Speaker 1: Welcome to Tech Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host,
Speaker 1: Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with I Heart Radio
Speaker 1: and how the tech are Yet it's time for the
Speaker 1: tech news for Thursday, April twenty first, two thousand, twenty two. Uh,
Speaker 1: this is gonna be like a down with Capitalism episode.
Speaker 1: And I realized that as an employee of a massive
Speaker 1: company that that, you know, there's some baggage there. But yeah,
Speaker 1: let's let's jump into it because I'm gonna be getting
Speaker 1: on a soapbox. Um, So for those of y'all who
Speaker 1: hate it when I do that, here's your preemptive warning.
Speaker 1: But first, let's talk about Netflix because one of the
Speaker 1: big stories yesterday in the tech space was about how
Speaker 1: Netflix had its company's quarterly earning report, and Netflix revealed
Speaker 1: that it had experienced a net loss of around two
Speaker 1: hundred thousand subscribers worldwide. So this is after taking into
Speaker 1: account all the new subscribers that had joined, there were
Speaker 1: still a net loss of two hundred thousand. Now, this
Speaker 1: was the first quarter where Netflix had ever reported a
Speaker 1: drop in subscribers over the last ten years, and boy,
Speaker 1: howdy did the bottom drop out? Like? It was actually
Speaker 1: kind of shocking to see the reaction to this news.
Speaker 1: Shares of Netflix closed at more than thirty down from
Speaker 1: what it had been trading at. And netflix Is stock
Speaker 1: had already taken a bit of a beating this year,
Speaker 1: you know, before yesterday, the drop in share price meant
Speaker 1: the company lost fifty billion dollars off its market cap.
Speaker 1: Market Cap is something you can figure out by multiplying
Speaker 1: the number of existing shares by the going market price
Speaker 1: for those shares. You multiply those two numbers together, you
Speaker 1: get the market up. And I've got a lot to
Speaker 1: say about that, but first let's just get to why
Speaker 1: Netflix saw numbers go down. The company said it was
Speaker 1: due to a combination of factors. One is that as
Speaker 1: regions have lifted mandates and more people have become vaccinated,
Speaker 1: a lot of folks are getting out of the house,
Speaker 1: and as such, they are canceling service subscriptions because you know,
Speaker 1: they were signing up for these things when they were
Speaker 1: stuck at home and didn't have anything else to do. Now,
Speaker 1: presumably another factor that contributes to this issue is inflation.
Speaker 1: Inflation has been a huge problem, particularly here in the
Speaker 1: United States, and thus people have had to kind of
Speaker 1: tighten their budgets across their households, right, They couldn't spend
Speaker 1: as much money like that. When your basic necessities start
Speaker 1: costing more, you've got to make these kind of determinations.
Speaker 1: And so a lot of folks were looking at entertainment
Speaker 1: as something where they could cut some corners. It doesn't
Speaker 1: help that Netflix has increased subscription fees a couple of
Speaker 1: times in the not too distant past. In October twenty twenty,
Speaker 1: the price of premium Netflix membership went up to seventeen
Speaker 1: dollars nine cents per month. Then last year it went
Speaker 1: up again to nineteen dollars and nine cents per month.
Speaker 1: So you know, it's increased a couple of times in
Speaker 1: recent memory, and that's another big issue. But another really
Speaker 1: big factor is obviously competition. You know, Netflix used to
Speaker 1: only have to really grapple with Hulu and Amazon Prime
Speaker 1: when it came to streaming video, but these days you've
Speaker 1: also got Paramount Plus, You've got Disney Plus, you've got
Speaker 1: Hbo Max, you've got Apple and lots more. So if
Speaker 1: the average household is like mine, folks end up making
Speaker 1: decisions on which services they want and which ones they're
Speaker 1: willing to skip out on. And trust me, I've got
Speaker 1: plenty of fomo like I, I I don't subscribe to Apple
Speaker 1: and I feel like I need to so I can
Speaker 1: watch Severance and Ted Lasso. I just haven't done it yet. Um,
Speaker 1: and I used to have Hulu and I cut that.
Speaker 1: So lots of households have to make these determinations. And
Speaker 1: if they say, you know, we haven't watched anything on
Speaker 1: Netflix in like six months, clearly they're gonna cut that.
Speaker 1: If they're looking at you know, we still want to keep,
Speaker 1: say Disney Plus or whatever. Now, Netflix has long leaned
Speaker 1: on its original programming to set it apart, particularly as
Speaker 1: various studios have chosen to move their own properties onto
Speaker 1: their own streaming services. So you've had companies say like, well,
Speaker 1: why would we give Netflix the power of having our
Speaker 1: content when we can have our own streaming service and
Speaker 1: just hosted there. We've seen that a lot, and uh,
Speaker 1: you know, making original contents really expensive. In fact, Netflix
Speaker 1: was famously spending billions of dollars making their original series
Speaker 1: and shows and films and such. So that's also an issue.
Speaker 1: And now we also have other entities like Apple that
Speaker 1: are producing award winning cont hint, So the competition is
Speaker 1: really serious in that case. Now, add to all of
Speaker 1: that the fact that Netflix was hitting a saturation point
Speaker 1: in some regions like the United States, it really meant
Speaker 1: that expansion within those regions would become unrealistic. You know,
Speaker 1: it's hard to convince more people to buy into it
Speaker 1: when you've pretty much hit everybody who is interested. There's
Speaker 1: also the fact that some households share login credentials with
Speaker 1: friends and family outside of that household, and Netflix estimates
Speaker 1: there's some one hundred million of those out there, So
Speaker 1: that's a hundred million potential accounts that Netflix could could
Speaker 1: get signed up on the service that instead are just
Speaker 1: piggybacking on existing accounts. So what exactly is Netflix planning
Speaker 1: to do about all this? Well, one thing they're looking
Speaker 1: to do is to roll out a lower cost, adds
Speaker 1: supported tier of service to attract new subscribers, similar to
Speaker 1: how services like Hulu use you know, tears that have
Speaker 1: add support to them. Another potential avenue they're looking at
Speaker 1: is to crack down on the account sharing issue. Now,
Speaker 1: Netflix has already rolled out a pilot program in some
Speaker 1: countries in Central and South America that give subscribers an
Speaker 1: option to sign up for a tier that has up
Speaker 1: to two additional profiles for folks who do not live
Speaker 1: within the household itself. So in other words, you spend
Speaker 1: a little bit more money, but you have these authorized
Speaker 1: tiers that you can hand out to people. Uh, you know,
Speaker 1: and and it's limited to like two. Uh, it's cheaper
Speaker 1: than if everyone got their own subscription, but it still
Speaker 1: means that Netflix gets some money. And meanwhile, those additional
Speaker 1: people can still get access to Netflix, which is better
Speaker 1: than having it cracked down to the point where anyone
Speaker 1: outside of a specific say I P address is excluded
Speaker 1: from being able to use that account. Obviously, it gets
Speaker 1: of issues there too, like if you travel a lot
Speaker 1: and you'd like to use Netflix to keep up with stuff,
Speaker 1: then you want to make sure that you're not going
Speaker 1: to run into an issue where Netflix says, hey, I
Speaker 1: noticed that. You know, there's a lot of log insto
Speaker 1: your account, but they're not all from the same place,
Speaker 1: and you know, then the company cracks down and you
Speaker 1: you want to work around that too. So these could
Speaker 1: be handy solutions, but they're ones that are going to
Speaker 1: take some time. In fact, Netflix says these measures might
Speaker 1: take more than a year in order to have a
Speaker 1: big impact on the business, and that has a lot
Speaker 1: of investors scrambling. And here's where I'm going to have
Speaker 1: a bit of an antique capitalist rant. Um So, I've
Speaker 1: complained many times about how modern capitalism holds shareholder return
Speaker 1: and by extension, company growth over all other metrics. This
Speaker 1: is something that really got its its start in the
Speaker 1: early eighties. It wasn't always this way, a uh, And
Speaker 1: in fact, some of the people who are most responsible
Speaker 1: for a renewed focus on shareholder value would later go
Speaker 1: on to say it's a mistake two hold shareholder value
Speaker 1: above everything else. Doesn't stop companies from doing it though.
Speaker 1: Um So, it's not. It's not enough to do a
Speaker 1: good job if you're a company. In fact, doing a
Speaker 1: good job at whatever you do ultimately isn't that important
Speaker 1: at all. What is important is growth, because growth equals
Speaker 1: increased value. Increased value means higher share prices of your stock,
Speaker 1: and that means that the stakeholders, your shareholders are happy
Speaker 1: because they're seeing a return on their investment. And since
Speaker 1: we're usually talking about companies that report quarterly results, those
Speaker 1: important numbers hit every three months, so they want to
Speaker 1: you know, shareholders want to see those numbers going up
Speaker 1: every report. So ideally you show growth across every three
Speaker 1: month period, and that's the measure of success for a company.
Speaker 1: If the company happens to stay true to its organizational
Speaker 1: mission and if it happens to perform at the top
Speaker 1: of its game, you know, that's nice too, it's just
Speaker 1: not required. And so for a company like Netflix when
Speaker 1: it has a setback, you end up seeing a lot
Speaker 1: of people jumping ship. And that's because those people they're
Speaker 1: they're focuses on quarter over a quarter gains. If those
Speaker 1: numbers go the wrong way, people start to bail. Now,
Speaker 1: on top of that, this focus on short term gains
Speaker 1: makes it very challenging for companies to make good plans
Speaker 1: for the long term. It's not impossible. There are companies
Speaker 1: that do it, but it is much harder because in
Speaker 1: the meantime, you really have to keep the shareholders happy
Speaker 1: on that quarter by quarter basis. If the shareholders aren't happy,
Speaker 1: they bounce, and now it becomes way harder for you
Speaker 1: to achieve those long term goals because if those stock
Speaker 1: prices start going down because people have lost confidence, you're
Speaker 1: not gonna have of the financial ability to execute the
Speaker 1: long term plans you have in mind. And if enough
Speaker 1: folks bounce, it can actually send a company into a
Speaker 1: spiral that's really hard to pull out of. And when
Speaker 1: we pull ourselves away from the stock market side of
Speaker 1: business and we just look at how this affects the
Speaker 1: companies and their customers, we just see tons of problems.
Speaker 1: Then there's also the issue that there's a limit to growth.
Speaker 1: It's very hard to grow once you hit saturation points,
Speaker 1: and we see this in all sorts of companies. Netflix
Speaker 1: hit in the United States because pretty much everyone who
Speaker 1: wanted Netflix and who could afford it subscribed, so there
Speaker 1: were no more worlds to conquer. Alexander wept. And we've
Speaker 1: also seen it in other companies like you know Facebook
Speaker 1: meta slash Facebook, but specifically Facebook, because Facebook expanded to
Speaker 1: a truly gargantuan user base, but now it's seeing those
Speaker 1: numbers on the decline. It's not able to attract new users,
Speaker 1: and a lot of older users have either slipped off
Speaker 1: the system or otherwise you know, are unable to be users,
Speaker 1: like maybe they've passed away or something. So we see
Speaker 1: this in other companies like Facebook or you know Meta,
Speaker 1: but specifically the Facebook platform. You know, Facebook expanded to
Speaker 1: a truly gargantuan user base, but now the company is
Speaker 1: seeing numbers on the decline for the Facebook platform. It's
Speaker 1: having trouble attracting younger users, and meanwhile older users are
Speaker 1: kind of slipping off the platform. So it hit a
Speaker 1: saturation point and it's having a real hard time growing.
Speaker 1: And that because that's such an important metric in a
Speaker 1: company's uh, you know health, at least according to shareholders,
Speaker 1: it's really put Meta in kind of a rough spot.
Speaker 1: We also have seen this with cable networks where a
Speaker 1: cable network. Letlet's say it's a company that has several channels.
Speaker 1: You know, once they get on a certain number of services,
Speaker 1: they really can't expand anymore. You're essentially in as many
Speaker 1: households as you possibly can be within that region. So
Speaker 1: the only way to grow is to expand to other regions,
Speaker 1: to focus on international growth. And you know, I saw
Speaker 1: that when when I worked for How Stuff Works, and
Speaker 1: How Stuff Works was part of Discovery Communications. That was
Speaker 1: a big part of discoveries strategy. Now we see discovery
Speaker 1: strategy also being on expanding through online services, you know,
Speaker 1: with the merger with the former Warner Media. So eventually
Speaker 1: you do hit a cap and you just stop growing.
Speaker 1: You just can't grow any bigger. It is unsustainable to
Speaker 1: continue to grow, and then what happens, you know, it's
Speaker 1: it's very hard for me not to look at this
Speaker 1: entire thing as a very long term pump and dump scheme,
Speaker 1: the idea that you're just pumping up a company up
Speaker 1: so they can grow bigger and bigger until it just
Speaker 1: can't grow anymore, and then you get the heck out
Speaker 1: and in the meantime, you just, you know, this company
Speaker 1: that might have been doing something really good and important
Speaker 1: is suddenly at in a trouble spot because of that.
Speaker 1: Um anyway, I'm done ranting about modern capitalism for now, anyway,
Speaker 1: And obviously this is an oversimplification of the issue. There
Speaker 1: are lots of companies out there that do not fall
Speaker 1: into this trap. It's just this is a trap I
Speaker 1: see way too many companies fall into. And in many
Speaker 1: cases they are companies that I actually really kind of like,
Speaker 1: or at least I like the services or products that
Speaker 1: they produce. So it's frustrating as a consumer to see
Speaker 1: that the focus goes towards the shareholders. Uh. And it
Speaker 1: would require a seismic shift in business philosophy for this
Speaker 1: to change, so I don't expect it to happen anytime soon.
Speaker 1: All Right, when we come back, we'll be talking about
Speaker 1: a lot of other tech news UH and some business stuff,
Speaker 1: because the two are very tightly intertwined. But first, let's
Speaker 1: take some time for our own business and listen to
Speaker 1: a couple of messages from sponsors. Okay, we're back. How
Speaker 1: about we talk about some big wins for companies that
Speaker 1: are connected to Elon Musk. You know, I make no
Speaker 1: secret that I'm not a big Musk fan, but there's
Speaker 1: no denying that a couple of his companies have really
Speaker 1: performed incredibly well recently. First up as Tesla, which reported
Speaker 1: an eighteen point seven billion dollars in revenue for the
Speaker 1: first quarter of twenty two, and three point three billion
Speaker 1: dollars of that was profit. That is incredible. Now, part
Speaker 1: of the revenue came from Tesla's practice of cell emissions
Speaker 1: credits to other automakers. UH. See. Certain governments like the
Speaker 1: EU and the United States require automakers to manufacture a
Speaker 1: certain percentage of clean vehicles in all the cars that
Speaker 1: they manufacture. Not every automaker actually manages to hit those regulations,
Speaker 1: so to balance it out, these automakers are allowed to
Speaker 1: buy emissions credits from other companies that do hit those requirements.
Speaker 1: So the idea here is that the automakers have an
Speaker 1: incentive to develop and produce cleaner technology because if they don't,
Speaker 1: they have to pay money in order to buy credits
Speaker 1: to offset their dirty, dirty cars. And so Tesla is
Speaker 1: allowed to sell emissions credits to these automakers because Tesla
Speaker 1: makes electric vehicles, their vehicles don't have emissions anyway. Tesla
Speaker 1: sold nearly six hundred eighty million dollars worth of emissions
Speaker 1: credits in the first quarter of twenty twenty two. That's
Speaker 1: more than twice what Tesla sold during the fourth quarter
Speaker 1: of one, so you know a good amount of money
Speaker 1: is coming in from these emissions credits sales. Obviously not
Speaker 1: a significant amount when you look at eighteen point seven
Speaker 1: billion dollars of revenue, but in years past it was
Speaker 1: those emissions credits that really helped Tesla when it was
Speaker 1: making these earnings calls, because they weren't making as much
Speaker 1: money off actual vehicle sales, but that is a different
Speaker 1: story right now anyway, um, anyway, the company has a
Speaker 1: lot of other battles to fight, including navigating the ongoing
Speaker 1: supply chain challenges, but so far Tesla has performed better
Speaker 1: in that regard than a lot of other companies have.
Speaker 1: So Tesla has shown a lot more flexibility than a
Speaker 1: lot of other other automakers have managed, and thus has
Speaker 1: really flourished quite a bit in the first quarter of
Speaker 1: twenty two. One other thing that must talked about during
Speaker 1: that earnings call was that Tesla is working on creating
Speaker 1: a robo taxi vehicle that won't have pedals or a
Speaker 1: steering wheel, and that the company is targeting a twenty
Speaker 1: four date for rollout. Now, I think that is incredibly ambitious.
Speaker 1: We all know that the Tesla full self driving mode
Speaker 1: isn't actually a full self driving mode, and that our
Speaker 1: current level of autonomous car technology has is probably somewhere
Speaker 1: around level three. There are five levels total, or six
Speaker 1: if you count zero, which is no autonomous system at all,
Speaker 1: uh and level three is conditional automation. That means that
Speaker 1: current autonomous vehicles really still need human oversight. They're only
Speaker 1: capable of autonomous operation in specific situations, such as within
Speaker 1: a narrowly defined region of operation, like you know, within
Speaker 1: these you know, twelve blocks or something like that, or
Speaker 1: under specific circumstances, like specific weather conditions like it has
Speaker 1: to be bright and sunny or it can't be you know, raining,
Speaker 1: or has to be a specific time of day, like
Speaker 1: it can't be after dusk. These are the sort of
Speaker 1: conditions that most autonomous cars have to operate under. It's
Speaker 1: some form of restrictive automation. For a driverless ROBOTAXI that
Speaker 1: has no means of human override to be a possibility,
Speaker 1: we would need to achieve level five autonomy, because even
Speaker 1: level four autonomy typically includes the option for humans to
Speaker 1: override the system and take control. Obviously, that would be
Speaker 1: impossible if there are no controls to take. Of course,
Speaker 1: the fact that this is a goal doesn't mean that
Speaker 1: Tesla will actually hit it, nor does it mean that
Speaker 1: whatever Tesla does produce, let's say it does produce a
Speaker 1: vehicle with no you know, steering wheel, no pedals, doesn't
Speaker 1: necessarily mean that that vehicle will actually qualify as a
Speaker 1: true level five autonomous vehicle. So in that second possibility,
Speaker 1: I would really caution anyone against getting into such a
Speaker 1: vehicle because it could potentially be really dangerous. We've already
Speaker 1: seen several instances in which driver assist features and Tesla
Speaker 1: vehicles have contributed to fatal accidents. Now, in several of
Speaker 1: those cases, you could argue that that was due to
Speaker 1: human driver's disregarding safety rules. But still, this is a
Speaker 1: pretty big swing that Tesla is taking. And it's been
Speaker 1: a while since I talked about the Boring Company. That
Speaker 1: is Elon Musk's business that's all about digging massive tunnels
Speaker 1: for the purposes of high speed transportation, as well as
Speaker 1: some other stuff, but the high speed transportation is typically
Speaker 1: what we really focus on. The Boring Company held a
Speaker 1: round of funding that brought in six seventy five million
Speaker 1: dollars and investments which brought the company's value up to
Speaker 1: five point six seven five billion dollars. This is another
Speaker 1: company with which I have some concerns, mainly because the
Speaker 1: goals and claims of the company seemed to be largely
Speaker 1: unsubstantiated by reality. However, let's talk about what the company's
Speaker 1: mission is before I get all skeptical. So, for the
Speaker 1: transportation side of the Boring company's business. The goal is
Speaker 1: to dig out tunnel networks that will allow for the
Speaker 1: construction of transportation infrastructure. That infrastructure will ideally create an
Speaker 1: alternative to street level traffic and help reduce or potentially
Speaker 1: even eliminate congestion, making it easier for you to get
Speaker 1: to your destination and create a more pleasant experience for
Speaker 1: you know, the surface dwellers. And when coupled with loop,
Speaker 1: which is the transportation infrastructure part, the ideas that passengers
Speaker 1: will zip around these tunnels and potentially up to a
Speaker 1: hundred fifty miles per hour. Uh now, this in itself
Speaker 1: was a step down from the original concept of the
Speaker 1: hyper loop, which was an enclosed train system that would
Speaker 1: pump out most of the air from the tunnels in
Speaker 1: order to reduce air resistance and be able to travel
Speaker 1: at very high speeds. The current loop proposal involves writing
Speaker 1: in Tesla vehicles through tunnels. Uh now. Standard Tesla can
Speaker 1: hold five people, although the versions that we've seen have
Speaker 1: maxed out at three passengers plus a human driver. And obviously,
Speaker 1: if you wanted to go all the way to five
Speaker 1: people where you have one human driver and four passengers,
Speaker 1: you have to have folks who don't mind being super
Speaker 1: cozy in the back seat. Also, so far, people have
Speaker 1: only been in vehicles that have reached a maximum of
Speaker 1: fifty miles per hour. And last I checked the LVCC
Speaker 1: loop that is in the Las Vegas Convention Center loop,
Speaker 1: where there's kind of a pilot program of this that
Speaker 1: one is restricted to a maximum of thirty five miles
Speaker 1: per hour. This has led a lot of critics to
Speaker 1: suggest that all Elon Musk is really doing is just
Speaker 1: adding more lanes of roads. It's just that these are
Speaker 1: lanes that are underground um and thus isn't really that revolutionary,
Speaker 1: nor is it expected to make that big of an
Speaker 1: impact on issues like traffic congestion. Now, arguably we won't
Speaker 1: know for sure until something more robust than the Las
Speaker 1: Vegas Convention Center system is in place in order for
Speaker 1: us to evaluate it. My guess is that we aren't
Speaker 1: going to see a massive improvement using this kind of system,
Speaker 1: and that maybe it would have been a better idea
Speaker 1: to use some more tried and true measure like building
Speaker 1: out a train system instead, which has a higher capacity
Speaker 1: and has a long history of being proven to work.
Speaker 1: But we're gonna have to wait and see. I would
Speaker 1: love to be proven wrong about this. I would love
Speaker 1: to see that this is really an effective means of
Speaker 1: getting people around using electric vehicles. I think that would
Speaker 1: be amazing for Las Vegas and for other cities that
Speaker 1: follow suit. Now, getting back to self driving cars for
Speaker 1: a second. Uh. In fact, part of the plan for
Speaker 1: the loop is to use self driving Tesla vehicles in
Speaker 1: the future. It's just that's not how it's working right now.
Speaker 1: But in the UK, the Department for Transport has determined
Speaker 1: that in the event of an autonomous car getting into
Speaker 1: an accident, the motorists inside the car will not be
Speaker 1: held liable for claims. Instead, the insurance company representing the
Speaker 1: motorists or that vehicle will be held liable. Moreover, the
Speaker 1: Department says that writers will be allowed to watch videos.
Speaker 1: They can watch TV on built in screens and self
Speaker 1: driving cars and there won't be any problem with that. However,
Speaker 1: they will still be against the law to use a
Speaker 1: mobile phone. And Okay, I'm not really sure why one
Speaker 1: activity is okay and the other one isn't. Also, I
Speaker 1: think it's gonna be a while before we have vehicles
Speaker 1: that are really dependable enough where this sort of measure
Speaker 1: will even be relevant. However, assuming we do get to
Speaker 1: that level of reliable autonomy, the benefits would be tremendous,
Speaker 1: from relieving traffic congestion to reducing the number of accidents
Speaker 1: and thus injuries and fatality. So I'm really hoping that
Speaker 1: we hit it UH soon. I remain a little cautious
Speaker 1: about it because it's just taking a lot more time
Speaker 1: because as we've as we've discovered the challenges are more
Speaker 1: subtle and varied than what a lot of people previously,
Speaker 1: including myself, previously considered. UH. I was really gung home
Speaker 1: on driverless cars for a really long time, and I
Speaker 1: still am for the concept. I'm just a little more
Speaker 1: cautious about the actual capabilities. I mentioned on Tuesday's episode
Speaker 1: that employees at the flagship Apple store in New York
Speaker 1: City are in the process of organizing a union, and
Speaker 1: it turns out that employees at an Apple store in
Speaker 1: my home city of Atlanta have beat him to the punch. Uh.
Speaker 1: The Atlanta employees filed a petition yesterday to hold a
Speaker 1: union election. So this means that the Atlanta employees already
Speaker 1: secured enough employee support to merit a vote on the subject,
Speaker 1: and should this upcoming vote pass, then these employees will
Speaker 1: be the first Apple Store workers to union eyes. Of course,
Speaker 1: there will be more steps to take after even a
Speaker 1: successful vote, including seeing if Apple will recognize the union.
Speaker 1: Should the majority of store employees vote in favor of
Speaker 1: unionizing UM. If Apple refuses to recognize the union, then
Speaker 1: the National Labor Relations Board has to get involved and
Speaker 1: things will go from there. But we'll have to wait
Speaker 1: and see because the vote hasn't even been held yet. Now.
Speaker 1: At the same time, some former Nintendo employees have filed
Speaker 1: a labor complaint against Nintendo, alleging that the company terminated
Speaker 1: their employment after they attempted to organize their coworkers. Furthermore,
Speaker 1: they claimed that Nintendo either used surveillance or implied that
Speaker 1: they were using surveillance to spy on employee union activities.
Speaker 1: Now the next step is that, again the US National
Speaker 1: Labor Relations Board or n LRB will have to investigate
Speaker 1: these claims to determine if Nintendo actually did engage in
Speaker 1: illegal labor violations. So it remains to be seen, but
Speaker 1: another example, at least allegedly of a company cracking down
Speaker 1: on employees attempts to organize the union busting activities are
Speaker 1: something we're hearing more and more of. But then we're
Speaker 1: also hearing more and more about workers trying to organize,
Speaker 1: so the labor revolution continues. I'm not the only person
Speaker 1: screaming at capitalism. In other news, over in the European Union,
Speaker 1: representatives have advanced proposals that will require all smartphone manufacturers
Speaker 1: to support the USBC standard for chargers. So that would
Speaker 1: mean that all smartphones would have to have USB C
Speaker 1: ports and be compatible with us b C charging cables. Now,
Speaker 1: one reason for this is to really cut back on
Speaker 1: e waste. So the idea here is that you would
Speaker 1: really only need to buy one charger for your phone,
Speaker 1: or maybe a couple if you have to have one
Speaker 1: in a different location or whatever. But you get my
Speaker 1: my meaning you just have to have the one. Then
Speaker 1: you could just keep using the same charge even when
Speaker 1: you change out the type of phone you use, So
Speaker 1: if you swap from Android to iPhone, you don't need
Speaker 1: a you know, new accessories because the charging cable will
Speaker 1: fit both. If this legislation were to pass, an Apple
Speaker 1: were to comply, So yeah, it would mean that Apple
Speaker 1: would have to manufacture phones with USBC ports rather than
Speaker 1: proprietary connectors. Apple has consistently argued that standardizing charging boards
Speaker 1: would inhibit innovation and that this would ultimately hurt customers
Speaker 1: in the long run. I think most regulators don't buy
Speaker 1: that argument. They just suspect that Apple would really like
Speaker 1: to hang on to proprietary connectors because it creates a
Speaker 1: market for proprietary accessories which Apple can provide. This proposal
Speaker 1: has been a long time in the making, and it's
Speaker 1: still has to go through a couple more rounds of
Speaker 1: votes for different committees before it gets put to a
Speaker 1: vote across the EU, and then there has to be
Speaker 1: time to actually implement the regulations. So there's still time
Speaker 1: for Apple to make a ace for its approach, and
Speaker 1: even if this legislation does pass, it will be a
Speaker 1: little bit before we see it filter into things like
Speaker 1: Apple's actual design. Okay, We've got a few more stories
Speaker 1: to cover before we conclude this episode, but first let's
Speaker 1: take another quick break. Okay, In Afghanistan, the Taliban have
Speaker 1: ordered that both the video social platform TikTok and the
Speaker 1: multiplayer shooter game Player Unknowns Battlegrounds will be banned in
Speaker 1: the country. They argue that both properties are a bad
Speaker 1: influence on Afghani youth. This follows a string of crackdowns
Speaker 1: on entertainment in the country. Currently, television in Afghanistan mainly
Speaker 1: broadcasts news or religious programming and pretty much nothing else.
Speaker 1: Based on the news stories I've read, it sounds like
Speaker 1: living under the rule of the tell Laban is pretty miserable,
Speaker 1: particularly for women, which you know, no big surprise there.
Speaker 1: Even though the Taliban promised that it wasn't going to
Speaker 1: return to its more hardline approach to governing, uh, that
Speaker 1: seems to have gone to the side now. And yeah,
Speaker 1: they've really cracked down on the sorts of media that
Speaker 1: people within the country can access, and my guess is
Speaker 1: that's just going to get more and more restrictive as
Speaker 1: time goes on. YouTube has removed the campaign channel for
Speaker 1: John Lee, who is running unopposed to lead Hong Kong.
Speaker 1: That election is going to be determined by a committee
Speaker 1: of around one thousand five people. That committee is nearly
Speaker 1: entirely made up of pro Beijing officials, So it's really
Speaker 1: it's hard to look at this as anything other than
Speaker 1: just our performance from China backed officials to show like
Speaker 1: a the appearance of a democratic process. But you know, again,
Speaker 1: John Lee is running unopposed. There's almost you know, it
Speaker 1: really does raise the question, why do you need a
Speaker 1: campaign channel you're not campaigning against anyone. But the US
Speaker 1: has also ordered sanctions against John Lee and several other
Speaker 1: Hong Kong officials, and those sanctions are there because those
Speaker 1: officials have been linked to restricting Hong Kong's autonomy and
Speaker 1: eliminating individual freedoms of the citizens of Hong Kong and
Speaker 1: restricting rights over the last several months. So YouTube has
Speaker 1: complied with those sanctions and thus shut down that campaign channel.
Speaker 1: Meta meanwhile, is going to allow John Lee to maintain
Speaker 1: a presence on Facebook. However, Meta has deactivated monetization on
Speaker 1: that account and says that they're not going to allow
Speaker 1: John Lee's account to make use of payment services in
Speaker 1: order to comply with the actions against John Lee. Net
Speaker 1: neutrality advocates in California are celebrating a legal victory now
Speaker 1: that the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has rejected a
Speaker 1: move from I s p s to block California's enforcement
Speaker 1: of its own net neutrality law. All right, this requires
Speaker 1: a bit of explanation. So prior to two thousand eighteen,
Speaker 1: the Federal Communications Commission, or FCC in the United States
Speaker 1: had established certain net neutrality protections that restricted what I
Speaker 1: s p s could do, and it required I s
Speaker 1: p s to comply with certain rules, rules that I
Speaker 1: sp s are not super keen on complying with. But
Speaker 1: during the Trump administration, the FCC pretty much gutted all
Speaker 1: those measures and reversed all of those decisions. California, their
Speaker 1: their state representatives, stepped up and created legislation that allowed
Speaker 1: the state of California to enforce similar rules as to
Speaker 1: what the FCC had in place before two eighteen, and
Speaker 1: I s p s really complained about it. They said
Speaker 1: that the fccs decision to drop net neutrality should apply
Speaker 1: across to the state level, because the FCC is federal
Speaker 1: and California obviously is a state. Now, the Ninth Circuit said,
Speaker 1: uh no, just because the federal agency abdicates authority over
Speaker 1: a matter doesn't mean that a state authority can't then
Speaker 1: step in. Um. In fact, if a federal agency says,
Speaker 1: you know, we don't have the authority to regulate this industry,
Speaker 1: then by extension, that agency also doesn't have the authority
Speaker 1: to prevent anyone else from regulating it because you can't
Speaker 1: say I'm not responsible for that, and at the same
Speaker 1: time say you can't be responsible for that because you're
Speaker 1: not the boss. You can't do that. So now California
Speaker 1: has a strong that neutrality law, and moreover, will be
Speaker 1: allowed to maintain that law even if we should see
Speaker 1: more big swings with the FCC, like if the FCC
Speaker 1: were to reinstate net neutrality regulations and then at the
Speaker 1: change of another administration reverse that decision again, California's law
Speaker 1: would still stay firm because it's a state law, not
Speaker 1: a federal law. Uh So this was a big win
Speaker 1: for net neutrality advocates. Finally, do you work for a
Speaker 1: company that has been urging you to come back to
Speaker 1: the office, and more importantly, does your boss follow the
Speaker 1: same rules that you're expected to follow? I ask because
Speaker 1: a research consortium called Future Forum found that non executive
Speaker 1: employees are almost twice as likely to work at the
Speaker 1: office five days a week as executives are. The survey
Speaker 1: found that just over one third of all those who
Speaker 1: were surveyed have returned to the office full time. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: executives tend to pursue a more hybrid approach to work.
Speaker 1: Some of this might be due to business travel, which
Speaker 1: is definitely on the rise, but some of it seems
Speaker 1: to highlight a massive divide between employees and executives. That
Speaker 1: there is kind of a do as I say and
Speaker 1: not as I do philosophy at play here, which is
Speaker 1: obviously inherently unfair. Now, I have to say I am
Speaker 1: incredibly fortunate and that I work for a company where
Speaker 1: we maintain a great deal of flexibility. Uh. In fact,
Speaker 1: I was in the office earlier this week because I
Speaker 1: needed to go in, and the only other person in
Speaker 1: that office that day was my superproducer TORII. We were
Speaker 1: the only two people there. But we are seeing an
Speaker 1: increasing number of companies push for employees to return to
Speaker 1: offices full time. It's just a shame that the same
Speaker 1: doesn't seem to apply to the bosses. Huh So yeah,
Speaker 1: I guess in the end, what I'm advocating for is
Speaker 1: down with capitalism and eat the rich. Hey uh More. Seriously, though,
Speaker 1: I as I get older, I get ground here about
Speaker 1: the inherent unfairness in these systems and feel that the
Speaker 1: labor movement is is kind of a proof that a
Speaker 1: lot of other people feel the same way I do,
Speaker 1: and that hopefully the labor movement will result in things
Speaker 1: changing direction. I'm not expecting to see a one eight here.
Speaker 1: I'm not and I don't think that any massive changes
Speaker 1: aren't going to have other consequences that will have to
Speaker 1: deal with. But it would be nice to kind of
Speaker 1: see the narrative change a little bit in my mind. Um,
Speaker 1: and I say that as an executive producer. All right,
Speaker 1: that's it for this episode of Tech Stuff, And uh yeah,
Speaker 1: I keep on hoping that I can cover tech news
Speaker 1: that doesn't involve as much politics and business as well.
Speaker 1: I hear you. I also wish for that, but I
Speaker 1: gotta cover the news that happens. So that's where we are.
Speaker 1: If you have suggestions for topics I should cover in
Speaker 1: Tech Stuff, whether it's a tech company, a specific technology,
Speaker 1: a person in tech, anything like that, or even just
Speaker 1: a concept in technology you would like to know more about,
Speaker 1: reach out let me know. The best way to do
Speaker 1: that right now is on Twitter. The handle for the
Speaker 1: show is tech Stuff hs W, and I'll talk to
Speaker 1: you again. Really see tech Stuff is an I Heart
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Speaker 1: listen to your favorite shows.