September 10, 2025 • 59 mins
In light of the ruling of the Department of Justice in the case on Google's monopoly, let's look back on how we got here in the first place.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
A media. First of all, the NBA and lost their
mind about all these dog goned streamers you gotta download,
like we talked about with Jamil Hill. But to make
matters worse, the people that run streamcasts didn't been arrested.
So all the illegal streams we was using, which is
(00:24):
what my plan was, has been destroyed. So if you
know of any illegal streams, I'm sorry. NBA y'all had
lost your mind. I was here for it for a while.
I was willing to pay for the stuff because I
get it. Man, you know what I'm saying, Like you
gotta change with the times. However, you niggas anyway, that's stupid.
(00:46):
So what's happening this week is Matt and I are
actually together, like right now, if you're listening to this
the day it drops or the day after it drops,
we are in some sort of abandoned cathedral in Wisconsin
shooting videos for our album The Beautiful Endling the Poetry Record,
(01:10):
which I hope you have downloaded now and or have
purchased on iTunes. The purchasing seems so redundant, but it
does help, so I do appreciate that. But anyway, we're
shooting videos right now, So there just wasn't any time
this week to edit. No new show, but speaking a
(01:31):
new show. September twenty fifth, I'm gonna be up in
Portland with Robert and Sophie doing a live behind the
Bastards to raise funds for Portland Defense to help people
with like legal fees and bail money and all that
good stuff. So that's gonna be dope. I'm also rapping
in Portland up there on the twenty eighth with the
Homy Abstract Rude and Varsitol or the Life Savers. You
(01:52):
know what I'm saying, Some Portland legends if you what
ap apps at la legend, Portland versatile anyway, I'm rambling.
The one we're gonna run right now is about the
Supreme Court curbing Google. Now, I'm gonna run this because
in two weeks after the one where me and Derek
just kind of shoot the breeze, I'm gonna talk about
(02:14):
what the Supreme Court actually decided with Google, and it
turns out Google might be an old head and they
don't even know it. You know what I'm saying. They
have to brink of extinction and they don't know it.
You feel me? Yeah, buddy, the endling always showing up,
y'all notice the end anyway, So before we could get
to that, let's go rewind the clock as to when
(02:34):
Google actually turned Microsoft into an old head. You know
what I'm saying, and how the antitrust laws works, and
why what the sentencing is, what the DLJ is saying
Google has to do, and why that's important. That's what
we're gonna talk about the next time I talk about this.
(02:58):
So anyway, here's past me talking about what future me
is going to talk about in the future, her politics
for pride. Hey, do y'all still say curved or curbed?
Like if somebody curbed you, I don't even know if
it's I don't even know if it's curve or curved.
(03:22):
But essentially what we mean is maybe I'm my old head.
What we mean is when you approach a young lady
and she shut you down, like, oh man, you got curved.
You know, they just I'm pretty sure it's curved, probably
like curb your enthusiasm. It's probably it. I don't know
if there's anything more painful, because most of the time
for you to get curved, it's usually because you are
(03:44):
enthusiastic a lot of times is when you're super confident
in the movie You're finna make now. I can't speak
for every young man who finally hits his awakening of
the sex that he's attracted to. And I know mine
when I was like, wait a minute, I like girls,
(04:06):
when you have to start building up the bravery to
actually admit it, or maybe ask this girl to dance
or sit by her, or maybe even possibly get a
little kiss on the cheek, you know, just you know,
it was little boys, you're not really ready for like
full intercourse because we're still children. I remember like rehearsing
(04:29):
and I have a sister that's six years older than me,
so I could ask her, like how do I say this?
You know, what outfits should I wear? Like you know,
and she was like down to make her little brother,
like you know, she wanted a little brother to be flying.
So I could ask her and come up with lines
and like how do I approach? What do I say?
Where do I stand? Like how do I I'm nervous,
(04:50):
I'm scared off for her to offer this little girl
to giggle and run to her friends and go eh,
he not even fond, just destroy. It took me three
weeks to get the courage to say something to or
just with this girl, to be like h, like that's
the child. Which I don't know if it's everybody's story,
(05:13):
but you have to understand, like me, who I went
to schools in neighborhoods that were so diverse where there
was just as many Filipino and Latino and you know, Chinese,
there was such as there was so many other communities
that were at the spaces I was in. Like again,
(05:36):
I read the demographics. Most of y'all are from Cali
that listen to this from the San Gabriel Valley. Who
I was born in South central I say it all
the time, but I grew up in the San Gavel
Valley and then I went to high school in the
Inland Empire, And like so I you experienced so many cultures.
You're exposed to so many types of girls where black
dude is just not they tight. This is way too
(05:58):
long of an intro Anyway, The point I'm trying to
make is it really hurts to get curved, especially when
you're really confident. And guess what Google got curved? Hook
politics y'all all, right, before I go into it, but
(06:22):
look at like nerds. Bull look is like this, bullook
is like this, look is like this, but look at
like this. All right, Well, the darkest of holidays has hit.
(06:44):
It is the one year anniversary of the attack from
Hamas on Israel, which, in retaliation to such attack, unleashed
the Kraken towards all of Gaza and extending Palestinian areas.
(07:13):
Way too many people died. There was a memorial held
in Israel where they played that last song before at that,
you know, because the attack happened like one of the
parts happened during a music festival, and the last song
(07:35):
that was being played before the attack happened and hostages
were taken and people were killed, they played that song
to mark, you know, the one year anniversary of a horrible,
horrible situation. And from the Israeli perspective, the city is
torn because you can't argue that that wasn't, you know,
(07:57):
one of the or maybe if not the greatest terrorist
attack that they've experienced. And I think, like I'm not
adding snark to this because it's like, I mean, like
I'm just trying to be real about it. I think,
how do I say this? Since they've been in their
(08:22):
mind the little engine that could the whole time, and
everybody was against them. They felt like their only way
to be safe is to be the aggressor. And they've
continued to be the aggressor because they feel like everybody's
being aggressed to them. So there's a kinship to the
idea that America has of itself too. You know where
(08:43):
we say, if you go into war, you're going overseas
like the attack is over there. Everybody's trying to come
to get us, but don't nobody want to mess with us,
because they know won't play around. It only happened once
and that was a Pearl harbor. We blew up Pole
Islands after that, So they carried in their psyche that
type of sort of same vibe. But that is not
to diminish the atrocities that they feel in their heart
(09:10):
and the things that had happened, So you mark it right.
On the other hand, it also marks the beginning of
the absolute decimation of Gaza, with eleven thousand people dead
(09:31):
and just a commpletely intenable living situation that has now spread.
Everybody's fear has spread to Lebanon and Yemen, and now
Big dog Iran has jumped in. It was what everybody
that works in peacemaking was hoping wouldn't happen, that we
(09:52):
would get to a ceasefire to state solution, which clearly
is the only option. I just don't understand how anybody
could think any other way that like this is really
the only option. But with that being said, all the blood,
all the carnage, all the like, let's make this happen.
Gaza could not have a sort of moment to even
(10:16):
breathe to mark the anniversary of this because it's leveled. Yeah,
I mean there's like where you know, they still running
for cover and is well not even letting it. They
barely letting aid in, Like we got to fight to
let aid in. And then with all the carnage and
(10:38):
it be coming into a regional war, there's a ceasefire
deal on the table, and then Yahoo won't accept it
and you still ain't got the hostages. All that blood
and you still ain't got the hostages. So Israel as
a nation is torn because they're like, fam, uh, can
(10:59):
we keep our eyes on the prize here? I just
we just want our loved ones back. What did you
and ask you to blow the whole like, I ain't
ask you to blow the whole city up. Well, it's
just one of our hostages, but what is you? And
then there's the other half that's like, no, we can't
(11:19):
letting people live. And then there's the really really small
dack sect of hyper conservative religious folk within the Israeli
world that are like, well, it's how we bring the Messiah.
We gotta control this region or the Messiah ain't coming,
(11:41):
so like, no, they gotta go. So it's all that
going on all in one place. The JV team had
their debate, switching gears here the my dad can beat
up your dad debate because who cared what the vice
(12:01):
president think? Because the vice president will really do nothing.
Now that being said, it was more substantive than any
of us would have thought. And it's one of those
things where it's like, be careful what you asked for.
Y'all asked for civility and substance. What you didn't ask
for was truth, My niggad, the Trump ticket is getting
(12:28):
his money's worth. He is jd Vance understood the assignment.
The assignment was to sanitize everything that Trump stands for,
and even to the point of like almost like the
opposite where it's like, now, we ain't say that. And
then when the mic slipped up and said, well, you
(12:48):
weren't supposed to lie fact checked us a you revealed
your cards, big dog. But JD. Vance absolutely one hundred
percent understood the assignment and you cannot take that from him.
He was slick, he was likable, and he didn't go
on the full attack. They did the whole I agree
(13:10):
with what we're supposed to be doing heat and he
took all the smart Now, don't get me wrong, I
personally like dudes like that will pulse me that are
too polished in every like that, I'm like, you're clearly
hiding something. Anyway, everything was going great until this man
(13:34):
could not answer the January sixth question, Now, did Trump
lose the election? Elect question? Now, the thing is, that's
in some senses it's a gotcha question because we all
know that man can't answer that question, Like what y'all
expect this man to say? Yeah, now, Trump tripping on
that one, but we gonna win this one though. He
(13:54):
can't say he can't do that. Y'all know he can't
do that. That man can't get up there and tell
the truth like on Boomdocks. You better learn how to
lie like me. You can't be telling the truth to
these people. You got a lie, that'd be the end
(14:15):
of his job. Get Trump lose a twenty twenty election
like Nigga does, Like you can't say that. You gotta
be like, look, dude, we're looking forward. But didn't y'all,
and then proceeded to talk backwards. Boy, I tell you man,
I love it here. All right, let's get back to
(14:37):
it like this. All right. So last year we did
an episode that was called Get Your Weight Up, and
I taught y'all about antitrust and monopolies and the situation
Google was facing. And it was over search engines and ads,
(14:58):
showing how this is just a rand new world where
what Google is facing, especially when it comes to like
search engines. You had suit being brought to them by
like you know, bing and like ass jeeves. That was like,
you're creating a monopoly. I can even giggle with the
idea of like being because it's like, bro, no one
(15:19):
uses bing. Google's a verb like it's a company, but
it's also a verb. You google something. They're like, you're
a monopoly. They're like, listen, I'm not like bing is
not my competition. Microsoft, a'm my competition. Full Chat, GBT
is TikTok Amazon, I am not competing with you other
(15:39):
browsers and search engines. Y'all lave y'all need to get
y'all weight up. And the argument was in this antitrust case,
which I will back up and explain the term monopoly
or antitrust and then give you a context. So their
argument was, you say, we're cornering the market, We're making
it impossible, but y'all could just get y'all weight up.
(16:00):
I don't know why you mad at us for making
a superior product. Now, the last time you googled something,
I'm pretty sure you got frustrated because Google's trying to
do the AI thing again to keep up with that GBT,
and so the searches have been I've had to like
retype in what I'm looking for multiple times because I'm like,
this used to be super easy. So in my anecdotal opinion,
(16:21):
it's gotten worse as they've tried to bring it AI.
But the point is the case was do you have
a monopoly on search and ads? And when we talked
about it at first, it was being brought to the
Department of Justice. Well, they have decided, yes, you have
a monopoly. It's not fair, and you need to break
(16:42):
it up. Break it up, break it up, break it up,
break it up, break it up, break it up, break
it up. Yeah, y'all, ratchet, y'all know that's all y'all
got to break up your company. Now. The reason why
this was so big obviously because Google's big, but it's
because it harkens back to one that happened in nineteen
ninety eight Microsoft. So here's what we're gonna do. I'll
(17:05):
gonna explain to you what a monopoly is. And if
you've ever sold drugs you already know, which means that
we have to talk about capitalism and the version of
capitalism that America says they love and believe in. How
you protect that imaginary version of capitalism, Why an antitrust
(17:26):
is what it is, and why the government steps in,
what happened with Microsoft, and how that informed this Google decision,
and then what Google's gonna have to do. All right,
but I swear to you, just like the very foundational truth,
the axiom of truth that this show is, you already
(17:47):
notice stuff, all right? Next, Okay, so capitalism oftentimes we
(18:15):
have because we live in the world we live in,
we have conflated the idea of capitalism with just economics
that if you sell something, it's capitalism. You have to
remember capitalism as a concept was invented. Now. The idea
(18:36):
of trading some sort of commerce for goods and services
is as old as puka shells, is as old as
when we moved from just bartering to yeah, there is
currency and the currency and I'm giving you this currency,
and you're going to return back to me a good
in service. The institution that we talk about that includes
(19:02):
a supply chain where the product is being created in
multiple different factories that's being cobbled together into one piece.
The system that says each of these people that work
in these factories is indust your revolution type situation that
puts like if you're going to take a pencil, the
eraser tip is made somewhere else, but that place is
(19:25):
really only getting raw materials from another place, and those
raw materials are being sent there, and then the people
carrying that stuff in people that transfer it in the
truck is a whole other company who brings this raw
materials to this place, and then that place has to
buy the equipment from a whole other company who makes
(19:45):
the equipment for you to process this thing to make
the eraser tip. But still, if you're the pencil company,
you have a contract with them with a wood company
who's got a contract with a timber company who's got
a contract with a lead company, or a graphite company.
You just the people that put it all together. And
then it's a whole other marketing team that just was
(20:08):
hired by the brand name of the pencil to put
it all in one place. And then you got to
hire a shopify right, a three pl and all of
these people have employees, and the price of that pencil
is cobbled together in the way that makes sure, or
supposed to make sure that everybody, every company that was
(20:30):
involved in this all gotta pay their employees, bring that
all together, get it on the shelf, and then they
charge you a dollar ninety nine per pencil. Now, if
you're making one million pencils, it may not have cost
you the company they selling them for a dollar ninety nine.
It cost the company, I don't know, hopefully if they're
(20:51):
doing it right, two cents. So the cost of the
pencil you hear all them companies all had to make
their money. But if you make enough of them, you
can lower the cost that it takes to make the
pencil so that when it gets to the consumer, you
only paying two dollars. And at two dollars, you know,
multiplied by one hundred thousand consumers, it's supposed to be
(21:12):
able to make sure that everybody's happy and everybody wins. Now,
the capitalism that we exist in is to say, okay,
best product at the best price wins. So if somebody
got a better pencil and they only charging a dollar fifty,
the idea is, damn you made it cheaper and better,
so everybody's gonna buy that. So then what do you do.
(21:35):
You have to figure out how to make your pencil
better and cheaper. Hopefully you could charge a dollar twenty five,
right all the way down to where get this the
term of elasticity, to where the product is cheap enough
to make to where everybody makes money. There's a number.
Now you have to enter the concept of branding. Okay,
(21:55):
I work. I'm a brand ambassador for a company called
me Right, y'all know the people that make my mugs
and the poor Gami's all the coffee stuff is this
company called mer Now. Mir got a lot of clients too,
And Mir was telling us, telling me about one of
their clients for which I will not name names. And
because I ain't trying to worry, I ain't trying to
mess up my money. This company is able to sell
(22:18):
things at an absurd price point. But we looking at it.
But my man and Mir was looking at it. It
was like, Okay, you're sourcing. There's no way in the
world you're sourcing at a different place than everybody else's
or you're sourcing at the same place. And he was
like and the owner or the buyer was like, yeah, yeah,
source is the same place as as our competition. They
charged three ninety nine, we charge eight ninety nine. It's
(22:38):
called branding. So just the power of the branding, the
fact that your name is on it. Let me give
y'all a little game about Kirkland and Costco brand. Now,
Costco ain't paying me for this, but I wish they
was the Kirkland brand, liquor, the tequila, the whiskey, all
that that they got in there. It's they bought a
recipe from I believe it's ego rare like makers mart
(23:01):
I believe they're whiskey is makers market. They just bought
a recipe from them and just white labeled it. It's
actually very it's very good whiskey. It's just named Kirklind brilliant.
So if you smart, rather than buying the label name,
you getting the same product. It's just cheaper. So now
you take when you talk about a national economy, you
take all the pieces that we're talking about, if we're
(23:23):
talking about again capitalism, You take every person that is
on all them jobs, how much money they make, how
much money is coming into the company, how much money
that company is spending, how much money the people that
work at that company are spending right the products for
which they buy, how much then products cost to make,
(23:45):
and how much profit those products produce. How much of
that money is going out to other countries. How much
of that money is coming back into the consumers pockets,
because once the company makes money, the people that work
at that company all get paid and then they buy
other products, which brings the money back. So you take
(24:07):
the totality of all that, the combination of all those
factors all trying to get you to spend your dollar
with them, them competing with each Other's called free market capitalism.
All of that is capitalism. And what's capitalism's goal is,
if you haven't figured this out yet, the greatest amount
(24:28):
of profit for the least amount of cost. Now, how
do you pull that off? If that is the goal
of capitalism, will you cut costs? Where do you cut costs?
Most of the time, your highest cost is your employees.
It's payroll. That's your highest cost. So you pay your
workers at least as possible. Why did America becomes up
(24:49):
a superstar, so a superpower so early? Well, they didn't
pay they workers at all. It was called slavery. You
was only paying for the raw materials. You only had
to pay for the land. You had to pay for
the work. Of course, you gonna get rich by no
stretch of the imagination. Is the goal of capitalism itself?
Human flourishing. Now that might be the person that functions
(25:12):
within the system. You might want to approach this in
a way that centers humanity in the sense that you're
paying your workers well. You're ethically sourcing, so that means
you're setting a price point that allows for you to
pay workers well, to treat the environment well. You have
things like certified b Corps. At some point I'm bring
Mahomie brian On here to talk about what it means
(25:34):
to be an ethical capitalistic company, which some would argue
is impossible. I might agree with you, but again, like
I say all the time, you know, she might as
well swim be as truthful as possible. Like I said,
we're all on a big corporation. This is iHeart media.
Like it's not be delusional, you know what I'm saying.
Corporation guys, So we're not delusional. But there's a way
(25:58):
to be as ethical as you poss can. But that's
not the goal of capitalism. That might be the goal
of the person. There might be a advancement of a
society to where, yeah, well multiple people now have jobs now,
which means like the way of life is just better
across the board for everybody because now everybody's employed. But
(26:18):
one would argue that, like we weren't starving before we
had jobs, Like before there was a factory, before you
bought your food at a grocery store, you just grew
your own. Every For most of human history, people just
had like small gardens like where you just and you
(26:40):
just traded back and forth where it's like, okay, we
grow squashed. Well, I'm gonna walk across the street go
visit another family over there in that other village. I
know they grow spinach. Well, you know what I'm saying.
I'mnna bring them some squash. They bring me some spiniches.
It's fine. Like we all we were all right before
we had to like work for like cotton pieces of
dead men to turn in for our waters, to work
(27:01):
in our houses because somebody bought the lake and owns
the clouds. I don't know if you notice. You can
own the clouds, you can own the land rights and
all of the sky and atmosphere above it. Because capitalism
is crazy right now anyway, I haven't even talked about
antitrust yet. This is absurd. So all that to say
(27:22):
in our system, at least in America, we tried to
set up this situation to say that if we keep
this institution pure enough, it will police itself. And how
you do that? Because people really make their decisions by
they purchases. People buy what they want. And if you
(27:44):
charge too much, but your brand is trash and we
don't believe you, people won't stop buying it that's a
price elasticity. What's the highest you could charge before people
are going to be like, all right, you don't lost
your mind. This brand ain't worth it, which is how
you gain the system. You know what I'm saying. It's like,
you make your brand worth it, but you charge as
high as you can, not as cheap as you can.
You take somebody like arizona Ic, they charge as little
(28:05):
as they can. That's their brand though for them it work.
But anyway, we we as in the royal weed, not me.
But the concept is you need to have competition in
the market. You can't just be the only person selling
a thing. You can't. You can defeature competitors by having
a better product at a better price point, but you
(28:27):
can't just box them out because when you box them out,
when you're the only option, there is no reason for
you to not price gouch and the quality of your
product doesn't have to be great because you the only people.
That's what I mean by drug dealer. You trying to
be the only connect. If you the only connect, you've
(28:49):
charged the people whatever you won't they hooked on the product.
You could step on your product if you want too,
because what they gonna do where you go go, I'm
your only option. I used to feel like that with
gas prices because I'm like, what am I gonna do?
There's no difference to me between mobile and arco. I
still have to go to the thing, or I don't
go anywhere like I I now. As a side note,
(29:11):
I went to Ryanfest this past weekend at the Coliseum
and I took the train and I was like, no, native,
nobody I know takes trains because it just don't go
enough places. But this time it was like I didn't
have to switch once, and I was like, bro, why
don't every time I take the train? Every time I
take the metro in La, I'll be like, why don't
I do this? So yeah, maybe there is an alternative anyway.
(29:34):
So being mad over gas prices, I'm like, what do what?
You're gonna not gonna fill up your tank? What you're
gonna You're gonna not go to work? Like I felt
so hopeless. I'm like, this is a monopoly, you monopolize.
So the idea was in the anti trust law. I
don't know why they call it that, they just do.
Antitrust law is saying we do not believe in the
(29:57):
American economics system that it is legal or even in
the spirit of who we are as a nation, that
any one company should have a have a monopoly over
a business. There needs to be competition, meaning there needs
to be other companies that are pushing you, because what
(30:19):
that does for the consumer is it means we're getting
the best products because y'all are fighting against each other
for our dollars. They're not concerned with just one company success.
We're talking overall success of the entire country because they
looking at it again as the economy as capitalism capital
c not just are you doing all right? We mean
the whole country. So the whole country got to win,
(30:42):
which means that I don't really care if your one
company is doing I we need a whole thing to work.
In theory, because you could go get the off brand stuff.
You grew up like us. Oh man, there was cheerios
and then there was multo meal. There was tasty os.
You feel me, I was like them is nasty. I
used to get so mad when my mom brought that
(31:03):
off brand Cereal. I wanted the name brand Cereal. It
was cheaper, but it was but that ain't like that
ain't work Now what that meant was that made cheerios.
Because my mom sometimes was like, I ain't buying the cheerios.
It costs too much. So that means the cheerios because
there's such thing as multo meal and tastios, fruit rings
(31:24):
not fruit loops, because those things existed. That meant that,
like Yo, Cheerios, gotta work harder to make sure that
they products they bomb and at the price point is
something that we willing to pay. That's why there's one
hundred different car companies while they fighting for our attention.
Why everybody racing to get an electric car like thing
(31:45):
with Tesla's they was just there first. Well, actually Saturn
was there first. You should see a documentary called Who
Killed the Electric Car? Anyway, but they not the only ones.
They couldn't. They couldn't get to electric car and shut
the door. There's companies like Rivian who they trucks are amazing,
you know, But there's other companies. There are other people
(32:05):
making electric cars. So it's like, yo, get your weight up,
like do something great. Now, it could become a monopoly
if they do this. They take all the road mapping
that they've done with their self driving, get it perfect
and then make sure every a new electric car has
to buy their software for the road mapping of self driving.
(32:26):
Like if every new electric car had Tesla's software in
there from for their self driving cars, which right now
would be a disaster. But if they continue to develop
what they got and then they box out everybody else,
it wouldn't matter if it's a disaster or not, because
every car comes equipped with their software. That would be
a monopoly, to which they could argue, I mean, you're
(32:50):
welcome to uninstall it and put your own one in there.
Do you know how to uninstall software on your car?
Are you going to Google it? Think about the dial
up modem sounds your aim user name. We all got sidekicks,
(33:12):
but no, I don't even know if we got sidekick
It was in pagers there. You know what I'm saying,
you about to have a sidekick, and boyd, the early
Internet feels like caveman energy. So Microsoft, led by Bill Gates,
was young, scrappy startup. You know, you gotta remember like
(33:38):
at this point McIntosh, those was just the computers in
the school lab. Like when you went to the computer
lab at school, there was these funny look at things
that we just had to learn when we did our
typing classes, you know, you just did it on that.
So Microsoft at the time was developing Windows, right, so
Windows Night, you know, Windows ninety five and that's that,
(34:01):
which was the operating system, which you guys know already.
And then Microsoft Office so spreadsheet, you know, PowerPoint, Microsoft
Word and everything that comes just Microsoft, like just Microt's Windows,
like it's Microsoft what they started doing because Bill Gates
ain't dumb, is he was taken over while while while
(34:24):
Apple and them was working towards school and fun and
stuff like that, Microsoft was taken over the corporate world
and every company, every you know work computer was a
Windows and Microsoft Office. And then eventually once we hit
Windows ninety five, you know that whole like you know,
(34:45):
the the Apple like you know sessions where they launched
new products, like Windows invented that like that was Microsoft,
Like it was just goofy. Even the user video, the
training video for how to use Microsoft Office and Windows
ninety five had, believe it or not, actors from Friends
from the show Friends was on it. Jay Leno did
(35:07):
the monologue like it was the biggest thing in the
world because it was just change. You gotta remember this
is where tech was. And what else that they did
that was amazing was if you bought a laptop, you
gotta remember there was a million different types of laptops.
You remember HP, you remember ACER, You could get any
type of just like before the iPod there was zooms.
(35:30):
Like there was a million different other products and then
somebody takes over and just wins. The thing. What Microsoft
did was they cut a deal with PC and laptop
companies and was like, yo, so let us be yo
default operating system. So if anybody wants to use another
operating system an OS like a Macintosh, you got to
take all that stuff off and put a new one in. Now.
(35:53):
Mcintos was smart enough to say, no, our operating system
works on our products only, but set that to a
side right now. Microsoft was like, cool, y'all can have
your own little weird egg shape computers will take over
every other computer on Earth. And that's kind of what
they did. They just cut a deal and it was
just like yeah, dude, like yo, if you're selling a laptop,
(36:16):
you're selling a desktop. It's got Microsoft operating system already installed.
So we already got a deal. So we didn't even
got to sell it to the consumers. It's already sold
to the manufacturer. Kind of brilliant. I mean, why wouldn't
you do that? Now while this is happening, something else
was being invented, a little thing called the World Wide Web,
(36:39):
The Internet was being made around this time. Sorry about that. Next, Okay,
(37:11):
so now that the Internet's being made, you know you
gotta buy your modems. What nobody thought about, because you
have to remember nobody knew what the Internet was, is
you have to have a way to get on there. Browser. No,
you need a browser. It's so stupid, Like it's so stupid.
I have to point that out right. And then because
(37:31):
there was no separate apps for your emails or for
there was no apps, the apps were Microsoft. You need
a browser to get on the Internet. The browser, there
was a lot of different types. There's Navigator, there was Netscape,
and at the time that's all the Netscape made. They
(37:54):
were the only browsers. I mean, it was fine, Like
what else did we know you got on the Internet
with on a Netscape browser? But you of little AOL
disc which we're gonna talk about it in a second.
But your little AOL disc popped it in. You clicked
the disc and then it would throw the netscate like
you just that was the only how you opened the
Internet was the browser. Of course, now we you know,
(38:14):
we got Chrome, Firefox, Safari, like we got those things.
You gotta remember, like we didn't none of those things
they we didn't know what those things meant, Like none
of those things existed. Netscape was how you got to
the internet. Bill Gates ain't stupid. He was like, Yo,
this the future. We need a hold up, we need
a browser. And his browser was called Internet Explorer. That's
(38:36):
how you got on the Internet. His browser was trash right,
because they was too busy making too many different things.
They was making a laptopser was making office, they was
making Windows. It was making all these different things that
they didn't really make browsers. But he's not stupid. He
knew that this was the future. So the browser got
better and better and better. And then he realized, like,
(38:56):
wait a minute, I have a million vendors I work with.
Every laptop already has my product in it. Stupid, why
don't I bundle Internet Explorer with it? A matter of fact,
I'll throw an Internet Exploor free. It just comes with
it comes with Microsoft. It comes with Windows, Windows is
already on every laptop. I'll just it's so stupid, like, duh,
(39:18):
I don't even have to sell it. I'm already nobody.
Can you name another word processing? What's the Mac with numbers?
Adobe pages? I'm saying, even now, we don't use it.
Maybe you write in Google Docs, which we're gonna get
to later, but nobody writes it like it's it's you
use word almost two decades right, like you what else
(39:39):
is there? So they were like, duh, let's just add
our product. Let's just add Explorer to every laptop. Obviously
netscapes like well, wait a day a minute, bro, are
you serious? So you're just gonna sell the product for free? Well,
like I mean there's nothing Well, I mean you're already
(40:01):
on every laptop like this is They were like, you're
breaking anti trust laws. So they wrote a letter to
the Department of Justice like yo, fam, I can't like,
can't nobody compete with this? This ain't right? Two hundred
pays letter. Justice Department was like, huh, you might be
on to something because like you're like this is what
(40:21):
seems to us, like this is anti competition, Like you
just boxed everybody out, like you just gave everybody the
product for freeze, gave everybody to wait free. Somebody come
in your hood and just passing out weed for free.
It's like, well, how can I run a business? Like
I don't understand? Like if if every car come through
your neighborhood has already got a vapor in it, Like, well,
I mean what I'm supposed to do? Why you think
(40:43):
the gas company so mad? Or why you think these
oil companies so mad about electric cars? Cause it's like, oh, nigga,
don't need you no more? Like wait a minute, this
is leading us to obsolescence. But they're but but what's
specifically about an anti trust is or this monopoly is
like this is the same product, and you guys are
like this is David and goliathout this mug like you
(41:05):
already like there's no I can't compete with this. This
is like there is no competition. I don't want to
get into the like operating system business, like we make
an Internet browser and you're just giving yours away for
free and even if people don't want it, ah, which
is where we get what has to do with Google.
Even if people don't want it, it just comes with
the lap so of course, like just the psychology of
(41:27):
it is like, well, this is the one that come
with it. So like why would I go out of
my way unless I'm a tech geek, why would I
go out of my way? That's just it come with it.
We don't know enough about the Internet to have a
preference about it. We don't know about incognito like that
stuff don't exist no more or yet, So what difference
does it make? All right, let's Internet Explorer. And it
makes sense to us because it was like or to
the it made sense to the consumer because it's like, well,
(41:49):
it's made from the same company that when I open
the laptop, that's how it runs. They was like, yo,
this is unjust like this ain't They can do whatever
they want. And I remember gather the browser was trashed,
like it wasn't it wasn't that good of a browser,
like it just like what do you? I don't know
what I can I mean? And they had no incentive
(42:10):
on making it better per se, because they don't already
sold the product completely. They didn't already made day money
off off windows and off office, so there's no like
you've cornered the market. There's no there's there's you. No
one can compete with you. So they brought that case
to the Department of Justice. Netscape did so Netscape bring
(42:31):
brings brings a case to the Department of Justice. They
was like, just like I just explained, like, yo, this
is a monopoly dog, Like there's nothing we could do
about it. Like I mean, what we're we gonna do?
It's already on your laptop. I bet you open your door,
you get a new computer today. Bet you it's already there.
Like how do I compete with that? Like that's not
what am I supposed to do? They bring in Microsoft
to be like okay, well and this is like legendary,
(42:53):
like so Bill Gates and them and Microsoft come in
and Microsoft was just like okay, that's funny. Wait what
Wait are y'all serious? Old up? This is no way
in the world you're serious right now? What is you?
What you're saying is absolutely ridiculous. Let me get this straight. Wait,
hold on, hold on, hold hold on, let me get
this straight. We made a product, we made smart business moves.
(43:18):
We used our connections, we developed a new product. We
took our own product, bundled it with our other own
product and use the connections that we took years to develop,
and you saying that's a problem. What you mean, like,
what is the problem? You can't possibly be or you're
so we're smart, you're punishing me for beist? What are
(43:39):
you talking to You're saying this is anti capitalists? I
don't understand. So should our products up? Should we not
try what you want us to? Not make money? What
are you talking about? This is absurd? Fuck? You mean
we made a product that we hustled. I don't understand
telling them fools to get their weight up. Ain't nothing
stopping you from finding a computer. You could approach them
(44:01):
with the same contract we approached them with, get your
weight up. I don't understand we approach these people, We
approach these manufacturers. They could have said no. They said yes,
what do you want me to do? You want me
to tell the consumers don't buy our product? What are
you talking about? Absolutely ridiculous was Microsoft's argument. The problem
(44:24):
was they just walked in, super smug and super arrogant,
and they were just like I'm saying, like we smarter
than everyone. It was our fault. We're smarter than everybody else.
Apartment just ain't like that. They ain't like your little attitude.
They asked them very very direct questions like yo, do
you remember this email? They pulling up emails where them
Foods was talking this is the first time that was
like a part of like because remember emails just now
(44:45):
were born, pulling up emails where they were like knife
the Baby like talking about like really we're trying to
kill Netscape, like that's our goal, Like we're actually trying
to get like just cutthroat like Silicon Valley like og Like, no,
we're actually trying to kill kill it. They was like, yo,
you remember this email? He was like no, Like you
don't remember the one you just replied He's like no,
I remember it. It was just a jerk about it.
(45:06):
Like they were like, hey, did you have any concern
about any other companies? He was like what, I don't
understand the question. It was like what what don't you understand?
He's like, what do you mean by concern? I don't
know what you mean by that? And they were like
do you know what concern means? Like I know what
it means. I don't know what you mean by that.
It was like, sir, do you okay? Just this like smug,
(45:28):
I'm smarter than you. I'm ten steps ahead of you.
Just it just turned everybody out, but they're Ultimately their
point was, Okay, dude, you can't punish us because their
product sucks like that can't be that can't possibly be
our fault. We're good at business. This is what happened.
(45:49):
Department of Justice was like, no, that's a monopoly, y'all
gotta break this company up because the straw that broke
the camera back was caring office and windows with Explorer.
That's the part that did it because it's like you've
made now nobody has any other options. That's the same
example I was given with Tesla, because the point is,
(46:11):
on general principle, consumers are supposed to have options. And
the argument is having options keeps everybody in check, right,
because if you have options, that's going to force you
to make the better product. And if you baking the
better product, that make all of America look good. Consumers
are happy, money's flowing, right. That's the argument. And again
(46:34):
using the Tesla as an example, like I just said,
right now, then I just say that I'm sorry. I'm
just talking if every electric car in the future, if
you want to do self driving mode, you have to
use this because it's the default setting. And this gives
Tesla no incentive to like they could charge every car
company whatever they want, because who else you're gonna go to,
(46:55):
which means that that is going to raise the prices
for all of our cars, which means it's going to
rate the price for chips and all this good stuff.
You're just like, there's no like, this doesn't help nobody.
This just makes you by yourself rich, and all of
us got to suffer by it. So that's the theory.
Nobody's happy with that except for y'all. And we just
(47:16):
decided as a nation back in the seventeen hundreds that
we wasn't gonna be like that in theory. Now, what
they told them that they had to do was break
the company up. You have to put windows in one
place as one company, in office as another company. Is
(47:38):
that how you understand Microsoft? Of course not, because that
didn't happen. Essentially, what they did was just they paid
the fines, they did what they had to do, and
then they just promised to not be jerks. This is
really really ain't nothing to happen. So ultimately nothing changed.
Netscape ended up selling to AOL. Microsoft just had this
(48:02):
ruling stand that they were operating as a monopoly. But
since God is good and just when last time you
opened then Internet Explorer browser. Now, this is what the
Department of Justice was considering when they looked at this
Google case. Now let's talk about specifically the ruling. Now,
(48:50):
remember Google, the company's called alphabet. But whatever reason, the
ruling was that they illegally monopolized the search engine market.
Now and here here here's how they did it. Now,
they did it the same way Microsoft did it, in
(49:11):
the sense that you just if you're a software company, duh,
make deals with hardware companies. So what Google did was like,
I don't care if you using Chrome. You could if
even if you use Safari, whatever phone you got, when
you open it, make a deal with us where you
automatically your search engine goes to Google. When the last
time you said I'm gonna bing something, I'm gonna ask
(49:34):
Jeeves something, No, you google it. So they made deals
with phonemakers and other hardware folks to be like, look,
just let us be your default browser. Now you all
know you could go into your phone, you could go
into your settings and say like I want this other
thing to be the default. But who's gonna do that?
Some people do, like some of y'all folks who just
(49:57):
are like anti iPhone because you believe in free. You
want to Android, which is just another company, Like I
don't understand how y'all don't understand that. But your belief
is you want to be able to customize it in
the way that you want to customize it because Apple
tell you what to do. And one of the things
that Apple tell you to do is like it's automatically
going to go to a Google. Now with that being
(50:19):
automatically your search engine in them gathering a trillion kajillion
megakad billion probably flowbally fillion megabits of information on us.
They can sell ad spaces. So if you are a
person like me who make they live in online, I
(50:41):
mean you have to you have to use the Google market,
you have to use their ad spaces, you have to
do search engine optimization, you have to be able to
show up in their ad revenue space because that's where
everybody at Why the hell would you buy an ad
at bing? What is that gonna do for you? And
(51:01):
if and since they the only people in town, they're
the only people that it really makes sense to spend
your money on. They could charge you whatever they want.
Let me tell you why Terraform cobrew wasn't on Amazon
because I would lose two dollars per can like I would.
You're like, I would be paying them like there's no
But at the same time, Terraform cobrew out of money.
(51:24):
If you went to the website, it ain't no coffee
there because I'm out of money. You uner see what
I'm saying, like they make it where I mean, what
are your other options? That's that phrase, like what's my
other option? That is a monopoly. Now what Google argued
was the same thing and Microsoft argued, which was like, fam,
I'm sorry for being good at my business, but people
(51:47):
can do whatever they want. We just happened to try
to give people an off or they came to use. Now,
what was interesting this time was the Supreme Court brought
up not just at this is and o's. It wasn't
just business and like nerdery around the law. They brought
(52:08):
up psychology. And it's this concept called the psychology of
the default. No, no, no, let me say it right,
the power of default. Now you and I I don't
even have to explain that you understand when something is
just your default setting, you just after a while because
something just becomes so normal you don't even think about
(52:29):
that there are other alternatives, like you'd have to go
out of your way to do that. That's the default,
And what they were arguing is that is proof of
a monopoly in our brains. Google's a verb despite the
quality of Google, because you probably experienced the same thing
I'm experiencing when you try to Google something. It's like
because of AAI thing, I'm like, y'all, your product's getting worse. Now,
(52:55):
that's probably because we're old and we're not searching on TikTok,
which is where the rest of the people's search, which
was Google's defense. Google's like, I'm not worried about Netscape
or ask Jeeves, I'm worried about TikTok, Like that's a
search engine and they're like, fam, no, it's not. What
(53:17):
are you talking about. The psychology or the power of
the default is when your brand is so strong that
you just don't think of you don't even think, of
course there's alternatives, you don't even think of it, which
is like a new strategy to argue that somebody has
a monopoly, So what's the solution. The solution is to
(53:38):
break up the company. That's usually what it means. Now,
Like I told you before, what happened with Microsoft was
basically like they were supposed to split up Microsoft Office
from from Windows. So that was the plan for Google.
It's like you, I remember, this is an alpha BET's
(54:00):
a two trillion dollar company. So one of the suggestion
was like divest Divesting the Android operating system was like
the most frequently discussed option by the Justice Department's attorney.
And then some were suggesting the force of the ad
(54:23):
words like you have to sell that and Google gotta
let go of that program, right, the search ad program, right,
a divestment from that from its Chrome web browser. But
at the end of the day, they haven't landed on
an actual verdict as to how to solve this. They've
just said, no, you violated antitrust laws. You're gonna have
to break up this company. Just curved them. Now, things
(55:19):
like this is where your super conservative capitalists argues is
a problem because it seems as though this is not
free market capitalism. They're like, let the consumer decide. We
just did good business and the government shouldn't interfere. These
(55:40):
are the same people that don't want the EPA to exist,
you know, So if there's mad cow disease and your beef,
they like people will stop buying it, so just leave
us alone, that's their argument. Like, well, I mean, tell
everybody else get their weight up. They don't want no interference,
(56:01):
which I guess I would understand too if I owned
a company and was making a kajillion dollars. But I'm
a consumer that really just want to be able to
have good products, afford the products we have, and not
hear somebody like Jeff Bezos in his rocket that looked
like a penis who didn't even actually make it in
(56:22):
the space and then to say, hey, you guys did
this by buying stuff, like don't nobody want to see that? Like, okay, listen,
here's the underbelly. We know, all right. The thing is
we ain't got no choice. Amazon might be next in this.
(56:43):
This is the deal we've made without having an option
to make this deal. We know we're making y'all rich,
but we also need to live. And sometimes if you
that person man the assumer, like us, it kind of
feel good that there's some big homies that might be
(57:04):
able to come in and say, hey, y'all, don't get
to treat the love hommies like that, because man, that's
some good stuff, good politics, y'all. All right now, don't
(57:28):
you hit stop on this pod. You better listen to
these credits. I need you to finish this thing so
I can get the download numbers. Okay, so don't stop
it yet, but listen. This was recorded in East Lost
boil Heights by your boy Propaganda. Tap in with me
at prop hip hop dot com. If you're in the
Coldbrew coffee we got Terraform Coldbrew. You can go there
(57:51):
dot com and use promo code hood get twenty percent
off get yourself some coffee. This was mixed, edited, and
mastered by your boy Matt Alsowski killing the beat softly.
Check out his website Mattowsowski dot com. I'm a spell
it for you because I know M A T T
O S O W s ki dot com Matthowsowski dot com.
(58:16):
He got more music and stuff like that on there,
so gonna check out The heat Politics is a member
of cool Zone Media, executive produced by Sophie Lichterman, part
of the iHeartMedia podcast network. Your Theme music and scoring
is also by the one and nobly Mattowsowski. Still killing
the beat softly, so listen. Don't let nobody lie to you.
(58:37):
If you understand urban living, you understand politics. These people
is not smarter than you. We'll see y'all next week.
A media. First of all, the NBA and lost their
mind about all these dog goned streamers you gotta download,
like we talked about with Jamil Hill. But to make
matters worse, the people that run streamcasts didn't been arrested.
So all the illegal streams we was using, which is
(00:24):
what my plan was, has been destroyed. So if you
know of any illegal streams, I'm sorry. NBA y'all had
lost your mind. I was here for it for a while.
I was willing to pay for the stuff because I
get it. Man, you know what I'm saying, Like you
gotta change with the times. However, you niggas anyway, that's stupid.
(00:46):
So what's happening this week is Matt and I are
actually together, like right now, if you're listening to this
the day it drops or the day after it drops,
we are in some sort of abandoned cathedral in Wisconsin
shooting videos for our album The Beautiful Endling the Poetry Record,
(01:10):
which I hope you have downloaded now and or have
purchased on iTunes. The purchasing seems so redundant, but it
does help, so I do appreciate that. But anyway, we're
shooting videos right now, So there just wasn't any time
this week to edit. No new show, but speaking a
(01:31):
new show. September twenty fifth, I'm gonna be up in
Portland with Robert and Sophie doing a live behind the
Bastards to raise funds for Portland Defense to help people
with like legal fees and bail money and all that
good stuff. So that's gonna be dope. I'm also rapping
in Portland up there on the twenty eighth with the
Homy Abstract Rude and Varsitol or the Life Savers. You
(01:52):
know what I'm saying, Some Portland legends if you what
ap apps at la legend, Portland versatile anyway, I'm rambling.
The one we're gonna run right now is about the
Supreme Court curbing Google. Now, I'm gonna run this because
in two weeks after the one where me and Derek
just kind of shoot the breeze, I'm gonna talk about
(02:14):
what the Supreme Court actually decided with Google, and it
turns out Google might be an old head and they
don't even know it. You know what I'm saying. They
have to brink of extinction and they don't know it.
You feel me? Yeah, buddy, the endling always showing up,
y'all notice the end anyway, So before we could get
to that, let's go rewind the clock as to when
(02:34):
Google actually turned Microsoft into an old head. You know
what I'm saying, and how the antitrust laws works, and
why what the sentencing is, what the DLJ is saying
Google has to do, and why that's important. That's what
we're gonna talk about the next time I talk about this.
(02:58):
So anyway, here's past me talking about what future me
is going to talk about in the future, her politics
for pride. Hey, do y'all still say curved or curbed?
Like if somebody curbed you, I don't even know if
it's I don't even know if it's curve or curved.
(03:22):
But essentially what we mean is maybe I'm my old head.
What we mean is when you approach a young lady
and she shut you down, like, oh man, you got curved.
You know, they just I'm pretty sure it's curved, probably
like curb your enthusiasm. It's probably it. I don't know
if there's anything more painful, because most of the time
for you to get curved, it's usually because you are
(03:44):
enthusiastic a lot of times is when you're super confident
in the movie You're finna make now. I can't speak
for every young man who finally hits his awakening of
the sex that he's attracted to. And I know mine
when I was like, wait a minute, I like girls,
(04:06):
when you have to start building up the bravery to
actually admit it, or maybe ask this girl to dance
or sit by her, or maybe even possibly get a
little kiss on the cheek, you know, just you know,
it was little boys, you're not really ready for like
full intercourse because we're still children. I remember like rehearsing
(04:29):
and I have a sister that's six years older than me,
so I could ask her, like how do I say this?
You know, what outfits should I wear? Like you know,
and she was like down to make her little brother,
like you know, she wanted a little brother to be flying.
So I could ask her and come up with lines
and like how do I approach? What do I say?
Where do I stand? Like how do I I'm nervous,
(04:50):
I'm scared off for her to offer this little girl
to giggle and run to her friends and go eh,
he not even fond, just destroy. It took me three
weeks to get the courage to say something to or
just with this girl, to be like h, like that's
the child. Which I don't know if it's everybody's story,
(05:13):
but you have to understand, like me, who I went
to schools in neighborhoods that were so diverse where there
was just as many Filipino and Latino and you know, Chinese,
there was such as there was so many other communities
that were at the spaces I was in. Like again,
(05:36):
I read the demographics. Most of y'all are from Cali
that listen to this from the San Gabriel Valley. Who
I was born in South central I say it all
the time, but I grew up in the San Gavel
Valley and then I went to high school in the
Inland Empire, And like so I you experienced so many cultures.
You're exposed to so many types of girls where black
dude is just not they tight. This is way too
(05:58):
long of an intro Anyway, The point I'm trying to
make is it really hurts to get curved, especially when
you're really confident. And guess what Google got curved? Hook
politics y'all all, right, before I go into it, but
(06:22):
look at like nerds. Bull look is like this, bullook
is like this, look is like this, but look at
like this. All right, Well, the darkest of holidays has hit.
(06:44):
It is the one year anniversary of the attack from
Hamas on Israel, which, in retaliation to such attack, unleashed
the Kraken towards all of Gaza and extending Palestinian areas.
(07:13):
Way too many people died. There was a memorial held
in Israel where they played that last song before at that,
you know, because the attack happened like one of the
parts happened during a music festival, and the last song
(07:35):
that was being played before the attack happened and hostages
were taken and people were killed, they played that song
to mark, you know, the one year anniversary of a horrible,
horrible situation. And from the Israeli perspective, the city is
torn because you can't argue that that wasn't, you know,
(07:57):
one of the or maybe if not the greatest terrorist
attack that they've experienced. And I think, like I'm not
adding snark to this because it's like, I mean, like
I'm just trying to be real about it. I think,
how do I say this? Since they've been in their
(08:22):
mind the little engine that could the whole time, and
everybody was against them. They felt like their only way
to be safe is to be the aggressor. And they've
continued to be the aggressor because they feel like everybody's
being aggressed to them. So there's a kinship to the
idea that America has of itself too. You know where
(08:43):
we say, if you go into war, you're going overseas
like the attack is over there. Everybody's trying to come
to get us, but don't nobody want to mess with us,
because they know won't play around. It only happened once
and that was a Pearl harbor. We blew up Pole
Islands after that, So they carried in their psyche that
type of sort of same vibe. But that is not
to diminish the atrocities that they feel in their heart
(09:10):
and the things that had happened, So you mark it right.
On the other hand, it also marks the beginning of
the absolute decimation of Gaza, with eleven thousand people dead
(09:31):
and just a commpletely intenable living situation that has now spread.
Everybody's fear has spread to Lebanon and Yemen, and now
Big dog Iran has jumped in. It was what everybody
that works in peacemaking was hoping wouldn't happen, that we
(09:52):
would get to a ceasefire to state solution, which clearly
is the only option. I just don't understand how anybody
could think any other way that like this is really
the only option. But with that being said, all the blood,
all the carnage, all the like, let's make this happen.
Gaza could not have a sort of moment to even
(10:16):
breathe to mark the anniversary of this because it's leveled. Yeah,
I mean there's like where you know, they still running
for cover and is well not even letting it. They
barely letting aid in, Like we got to fight to
let aid in. And then with all the carnage and
(10:38):
it be coming into a regional war, there's a ceasefire
deal on the table, and then Yahoo won't accept it
and you still ain't got the hostages. All that blood
and you still ain't got the hostages. So Israel as
a nation is torn because they're like, fam, uh, can
(10:59):
we keep our eyes on the prize here? I just
we just want our loved ones back. What did you
and ask you to blow the whole like, I ain't
ask you to blow the whole city up. Well, it's
just one of our hostages, but what is you? And
then there's the other half that's like, no, we can't
(11:19):
letting people live. And then there's the really really small
dack sect of hyper conservative religious folk within the Israeli
world that are like, well, it's how we bring the Messiah.
We gotta control this region or the Messiah ain't coming,
(11:41):
so like, no, they gotta go. So it's all that
going on all in one place. The JV team had
their debate, switching gears here the my dad can beat
up your dad debate because who cared what the vice
(12:01):
president think? Because the vice president will really do nothing.
Now that being said, it was more substantive than any
of us would have thought. And it's one of those
things where it's like, be careful what you asked for.
Y'all asked for civility and substance. What you didn't ask
for was truth, My niggad, the Trump ticket is getting
(12:28):
his money's worth. He is jd Vance understood the assignment.
The assignment was to sanitize everything that Trump stands for,
and even to the point of like almost like the
opposite where it's like, now, we ain't say that. And
then when the mic slipped up and said, well, you
(12:48):
weren't supposed to lie fact checked us a you revealed
your cards, big dog. But JD. Vance absolutely one hundred
percent understood the assignment and you cannot take that from him.
He was slick, he was likable, and he didn't go
on the full attack. They did the whole I agree
(13:10):
with what we're supposed to be doing heat and he
took all the smart Now, don't get me wrong, I
personally like dudes like that will pulse me that are
too polished in every like that, I'm like, you're clearly
hiding something. Anyway, everything was going great until this man
(13:34):
could not answer the January sixth question, Now, did Trump
lose the election? Elect question? Now, the thing is, that's
in some senses it's a gotcha question because we all
know that man can't answer that question, Like what y'all
expect this man to say? Yeah, now, Trump tripping on
that one, but we gonna win this one though. He
(13:54):
can't say he can't do that. Y'all know he can't
do that. That man can't get up there and tell
the truth like on Boomdocks. You better learn how to
lie like me. You can't be telling the truth to
these people. You got a lie, that'd be the end
(14:15):
of his job. Get Trump lose a twenty twenty election
like Nigga does, Like you can't say that. You gotta
be like, look, dude, we're looking forward. But didn't y'all,
and then proceeded to talk backwards. Boy, I tell you man,
I love it here. All right, let's get back to
(14:37):
it like this. All right. So last year we did
an episode that was called Get Your Weight Up, and
I taught y'all about antitrust and monopolies and the situation
Google was facing. And it was over search engines and ads,
(14:58):
showing how this is just a rand new world where
what Google is facing, especially when it comes to like
search engines. You had suit being brought to them by
like you know, bing and like ass jeeves. That was like,
you're creating a monopoly. I can even giggle with the
idea of like being because it's like, bro, no one
(15:19):
uses bing. Google's a verb like it's a company, but
it's also a verb. You google something. They're like, you're
a monopoly. They're like, listen, I'm not like bing is
not my competition. Microsoft, a'm my competition. Full Chat, GBT
is TikTok Amazon, I am not competing with you other
(15:39):
browsers and search engines. Y'all lave y'all need to get
y'all weight up. And the argument was in this antitrust case,
which I will back up and explain the term monopoly
or antitrust and then give you a context. So their
argument was, you say, we're cornering the market, We're making
it impossible, but y'all could just get y'all weight up.
(16:00):
I don't know why you mad at us for making
a superior product. Now, the last time you googled something,
I'm pretty sure you got frustrated because Google's trying to
do the AI thing again to keep up with that GBT,
and so the searches have been I've had to like
retype in what I'm looking for multiple times because I'm like,
this used to be super easy. So in my anecdotal opinion,
(16:21):
it's gotten worse as they've tried to bring it AI.
But the point is the case was do you have
a monopoly on search and ads? And when we talked
about it at first, it was being brought to the
Department of Justice. Well, they have decided, yes, you have
a monopoly. It's not fair, and you need to break
(16:42):
it up. Break it up, break it up, break it up,
break it up, break it up, break it up, break
it up. Yeah, y'all, ratchet, y'all know that's all y'all
got to break up your company. Now. The reason why
this was so big obviously because Google's big, but it's
because it harkens back to one that happened in nineteen
ninety eight Microsoft. So here's what we're gonna do. I'll
(17:05):
gonna explain to you what a monopoly is. And if
you've ever sold drugs you already know, which means that
we have to talk about capitalism and the version of
capitalism that America says they love and believe in. How
you protect that imaginary version of capitalism, Why an antitrust
(17:26):
is what it is, and why the government steps in,
what happened with Microsoft, and how that informed this Google decision,
and then what Google's gonna have to do. All right,
but I swear to you, just like the very foundational truth,
the axiom of truth that this show is, you already
(17:47):
notice stuff, all right? Next, Okay, so capitalism oftentimes we
(18:15):
have because we live in the world we live in,
we have conflated the idea of capitalism with just economics
that if you sell something, it's capitalism. You have to
remember capitalism as a concept was invented. Now. The idea
(18:36):
of trading some sort of commerce for goods and services
is as old as puka shells, is as old as
when we moved from just bartering to yeah, there is
currency and the currency and I'm giving you this currency,
and you're going to return back to me a good
in service. The institution that we talk about that includes
(19:02):
a supply chain where the product is being created in
multiple different factories that's being cobbled together into one piece.
The system that says each of these people that work
in these factories is indust your revolution type situation that
puts like if you're going to take a pencil, the
eraser tip is made somewhere else, but that place is
(19:25):
really only getting raw materials from another place, and those
raw materials are being sent there, and then the people
carrying that stuff in people that transfer it in the
truck is a whole other company who brings this raw
materials to this place, and then that place has to
buy the equipment from a whole other company who makes
(19:45):
the equipment for you to process this thing to make
the eraser tip. But still, if you're the pencil company,
you have a contract with them with a wood company
who's got a contract with a timber company who's got
a contract with a lead company, or a graphite company.
You just the people that put it all together. And
then it's a whole other marketing team that just was
(20:08):
hired by the brand name of the pencil to put
it all in one place. And then you got to
hire a shopify right, a three pl and all of
these people have employees, and the price of that pencil
is cobbled together in the way that makes sure, or
supposed to make sure that everybody, every company that was
(20:30):
involved in this all gotta pay their employees, bring that
all together, get it on the shelf, and then they
charge you a dollar ninety nine per pencil. Now, if
you're making one million pencils, it may not have cost
you the company they selling them for a dollar ninety nine.
It cost the company, I don't know, hopefully if they're
(20:51):
doing it right, two cents. So the cost of the
pencil you hear all them companies all had to make
their money. But if you make enough of them, you
can lower the cost that it takes to make the
pencil so that when it gets to the consumer, you
only paying two dollars. And at two dollars, you know,
multiplied by one hundred thousand consumers, it's supposed to be
(21:12):
able to make sure that everybody's happy and everybody wins. Now,
the capitalism that we exist in is to say, okay,
best product at the best price wins. So if somebody
got a better pencil and they only charging a dollar fifty,
the idea is, damn you made it cheaper and better,
so everybody's gonna buy that. So then what do you do.
(21:35):
You have to figure out how to make your pencil
better and cheaper. Hopefully you could charge a dollar twenty five,
right all the way down to where get this the
term of elasticity, to where the product is cheap enough
to make to where everybody makes money. There's a number.
Now you have to enter the concept of branding. Okay,
(21:55):
I work. I'm a brand ambassador for a company called
me Right, y'all know the people that make my mugs
and the poor Gami's all the coffee stuff is this
company called mer Now. Mir got a lot of clients too,
And Mir was telling us, telling me about one of
their clients for which I will not name names. And
because I ain't trying to worry, I ain't trying to
mess up my money. This company is able to sell
(22:18):
things at an absurd price point. But we looking at it.
But my man and Mir was looking at it. It
was like, Okay, you're sourcing. There's no way in the
world you're sourcing at a different place than everybody else's
or you're sourcing at the same place. And he was
like and the owner or the buyer was like, yeah, yeah,
source is the same place as as our competition. They
charged three ninety nine, we charge eight ninety nine. It's
(22:38):
called branding. So just the power of the branding, the
fact that your name is on it. Let me give
y'all a little game about Kirkland and Costco brand. Now,
Costco ain't paying me for this, but I wish they
was the Kirkland brand, liquor, the tequila, the whiskey, all
that that they got in there. It's they bought a
recipe from I believe it's ego rare like makers mart
(23:01):
I believe they're whiskey is makers market. They just bought
a recipe from them and just white labeled it. It's
actually very it's very good whiskey. It's just named Kirklind brilliant.
So if you smart, rather than buying the label name,
you getting the same product. It's just cheaper. So now
you take when you talk about a national economy, you
take all the pieces that we're talking about, if we're
(23:23):
talking about again capitalism, You take every person that is
on all them jobs, how much money they make, how
much money is coming into the company, how much money
that company is spending, how much money the people that
work at that company are spending right the products for
which they buy, how much then products cost to make,
(23:45):
and how much profit those products produce. How much of
that money is going out to other countries. How much
of that money is coming back into the consumers pockets,
because once the company makes money, the people that work
at that company all get paid and then they buy
other products, which brings the money back. So you take
(24:07):
the totality of all that, the combination of all those
factors all trying to get you to spend your dollar
with them, them competing with each Other's called free market capitalism.
All of that is capitalism. And what's capitalism's goal is,
if you haven't figured this out yet, the greatest amount
(24:28):
of profit for the least amount of cost. Now, how
do you pull that off? If that is the goal
of capitalism, will you cut costs? Where do you cut costs?
Most of the time, your highest cost is your employees.
It's payroll. That's your highest cost. So you pay your
workers at least as possible. Why did America becomes up
(24:49):
a superstar, so a superpower so early? Well, they didn't
pay they workers at all. It was called slavery. You
was only paying for the raw materials. You only had
to pay for the land. You had to pay for
the work. Of course, you gonna get rich by no
stretch of the imagination. Is the goal of capitalism itself?
Human flourishing. Now that might be the person that functions
(25:12):
within the system. You might want to approach this in
a way that centers humanity in the sense that you're
paying your workers well. You're ethically sourcing, so that means
you're setting a price point that allows for you to
pay workers well, to treat the environment well. You have
things like certified b Corps. At some point I'm bring
Mahomie brian On here to talk about what it means
(25:34):
to be an ethical capitalistic company, which some would argue
is impossible. I might agree with you, but again, like
I say all the time, you know, she might as
well swim be as truthful as possible. Like I said,
we're all on a big corporation. This is iHeart media.
Like it's not be delusional, you know what I'm saying.
Corporation guys, So we're not delusional. But there's a way
(25:58):
to be as ethical as you poss can. But that's
not the goal of capitalism. That might be the goal
of the person. There might be a advancement of a
society to where, yeah, well multiple people now have jobs now,
which means like the way of life is just better
across the board for everybody because now everybody's employed. But
(26:18):
one would argue that, like we weren't starving before we
had jobs, Like before there was a factory, before you
bought your food at a grocery store, you just grew
your own. Every For most of human history, people just
had like small gardens like where you just and you
(26:40):
just traded back and forth where it's like, okay, we
grow squashed. Well, I'm gonna walk across the street go
visit another family over there in that other village. I
know they grow spinach. Well, you know what I'm saying.
I'mnna bring them some squash. They bring me some spiniches.
It's fine. Like we all we were all right before
we had to like work for like cotton pieces of
dead men to turn in for our waters, to work
(27:01):
in our houses because somebody bought the lake and owns
the clouds. I don't know if you notice. You can
own the clouds, you can own the land rights and
all of the sky and atmosphere above it. Because capitalism
is crazy right now anyway, I haven't even talked about
antitrust yet. This is absurd. So all that to say
(27:22):
in our system, at least in America, we tried to
set up this situation to say that if we keep
this institution pure enough, it will police itself. And how
you do that? Because people really make their decisions by
they purchases. People buy what they want. And if you
(27:44):
charge too much, but your brand is trash and we
don't believe you, people won't stop buying it that's a
price elasticity. What's the highest you could charge before people
are going to be like, all right, you don't lost
your mind. This brand ain't worth it, which is how
you gain the system. You know what I'm saying. It's like,
you make your brand worth it, but you charge as
high as you can, not as cheap as you can.
You take somebody like arizona Ic, they charge as little
(28:05):
as they can. That's their brand though for them it work.
But anyway, we we as in the royal weed, not me.
But the concept is you need to have competition in
the market. You can't just be the only person selling
a thing. You can't. You can defeature competitors by having
a better product at a better price point, but you
(28:27):
can't just box them out because when you box them out,
when you're the only option, there is no reason for
you to not price gouch and the quality of your
product doesn't have to be great because you the only people.
That's what I mean by drug dealer. You trying to
be the only connect. If you the only connect, you've
(28:49):
charged the people whatever you won't they hooked on the product.
You could step on your product if you want too,
because what they gonna do where you go go, I'm
your only option. I used to feel like that with
gas prices because I'm like, what am I gonna do?
There's no difference to me between mobile and arco. I
still have to go to the thing, or I don't
go anywhere like I I now. As a side note,
(29:11):
I went to Ryanfest this past weekend at the Coliseum
and I took the train and I was like, no, native,
nobody I know takes trains because it just don't go
enough places. But this time it was like I didn't
have to switch once, and I was like, bro, why
don't every time I take the train? Every time I
take the metro in La, I'll be like, why don't
I do this? So yeah, maybe there is an alternative anyway.
(29:34):
So being mad over gas prices, I'm like, what do what?
You're gonna not gonna fill up your tank? What you're
gonna You're gonna not go to work? Like I felt
so hopeless. I'm like, this is a monopoly, you monopolize.
So the idea was in the anti trust law. I
don't know why they call it that, they just do.
Antitrust law is saying we do not believe in the
(29:57):
American economics system that it is legal or even in
the spirit of who we are as a nation, that
any one company should have a have a monopoly over
a business. There needs to be competition, meaning there needs
to be other companies that are pushing you, because what
(30:19):
that does for the consumer is it means we're getting
the best products because y'all are fighting against each other
for our dollars. They're not concerned with just one company success.
We're talking overall success of the entire country because they
looking at it again as the economy as capitalism capital
c not just are you doing all right? We mean
the whole country. So the whole country got to win,
(30:42):
which means that I don't really care if your one
company is doing I we need a whole thing to work.
In theory, because you could go get the off brand stuff.
You grew up like us. Oh man, there was cheerios
and then there was multo meal. There was tasty os.
You feel me, I was like them is nasty. I
used to get so mad when my mom brought that
(31:03):
off brand Cereal. I wanted the name brand Cereal. It
was cheaper, but it was but that ain't like that
ain't work Now what that meant was that made cheerios.
Because my mom sometimes was like, I ain't buying the cheerios.
It costs too much. So that means the cheerios because
there's such thing as multo meal and tastios, fruit rings
(31:24):
not fruit loops, because those things existed. That meant that,
like Yo, Cheerios, gotta work harder to make sure that
they products they bomb and at the price point is
something that we willing to pay. That's why there's one
hundred different car companies while they fighting for our attention.
Why everybody racing to get an electric car like thing
(31:45):
with Tesla's they was just there first. Well, actually Saturn
was there first. You should see a documentary called Who
Killed the Electric Car? Anyway, but they not the only ones.
They couldn't. They couldn't get to electric car and shut
the door. There's companies like Rivian who they trucks are amazing,
you know, But there's other companies. There are other people
(32:05):
making electric cars. So it's like, yo, get your weight up,
like do something great. Now, it could become a monopoly
if they do this. They take all the road mapping
that they've done with their self driving, get it perfect
and then make sure every a new electric car has
to buy their software for the road mapping of self driving.
(32:26):
Like if every new electric car had Tesla's software in
there from for their self driving cars, which right now
would be a disaster. But if they continue to develop
what they got and then they box out everybody else,
it wouldn't matter if it's a disaster or not, because
every car comes equipped with their software. That would be
a monopoly, to which they could argue, I mean, you're
(32:50):
welcome to uninstall it and put your own one in there.
Do you know how to uninstall software on your car?
Are you going to Google it? Think about the dial
up modem sounds your aim user name. We all got sidekicks,
(33:12):
but no, I don't even know if we got sidekick
It was in pagers there. You know what I'm saying,
you about to have a sidekick, and boyd, the early
Internet feels like caveman energy. So Microsoft, led by Bill Gates,
was young, scrappy startup. You know, you gotta remember like
(33:38):
at this point McIntosh, those was just the computers in
the school lab. Like when you went to the computer
lab at school, there was these funny look at things
that we just had to learn when we did our
typing classes, you know, you just did it on that.
So Microsoft at the time was developing Windows, right, so
Windows Night, you know, Windows ninety five and that's that,
(34:01):
which was the operating system, which you guys know already.
And then Microsoft Office so spreadsheet, you know, PowerPoint, Microsoft
Word and everything that comes just Microsoft, like just Microt's Windows,
like it's Microsoft what they started doing because Bill Gates
ain't dumb, is he was taken over while while while
(34:24):
Apple and them was working towards school and fun and
stuff like that, Microsoft was taken over the corporate world
and every company, every you know work computer was a
Windows and Microsoft Office. And then eventually once we hit
Windows ninety five, you know that whole like you know,
(34:45):
the the Apple like you know sessions where they launched
new products, like Windows invented that like that was Microsoft,
Like it was just goofy. Even the user video, the
training video for how to use Microsoft Office and Windows
ninety five had, believe it or not, actors from Friends
from the show Friends was on it. Jay Leno did
(35:07):
the monologue like it was the biggest thing in the
world because it was just change. You gotta remember this
is where tech was. And what else that they did
that was amazing was if you bought a laptop, you
gotta remember there was a million different types of laptops.
You remember HP, you remember ACER, You could get any
type of just like before the iPod there was zooms.
(35:30):
Like there was a million different other products and then
somebody takes over and just wins. The thing. What Microsoft
did was they cut a deal with PC and laptop
companies and was like, yo, so let us be yo
default operating system. So if anybody wants to use another
operating system an OS like a Macintosh, you got to
take all that stuff off and put a new one in. Now.
(35:53):
Mcintos was smart enough to say, no, our operating system
works on our products only, but set that to a
side right now. Microsoft was like, cool, y'all can have
your own little weird egg shape computers will take over
every other computer on Earth. And that's kind of what
they did. They just cut a deal and it was
just like yeah, dude, like yo, if you're selling a laptop,
(36:16):
you're selling a desktop. It's got Microsoft operating system already installed.
So we already got a deal. So we didn't even
got to sell it to the consumers. It's already sold
to the manufacturer. Kind of brilliant. I mean, why wouldn't
you do that? Now while this is happening, something else
was being invented, a little thing called the World Wide Web,
(36:39):
The Internet was being made around this time. Sorry about that. Next, Okay,
(37:11):
so now that the Internet's being made, you know you
gotta buy your modems. What nobody thought about, because you
have to remember nobody knew what the Internet was, is
you have to have a way to get on there. Browser. No,
you need a browser. It's so stupid, Like it's so stupid.
I have to point that out right. And then because
(37:31):
there was no separate apps for your emails or for
there was no apps, the apps were Microsoft. You need
a browser to get on the Internet. The browser, there
was a lot of different types. There's Navigator, there was Netscape,
and at the time that's all the Netscape made. They
(37:54):
were the only browsers. I mean, it was fine, Like
what else did we know you got on the Internet
with on a Netscape browser? But you of little AOL
disc which we're gonna talk about it in a second.
But your little AOL disc popped it in. You clicked
the disc and then it would throw the netscate like
you just that was the only how you opened the
Internet was the browser. Of course, now we you know,
(38:14):
we got Chrome, Firefox, Safari, like we got those things.
You gotta remember, like we didn't none of those things
they we didn't know what those things meant, Like none
of those things existed. Netscape was how you got to
the internet. Bill Gates ain't stupid. He was like, Yo,
this the future. We need a hold up, we need
a browser. And his browser was called Internet Explorer. That's
(38:36):
how you got on the Internet. His browser was trash right,
because they was too busy making too many different things.
They was making a laptopser was making office, they was
making Windows. It was making all these different things that
they didn't really make browsers. But he's not stupid. He
knew that this was the future. So the browser got
better and better and better. And then he realized, like,
(38:56):
wait a minute, I have a million vendors I work with.
Every laptop already has my product in it. Stupid, why
don't I bundle Internet Explorer with it? A matter of fact,
I'll throw an Internet Exploor free. It just comes with
it comes with Microsoft. It comes with Windows, Windows is
already on every laptop. I'll just it's so stupid, like, duh,
(39:18):
I don't even have to sell it. I'm already nobody.
Can you name another word processing? What's the Mac with numbers?
Adobe pages? I'm saying, even now, we don't use it.
Maybe you write in Google Docs, which we're gonna get
to later, but nobody writes it like it's it's you
use word almost two decades right, like you what else
(39:39):
is there? So they were like, duh, let's just add
our product. Let's just add Explorer to every laptop. Obviously
netscapes like well, wait a day a minute, bro, are
you serious? So you're just gonna sell the product for free? Well,
like I mean there's nothing Well, I mean you're already
(40:01):
on every laptop like this is They were like, you're
breaking anti trust laws. So they wrote a letter to
the Department of Justice like yo, fam, I can't like,
can't nobody compete with this? This ain't right? Two hundred
pays letter. Justice Department was like, huh, you might be
on to something because like you're like this is what
(40:21):
seems to us, like this is anti competition, Like you
just boxed everybody out, like you just gave everybody the
product for freeze, gave everybody to wait free. Somebody come
in your hood and just passing out weed for free.
It's like, well, how can I run a business? Like
I don't understand? Like if if every car come through
your neighborhood has already got a vapor in it, Like, well,
I mean what I'm supposed to do? Why you think
(40:43):
the gas company so mad? Or why you think these
oil companies so mad about electric cars? Cause it's like, oh, nigga,
don't need you no more? Like wait a minute, this
is leading us to obsolescence. But they're but but what's
specifically about an anti trust is or this monopoly is
like this is the same product, and you guys are
like this is David and goliathout this mug like you
(41:05):
already like there's no I can't compete with this. This
is like there is no competition. I don't want to
get into the like operating system business, like we make
an Internet browser and you're just giving yours away for
free and even if people don't want it, ah, which
is where we get what has to do with Google.
Even if people don't want it, it just comes with
the lap so of course, like just the psychology of
(41:27):
it is like, well, this is the one that come
with it. So like why would I go out of
my way unless I'm a tech geek, why would I
go out of my way? That's just it come with it.
We don't know enough about the Internet to have a
preference about it. We don't know about incognito like that
stuff don't exist no more or yet, So what difference
does it make? All right, let's Internet Explorer. And it
makes sense to us because it was like or to
the it made sense to the consumer because it's like, well,
(41:49):
it's made from the same company that when I open
the laptop, that's how it runs. They was like, yo,
this is unjust like this ain't They can do whatever
they want. And I remember gather the browser was trashed,
like it wasn't it wasn't that good of a browser,
like it just like what do you? I don't know
what I can I mean? And they had no incentive
(42:10):
on making it better per se, because they don't already
sold the product completely. They didn't already made day money
off off windows and off office, so there's no like
you've cornered the market. There's no there's there's you. No
one can compete with you. So they brought that case
to the Department of Justice. Netscape did so Netscape bring
(42:31):
brings brings a case to the Department of Justice. They
was like, just like I just explained, like, yo, this
is a monopoly dog, Like there's nothing we could do
about it. Like I mean, what we're we gonna do?
It's already on your laptop. I bet you open your door,
you get a new computer today. Bet you it's already there.
Like how do I compete with that? Like that's not
what am I supposed to do? They bring in Microsoft
to be like okay, well and this is like legendary,
(42:53):
like so Bill Gates and them and Microsoft come in
and Microsoft was just like okay, that's funny. Wait what
Wait are y'all serious? Old up? This is no way
in the world you're serious right now? What is you?
What you're saying is absolutely ridiculous. Let me get this straight. Wait,
hold on, hold on, hold hold on, let me get
this straight. We made a product, we made smart business moves.
(43:18):
We used our connections, we developed a new product. We
took our own product, bundled it with our other own
product and use the connections that we took years to develop,
and you saying that's a problem. What you mean, like,
what is the problem? You can't possibly be or you're
so we're smart, you're punishing me for beist? What are
(43:39):
you talking to You're saying this is anti capitalists? I
don't understand. So should our products up? Should we not
try what you want us to? Not make money? What
are you talking about? This is absurd? Fuck? You mean
we made a product that we hustled. I don't understand
telling them fools to get their weight up. Ain't nothing
stopping you from finding a computer. You could approach them
(44:01):
with the same contract we approached them with, get your
weight up. I don't understand we approach these people, We
approach these manufacturers. They could have said no. They said yes,
what do you want me to do? You want me
to tell the consumers don't buy our product? What are
you talking about? Absolutely ridiculous was Microsoft's argument. The problem
(44:24):
was they just walked in, super smug and super arrogant,
and they were just like I'm saying, like we smarter
than everyone. It was our fault. We're smarter than everybody else.
Apartment just ain't like that. They ain't like your little attitude.
They asked them very very direct questions like yo, do
you remember this email? They pulling up emails where them
Foods was talking this is the first time that was
like a part of like because remember emails just now
(44:45):
were born, pulling up emails where they were like knife
the Baby like talking about like really we're trying to
kill Netscape, like that's our goal, Like we're actually trying
to get like just cutthroat like Silicon Valley like og Like, no,
we're actually trying to kill kill it. They was like, yo,
you remember this email? He was like no, Like you
don't remember the one you just replied He's like no,
I remember it. It was just a jerk about it.
(45:06):
Like they were like, hey, did you have any concern
about any other companies? He was like what, I don't
understand the question. It was like what what don't you understand?
He's like, what do you mean by concern? I don't
know what you mean by that? And they were like
do you know what concern means? Like I know what
it means. I don't know what you mean by that.
It was like, sir, do you okay? Just this like smug,
(45:28):
I'm smarter than you. I'm ten steps ahead of you.
Just it just turned everybody out, but they're Ultimately their
point was, Okay, dude, you can't punish us because their
product sucks like that can't be that can't possibly be
our fault. We're good at business. This is what happened.
(45:49):
Department of Justice was like, no, that's a monopoly, y'all
gotta break this company up because the straw that broke
the camera back was caring office and windows with Explorer.
That's the part that did it because it's like you've
made now nobody has any other options. That's the same
example I was given with Tesla, because the point is,
(46:11):
on general principle, consumers are supposed to have options. And
the argument is having options keeps everybody in check, right,
because if you have options, that's going to force you
to make the better product. And if you baking the
better product, that make all of America look good. Consumers
are happy, money's flowing, right. That's the argument. And again
(46:34):
using the Tesla as an example, like I just said,
right now, then I just say that I'm sorry. I'm
just talking if every electric car in the future, if
you want to do self driving mode, you have to
use this because it's the default setting. And this gives
Tesla no incentive to like they could charge every car
company whatever they want, because who else you're gonna go to,
(46:55):
which means that that is going to raise the prices
for all of our cars, which means it's going to
rate the price for chips and all this good stuff.
You're just like, there's no like, this doesn't help nobody.
This just makes you by yourself rich, and all of
us got to suffer by it. So that's the theory.
Nobody's happy with that except for y'all. And we just
(47:16):
decided as a nation back in the seventeen hundreds that
we wasn't gonna be like that in theory. Now, what
they told them that they had to do was break
the company up. You have to put windows in one
place as one company, in office as another company. Is
(47:38):
that how you understand Microsoft? Of course not, because that
didn't happen. Essentially, what they did was just they paid
the fines, they did what they had to do, and
then they just promised to not be jerks. This is
really really ain't nothing to happen. So ultimately nothing changed.
Netscape ended up selling to AOL. Microsoft just had this
(48:02):
ruling stand that they were operating as a monopoly. But
since God is good and just when last time you
opened then Internet Explorer browser. Now, this is what the
Department of Justice was considering when they looked at this
Google case. Now let's talk about specifically the ruling. Now,
(48:50):
remember Google, the company's called alphabet. But whatever reason, the
ruling was that they illegally monopolized the search engine market.
Now and here here here's how they did it. Now,
they did it the same way Microsoft did it, in
(49:11):
the sense that you just if you're a software company, duh,
make deals with hardware companies. So what Google did was like,
I don't care if you using Chrome. You could if
even if you use Safari, whatever phone you got, when
you open it, make a deal with us where you
automatically your search engine goes to Google. When the last
time you said I'm gonna bing something, I'm gonna ask
(49:34):
Jeeves something, No, you google it. So they made deals
with phonemakers and other hardware folks to be like, look,
just let us be your default browser. Now you all
know you could go into your phone, you could go
into your settings and say like I want this other
thing to be the default. But who's gonna do that?
Some people do, like some of y'all folks who just
(49:57):
are like anti iPhone because you believe in free. You
want to Android, which is just another company, Like I
don't understand how y'all don't understand that. But your belief
is you want to be able to customize it in
the way that you want to customize it because Apple
tell you what to do. And one of the things
that Apple tell you to do is like it's automatically
going to go to a Google. Now with that being
(50:19):
automatically your search engine in them gathering a trillion kajillion
megakad billion probably flowbally fillion megabits of information on us.
They can sell ad spaces. So if you are a
person like me who make they live in online, I
(50:41):
mean you have to you have to use the Google market,
you have to use their ad spaces, you have to
do search engine optimization, you have to be able to
show up in their ad revenue space because that's where
everybody at Why the hell would you buy an ad
at bing? What is that gonna do for you? And
(51:01):
if and since they the only people in town, they're
the only people that it really makes sense to spend
your money on. They could charge you whatever they want.
Let me tell you why Terraform cobrew wasn't on Amazon
because I would lose two dollars per can like I would.
You're like, I would be paying them like there's no
But at the same time, Terraform cobrew out of money.
(51:24):
If you went to the website, it ain't no coffee
there because I'm out of money. You uner see what
I'm saying, like they make it where I mean, what
are your other options? That's that phrase, like what's my
other option? That is a monopoly. Now what Google argued
was the same thing and Microsoft argued, which was like, fam,
I'm sorry for being good at my business, but people
(51:47):
can do whatever they want. We just happened to try
to give people an off or they came to use. Now,
what was interesting this time was the Supreme Court brought
up not just at this is and o's. It wasn't
just business and like nerdery around the law. They brought
(52:08):
up psychology. And it's this concept called the psychology of
the default. No, no, no, let me say it right,
the power of default. Now you and I I don't
even have to explain that you understand when something is
just your default setting, you just after a while because
something just becomes so normal you don't even think about
(52:29):
that there are other alternatives, like you'd have to go
out of your way to do that. That's the default,
And what they were arguing is that is proof of
a monopoly in our brains. Google's a verb despite the
quality of Google, because you probably experienced the same thing
I'm experiencing when you try to Google something. It's like
because of AAI thing, I'm like, y'all, your product's getting worse. Now,
(52:55):
that's probably because we're old and we're not searching on TikTok,
which is where the rest of the people's search, which
was Google's defense. Google's like, I'm not worried about Netscape
or ask Jeeves, I'm worried about TikTok, Like that's a
search engine and they're like, fam, no, it's not. What
(53:17):
are you talking about. The psychology or the power of
the default is when your brand is so strong that
you just don't think of you don't even think, of
course there's alternatives, you don't even think of it, which
is like a new strategy to argue that somebody has
a monopoly, So what's the solution. The solution is to
(53:38):
break up the company. That's usually what it means. Now,
Like I told you before, what happened with Microsoft was
basically like they were supposed to split up Microsoft Office
from from Windows. So that was the plan for Google.
It's like you, I remember, this is an alpha BET's
(54:00):
a two trillion dollar company. So one of the suggestion
was like divest Divesting the Android operating system was like
the most frequently discussed option by the Justice Department's attorney.
And then some were suggesting the force of the ad
(54:23):
words like you have to sell that and Google gotta
let go of that program, right, the search ad program, right,
a divestment from that from its Chrome web browser. But
at the end of the day, they haven't landed on
an actual verdict as to how to solve this. They've
just said, no, you violated antitrust laws. You're gonna have
to break up this company. Just curved them. Now, things
(55:19):
like this is where your super conservative capitalists argues is
a problem because it seems as though this is not
free market capitalism. They're like, let the consumer decide. We
just did good business and the government shouldn't interfere. These
(55:40):
are the same people that don't want the EPA to exist,
you know, So if there's mad cow disease and your beef,
they like people will stop buying it, so just leave
us alone, that's their argument. Like, well, I mean, tell
everybody else get their weight up. They don't want no interference,
(56:01):
which I guess I would understand too if I owned
a company and was making a kajillion dollars. But I'm
a consumer that really just want to be able to
have good products, afford the products we have, and not
hear somebody like Jeff Bezos in his rocket that looked
like a penis who didn't even actually make it in
(56:22):
the space and then to say, hey, you guys did
this by buying stuff, like don't nobody want to see that? Like, okay, listen,
here's the underbelly. We know, all right. The thing is
we ain't got no choice. Amazon might be next in this.
(56:43):
This is the deal we've made without having an option
to make this deal. We know we're making y'all rich,
but we also need to live. And sometimes if you
that person man the assumer, like us, it kind of
feel good that there's some big homies that might be
(57:04):
able to come in and say, hey, y'all, don't get
to treat the love hommies like that, because man, that's
some good stuff, good politics, y'all. All right now, don't
(57:28):
you hit stop on this pod. You better listen to
these credits. I need you to finish this thing so
I can get the download numbers. Okay, so don't stop
it yet, but listen. This was recorded in East Lost
boil Heights by your boy Propaganda. Tap in with me
at prop hip hop dot com. If you're in the
Coldbrew coffee we got Terraform Coldbrew. You can go there
(57:51):
dot com and use promo code hood get twenty percent
off get yourself some coffee. This was mixed, edited, and
mastered by your boy Matt Alsowski killing the beat softly.
Check out his website Mattowsowski dot com. I'm a spell
it for you because I know M A T T
O S O W s ki dot com Matthowsowski dot com.
(58:16):
He got more music and stuff like that on there,
so gonna check out The heat Politics is a member
of cool Zone Media, executive produced by Sophie Lichterman, part
of the iHeartMedia podcast network. Your Theme music and scoring
is also by the one and nobly Mattowsowski. Still killing
the beat softly, so listen. Don't let nobody lie to you.
(58:37):
If you understand urban living, you understand politics. These people
is not smarter than you. We'll see y'all next week.
Host
Prop
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