Costco Puts an End to Membership Mooching

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
It's weird.

Speaker 2 (00:00):
I'm doing the Iowa State Fair thing, and I like
fair food, but it just doesn't sit right with me.
And you know me, I can't really eat beyond like
a certain number of things, like I just when my
body says I'm full, I can't. I'm not the kind
of person that can just keep shoving stuff down my gullet,
you know what I'm saying. I can't just be like
Joey Chestnut just stuff it in there and keep it down.

Speaker 3 (00:22):
Which is which is why if you don't mind me
going behind the scenes.

Speaker 4 (00:25):
A uh.

Speaker 3 (00:27):
I mentioned hot dog eating contest on your show was
was aptly declined.

Speaker 2 (00:33):
Well, I'm I'm willing to play ball. It wouldn't be
much of a contest though. It's how many hot dogs
does Emmy eat before he literally barfs? Because that's what's
gonna happen. You versus me and a hot dog eating contest?
What do you think is going to happen?

Speaker 3 (00:46):
I think I would probably win, but then like how
many afterwards? Yeah, sure of course you would, but that's
eating contests. Yeah, how many do you think you would eat?
I think I could probably hot dogs plus buns. How
that's plus buns? I bet I could put eight away.
I would get to a point where, if I was
gonna win, I'd get to a comfortable point and then
just kind of sit on it because you know I
don't need the extra calories, and.

Speaker 2 (01:06):
You absolutely know that I will not be able to
eat that many. Yeah, you just know this, like you've
scouted me out. I am like imagine finding one of
your best friends who happens to be a little bit
on the heavier side and maybe has had a leg
injury in their lifetimes, and now saying, hey, why don't
you go ahead and run a two hundred meters dash
real quick? That's what you're asking me right now. I

(01:29):
am in no shape to do a food eating context
of any kind. The only thing I could probably like
keep up with is like a speed round of a
couple of scoops of ice cream.

Speaker 3 (01:38):
I can eat ice cream fast. Oh so, no ice
cream headache is in your future? Like you're not an
ice cream headache kind of guy.

Speaker 2 (01:43):
Yeah, you just kind of have to be smart about it.
I do get them, but I just power through it
because I'm so deathly afraid of my ice cream melting
that I just I'll just shove it down. That's the
only thing I can think of where I could potentially
have the ability to keep up. But it'd be a sprint,
and it couldn't be that much because, like I said,
I only have so much space. I'd probably here's my guestimation,
I'd starve myself up to the contest. I'd be in

(02:07):
desperate need of some food. I'd get to like the
fifth hot dog, and I'd probably gag. That would be
what would happen. Okay, it is what it is? What
do you want from me?

Speaker 3 (02:17):
Did you see the lemonade chugging contest?

Speaker 2 (02:19):
I did, and I almost barflogging that too. I can't
chug anything except water, like anything that's got a flavor
to it, or sugar or something that's ice cold.

Speaker 1 (02:28):
I can't do it.

Speaker 2 (02:29):
But like I got this thirty two ounce bottle of water,
I could probably chug that whole thing slowly, not fast,
but slowly.

Speaker 1 (02:35):
I could just chug it. I'm a bad chugger.

Speaker 2 (02:37):
I tried shotgunting a beer like like a few weeks
ago at one of the Union Omaha matches. Yeah, because
like the whole party was doing it, and you don't
want to be the dummy. That's not doing it, so
you know, you open it up with your key and
then they say, you know, cheers or whatever or Viva
Boo hosts and your cheers while you're holding your can
like horizontally. Then you open up the the lid like

(03:01):
you open it so the airflow can help you chug faster,
and then you just like suck it down from the
keyhole that you made. And I got like half of
that thing done. Everybody else was done, slamming them on
the ground, and I just had to pretend like I
was also getting done. I maybe drank half that beer.
Maybe it was an embarrassment and a humiliation. This stuff

(03:22):
is not good for me. However, if you want to
be really efficient, what do you do? You buy hot
dogs that are cheap, and you can get a dollar
fifty hot dog instead of combo from Costco. You just
walk in there and show them your membership card and
they're like, here you go. And people are they swear
by that. They're like, I'm not gonna eat lunch. I'm
just gonna go shopping at Costco and grab me some
hot dogs. So what do you think, Matt? That Costco

(03:43):
a membership grocery store and department store as a whole.
They they kind of gatekeep people by, you know, like
all the was like, hey, put a quarter in this
cart if you want to go shopping. Yeah, and people
are like, okay, well Costco took that, and I guess
Sam's Club. There's others probably out there in different parts
of the country, and they're just like, hey, you pay

(04:05):
for this membership and you can come take advantage of
some of the incredible deals and buy in bulk. And
my wife did that for a bit. I don't know
if we're still doing that. I literally never went with
her one time. I've never been inside a Costco have you?
I know I have not, So I found it interesting
because I don't really know how it all works. But
apparently shoppers are going to have to start scanning in

(04:26):
membership cards at entrances instead of just showing them to
a store employee. Apparently people are like somehow rigging the
system to where they can just share their card. So
like some one person in the family or one person
amongst a group of people has the card, you just
show them the card and then you can pass it

(04:47):
on to like a friend or a sibling or a
neighbor or something and then they can use the card
and do the same thing by just showing the card.
It could be anybody's card, right right, Well, now they say,
you're going to scan it to make sure it's the
right person because they feel like people are taking advantage
of them.

Speaker 1 (05:04):
What say you, Matt, what.

Speaker 2 (05:06):
Do you think about this very capitalist idea that costco
has been operating with and they feel like they're jipping themselves.

Speaker 3 (05:14):
Well, I tend to like it. I think that this
is it makes sense because it's you know, because they
don't know how much money they're losing.

Speaker 4 (05:26):
You know.

Speaker 3 (05:27):
I remember a talk.

Speaker 2 (05:28):
There's no there's no way to know, there's no way
to know until you do this. How many people were
trying to do that? Because let's say everybody who was
borrowing somebody's then goes and pays for their memberships and
they get the card, you could immediately say the see
the uptick there on that gap that you were losing
in just membership fees.

Speaker 3 (05:46):
Right, Yeah. I think I think inspiring more honesty I
think is a good thing.

Speaker 4 (05:52):
You know.

Speaker 2 (05:53):
Yeah, But as long as you're in a capitalist situation,
people are gonna do whatever it takes a good ahead,
you know, that Netflix is a great example or of
the streaming services. I know many people that are using
mom and Dad's passwords still. Now it can get a
little tricky because you can only have a certain number
of devices on some of those deals. But I just
people were sharing that stuff all the time, and I don't, like,

(06:16):
I just don't know what you expect people to do
when that is an option that you can so easily usurp.
I had the WWE Network when it came out, because
you know, I'm a wrestling fan, and it had like
all the library of all different kinds of like events
and stuff that was really cool, very nostalgic. I had
a couple of buddies I was, you know, still in
grad school at the time, a couple of buddies that

(06:37):
were like, heyl, could I use your password? And like,
my head says, that's wrong. You should just pay the
ten bucks a month for it. And then I thought, well,
who's going to know? And I gave them my password
and none of us ever were denied or are locked out.
So basically, three people in the same building were using
the same password in the same account, and they lost
at least twenty bucks on that deal per month. That's

(06:59):
a messed up, isn't it. Isn't that their problem that
they don't have a system designed to protect themselves from that.
If there are workarounds, people will find that. That's my point. Now,
you think this is going to stop people from going
to Costco? Do you think the people that are being
you know, hey, sorry, I can't use my membership give
you my membership card anymore because they scan them in
now and if you're not me, they're not going to

(07:20):
allow you to go in anyway. You're just going to
buy your own. How many of those people just like, well,
I'm never going to Costco again? Is it going to
be enough people to where the rules swing the other
way and say, you know what, maybe it wasn't that
big a deal. We were at least getting people in
through the door. Does Costco even have a problem with that?
Because it feels like it's always busy as crap over there?
That's what I think. Ann's on our phone line of
four or two, five, five, eight, eleven, ten, And what
do you think about all this?

Speaker 1 (07:43):
Hello? Anne? Yes, go ahead.

Speaker 5 (07:45):
I like the idea.

Speaker 6 (07:47):
I like the idea of scanning the card because it
keeps the prices down for people that pay memberships.

Speaker 2 (07:52):
You know, and that's a good point too. If you
pay for the membership, you do get the benefits. It's
a whole point of it, right, How often do you
shop there.

Speaker 7 (07:58):
Anne, You're in years, so.

Speaker 1 (08:02):
Like how much per month? How many times per month
do you go there?

Speaker 6 (08:06):
Well, just the two of us, so probably maybe two
hundred at the most. And then we buy gas, but
that doesn't count towards your membership.

Speaker 1 (08:14):
So you don't get a gas discount at all.

Speaker 6 (08:17):
You get you get the costco gas price, but the
amount of gas you buy doesn't go into going towards
your membership. I mean you don't if you shop enough groceries,
and if you're shopping up inside the store, you get
a rebate every year for the price of your membership,
not maybe covering the whole thing. The gas doesn't play
into that.

Speaker 1 (08:37):
Okay, that's interesting.

Speaker 2 (08:38):
Okay, So when you go in there and like, so
you have to show your card to just go in?

Speaker 1 (08:45):
Is that right?

Speaker 6 (08:46):
You always had to show your card?

Speaker 2 (08:48):
Okay, Like I said, I've never been there, so I
don't know. So if they were just scan it this time,
do you think less people would be in there?

Speaker 4 (08:54):
How?

Speaker 1 (08:55):
Busy Is it usually in there?

Speaker 3 (08:56):
It's always busy.

Speaker 2 (08:58):
But do you think it'll be less it's busy if
they're going to protect people from.

Speaker 6 (09:01):
No, No, I don't think so.

Speaker 1 (09:03):
They'll still show up.

Speaker 6 (09:06):
Yeah, oh absolutely.

Speaker 4 (09:07):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (09:08):
It's interesting.

Speaker 2 (09:08):
Well, and I appreciate you sharing your thoughts on this today,
and thank you so much for listening to our show.

Speaker 6 (09:13):
Okay, yeah, bye bye, bye bye.

Speaker 2 (09:15):
Laurie's on our phone line of four or two, five, five,
eight eleven ten, Laura, you got some costco info for me?

Speaker 5 (09:19):
Well, I do. I read an article not too long
ago before they opened a new costco out here in
northwest Omahawk. Yeah, and it talked about the business model
of costco and how most of their profit margin comes
from the membership. So a lot of times what they're selling,
they're selling either at cost or even reduced costs, and

(09:41):
they're banking on those membership fees to drive their profitability.
So yeah, think I mean to me, that would be
the motivation.

Speaker 4 (09:49):
Right, Yeah.

Speaker 2 (09:50):
Well, and at the same time, it's like, Okay, what
do we decide to do. Do we try to like
lock it down on this and maybe potentially have a
little bit of backlash from people are saying that we're
you know, over stepping here and then just raise the
price of all of our products that generally, you know,
instead of having them at cost or even maybe barely
above cost, now all of a sudden that we're going
to be marking it up to like twenty to twenty

(10:11):
five percent overhead there, Which which do you think is
going to be more effective here?

Speaker 5 (10:18):
I think the model they have right now is working
pretty well. So okay, all right, so right, yeah, it
makes sense.

Speaker 1 (10:25):
Well, and that's the thing.

Speaker 2 (10:26):
They said something like one hundred and twenty eight million
members in Costco already. It was just like, okay, so
who isn't a member of Costco at this point? It's
pretty wild to think about. Laurie, I appreciate the info today,
and thanks for listening to us.

Speaker 5 (10:41):
Yeah, thank you.

Speaker 1 (10:42):
All right, we'll continue to get on the phone lines.

Speaker 2 (10:44):
If you've got some Costco related thoughts, you can let
me know kind of how the system works now or
what you think is going to happen now that they're
cracking down on scanning your card instead of just showing
it at the door. You can call in at four
oh two, five, five, eight, eleven, ten and we'll keep
it chatting about it on news ready eleven kfab. I'm
getting your thoughts on that and just the overall experience
of shopping there, because despite my wife having a Costco membership,

(11:07):
I have never stepped foot in there. Not really sure
how the whole thing operates. Todd's on our phone line
of four h two, five, five eight to eleven ten.
Hey Todd, what's up?

Speaker 1 (11:15):
Hello? Yep, what's up?

Speaker 8 (11:18):
Oh? I just so I have a business ownership and
pay a little bit more for it, but I can't
make it all the time, so sometimes I have to
have one of my people go get something that, you know,
because that's what's kind of meant for. And if they
do that, then I have to go every time. And
if your husband and wife and your son of your
husband's name, I mean, you can't have two names on it,
so that person has to go and they can't do

(11:39):
it as a family.

Speaker 1 (11:40):
Yeah, so that's a great question.

Speaker 2 (11:43):
It looks like they're they're gonna scaner their physical or
digital cars at a machine and they have to show
a photo idea if there's no photo on there, and
it says guests will only be able to enter a
Costco store with an active member, So I guess maybe
that's the case. I don't know, maybe the company one

(12:03):
is a little bit different, but I do think that
they're I mean, that's a great question.

Speaker 1 (12:08):
I don't know the answer to that right now, Todd.

Speaker 2 (12:10):
I'll see if I can't do some further investigation in
the break, because that sounds like a flaw in the system,
right If my wife has a membership, why should I
have to be paying for a membership just to go
grocery shopping for our family exactly?

Speaker 8 (12:21):
And I'm that's a fun person, but you know, I mean,
like are saying, if they scan and I have, I
can't make it all the time. So a lot of
times I have to have somebody go here and I
give them the card. I just think it's unfair that
now to do that. And then like said husband and
wife too. Well, yeah, let me know.

Speaker 2 (12:34):
I'm Marie.

Speaker 8 (12:35):
But you have a great show, and thanks man, I'll
let you to continue on.

Speaker 6 (12:38):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (12:39):
Yeah, sounds good, Todd. Thanks so much for listening to
our show and being a part of it. Really appreciate it.
We got landed on a phone line four h two
five five eight eleven ten land in I appreciate you
for listening to our show today.

Speaker 1 (12:50):
What's on your mind?

Speaker 9 (12:51):
Yeah, I actually used to work for Costco about eight
nine years ago out in San Jose.

Speaker 1 (12:55):
Oh nice.

Speaker 9 (12:57):
So they pretty much only make money on the membership,
at least when why works there, they had us go
to this whole seminar about how Costco makes money, how
they do their business practices, and in that meeting they
told us, you know, if the customer came in and
broke one jar of pickles, they have to sell an
entire palate of pickles to make up the profit lost
on that one jar. Because they're considered a penny company,

(13:19):
so they're making pennies on every item that they sell.
Their biggest money makers are the food court, liquor, and
the membership. I mean, if people aren't paying the membership fee,
they don't make any money.

Speaker 4 (13:31):
And you know, we.

Speaker 9 (13:32):
Still currently have a cost Co membership, but it's just
my wife and my father in law on the account.
I never have time to get there anyway.

Speaker 1 (13:40):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (13:40):
Well, it's an interesting like when you say that as
a business model, in especially the economy that we have now,
do you think that's why people keep going there because
they know they're going to get dirt cheap prices, even
if it means they have to be a member or
do you think Costco needs to kind of relook at
what they're doing because it sounds like the paper thin
margin they have on just the products and the membership

(14:03):
abuses that we have been documenting here kind of put
them in a difficult situation because there's no way you're
not going to have some of those accidents or some
of those issues with the way that they're pricing their products. Right.

Speaker 9 (14:14):
Well, I think the main thing that they're probably trying
to do now is Costco's got an unlimited return policy
to say, you buy a couch and ten years from
now the couch wears out, you can go and return
that couch get a full value back.

Speaker 4 (14:27):
I think they're probably.

Speaker 9 (14:28):
Trying to protect themselves from that as well, because they'll
never change that policy. At least when I worked there,
that was kind of one of their big things is
they'll never get rid of their unlimited return policy and
they'll never change the dollar fifty hot dogs.

Speaker 1 (14:44):
Yeah, well, I like hot dog.

Speaker 9 (14:47):
They're guaranteed to lose money essentially, if you know, people
abuse all of these things, right, But I know people
do abuse it.

Speaker 2 (14:55):
Yeah, but if what you're saying is if people pay
for the membership, they're going to be able to cover
the cop is what you're saying essentially.

Speaker 9 (15:01):
Yeah, I mean that's the only thing that they're really
making money on. So to me, the costcome membership has
always been worth it. I mean if you pay for
I think it's like one hundred and twenty dollars for
the executive membership. Sure, that's where you get one percent
cash back on everything you buy in the store. That's
what that lady was talking about earlier. Yeah, yeah, doesn't apply.

Speaker 1 (15:19):
To that, right, I got it.

Speaker 3 (15:21):
I goree.

Speaker 9 (15:22):
Yeah, my father in law pays for that. We just
get the extra card, so everything we buy he gets
to one percent.

Speaker 1 (15:27):
Cash back of Yeah, okay, that makes sense. Well, this
is good stuff.

Speaker 2 (15:30):
Landon, thank you so much for calling in, and we thank
you for listening to our show this afternoon.

Speaker 9 (15:34):
Oh yeah, no worries.

Speaker 2 (15:35):
All right, Rick's on the phone line of four two, five, five,
eight eleven ten. Rick, what do you got on this?

Speaker 4 (15:40):
Well, one of the things is when he goes to
check out, especially the self servious one, somebody comes up
and wants to look at your card and see if
your pictures on it. Now, you could also go in.
I could go in with say my daughter and use
her card with her there, and it doesn't really matter, right,

(16:00):
And then they're saying there's no profit on the stuff
they're selling. I do not believe that at all.

Speaker 2 (16:06):
Well, it's got to be at least a little bit,
you think, Yeah, you gotta believe that they're making at
least some money on the product, otherwise they wouldn't be
selling you some bulk like that.

Speaker 4 (16:16):
They definitely are. You know their chicken, say chicken breast
is two ninety nine, yeah, pounds, and that's what they are.
I was just there not long ago. Well that's the
same as me going to a grocery store. So they're
telling me the grocery store is not making any money
at that.

Speaker 1 (16:31):
Yeah, I mean.

Speaker 4 (16:33):
The rod Tipperary chickens that's four ninety eight or whatever
it is. They are losing money or breaking even on those.
I think they actually lose money on those. And they
said they won't raise that.

Speaker 2 (16:44):
It's crazy that there are places that say they're not
going to raise prices in this economy, in this current climate.

Speaker 1 (16:48):
But it's pretty fascinating.

Speaker 2 (16:49):
I got to ask one more question, Rick, before I
get you out on the checkout. What if you had
her card, your your daughter's card, and she's not there.
Do they let you buy the stuff and you just
have to pay a bigger price for it? Or do
they tell you can't check out?

Speaker 4 (17:03):
I don't think you can check out. I mean, I've
got my own card. But I'm just saying, yeah, yeah, yeah, no,
I'll get you now. You get two cards, so you know,
I could actually buy get a card and give her
a card, you know, instead of my wife. Me and
my wife folk have cards.

Speaker 2 (17:21):
Okay, So okay, so what you're saying is your one
one membership, you could get two cards in their picture.
Your wife's picture can be on her card and so
she can go shopping without you. Right, Okay, that's good
too too. All right, Rick, this is good stuff. Thanks
for calling in, man, all right, see you, Reagan, Chris
and everybody else calling in.

Speaker 1 (17:39):
We're gonna get to you next. If you got Costco thoughts.

Speaker 2 (17:42):
You're gonna tell me how the process works, how much
you know you might be spending there and you enjoy
going there, but also the crackdown on the membership now
that you're gonna have to scan your ID not be
able just to share it and get it looked at.
In this situation, to try to prevent people abusing memberships
at Costco, you can call in at four h two, five, five,

(18:02):
eight to eleven ten on news radio eleven ten kfab.

Speaker 7 (18:07):
Emery sung on news radio eleven ten kfab.

Speaker 1 (18:12):
I didn't know that is how it worked.

Speaker 2 (18:14):
They say that they're losing a lot of dollars potentially
in the membership category here by doing this. So Matt
Case is back in the Dundee studios. Matt either are
a couple of different things that you know you could
go in this direction. But I think of the Netflix
model or the streaming model in general, where it's kind
of like when you're listening as a person to somebody,

(18:37):
or you're wanting to watch something, maybe like a specific show,
and you're like, I don't want to have to pay
the however many dollars a month. I think it's like
seven or eight bucks for Netflix with ads, it's like
thirteen or fourteen with at without ads, and then maybe
even a further premium that allows you to have a
bunch of different devices, like six up to six devices
at one time could be streaming, which, in theory.

Speaker 1 (18:58):
You could share to enough people.

Speaker 3 (19:00):
I think it's meant for your house, but I think
you can share it with enough people and have enough
people logged in and be safe where people outside your
house could probably utilize it if you're all on the
same deal.

Speaker 1 (19:13):
Now, I don't know what's right.

Speaker 3 (19:15):
Or wrong here, but have you ever done that where
you've shared an account with somebody or your account with somebody,
family member, friend, or whatever and had to kind of
balance what that looks like for people at the same time.

Speaker 1 (19:30):
Have you ever done that before?

Speaker 4 (19:32):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (19:32):
I have in the past. I have currently I'm not,
but I have done that quite a bit in the past.

Speaker 1 (19:39):
Honestly, do you feel weird about doing that?

Speaker 2 (19:41):
Are you ever worried that you know you're gonna get
immediately locked out if you know too many devices are
logged in? Because that has happened to me before on Netflix,
where I think I could only have two I only
had the package where you can have two devices, and
I think somebody tried to watch from somewhere else and
it logged me out.

Speaker 3 (19:58):
Yeah, the times I did feel weird was when I
had to ask the person I was with, Hey, can
you ask your parents for their password again?

Speaker 1 (20:06):
Oh?

Speaker 3 (20:06):
Boy, Like, come on, you can't even remember the password,
Write it down next time you have free loaders.

Speaker 1 (20:13):
Yeah, here's another one.

Speaker 2 (20:15):
I didn't have Netflix specifically, but I was staying in
my buddy's house.

Speaker 1 (20:19):
My buddy's house, this was last year while I was
in Omaha.

Speaker 2 (20:23):
I just was gonna watch a few different documentaries or
something while I was trying to entertain myself. My wife
and dogs weren't in town, and he they I was
in like like a bedroom that already had like a
streaming thing on there that you could just log into
on the device and you could watch whatever you want
on Netflix. And so I logged into it and I

(20:43):
started enjoying some of the shows, and then I moved out,
and I kind of wanted to see that with that
password they gave me still work and admittedly, and hopefully
they're not listening to this. I was staying somewhere else
right before we moved into our house, and I was
just like, yeah, let's just see if I can log
back in. I'm guessing there was one too many devices

(21:05):
and somebody got logged out prior or previously of their
Netflix and they basically my guess is they had to
change the password because the second time I tried to
do that, the password is gone now again.

Speaker 1 (21:17):
You know, you're trying to take advantage. I don't want
to necessarily pay the you know, eight bucks.

Speaker 2 (21:22):
But as I say about us as a society, are
we always looking for the shortcuts and we're not willing
to pay for the products?

Speaker 1 (21:28):
Is that one of the reasons why we.

Speaker 4 (21:30):
Have done a.

Speaker 2 (21:33):
Number on our economy where the prices just are going
up because people are taking too many corners or cutting
too many corners with the way that they're spending their
money these days. I mean, look what it's done to
the music streaming industry. Like for the consumers, you don't
have to pay hardly anything anymore. You pay for like
YouTube music or Spotify or any of those things that
you can make your own playlists and all that stuff.
You're paying like ten bucks a month and you just

(21:54):
have access to basically every song ever written that has
ever been recorded properly and uploaded. There's a bunch of
people that are making music you've never heard of, probably
within like a block or two of you, and they
are uploading to those apps and you could find their
music if you wanted to as well. Now the people
are getting really screwed in that scenario are the artists,
because the artists, well, they get paid literal like decimals

(22:18):
of sense or pennies for the music that they're uploading
there unless they have a major, major hit that is
driving a ton of people to that app. But the
revenue sharing in that model is absolutely destroying what people
were making as artists musically.

Speaker 1 (22:33):
Is that right? Is that okay?

Speaker 2 (22:35):
Or is that just something we have to make the
assumption that you know, this is just the future. People
were stealing music all the time before with the did
you ever use LimeWire?

Speaker 1 (22:44):
He must be on the phone, he's not there. Yeah.
LimeWire or frost wire.

Speaker 2 (22:49):
These were things that you downloaded in the mid two
thousands onto your PC, your computer, and it was nasty stuff.
I mean it really was. If you know, adult me
knew I was downloading that stuff onto like that software
onto my computer, I'd have a stern talking to to
myself because it really messed up those computers. But LimeWire

(23:11):
and frost wire. FrostWire was kind of the child of LimeWire.
You would download that thing for zero dollars, and then
you could search any song file that was uploaded into
the Internet and this software would just be able to
pull it and you would basically have a copy of
that song. There might be some things within the file

(23:31):
itself that might be wrong, or there might be some
skips in it. They may not be perfect files, but
you didn't have to pay the whatever ninety unite cents
it costs to buy a song back then, or the
ten bucks it costs to have an album and downloaded
it to your computer. You were just getting free music
and there was just no way to actively prevent that.
There were some people that probably got prosecuted if they
were found to have been peddling a lot of that stuff,

(23:53):
but there was no way they were going to track
all the people that were trying to grab songs and
snag songs that usually would cost a dollar. The Instead,
people were just downloading for free because they had software
that could get around it.

Speaker 1 (24:05):
There was no way to do that.

Speaker 2 (24:06):
So then, you know, the future just kind of evolved
into you know, like Napster was doing it at first,
and they ended up getting sued because of the money differential,
but that then, you know, exploded into all these different
music apps that now you can listen to music, but
you pay a monthly service fee to use the app,
which is the cost of basically buying one old CD,

(24:26):
like a ten dollars CD, like you would fifteen twenty
years ago. You'd pay for that CD, you'd have what
the eleven songs twelve songs that might be on there.
Now I pay the exact same price to one of
these music apps, and I can build my own playlist
with a ton of songs. Almost any song you want
to listen to is available there for you. Very few
major popular songs are not there. And that's just it's

(24:49):
changed the entire industry itself, because that's where capitalism took.
That is what Costco doing, or what Netflix is doing,
or these streaming service is doing, especially when they're trying
to protect the integrity of their app by not allowing
you to share your password as much or as easily
or your card in Costco's case, and have the ability
to also enjoy all this entertainment for a lot cheaper

(25:10):
than you probably would have been able to otherwise, or
how expensive it was to buy a VHS or a
DVD player or not a DVD player a DVD. I
mean you pay fifteen twenty bucks for a brand new
VHS or DVDs.

Speaker 1 (25:22):
To have it around in the house.

Speaker 2 (25:24):
Nowadays, I mean you're paying one month for you know,
like probably ten dollars or less for one of these
streaming services like Hulu or Netflix or anything like that,
and just being able to unlimited watch a ton of stuff.
It's absolutely insane how much the world is different after,
you know, fifteen years. Fred's on the phone line of
four or two, five, five, eight to eleven, ten, and Fred,

(25:45):
are you there?

Speaker 3 (25:45):
Fred dropped, but I will be Fred because I remember
his point.

Speaker 1 (25:49):
Okay, Fred, fire away.

Speaker 3 (25:50):
So Hi, my name is Fred, and I wanted to
say that I disagree because I look at it this way.
If I own a car and I let my son
drive my car, it's still my car, right as far
as the law is concerned. Yeah, yeah, that was Fred's point. So, well,
what is that supposed to me? I don't know, you know, Fred,
would you like to expand upon it? Sorry, Matt, I'm

(26:12):
no longer on the line. Ah oh yeah, he hung up.

Speaker 1 (26:15):
Yeah, So here here would be my response to that.

Speaker 3 (26:19):
Okay, do you want me to still be fred.

Speaker 2 (26:21):
No, No, I'm just trying to think how to articulate this.

Speaker 3 (26:23):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (26:24):
So like in theory, he owns a car, he gives
his car to his son to drive around, his son
can buy gas, he pays for it with real currency,
and nobody's double checking it.

Speaker 3 (26:36):
Now, if that was Fred Flintstone, his son wouldn't have
to buy gas, all right, Fred?

Speaker 1 (26:41):
Easy does it?

Speaker 3 (26:42):
Okay?

Speaker 4 (26:42):
Okay?

Speaker 2 (26:43):
The son would pay the same amount at the gas
station as the owner of the car would. The sun
getting into a car accident would be charged basically the
same as the car owner would, right. I mean, he's
not completely exonerated, but the person who you know, the
insurance is going to hammer the person who was owned
the car as much as you know the person who

(27:05):
is driving the car. There are minute details that might
be a little bit different there. As far as Costco
is concerned. Costco is requiring you to pay what is
it like, fifty five sixty bucks to be able to
shop there sixty five dollars for gold Star members in September,
So it's jumping up to sixty five in September. Annual
membership for sixty five bucks, that's what it says. You

(27:27):
pay sixty five dollars for a year to enjoy Costco. Well,
you paid that sixty five dollars. That is a membership
that isn't like an actual physical thing, and every person
who goes to Costco is supposed to pay that sixty
five bucks for the model and the business to be
able to operate. So if you are taking your sixty

(27:47):
five dollars card and handing it off to a bunch
of people, I think it's more like somebody with a
golf membership and you go to the golf course and
how much you pay, like five hundred bucks for your
golf membership for the year. But then you have a
twin brother who basically like goes and also gets his
free golf on your membership. You're able to like just
utilize his, like your brother's membership to do that. The

(28:10):
golf course is out five hundred bucks based on the
use of their facilities. I think that's more in line
with what we're talking about here, and not using a
thing that you've actually paid harder and cash for and
you no longer have to pay to operate that thing.

Speaker 1 (28:23):
That's just my two cents.

Speaker 2 (28:24):
I hope, Fred, hopefully that answers your question if he
asked a question.

Speaker 3 (28:29):
Yeah, I hope it does too, Fred, and I hope,
I hope you're doing well.

Speaker 2 (28:34):
Yeah, rest in peace on the phone line three point fifty.
We'll come back wrap the hour up on news radio
eleven ten kfab.

Speaker 7 (28:40):
Em you's songer Shammick with someone you on news radio
eleven ten kfab.

Speaker 1 (28:48):
No, not that, Oh well, I was. I was answering
the question.

Speaker 3 (28:52):
Literally, I'm sorry.

Speaker 1 (28:54):
No.

Speaker 2 (28:54):
No, Like a physical thing, like a pathogen, is something
you can't control what it does, Grab it with your
hands and hold on to and then give it to
somebody as a gift for Christmas.

Speaker 3 (29:04):
Well yeah, yeah, Hey, the white settlers agreed to disagree
on that one.

Speaker 2 (29:08):
Oh give it up already, revisionist history. Come no, seriously,
what physical thing do you have? Under no circumstance would
you ever share?

Speaker 1 (29:19):
Oh? Man?

Speaker 3 (29:20):
Well, I have shared my guitar in the past and
had a whale of a time getting it back. So
that's okay. So that's a good one. That's a good one. Yeah,
that's a good one.

Speaker 2 (29:29):
I gave a kid I wasn't playing I had an
electric bass guitar. I really wouldn't do anything with it,
so it is what it is. But I got it
for a gift. It was probably a cheap one. It was,
you know, probably one hundred bucks. My parents gave it
to me. I had some fun with it. I was
done with it for as far as I could consider.
And then I gave it to a kid that was
like a couple years younger than me, who wanted to
play it in like the church band for the church

(29:50):
we were going to. I got it back like six
months later, and there was a huge like thing in it,
like a like a like he had obviously dropped it
on something and there was a damage. And I wanted
to like call him up and be like, bro, what
the heck is this? There's like a hole in this guitar. Now,
At the same time, it was like, do I actually
care enough to create that issue?

Speaker 1 (30:11):
And what is he going to do?

Speaker 4 (30:13):
Right?

Speaker 2 (30:13):
If you would have just slapped a sticker over the
top of it, I would never have known.

Speaker 3 (30:16):
Right, that's rough though, a hole in it. He didn't
even tell you about it. He died to give it
back to you and say, hey, by the way, there's
a hole in it now. Nope, didn't say that.

Speaker 1 (30:23):
Nope.

Speaker 2 (30:23):
Now it was almost like you dropped like the edge
of like a hard ceramic plate and just dropped it
right on like the part underneath the guitar.

Speaker 3 (30:31):
It's probably what he did. He's probably you know, what
they probably was was a strap mistake. You know, he
put the strap on, he put it around him. He
probably didn't put it on tight enough and it popped
right off and clunked on the floor.

Speaker 4 (30:42):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (30:42):
Or he was just like walking through a small place
and just like smash it into the corner of the
amp or something.

Speaker 3 (30:46):
Or he like was watching some old Nirvana videos and
wanted to try it out.

Speaker 1 (30:50):
Yeah, that would have been bad.

Speaker 2 (30:51):
That's like the that's like the wrong spot on the guitar.
You need to be smashing. You want to be smashing
like the edges of it right like like this's a
strong way. There's like a baseball bat. You you want
to be hitting that direction on the guitar. So that
would have been also a failure. I think the one
thing that I would not share, and I still feel
a little weird sharing my login information. My sister sometimes

(31:11):
asked me for some log in information for some of
my streaming.

Speaker 1 (31:14):
Services and stuff.

Speaker 2 (31:16):
Half the time I don't even have the service itself,
and yeah, I just kind of feel a little weird.
One thing I absolutely have a big time problem sharing
with people is when how do I say this, this
is going to sound bad my own clothes, right, Like
I'll put my like a jacket on my wife or something,
but I feel like my wife's this way too. I

(31:38):
just don't like, I don't know sometimes I would and
maybe this is not something other people have to deal
with that much, or you know, like I'll donate to
like a you know, a thrift store or something sometimes
and it just feels weird to me, and I just
can't go anywhere. I don't like sharing clothes, Like my
clothes are my clothes. Your clothes are your clothes. Let's
just keep it that way. And then when I get
done with my clothes, I just never want to see

(31:58):
them again. If you want my clothes, it's fine if
I'm done with them, But I don't like to share
like a T shirt or something like.

Speaker 1 (32:05):
I had this moment where I went to somebody's house.

Speaker 2 (32:08):
Last year and I forgot to get a change of clothes,
so I was just wearing like a polo shirt and
I needed to fall asleep there because you know, I
had a few beverages, if you know what I mean,
and I didn't feel safe to drive, So I just like,
can I bunk with you?

Speaker 1 (32:20):
And do you have a shirt to wear?

Speaker 2 (32:21):
I felt so weird wearing that shirt, Like, I just like,
I don't want to share.

Speaker 1 (32:26):
Clothing at all.

Speaker 2 (32:27):
Sometimes my wife will wear one of my shirts and like,
I'm okay with that, but it just kind of also
makes me feel weird. It's like, you know, that's just
your shirt now it looks great on you. Yeah, maybe
it's just me.

Speaker 1 (32:38):
I don't know. All right, we had at four o'clock hour.

Speaker 2 (32:41):
One of the cool things that is coming up this
weekend is the Nebraska a Balloon and Wine Festival. We
are going to be talking about a little bit of
the wine you might be able to find there.

Speaker 1 (32:50):
Next stick around.

Speaker 2 (32:51):
Love talking to you here on your Tuesday on news
Radio eleven ten KFAB