been bought by other companies?

01:10:29 ◼   ► like whatsapp, Facebook buys line and says line is eventually gone and now it's folded

01:10:34 ◼   ► into whatsapp and by the way whatsapp is gone and it's folded into Facebook messenger.

01:10:39 ◼   ► those are things that can happen.

01:10:40 ◼   ► it's the danger of having private companies that may not live that long and may not do

01:10:47 ◼   ► what you want controlling such an important thing.

01:10:49 ◼   ► so that's the one thing that RCS has going for it is that at least it's like a cross

01:10:53 ◼   ► company standard.

01:10:54 ◼   ► I mean granted they're cell phone carriers, they're not the best companies and granted

01:10:57 ◼   ► it's a terrible standard and it's crappy and old and doesn't have the features we want and so on and so forth, but

01:11:02 ◼   ► that's one of the advantages that SMS has is

01:11:04 ◼   ► There's no company that can go out of business that makes SMS not work, right? It's kind of baked in it's old

01:11:10 ◼   ► It's ancient

01:11:11 ◼   ► It's crappy, but it's not owned by any one single company and RCS has that advantage and the you know

01:11:17 ◼   ► They've got the advantage for me personally not for regular people because they don't care but for me personally

01:11:20 ◼   ► I like the fact that Apple runs iMessage because I trust Apple more than say Facebook or whoever owns WeChat

01:11:27 ◼   ► Any company based in China, I probably don't want them to run the messaging service that the whole world uses, right?

01:11:32 ◼   ► So I think this is still a problem area

01:11:36 ◼   ► And it is difficult to move people en masse from one thing to the other but change can happen

01:11:41 ◼   ► Through people dying and change can happen through companies dying and I guess that's what we have to root for

01:11:45 ◼   ► Not people dying. That's gonna happen whether we root for it or not. I guess. Oh my gosh when they're really old long natural

01:11:51 ◼   ► We call it not an unnatural death but natural one. Oh dear God when you're old and no one cares about you anymore

01:11:58 ◼   ► Usually I'm the one who puts not only my foot but my ankle and my thigh in my mouth

01:12:02 ◼   ► But today that role is being played by John, Syracuse. Have you ever thought about the phrase that died of natural causes?

01:12:07 ◼   ► It's like a natural childbirth. It's same thing. No, it's not the same thing at all. I

01:12:12 ◼   ► Mean, it's it's kind of the same thing. I mean whatever I don't feel like arguing about that either

01:12:17 ◼   ► I see this is my foot in my mouth. It's happening again

01:12:20 ◼   ► Anyway, I don't know the other thing just to get ahead of the feedback emails that have already come in. I'm quite sure

01:12:25 ◼   ► Every time we talk about messaging platforms particularly Americans all the like smug Europeans and people from you know

01:12:33 ◼   ► Like the Asian countries are always like well, just just tell everyone to change

01:12:38 ◼   ► Yeah. Yes. Okay. Sure. I'm going to tell the 700 contacts in my phone book

01:12:43 ◼   ► You know what the king has decided that I am going to use WeChat now

01:12:47 ◼   ► So if you would like to talk to me come talk to me on wechat. Yeah, that's totally gonna work related

01:12:53 ◼   ► When's the last time you loaded the glass app on your iPhone? I rest my case

01:12:56 ◼   ► Does anyone actually say that just thought everyone to change? I haven't said that. Yes, it happened in the chat earlier today

01:13:01 ◼   ► Yeah, it's kind of like people saying we can stop traffic jams. But everyone just to go at once right?

01:13:06 ◼   ► Seriously, it's so preposterous like yes, maybe like my core 20 or 30 people

01:13:14 ◼   ► maybe I could get half of them to change

01:13:16 ◼   ► to my preferred messaging service,

01:13:18 ◼   ► but the likelihood of that is almost zero.

01:13:19 ◼   ► - Even if you bought them all brand new iPhones,

01:13:22 ◼   ► you probably still couldn't get 100% conversion.

01:13:24 ◼   ► - Right, exactly. - If you bought them

01:13:25 ◼   ► and paid for their cell phone plan for their life,

01:13:27 ◼   ► you probably still couldn't get 100% conversion.

01:13:29 ◼   ► - Yep.

01:13:30 ◼   ► - 'Cause people just like what they're used to, right?

01:13:31 ◼   ► And they don't want change.

01:13:33 ◼   ► Like, why am I changing?

01:13:34 ◼   ► Why don't you change free once you get an Android phone?

01:13:36 ◼   ► How about that?

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01:15:38 ◼   ► - All right, let's do some Ask ATP.

01:15:43 ◼   ► And I have been excited to hear John talk about this.

01:15:45 ◼   ► And that's no sarcasm, I really mean it.

01:15:47 ◼   ► Daniel Berkfuss writes, "Mac OS is over two decades old now,

01:15:51 ◼   ► "but its foundation is still roughly the same,

01:15:53 ◼   ► "and also the foundation of Apple's entire OS suite.

01:15:56 ◼   ► "Would you say that this will continue to be true

01:15:58 ◼   ► "for the next two decades?

01:15:59 ◼   ► "Or should we assume that a team with an Apple

01:16:01 ◼   ► is cranking away on exploring a completely new OS approach, designed from the ground

01:16:05 ◼   ► up to even better suit Apple's multifaceted future. Should we expect another large transition

01:16:10 ◼   ► within the next 20 years because of this, maybe impacting Apple's full range of products?

01:16:15 ◼   ► And if so, what is your advice for Apple as well as your hopes and dreams for this new

01:16:19 ◼   ► approach? And to get ahead of you, Jon, the very first thing I thought of when I read

01:16:23 ◼   ► this Ask ATP, which was very good, was avoiding Copeland 2010, which I will put in the show

01:16:29 ◼   ► You should probably put the revisited article because it explains it and has all the links

01:16:33 ◼   ► back because otherwise you have to link to all three of them and it's confusing so maybe

01:16:36 ◼   ► just do the revisited article.

01:16:38 ◼   ► Sorry dad.

01:16:39 ◼   ► Yeah we've done these links before.

01:16:42 ◼   ► So for making a completely new OS the rumors are that's one of the things that Apple was

01:16:47 ◼   ► doing for the car project because as you can imagine an operating system suitable for helping

01:16:51 ◼   ► a car to drive has different requirements than one that runs your cell phone or whatever

01:16:58 ◼   ► And, you know, it's a clean sheet type thing.

01:17:00 ◼   ► Apple doesn't have an existing car.

01:17:01 ◼   ► They don't have an existing car software base.

01:17:03 ◼   ► So they could start from scratch and use more modern technology

01:17:06 ◼   ► better suited to being a car OS.

01:17:10 ◼   ► But who knows where any of that is going.

01:17:12 ◼   ► That aside, the good thing about what Apple did with Mac OS X

01:17:17 ◼   ► is they sort of built their operating system, the core OS

01:17:22 ◼   ► thing, with a POSIX Unix-style layer to it.

01:17:27 ◼   ► And that really helps for the future.

01:17:30 ◼   ► If there's some deficit of the microkernel,

01:17:34 ◼   ► the mock microkernel and the BSD system that's fused to it

01:17:37 ◼   ► and all sort of low-level parts of Apple's operating system,

01:17:40 ◼   ► if it turns out that there's some limiting factor

01:17:42 ◼   ► for some future application,

01:17:44 ◼   ► whether it be VR or self-driving cars, something like that,

01:17:48 ◼   ► Apple can really replumb the guts in very interesting ways

01:17:53 ◼   ► while still maintaining that sort of POSIX-compliant layer

01:17:56 ◼   ► on top of it because that's something that the software industry has done many times over,

01:18:00 ◼   ► putting POSIX layers on operating systems that are not themselves like natively Unix POSIX systems.

01:18:05 ◼   ► Windows NT did it back in the day. Microsoft does it with Windows. It is a common thing.

01:18:10 ◼   ► Arguably Apple's kind of doing it with the BSD kernel fused to mock and everything. And yes,

01:18:16 ◼   ► there are all sorts of stuff in Mac OS X that use the mock ports and all sorts of mock IPC features

01:18:20 ◼   ► that are specific to Mach, but you can also,

01:18:23 ◼   ► I'm saying M-A-C-H, you can also Mach those, M-O-C-K.

01:18:27 ◼   ► You can Mach versions of Mach.

01:18:29 ◼   ► What I'm saying is that it's a layer cake.

01:18:31 ◼   ► And so-- - Oh my gosh.

01:18:32 ◼   ► - You have the, because Apple got rid of the main deficits,

01:18:36 ◼   ► which was, hey, no memory protection,

01:18:38 ◼   ► no preemptive multitasking, all the Copeland 2010 stuff,

01:18:41 ◼   ► right, because they address those

01:18:45 ◼   ► and have a solid foundation, they can rip out the guts

01:18:48 ◼   ► and put better, more interesting guts in there

01:18:51 ◼   ► while still maintaining lots of compatibility

01:18:53 ◼   ► with the higher layers because that layer,

01:18:56 ◼   ► that sort of POSIX Unix layer,

01:18:58 ◼   ► is very common across the entire world of operating system

01:19:01 ◼   ► that has proved very durable and useful.

01:19:04 ◼   ► There's no underlying design

01:19:08 ◼   ► that really negates that interface,

01:19:09 ◼   ► and it's not to say that could be the only thing,

01:19:11 ◼   ► that you could have some sort of real-time operating system

01:19:12 ◼   ► that you use in the car and it has advanced features,

01:19:14 ◼   ► but you can implement the sort of old fuddy-duddy POSIX

01:19:17 ◼   ► APIs on top of that and give them a road going forward. That said, so far, everything that

01:19:24 ◼   ► Apple has made has shown that the guts of NextStep/Mac OS X is surprisingly flexible.

01:19:30 ◼   ► They put it on a watch, right? They didn't just put it in a phone or a knife, they put

01:19:35 ◼   ► it in a wristwatch. So I'm not sure what flexibility or new features you need from the Core OS

01:19:41 ◼   ► that you're not getting. They put it on the giant Mac Pro all the way down to a wristwatch,

01:19:45 ◼   ► And it's done really well in all of those different applications.

01:19:48 ◼   ► It just goes to show that the CoreOS is not the limiting factor in those things.

01:19:52 ◼   ► So I don't think there's any specific thing that Apple needs for any of the platforms

01:19:57 ◼   ► that are currently planned to setting aside the car.

01:20:00 ◼   ► So AR/VR, future gaming console, any kind of computing device from a wristwatch all

01:20:06 ◼   ► the way up to a big personal computer.

01:20:09 ◼   ► I think their CoreOS is in a reasonable good place.

01:20:11 ◼   ► And it's not like it hasn't changed.

01:20:12 ◼   ► It is improved and everything, but I think I think that's doing mostly okay

01:20:16 ◼   ► They can redo replumb the kernel to try to fix some long-standing architectural problems

01:20:21 ◼   ► And they can do it in a way that we probably don't notice the car is the one where they might need a new approach

01:20:24 ◼   ► and rumor is that's what they were doing for the car, which is let's not build this on top of the Mac OS 10 Foundation because

01:20:31 ◼   ► it's kind of old and creaky in terms of

01:20:34 ◼   ► the way we need a car OS to handle like the reliability concerns of

01:20:38 ◼   ► thousand pound piece of metal are different than the reliability concerns of your cell phone, they just are.

01:20:42 ◼   ► So let's get something that's more reliable and we're not going to get to that reliability by starting with this giant code base and trying

01:20:49 ◼   ► to make it more reliable and plus we need real-time features because you kind of need to decide now now now whether you should turn and

01:20:54 ◼   ► their operating systems designed for that, right?

01:20:57 ◼   ► They're real-time operating systems using spacecraft and airplanes and all sorts of other stuff and Apple being Apple

01:21:03 ◼   ► of course, they would try to make their own right because they're a lot of smart people which fine.

01:21:07 ◼   ► But that project doesn't come out yet. So that is the only place where I think a new OS approach is

01:21:12 ◼   ► If not necessary then reasonably appropriate every other application Apple has applied

01:21:18 ◼   ► The Darwin core of Mac OS 10 Mac OS whatever - it has succeeded and gone great

01:21:26 ◼   ► Again, I will I will cite the wristwatch if you can get up there on a wristwatch and a giant Mac Pro

01:21:33 ◼   ► It's probably doing okay, so I wouldn't worry about it too much. I'm surprised by this

01:21:36 ◼   ► I was expecting a lot more angst from you.

01:21:40 ◼   ► I'm not saying this is bad. I'm just -- I'm surprised.

01:21:43 ◼   ► -There were rumors in that same blog

01:21:45 ◼   ► we had at the couple in 2010 thing was, like,

01:21:48 ◼   ► that the L4 microkernel was being investigated,

01:21:50 ◼   ► like, the really, really core of the OS.

01:21:52 ◼   ► Like, there's lots of interesting projects

01:21:54 ◼   ► of how you could make something more reliable or faster

01:21:57 ◼   ► or better in situations of high contention.

01:22:00 ◼   ► But you can do that without disturbing the higher layers.

01:22:03 ◼   ► And it turns out they haven't needed to do that yet.

01:22:06 ◼   ► yet. So it makes me think that there's not a particular crisis looming here. Maybe I

01:22:09 ◼   ► need the younger version of me to write like, "Avoiding Copeland 2057." But right now, I

01:22:16 ◼   ► think, with the exception of the car project, they're in a reasonably good position.

01:22:20 ◼   ► Patrick writes, "I haven't owned or played a gaming system in over 10 years. Recently,

01:22:24 ◼   ► I played some Halo with a friend. It was a lot of fun, and I'm thinking about getting

01:22:27 ◼   ► a modern system. The problem, however, is that I don't know which one to get. I don't

01:22:30 ◼   ► want to buy multiple platforms since I'm not a hardcore gamer. The Switch, PS5, and Xbox

01:22:34 ◼   ► all have a game or two that look really appealing. Do you have any advice on helping me choose

01:22:38 ◼   ► a platform? Without knowing exactly which games look appealing to Patrick on each platform,

01:22:45 ◼   ► I would just say go with the one that's going to give you the most fun. You know, if you're

01:22:49 ◼   ► not a hardcore gamer, that means that getting the latest and greatest graphics on like the

01:22:54 ◼   ► PS5 and you know, Xbox, whatever it is, it's a lower priority. What you're optimizing for

01:23:00 ◼   ► is fun and I think for most people the odds are you'd have the most fun with the Switch

01:23:06 ◼   ► out of those. It's also right now much easier to get. So that helps and it benefits from

01:23:15 ◼   ► a pretty large software library since it's been out a few years now compared to the PS5

01:23:21 ◼   ► and Xbox whatever which are both much newer. And so I would say unless there's a really

01:23:27 ◼   ► must have game or games calling you over to the PS5 or Xbox, go with the Switch because

01:23:32 ◼   ► you're more likely to find a lot of fun there and it's just easier to approach being less

01:23:38 ◼   ► expensive, easier to get, larger game library already in place and it has the benefit of

01:23:43 ◼   ► being portable if you ever actually need that which you might not think you would use but

01:23:47 ◼   ► you might end up using it.

01:23:49 ◼   ► I don't think there's a larger game library because you forget the PlayStation plays PlayStation

01:23:53 ◼   ► games and the Xbox plays the older Xbox games as well so there's a big catalog of those.

01:23:58 ◼   ► But the not a hardcore gamer is the big twist here because it makes people think like what

01:24:03 ◼   ► you just said okay well then you don't care about all these you know why get a super expensive

01:24:07 ◼   ► super powerful console you don't care you're not a hardcore gamer.

01:24:10 ◼   ► But if you're not a hardcore gamer that also means the people who say that probably don't

01:24:15 ◼   ► have a lot of experience especially with modern video games so you don't know if that person

01:24:21 ◼   ► is the type of person who is going to love World of Warcraft and should therefore get

01:24:26 ◼   ► a gaming PC, right? Because they've never had contact with it. They don't have any immunities

01:24:30 ◼   ► built up. They don't have the antibodies. You don't know what thing is going to be their

01:24:34 ◼   ► thing. It could be that it turns out that they're super into real-time strategy games,

01:24:38 ◼   ► or they get obsessed with puzzle games, or they're really, really into Final Fantasy.

01:24:44 ◼   ► You just don't know because they haven't been exposed to them, so they can't give you an

01:24:47 ◼   ► opinion, "I like this type of game or that type of game." And so guessing like, "Oh,

01:24:50 ◼   ► you should like Nintendo because most people like Nintendo and it's fun.

01:24:53 ◼   ► It's hard to make that assumption.

01:24:55 ◼   ► If I had met this person in real life, I'd talk to them and try to figure out, you know,

01:25:00 ◼   ► if you've played any games in the past, which one appealed to you?

01:25:03 ◼   ► You're like, "Well, I used to play SimCity a lot and I would lose hours and hours in

01:25:06 ◼   ► SimCity and Civilization."

01:25:07 ◼   ► Right?

01:25:09 ◼   ► That tells me a lot about what type of game they're going to be interested in.

01:25:12 ◼   ► But by the same token, if they've never played an open world game, for example, maybe that's

01:25:17 ◼   ► the thing that is going to make them obsessed.

01:25:20 ◼   ► And it's so difficult to choose a platform without really interrogating somebody about

01:25:23 ◼   ► that, because most people who play video games don't play like any large percentage of the

01:25:31 ◼   ► games available for a platform.

01:25:32 ◼   ► Not everybody's like me where you essentially play one game all the time, but some people

01:25:35 ◼   ► don't.

01:25:36 ◼   ► But one game, some people, all they play is World of Warcraft, right?

01:25:39 ◼   ► For a first approximation, all I play is Destiny, right?

01:25:42 ◼   ► That's one type of gamer.

01:25:44 ◼   ► But the other type is not someone who plays 75 games a year.

01:25:48 ◼   ► people play a small number of games per year of the type that they like. And if you are

01:25:54 ◼   ► really really into, you know, Zelda, you have to get Nintendo. It's the only place it is.

01:26:01 ◼   ► There's not even any kind of Zelda equivalents on other platforms for the most part. Sorry

01:26:04 ◼   ► Oceanhorn. And if you just play like the one or two Zelda games that are released and then

01:26:11 ◼   ► a couple other things, you have to get a Nintendo platform. So that's the danger of picking

01:26:15 ◼   ► it flat for me, like, I'm really excited about Call of Duty and that's available everywhere,

01:26:21 ◼   ► right?

01:26:22 ◼   ► Well, fast forward and maybe it's only available on Xbox and PC and they get a PlayStation

01:26:25 ◼   ► and they're like, "Oh, but I want to play Call of Duty.

01:26:26 ◼   ► In fact, that's the only thing I want to do with my game system is play Call of Duty.

01:26:30 ◼   ► Now I can't play Call of Duty, this thing is useless to me."

01:26:33 ◼   ► But when someone's not a hardcore gamer, you don't know, like, are they going to be a single

01:26:37 ◼   ► franchise player for a decade or are they going to get heavily into one or two types

01:26:41 ◼   ► of games that are better on one platform than the other?

01:26:43 ◼   ► So it's really a shot in the dark.

01:26:44 ◼   ► So my suggestion for anyone like this is find a game that you think you really want to play

01:26:53 ◼   ► and maybe test that theory by trying it over a friend's house or whatever and then buy

01:26:58 ◼   ► whatever platform that game is on.

01:26:59 ◼   ► If it's on multiple platforms then it's an easier conversation.

01:27:02 ◼   ► You can talk about price and features and availability but I know it's difficult because

01:27:07 ◼   ► you're like I don't want to buy the wrong platform but really what you want to do is

01:27:09 ◼   ► is find the game or games that appeal to you

01:27:12 ◼   ► and then buy whatever platform

01:27:14 ◼   ► lets you play that game or games.

01:27:16 ◼   ► - But I would say like the odds of the Switch

01:27:19 ◼   ► having stuff that you find really fun are pretty high.

01:27:23 ◼   ► - But it depends.

01:27:24 ◼   ► Maybe they're the type of person

01:27:25 ◼   ► who's going to get obsessively into civilization.

01:27:28 ◼   ► The Switch is not gonna help them there, right?

01:27:30 ◼   ► All right, I don't know, civilization,

01:27:31 ◼   ► so I'm trying to think of a game like--

01:27:32 ◼   ► - Well, then you're a PC, I think, at that point.

01:27:35 ◼   ► - Right, but you don't know.

01:27:36 ◼   ► Like maybe someone who's just like,

01:27:38 ◼   ► All I do is play the sims right? There's all I do all day long is play the sims

01:27:41 ◼   ► That's the type of game I get into or like, you know or World of Warcraft or you know

01:27:45 ◼   ► An open world thing you have to you have to know

01:27:47 ◼   ► You never know if they haven't had contact with that what is going to suck them into the rabbit hole

01:27:51 ◼   ► Maybe they get sucked into no rabbit holes and they just want to casually play stuff and they just be fine with their phone

01:27:55 ◼   ► Right, so that's why it's so difficult for people who haven't been exposed because if you haven't been exposed

01:28:00 ◼   ► You don't know what if anything will grab you and you can't predict based on your past

01:28:06 ◼   ► Behavior because if you've never been exposed to World War Warcraft you have no idea whether it will consume your life or whether you will

01:28:12 ◼   ► Not care about it at all

01:28:13 ◼   ► It's this is the one moment where I kind of am sad that

01:28:18 ◼   ► Blockbuster video doesn't exist anymore right because didn't you talk about this Marco just a couple months back like renting video game systems and video

01:28:25 ◼   ► Games and whatnot and so you could like

01:28:26 ◼   ► Rent a switch and give it a try for a week or whatever a few nights just to see how it goes and then rent

01:28:32 ◼   ► An Xbox after that you know and so on it amazes me that they did that I mean I did that

01:28:36 ◼   ► I rented the systems, I was like, how did those systems survive for more than three

01:28:39 ◼   ► days? Yeah, seriously. It was a gentler time, I guess. I think I was the only person renting

01:28:43 ◼   ► the Sega Saturn, so it was getting pretty gently used. You again? Okay, you want the