Is Apple Anti-Competitive?

Tailosive Tech Streamed: March 29th, 2024

Episode Transcript

(00:02):
Is it working. Hello, ladiesand gentlemen, we'll come back to Taylors
of tech on live. So completeand full disclosure. I'm not feeling all
that great. You could probably tellthere's some congestion or whatever. It hit
me really hard kind of the secondhalf of yesterday. I felt a little
weird in the morning, and thenit just got worse and worse and worse.

(00:22):
I was trying to get some workdone because we've got a big trip
coming up, so it's a horribletime for me to get sick. But
I felt bad because I was tryingto get some videos posted on both channels
the last couple of days. ButTech I just had to kind of put
on the back burner because there weren'tiPads as soon as I was expecting,

(00:44):
so this might not be a superlong stream. I'll just kind of play
it by ear. If I feellike the talking or the live stream is
making my sickness worse than I'll probablyjust stop and we'll keep it brief.
But if I feel like it's helping, or I feel okay, or maybe
just talking with you guys helps distractme from the headache and the congestion or
whatever, I don't know. Wecould keep going, it could be a

(01:07):
regular stream, but I apologize inadvance for the way I sound. But
the other reason I definitely wanted tostream today is for what I'm gonna be
busy over the weekend and then we'regoing to be traveling for all of next
week. So I've made a fewvideos in advance, actually about three that
I will strategically drop while I'm away, so you should have some good it's

(01:34):
sounds attracted. Thank you, whyend of my good mornings. I hope
y'all are feeling better than I am. But the other reason was I had
some Telos of tech pro member questionsthat obviously I was asking for before I
knew I was going to get sick. But I was like, okay,
I got to answer these before I, you know, take a week off
or whatever, or you know,pause uploading. So we have a couple

(02:00):
that are kind of related, soI thought i'd start with those. They
kind of go along with the titleand thumbnail. Piroski says, what do
you think will be the end resultof the Department of Justice lawsuit, which
kind of ties into Marjell's question aswell. He asks, you've said in
your Pixel eight review from last yearthat you really consider switching to it full
time, but ultimately chose not todo it, mainly because of Apple Wallet

(02:22):
and the Apple cart, both ofwhich Google has no control over. This
is the kind of strategy strategy thatthe US Department of Justice in the EU
site as monopolistic or gatekeeping behavior.So with this in mind, don't you
think Apples deserve to get sued slashregulated by governments from being anti competitive.

(02:44):
I know that you covered the lawsuitlast live stream, but I didn't get
a chance to give my thoughts andask this question for it. So personally
no, and I welcome disagreement onthis because it is kind of a moral
gray area when it comes to youknow, what is right what is wrong?
Did Apple deserve this scrutiny? Apple, for the record, does a

(03:05):
lot of things I don't like.But if you also recall going back and
watching that Pixel eight video, Isaid, Apple makes it really hard to
leave. But at the same time, the second part to that statement is
Google does not try very hard toget me to stay. Google's kind of
like, I guess you can stayor not. But I said, if

(03:30):
Google had a better wallet app,if Google had their own credit card and
their own high interest savings account.I would consider switching to that, but
Google didn't have an alternative. WhichI'm not saying that the whole iOS versus
Android all ultimately boils down to thewallet app. It's a lot bigger than
that. But that little wallet comparisonthing is a classic example of what,

(03:52):
in my opinion, is not anticompetitive. It is not monopolistic. It
is simply a company focusing on makingsure that their users have a quality experience.
Now, in my opinion, again, I'm not a judge, I'm
not the president or whatever, sofeel free to disagree with me on this.
But my definition of anti competitive iswhen you go out of your way,

(04:16):
when you put proactive measures to makeit harder for someone to stop using
your product, or to make itharder for them to switch to using a
different product. What I would describemore of what Apple does. Apple is
more what's the term indifferent is whatI was thinking of Apple. I don't

(04:40):
think should be forced to ensure thatevery product, every accessory, every feature,
every service they come up with alsoneeds to be available on every single
competitors platform. To me, thatdoesn't make as much sense if you're forcing
the company to go out of theirway to make sure that all of these
features, all of these devices,like the Apple Watch for it example,

(05:00):
doesn't work on Android. Should Applebe forced to make an Apple Watch app
on Android? Should they be forcedto make a fitness app on Android?
And then if someone comes up witha different phone operating system, whether it
be that's you know, non Androidbased. So if Windows was still around
and they have their own platforms,should Apple also be forced to make sure
that there's an Apple Watch app,a health app, and a fitness app

(05:24):
all available on Windows Phone and onAndroid. I don't think so. I
think if you're going out of yourway to stop people from switching, that's
one thing. But just not makingit easy to switch by not developing apps
or software for other third party platforms, I don't. I don't think that's

(05:46):
anti competitive. To me, anticompetitive is kind of what I've seen a
lot of game console companies and developersdo, where they say, if you
develop a game for the place forthe PlayStation and you're not allowed on Xbox,
to me, that would be anticompetitive. It's like, Okay,
you didn't have to do that,but you chose to do that. You
added new fine print, you addednew rules in terms and conditions. So

(06:10):
if Apple was saying that if youbring an app to the iOS app Store,
you're not allowed to put that appon Android, to me, that
would be more anti competitive than justsaying it's our platform, we don't want
third party app stores. They justwanted it to be simple. They wanted
it to be a clean, safe, reliable app store experience and to be

(06:34):
I think that's fair, but Iknow not everybody agrees with me. Hey,
Caleb, Apple is anti competitive whenit comes to not allowing third party
apps telling people how to subscribe totheir services outside the app store. Yeah,
I think that's a better argument.That's not what the Department of Justice
is suing about. But I dothink that that would fit my definition that

(06:55):
I just provided of if you're goingout of your way to make it harder
for someone to use an alternative serviceor what have you. As in,
if you're complacent and you do nothing, that's the end result. But if
you do something to make it harderto switch, like Spotify was the one
complaining about Apple preventing them from advertisingSpotify premium within the iOS app Store,

(07:24):
simply because Spotify didn't want to thirtypercent cut if you tried to sign up
through premium through the app and Apple, I feel like is a little bit
less reasonable. Like Jesse says,Apple's a monopoly because they don't have the
features I want. That's often whatI think it turns into is just like,
well, I want them to dothis, and because they're not letting

(07:46):
me do this, that means they'rea monopoly. It's like, first of
all, once again that was kindof the repeat from the whole last stream,
you're not required to use an iPhone. You don't have to use an
iPhone. I don't buy into thattheory that we are all required to use
iPhones. There's no way around usingiPhones. I think that's actually quite insulting
to the Android community, which iskind of what the Department of Justice was

(08:07):
getting at, which I found funny, which is like, if people stop
using iPhones, then they have tolearn the UI of Android, which is
hard. I was like, soyou're basically just straight up saying that Android
is not worth considering. As someonewho has reviewed many Android phones, I
think they're absolutely worth considering. Ifthere's something about iPhones you do not like

(08:28):
I complain about Apple more than anyother company on this channel. I'm totally
in favor of you not using aniPhone. If there's some feature or some
app that you want to utilize thatyou can't access on your iPhone, just
don't buy it. That's totally fair. I fully support that. But just
as a brief reminder, Apple broughtApple Music to Android shortly after launch,

(08:52):
so I can't necessarily say that likeevery single feature, every single service or
product Apple comes up with is notcompatible with alternatives. So, for example,
the Apple Watch is not compatible withAndroid. Okay, that's one complaint
that the Department of Justice brought up. However, AirPods are compatible with Android.
You can use AirPods with any devicethat is equipped with Bluetooth. I

(09:16):
know because I've done it. Itis physically possible. You just press down
this little button on the back andboom, you can pair an AirPod with
an Android. But if you goout of your way to ensure that,
even though your airpod's connect via Bluetooth, but we don't want them to connect
to an Android phone. Okay,maybe that's more anti competitive. Apple Watch

(09:39):
is a little bit more complicated justbecause of the operating system. It's a
lot more than just a Bluetooth connection. But Apple TV is also the Apple
TV, plus the service that Applecame up with is also available on non
Apple hardware. You can get theApple TV up Apple TV app on Roku,

(10:01):
you can get it on Samsung TVs, so you're not required to buy
an Apple TV in order to watchApple's content. So I can't necessarily say
it every step of the way they'remaking sure that you cannot use Apple services
or also, iCloud dot com isaccessible on Windows. They just launched.

(10:22):
I believe Apple Music and Apple TVapps on Windows as well. It took
them a long time, but iTuneshas been on Windows for a while.
Apple Music should be the model,not the exception. Open products, slash
service accessible to all. I thinkit depends a little bit on how complicated
introducing the product or service is,because I think it makes sense for Apple

(10:46):
Music and Apple TV because Apple's justifyingit as well. We get a revenue
stream out of that. But doesthat also mean that Netflix should be forced
to bring an app to vision os? Is it anti competitive for them to
not bring it? No, it'sjust Netflix just openly. It's a dumb
decision in my opinion, same thingwith YouTube. YouTube decided not to build

(11:09):
a vision Os app, and theyeven blocked the iPad YouTube app from coming
to vision Os. They had togo out of their way to stop it.
It's a stupid decision, But isit morally wrong? Should the government
get involved and force YouTube and Netflixto bring their apps to every platform?
Eh? I don't think so.I think it's a decision worth criticizing,

(11:31):
But is it a decision worth criminalizing. I'm not so sure. Let's see,
you can use AirPods with Android,but can't update them unless you have
an iPhone light as tech Tips hadthis argument, that's interesting. I didn't
know that they wouldn't update. Let'ssee, Apple has developed its ecosystem over

(11:52):
the years, and those who wantto use it can and those who don't
have to. People have a choice, And to blame Apple for being successful
stupid. Well, that's the funnything to me, is I know that
was kind of our whole last streamtopic is Apple's been so wildly successful with
this closed off, closed ecosystem,you know where they don't allow third party

(12:13):
app stores and they don't allow sideloading, and yet that's the app store that's
generated the most amount of revenue,and all of the open platforms that allow
the sideloading in the third party stores, they don't perform as well. People
don't feel as comfortable spending money onthose platforms, and there's more malware on
those platforms. So it's like,why is an Apple more like the unsuccessful

(12:37):
platforms? We should force Apple tobe more like the platforms where people don't
feel as safe spending money or ascomfortable. It's a little backwards to be.
Let's see, I just wish wehad the choice to insolve anything on
any operating system. Well, tome, that's removing a choice because there
are operating systems that allow that.But if someone wants a closed off,

(13:00):
locked out operating system that doesn't allowsideloading and doesn't allow third party app stores,
you're saying someone who wants that shouldnot allowed to have that. Genuinely,
That's what I'm asking, is thatwhat you believe whatever happened to being
able to install anything on your computedevice? What makes Lila different from macOS?

(13:20):
I think you meant iOS, butwell, iOS generated a lot more
revenue than macOS ever did, forone, so there's evidence of it being
more effective and more successful when itis locked down. But I think it's
ease of use. When you don'thave as much regulation and you don't have
much oversight over which apps get installed, it's a lot easier to trick people.

(13:43):
Basically, how are you supposed tosideload apps if you're getting apps that
are no longer from the app store? Well, you have to go through
a browser, right, you gotto go through some kind of browser.
Well, how do you tell thephone that you're ready to install an app
that's not from the app store.You have to click a link somewhere website.
Well, it's very easy for peopleto accidentally click links they didn't mean
to, So Apple was in favorof making sure that that was not an

(14:07):
accidental thing. You couldn't be goingthrough a website, tap an ad or
tap a pop up. And Iknow family members and friends that still get
scammed based on the wrong links thatthey click on the web. So if
you provide a backdoor for more andmore apps to stay on the phone,
to be running in the background,and they could be doing doing things that

(14:28):
the user is not aware of,that the operating system host is not aware
of. It can get confusing,or it can get complicated, especially if
apps like app companies like Google orMeta decided that they didn't want to abide
by Apple's app store rules. Theyare heavily, heavily financially motivated basically to

(14:48):
create their own alt stores. Andjust look at Windows as a great example
of what happens when every developer wantsto have their own launcher. You got
to have the Origin launcher, andyou got to have the Steam launcher,
and you've got to have the EpicGames launcher. So now to access each
game or each application, you gotto launch something else, and then Adobe's

(15:09):
got to have their own thing.And Apple didn't like the complexity of that
lineup. So to keep things simpleand to keep things easy to understand,
to increase mass adoption, to keepthings digestible for the masses, they decided
everything goes through the app Store.That's what we want it to be.
Not everybody likes that, but that'stheir choice. And if genuinely nobody wanted
that, I don't think the iPhonewould have been very successful, right,

(15:31):
wouldn't the iPhone have flopped and failed? If people all wanted to download apps
from outside the app store. Infact, it's quite the opposite. iOS
app store generates far, far,far more revenue than any other app store,
So to me, it's evidence thatthis is something people want and app
There are operating systems, There iscompanies out there that will support you if

(15:54):
you would like to do sideloading andthird party all stores. So I'd say
buy the company that prioritize this isthe things you're interested in. I don't
see the need for the government toforce everybody to have the exact same business
practices. To me, that almostseems more anti competitive because it implies that
companies should not have advantages over eachother. Apple has an advantage of this

(16:17):
closed off ecosystem and all of thesecool perks when you get AirPods working with
the iPhone and they got their owncustom silicon powering the whole thing. You're
saying, no, Apple shouldn't havethose advantages. So why should someone go
with an iPhone over an Android.If you all had your perfect day and
every app and every app store andevery accessory had to be cross compatible with

(16:41):
each other, why would someone pickone brand over the other. Oh,
it's just like picking a color.It's like different flavors of bread. To
me, that feels more anti competitive. You don't want them to compete against
each other because they all have toabide by the same exact set of rules
and they can't give themselves of anykind of inherent native first party advantage.

(17:03):
I don't agree with that. There'sno alternative to the App Store, the
Google Play Store, the Galaxy Store. If you're on an iPhone, yes,
there's no alternative to the App Store, but you are not required to
buy an iPhone. In fact,most people on Earth do not own an
iPhone. Most people who own asmartphone own an Android, which is part
of the funny part about saying Apple'sand monopoly. They have sixty percent market

(17:27):
share in the US. Yeah,so over half, but that means forty
percent of people are somehow living andsurviving without owning an iPhone. Windows mostly
you can just download apps from websiteswithout any the launchers at all. Windows
also as a Windows store like Macdoes. Two. Mac also supports all
the launchers you mentioned. I knowpeople keep using macOS as an example,

(17:48):
Well, they let you do iton the Mac. Yeah, and it's
a lot more complex with the launchers, and this I know they can have
their own built in store. It'snot like I'm saying you shouldn't have that.
I'm just saying the one platform wherethey decided to not be open and
closed off ended up being vastly moresuccessful. iOS is more secure to me
after moving from and Android. Thereyou go from Kelly Steve. Let's see.

(18:17):
Genuinely, I like Apples hardware,just wish we had the option of
software we can use unset hardware.Yeah, I understand wanting it. I
just I don't agree with criminalizing it. Perfect personally, I can understand you
like your iPhone, you like theiPhone hardware, you like your Mac.
Well, we're more talking about theiPhone here. I guess the Mac is

(18:37):
already allowing side loading and all thatkind of stuff. If you like your
iPhone hardware but you want to sideloadthings, I understand that desire. But
I also understand Apple's choice not tosupport it, and I don't think it
should be illegal for them to notsupport. The entire point is that Apple

(19:00):
limits competition. How is it notlimiting competition to say companies shouldn't have advantages
over each other. That's where Idon't understand. This is where we're drawing
the line of oh, well,Apple has an advantage with their ecosystem because
it's locked off, So you're sayingadvantages shouldn't be allowed. That's the whole

(19:21):
point of competition is to have companiescompete with one another. Okay, we're
going to focus on offering this.Oh we don't have that, so we're
going to focus on offering this.To have a referee come in and basically
say, okay, we have tomake sure that both basketball teams have the
exact same height, that they're allthe exact same weight, and they all

(19:42):
have the same amount of experience.It's like, okay, if one team
is more skilled or more talented thanthe other, that's we need to crack
down on that. We need tomake sure both teams are perfectly fair that
don't have any advantages, don't Icould agree if they said, like,

(20:02):
you know, if you have aniPhone, your what Apple music would stop
working or something? iPod is anticompetitive, give me sideloading there too.
That iPod really took off when theybrought Windows support. Right. The lawsuit
is just Android lobbying. It's tryingto reverse Apple's advantage from making products better

(20:26):
than Android products. I mean,what's stopping Google from I mean, nothing
is stopping Google. Should Google alsobe sued for making the pixel watch not
compatible with the iPhone? Genuine question? Can someone answer that please? Yeah?
Like, I personally think, yeah, HomePods are kind of a flop.

(20:47):
They didn't really take off. Ithink HomePods would have sold a lot
better if they enabled Bluetooth with anydevice instead of forcing home pod connectivity to
just be over airplay. It's adumb decision. That a decision I don't
agree with. But is it onethat the government should get involved in.
I don't know if I should sayit's criminal. Let's see, doesn't it

(21:11):
feel like tech is stagnant, slashboring and AI is uninteresting? Well,
if you really wanted tech to getboring and stagnant, take away all advantages
from each other. If Apple createdthe first Mac today, it would be
closed. The openness of the Macis a holdover from the eighties. Yeah,
you're probably right, and it mighthave performed better. Honestly, nobody

(21:34):
buys pixel Can you guys in theUS just set your location to some European
country and benefit from sideloading options?I don't think it's that simple, but
we'll see how it goes. Atouchscreen Mac would be nice, but then
one would buy an iPad. Noone would buy an iPad. I think

(21:56):
there'd still be some hardware reasons togo with an iPad. But is if
Apple is forced to open up thewatch, then it sets the precedent and
others will follow. Oh okay,I feel like who was this? I
think Burkhardt said this earlier. Butwouldn't opening up the Apple Watch to be
compatible with Android also make it moreof a threat to Android watches? Wouldn't

(22:17):
Apple Watch market share grow if itwas compatible with Android, making Apple more
of a monopoly. Shouldn't Google begrateful that the Apple Watch doesn't work on
Android? Doesn't that help them sellmore pixel watches? Yeah? I don't
know. There's built in features toGoogle Messages and Google Duo that are gonna

(22:41):
be harder to implement, especially whenGoogle kills support for things on iOS all
the time. So's is so muchbetter alternative to the home pod? Well,
there you go. Sons has theadvantage of increased connectivity because of Apple's
poor decision making. So if weget the government involved and said no,
the home pod has to be compatiblewith all these Bluetooth connectivities, and it
has to have an Android app,and it has to work with all these

(23:03):
it has to be cross platform withevery major platform. Doesn't that hurt so
nos? Doesn't that give Sons lessadvantages? To me, this goes both
ways, which is why I wouldsay no, just let Apple make their
dumb decisions and they're closed off decisions, and let the market decide if that's
a good choice or a bad one, and then let Sons and Google pick

(23:26):
up the slack where Apple slacks.Essentially, I think that was the whole
point of competition, which is why, in my opinion, it's not anti
competitive for a company to have advantagesover another company. To me, anti
competitive is when you go out ofyour way to stop the competitors from being

(23:48):
able to grow on your platform orexist at all. Like you know,
like I said, if they ifthey said, if you develop a game
for the iOS app Store, youcannot publish it on the Google Play Store,
to me, that would be incrediblyanti competitive and something that Apple has
done that. I think they lostthe lawsuit over by the way, so
I don't think they're gonna be ableto continue doing this, but I will

(24:11):
confess Apple preventing Spotify from advertising SpotifyPremium within the iOS app Store, I
would argue, yeah, that isanti competitive because it's not Apple against advertising.
They're letting some developers advertise. Butspecifically they stopped Spotify because I don't
know some terms and conditions, claimingthat, oh, we don't want you
to link to a third party websitedesigned up for a membership, I would

(24:37):
say, yeah, that's probably goinga bit too far. If Spotify wants
to advertise premium option, I thinkthat's okay, is assuming it's not malware.
If Apple wants to regulate their adson the app Store and finds one
that is straight up malware or linkingpeople, or they submit an ad and
it's clearly a malicious ad, thenyeah, I think Apple should be able

(24:59):
to ban that. But that's notwhat Spotify was doing. Spotify Premium is
not a scam, obviously, it'sa service, so Apple can still regulate
the ads. But just stopping onesimply because it competes with Apple Music,
yeah, I would argue that's anticompetitive, But there's a lot of things
Apple does that I would argue isthe opposite of anti competitive. They're supporting
rcs on I message, and thatwas announced long before the Department of Justice

(25:23):
lawsuit began. I got frustrated withmy humpod, so I unplugged it and
put it back in the box.There you go. If it was forced
to be cross compatible, then maybeyou never would have considered a so nose
smart watches were irrelevant and tell AppleWatch and why the competition did not do
something similar. Success does not fallfrom the sky, but it is a

(25:44):
result of good decisions and work.Yeah, I agree, I just I
don't think that the government should forceApple to make an Apple Watch app and
an Apple Fitness app and a healthapp because if they don't want to go
through the world of designing a playStore app to support the watchOS, that's
their choice. It takes a lotof money, it requires software updates,

(26:07):
it takes some time. To me, like, it's not anti competitive to
just not do something. It's anticompetitive when you intentionally go out of your
way to stop something from working,which I don't think they've really done that
much. Occasionally they do, butusually they I would say, don't do
it. Just because Apple is betterat competing doesn't mean they should be banned

(26:30):
from it. Yeah, that's kindof what's going on. I guess they're
making so much money that people arelike, hey, we should stop that.
Well, the EU pass a lawrequiring Apple to make an Android option
on the iPhone. It feels likethat's kind of the path they're taking.
If I want to install Android onmy iPhone, I should be allowed to
which I don't think it's that simple. I think it's not like some little

(26:52):
switch in the software design where theysay, oh, yeah, allow Android
to be booted up. There's probablyall kinds of problems when you allow people
to access the route you know,boot up operating system in the phone that
allows you to clone it or hackit or reset them. Suddenly stealing them
makes a lot more sense. Ifit's possible to do all those things,

(27:14):
or if you try to come upwith a way to do all those things
safely and securely and privately. Shouldall companies be forced to enable those features?
Should we make it as easy aspossible for you? Do? Do
we need to force these companies tospend money on software developers to support every
edge case we can think of.It does surprise me that Apple still allows

(27:34):
apps to charge people by week.That to be just seems like to be
asking for people to get scammed.Yeah, I agree, it's a bad
decision. Again, I don't thinkit's a criminal decision, but it is
a weird one. Uh, what'sthe current idea? Slash? Remember when
the new iPads are going to bereleased? Now they're saying may so.
Yeah, I've got three tech videosthat are not two time sensitive. They're

(27:57):
more review slash wish list historical videos, and those will come out next week.
I've already finished them just because Idon't think I'll be able to post
it all next week. But itcan be easy to fault a company for
being too competitive with the real problemis being anti competitive. I was gonna
say inverse a lot of the time, what I think we're accusing Apple of

(28:21):
being is anti competitive, when inreality they're just very competitive, and cracking
down on them and forcing everything tobe cross compatible might actually kill competition if
all the companies are supposed to havethe same features in the same capabilities.
So if you know, the GoogleAssistant is much much better than Siri,

(28:45):
should they be forced to make surethat every Google Assistant feature or every Google
Gemini feature is also available on theiPhone app or are they going to give
the pixel a few advantages because theydesign the pixel from the ground up,
so they give the pixel some nativebuilt in features that no one else can
access. I mean Google does thatexact thing. You know. They build

(29:07):
in these AI features with the photoprocessing, with their algorithms, and they
enable these server based processing, andthey charge money if you want to access
a lot of those Google Photos Cloudfeatures on iOS, but it's free with
the pixel. Is that anti competitive? I don't think so, but based
on EU and Department of Justices logic, they would argue that is anti competitive.

(29:33):
Google needs to make all those featuresnot only for their phone, but
for every other phone on the market. Bet sideloading is only allowed on iOS
but not I iPad feels very anticompetitive and don't really feel the need to
buy one. What about it isanti competitive? I think that's what we
need to figure out. What thedefinition of anti competitive is? You make

(29:57):
it hard to switch? What aboutiPad is hard to switch to an Android
tablet? Should we force every Applepencil to work with Android tablets? Is
that the next step? What's thefavorite place for vacations you've ever been?

(30:17):
Hawaii's pretty amazing. The weather isbetter there than anywhere else I've ever been.
It's just like every day the weatheris perfect and the water's warm.
I enjoyed Thailand. I went toThailand last year. That was a lot
of fun. I also like Florida. I know there's a lot of Florida
memes, but every time I goto Florida, I have a good time

(30:38):
anyway. Ethan Lawson says, that'ssort of like at a gas station where
the diesel nozzle is larger than theregular gas to prevent people from doing something
dumb. I should be able toput diesel in my camera if I want
to. Yeah, you're limiting me. How dare you? How dare you
let me not buy a certain thing? Do you think AIRPODSMAX two will hold

(31:02):
the expectations and be competitive against SonyXM five. Well, they'll prevent you
from switching to the Sony's by soundingbetter. That shouldn't be allowed. Apples
should force the Sonys to have justas good transparency, Bode. It's kind
of the same argument in my opinion. But yeah, I think sound wise
they'll probably be pretty good. Imean, there hasn't been too many rumors

(31:22):
about them sadly, but I hopethat they bring the lossless support in USBC
and that should make them pretty competitive. What's the most anti competitive slash monopolistic
product slash company today? I wouldsay Internet service providers and utility companies because
to me, that fits the definitionof it's a business that you are required

(31:44):
to use. You don't have anyother choices. In my opinion, no
one is forced to use Apple products. I know people in my personal life,
friends, family members. I've gotcousins, uncles that do not own
a single Apple products, and somehowthey've done well in life. They work
a great job, they can paytheir bills, they've got a nice house.

(32:06):
You know, they're not like fundamentallylimited in life by choosing not to
use Apple products. And they haveother family members that use iPhones. I'm
thinking of my uncle as an example, who I'm going to visit soon.
He owns an Android, his sonowns an Android. They use normal watches,
no Apple watches, don't use AirPodsor anything like that. But his

(32:27):
wife uses an iPhone and his daughteruses an iPhone. So kind of the
gals chose iOS and the guys choseAndroid, and they all make it work.
They're all able to text each other. They need to send higher quality
pictures or videos. They use Messenger, WhatsApp or Telegram or whatever. They
use third party messaging apps and theycoexist. So I don't see the need
for the government to get involved whenpeople can clearly make it work without Apple.

(32:52):
But there are dozens of companies thatpeople are forced to use, and
they basically have no choice to useanything else, whether it be Internet service
providers. There's a bunch of placeswhere Exfinity is the only choice. Exfinity
intentionally, in my opinion, abusesthat because internet service is kind of reaching
the point now it's more of autility than it is a convenience. I

(33:15):
don't think internet can be argued aswell. It's a nice perk, but
you don't really need Internet. No. A lot of people for their job,
for their livelihood, or for payingtheir bills, or just knowing what's
going on in the world. TheInternet, like it or not, is
kind of become a basic human right, and there are certain companies that charge
higher prices because they specifically know youhave no other choice. Exfinity did that

(33:39):
to me many times, where theyintentionally just jacked the price up. Other
people in the area were paying lowerprices. It's not like they had to
keep the prices low or they hadto raise their prices. They chose to
because they knew we had no otherchoice. And it's the same thing with
a lot of utility companies like theone I'm dealing with now, just jacked
up our electricity prices. There's noway around it. You have to pay

(34:06):
bills from this company. We can'tswitch to someone else. So I would
say the government should get far moreinvolved with those kinds of businesses where they
know that they are the only companyproviding this utility or service to an industry,
so they can charge whatever they wantand get away with it. Where
I don't see Apple that way.Apple just tries to make cool, futuristic,

(34:28):
modern innovative products that are simple andeasy to use. But if you
don't like it, I would haveno problem switching over to Android if Apple
did something that annoyed me. Joeysays, it's not criminal. But if
you argue that the app store isthe safest place, that doesn't help.
You argument why not? What aboutit doesn't help? I mean, it's

(34:52):
it doesn't really matter if it's thesafer place or not. It's just convinced
people that it's safe enough, rightConnor Dunaway's chat and thank you very much.
He says, I don't like thatApple groups your transactions together and doesn't
charge you right away sometimes. Okay, that's a fair criticism. Should they
be sued for that? I don'tknow. That's a different question. I

(35:15):
don't know what you're talking about,though. I've never experienced the grouping transactions
together thing, doesn't charge you rightaway, I don't There's there's complaints I
have about Apple, But should thegovernment get involved and force them to be
a certain way? That's That's whereI'm like, yeah, yeah, the
lawsuit is stupid and wrong, evenif it has an outcome that makes things

(35:37):
better for everyone. But I thoughtthe same thing about forcing them to use
USBC. Yeah see, that's that'sanother topic where I was much more in
favor of it, just because Ithought it was a good idea. Should
a government have decided what port isused on a phone? It's a decent
argument to be had if they shouldhave that much control. But the argument

(35:59):
the governments we're using was primarily aboute waste. It was about making sure
that all cables and accessories basically wouldwork with each other, so you didn't
have to buy a specific cable forthis and a specific cable for that,
because it was resulting in a lotof people having to buy new cables or

(36:20):
throw out old cables. And Ipersonally thought because of the environmental angle of
that debate, it made a lotmore sense. And there was just so
many advantages to switching to Type C. I thought that made the iPhone better
in so many ways. I'm lessconvinced that allowing sideloading and third party app
stores would make the iPhone better.Maybe it would make developers feel better,

(36:45):
but I don't know if it wouldmake the individual It would for some of
you who really want it, ofcourse you'd be happy, but I know
a lot of people that really didn'twant it too. I didn't like the
white bezels on the iMac, butI don't think they should be sued over
it. I think Apple did greatproducts in great ecosystem, but they took
advantage of that too far to lureusers to use all Apple products and treat

(37:07):
others like a second class citizen.I guess my question my response to that
is what is too far, becauseyou have to have advantages in order to
have competition. You can't be competitivewithout having features that no one else has.
Apple's just really good at that.Apple's really good at coming up with

(37:27):
features that work really well because theydesigned the hardware and the software and they
make it work all well together.I don't think they should be forced to
enable every feature, every perk theycome up with to be available on all
their competitors' hardware, because then there'sno competition. Then everybody has the exact
same thing. But all I wantin my life is AirPods to work well

(37:50):
with all functions and customizations on Android, for example. I think Apple definitely
can do it, but they chosenot to. Yeah, that was kind
of like a halfway thing where itwas like, yeah, AirPods do work
with Android, but like you said, there's certain things like the firmware updates
or the announcing messages thing that didn'twork with AirPods, And that's where I'm

(38:12):
like, well, they didn't goout of their way to make sure they
were incompatible, but they also didn'ttry very hard to make the experience just
as good as the iPhone. Butagain, that kind of falls back into
the should they be competitive? Isit competitive or would it being cross compatible
make AirPods market share grow even more. You're already concerned about iOS and the

(38:35):
Apple Watch being too popular or toosuccessful or having sixty percent market share or
whatever. But if suddenly now youcan use the Apple Watch with Android or
the iPhone, or now you cantake your AirPods to your Android and get
all the same features, wouldn't thatprohibit the growth of non AirPods. So
now is all of the third partyheadphone makers going to have a harder time?

(38:57):
Also, Apple has beats which workpretty well with Android. I've heard
it's kind of like they're accessories forthat are more Android compatible, and they're
cheaper than AirPods, So I don'tknow, it's not like they don't have
an option for people who want thosethings. In most states, utilities are
regulated by the state government and arecalled government monopolies. Because monopolies are practical
here we only want one set ofpipes and wires around town. They normally

(39:20):
regulate the prices as well. Yeah, I understand there's certain utilities that you
can't have a lot of competition with, But when they just choose to raise
the prices to sky high, andwe're not really getting anything out of it.
It's not benefiting us in any way. That's where I'm like, Okay,
maybe the government should get more involvedhere than they are. I know
that PGD is regulated, but inmy opinion, not enough. These prices

(39:45):
are ridiculous. The main thing Iwish AirPods had on Android was the where
detection to auto stop playing media andsave battery. Oh they don't have that.
I thought they dud last time Iused it. Sideloading would be a
choice, right if they make anapparent you enabled sideloading should be found from

(40:07):
the privacy and security problem. Yeah, but there's malicious compliance I think people
complain about with that. Is like, Okay, if I want to sideload
an app, but Apple requires meto disclose all of this fine print and
all these warning labels that say watchout, you're about to download an app
not from the app store, thenthat's anti competitive behavior, right, because

(40:29):
Apple's forcing me to disclose all thisinformation that I shouldn't have to disclose.
So I agree with you. Ido think there is a safe way to
allow sideloading in third party stores,and it seems like that's what Apple's trying
to do with the EU or there'sall these disclaimers and pop ups when you
try to do it. But Idon't feel like it's going to satisfy that

(40:50):
much because it's it's going to makepeople feel like, you know, they're
about to deploy a bomb whenever theydownload an app that's not from the App
Store, if it just stay there, kind of like how it is on
macOS, if it just stayed atthe point of okay, you're about to
sideload an app, you're about toallow a third party app store? Do
you understand the risks? This isdangerous? And you hit yes, I

(41:10):
understand. If it just stayed there, I think I'd be okay with it.
But I don't think that's where theEU and the Department of Justice are
likely going for. I think theywant to make sure that just like everybody
they're they're trying to make the argumentthat the iOS is just like a public
space, and you can no companyshould be allowed to decide what isn't isn't

(41:34):
allowed on that public space. I'mjust gonna get a tissue one time.
There's no tissues in there, okay. To avoid the scare of showing not
on stream. I'll be right back. I'm just gonna grab a tissue.

(41:55):
Excuse me, my bad, Okay, all right, Let's see I would
argue sideloading to the general public rightnow is a choice. It's just not
a choice if you choose an iPhone. But you don't have to choose iPhone,

(42:16):
is my point. Let's see,someone should write a lawsuit about iPad
battery being crap so Apple can finallyput all the battery features that already exist
in other platforms. Yeah, there'sa good one. To prevent e waste
and wasting batteries. Just force Appleto bring charge limitters and optimize, but

(42:38):
actually force all companies to have optimizedbattery charging and charging limitters. Just bake
that in. So it's kind ofa long winded answer. Margell and Puroscy.
I think the end result of theDOJ lawsuit, I don't know.
It's a very poorly worded lawsuit inmy opinion. And my guess is the
Department of Justice is wasting their timeon this project just because they know Apple

(43:04):
has a lot of money, andthey're probably motivated to go after the big
players or go after companies that havemillions and million dollars. I think the
end result will likely be Apple paysa fine. I don't think the DOJ
will actually force Apple to change thatmuch. They're just gonna want a big
check from Apple as a fine foranti competitive behavior or something. I don't

(43:25):
think the end result will actually bethem opening up the app store quick googling.
Supreme Court definition of a monopoly isn'ta monopoly is when a single company
or entity creates an unreasonable restraint ofcompetition in the market. What is reasonable?
Yeah, it's kind of a It'skind of a vague definition, isn't

(43:45):
it entity creates an unreasonable restraint ofcompetition? Yeah? I don't know.
I guess it depends on your definitionof what's reasonable. What's not reasonable to
me saying our platform just as oneapp store and that's how you get apps

(44:06):
on it. I don't find thatunreasonable, but I know a lot of
people do. So that's that's probablywhere we're going to continue to butt heads.
And if a company wants to dothat, I'd say that's their choice.
And if another company wants to havean advantage over another and decide we're
going to allow alternative app stores,but competition in a market. I think

(44:30):
that's another part of the definition weshould hang on to unreasonable restraint of competition
in a market. I don't thinkthe iPhone has reached a point where you
can't use a non iPhone. Infact, there's a lot of advantages to
not using an iPhone. There's somany choices. You can get much,

(44:51):
much cheaper phones if you go theAndroid route. Android has lots of different
choices. They've got prettier options,they've got more repairable options, more modular
options, bigger screen screens with spensthat come out of them, phones with
better digital assistance, baked in phoneswith brighter screens, folding phones, all
these advantages. Personally, I don'tthink the smartphone market has been backed into

(45:20):
a corner to where people feel likethey can only go with an iPhone.
But someone might feel that way,or someone might make the argument this is
likely. What is the end resultof a lot of these lawsuits and stuff
is they're trying to make the argumentthat the iPhone in the app store in
itself is its own market. It'sseparate from the Android market. So instead

(45:44):
of just having a smartphone market,now we're arguing, no, this is
just the iPhone market. Apple hasa monopoly on the iPhone, which to
me is kind of a weird argumentbecause I look at that as okay,
so doesn't Disney have a monopoly onStar Wars? Doesn't Netflix have a monopoly
on Stranger Things? You know,doesn't Walmart have a monopoly on mainstays?

(46:07):
Or Amazon has a monopoly on Prime? You know, how do you decide
the difference between this is its ownmarket versus this is just a product that
a company makes. In other words, do I also need to be able
to open up Apple Watch to androids? So now where os comes to the
Apple Watch and all that? Peoplewho want I Message on Android are the

(46:30):
type of people that ask for arefund at a buffet after they had four
play Yeah, I mean could Applemake an I Message up on Android?
Yeah? Would they get anything outof it? No? In fact,
they would lose a lot, becauseeven ignoring the whole like, oh well,
then people would buy more Android phones. It's just it clogs up Apple
servers because Apple has to upkeep IMessage and update it and make sure that

(46:53):
it's working properly across all the devicesthey wanted to work on, So you
have to also make sure that it'sworking reliably and able to handle all of
the data and all of the backend and all the bandwidth that is created
by the Android community now if youbring that app over there. So Apple
has very little financial motivation to releasethat app because it would just kind of

(47:17):
make their servers work a bit harder, and they don't really get to justify
it as well it's a revenue stream, or it's a feature our customers care
about, no, because if therewas I Message on Android, they'd have
a bunch of people using it thataren't even customers. You could have people
that never bought an Apple product intheir whole life using I Message. So

(47:37):
I think supporting ourcs was a bigstep in the right direction. I was
in favor of that for a while. I was like, Okay, there's
all these I Message features and SMSreally sucks, and now there's a better
standard coming out, so Apple,you should probably just support that, because
if you go out of your waynot to support that, I would argue

(47:58):
it's kind of anti competitive. Actually, if there's better standards that fix a
lot of the problems. But youknow, shortly after asking for them to
do that. They agreed they're goingto do it. Now. Google's even
advertising it on Google's own website.It says I Message is gonna switch to

(48:19):
RCS in the fall of this year. So a lot of the problems that
the DOJ is complaining about with theI Message compatibility thing has already been fixed.
It's just a matter of time whenthey roll it out. But doesn't
Apple make Android users pay a monthlyfee? Oh yeah, that's not anti
competitive at all. Buy an iPhoneso it's free, but if you try

(48:39):
to use I Message over here itcosts more. Yeah, I bet the
government would love that. I alsodon't think I Message would be very popular
on Android if you had to payfor it. Who's going to pay to
use a texting service? Come on, there's so many free texting services.

(49:00):
I wonder how other messaging apps makerevenue. Yeah, I mean they have
their ways. WhatsApp used to bepaid. I think that didn't last.
Yeah. Meta just wants control andthey're hoping you use their social media apps
that are integrated with their messaging appsand then they get ad revenue through that.

(49:22):
Some of them put ads in themessaging apps. So what's most common
is people just want to use thedefault messaging app in their phone, which
is why WhatsApp took off because fora lot of companies, for a long
time, that was the default messagingapp. So that's why a lot of
people they didn't actively choose it.It was just the only messaging app they
had. And then Meta bought it, and then Apple came up with I

(49:43):
Message and come up with a bunchof native features. When they had both
control, you know, when theyhad control over both phones, they could
do a lot more. Beeper Miniwas a subscription app. Yeah, was
is the key. If there wasI Message on Android, you could argue
that many that may cause a newmonopoly of eye messages, a monopoly on

(50:04):
message apps. Yeah, there's alot of companies we accuse of being monopolies
that are also across compatible, right, they say, Googles, Google's a
monopoly and they try to make alltheir software and services the same. Yeah,
Telegram has Telegram Premium with extra features. There you go. Yeah,
that's usually how they do it.It's like free for most but then if
you want to unlock certain features,you pay a fee to unlock. That's

(50:27):
kind of what Discord does. Discordis free, but if you pay for
Nitro you can send larger files andthat kind of thing. Wasn't Apple forced
or pressure into RCS. I meanyou could argue, I mean, they
weren't legally forced to adopt RCS,but they were pressured by the general public,
including by me. But I meanyou could argue. They were pressured

(50:50):
to add an ultra wide lens tothe iPhone. They were pressured to allow
wireless charging. You know, there'sall kinds of features that lots of people
ask for, lots of media pushedthem to do, and then they did.
So that's okay. You're allowed tovoice your opinion towards a company.
Apple Music on Android is a greatapp, so I believe if there's motivation
to do it, they will doit. Well, yeah, because there

(51:12):
was no free version. Basically theyknew that anybody who used Apple Music on
Android would be paying for it.YouTube is kind of a In fact,
at one point, Apple Music onAndroid had features that Apple Music on iOS
did not have, which kind ofgoes against the Apple being anti competitive.

(51:36):
There was now playing widget I thinkthere still is on Apple Music for Android.
You can put a now playing widgeton your home screen which allows you
to pause and play and skip andrewind, and you still can't do that
on iOS. There's an Apple Musicwidget, but there's not a now playing
widget. YouTube is kind of amonopoly, but it's mostly others fault for
not wanting to take the risk oflosing money. No, I think that's

(52:00):
honestly a much better argument. Ifyou want to make I would argue that
making online video content is a market. You know, there is a job
market, There is a workplace forit. Yes, I want to develop
videos of some kind, tutorial videos, entertaining videos, speculative videos. I
want to talk about the news,if anything, you want, sports,

(52:21):
whatever. People who want to postcontent online, good luck doing it without
YouTube. Holy crap, the CPMs, the modetization programs. Only YouTube can
do it because they have the infiniteback end of Google's deep pockets to be
able to burn through a lot ofmoney. And it's also very difficult to

(52:45):
get people to move platforms, whichis I think the main reason Google bought
YouTube. They didn't create YouTube.They saw YouTube getting successful, so they
bought them out, and by havingthat unlimited back end of money, they
were able to make quality better,make the server end better, and make
a monetization program better than anybody elsecould ever come up with, and now

(53:07):
no one else really comes close.I would say YouTube probably has like what
eighty five ninety percent of online videocontent, at least independent creator content.
Obviously, I wouldn't compare YouTube tosomething like Netflix, where it's like produced
in you know, screenwriting content,but as far as like independent creators who

(53:30):
want to make videos like me,I don't have a choice. Really,
I'm very grateful for YouTube because they'vegiven me my dream job, and I
think, you know, they dosome annoying things, but for the most
part, they've created an incredibly valuableservice. That's why my YouTube premium customer,
and I think so many people useYouTube for very useful things, whether

(53:52):
it's education, whether it's you know, I'm trying to fix this part in
my car, so I'm just gonnalook it up and I can find exactly
what I need to know, andI'll find five different people doing a tutorial
on how to repair this part,or I've done it. I've used it
for that too, like how tofix this wall heater or how to fix

(54:14):
this weed eater, And I lookit up and other people have the same
issue. And it's a very valuableservice, and that other people are interested
in buying guides, which is kindof what I found my niche in is
like, Okay, what's coming out, what's around the corner, what should
I expect from the next iPhone andthe next iPad. It's a very valuable
service to the general public, andthere's really nowhere else people go for that

(54:36):
kind of thing. Twitter search isterrible. You're not going to find anything
helpful on Twitter. I guess news. That's what I use Twitter for.
Whenever there's a new update or anew change about something, I find about
it through Twitter before everything else.I don't have to use Twitter, but

(54:58):
that's where I usually get stuff thefat. But yeah, YouTube, there's
nothing really quite like it. Twitchis more about live streaming. TikTok is
more about short form. There's notas much of a search algorithm for TikTok.
It's more just like endless scrolling.You don't put your videos on other

(55:19):
services because people wouldn't watch them,and I don't go to other video sites
because they don't have any content exactly. It's an endless loop. So I
obviously the definition of monopoly is quitevague. It's just about unreasonable conditions in
a market. So there's all kindsof room for interpretation between those two nouns
of like, okay, is theiPhone itself a market or is the smartphone

(55:43):
market what we're talking about. Idon't think Apple has a monopoly on the
smartphone market, but most people aretrying to make the argument they have a
monopoly on the iPhone, which Iwas like, eh, I think that's
a weak argument. But in regardsto posting online video can, I feel
like YouTube kind of you have togo through them if you want to become

(56:05):
an independent content creator, like likeI am. I guess you could become
popular on TikTok. But yeah,it's a it's just a different kind of
market. I guess that's the debate, right, It's just market share wise.
You know, Apple has sixty percentof the smartphone market in the US,

(56:29):
whereas I feel like YouTube is probablymore like ninety percent. Now,
when my paychecks are still labeled Twitter, I keep calling it twitter X is
a stupid name. I'll continue tofight against the term X, so I'm
just going to keep calling it Twitter. Do you think anything would happen to

(56:50):
Apple after this issue? They'll probablyjust pay some fines. The EU has
the power. There are a muchmore effective, quick moving government. The
US government is by design intended tobe very slow and ineffective. So all
our government is really good at doingis finding people. But yeah, the
videos on Twitter are horrible quality andthey're hard to watch. And I tried
posting content there for a while andit was a joke. It was a

(57:13):
total waste of time. Now there'sa pretty good Apple Music app for Windows.
There you go. So it's kindof an endless topic, but that's
what people wanted to talk about.Let's talk Let's talk about something more fun.
As we're coming up near the endof the live stream, Nicholas Linthiccom
asked to day Ago Drew. I'msure you've probably covered this before. I

(57:34):
would like to know your history ofhow your passion for Apple came to be,
specifically made you interested in them asa company. Also, I know
you started tell Us by banking shortmovie films, but what made you secure
Apple in the current ev market foryour two main areas of expertise. It's
a kind of a fun question.Try to end on a more uplifting note
than Apple's getting sued because we couldtalk about monopolies all day have, but

(58:01):
it really rooted in my family.My dad was very interested in Apple products
before I was born, and whenI was born, Apple computers like the
mac We had a Macintosh what wasit, Performa. He had the Macintosh
Classic, and then he got thefirst iMac when that came out. The

(58:22):
first iMac came out basically when Iwas born. So when I grew up
there was just computers around the house. I didn't know there was really any
other kind of computer. As atoddler, that was just the computer and
Apple was, you know, myhousehold's computer of choice. So I was
always just fascinated by it because itwas this magic little box that you could
control and there were games on it, and they used it for work,

(58:44):
and it was just something about havinga you know, dynamic user interface that
lets you do all of these things, and that you could buy discs at
the store and put them in thecomputer and it would gain more functionality.
It was like whoa a tool thatchanges over time. So computers in general
were interesting to me, and whenI was a kid, Apple was pretty
much all we had in the house. I guess Apple had Monopoly on my

(59:07):
household. But once I got olderand started going to friend's houses more,
I discovered there were other computers thatweren't made by Apple, and I thought
they were cool too. I waslike, oh, wow, your computer
can play all these games. Mycomputer doesn't have that many games to play.
But I did very much prefer theuser interface, the software, and

(59:28):
the designs that I would find onApple products. I remember my mom had
one of the first iPods ever,very very deep rooted memory of me trying
to figure out the clickwheel. Ithink it was, if not the first
iPod, one of the very firstiPods, because it was one of those
iPods that was before they had thelike all metal track pad or the trackpad

(59:55):
that didn't look like a button before, like the traditional iPod track pad like
you picture an iPod classic. Itwasn't like that. The click wheel that
still had physical buttons on the edges. It was like that, and I
remember trying to figure it out.I was trying to like I was really
little, I don't know, itwas like five or six, and I
was trying to figure out how tonavigate the UI. I remember it had

(01:00:17):
like an e ink screen. Itwasn't a color display, it wasn't a
very bright display, but my momwas using it, and then I wanted
to try it, and I wasmoving it around a little bit, and
I was like, WHOA, thisthing is crazy. And I remember plugging
in the headphones and listening and Iwas like the sound quality and these were
horrible headphones for the time, butat that time it was the best pair

(01:00:37):
of headphones I'd ever heard, andI was just like, whoa, this
sounds just like a concert is happeningright in the living room. So I
was always fascinated by anything really Applemade, because it always just felt so
clever and so portable and so smalland unique. And then yeah, at
some point my mom got like alaptop and a MacBook, and I remember

(01:01:01):
my dad, I think, hadan ebook for work back before they were
called MacBooks, and I remember thinkingit was really slick and very capable,
and just I liked how much colorand vibrancy there was in the display.
So it started at a very youngage just being around Apple products. So

(01:01:22):
I watched a lot of tech videosbecause I was interested in tech and using
it to make movies and video stuffand that kind of thing. But like
Nicholas said, I started YouTube makingembarrassing little comedy skits or action movies because
I wanted to be a filmmaker,and I found Apple to be kind of
the best tool for making movies andstuff that obviously didn't go anywhere. Nobody

(01:01:45):
was watching those videos, and Ikept posting them for years and years and
years, and then I around twentyfourteen twenty thirteen ish, I started going,
Okay, well, no one wantsto look up videos of little kids
pretending that they're action movie stars,So why don't I try to make videos
that people are actually looking for.Because I'm not going on YouTube and looking

(01:02:07):
up action movies or comedy skits bylittle kids. So of course, why
is nobody finding me? Because nobody'slooking for that kind of content. So
I decided I'll start making the typesof videos that I'm looking up. So
I was watching movie reviews, Iwas watching gaming videos, I was watching
tech videos. So I tried everythingI did many years of all of those

(01:02:31):
genres, and tech is really theone that's stuck around tech. After years
and years of trying and failing,eventually I started getting people watching those videos
that were not people I personally knew, so I kept going with it.
So to answer the second part ofyour question about what made what made me
secure Apple in the current EV marketas your two main areas of expertise,

(01:02:52):
it's you, guys. It's allof you. Obviously, you know I
can make I enjoyed trying to makegaming content, and I enjoyed trying to
make movie reviews, but not asthere wasn't as much demand for that.
So obviously, if there's not verymany people interested in hearing me make that
kind of content, then it makesme less interested in making that kind of

(01:03:13):
content. But once I started discoveringlots of people like hearing me talk about
tech for whatever reason, I don'tknow why you're here, but you are,
thank you, So for whatever reason, when I talked about tech,
and then later on when I startedtalking more about electric vehicles that really worked,
like, people kept coming back forthat or wanted to talk more about
it, And that's what kind ofsecured my job. Currently was just a

(01:03:38):
lot of people demanding or clicking morefor those types of videos. So that's
now what my primary focus on andI tried to do both for a long
time. I tried to say Okay, well Tech will be the big channel,
but I'll slowly try to build upthese other channels. And it's never
really went anywhere. I never reallygot much of any other genre off the

(01:03:58):
ground except EV but that's kind ofa subset of the Tech channel. But
what's interesting about it is I've discoveredit's very different audiences. Even though it's
electric cars are still technology. Iget that. That's why I didn't have
two channels for a long time.I just discovered that there was a lot
of people that wanted more EV news, that didn't follow Apple or didn't care
about phones or laptops and that kindof thing. So realizing that helped me

(01:04:23):
separate the two, and then morerecently in the last couple of years,
I've just decided, you know what, Drew, people probably don't want to
watch you play games, and theydon't want to listen to your thoughts on
movies and TV shows, and that'sokay. I can accept that I still
have those thoughts, but there's onlyso much time in the day I have
for work. And even when Idid have, you know, editors and

(01:04:45):
people I would pay to edit thevideos for me, videos they didn't pay
for themselves and they didn't do verywell, so I just accepted, Okay,
that's not one of my strengths.But apparently, for some reason,
one of my strengths is commentating orspeculating on Apple and Tesla and all kinds
of companies that compete with them.So because there was a demand for it,

(01:05:09):
that's what kind of kept me doingit. It wasn't like I started
YouTube saying I want to become atech channel. It was just like,
originally I wanted to become a filmmaker, and then along the way, I
guess I became a tech content creator. But I enjoy it. It's still
fun for me, and I kindof get to blur what I like about
both, because you know, Ireally like doing the comedy skits before,

(01:05:30):
even though they didn't ever perform allthat great, I enjoyed making them because
I really liked acting. And nowI've got the skits in the tech videos,
so I kind of still get myacting outlet where I get to play
characters or write up little funny scenarioswhere two people are going back and forth,
but I get to make it abouttech products, which people seem interested

(01:05:51):
in. So I feel like thatmight be one of my strengths, or
maybe not strength but unique advantages.Is I like doing little basic skit comedy,
and I like playing characters, andI like talking about tech. So
I tried to make Taylor's of Techkind of a blur of that, so
that, Okay, I don't reallymake a co I don't have a comedy

(01:06:12):
channel or a skit channel anymore,but I kind of integrated that into what
people like me to do. Sohopefully that answers your question. Marchell says,
sixty percent market share is still alot, though the amount of control
is enough to where Apple's policies canmake or break certain companies that are trying
to make innovative goods and services.They can I would question who they've killed

(01:06:35):
with those policies, though, especiallyconsidering I mean, most of the time
when people complain about monopolies, theytry to act like there's these tiny,
young, up and coming developers thatare just getting squashed by Apple. But
then Apple's id Okay, if youmake under a million a year, it's
a fifteen percent cut, not thirty, which is very reasonable in my opinion.

(01:06:57):
That's much lower than what grocery storesdo. Even epic game who's constantly
mad at Apple charges like twelve percentor fifteen percent or something like that.
So let me know what companies orwhat services are unable to stay afloat.
But I would also argue, farmore than companies or brands that have been

(01:07:18):
killed by Apple, there has beencompanies and livelihoods and jobs that have been
created by Apple in the app store. I think for every one company that
might go out of business because ofsome weird app store policy, there's probably
twenty companies that can only now existbecause of Apple mainstreaming the iPhone, getting
people on board with the idea ofhaving a smartphone. You know, before

(01:07:40):
the iPhone, the only people whohad smartphones were typically like business people.
I just watched the BlackBerry movie lastnight, which was really interesting. They
were not selling by the hundreds ofmillion the BlackBerry, even if in its
primetime Heyday was selling a couple millionunits and it was mainly targeted as a
business person feature. Everyday people werenot buying Blackberries. But now every day

(01:08:03):
people buy iPhones. So there's somethingabout Apple's design philosophy and the simplicity of
the iPhone that definitely made it moreapproachable to the masses. And more accessible,
even though it wasn't affordable. Justthe simplicity of the UI and how
easy it was to just pick upand start using in that like aha moment

(01:08:25):
people have when they tried scrolling.That's what turned the smartphone into what it
is today. Was that kind ofgeneral rethinking of no, this is not
just a product for business people,this is a product for everybody. And
then when you have a product likethat in everybody's hands, that allows every
day developers to come up with appsand features and games and services that they

(01:08:47):
can throw up on the App Storeand suddenly generate millions and millions of dollars
in revenue. That just wasn't possiblebefore the iPhone. Just you couldn't do
that. There wasn't a platform thatmade that obtainable. Didn't Apple basically kill
those tile geolocation things by creating airtags and not letting other brands connect to
the find Who told you they can'tconnect to the find my network. Third

(01:09:10):
parties absolutely can't access to find mynetwork. Thanks for bringing that up.
By the way, there's an exampleof Apple not being anti competitive. They
figured out they can make it muchmore accurate because they could turn every one
of their existing Apple products into abeacon. But they did not say that
you can only get find my equippeddevices from Apple. You can join the

(01:09:32):
find my network. I bet there'sa fee, but you know that's what
we argued for Earlier. People said, oh, they should bring on message
to Android for a fee. Youknow, then people would complain about the
fee. But yeah, find myis very much an open network. They
launched the find my geo tracking devicesbefore the air tag. If you can

(01:09:54):
remember that, they let who wasit, Chippolo? Apple announced it.
I remember make a video on that. There was a Chippolo brand and there
was an e bike or something.There was a bicycle that was incorporated into
the find my network. And theylaunched all those things and bragged about to
find my network months before the airtags were launched. So I think that's

(01:10:17):
another example of them not being anticompetitive. J Mundy says, I just
did an Apple Vision pro demo andnow I'm wondering why they released it in
it's half baked state. I thinkit's a manufacturing exercise. It's like,
well, if we can prove thatthere's interest in this, and we can
release it to the masses and getsome feedback on it, we know what

(01:10:38):
to prioritize for the next gen.The first iPhone was very very half baked
too. Why don't I do sponsoredcontent? Well, who wants more sponsored
content? No one ever asked meto. I don't know. I try
to make videos based on what Iwould like to say. See. That's

(01:11:00):
always been my philosophy from the beginning. Make the videos. That's that.
The whole tay Lot's of story fromthe get go was, you know,
I'm making all these short films andskits and action movies. But am I
watching those? Am I going onYouTube looking for that kind of content?
No? I'm not. So I'mgonna start making content that's like the content
I want to see, Like,why isn't there a channel that talks more

(01:11:21):
about this or thinks more about this, covers more of the things I wish
would be covered. So try tobe the content creator that you're looking for,
because then even if your channel doesn'tperform greater you don't make a lot,
at least you'll be enjoying it alongthe way. Yeah, Chipotle brand
AirTag and they work great. Thereyou go. So as an example,

(01:11:46):
if you are if you can uhmake videos that are not sponsored, and
you can live off of it,and you can get by without it,
I'd say all the better to you. So I've been blessed enough thanks to
your guys' generosity and all of yourguys' support, that I've been able to
live happily and comfortably. In myopinion, I'm still overpaid. I still

(01:12:10):
think I make way too much money. I'm able to afford a house and
a car that I enjoy, andnice tech products like my MacBook and my
iPhone, and I can donate tovarious causes that I want to support,
and I have savings and a retirementaccount and all of these things thanks to
you guys watching. To me,it would be kind of selfish to just

(01:12:33):
act like, well, I couldbe making more though if I had more
money, It's like, what amI going to do with more money?
Well, you should buy nicer equipmentand fancier stuff. It's like, eh,
it's just more liabilities, more thingsto lose, more things that can
get stolen. If I believed thata nicer lighting or nicer camera would make

(01:12:56):
better videos, maybe I would considerit, But I don't believe if they
do, especially when I travel,and I know that I'm not gonna want
to pack all of this additional equipment. It's just as I've gotten older,
I've realized and it kind of wentdown that route back in twenty seventeen twenty
eighteen, when I got this hugeoffice space and I got several cameras and
big lighting setups and all this fancyequipment, and I wanted to just fill

(01:13:20):
it, fill a big studio withas much fancy equipment as I could.
I realized it. It's kind ofa big headache keeping track of all that
stuff, and I don't think itmade the videos better. But like when
I ask people what they liked aboutmy videos, it was never like,
oh, the lighting or the broll, because there's always going to be
a channel that can afford fancier equipmentthan you. I can't compete with the

(01:13:44):
Marquezes out there that are buying onehundred thousand dollars camera rigs. So whether
I spend one hundred dollars a yearon my equipment or ten thousand dollars a
year on my camera equipment, it'sstill gonna not look as good as what
other bigger channels can crank out.So I don't think you're gonna get a
lot of success or I don't thinkchannels are necessarily gonna just take off because

(01:14:08):
they buy the right gear. It'sa lot more about what you say,
how it's edited, and if youhave a unique perspective to share to people.
And I don't think it matters toomuch what camera you're using, or
as long as the video and audioaren't distractingly bad, then you can make
very successful content with a phone.I know from experience I have some of

(01:14:30):
my best performing videos were not videosthat were shot super well or super eloquently.
Some of the videos that are mybest performers had terrible lighting, terrible
audio. It was just because thetopic was interesting, or people wanted to
hear what I had to say,or liked what I had to say about
a particular subject or something like that. So to me, I don't think

(01:14:55):
more sponsors would help the channel much. It would just bring in more revenue.
But I already feel like I haveenough money. So j Money says,
please, for the love of God, don't do sponsor. Okay,
Well, I've definitely got a lotof people asking me not to. Michael
Brickhardt says, I'd be fine withfully sponsored videos. I'm sure the audience

(01:15:17):
would be fine with you having anicer livelihood. Oh well, that's very
nice of you to say, butI think I have an amazing livelihood as
is. I think it would justbe selfish and it would be a dangerous
slippery slope mindset to just assume,well I could have a little more.
If you talk to rich people,ask them if they're much much happier when

(01:15:38):
they have much more money. Ata certain point, money can buy happiness
to a point I don't. I'mnot one of those people that says money
can't buy happiness, but I sawsome study about it. It was like,
up to about seventy grand a year, it starts to have no impact
on your general happiness levels. There'smillionaires and billionaires that are very unhappy,

(01:16:01):
and I'm not convinced that a slightlynicer livelihood would make me substantially happier.
Honestly, if I fed into whatI used to do, which was just
buy more, buy more, buymore, get a nicer this nicer that
you know. I used to buyevery new Apple product that came out because
I'm like, well, it's forthe channel, right, it's for my
job. So I have to buyeverything, everything by the latest and highest

(01:16:21):
and this. I used to dothat, and you know what it does,
It's just you get hooked on it. It's like a dopamine rush every
time you unbox one of those things, and before you know it, you'll
be unboxing stuff you have no needfor. You're just going out to buy
things for the sake of buying things. And the more you buy, the
more useless it all becomes. Thenyou just have all this stuff lying around,
and the older you get, Ithink, the more you start realizing

(01:16:44):
that it's kind of a childish bynature something by best yash, I'm sorry.
Let's see. Sponsored integrations inside ofvideos are what get another well,
I can tell you from friends i'vetalked to that do sponsored videos, you

(01:17:04):
often don't have a choice. Andwhat's quite dangerous is when you integrate sponsorships
into your content and then you startdepending on sponsorship revenue, which I've seen
a lot of channels start doing.Where you know, you inflate your budget
to a certain extent where okay,I'm making five thousand a month, ord

(01:17:26):
now with the sponsorships, I'm makingseven or eight thousand a month, And
then you start spending more and moreand more, you collect more debt,
or you hire more people, oryou'd you know, rent out more spaces,
or you get a fancier car witha bigger lease or a bigger loan
payment, or what have you.You do all that stuff. Now before
you know it, you don't havea choice. With these sponsors. You've
inflated the budget of your business somuch that now if you don't make that

(01:17:50):
much money, you get more desperate. You got to start clickbaiting more.
Okay, I'm supposed to be bringingin at least this much money a month.
If I don't bring in this muchmoney a month, I'm losing money.
I'm in trouble, and there's peoplerelying on me or whatever. So
you start having to turn stories thatare not that big of a deal into

(01:18:11):
a very big deal. And you'relike, well, I don't really believe
what I'm saying, but I've gotbills to pay, I've got people to
support, so I have to getthis video to perform a certain amount.
So you take a really boring story, or you don't have a very interesting
topic because the news dies down orthe news isn't as interesting, so you
go, Okay, I gotta somehowmake this video, which is not that

(01:18:33):
interesting, a lot more interesting.So I'm gonna clickbait or I'm gonna deceive
people in my audience, and Ididn't want to fall down that path.
So we've been very careful with howwe spend our money because we know there's
no guarantees with YouTube, and technicallyit can all go away tomorrow, and
we constantly have that in the backof our minds. So that's why we
have savings and retirement accounts, andwe're making sure now that even if YouTube

(01:19:00):
ad Sense shut down, we'd beokay. In fact, at this point,
I would probably keep making videos evenif all the all the revenue went
away. Now I might have tolean more into the memberships or something.
But we've structured our finances in away that if we have a really boring
month and all the videos I uploadare terrible performing, you know, let's

(01:19:26):
say Drew gets bored of Apple,so he just wants to talk about I
don't know, neurallink or something orwhat SpaceX or you know, I'm just
going to talk about rockets for thenext three months. And my audience is
really ticked off because they subscribe forthe Apple content. I could do that
and all the videos could flop andwe'd be okay. I don't. I'm

(01:19:47):
not worried about hitting a certain thresholdanymore where it's like, oh, we
have to make this amount of money, otherwise we're going to be in trouble.
It's like we'll be okay either way. So I'm very grateful for every
dollar you guys donate, and eventhe people who don't donate. Seriously,
that's what most of my revenue isis just watch time, just from you
guys tuning in and watching. That'shonestly, like, it means so much

(01:20:14):
to me, more so than justthe revenue it generates. That's one thing
I'm super grateful for because obviously,when you got bills to pay and stuff,
it's nice to have a way todo something you love and do something
you enjoy and being able to generatean income from that to support others and
to support other people and be generous. So I'm very grateful for that.

(01:20:39):
But what's even more impactful to meis just like how much people are willing
to listen. Just what matters moreto me than Google showing up with the
paycheck is the fact that you guys, for some reason find my opinion valid
enough that it's worth listening to.Because there was very large stages in my

(01:21:01):
life and there still is occasionally verylarge chunks of my life where I feel
like my opinion doesn't matter or peopledon't really care what I think, And
just knowing that there's people out therethat are interested or care in some way
about what you think or how youthink is really valuable to me. It's

(01:21:23):
like, wow, I can talkabout this and people want to watch it.
That's insane. So that's very humbling, and that's why I would just
feel selfish and unreasonable to be like, yeah, but I could be making
a little more though I could havesome more money. It's like, dude,
you have like this dream job.Don't get too picky. It's like
all of these people who are beingso generous and so kind, and I'm

(01:21:46):
gonna waste their time more by puttingmore sponsored integrations in the videos. Like
now, it doesn't make sense tome, but yeah, living mortgage free
or rent free is amazing. It'sone of the Hey, Scott, by
the way, I haven't seen ScottSullivan for a while. I haven't seen
the chat. How are you doing, man, Yeah, I take it

(01:22:10):
for granted. We're coming up nextweek. Actually, we paid off the
house four years ago. I thinkit was, Yeah, Tuesday, April
second was when we paid off thehouse. Oh, I've been spoiled with
that now. Sponsors are unfair topeople who pay for YouTube premium and or
channel members. Yeah, I don'tthink they're like morally wrong. If a

(01:22:33):
channel wants to integrate sponsorships, andthere are some channels where you know,
I'm very blessed and very fortunate tolive in a place where cost of living
is much lower. So where Ilive, it's a lot easier to buy
a house or to find reasonable rentthan it would be if you live in
a major city. So if there'ssomeone who is living in a higher cost

(01:22:53):
of living area and they can't getout of that, then they're trying to
get their YouTube channel off the ground. They're trying to generate an income off
of it. And if sponsorships getyou over to that point where okay,
yes, now I can do thisfor a full time job. I totally
understand why people would do it,and I will never fault any channel for
doing sponsored content. I will notblame them. It's just in the back

(01:23:15):
of my head. Whenever I seethat, I'd go, well, wouldn't
it be kind of nice if therewas a channel that just was able to
manage their money somewhat wisely and didn'thave to do that so I didn't feel
like I had to skip around toomuch, or I didn't feel like my
time was being wasted. And again, it's all about this competition thing,
right Apple being competitive they have maybeless intrusive ads. They're still ads,

(01:23:39):
but less intrusive ads in iOS,and that gives them advantage over their Android
counterparts, which might have more inyour face ads. So, as we're
trying to be competitive on YouTube andpeople are trying to decide which YouTube channels
do I want to keep watching,I thought, well, maybe my advantage
could be there's no sponsorships, sopeople with YouTube Premium they can watch all

(01:24:00):
my tailors of tech, Tayloes ofEV, Taylors of Life videos, and
the tailos of tech and EV podcast. If you have YouTube Premium and you
watch all of that content that Ipost, you won't get any ads in
that whole experience. I think that'spretty cool, and I get reimbursed for
it. I'm like this, thisis the best situation I could come up
with for you know, content producing. That's why sponsored videos beat sponsor integrations.

(01:24:28):
People can just choose not to watch. Yeah, but I don't know.
There's just a certain amount of recommendation. I feel like the video itself
is less valid if you know thatthe creator is getting paid it paid for
it, or has to abide bya certain script. It's not that they're
wrong or they're lying. It's justthat you have to take everything they say

(01:24:50):
with a bit of a grain ofsalt compared to if you're just a video
about a guy reviewing a product.I haven't missed my iPad yet. No,
let's see, I'm happy with afew million, that's all I did.
Are you gonna do another one ofthose videos where you break down how
much you've earned. Would be interestingto see because the additional income from the

(01:25:12):
ev channel that you didn't have lasttime. No, I thought. I
did one on Telo's of Life acouple of years ago. It's still pretty
accurate. I'll admit, it's aboutthe same as what it used to be.
The tech channel income is not ashigh as it used to be,
but the ev channel rising kind ofcompensated for it. So I'm not making
really much more or less than whatI used to make. Let me try

(01:25:35):
to remember here. I think alittle bit less, but that's kind of
deliberate. I think I'm making abit less than I used to, but
I get put into a different whatdo you call it. It's not a
tax bracket, but it's like adifferent healthcare incentivization. And the healthcare system

(01:25:57):
is very, very broken in theUS, so if you make under a
certain amount, you qualify for differentpricing of healthcare. So the more you
make, the more you have topay. Basically where I live, so
I'm kind of incentivized to make undera certain amount now because it reaches a
certain point where it's like, Okay, I could make much more, but
then I'm gonna have to pay allthis extra insurance. It's stupid. I

(01:26:20):
agree, it's a dumb thing.But my family and friends are here,
so I can't leave the state.I'm not. I'm not gonna leave the
country just for tax laws and stuff. I like living here, despite all
of its problems. I enjoy whereI live. Steven says, has her
YouTube income increase much since the videoyou made showing your ad Sense revenue.
Yeah, yeah, no, notreally. I think it's a bit lower.

(01:26:42):
But I also didn't post as muchlast year, partly because we were
traveling so much, and also becauseyou know, we paid off our house
and our expenses are much lower thanthey used to be. So I don't
feel as urgent. You know,I don't want to like feel like I
have to post that is like,well, I just got to hit a
quota. It's like, well,if I have something to talk about,

(01:27:05):
I'll talk about it. But ifthere's really nothing to talk about, I
don't need to like force myself topost stuff. And I also feel like
there's been a gradual decline in interestingtech topics to cover, So it's like
I'm okay posting less. And youknow, financially speaking, there's actually some
incentive to making a certain amount less, assuming you can pay all your bills

(01:27:27):
and we still max out our retirementaccounts and I have multiple Actually I have
a sep IRA which is tax deductible, so all the money I invest in
that every year, which I tendto max out, all of the money
that goes into my step ira,I can write off and then all of
the money in my wroth IRA,I believe it's called I'm not great at

(01:27:48):
this stuff, but all the moneyin my IRA is tax deferred, which
means that I pay taxes on it'snot a write off what I deposit to
it. But when I retire,when I'm older, I can pull money
from the roth IRA and it's taxfree, so I don't have to report
that as income whenever I access it. But there's a cap on how much

(01:28:10):
you can invest in it per year. Last year it was sixty five hundred.
This year it's seven thousand. Somy wife and I typically max out
both of our iras every year,so we have backups upon backups, and
that we've got just a brokerage accountfor you know, more passive income,
just like dividends that are paid outquarterly. So I encourage people to be

(01:28:34):
more you know, financially conscious sothat they can live more relaxed lives.
To me, what's far more valuablethan a nicer house, or a nicer
car, or fancier equipment or anyof that stuff. What's far more valuable
to me is flexibility of time.The older I've got, the more I've

(01:28:55):
realized that's far more important than anythingI could ever buy. You know,
I would trade my car. Iwould trade a cyber truck and an Aptera
and a best iPhone and the besthome pods and the best o Led TV.
I would I would trade all ofthat stuff if it meant I could

(01:29:15):
maintain my current flexibility of schedule.If it meant that, you know,
when my grandma wants to hang outor something, I can go out and
I can go over and hang outwith her. Or if a family member
needs help moving, I can goover and help them. Those those kinds
of like personal individual relationships to meare just so much, so much more

(01:29:38):
valuable than anything I could buy.Scott says, I still listen to some
of the podcasts, not as activein the live streams or comments as I
used to be. No worries,no worries. I know there's a lot
of Oh, you're teaching full timenow in fifth grade? Ooh, good
luck with that. Teaching is avery hard job, but very admirable and
respectable. We need people like you, Scott. Let's see, I got

(01:30:03):
recommended your weight loss of video fromTaylus's Life. I'll probably watch it today.
Yeah. Thanks, I appreciate it. Yeah, there was a few
people asking for that. Why didthe gaming channel die? I just didn't
really have enough time for it,and it wasn't bringing in that much interest.
Not that I really care about allthe content making money, because honestly,

(01:30:25):
there's a lot of stuff I dothat doesn't bring in much money,
but I just do it because Ienjoy it. But I was discovering I
wasn't enjoying the gaming content as much. It's like, I think I'm more
of a tech guy. You know, I liked playing games a lot more
as a kid. Older, I'vegot the less games I play, and
gaming content is hard to get consistentand stay on top of. And I

(01:30:47):
have a few friends we're actually goingto be seeing here in a couple of
days. I have a few friendsthat did professional game gaming channels, gaming
live streams and edited videos that youknow, it was like their livelihood,
like full time job, to makevideo game content. And they really gave

(01:31:09):
me a lot of perspective on thekind of commitment it requires. And they
were like, yeah, you know, with a lot of this game streaming
stuff, you can't be half in. You have to be really consistent.
You have to put a lot oftime into it, and you have to
play certain kinds of games. Youcan't. A lot of people look at
game streamers and just assume, oh, you're just playing a game and lots

(01:31:30):
of people are watching you. That'seasy. I could do that. In
reality, it's like they might beplaying a game they have no interest in.
They just have to play the gamesthat are the most popular at that
time to get people to tune in. And then they have to be either
very good at the game or atleast very entertaining. And then on top
of all of that, you haveto be very consistent on it, otherwise
people won't tune back in. It'schallenging it. It's a very much a

(01:31:55):
full time job. I do notenvy them, honestly, I think that
making tech cut tent is, inmy opinion, far easier than becoming a
full time gamer. Knowing what Iknow about the people that have done that,
it is not easy at all.I wish you'd create a financial advice
series. I have the Tails andFinance Tips that's on the Life channel.

(01:32:17):
I should probably offer that you livein Fresno. Houses and apartment are expensive.
Are you looking at upgrading your house? Anytime soon. I never say
never, but probably not. Imean, who knows. Sometimes life throws
big events at you, you know, believe it or not. There's a
lot of stuff that goes on behindthe scenes that I don't talk about because

(01:32:40):
my family doesn't want me to shareeverything. But there's been a lot of
stuff that goes on behind the scenesthat kind of affects those kinds of big
life decisions. But no, I'mprobably not moving, but who knows,
you know, something something could change, something could happen. So there's a
lot of things that come up andI'm like, oh, okay, I

(01:33:00):
guess we're doing that now. Mymother is still using a Samsung S nine
and the phone is on its lastlegs. What's the cheapest iPhone you'd recommended
purchasing the current lineup excluding the seget a load of this or a mock.
I wouldn't recommend an iPhone. Ifyour mom's using a Samsung, she
probably wants another Samsung. And ifshe gets like a used Galaxy S twenty

(01:33:23):
two, she could probably get itfor less money than a SE three which
iPhone. Yeah, in regards tookay, you want an iPhone because your
mom is fed up with Android orSamsung or something. I'd probably suggest.
Yeah, what a Rick is saying, get your mom and a probably a
used, a refurbished iPhone thirteen isgoing to be your best bet. It'll

(01:33:45):
last a while, it's fairly modern, it has a good camera, it's
got wireless charging, it's water resistant. But if she really doesn't want to
upgrade the phone for a long longtime, the only problem with the iPhone
thirteen it still has lightning. Andyou're your mom's s nine had USBC,
So depending on her budget, ifyou're willing to stretch a little bit for

(01:34:08):
the iPhone fifteen, then you'll havea future proof port that'll last probably decades.
What happened to Wyatt and friends?They're still They're still out there.
We still hang out from time totime. I haven't seen Wyatt for a
while, but I just celebrated Dan'sbirthday party not too long ago. The

(01:34:29):
skit channel is just hard to getpeople together. It's, you know,
it's hard to schedule things, especiallywhen my personal life gets more and more
busy with stuff. There's family membersthat needed me and people that require my
time and attention, and a bunchof personal details I don't need to go
into and I've actually been asked notto go into, so I won't.

(01:34:51):
But there's stuff that goes on behindthe scenes that occupies pretty much all my
time. When I'm not making videos, I'm helping out my family the most
I can. And the skits takea lot of time and they, you
know, they definitely don't bring inmuch income. And then you've got to
find people who are willing to sacrificetheir free time to help you out.

(01:35:11):
So my compromise was just doing skitson the Tech Channel. It's like,
that's that way I can keep theskits going. But I still hang out
with my friends on occasion. Yeah, by your mom and iPhone, come
move to Texas. I don't thinkso. Property taxes are much much,
much worse in Texas, So no, thank you. That's actually one underrated

(01:35:32):
perk of California. It says verylow property taxes. Usually that's a downside
because I mean usually it's not muchof a downside because what am I trying
to say. Usually it's not thatnoticeable because so much of California is super
expensive, so people always feel like, oh, I can't afford these property

(01:35:56):
taxes. But in reality, ifyou find a more rural, cheaper place
to live in the state with thelow property taxes. That's when paying off
a house starts to really pay off. I'm very fortunate that way. Yeah,
Burkhart was asking earlier, how muchto your monthly expenses total two just
for necessities, it's like a grandIt's not much. We're pretty blessed in

(01:36:23):
that way, mostly because the houseis paid off. But yeah, we
don't need to make that much.I could basically live on the poverty line
now thanks to you guys. WouldI ever do an in person podcast?
Yeah, we want. It's alwaysbeen kind of our hope or dream to
do an in person podcast at leastonce a year. Me and Mike tried

(01:36:45):
to do one a few months ago, but then we had an audio issue.
I felt so bad because we bothgot up super early and recorded two
podcasts and it was just me andMike. Randy wasn't there, but I
was that would be our one forthe year in person. But now that
Randy's moved and he's a little bitcloser, hopefully we can do it this

(01:37:06):
year. But we don't know.Yeah, I am doing well. Thanks
for asking. Dirk's soul music.I think if Apple had supported RCS from
the beginning, people would be lessupset about this. Well, RCS wasn't
an official agreed upon the standard fora while. There was like all the
carriers had a different version of RCS, and not all Android phones supported it.

(01:37:30):
So I understand why it took aminute for Apple to figure out,
okay, which one. Yeah,well, he said, just the necessities.
There's obviously some months where it costsmuch more to that. But if
we were like our income was introuble or YouTube shut down and we just
needed to figure out what like barenecessities, bear essentials, could just make

(01:37:56):
it work off of a grand Iguess something like that. It might be
a little more than that. Idon't know. But we have a budget
and we keep track of all ofour expenses and we try to make sure
that we set a goal for eachspending category and stay below that. But
I owe most of all of thatto my wife. My wife is a
rewards program and grocery shopping masterbind Sheis incredible, and I've told her so

(01:38:23):
many times, many many times.I've told Louise, honey, you gotta
document this, you got to makea channel about this stuff, like you
should make videos about where you findaffordable, you know, groceries and good
deals, because she is amazing andsheugh. I don't know how she does

(01:38:45):
it. I was not spending thatlittle when I was a bachelor, back
when I was living on my own, I was practically living paycheck to paycheck.
Thankfully, I never collected any debt, so I never overdrafted or something
like that. But whenever i'd geta paycheck, I would just go,
Okay, don't spend that much.And it was not a good system,

(01:39:05):
but yeah, it was. Iowe a lot of what I know about
retirement accounts and about saving and beingmore financially free from her. Pretty much
everything I know was from her.And the closest thing I have to Louise's

(01:39:26):
finance tips is just occasionally we'll postshorts on Telo's of life, especially she
goes to places like Safeway. Theyhave this insane rewards program. This is
not an ad, this is nota sponsorship. I don't know what's in
it for them, but Safeway,through their app often will just do these
like half price or buy one,get one, or sometimes just straight up

(01:39:51):
free. I don't get how itworks. I'm like, why would a
company do this. But the lasttime we went to Safeway, she literally
walked in, grabbed a couple ofthings. I'm not kidding you, scanned
a couple of things, plugged inher phone number, and the total was
zero. She got free chips anda drink. And I was like,

(01:40:15):
what how do you I was like, why would they do that? I
thought, like, you get adiscount if they get you in the door
and buying something else. But no, she found a way to just get
stuff for free, and it's onthe receipt, you know. It's like
they can't even say, hey,did you pay for that? Yeah?
What zero dollars? That's the total. So she and we go to Costco
to Costco has some really good dealsand so we just maximize our savings a

(01:40:41):
lot. So that's part of thereason we're able to live on a lot
less. But the biggest money savers, of course, just having a paid
off house. That's if I couldrecommend anything to younger me, it would
be buy a house as soon asyou can. I mean right now.
It's obviously not a great market,but the interest rates are slowly coming back

(01:41:02):
down. But I got to admitat the time when we were in the
market for a house. It didnot feel like a screaming deal. We
looked at lots of houses and wewere trying to get one that was,
you know, reasonably priced, andit was it was rough. And then
we found this one which wasn't exactlyas cheap as we were hoping, but

(01:41:24):
it was manageable, and we werelike, Okay, well, I think
we can do this. I thinkit'll be okay. And now looking at
the real estate market, it waslike, ooh, holy crap, that
was a good decision. It's alwayslike when buying a house. It's always
like you feel stupid, you feelcheated right as you buy it, but

(01:41:45):
then the longer you own it,it feels like the better of a deal.
It gets when you start looking atthe rest of the market go ooh
crap, everything is much more expensive. Now. That's exactly how I used
to live to during that time ofyour channel need a woman like that.
I think it's a good quality tohave in a partner, someone who's financially

(01:42:08):
wise. It's also a great whatdo you call it. It's a great
counter balance for me because I'm stillvery much a spendaholic and it can get
dangerous if not kept in track,because I you know, working in the
tech space making tech videos or EVvideos is kind of like working in an

(01:42:30):
ice cream shop. It's like youconstantly know about all the new products coming
out and you're interested in them.You kind of have to be a little
bit obsessed with all of this techcontent to make videos about it. So
it's easy to get that obsession orthat interest in tech stuff and turn that
into a buying addiction where it's like, oh well, if I talk about
this all the time, I gottabuy the new stuff all the time.

(01:42:53):
So that's very dangerous. I don'tthink it's a good idea to lease a
Tesla personally, I would go witha used Model three if you're in the
market for an EV right now.The used Teslas are getting very cheap,
like sub twenty thousand dollars, andyou're gonna spend more than that on the
lease. They were hoping you wouldpick up other stuff as well. They

(01:43:13):
were hoping that it wasn't required.Usually it's required to get those kinds of
deals, but she just straight uppicked up free stuff at the store.
I was like, what how doyou do that? So anyway, it's
it's dangerous because if I'm left unchecked, I'll be buying things left and right,
and usually it ends up being thingsI don't need. So when I

(01:43:35):
was, you know, dating Louisebefore we were married, it was it
was a wake up call to meto be like, no, I think
I accept that it is a dangerousloophole or dangerous cycle to be stuck in,
like buy this, buy the newthat. But I always buy the
new thing, and that's kind ofwhat my job. And honestly, not

(01:43:57):
to blame you guys, but there'sa lot of people in the audience that
are constantly always just like, yougotta buy this, you gotta buy that.
Everyone wants you to buy everything right. And if you fall into that
trap, while your channel may generatea lot of traffic or a lot more
income, you're not actually keeping anyof it because you're every dollar you make,
you're just spending again. And that'snot a good cycle to be in

(01:44:20):
because then you get desperate and thenyou don't have control over your time or
your money, and then yeah,it's just it's a dangerous cycle. So
I saw that quality in her asa partner and said, yeah, she
brings out the side of me Iwant to be more of. I want
to be more financially savvy. Iwant to be more wise with my spending,

(01:44:41):
and I want to be more ofa saver because I want to have,
you know, freedom of time.And I saw that she was so
knowledgeable about all that, and thatwas part of the reason I asked her
to marry me. It was becauseI was just like, you're you make
me the best version of myself,and I didn't want to be. I
didn't want to be the kind ofguy that married someone that brought out the

(01:45:05):
worst side of me. Or Ididn't want to marry someone that enabled my
addiction or made my addictions worse,you know. So I knew that marrying
her would help me stay on trackbecause now we have to make, you
know, decisions together as a couple, because what she does affects me and
what I do affects her. Sothat forces you to kind of be a

(01:45:27):
bit more selfless and a bit morecaring and a bit more practical, because
sometimes when you're just you know,scrolling around on Twitter and YouTube all day,
you're like, man, I watchedthese videos and I'm convinced I need
to buy this and this and thisbecause everybody else bought that, and they
look really happy. Then you bouncethat off someone who isn't immersed and isn't
immersed or obsessed with all of thattech stuff, and they go, okay,

(01:45:49):
but have you thought about this ordid you consider that? It gives
you a lot of needed perspective,and also that helps you realize that,
Okay, if you both agree it, it must be a pretty good idea
because you got the person who issuper techy and not super techy both agreeing
to buy something. It's like checksand balances basically. So that was part

(01:46:11):
of the reason I knew Louise wouldbe a good choice. What's the most
expensive model Tesla right now? Probablythe cyber Beast, the Foundation series cyber
truck for one hundred and twenty grand, but I've seen model EXAs sell for
higher than that. Back when interestrates were lower, I didn't think something
could fall off harder than threads.Then the vision pro proved me wrong.

(01:46:32):
At least Threads was mainstream adopted forlike twenty minutes. I don't know.
When I go on Facebook, Istill see they put threads on Facebook.
It's like, hey, no onewants to see that I'm not a shopaholic.
Looks at three thousand dollars worth ofARC cards. Yep, there you
go. I saw the price ofa used models are really low and Hurts

(01:46:54):
are selling most of their fleet forsub thirty. Oh I saw sub twenty
from Hurts. I wouldn't buy fromHurts though. Rental cars usually aren't taken
care of very well. But ifyou buy used cars from Tesla directly,
they come with a basic vehicle warrantyand honestly, Facebook Marketplace, I found
some very cheap Tesla's on there ifyou're willing to go private party. It's

(01:47:15):
always a little bit of a riskwhen you're buying from an individual, But
my thing is generally stacking up orfor cash back deals on the same purchase.
Yeah, that's a good idea ifyou can do it. Dave Ramsey's
a good resource if you're looking toget out of debt or to start a

(01:47:35):
budget. But yeah, what kindof music do I like? Oh?
Pretty much everything. I like soundtracks. I like pop music, I like
new music. I like old music. There's not much I don't like I
listened to Just lately, though,I have been listening to a new genre
of music that I've really enjoyed.That's AI generated, So they can get

(01:48:00):
pretty much any movie character to singany song and it's amazing. It actually
works pretty well. So like yesterday, for example, I was singing,
not singing. I was listening toDarth Vader sing I want it that way.
And then they also have one ofDarth Vader doing demons by imagine dragons,

(01:48:24):
and it's really good. It soundslegitimately good like I don't know.
And then they have a ton ofHomer Simpson, like Homer Simpson singing somebody
that I used to know, HomerSimpson singing Viva Laviva. There's a lot
of good ones. I'm finally ableto sell my old monitor last week for
two hundred and twenty bucks. That'sa good, good price. Has there

(01:48:46):
been any news on the twenty fiveK Tesla? Not much. We know
that the manufacturing process is gonna befairly unique because it's not going to be
the traditional Henry Ford assembly process.It's more of like the uh unboxed process
they call it. Oh yeah,Plankton has some AI covers as well.

(01:49:08):
Those are very good. What elsedid they say? Oh? Elon said
that they expected for the next genTesla to be ready around the end of
next year, which is why Ithink it'll probably be the end of twenty
twenty six. Don't trust Elon's timelines, so near the end of twenty twenty

(01:49:29):
six, maybe they'll unveil it andthen deliveries hopefully or shortly after. I
don't think it's a good idea forTesla to unveil it a year or two
before deliveries because it'll probably osborne thecurrent vehicles. I have also seen that
one the AI toothbrush cover of wrap. God those are fun. Anyway,

(01:49:53):
I appreciate you guys for watching.I wanted to have kind of a chill,
relaxed live stream because I'm not gonnastream for a little over a week
because I'm taking a trip and I'mgonna be busy. How does the EV
tax credit work. Well, ifyou're buying straight from Tesla, it's point
of sale, so they deduct theseventy five hundred straight from the price of
the vehicle, so it's not likea check you get when you do your

(01:50:15):
taxes. It's like, straight up, you have less money to pay for
the car. And if it's ifyou're buying a used ev from Tesla if
it's under twenty five grand, thenthey deduct four thousand dollars off the price
of the car point of sale.Now I don't know what it's like for

(01:50:36):
dealerships. It's a different story forevery dealer because they have to agree to
the whole point of sale thing ifthey want to offer that. But I
know that from Tesla directly. Ifyou buy a used Tesla from them,
if it's under twenty five k,four thousand dollars off. If it's under
eighty thousand, and assuming you don'tmake a lot of money, a crap

(01:50:58):
ton of money, you can deductseventy five hundred from the price of the
vehicle, assuming it's under eighty grand. So it doesn't work for the Foundation
series cyber trucks because they're too expensive. It doesn't work for the Model S
at all because it's a sedan andsedans have to be under fifty five thousand
to qualify, And the Model threedoesn't qualify either because it relies on foreign

(01:51:21):
made battery packs at this time,So Model Y gets the credit. The
base base Model X with no optionsqualifies for the tax credit, but if
you change one thing, it nolonger qualifies. So anyway, I appreciate

(01:51:41):
you all for keeping me company duringthe stream. It actually went a lot
longer than I was anticipating, butI had fun, good good topics,
good questions, and I'll miss youguys. During the week long trip.
I'll be filming lots of videos,hopefully for the EV channel. I've got
some pre made videos for the techchannel that are not as time sensitive so

(01:52:04):
they can really be posted at anytime. But I hope you like them.
I hope you enjoy them. Okay, last question, Dark Soul Music.
Do I think Apple's gonna pull atwist and update AirPods Max at a
lower initial price and then introduce anAirpod's Ultra based on their naming tears.
Considering there's been next to no rumorsfor AirPods Max, I doubt we'll get

(01:52:27):
an Airpod's Ultra, but that wouldbe cool. I hope they do something
like that. It feels like they'respending way too much time on the cheap
AirPods. There's all this talk aboutAirPods four getting updated, and I'm like,
no, no, no, no, no, don't worry about that.
Everybody's just gonna buy AirPods pro becauseyou can get them for like one
hundred and eighty bucks on Amazon,so selling another pair that doesn't have ANC

(01:52:48):
for one hundred and thirty bucks isjust kind of unnecessary. But there's a
five hundred and fifty dollars pair ofheadphones that has still not been updated and
has desperately been in need of anupdate ever since it law launched. Focus
more on AirPods Max Apple, notthe Airpod's four. We don't need a
new one of those anyway. Thankyou all for your support, your generosity,

(01:53:10):
your time. You mean so muchto me giving me the stream job.
I'm very grateful and I hope youhave an excellent rest of your day.
Take care all. Bye bye