April 21, 2022 • 36 mins
The earnings call for Netflix led to a very bad day for the company. Tesla did booming business in the first quarter of 2022. And net neutrality proponents in California are celebrating. Plus more!
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcome to Tech Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio.
Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host,
Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with I Heart Radio
and how the tech are Yet it's time for the
tech news for Thursday, April twenty first, two thousand, twenty two. Uh,
(00:27):
this is gonna be like a down with Capitalism episode.
And I realized that as an employee of a massive
company that that, you know, there's some baggage there. But yeah,
let's let's jump into it because I'm gonna be getting
on a soapbox. Um, So for those of y'all who
hate it when I do that, here's your preemptive warning.
(00:49):
But first, let's talk about Netflix because one of the
big stories yesterday in the tech space was about how
Netflix had its company's quarterly earning report, and Netflix revealed
that it had experienced a net loss of around two
hundred thousand subscribers worldwide. So this is after taking into
(01:10):
account all the new subscribers that had joined, there were
still a net loss of two hundred thousand. Now, this
was the first quarter where Netflix had ever reported a
drop in subscribers over the last ten years, and boy,
howdy did the bottom drop out? Like? It was actually
kind of shocking to see the reaction to this news.
(01:31):
Shares of Netflix closed at more than thirty down from
what it had been trading at. And netflix Is stock
had already taken a bit of a beating this year,
you know, before yesterday, the drop in share price meant
the company lost fifty billion dollars off its market cap.
Market Cap is something you can figure out by multiplying
(01:52):
the number of existing shares by the going market price
for those shares. You multiply those two numbers together, you
get the market up. And I've got a lot to
say about that, but first let's just get to why
Netflix saw numbers go down. The company said it was
due to a combination of factors. One is that as
regions have lifted mandates and more people have become vaccinated,
(02:15):
a lot of folks are getting out of the house,
and as such, they are canceling service subscriptions because you know,
they were signing up for these things when they were
stuck at home and didn't have anything else to do. Now,
presumably another factor that contributes to this issue is inflation.
Inflation has been a huge problem, particularly here in the
United States, and thus people have had to kind of
(02:37):
tighten their budgets across their households, right, They couldn't spend
as much money like that. When your basic necessities start
costing more, you've got to make these kind of determinations.
And so a lot of folks were looking at entertainment
as something where they could cut some corners. It doesn't
help that Netflix has increased subscription fees a couple of
(02:59):
times in the not too distant past. In October twenty twenty,
the price of premium Netflix membership went up to seventeen
dollars nine cents per month. Then last year it went
up again to nineteen dollars and nine cents per month.
So you know, it's increased a couple of times in
recent memory, and that's another big issue. But another really
(03:21):
big factor is obviously competition. You know, Netflix used to
only have to really grapple with Hulu and Amazon Prime
when it came to streaming video, but these days you've
also got Paramount Plus, You've got Disney Plus, you've got
Hbo Max, you've got Apple and lots more. So if
the average household is like mine, folks end up making
(03:44):
decisions on which services they want and which ones they're
willing to skip out on. And trust me, I've got
plenty of fomo like I, I I don't subscribe to Apple
and I feel like I need to so I can
watch Severance and Ted Lasso. I just haven't done it yet. Um,
and I used to have Hulu and I cut that.
So lots of households have to make these determinations. And
(04:04):
if they say, you know, we haven't watched anything on
Netflix in like six months, clearly they're gonna cut that.
If they're looking at you know, we still want to keep,
say Disney Plus or whatever. Now, Netflix has long leaned
on its original programming to set it apart, particularly as
various studios have chosen to move their own properties onto
their own streaming services. So you've had companies say like, well,
(04:28):
why would we give Netflix the power of having our
content when we can have our own streaming service and
just hosted there. We've seen that a lot, and uh,
you know, making original contents really expensive. In fact, Netflix
was famously spending billions of dollars making their original series
(04:49):
and shows and films and such. So that's also an issue.
And now we also have other entities like Apple that
are producing award winning cont hint, So the competition is
really serious in that case. Now, add to all of
that the fact that Netflix was hitting a saturation point
in some regions like the United States, it really meant
(05:10):
that expansion within those regions would become unrealistic. You know,
it's hard to convince more people to buy into it
when you've pretty much hit everybody who is interested. There's
also the fact that some households share login credentials with
friends and family outside of that household, and Netflix estimates
(05:31):
there's some one hundred million of those out there, So
that's a hundred million potential accounts that Netflix could could
get signed up on the service that instead are just
piggybacking on existing accounts. So what exactly is Netflix planning
to do about all this? Well, one thing they're looking
to do is to roll out a lower cost, adds
(05:53):
supported tier of service to attract new subscribers, similar to
how services like Hulu use you know, tears that have
add support to them. Another potential avenue they're looking at
is to crack down on the account sharing issue. Now,
Netflix has already rolled out a pilot program in some
countries in Central and South America that give subscribers an
(06:17):
option to sign up for a tier that has up
to two additional profiles for folks who do not live
within the household itself. So in other words, you spend
a little bit more money, but you have these authorized
tiers that you can hand out to people. Uh, you know,
and and it's limited to like two. Uh, it's cheaper
(06:37):
than if everyone got their own subscription, but it still
means that Netflix gets some money. And meanwhile, those additional
people can still get access to Netflix, which is better
than having it cracked down to the point where anyone
outside of a specific say I P address is excluded
from being able to use that account. Obviously, it gets
(07:00):
of issues there too, like if you travel a lot
and you'd like to use Netflix to keep up with stuff,
then you want to make sure that you're not going
to run into an issue where Netflix says, hey, I
noticed that. You know, there's a lot of log insto
your account, but they're not all from the same place,
and you know, then the company cracks down and you
you want to work around that too. So these could
(07:22):
be handy solutions, but they're ones that are going to
take some time. In fact, Netflix says these measures might
take more than a year in order to have a
big impact on the business, and that has a lot
of investors scrambling. And here's where I'm going to have
a bit of an antique capitalist rant. Um So, I've
(07:44):
complained many times about how modern capitalism holds shareholder return
and by extension, company growth over all other metrics. This
is something that really got its its start in the
early eighties. It wasn't always this way, a uh, And
in fact, some of the people who are most responsible
for a renewed focus on shareholder value would later go
(08:08):
on to say it's a mistake two hold shareholder value
above everything else. Doesn't stop companies from doing it though.
Um So, it's not. It's not enough to do a
good job if you're a company. In fact, doing a
good job at whatever you do ultimately isn't that important
at all. What is important is growth, because growth equals
(08:31):
increased value. Increased value means higher share prices of your stock,
and that means that the stakeholders, your shareholders are happy
because they're seeing a return on their investment. And since
we're usually talking about companies that report quarterly results, those
important numbers hit every three months, so they want to
(08:53):
you know, shareholders want to see those numbers going up
every report. So ideally you show growth across every three
month period, and that's the measure of success for a company.
If the company happens to stay true to its organizational
mission and if it happens to perform at the top
of its game, you know, that's nice too, it's just
not required. And so for a company like Netflix when
(09:16):
it has a setback, you end up seeing a lot
of people jumping ship. And that's because those people they're
they're focuses on quarter over a quarter gains. If those
numbers go the wrong way, people start to bail. Now,
on top of that, this focus on short term gains
makes it very challenging for companies to make good plans
(09:37):
for the long term. It's not impossible. There are companies
that do it, but it is much harder because in
the meantime, you really have to keep the shareholders happy
on that quarter by quarter basis. If the shareholders aren't happy,
they bounce, and now it becomes way harder for you
to achieve those long term goals because if those stock
prices start going down because people have lost confidence, you're
(09:59):
not gonna have of the financial ability to execute the
long term plans you have in mind. And if enough
folks bounce, it can actually send a company into a
spiral that's really hard to pull out of. And when
we pull ourselves away from the stock market side of
business and we just look at how this affects the
companies and their customers, we just see tons of problems.
(10:23):
Then there's also the issue that there's a limit to growth.
It's very hard to grow once you hit saturation points,
and we see this in all sorts of companies. Netflix
hit in the United States because pretty much everyone who
wanted Netflix and who could afford it subscribed, so there
were no more worlds to conquer. Alexander wept. And we've
(10:46):
also seen it in other companies like you know Facebook
meta slash Facebook, but specifically Facebook, because Facebook expanded to
a truly gargantuan user base, but now it's seeing those
numbers on the decline. It's not able to attract new users,
and a lot of older users have either slipped off
the system or otherwise you know, are unable to be users,
(11:11):
like maybe they've passed away or something. So we see
this in other companies like Facebook or you know Meta,
but specifically the Facebook platform. You know, Facebook expanded to
a truly gargantuan user base, but now the company is
seeing numbers on the decline for the Facebook platform. It's
having trouble attracting younger users, and meanwhile older users are
(11:36):
kind of slipping off the platform. So it hit a
saturation point and it's having a real hard time growing.
And that because that's such an important metric in a
company's uh, you know health, at least according to shareholders,
it's really put Meta in kind of a rough spot.
We also have seen this with cable networks where a
(11:59):
cable network. Letlet's say it's a company that has several channels.
You know, once they get on a certain number of services,
they really can't expand anymore. You're essentially in as many
households as you possibly can be within that region. So
the only way to grow is to expand to other regions,
to focus on international growth. And you know, I saw
(12:22):
that when when I worked for How Stuff Works, and
How Stuff Works was part of Discovery Communications. That was
a big part of discoveries strategy. Now we see discovery
strategy also being on expanding through online services, you know,
with the merger with the former Warner Media. So eventually
(12:42):
you do hit a cap and you just stop growing.
You just can't grow any bigger. It is unsustainable to
continue to grow, and then what happens, you know, it's
it's very hard for me not to look at this
entire thing as a very long term pump and dump scheme,
the idea that you're just pumping up a company up
so they can grow bigger and bigger until it just
(13:04):
can't grow anymore, and then you get the heck out
and in the meantime, you just, you know, this company
that might have been doing something really good and important
is suddenly at in a trouble spot because of that.
Um anyway, I'm done ranting about modern capitalism for now, anyway,
And obviously this is an oversimplification of the issue. There
(13:29):
are lots of companies out there that do not fall
into this trap. It's just this is a trap I
see way too many companies fall into. And in many
cases they are companies that I actually really kind of like,
or at least I like the services or products that
they produce. So it's frustrating as a consumer to see
(13:50):
that the focus goes towards the shareholders. Uh. And it
would require a seismic shift in business philosophy for this
to change, so I don't expect it to happen anytime soon.
All Right, when we come back, we'll be talking about
a lot of other tech news UH and some business stuff,
(14:11):
because the two are very tightly intertwined. But first, let's
take some time for our own business and listen to
a couple of messages from sponsors. Okay, we're back. How
about we talk about some big wins for companies that
(14:32):
are connected to Elon Musk. You know, I make no
secret that I'm not a big Musk fan, but there's
no denying that a couple of his companies have really
performed incredibly well recently. First up as Tesla, which reported
an eighteen point seven billion dollars in revenue for the
first quarter of twenty two, and three point three billion
(14:52):
dollars of that was profit. That is incredible. Now, part
of the revenue came from Tesla's practice of cell emissions
credits to other automakers. UH. See. Certain governments like the
EU and the United States require automakers to manufacture a
certain percentage of clean vehicles in all the cars that
they manufacture. Not every automaker actually manages to hit those regulations,
(15:18):
so to balance it out, these automakers are allowed to
buy emissions credits from other companies that do hit those requirements.
So the idea here is that the automakers have an
incentive to develop and produce cleaner technology because if they don't,
they have to pay money in order to buy credits
(15:39):
to offset their dirty, dirty cars. And so Tesla is
allowed to sell emissions credits to these automakers because Tesla
makes electric vehicles, their vehicles don't have emissions anyway. Tesla
sold nearly six hundred eighty million dollars worth of emissions
credits in the first quarter of twenty twenty two. That's
(16:00):
more than twice what Tesla sold during the fourth quarter
of one, so you know a good amount of money
is coming in from these emissions credits sales. Obviously not
a significant amount when you look at eighteen point seven
billion dollars of revenue, but in years past it was
those emissions credits that really helped Tesla when it was
(16:22):
making these earnings calls, because they weren't making as much
money off actual vehicle sales, but that is a different
story right now anyway, um, anyway, the company has a
lot of other battles to fight, including navigating the ongoing
supply chain challenges, but so far Tesla has performed better
in that regard than a lot of other companies have.
(16:43):
So Tesla has shown a lot more flexibility than a
lot of other other automakers have managed, and thus has
really flourished quite a bit in the first quarter of
twenty two. One other thing that must talked about during
that earnings call was that Tesla is working on creating
a robo taxi vehicle that won't have pedals or a
steering wheel, and that the company is targeting a twenty
(17:06):
four date for rollout. Now, I think that is incredibly ambitious.
We all know that the Tesla full self driving mode
isn't actually a full self driving mode, and that our
current level of autonomous car technology has is probably somewhere
around level three. There are five levels total, or six
(17:28):
if you count zero, which is no autonomous system at all,
uh and level three is conditional automation. That means that
current autonomous vehicles really still need human oversight. They're only
capable of autonomous operation in specific situations, such as within
a narrowly defined region of operation, like you know, within
(17:52):
these you know, twelve blocks or something like that, or
under specific circumstances, like specific weather conditions like it has
to be bright and sunny or it can't be you know, raining,
or has to be a specific time of day, like
it can't be after dusk. These are the sort of
conditions that most autonomous cars have to operate under. It's
(18:15):
some form of restrictive automation. For a driverless ROBOTAXI that
has no means of human override to be a possibility,
we would need to achieve level five autonomy, because even
level four autonomy typically includes the option for humans to
override the system and take control. Obviously, that would be
impossible if there are no controls to take. Of course,
(18:38):
the fact that this is a goal doesn't mean that
Tesla will actually hit it, nor does it mean that
whatever Tesla does produce, let's say it does produce a
vehicle with no you know, steering wheel, no pedals, doesn't
necessarily mean that that vehicle will actually qualify as a
true level five autonomous vehicle. So in that second possibility,
I would really caution anyone against getting into such a
(19:00):
vehicle because it could potentially be really dangerous. We've already
seen several instances in which driver assist features and Tesla
vehicles have contributed to fatal accidents. Now, in several of
those cases, you could argue that that was due to
human driver's disregarding safety rules. But still, this is a
pretty big swing that Tesla is taking. And it's been
(19:24):
a while since I talked about the Boring Company. That
is Elon Musk's business that's all about digging massive tunnels
for the purposes of high speed transportation, as well as
some other stuff, but the high speed transportation is typically
what we really focus on. The Boring Company held a
round of funding that brought in six seventy five million
(19:44):
dollars and investments which brought the company's value up to
five point six seven five billion dollars. This is another
company with which I have some concerns, mainly because the
goals and claims of the company seemed to be largely
unsubstantiated by reality. However, let's talk about what the company's
mission is before I get all skeptical. So, for the
(20:08):
transportation side of the Boring company's business. The goal is
to dig out tunnel networks that will allow for the
construction of transportation infrastructure. That infrastructure will ideally create an
alternative to street level traffic and help reduce or potentially
even eliminate congestion, making it easier for you to get
to your destination and create a more pleasant experience for
(20:31):
you know, the surface dwellers. And when coupled with loop,
which is the transportation infrastructure part, the ideas that passengers
will zip around these tunnels and potentially up to a
hundred fifty miles per hour. Uh now, this in itself
was a step down from the original concept of the
hyper loop, which was an enclosed train system that would
(20:52):
pump out most of the air from the tunnels in
order to reduce air resistance and be able to travel
at very high speeds. The current loop proposal involves writing
in Tesla vehicles through tunnels. Uh now. Standard Tesla can
hold five people, although the versions that we've seen have
maxed out at three passengers plus a human driver. And obviously,
(21:16):
if you wanted to go all the way to five
people where you have one human driver and four passengers,
you have to have folks who don't mind being super
cozy in the back seat. Also, so far, people have
only been in vehicles that have reached a maximum of
fifty miles per hour. And last I checked the LVCC
loop that is in the Las Vegas Convention Center loop,
where there's kind of a pilot program of this that
(21:37):
one is restricted to a maximum of thirty five miles
per hour. This has led a lot of critics to
suggest that all Elon Musk is really doing is just
adding more lanes of roads. It's just that these are
lanes that are underground um and thus isn't really that revolutionary,
nor is it expected to make that big of an
(21:58):
impact on issues like traffic congestion. Now, arguably we won't
know for sure until something more robust than the Las
Vegas Convention Center system is in place in order for
us to evaluate it. My guess is that we aren't
going to see a massive improvement using this kind of system,
and that maybe it would have been a better idea
(22:19):
to use some more tried and true measure like building
out a train system instead, which has a higher capacity
and has a long history of being proven to work.
But we're gonna have to wait and see. I would
love to be proven wrong about this. I would love
to see that this is really an effective means of
getting people around using electric vehicles. I think that would
(22:40):
be amazing for Las Vegas and for other cities that
follow suit. Now, getting back to self driving cars for
a second. Uh. In fact, part of the plan for
the loop is to use self driving Tesla vehicles in
the future. It's just that's not how it's working right now.
But in the UK, the Department for Transport has determined
that in the event of an autonomous car getting into
(23:03):
an accident, the motorists inside the car will not be
held liable for claims. Instead, the insurance company representing the
motorists or that vehicle will be held liable. Moreover, the
Department says that writers will be allowed to watch videos.
They can watch TV on built in screens and self
driving cars and there won't be any problem with that. However,
(23:24):
they will still be against the law to use a
mobile phone. And Okay, I'm not really sure why one
activity is okay and the other one isn't. Also, I
think it's gonna be a while before we have vehicles
that are really dependable enough where this sort of measure
will even be relevant. However, assuming we do get to
that level of reliable autonomy, the benefits would be tremendous,
(23:47):
from relieving traffic congestion to reducing the number of accidents
and thus injuries and fatality. So I'm really hoping that
we hit it UH soon. I remain a little cautious
about it because it's just taking a lot more time
because as we've as we've discovered the challenges are more
(24:08):
subtle and varied than what a lot of people previously,
including myself, previously considered. UH. I was really gung home
on driverless cars for a really long time, and I
still am for the concept. I'm just a little more
cautious about the actual capabilities. I mentioned on Tuesday's episode
(24:29):
that employees at the flagship Apple store in New York
City are in the process of organizing a union, and
it turns out that employees at an Apple store in
my home city of Atlanta have beat him to the punch. Uh.
The Atlanta employees filed a petition yesterday to hold a
union election. So this means that the Atlanta employees already
(24:49):
secured enough employee support to merit a vote on the subject,
and should this upcoming vote pass, then these employees will
be the first Apple Store workers to union eyes. Of course,
there will be more steps to take after even a
successful vote, including seeing if Apple will recognize the union.
Should the majority of store employees vote in favor of
(25:10):
unionizing UM. If Apple refuses to recognize the union, then
the National Labor Relations Board has to get involved and
things will go from there. But we'll have to wait
and see because the vote hasn't even been held yet. Now.
At the same time, some former Nintendo employees have filed
a labor complaint against Nintendo, alleging that the company terminated
their employment after they attempted to organize their coworkers. Furthermore,
(25:36):
they claimed that Nintendo either used surveillance or implied that
they were using surveillance to spy on employee union activities.
Now the next step is that, again the US National
Labor Relations Board or n LRB will have to investigate
these claims to determine if Nintendo actually did engage in
illegal labor violations. So it remains to be seen, but
(26:00):
another example, at least allegedly of a company cracking down
on employees attempts to organize the union busting activities are
something we're hearing more and more of. But then we're
also hearing more and more about workers trying to organize,
so the labor revolution continues. I'm not the only person
(26:23):
screaming at capitalism. In other news, over in the European Union,
representatives have advanced proposals that will require all smartphone manufacturers
to support the USBC standard for chargers. So that would
mean that all smartphones would have to have USB C
ports and be compatible with us b C charging cables. Now,
(26:44):
one reason for this is to really cut back on
e waste. So the idea here is that you would
really only need to buy one charger for your phone,
or maybe a couple if you have to have one
in a different location or whatever. But you get my
my meaning you just have to have the one. Then
you could just keep using the same charge even when
you change out the type of phone you use, So
if you swap from Android to iPhone, you don't need
(27:06):
a you know, new accessories because the charging cable will
fit both. If this legislation were to pass, an Apple
were to comply, So yeah, it would mean that Apple
would have to manufacture phones with USBC ports rather than
proprietary connectors. Apple has consistently argued that standardizing charging boards
would inhibit innovation and that this would ultimately hurt customers
(27:29):
in the long run. I think most regulators don't buy
that argument. They just suspect that Apple would really like
to hang on to proprietary connectors because it creates a
market for proprietary accessories which Apple can provide. This proposal
has been a long time in the making, and it's
still has to go through a couple more rounds of
votes for different committees before it gets put to a
(27:51):
vote across the EU, and then there has to be
time to actually implement the regulations. So there's still time
for Apple to make a ace for its approach, and
even if this legislation does pass, it will be a
little bit before we see it filter into things like
Apple's actual design. Okay, We've got a few more stories
(28:12):
to cover before we conclude this episode, but first let's
take another quick break. Okay, In Afghanistan, the Taliban have
ordered that both the video social platform TikTok and the
(28:32):
multiplayer shooter game Player Unknowns Battlegrounds will be banned in
the country. They argue that both properties are a bad
influence on Afghani youth. This follows a string of crackdowns
on entertainment in the country. Currently, television in Afghanistan mainly
broadcasts news or religious programming and pretty much nothing else.
(28:56):
Based on the news stories I've read, it sounds like
living under the rule of the tell Laban is pretty miserable,
particularly for women, which you know, no big surprise there.
Even though the Taliban promised that it wasn't going to
return to its more hardline approach to governing, uh, that
seems to have gone to the side now. And yeah,
(29:18):
they've really cracked down on the sorts of media that
people within the country can access, and my guess is
that's just going to get more and more restrictive as
time goes on. YouTube has removed the campaign channel for
John Lee, who is running unopposed to lead Hong Kong.
(29:40):
That election is going to be determined by a committee
of around one thousand five people. That committee is nearly
entirely made up of pro Beijing officials, So it's really
it's hard to look at this as anything other than
just our performance from China backed officials to show like
(30:01):
a the appearance of a democratic process. But you know, again,
John Lee is running unopposed. There's almost you know, it
really does raise the question, why do you need a
campaign channel you're not campaigning against anyone. But the US
has also ordered sanctions against John Lee and several other
(30:22):
Hong Kong officials, and those sanctions are there because those
officials have been linked to restricting Hong Kong's autonomy and
eliminating individual freedoms of the citizens of Hong Kong and
restricting rights over the last several months. So YouTube has
complied with those sanctions and thus shut down that campaign channel.
(30:43):
Meta meanwhile, is going to allow John Lee to maintain
a presence on Facebook. However, Meta has deactivated monetization on
that account and says that they're not going to allow
John Lee's account to make use of payment services in
order to comply with the actions against John Lee. Net
neutrality advocates in California are celebrating a legal victory now
(31:07):
that the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has rejected a
move from I s p s to block California's enforcement
of its own net neutrality law. All right, this requires
a bit of explanation. So prior to two thousand eighteen,
the Federal Communications Commission, or FCC in the United States
had established certain net neutrality protections that restricted what I
(31:29):
s p s could do, and it required I s
p s to comply with certain rules, rules that I
sp s are not super keen on complying with. But
during the Trump administration, the FCC pretty much gutted all
those measures and reversed all of those decisions. California, their
(31:50):
their state representatives, stepped up and created legislation that allowed
the state of California to enforce similar rules as to
what the FCC had in place before two eighteen, and
I s p s really complained about it. They said
that the fccs decision to drop net neutrality should apply
(32:11):
across to the state level, because the FCC is federal
and California obviously is a state. Now, the Ninth Circuit said,
uh no, just because the federal agency abdicates authority over
a matter doesn't mean that a state authority can't then
step in. Um. In fact, if a federal agency says,
(32:32):
you know, we don't have the authority to regulate this industry,
then by extension, that agency also doesn't have the authority
to prevent anyone else from regulating it because you can't
say I'm not responsible for that, and at the same
time say you can't be responsible for that because you're
not the boss. You can't do that. So now California
(32:55):
has a strong that neutrality law, and moreover, will be
allowed to maintain that law even if we should see
more big swings with the FCC, like if the FCC
were to reinstate net neutrality regulations and then at the
change of another administration reverse that decision again, California's law
would still stay firm because it's a state law, not
(33:17):
a federal law. Uh So this was a big win
for net neutrality advocates. Finally, do you work for a
company that has been urging you to come back to
the office, and more importantly, does your boss follow the
same rules that you're expected to follow? I ask because
a research consortium called Future Forum found that non executive
(33:41):
employees are almost twice as likely to work at the
office five days a week as executives are. The survey
found that just over one third of all those who
were surveyed have returned to the office full time. Meanwhile,
executives tend to pursue a more hybrid approach to work.
(34:01):
Some of this might be due to business travel, which
is definitely on the rise, but some of it seems
to highlight a massive divide between employees and executives. That
there is kind of a do as I say and
not as I do philosophy at play here, which is
obviously inherently unfair. Now, I have to say I am
(34:22):
incredibly fortunate and that I work for a company where
we maintain a great deal of flexibility. Uh. In fact,
I was in the office earlier this week because I
needed to go in, and the only other person in
that office that day was my superproducer TORII. We were
the only two people there. But we are seeing an
increasing number of companies push for employees to return to
(34:44):
offices full time. It's just a shame that the same
doesn't seem to apply to the bosses. Huh So yeah,
I guess in the end, what I'm advocating for is
down with capitalism and eat the rich. Hey uh More. Seriously, though,
I as I get older, I get ground here about
the inherent unfairness in these systems and feel that the
(35:07):
labor movement is is kind of a proof that a
lot of other people feel the same way I do,
and that hopefully the labor movement will result in things
changing direction. I'm not expecting to see a one eight here.
I'm not and I don't think that any massive changes
aren't going to have other consequences that will have to
(35:28):
deal with. But it would be nice to kind of
see the narrative change a little bit in my mind. Um,
and I say that as an executive producer. All right,
that's it for this episode of Tech Stuff, And uh yeah,
I keep on hoping that I can cover tech news
that doesn't involve as much politics and business as well.
I hear you. I also wish for that, but I
(35:49):
gotta cover the news that happens. So that's where we are.
If you have suggestions for topics I should cover in
Tech Stuff, whether it's a tech company, a specific technology,
a person in tech, anything like that, or even just
a concept in technology you would like to know more about,
reach out let me know. The best way to do
that right now is on Twitter. The handle for the
(36:12):
show is tech Stuff hs W, and I'll talk to
you again. Really see tech Stuff is an I Heart
Radio production. For more podcasts from My Heart Radio, visit
the I heart radio, app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you
listen to your favorite shows.
Welcome to Tech Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio.
Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host,
Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with I Heart Radio
and how the tech are Yet it's time for the
tech news for Thursday, April twenty first, two thousand, twenty two. Uh,
(00:27):
this is gonna be like a down with Capitalism episode.
And I realized that as an employee of a massive
company that that, you know, there's some baggage there. But yeah,
let's let's jump into it because I'm gonna be getting
on a soapbox. Um, So for those of y'all who
hate it when I do that, here's your preemptive warning.
(00:49):
But first, let's talk about Netflix because one of the
big stories yesterday in the tech space was about how
Netflix had its company's quarterly earning report, and Netflix revealed
that it had experienced a net loss of around two
hundred thousand subscribers worldwide. So this is after taking into
(01:10):
account all the new subscribers that had joined, there were
still a net loss of two hundred thousand. Now, this
was the first quarter where Netflix had ever reported a
drop in subscribers over the last ten years, and boy,
howdy did the bottom drop out? Like? It was actually
kind of shocking to see the reaction to this news.
(01:31):
Shares of Netflix closed at more than thirty down from
what it had been trading at. And netflix Is stock
had already taken a bit of a beating this year,
you know, before yesterday, the drop in share price meant
the company lost fifty billion dollars off its market cap.
Market Cap is something you can figure out by multiplying
(01:52):
the number of existing shares by the going market price
for those shares. You multiply those two numbers together, you
get the market up. And I've got a lot to
say about that, but first let's just get to why
Netflix saw numbers go down. The company said it was
due to a combination of factors. One is that as
regions have lifted mandates and more people have become vaccinated,
(02:15):
a lot of folks are getting out of the house,
and as such, they are canceling service subscriptions because you know,
they were signing up for these things when they were
stuck at home and didn't have anything else to do. Now,
presumably another factor that contributes to this issue is inflation.
Inflation has been a huge problem, particularly here in the
United States, and thus people have had to kind of
(02:37):
tighten their budgets across their households, right, They couldn't spend
as much money like that. When your basic necessities start
costing more, you've got to make these kind of determinations.
And so a lot of folks were looking at entertainment
as something where they could cut some corners. It doesn't
help that Netflix has increased subscription fees a couple of
(02:59):
times in the not too distant past. In October twenty twenty,
the price of premium Netflix membership went up to seventeen
dollars nine cents per month. Then last year it went
up again to nineteen dollars and nine cents per month.
So you know, it's increased a couple of times in
recent memory, and that's another big issue. But another really
(03:21):
big factor is obviously competition. You know, Netflix used to
only have to really grapple with Hulu and Amazon Prime
when it came to streaming video, but these days you've
also got Paramount Plus, You've got Disney Plus, you've got
Hbo Max, you've got Apple and lots more. So if
the average household is like mine, folks end up making
(03:44):
decisions on which services they want and which ones they're
willing to skip out on. And trust me, I've got
plenty of fomo like I, I I don't subscribe to Apple
and I feel like I need to so I can
watch Severance and Ted Lasso. I just haven't done it yet. Um,
and I used to have Hulu and I cut that.
So lots of households have to make these determinations. And
(04:04):
if they say, you know, we haven't watched anything on
Netflix in like six months, clearly they're gonna cut that.
If they're looking at you know, we still want to keep,
say Disney Plus or whatever. Now, Netflix has long leaned
on its original programming to set it apart, particularly as
various studios have chosen to move their own properties onto
their own streaming services. So you've had companies say like, well,
(04:28):
why would we give Netflix the power of having our
content when we can have our own streaming service and
just hosted there. We've seen that a lot, and uh,
you know, making original contents really expensive. In fact, Netflix
was famously spending billions of dollars making their original series
(04:49):
and shows and films and such. So that's also an issue.
And now we also have other entities like Apple that
are producing award winning cont hint, So the competition is
really serious in that case. Now, add to all of
that the fact that Netflix was hitting a saturation point
in some regions like the United States, it really meant
(05:10):
that expansion within those regions would become unrealistic. You know,
it's hard to convince more people to buy into it
when you've pretty much hit everybody who is interested. There's
also the fact that some households share login credentials with
friends and family outside of that household, and Netflix estimates
(05:31):
there's some one hundred million of those out there, So
that's a hundred million potential accounts that Netflix could could
get signed up on the service that instead are just
piggybacking on existing accounts. So what exactly is Netflix planning
to do about all this? Well, one thing they're looking
to do is to roll out a lower cost, adds
(05:53):
supported tier of service to attract new subscribers, similar to
how services like Hulu use you know, tears that have
add support to them. Another potential avenue they're looking at
is to crack down on the account sharing issue. Now,
Netflix has already rolled out a pilot program in some
countries in Central and South America that give subscribers an
(06:17):
option to sign up for a tier that has up
to two additional profiles for folks who do not live
within the household itself. So in other words, you spend
a little bit more money, but you have these authorized
tiers that you can hand out to people. Uh, you know,
and and it's limited to like two. Uh, it's cheaper
(06:37):
than if everyone got their own subscription, but it still
means that Netflix gets some money. And meanwhile, those additional
people can still get access to Netflix, which is better
than having it cracked down to the point where anyone
outside of a specific say I P address is excluded
from being able to use that account. Obviously, it gets
(07:00):
of issues there too, like if you travel a lot
and you'd like to use Netflix to keep up with stuff,
then you want to make sure that you're not going
to run into an issue where Netflix says, hey, I
noticed that. You know, there's a lot of log insto
your account, but they're not all from the same place,
and you know, then the company cracks down and you
you want to work around that too. So these could
(07:22):
be handy solutions, but they're ones that are going to
take some time. In fact, Netflix says these measures might
take more than a year in order to have a
big impact on the business, and that has a lot
of investors scrambling. And here's where I'm going to have
a bit of an antique capitalist rant. Um So, I've
(07:44):
complained many times about how modern capitalism holds shareholder return
and by extension, company growth over all other metrics. This
is something that really got its its start in the
early eighties. It wasn't always this way, a uh, And
in fact, some of the people who are most responsible
for a renewed focus on shareholder value would later go
(08:08):
on to say it's a mistake two hold shareholder value
above everything else. Doesn't stop companies from doing it though.
Um So, it's not. It's not enough to do a
good job if you're a company. In fact, doing a
good job at whatever you do ultimately isn't that important
at all. What is important is growth, because growth equals
(08:31):
increased value. Increased value means higher share prices of your stock,
and that means that the stakeholders, your shareholders are happy
because they're seeing a return on their investment. And since
we're usually talking about companies that report quarterly results, those
important numbers hit every three months, so they want to
(08:53):
you know, shareholders want to see those numbers going up
every report. So ideally you show growth across every three
month period, and that's the measure of success for a company.
If the company happens to stay true to its organizational
mission and if it happens to perform at the top
of its game, you know, that's nice too, it's just
not required. And so for a company like Netflix when
(09:16):
it has a setback, you end up seeing a lot
of people jumping ship. And that's because those people they're
they're focuses on quarter over a quarter gains. If those
numbers go the wrong way, people start to bail. Now,
on top of that, this focus on short term gains
makes it very challenging for companies to make good plans
(09:37):
for the long term. It's not impossible. There are companies
that do it, but it is much harder because in
the meantime, you really have to keep the shareholders happy
on that quarter by quarter basis. If the shareholders aren't happy,
they bounce, and now it becomes way harder for you
to achieve those long term goals because if those stock
prices start going down because people have lost confidence, you're
(09:59):
not gonna have of the financial ability to execute the
long term plans you have in mind. And if enough
folks bounce, it can actually send a company into a
spiral that's really hard to pull out of. And when
we pull ourselves away from the stock market side of
business and we just look at how this affects the
companies and their customers, we just see tons of problems.
(10:23):
Then there's also the issue that there's a limit to growth.
It's very hard to grow once you hit saturation points,
and we see this in all sorts of companies. Netflix
hit in the United States because pretty much everyone who
wanted Netflix and who could afford it subscribed, so there
were no more worlds to conquer. Alexander wept. And we've
(10:46):
also seen it in other companies like you know Facebook
meta slash Facebook, but specifically Facebook, because Facebook expanded to
a truly gargantuan user base, but now it's seeing those
numbers on the decline. It's not able to attract new users,
and a lot of older users have either slipped off
the system or otherwise you know, are unable to be users,
(11:11):
like maybe they've passed away or something. So we see
this in other companies like Facebook or you know Meta,
but specifically the Facebook platform. You know, Facebook expanded to
a truly gargantuan user base, but now the company is
seeing numbers on the decline for the Facebook platform. It's
having trouble attracting younger users, and meanwhile older users are
(11:36):
kind of slipping off the platform. So it hit a
saturation point and it's having a real hard time growing.
And that because that's such an important metric in a
company's uh, you know health, at least according to shareholders,
it's really put Meta in kind of a rough spot.
We also have seen this with cable networks where a
(11:59):
cable network. Letlet's say it's a company that has several channels.
You know, once they get on a certain number of services,
they really can't expand anymore. You're essentially in as many
households as you possibly can be within that region. So
the only way to grow is to expand to other regions,
to focus on international growth. And you know, I saw
(12:22):
that when when I worked for How Stuff Works, and
How Stuff Works was part of Discovery Communications. That was
a big part of discoveries strategy. Now we see discovery
strategy also being on expanding through online services, you know,
with the merger with the former Warner Media. So eventually
(12:42):
you do hit a cap and you just stop growing.
You just can't grow any bigger. It is unsustainable to
continue to grow, and then what happens, you know, it's
it's very hard for me not to look at this
entire thing as a very long term pump and dump scheme,
the idea that you're just pumping up a company up
so they can grow bigger and bigger until it just
(13:04):
can't grow anymore, and then you get the heck out
and in the meantime, you just, you know, this company
that might have been doing something really good and important
is suddenly at in a trouble spot because of that.
Um anyway, I'm done ranting about modern capitalism for now, anyway,
And obviously this is an oversimplification of the issue. There
(13:29):
are lots of companies out there that do not fall
into this trap. It's just this is a trap I
see way too many companies fall into. And in many
cases they are companies that I actually really kind of like,
or at least I like the services or products that
they produce. So it's frustrating as a consumer to see
(13:50):
that the focus goes towards the shareholders. Uh. And it
would require a seismic shift in business philosophy for this
to change, so I don't expect it to happen anytime soon.
All Right, when we come back, we'll be talking about
a lot of other tech news UH and some business stuff,
(14:11):
because the two are very tightly intertwined. But first, let's
take some time for our own business and listen to
a couple of messages from sponsors. Okay, we're back. How
about we talk about some big wins for companies that
(14:32):
are connected to Elon Musk. You know, I make no
secret that I'm not a big Musk fan, but there's
no denying that a couple of his companies have really
performed incredibly well recently. First up as Tesla, which reported
an eighteen point seven billion dollars in revenue for the
first quarter of twenty two, and three point three billion
(14:52):
dollars of that was profit. That is incredible. Now, part
of the revenue came from Tesla's practice of cell emissions
credits to other automakers. UH. See. Certain governments like the
EU and the United States require automakers to manufacture a
certain percentage of clean vehicles in all the cars that
they manufacture. Not every automaker actually manages to hit those regulations,
(15:18):
so to balance it out, these automakers are allowed to
buy emissions credits from other companies that do hit those requirements.
So the idea here is that the automakers have an
incentive to develop and produce cleaner technology because if they don't,
they have to pay money in order to buy credits
(15:39):
to offset their dirty, dirty cars. And so Tesla is
allowed to sell emissions credits to these automakers because Tesla
makes electric vehicles, their vehicles don't have emissions anyway. Tesla
sold nearly six hundred eighty million dollars worth of emissions
credits in the first quarter of twenty twenty two. That's
(16:00):
more than twice what Tesla sold during the fourth quarter
of one, so you know a good amount of money
is coming in from these emissions credits sales. Obviously not
a significant amount when you look at eighteen point seven
billion dollars of revenue, but in years past it was
those emissions credits that really helped Tesla when it was
(16:22):
making these earnings calls, because they weren't making as much
money off actual vehicle sales, but that is a different
story right now anyway, um, anyway, the company has a
lot of other battles to fight, including navigating the ongoing
supply chain challenges, but so far Tesla has performed better
in that regard than a lot of other companies have.
(16:43):
So Tesla has shown a lot more flexibility than a
lot of other other automakers have managed, and thus has
really flourished quite a bit in the first quarter of
twenty two. One other thing that must talked about during
that earnings call was that Tesla is working on creating
a robo taxi vehicle that won't have pedals or a
steering wheel, and that the company is targeting a twenty
(17:06):
four date for rollout. Now, I think that is incredibly ambitious.
We all know that the Tesla full self driving mode
isn't actually a full self driving mode, and that our
current level of autonomous car technology has is probably somewhere
around level three. There are five levels total, or six
(17:28):
if you count zero, which is no autonomous system at all,
uh and level three is conditional automation. That means that
current autonomous vehicles really still need human oversight. They're only
capable of autonomous operation in specific situations, such as within
a narrowly defined region of operation, like you know, within
(17:52):
these you know, twelve blocks or something like that, or
under specific circumstances, like specific weather conditions like it has
to be bright and sunny or it can't be you know, raining,
or has to be a specific time of day, like
it can't be after dusk. These are the sort of
conditions that most autonomous cars have to operate under. It's
(18:15):
some form of restrictive automation. For a driverless ROBOTAXI that
has no means of human override to be a possibility,
we would need to achieve level five autonomy, because even
level four autonomy typically includes the option for humans to
override the system and take control. Obviously, that would be
impossible if there are no controls to take. Of course,
(18:38):
the fact that this is a goal doesn't mean that
Tesla will actually hit it, nor does it mean that
whatever Tesla does produce, let's say it does produce a
vehicle with no you know, steering wheel, no pedals, doesn't
necessarily mean that that vehicle will actually qualify as a
true level five autonomous vehicle. So in that second possibility,
I would really caution anyone against getting into such a
(19:00):
vehicle because it could potentially be really dangerous. We've already
seen several instances in which driver assist features and Tesla
vehicles have contributed to fatal accidents. Now, in several of
those cases, you could argue that that was due to
human driver's disregarding safety rules. But still, this is a
pretty big swing that Tesla is taking. And it's been
(19:24):
a while since I talked about the Boring Company. That
is Elon Musk's business that's all about digging massive tunnels
for the purposes of high speed transportation, as well as
some other stuff, but the high speed transportation is typically
what we really focus on. The Boring Company held a
round of funding that brought in six seventy five million
(19:44):
dollars and investments which brought the company's value up to
five point six seven five billion dollars. This is another
company with which I have some concerns, mainly because the
goals and claims of the company seemed to be largely
unsubstantiated by reality. However, let's talk about what the company's
mission is before I get all skeptical. So, for the
(20:08):
transportation side of the Boring company's business. The goal is
to dig out tunnel networks that will allow for the
construction of transportation infrastructure. That infrastructure will ideally create an
alternative to street level traffic and help reduce or potentially
even eliminate congestion, making it easier for you to get
to your destination and create a more pleasant experience for
(20:31):
you know, the surface dwellers. And when coupled with loop,
which is the transportation infrastructure part, the ideas that passengers
will zip around these tunnels and potentially up to a
hundred fifty miles per hour. Uh now, this in itself
was a step down from the original concept of the
hyper loop, which was an enclosed train system that would
(20:52):
pump out most of the air from the tunnels in
order to reduce air resistance and be able to travel
at very high speeds. The current loop proposal involves writing
in Tesla vehicles through tunnels. Uh now. Standard Tesla can
hold five people, although the versions that we've seen have
maxed out at three passengers plus a human driver. And obviously,
(21:16):
if you wanted to go all the way to five
people where you have one human driver and four passengers,
you have to have folks who don't mind being super
cozy in the back seat. Also, so far, people have
only been in vehicles that have reached a maximum of
fifty miles per hour. And last I checked the LVCC
loop that is in the Las Vegas Convention Center loop,
where there's kind of a pilot program of this that
(21:37):
one is restricted to a maximum of thirty five miles
per hour. This has led a lot of critics to
suggest that all Elon Musk is really doing is just
adding more lanes of roads. It's just that these are
lanes that are underground um and thus isn't really that revolutionary,
nor is it expected to make that big of an
(21:58):
impact on issues like traffic congestion. Now, arguably we won't
know for sure until something more robust than the Las
Vegas Convention Center system is in place in order for
us to evaluate it. My guess is that we aren't
going to see a massive improvement using this kind of system,
and that maybe it would have been a better idea
(22:19):
to use some more tried and true measure like building
out a train system instead, which has a higher capacity
and has a long history of being proven to work.
But we're gonna have to wait and see. I would
love to be proven wrong about this. I would love
to see that this is really an effective means of
getting people around using electric vehicles. I think that would
(22:40):
be amazing for Las Vegas and for other cities that
follow suit. Now, getting back to self driving cars for
a second. Uh. In fact, part of the plan for
the loop is to use self driving Tesla vehicles in
the future. It's just that's not how it's working right now.
But in the UK, the Department for Transport has determined
that in the event of an autonomous car getting into
(23:03):
an accident, the motorists inside the car will not be
held liable for claims. Instead, the insurance company representing the
motorists or that vehicle will be held liable. Moreover, the
Department says that writers will be allowed to watch videos.
They can watch TV on built in screens and self
driving cars and there won't be any problem with that. However,
(23:24):
they will still be against the law to use a
mobile phone. And Okay, I'm not really sure why one
activity is okay and the other one isn't. Also, I
think it's gonna be a while before we have vehicles
that are really dependable enough where this sort of measure
will even be relevant. However, assuming we do get to
that level of reliable autonomy, the benefits would be tremendous,
(23:47):
from relieving traffic congestion to reducing the number of accidents
and thus injuries and fatality. So I'm really hoping that
we hit it UH soon. I remain a little cautious
about it because it's just taking a lot more time
because as we've as we've discovered the challenges are more
(24:08):
subtle and varied than what a lot of people previously,
including myself, previously considered. UH. I was really gung home
on driverless cars for a really long time, and I
still am for the concept. I'm just a little more
cautious about the actual capabilities. I mentioned on Tuesday's episode
(24:29):
that employees at the flagship Apple store in New York
City are in the process of organizing a union, and
it turns out that employees at an Apple store in
my home city of Atlanta have beat him to the punch. Uh.
The Atlanta employees filed a petition yesterday to hold a
union election. So this means that the Atlanta employees already
(24:49):
secured enough employee support to merit a vote on the subject,
and should this upcoming vote pass, then these employees will
be the first Apple Store workers to union eyes. Of course,
there will be more steps to take after even a
successful vote, including seeing if Apple will recognize the union.
Should the majority of store employees vote in favor of
(25:10):
unionizing UM. If Apple refuses to recognize the union, then
the National Labor Relations Board has to get involved and
things will go from there. But we'll have to wait
and see because the vote hasn't even been held yet. Now.
At the same time, some former Nintendo employees have filed
a labor complaint against Nintendo, alleging that the company terminated
their employment after they attempted to organize their coworkers. Furthermore,
(25:36):
they claimed that Nintendo either used surveillance or implied that
they were using surveillance to spy on employee union activities.
Now the next step is that, again the US National
Labor Relations Board or n LRB will have to investigate
these claims to determine if Nintendo actually did engage in
illegal labor violations. So it remains to be seen, but
(26:00):
another example, at least allegedly of a company cracking down
on employees attempts to organize the union busting activities are
something we're hearing more and more of. But then we're
also hearing more and more about workers trying to organize,
so the labor revolution continues. I'm not the only person
(26:23):
screaming at capitalism. In other news, over in the European Union,
representatives have advanced proposals that will require all smartphone manufacturers
to support the USBC standard for chargers. So that would
mean that all smartphones would have to have USB C
ports and be compatible with us b C charging cables. Now,
(26:44):
one reason for this is to really cut back on
e waste. So the idea here is that you would
really only need to buy one charger for your phone,
or maybe a couple if you have to have one
in a different location or whatever. But you get my
my meaning you just have to have the one. Then
you could just keep using the same charge even when
you change out the type of phone you use, So
if you swap from Android to iPhone, you don't need
(27:06):
a you know, new accessories because the charging cable will
fit both. If this legislation were to pass, an Apple
were to comply, So yeah, it would mean that Apple
would have to manufacture phones with USBC ports rather than
proprietary connectors. Apple has consistently argued that standardizing charging boards
would inhibit innovation and that this would ultimately hurt customers
(27:29):
in the long run. I think most regulators don't buy
that argument. They just suspect that Apple would really like
to hang on to proprietary connectors because it creates a
market for proprietary accessories which Apple can provide. This proposal
has been a long time in the making, and it's
still has to go through a couple more rounds of
votes for different committees before it gets put to a
(27:51):
vote across the EU, and then there has to be
time to actually implement the regulations. So there's still time
for Apple to make a ace for its approach, and
even if this legislation does pass, it will be a
little bit before we see it filter into things like
Apple's actual design. Okay, We've got a few more stories
(28:12):
to cover before we conclude this episode, but first let's
take another quick break. Okay, In Afghanistan, the Taliban have
ordered that both the video social platform TikTok and the
(28:32):
multiplayer shooter game Player Unknowns Battlegrounds will be banned in
the country. They argue that both properties are a bad
influence on Afghani youth. This follows a string of crackdowns
on entertainment in the country. Currently, television in Afghanistan mainly
broadcasts news or religious programming and pretty much nothing else.
(28:56):
Based on the news stories I've read, it sounds like
living under the rule of the tell Laban is pretty miserable,
particularly for women, which you know, no big surprise there.
Even though the Taliban promised that it wasn't going to
return to its more hardline approach to governing, uh, that
seems to have gone to the side now. And yeah,
(29:18):
they've really cracked down on the sorts of media that
people within the country can access, and my guess is
that's just going to get more and more restrictive as
time goes on. YouTube has removed the campaign channel for
John Lee, who is running unopposed to lead Hong Kong.
(29:40):
That election is going to be determined by a committee
of around one thousand five people. That committee is nearly
entirely made up of pro Beijing officials, So it's really
it's hard to look at this as anything other than
just our performance from China backed officials to show like
(30:01):
a the appearance of a democratic process. But you know, again,
John Lee is running unopposed. There's almost you know, it
really does raise the question, why do you need a
campaign channel you're not campaigning against anyone. But the US
has also ordered sanctions against John Lee and several other
(30:22):
Hong Kong officials, and those sanctions are there because those
officials have been linked to restricting Hong Kong's autonomy and
eliminating individual freedoms of the citizens of Hong Kong and
restricting rights over the last several months. So YouTube has
complied with those sanctions and thus shut down that campaign channel.
(30:43):
Meta meanwhile, is going to allow John Lee to maintain
a presence on Facebook. However, Meta has deactivated monetization on
that account and says that they're not going to allow
John Lee's account to make use of payment services in
order to comply with the actions against John Lee. Net
neutrality advocates in California are celebrating a legal victory now
(31:07):
that the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has rejected a
move from I s p s to block California's enforcement
of its own net neutrality law. All right, this requires
a bit of explanation. So prior to two thousand eighteen,
the Federal Communications Commission, or FCC in the United States
had established certain net neutrality protections that restricted what I
(31:29):
s p s could do, and it required I s
p s to comply with certain rules, rules that I
sp s are not super keen on complying with. But
during the Trump administration, the FCC pretty much gutted all
those measures and reversed all of those decisions. California, their
(31:50):
their state representatives, stepped up and created legislation that allowed
the state of California to enforce similar rules as to
what the FCC had in place before two eighteen, and
I s p s really complained about it. They said
that the fccs decision to drop net neutrality should apply
(32:11):
across to the state level, because the FCC is federal
and California obviously is a state. Now, the Ninth Circuit said,
uh no, just because the federal agency abdicates authority over
a matter doesn't mean that a state authority can't then
step in. Um. In fact, if a federal agency says,
(32:32):
you know, we don't have the authority to regulate this industry,
then by extension, that agency also doesn't have the authority
to prevent anyone else from regulating it because you can't
say I'm not responsible for that, and at the same
time say you can't be responsible for that because you're
not the boss. You can't do that. So now California
(32:55):
has a strong that neutrality law, and moreover, will be
allowed to maintain that law even if we should see
more big swings with the FCC, like if the FCC
were to reinstate net neutrality regulations and then at the
change of another administration reverse that decision again, California's law
would still stay firm because it's a state law, not
(33:17):
a federal law. Uh So this was a big win
for net neutrality advocates. Finally, do you work for a
company that has been urging you to come back to
the office, and more importantly, does your boss follow the
same rules that you're expected to follow? I ask because
a research consortium called Future Forum found that non executive
(33:41):
employees are almost twice as likely to work at the
office five days a week as executives are. The survey
found that just over one third of all those who
were surveyed have returned to the office full time. Meanwhile,
executives tend to pursue a more hybrid approach to work.
(34:01):
Some of this might be due to business travel, which
is definitely on the rise, but some of it seems
to highlight a massive divide between employees and executives. That
there is kind of a do as I say and
not as I do philosophy at play here, which is
obviously inherently unfair. Now, I have to say I am
(34:22):
incredibly fortunate and that I work for a company where
we maintain a great deal of flexibility. Uh. In fact,
I was in the office earlier this week because I
needed to go in, and the only other person in
that office that day was my superproducer TORII. We were
the only two people there. But we are seeing an
increasing number of companies push for employees to return to
(34:44):
offices full time. It's just a shame that the same
doesn't seem to apply to the bosses. Huh So yeah,
I guess in the end, what I'm advocating for is
down with capitalism and eat the rich. Hey uh More. Seriously, though,
I as I get older, I get ground here about
the inherent unfairness in these systems and feel that the
(35:07):
labor movement is is kind of a proof that a
lot of other people feel the same way I do,
and that hopefully the labor movement will result in things
changing direction. I'm not expecting to see a one eight here.
I'm not and I don't think that any massive changes
aren't going to have other consequences that will have to
(35:28):
deal with. But it would be nice to kind of
see the narrative change a little bit in my mind. Um,
and I say that as an executive producer. All right,
that's it for this episode of Tech Stuff, And uh yeah,
I keep on hoping that I can cover tech news
that doesn't involve as much politics and business as well.
I hear you. I also wish for that, but I
(35:49):
gotta cover the news that happens. So that's where we are.
If you have suggestions for topics I should cover in
Tech Stuff, whether it's a tech company, a specific technology,
a person in tech, anything like that, or even just
a concept in technology you would like to know more about,
reach out let me know. The best way to do
that right now is on Twitter. The handle for the
(36:12):
show is tech Stuff hs W, and I'll talk to
you again. Really see tech Stuff is an I Heart
Radio production. For more podcasts from My Heart Radio, visit
the I heart radio, app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you
listen to your favorite shows.
TechStuff News
Hosts And Creators
Oz Woloshyn
Karah Preiss
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