Gadgetory

welcome to the 359 I'm Roger Chang I'm Johnny Salzmann 2017 was all about information overload but for media there was a silver lining it was a year where people started paying for subscriptions of services like Spotify or The Washington Post Joe you wrote about this this trend is this what's going on with this and why are people actually started pony up for things when really a lot of this stuff has been free for so long well I think that you would as you would see in any sort of underlying tectonic shift and how you approach the Internet there's a lot of factors going on with all these things one of them at least particularly for news is this thing called a Trump bump where in publication whatever could you mean publications that are either publications that are specifically criticized by President Trump as being fake news might see a spike in subscriptions or people of both are you know of any political persuasion are in this state of needing to know what the heck is going on because it's a it's an administration marked by a lot of change and a lot of kind of an unusual level of chaos and it definitely all I think dealing with information overload at this point they're just headlines that flash constantly there's a new development not just with Trump but just in general the world it it's interesting that people are now paying for folks who actually sort of cut through the noise and give you yeah what actually matters so those factors and then other factors are contributing to people feeling like it's worth my money to spend on what I could be finding for free and it's younger folks right you found that younger folks were actually it crosses it crosses all age groups but younger people are more likely if you have if you have more subscriptions it's likely that you're younger just interesting I thought they were spending all their money on it yeah Joe's exactly it kind of runs counter to what some people would think you would think that older people who have more discretionary money to like throw around maybe getting into subscriptions but it seems that younger people tend to either want to have their money go to a system they support that is you know not some sort of corrupt whatever but rather directly to a creator that they think is great or they're just more used to paying for subscriptions they're used to having an elephant Netflix subscription they're used to other kind of so that is just a huge change from when I was in college right we were both in college next up Timo was at it again bashing Verizon for its plan to offer 5g as a home broadband service this issue was kicked up with John ledger on Monday when he called up Verizon for missing its goal of deploying 5g broadband services this year that's what they actually had told me exclusively a few years ago that this was their big big goal was to get a commercial deployment out this year didn't happen they're shooting now for the second half of next year in Sacramento is the first market it's just again it's just more drama a lot of it is you know obviously five to serve t-mobile calling attention to itself and just sort of make making a bigger deal than it is but it's it's kind of interesting because it's they have these very conflicting views of what 5g looks like at least early on right like t-mobile sort of sees it as a traditional cell network walk around you get cool 5g service verizon thinks that it can get to replace your home broadband with 5g and it thinks it could do it faster than anybody else can get 5g out there do you think the hue and cry over these timelines do you think that makes a difference with people who they choose to subscribe our choose to no I mean okay I think it's it gives t-mobile convenient punching bag but I think the supers don't really care cuz 5g so it's so out there such an out-there concept that people I think I don't think people are like disappointed that Verizon somehow missed their target because it was it was ever it was always gonna be some sort of limited deployment anyways so lastly we wanted to touch upon center now Franken confirming that he would indeed resign in the next few weeks following allegations of inappropriate touching you know the reason why we covered it was Franken was a huge proponent of net neutrality one of the most high-profile figures in the issue and so you know for in terms of like the net neutrality cause it is a bit of a blow so alright those stories and more chickens I seen it on Roger Chang I'm Jenny Sussman thanks for the sing all right thanks everybody that's a conclusion of the recording of the audio portion of the podcast which you can subscribe to later and for free in the Mauritian scription in the meantime I'm gonna try to not screw up anything else and go into the chat they got some good questions and comments man I tell you it's like we've talked about this before when I have a bad day I have a bad I wanted to bring something up with you Roger off the not necessarily for the audio portion but after you wrote your story about this morning non ledger tweeted your story oh dude even though your story is basically about his tweet it's like an echo chamber oh yeah yeah so you wrote a story about John later suite which he retweeted and wasn't like punched the bag that is Verizon a little bit more yeah it was just like he was hanging up the pinata just more extra whacking he actually retweeted my original story a few days ago I didn't even yeah I didn't realize it till after that but you were truly the story that I wrote I think it was like in 20 yeah way back machine hop in there hold up this little story yeah and I remember like it was a big deal when Verizon came out two years ago I was like we're gonna do this this thing and there was a lot of there was a bit of criticism from rivals that basically said you know you basically just sort of obscuring the issue that you're losing customers and you owe on top of five G because five g's like the brand spanking new thing and its new and shiny you know to some extent some of that this is kind of true like Verizon did start losing customers shortly after that but I mean the five the money and the investment they're putting into 5g is real and I and I know that like the technology is really finicky and hard to play with so I don't know I I don't necessarily give Verizon too much fluff like missing there I get because it's I mean it's like a theoretical thing and customers weren't really banking on you know cutting their cable line and we're facing with the Verizon 5g like that just wasn't gonna happen anytime soon yeah but yeah I know I saw you did between you know a lot less uh he's tweeting me a lot less recently what's happening to the bromance is gone never there no Ryan do every questions why moving on I'd like to jump in to discuss about the the subscription packages yeah wholly topic I myself I've always said you know give me a reason give me give me an excuse to pay for this because what bothers me the most and what we potentially might see with the loss of net neutrality has so many things stuck behind so many complicated paywalls and so Alec Hart and while a la carte was a great idea on paper a few years ago I was dreaming like oh I can just cherry-pick exactly what I want the only channels you want and then they turn it up and then I but then they start grouping them in weird ways right and now I gotta be subscribed to like 18 different things to finish one single series like that's what I'm waiting for you if you when you read comics for example you know when DC does a big event kind of thing you got to buy Batman 162 and then you got to buy Action Comics yeah story continues in the Specter 47 do that like every year and they do lots of that and that's what I'm afraid is gonna start happening with streaming media to an extent I mean I don't I mean I don't think neither Jali's gonna be the cause of that no but if I mean no I've seen a lot on it I said comments about like fears of bundling different services and I don't think that's gonna happen especially like like like weird groupings of like you have to your social media package or your like video package I don't think that's really gonna happen yeah seems kind of unfeasible but this is my deepest darkest fears no no but I I've always said you know give me an excuse to pay for this and sometimes when like an HBO show is stuck behind a very specific it's easy to find alternative ways to get ahold of that content if you would stop being a butt-head and just make it more globally available I don't want to have to pay a cable subscription to get access to the on-demand I'll pay you a portion of that just to have the on-demand but I don't have cable so I can't get a lot of things and then I know that's that's the whole point of supply and demand that's commerce for you right but I mean I have better distribution methods now which is that I would shifting like you don't necessarily need a cable TV subscription now to get a lot of content like it's but you still do you do for a lot of it well I mean a lot of it but the same lifetime media medical odeon really hmm yeah it's it's we're still not at this point yet where every channel has its own streaming option like HBO now but there are options like sling TV and yeah that offers some of these bundles maybe not every channel it's of course it's always gonna be changing especially right now but the idea that's like okay so if I really want to watch this show I have to pay a hundred and sixty dollars a month to subscribe to Time Warner Cable broadcast and then apply to get in to the on-demand whatever the service streaming thing after the fact but I still have to pay for a bunch of everybody else's crap that I hate just to get this is one thing screw you screw you yeah I mean there's a reason why this story that we wrote doesn't really get into television streaming and that's because it doesn't really fit into the same trend because it's locked up in this legacy model where everything's bundled together and you have a couple gigantic distributors and that's the only way you can get it and that's been a really lucrative way to make money for programmers and for distributors for a long time and you know as the Internet has been able to disaggregate all kinds of different media it's also disaggregating channels with things like like the Disney streaming service to be forthcoming and HBO now and when you can get whatever channel that you want a la carte totally out of card so let going back to that my original point about how comic books kind of give you all over the place yeah yeah Tami's pointing out that some TV shows already do that if you look at the like the DC TV universe you have the big crossover episodes yeah yeah now picture this now that Disney is acquiring Fox Entertainment Tonight oh well that's yeah that's allegedly yeah but I'm just you know I'm putting a perfect storm on the table here so we've got a Netflix original show that is a Marvel based show let's say it's dead yeah and then Disney buys these properties and then launches their own service whereas the original ones stay on Netflix if that linear story arc continues you now have to subscribe to Netflix and Disney necessarily he's not making any more after like they're not gonna make any more with Netflix like those are never gonna they're not gonna be leaving Netflix and then right but that's wouldn't it be I honestly in this situation I think it'd be smarter if they did move them all into the same platform quits now I have to pay to subscriptions to have all of these available to me right I'm a rewatch er habitual yeah got you there yeah but I don't know I mean you're you could also say that you're making the case for like a Big Brother mega Media Corporation where it's all all the nerd stuff is collected into one place and that means yeah that's what it is if there's need yeah it's kind of that fit now because he's not buying Netflix though that's yet oh yeah yeah yeah yeah Disney could afford Netflix yeah Disney can afford a lot of stuff all right doesn't it good by me well yeah you're not yeah not that much cheaper though you're very valuable guy all right so let's take some questions sure enjoy is the trend of subscriptions and effect of the surge of cloud storage and media in a vast quantity of cloud storage of media I'm saying the idea that it's more like it's more available online being then let's say in the last 10 years you've just seen a dump mega dump of stuff just starting to exist on Lobby yeah I think the general trend of like having stuff be available for streaming I mean yes makes I think it makes it more attractive yeah I don't I'm not sure I have a good answer for that yeah I don't I don't see a real correlation between the two but I just haven't really thought yeah I think it was idea well the more basic idea that if it's because the stuff is all online it can be moved around easier and thus you could have these kinds of business models I guess that's but that's a fairly basic concept of me yeah I think I see where he's getting out with this though it's yeah more just about the sheer fact of the wealth of the information rather than the organization or any kind of strategy to it there's a mass pile of crap and you're sifting through crap I think most of the time maybe and having a service involved to do this event for you curation yeah and I mean I think about the the generation right now that's growing up with YouTube as like a primary media provider right and the noise that's here on YouTube like really bad noise this show excluded of course but I mean that's they're raised in this limelight where they're not limelight that's the wrong term within this concept where you know screw those guys on the big screen TV I like this kid he gets me and it's just another kid you know the the PewDiePie's of the world that's what a lot of kids are growing up admiring now it's like they did it themselves I want to do it myself and then they get motivated themselves to be creative as well and I don't know that's probably a double-edged sword in there somewhere but I feel like we're getting away from the premise of the question maybe we are sorry it's a lot the thing about this is an interesting topic to me personally just because yeah where we work yeah and what we do I mean it's definitely interesting from the new side like seeing like the Washington Post and The New York Times as well yeah like actually thriving largely because of this Trump bump but I mean these are traditional services weren't really especially when I was you know the last whatever decade we weren't really into the idea of paying for news right because there's supposed to be free online everything's free but now people are actually paying for it right I know we worked we both work for The Wall Street Journal I was one of the few publications back in the day they had a paywall but it's interesting to see that more of these publications are putting up a walls and they're actually succeeding like they're actually getting people to pay mm-hmm when if there is some kind of like mental justification for customers to say well if I pay for it it must be better quality as opposed to dude like yeah I would say there's probably some sort of level of like justification there right yeah yeah if you're if you're charging for it it's gotta be worth whatever paying like it's one of the one of the factors that weighs in when you're trying to filter out the fake news and they always say you know is it a trusted brand is HTTP that kind of thing right but like did you have to throw a buck at it probably better off yeah yeah I mean that's the argument from a tech side that Apple makes you know for his product its products versus Google right like Google photos is free well yeah because they've got all your information like you have to pay for our service book we're not you know you're not the cut like your information isn't the product you're you know our part of the product so it's kind of the same principle you're paying for this and that's thus you have you should have some sort of level security for your information we are getting down a meta rathole right now let's take a couple more questions Josh Buddha at what point does cord cutting cost more than cable by having to subscribe to Netflix HBO Amazon Prime oh yeah I'm getting close to that myself well can be right I mean that's the thing about the cable bundle is like people love to complain about your cable providing your satellite provider but ultimately you get to pay a lot less for a lot considering how much content you get with a cable system do you get you have to pay a lot but you get tons and you know when you have to break it down into those little little itty-bitty pieces you realize that it adds up really quickly and it really depends on how much they charge you for just like if you're just getting internet access yeah good that's the vary greatly yeah is getting your they know like the phone I mean at this point phone service is essentially free they practically pay you yeah but that internet especially if you want to get higher speeds it's yeah it gets pretty pricey yeah all right one last question before we call today matthew dacher says who will replace franklin now I don't think we need to go into who was actually going to take up his seat in the house yeah but Senate sorry Senate but I think I want to reform that question and - I'm sorry if I'm mixing up your words here but who's going to be replacing Franken as far as the proverbial poster child for net neutrality representation that is a fantastic question I would say like brian schatz for a senator from Hawaii has been really vocal about trying to start net neutrality as a movement a lot of there a number of Democrats really want to push the idea of legislation control mentality or basically introduce more modern regulations but he became a mascot of sorts being a guy who came from television originally yeah yeah I mean it was easy for him to become yeah this is lightning rod for it because he was he's recognizable exactly a celebrity before I don't know why because you know in a different way there's no way he was gonna more politically fueled seat I think is a better question so more of tons of celebrities that bark about it yeah yeah somebody who actually can sign papers right yeah the issue is that while there are plenty of Democrats who want to introduce legislation legislation they're not in the majority and so they don't really have control of the Senate or Congress and also they really don't have any options at this point but to his to dachas question I believe the governor of Minnesota is going to appoint someone to replace Franklin at least until I guess special elections or something I don't really know how to react but I was told that whoever because the governor is also a Democrat like whoever gets remember replaces him will most likely also be an energy alley supporter likely I mean that's just statistically speaking but will they be the same kind of iconic loud speaker will they probably not well can they get to that place right on their own without that vehicle personally I like as a journalist like I disappointed that enough said discipline his behavior but I'm disappointed that he's leaving because in terms of he was on the Intelligence Committee he talked when he grilled Facebook and Google and Twitter overall that Russian fluent stuff he was one of the most animated most liked quote worthy guys out there like he was really laying into those companies not every senator was like that and so it's it's kind of a blow for a lot of issues because he seemed very knowledgeable about a lot of the tech and media issues stuff that we care about yeah he was a good resource for you guys to just write about yeah so you're nagging have to go digging and you know he's you know he's got a showmanship he's he's he knows how to work his words yeah that's true unfortunately he didn't know how to control his hands yeah yeah but I'm alright I think I terrible note sorry come on oh it's true that was solid yes good I'll file it for later all right well this is the last show of the year for me that's true oh god I'm like yeah my circle this is relatively close to the evacuation zone not close enough that needs to be evacuated yet but we'll see well see well anyways have a good trip it's been a good 2017 we've had fantastic shows with you yeah no no I'm looking forward to it and we will have shows next week as well as special pre-tape segments during the last two weeks of the year yes since we will have a hiatus coming up due to the holidays and in NCS and then we'll see you back live from CES we're still not sure how that's gonna flesh out when the show is gonna happen in the days block but scene that's gonna be live all day every day at CES so yeah all you got to do is kind of peek at YouTube and you're good to go yeah well follow obviously follow us on Twitter we'll give you updates on one the show we'll be back what time mm-hmm is it's gonna get a little weird the next couple of weeks between CES the Detroit Auto Show right yeah we'll be down during a decent block in January as well but things will be pretty much back to normal by late January early February theoretically we'll see yeah we'll see don't worry we're not actually going anywhere we just got to do the shuffle right all right if you liked anything you saw or heard here check us out on CNET my podcast is also available in iTunes tune in stitcher feedburner and google play music and you can check us out on the amazon echo alright everybody have a fantastic weekend some of us will be back on Monday you