The 2025 Vergecast Streaming Draft

It's time, once again, to see what's what in the streaming wars. For the third year in a row, our hosts — this time Nilay, David, and The Verge's Jake Kastrenakes — have to build a roster of streaming options that will win awards, show 4K content, satisfy their live TV needs, and much more. First, the hosts decide who won last year's competition, and then they pick their favorites for 2025. Make sure you listen to the episode before you read this, but here are the results of the draft: Jake's picks: Cheap: Tubi Awards: Netflix 4K: Hulu Live: Instagram Live Niche: PBS Passport Content: LoFi Girl Wild Card: Kanopy Nilay's picks: Cheap: TikTok Awards: Max 4K: Disney Plus Live: Sunday Ticket Niche: Kaleidescape Content: CNBC Wild Card: F1 TV David's picks Cheap: Peacock Awards: Amazon Prime 4K: YouTube Premium Live: YouTube TV Niche: BritBox Content: Stranger Things season 5 Wild Card: Paramount Plus We want to know who you think won the draft! Email us at [email protected], or call The Vergecast Hotline at 866-VERGE11, and tell us all your thoughts. And if you want to catch up, you can check out our draft from 2024 and from 2023. A lot has changed, and nothing has. The Vergecast was nominated for a Webby, which means we can win a Webby People’s Voice Award and that’s voted online by you! So we’d love your support. You can vote at the link:https://bit.ly/3DXFgpN Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:03David Pierce?

  Welcome to the Vergecast, the flagship podcast of like the fifth row of apps on your smart TV. I'm your friend David Pierce and I'm sitting here reorganizing my Roku. I end up doing this like once a year or so. Usually, actually, it's around March Madness when I go to download the NCAA March Madness app so that I can watch college basketball, only to discover that in this case I have 86 items on my Roku and a bunch of them are things I've never heard of before. Like, I have a Freevee app. I don't think Freevee exists anymore. I have one called Fawcett, which is just awesome, but with an F at the beginning. What is that? I have an app that's called Purple. There's a thing here for the

• 0:44David Pierce?

  Food Network Go and HGTV Go. I'm pretty sure those are not a thing. I have a Deal or No Deal app on my Roku. Why? Basically, I assume my smart TV is like most people's where my top few rows are like the apps I actually use and then the rest just becomes chaos. And so every once in a while, I come in and I clean up chaos. That is not what we're here to talk about today. This is my lot in life and hopefully it's not yours. What we're gonna do on the show today is the annual Vergecast streaming draft. Once a year, we like to get together and as a way of kind of taking stock of the streaming industry, we do a draft. We see who can put together the best collection of streaming services, which ones are gonna succeed, which ones are gonna fail completely, which ones will

• 1:27David Pierce?

  be here, which ones won't be here, who's gonna win, who's gonna lose. We're gonna make a lot of bets about the next 12 months in streaming, all on this episode. All that is coming up in just a second, but first, a quick request for you. So, the Vergecast is nominated for a Webby Award, which means a lot to us. We've been nominated for this in the past and the reason we care a lot about this award is because it's voted on by you. This is an award that you can give to us if you so choose. And so, if you're willing to, I'll put a link in the show notes. We'll put a link in the container post on the site. Please go to the link, vote for the Vergecast. We're up against, honestly, some really great competition this year. There are a bunch of really good tech podcasts out there right now, but I really wanna win. We would really, really like to have the

• 2:10David Pierce?

  Webby. It's this cool, like, springy award thing and it just means a lot to us. So, if you're willing, please go vote for us. We're gonna get back to the Vergecast. I'm gonna go delete. I have like three Hallmark logos on here for some reason, so I'm gonna fix that, then we're gonna get to it. This is the Vergecast. We'll be right back.

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• 4:05David Pierce?

  All right, we're back. It is time for the 2025 streaming draft. Neelai Patel is here. Hi, Neelai. Hello. Jake Kastrenakes, welcome to the streaming draft. Thank you, excited to be here. So you are continuing with the Alex Cranz saga, which means you either get to or are saddled with Alex's picks from last year. And then... We're gonna go forward. So congratulations and I'm sorry and welcome.

• 4:31Speaker 05

  I'm gonna do my best to honor the chaos of her picks and bring that energy into 2025.

• 4:37David Pierce?

  They were truly chaotic. So just to remind everybody how this works.

• 4:41David Pierce?

  We have, we have made it slightly more complicated every year and I'm very proud of that fact. But basically what's going to happen is we're gonna decide first who won last year's streaming draft. I'm gonna read out what we all picked. We're gonna decide who won. This is based on vibes before being honest with each other. I looked up like, can you find a report card? And it turns out Neel I picked Sony Bravia Core and Billboard Pro does not spend a lot of time litigating the success of Sony Bravia Core. So we're just gonna read them all out.

• 5:08Nilay Patel?

  There's no need to litigate it, David. It's the winner.

• 5:11David Pierce?

  Sure.

• 5:12Nilay Patel?

  So. It's so obvious. You don't talk about it.

• 5:15David Pierce?

  Yeah, I mean, it is, it is the air we breathe. And then we're gonna go through and we're each gonna draft into, we have seven categories. So there's, I'll read the categories in a minute again, so everybody can remember. But there's cheap, awards, 4K, live, niche, wildcard, and a new one this year, which is content. I will explain all of those once we order the draft. But the first thing we have to do here is decide who gets to go first. Each service can only be picked once. It's a draft. This is how we do it. So last year, Neel I, you picked TikTok, the Disney bundle, Sony Bravia Core.

• 5:50Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 5:52David Pierce?

  YouTube TV with Sunday Ticket, Motor Trends TV and Max.

• 5:57Nilay Patel?

  I'm obviously the winner. I just wanted to be very clear.

• 6:00David Pierce?

  Honestly, are we?

• 6:02Nilay Patel?

  That's a dominant performance in the draft.

• 6:04Speaker 05

  Can I tell you something? Sony Bravia Core is not even named Bravia Core anymore. I don't even think it was named Bravia Core when you picked it.

• 6:12Speaker 05

  I, I've been looking up the FAQ for this thing. They can't even explain what it is or how it works.

• 6:18Nilay Patel?

  That's true. And that's why, it's like explaining the internet, right? It's just there when you buy a Sony TV. Also, I think Motor Trend TV is dead. So I'm not, look, I'm just saying on, on its face, this is a dominant performance with some, with some risks thrown in the, in the mix.

• 6:36Speaker 05

  You know, TikTok, you know, big, big winner there. They really pulled through. I you're maybe cashing out right on time there.

• 6:45Nilay Patel?

  There's a real chance that most of my picks don't exist by the end of this conversation.

• 6:49David Pierce?

  They literally had to push recording this episode a week to see if TikTok would still be here. This is this is how tenuous things are. But anyway, so those are Eli's picks. Alex's picks, which Jake are now your legacy, welcome, were Peacock, Hulu, Netflix, the Channels app, Crunchyroll, and Paramount Plus.

• 7:09Speaker 05

  I want to be honest, I did not know how to figure out what the Channels app was. I just have a list that says Channels.

• 7:14David Pierce?

  Channels is, I would say, like, imagine piracy.

• 7:19Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 7:20David Pierce?

  But like, less. Does that make sense? Channels is a good way you can get all the fast channels.

• 7:24Speaker 05

  That's good.

• 7:25David Pierce?

  You can you can get a bunch of you can you can sort of curate your own TiVo situation, but it's more.

• 7:30Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, if you have an antenna, you want channels to run all of that for you.

• 7:32Speaker 05

  Well, let me say something. Sounds like the two of you are pretty supportive of Channels as a pick. So I'm feeling pretty good about that.

• 7:38Nilay Patel?

  It was it was a good one. It was a good Alex pick for sure.

• 7:39Speaker 05

  And let me say this for for Peacock. Not only did they announce a new season of Poker Face, but it didn't stream last year, but it will this year.

• 7:49David Pierce?

  This is true.

• 7:50Speaker 05

  And not only are there Olympics, they will have it eventually.

• 7:54Nilay Patel?

  If NBC has its way, there will be Olympics every year for the rest of our lives.

• 7:58Speaker 05

  Yeah, but but I I'm not sure how big that's been for them. So I I think there's some ups and downs here. Hulu, I think, is rock solid. Netflix, we had, what, last year we got a season of Stranger Things, season of Squid Game? I mean, yeah, that that's just showing how rock solid their service is. You know, Crest are pretty good.

• 8:19Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, this is good.

• 8:20David Pierce?

  Okay, and then my picks were YouTube, just base YouTube, Apple TV Plus, AKA the Severance pick, Tubi, which streamed the Super Bowl, just saying, Prime Video, the Criterion Channel, and Instagram Reels. And just really quick, I'm going to say I didn't win because I picked Instagram Reels. So I just immediately I am not allowed to win because I picked Instagram Reels.

• 8:44Nilay Patel?

  You have the real like discount bundle here, right? YouTube YouTube with ads, just like plain old YouTube with ads. Apple TV Plus, which you get if you sneeze loudly enough in an Uber. Tubi, which is free, Prime Video, which is free.

• 9:00David Pierce?

  Essentially free, yeah.

• 9:02Nilay Patel?

  Criterion is good, right? You got the one gesture Instagram Reels, which is just fully Timu TikTok.

• 9:08David Pierce?

  Knock off TikTok, yeah.

• 9:10Speaker 05

  Yeah, but it's not banned.

• 9:12David Pierce?

  It's it is here to stay.

• 9:14Speaker 05

  And it's not going to be banned theoretically.

• 9:17David Pierce?

  So there is an argument to be made that I intend to make that Instagram reels is actually a very compelling pick in this year's draft for precisely that reason, but we're going to come back to that. So it's pretty clear to me that Alex Cranz won the draft last year, I would say. If you look at it, Peacock did the Olympics last year, huge success. Netflix is like, has won the streaming wars. Paramount Plus still exists, which was not guaranteed a year ago, but it's still here doing stuff.

• 9:46Nilay Patel?

  By the way, can I be clear? Motor Trend TV did fold, but then it was purchased by something called the Velocity Network, which relaunched it as a regular cable channel.

• 9:55David Pierce?

  So it's an 87 on the Go 90 scale immediately.

• 9:59Nilay Patel?

  It's like a private equity Go 90. It's good. It's good.

• 10:03Speaker 05

  Okay. Krantz's list is filled with some, you know, I'm not saying Paramount Plus is a huge winner, but this list has just all of the channels. Like this is just everything that you actually want to watch. I don't know how you guys allowed this much to get.

• 10:19Nilay Patel?

  I'm sorry, I have TikTok in the Disney bundle. I have a lock on everyone's time.

• 10:24Speaker 05

  You have, you have Bluey, which I think is, is big for a certain audience.

• 10:28Nilay Patel?

  And I have Hulu.

• 10:30Speaker 05

  That's, that's true.

• 10:31Nilay Patel?

  I remember this being controversial that I got to pick the bundle.

• 10:33Speaker 05

  Sort of cheating.

• 10:34Nilay Patel?

  I think Krantz picked Hulu with ads like Solo or something.

• 10:38David Pierce?

  I believe she picked just Hulu, either Hulu by itself or Hulu with live TV.

• 10:45Nilay Patel?

  I think that's the one because you had to solve live.

• 10:48David Pierce?

  Right, right.

• 10:50Nilay Patel?

  So I think that's Hulu Live TV, which is an important, which no longer exists.

• 10:56Speaker 05

  Hmm, yeah, well.

• 10:57Nilay Patel?

  Fully gone 90. All right, I'm advocating for myself. What a surprise. I think TikTok, the Disney bundle and Sunday Ticket and Max is a winning lineup regardless of my, my Bravia Core situation, which I hold dearly to my own heart.

• 11:14Speaker 05

  If you want to tell me that people who love anime weren't the winners of 2024, then I don't even know if we're in the same conversation.

• 11:25Nilay Patel?

  And somehow here in 2025 with the OpenAI situation, they're the obvious losers this year.

• 11:33Nilay Patel?

  All right, David, you got, you gotta make the, actually Jake, I mean, I, I, I know you're repping Krantz here, but you're the most neutral observer.

• 11:39David Pierce?

  That's true.

• 11:40Speaker 05

  I'm absolutely not neutral here.

• 11:41David Pierce?

  Damn.

• 11:41Speaker 05

  I'm all in on Krantz. Can I tell you something? I prepped my list, assuming I was gonna go last. So I have to completely retool this now.

• 11:50David Pierce?

  Good, even better.

• 11:51Speaker 05

  I was just like, there's no way I won.

• 11:52David Pierce?

  We're giving it to Jake, both because I do think Alex won, uh, and because you're new, and it feels like a nice thing to do, so.

• 11:59Nilay Patel?

  That's the reason I'm okay with this.

• 12:00Speaker 05

  There we go. Appreciate that.

• 12:01Nilay Patel?

  I think that I won on the merits.

• 12:03Speaker 05

  And boy, is that gonna make.

• 12:04Nilay Patel?

  I have the only 80 megabit per second streaming service on this entire list.

• 12:09David Pierce?

  If you wanna watch Spider-Man movies, Neelai Wits, you have to buy a new TV every time you wanna watch a movie.

• 12:16Nilay Patel?

  That's the rule. At Sony's prices and with Sony's naming scheme.

• 12:21David Pierce?

  Oh, yeah. If you can name two Sony televisions correctly, you can win.

• 12:28Nilay Patel?

  All right, Jake, you're it.

• 12:29David Pierce?

  So let me, let me remind everybody how this works. So we, we are going to pick seven streaming services each. Uh, this episode may take us several hours. Uh, and instead of just picking your favorite seven in order, we each have to fill categories. Uh, some of these are very simple and some of them are very complicated. So the seven categories are cheap, which means it has to have some tier under $10. Uh, it can be free, it can be $9.99, it just, you have to be able to access this service for less than $10. That one's most of them. Uh, there's awards, which means this service has to have won an Oscar, any Oscar, big, small, I don't care what it is, but it has to have won an Oscar. Uh, 4K, which means it has to offer content in 4K.

• 13:11David Pierce?

  Live, the service has to have some kind of live element, uh, which is actually going to be much easier this year than it was even last year. Niche, it has to be a genre-specific service. This one's a little mealy, but we'll figure it out together. Uh, there is content, which is a new thing this year, and that is you get to pick a show or a movie from any streaming service that you didn't draft. So if you don't have Netflix, but you really want Squid Game, you can draft Squid Game as your thing, and that just goes on your roster as something that counts for you. It has to be on something you didn't draft, but it can be anything you want. And then there's Wild Card, which is anything you want in the whole universe.

• 13:48Nilay Patel?

  Wait, is the content one the torrent pick? Like your one escape valve is you get to torrent one show?

• 13:56David Pierce?

  No. I mean, I guess if you want, if it's like a weird European documentary, you can't get otherwise.

• 14:02Nilay Patel?

  Then sure. No, I'm just saying, like, if you don't pick Apple TV Plus, but you want Severance, you can just pick it and the assumption is.

• 14:10David Pierce?

  We're not gonna ask too many questions.

• 14:11Nilay Patel?

  Right. That's what I'm getting at, right? Like, it's, we are just like, I'm gonna sneak into Ben Stiller's house in the dead of night and leave with some hard drives and, okay.

• 14:20David Pierce?

  The conceit here is, is, is breaking and entering. Yes.

• 14:24Nilay Patel?

  I just want to be clear.

• 14:25David Pierce?

  Yeah.

• 14:26Nilay Patel?

  Tiptoeing around the category.

• 14:28David Pierce?

  So each thing can only be drafted once, not once in each category, once, period. And once it's gone, it's gone. So we are going to draft 21 unique things in this draft. Does that make sense? Any questions? Ready to go? Let's roll.

• 14:45David Pierce?

  All right, you're up first, Jake. What do you got?

• 14:46Speaker 05

  We're starting with cheap.

• 14:47Nilay Patel?

  Well. Well, you don't have to start with cheap.

• 14:49David Pierce?

  No, you can go in any order you want.

• 14:50Nilay Patel?

  You just have to fill out the card.

• 14:51David Pierce?

  I can start anywhere.

• 14:52Nilay Patel?

  You can do anything you want.

• 14:52Speaker 05

  Guys, guys, this is, David, this rule sheet could have, could have been more detailed. All right.

• 14:59Nilay Patel?

  Poof.

• 15:00David Pierce?

  I will say the, the key, just as someone who, as a veteran of this draft, you should think about the service that is most likely to be competitive and the category that is most likely to be difficult to fill out later in the round.

• 15:14Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 15:14David Pierce?

  Those are the two things I would keep in your head early in the draft.

• 15:16Nilay Patel?

  You know, David's your competitor. He's lying to you.

• 15:18Speaker 05

  I'm gonna start, I'm gonna start strong and I'm gonna go for awards. And the awards category is the category I hate the most because there are three streaming services that have won Oscars. It's not, not a long list. Normally I'm a, I'm a real hater of this streaming service. But in 2025, Netflix has the final season of Stranger Things, the final season of Squid Game, and a new Knives Out movie. And I'm sure there will be some other stuff that's worth watching. So for those three alone, I'm gonna lock in Netflix for the awards category.

• 15:50David Pierce?

  It's a good choice. I do, I think, I think Netflix deserves to be the first overall pick in this draft.

• 15:57Speaker 05

  It's normally I I I'm very subscribe on subscribe on Netflix. I feel like they have some long periods of some like reality or stuff that I'm not super in love with. But they've got a handful of really great series and I'm going to be subscribing at various points this year, no matter what. So I feel pretty good about opening with Netflix.

• 16:23David Pierce?

  Are you consistently good at like remembering to unsubscribe when you're done watching something? I like aspire to be that good at switching streaming services and instead I just pay for too many of them.

• 16:33Speaker 05

  The amount of times that I look at the Netflix tile on my TV and go, oh, got unsubscribe is like 10 times higher than the amount of times I actually unsubscribe.

• 16:41David Pierce?

  Okay, that makes me feel better. Like I just, I went to re subscribe to Paramount Plus to watch Champions League Soccer. Because I subscribed to it to watch Champions League Soccer last year. And I was like, oh, I'll just re subscribe and do it this month and found that I had just stayed subscribed the whole time. So you're welcome for my like $150 Paramount Plus.

• 16:57Speaker 05

  Hey, somebody's got to keep them in business.

• 16:59David Pierce?

  Yeah.

• 16:59Speaker 05

  And let me be specific here. I'm paying for 4K.

• 17:03David Pierce?

  Oh, okay, okay.

• 17:05Speaker 05

  I'm not dealing with ads.

• 17:06Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, that's very important.

• 17:07David Pierce?

  That is important. There was, the first time we ever did this draft, there was a like overall price component. But frankly, it's too hard to track what these things cost anymore. So we just gave up on that. It's just not worth it and they'll all be different in a year and who cares? But okay, you're going high tier Netflix.

• 17:23Speaker 05

  Oh, yeah.

• 17:23David Pierce?

  In the awards category. I like it for you. All right, Neela, you get to be up second because Bravia Corde is just smashing success.

• 17:30Nilay Patel?

  Oh, don't worry. I have more extremely weird choices to come. I'm starting strong again with cheap and go on TikTok.

• 17:37Speaker 05

  Hmm.

• 17:38Nilay Patel?

  I picked it first two years in a row.

• 17:39David Pierce?

  Yep.

• 17:40Nilay Patel?

  And I'm sticking with it.

• 17:42David Pierce?

  You're not worried that this time next year, there will be no TikTok in the United States?

• 17:46Nilay Patel?

  I'm worried there won't be United States this time next year, David. So I'm just gonna close my eyes and.

• 17:51Speaker 05

  And you know where we will watch the downfall? Possibly on TikTok.

• 17:55Nilay Patel?

  It's very true.

• 17:56Speaker 05

  It's real.

• 17:57Nilay Patel?

  Uh, but yeah, I think, I think for the, the purpose of this draft, you can't, you can't be worried about, you know, the nagging ACL injury. You just gotta go, you gotta go with the consensus number one.

• 18:07David Pierce?

  Do you think, so like, I think Netflix is pretty undeniably more powerful now than it was 12 months ago. Is TikTok, has TikTok gone up or down since we last did this draft?

• 18:18Nilay Patel?

  Sideways.

• 18:20David Pierce?

  Okay.

• 18:21Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 18:21David Pierce?

  It just remains.

• 18:23Nilay Patel?

  It, it's so powerful, you can't get rid of it.

• 18:27Nilay Patel?

  But it's so weak that at any moment it might disappear. Right? It might just collapse under its own weight, or it might become this political pawn. But I think in terms of where the culture is day to day, it is still TikTok. No one is, no one's opening Instagram reels to find new music. No one is forced to contend with like every day Olivia Rodrigo is in a new South American country. And you just have to see it happen. Like, that's TikTok. And like, the music industry is still dependent on it. There, there's just something, White Lotus had its entire Parker Posey moment on the back of TikTok. It's TikTok. Is it weaker than ever? Yes, as, as a company, as an entity. And culturally, it's still as strong as it has been.

• 19:08David Pierce?

  I think that's right. I don't know if it's, yeah, I, I think Sideways is probably right on that front. It's not, it doesn't feel like it's more central to culture than it was. But I think that's just because we're so used to how central it is to, like, the, the, there are fewer people being excited about, like, it breaks, some 30-year-old song becomes a number one hit again, because we're just, that's just what happens. That's just how TikTok works now.

• 19:29Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, and the conspiracies about it are even weirder, like Meta secretly runs the algorithm.

• 19:34David Pierce?

  Is that a conspiracy?

• 19:35Nilay Patel?

  Oh, yeah. Like, it was, it's already been sold. There's just like another burbling, like, it's become more of just a platform that everybody understands, to your point. But it still is the thing that creates the cultural moments in a way that very few other platforms can do as regularly as TikTok does.

• 19:52David Pierce?

  But I like it. Uh, all right. You guys picked the two I was gonna pick. Oh, a decision on the Disney bundle, by the way. We're gonna treat the Disney bundle as three separate things. There is no Disney bundle this year. You, you can, you can take Disney Plus, you can take ESPN, and you can take Hulu, but you can't take all three at once.

• 20:09Nilay Patel?

  Sure.

• 20:10David Pierce?

  Simple enough, right?

• 20:11Nilay Patel?

  Oh, by the way, can I, can I say one more thing about TikTok?

• 20:13David Pierce?

  Please.

• 20:13Nilay Patel?

  I've watched a number of movies on TikTok this year.

• 20:16David Pierce?

  Oh, yeah.

• 20:17Nilay Patel?

  It, it might be all you need.

• 20:19David Pierce?

  I watched, do you know the Jason Statham movie, The Beekeeper? For some reason, that is all over my TikTok recently.

• 20:25Nilay Patel?

  That's amazing. Yeah, every now and again, TikTok is like, you know what, that's gonna happen, you're gonna watch A Few Good Men. And you just do. It's fine.

• 20:32David Pierce?

  Love it.

• 20:32Nilay Patel?

  It's just, it's just what goes down. It's great. Lately, it's like you, you, because of Al Comer, I've watched both Top Guns, but intercut with each other.

• 20:40David Pierce?

  Oh, that's fun.

• 20:40Nilay Patel?

  In a very odd way. Yeah, it's great.

• 20:42David Pierce?

  Sure.

• 20:44David Pierce?

  Okay, I I'm gonna take in live. I hate this already. I'm going with it. I'm gonna take YouTube TV in live.

• 20:56Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 20:56David Pierce?

  Because I think live is one of the trickier categories here. Because everything it does, it is is equally available other places and it's gonna get messy. And also YouTube TV is just kind of running away with it in terms of like, what is the future of cable? The answer is just YouTube TV. It is just winning this game.

• 21:18Nilay Patel?

  When you think about things of the future, you think about cable.

• 21:22David Pierce?

  Pretty much.

• 21:23Nilay Patel?

  But if everything else is turning into bundles and YouTube TV is already that bundle.

• 21:26David Pierce?

  Yeah.

• 21:27Nilay Patel?

  The the one thing about YouTube TV that confuses me is that Google has not just sold a YouTube TV device. Any Google TV that you buy, it doesn't just light up with like YouTube TV is here. They have integrations, but it's still an operating system with apps and tiles and like, yes, you can get to a guide. But they no one has, and I think only Google could do it. Just been like, it's a cable box.

• 21:54David Pierce?

  Right. Like I have the Google TV streamer right there.

• 21:56Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 21:57David Pierce?

  Uh, and I love it. It is a it is a terrific set top box, but you're right. Like I I want to be able to log into YouTube TV. And the very first thing it shows me is not the home screen. It should show me YouTube TV.

• 22:07Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 22:07David Pierce?

  And then I should back out into the apps. Like that would make the whole experience better and I think more compelling.

• 22:14Nilay Patel?

  And it's funny because Apple on the Apple TV has the button on the remote and they are desperate to make their app the actual interface, but they don't have the content. And then Google has all of the content and they haven't done it.

• 22:24Speaker 05

  David, I feel like you're describing the old school, uh, you know, cable box where you just like went to on demand content and like navigated through this super sluggish and slow interface to like watch whatever five movies are available for you, which was. Not my favorite, but it is, you know, you jump right into stuff.

• 22:44David Pierce?

  It is, it is my strong belief that when you turn on your television, the first thing it should show you is not a home screen. I think that is like a disastrous product decision we have let everybody make, that when I turn on my TV, it shouldn't show me television. It should show me television. Keep on the last thing I was watching. Pick something for me and put it on like, I don't care what it is. It's like, I don't turn on my TV to scroll through apps.

• 23:09Speaker 05

  David, are you pro Netflix autoplaying things?

• 23:12David Pierce?

  Yes, but I'm not pro them doing it with volume.

• 23:15Speaker 05

  This is gonna get you canceled. This is, that's an unacceptable take.

• 23:18David Pierce?

  The tiles, this is, this is a conspiracy theory that I have not validated, but believe to my bones. When it auto plays in the tiles, it is 10 times louder than the actual volume of the program.

• 23:28Nilay Patel?

  All right, we have to keep going. I will say, and I've asked any number of streaming executives, and I know David has too, all of them should make a fake TikTok that when you're in the, that just shows you bits of pieces of movies and then you can hit the button and it starts playing on the TV.

• 23:42Speaker 05

  Yes, that's good.

• 23:43David Pierce?

  Hundred percent agree. And they all love that idea and just absolutely cannot figure out how to do it. All right. So that's my pick, YouTube TV. Jake, you're up next. What's up?

• 23:52Speaker 05

  All right. You guys got some good picks here. Those, those sting. I'm gonna head over to what I think is going to be the, what feels like the next hardest category to me, which is 4K, which is sort of all of them, but also lends itself to, I think, just big mainstream services. And I think there's a couple left that, that feel pretty strong to me. I'm gonna, guys, guys, I'm, I'm.

• 24:22David Pierce?

  It's amazing how hard it gets so quickly, right?

• 24:24Speaker 05

  Second guessing myself as we speak.

• 24:27Speaker 05

  We're gonna lock in on Hulu. Hulu is trusty, it's reliable, it has a solid content of old TV shows. There's always something to watch there. They don't necessarily have big winners, but they have a solid movie selection. You know, I've got Netflix for some new original content. I feel good about having Hulu as a backup there. It's a, it's a, it's a standby service.

• 24:53David Pierce?

  I don't hate it.

• 24:54Nilay Patel?

  I feel like 4K is just turning into the name of streaming service now.

• 24:58Speaker 05

  It is a little bit.

• 25:00David Pierce?

  A little bit. Uh, this, this category has gotten easier to, to match, which is good. But I think you're right, Jake, that it is increasingly, it's, it, this is another place to get one of the heavy hitters.

• 25:10Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 25:11David Pierce?

  And so I think, I think you picked it right.

• 25:12Speaker 05

  You, you both took the, the, the top, like, uh, you know, social options. Um, I'm assuming, does YouTube TV include all of YouTube?

• 25:19David Pierce?

  No, regular YouTube is, is still available.

• 25:22Speaker 05

  Regular YouTube is still available.

• 25:24David Pierce?

  If you'd like to change, you're welcome to.

• 25:26Speaker 05

  Uh, you, regular YouTube is straight up on my list. This feels like cheating to change this, but I, if, if regular YouTube is available, I'm gonna make that change.

• 25:33David Pierce?

  Okay, please.

• 25:33Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 25:35David Pierce?

  What's, what's your category?

• 25:36Speaker 05

  Guys, no, I'm, I'm locking down Hulu. Forget this.

• 25:39David Pierce?

  Okay.

• 25:39Speaker 05

  We're, we're, we're holding to it.

• 25:41David Pierce?

  Okay. Hulu and 4K.

• 25:43Speaker 05

  Hulu and it's in 4K.

• 25:44David Pierce?

  I think Hulu is kind of underrated these days. There's a lot of good stuff on Hulu. The, the, the originals, although I've been watching Paradise, uh, that's very good. Highly recommend. But there's just, it's like Hulu is the one I go to where it's just like, there's just a million 30 minute sitcoms that I'm going to enjoy.

• 26:00Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, it's because it's Fox. Yeah, fundamentally, it's Fox. Yeah.

• 26:03Speaker 05

  Hulu is the most boring pick. Nobody's ever like super hyped to open up Hulu and see the new thing. Um, but it, oh, it has the thing that you're going to watch after a long day and you're just like, I need to put something on. Like when the TV auto plays something, it should be whatever is on Hulu.

• 26:19Nilay Patel?

  Catalog, you're picking catalog.

• 26:20Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 26:21David Pierce?

  This makes sense.

• 26:21Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 26:21David Pierce?

  Yeah, I don't hate it. I'm, I'm, I'm with it. It's a good one. Uh, Neelai, what's next? What do you got?

• 26:26Nilay Patel?

  Uh, I'm gonna put Max in awards.

• 26:29Speaker 05

  Hmm.

• 26:29David Pierce?

  Hmm.

• 26:30Nilay Patel?

  That's my move.

• 26:31David Pierce?

  Okay.

• 26:32Nilay Patel?

  Cause, cause you, you get that HBO. I'm assuming the pit will, will be up for awards this year. They've got the movies. They've got the catalog of movies. Feel, it feels correct to me.

• 26:42David Pierce?

  It's a little like, I, I don't think Max originals have won Oscars yet, but it's like.

• 26:47Nilay Patel?

  HBO.

• 26:47David Pierce?

  Yeah, it's, it's, the line is straight enough that I'll, I'll give it to you. We'll, we'll allow it. Why, why Max? Are you sure?

• 26:55Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 26:56David Pierce?

  Is Max gonna still be here?

• 26:58Nilay Patel?

  That's, is America still gonna be here?

• 27:02Nilay Patel?

  Like, this is a very nihilistic draft for me. Like, I'm thinking about tomorrow. I'm not thinking about next year.

• 27:07David Pierce?

  Okay, fair enough.

• 27:08Nilay Patel?

  But Max has the depth of content. It has, it's funny, I have to log into someone else's Max account to get 4K. It's like, I can't put it in 4K because I don't have it in 4K, because I'm still grandfathered into my AT&T free Max subscription, which AT&T knows about, because I keep mentioning it on the show, and they can't figure out how to stop giving me free Max either. Perfect, but it's only in 1080p, which is just very weird. You know, I've got a daughter, the Harry Potter movies on Max. There's a lot here. We've been watching those together. They get a little too scary after four for a six-year-old. So we're just gonna wait to watch the additional four movies, but we're gonna watch those first four over and over again.

• 27:50David Pierce?

  Love it.

• 27:51Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, I mean, like, it's just, it has the catalog, and then it has HBO. So if that White Lotus, Righteous Gemstones moment, that's important to me. I'm not a, I'm not a, like, turn-on-any-garbage TV watcher. I'm a very intentful TV watcher.

• 28:05David Pierce?

  Do you cancel services? Like, do you, like, watch your show and then bail for a while until you want to come back?

• 28:09Nilay Patel?

  I've been trying to cancel Max for like five years, but he keeps giving it to me free. I want to cancel more. The challenge is, my wife watches tons and tons of comedy specials, and they're on every service. Right? And so you're just kind of like, well, I canceled the one you want today, and then we just, like, started again.

• 28:27David Pierce?

  Including recently Hulu, which is deep into comedy all of a sudden.

• 28:30Nilay Patel?

  I think they've all figured out this is like a reliable source of cheap content that they can get at a cadence that people will watch.

• 28:38David Pierce?

  Yeah, and people will always watch.

• 28:40Nilay Patel?

  Yep.

• 28:40David Pierce?

  And then clip it and put it on TikTok.

• 28:42Nilay Patel?

  And that's where I live.

• 28:43David Pierce?

  Which is the other thing that is all over my TikTok all the time, is just, like, stand-up. Like, Nate Bargatze is two-thirds of my TikTok at any given moment. Uh, okay. I worry I'm gonna run out of awards possibilities here, so I'm gonna take

• 28:59David Pierce?

  Amazon Prime Video in awards. Because otherwise, I think there's a decent chance there's just not going to be anything left for me to pick.

• 29:06Nilay Patel?

  Interesting.

• 29:06David Pierce?

  Before too long. I think Prime is working. It's like, the football thing is going very well. They way overpaid, they're gonna start doing bomb stuff. People seem to like Reacher, I guess.

• 29:20Nilay Patel?

  Sure.

• 29:21David Pierce?

  That's a show.

• 29:23David Pierce?

  Matt Bellany from Puck just recently described it to me as guys with guns shows, and Amazon's very good at guys with guns shows, so.

• 29:31David Pierce?

  Prime is like, it's like the least interesting, totally mainstream service. But I'll take it.

• 29:38Nilay Patel?

  Have you been watching The Lord of the Rings show?

• 29:42David Pierce?

  No, I have not watched that one, and I have not watched Citadel, which are the ones that Amazon spent all of its money on.

• 29:48Nilay Patel?

  Yes, and maybe why they now have a new person in charge.

• 29:52David Pierce?

  Uh huh. But I did watch a bunch of like, whatever weird stuff Jeremy Clarkson is up to these days, I will always watch on Prime Video. So that works for me.

• 30:00Nilay Patel?

  He's like, we've done something irresponsible with a cop.

• 30:03David Pierce?

  He bought a Lamborghini tractor and made like three episodes of a TV show about that, and I was like, yeah, I'll watch this.

• 30:08Nilay Patel?

  Sure. You are very much like, whatever's on. You're like, that's why you just want the TV to start playing stuff at you.

• 30:14David Pierce?

  Sometimes, so like, my, my parents used to make fun of me because I would, I could, I loved to take naps. I still do love to take naps, but I always nap with the TV on.

• 30:24David Pierce?

  It's just, it's like, I can turn my brain off when I'm halfway listening to a TV show I've seen before. And so there's like, background television is a bigger part of my life than I'm proud of. Like, I do a lot of like, watching TV while I do other things. And that's where services like Prime Video, where it's like a thing I've seen before, but, or something I haven't seen, but like, don't really need to look at, is very helpful.

• 30:47Nilay Patel?

  Can you write while you're listening to music with words?

• 30:50David Pierce?

  God, no.

• 30:50Nilay Patel?

  Okay.

• 30:51David Pierce?

  Absolutely not. I can't do anything creative in that headspace.

• 30:54Nilay Patel?

  Like, the language center of my brain does not let me listen to music with lyrics while I am writing or communicating. And it's the same, I can't believe you can do it with TV. But I guess you're just like, passed out.

• 31:05David Pierce?

  No, I can't, I can't do any like creative act while something like that is on. But it's like, if I'm, if I'm cooking, or cleaning, or napping, or whatever, like I almost always will have like an episode of The Office on in the background. It's like, it's basically a podcast. Like, I, I listen to TV shows the way some people listen to podcasts, and I also listen to podcasts.

• 31:23Nilay Patel?

  This, this explains a lot of your picks over the years.

• 31:27David Pierce?

  Uh, all right. So just to recap, and then we're gonna take a break. Jake so far has picked Netflix in awards and Hulu in 4K. Neelai so far has picked TikTok in cheap and Max in awards. And I have YouTube TV in live and Amazon Prime in awards. We're gonna take a really quick break, and then we're gonna come back, do some more categories. We'll be right back.

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• 33:27David Pierce?

  All right, we're back. Round three.

• 33:32David Pierce?

  Jake Kastrenakes, what you got?

• 33:33Speaker 05

  Let's do it. I've been thinking very hard about this.

• 33:38Speaker 05

  Listen, my first two picks, they're pretty mainstream. They're pretty dead ahead. We've got Netflix, we've got Hulu. I've got options here to grab some more big hitters, but I gotta get out there a little bit. We gotta get a little more interesting. I'm going into the cheap tier. I'm taking Tubi. I'm not paying another penny. I want that. I'm expanding my catalog of movies. They have some, some great films on there. It sounds terrible. You gotta watch ads. There's one ad up front and you watch like some Oscar winning movie from the 1970s.

• 34:14David Pierce?

  Also, there's ads everywhere now. Like, oh no, there's ads. It's like not a good case against a streaming service anymore.

• 34:21Speaker 05

  Right. I think like genuinely, this is not a problem for most people. I mean, I, listen, if they were interrupting in the middle of the movie, I would complain to the end of the earth that you would never hear the end of me. But it's not bad at all. I've watched a handful of movies on it over the past year. I think, you know, we've seen these free streaming services continue to get more and more promotion. It feels like there is more attention on them than ever. I don't necessarily know that Tubi is in for a big breakout year, but I feel good about it as a cheap pick.

• 34:51David Pierce?

  Well, so, okay, this is, this is the thing I was waiting until somebody picked Tubi to ask because I've been thinking about this ever since the Super Bowl, right? Tubi had the Super Bowl. Lots of people watched. It was a big hit. Did very well. The stream held up. Like, good job, Tubi. Do you feel like Tubi has held on to any of that, right? Like, the hope is you get this big giant spike of interest and then it comes back down, but it doesn't come all the way down and it like resets a little higher. But I don't feel like even slightly more people seem to be talking about Tubi than they were before the Super Bowl.

• 35:19Speaker 05

  I do think that's a challenge. The, the way I end up on Tubi is that I go to look up where I can watch a certain movie. And then I'm told that for whatever reason, it is free on Tubi, or the only place it is available is on Tubi. But the actually, I will say like, the thing where it is only available on Tubi happens more often than I would expect. I think there is just this weird catalog of slightly less popular movies. You know, somebody wants Top Gun. That's going to end up on a major streaming service. I hope that's true. I haven't checked. I watched The Long Goodbye, the very famous movie. I think it maybe won an Oscar. Hopefully that's right. You know, this is like a big movie back in the day. It is only available, I think, on Tubi or something like that. And I think like, there's a whole collection of films like that

• 36:02Speaker 05

  that are overlooked by these services that are extremely cutthroat on, you know, is this going to hook my mainstream subscriber base? And there's just stuff that you like cannot find. And since we're looking for stuff that you can stream, I want Tubi. I want to have those options.

• 36:20David Pierce?

  I, I think the thing you said about like, I just Google it and it clicks me to Tubi is like a underrated powerful thing in Tubi's favor. And it has been the thing forever, right? In most cases, you don't even have to log in. You don't have to have an account. You just click the thing and it starts playing the movie. And there are almost no other entertainment experiences outside of like, social platforms that work that way.

• 36:42Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 36:42David Pierce?

  Anymore. And that's kudos to Tubi for pulling that off.

• 36:46Speaker 05

  I am confused how they got the Super Bowl. That still is-

• 36:49Nilay Patel?

  Well, they're owned by Fox.

• 36:51Speaker 05

  And they chose Tubi.

• 36:53Nilay Patel?

  Cause they wanted to, they wanted to drive Tubi installers.

• 36:55David Pierce?

  Yeah, because they don't have another streaming service.

• 36:57Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, like Fox doesn't have an, Fox has like Fox Nation Live or whatever. Like, you can't drive-

• 37:03Speaker 05

  Those are not the same.

• 37:03Nilay Patel?

  Americans to that app, right? So it's not a choice that Fox can make. So they're like, where can we stream the Super Bowl? It wasn't the Fox Sports app, which is like a cable login. It's our big mainstream, fast competitor.

• 37:18Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 37:19Nilay Patel?

  And that, I think they got all those logins that way.

• 37:21Speaker 05

  That works.

• 37:21Nilay Patel?

  It was very smart of them.

• 37:22Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 37:22Nilay Patel?

  That Rupert Murdoch, Wiley.

• 37:25Speaker 05

  He knows what he's doing. Yeah.

• 37:26David Pierce?

  Yeah. Fox now is apparently working on some other big streaming service that I'm sure is going to go super great for them. I think it's a good pick. I'm in favor. I had Tubi very high on my list here. Neil, what's next for you? What do you got?

• 37:40Nilay Patel?

  I've been making a lot of, a lot of decisions here while you guys were talking. I've been working my board really hard.

• 37:46Nilay Patel?

  It's Motor Trend TV. I'm going back and forth between two of them. And I think what I have decided is that there's no chance that either of you will pick the thing that I'm worried about, so I'm gonna go another way. And then when I make that pick, I reveal what it was.

• 38:05David Pierce?

  All right.

• 38:06Nilay Patel?

  Does that work for you?

• 38:07David Pierce?

  Okay.

• 38:07Nilay Patel?

  Okay, so for 4K, I'm picking Disney Plus.

• 38:10David Pierce?

  Oh, mm, yeah. That's what I was gonna do next.

• 38:12Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, this is me working the board.

• 38:14David Pierce?

  Yeah, I'm a little surprised it lasted this long.

• 38:17Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, it's tough. It's, it's, it's, if you have children, it's a requirement. It 4K, I, we gotta work, we gotta talk about the 4K category as it exists next year.

• 38:28Nilay Patel?

  But it's in 4K, you get all the Disney movies in 4K, so it slots in here well. Bluey, obviously very important, but Frozen 2, shockingly important in my household. Same, like, very important. I don't know how to explain to Max that one song is basically just a Peter Satera song from the 80s. But it is.

• 38:47David Pierce?

  That song is called Lost in the Woods, and it's a banger.

• 38:50Nilay Patel?

  I'm like, you know, there's this band called Chicago, and she's like, I don't care about this. And then I try to make everybody listen to Chicago, which I don't even like listening to. But I just have to make the point, and everyone's like, what is happening in this house? So that's very important to us, as just a weekend cycle that we go through. And then you get, you get all the Marvel stuff, you get Andor. It's all there for you, like, Disney Plus, the only other one I would say should have been a number one pick. This is a shocking slide, because you can, you can make a, a good argument for number one.

• 39:20David Pierce?

  Yeah, I, I agree. I, I, I think it is, that is going to be the thing I picked if you didn't. So I, I buy it. I will say, I have one, Bob Iger, I know you're listening. I have one complaint I would like to make about Disney Plus, which is, they just launched, like, 24/7 Simpsons stream. It's basically a fast channel, but it's all Simpsons. Very good idea, except for some reason, my two-year-old, now, every time I open the Disney Plus app, it is, it is right at like his pointing level, and he runs over to it and- Goes Simpsons. It turns out that if you put on Simpsons, someone will say the word hell within six seconds. And so I can't watch it. But now he, every single morning, he just runs over and he just goes Simpsons. And I don't, I don't know how to

• 40:05Nilay Patel?

  That's rough.

• 40:05David Pierce?

  Tell him that this cartoon is illegal for him.

• 40:08Nilay Patel?

  We had the parental controls and ours messed up. We, I had them messed up. And for some reason I had set it so that unrated TV shows would show up on Max's profile. And so she opened it and the first thing in front of her face was the UFC. And I was like, this isn't, this isn't right. This doesn't go next to Like, no, thank you. And I, you gotta go dig through it. There, there's some real messy Disney brand stuff happening. Because the parental controls are so confusing.

• 40:39Speaker 05

  The gambling they've put next to Frozen is out of control.

• 40:44Nilay Patel?

  It's true. ESPN bet is right there. Will she pull it off this time?

• 40:49David Pierce?

  Like you, you say that, but we're, we're like rapidly veering towards that. And especially now that

• 40:55David Pierce?

  all the stuff is in there, right? Like Hulu is now totally integrated and ESPN is totally integrated. And all of the stuff is now just in Disney plus. There's some pretty like racy stuff that shows up at the top of the page while I'm looking to start Frozen two for the 85th time. It's a little weird.

• 41:12Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. It's, it's just a weird brand. And this is why they didn't do it.

• 41:16David Pierce?

  Right.

• 41:16Nilay Patel?

  This is why they had the other, this is why they had Hulu. And then they weren't getting, this is the same as, why did you go to Tubi? Like, we'll just shove it on Disney plus.

• 41:25David Pierce?

  Yeah.

• 41:25Nilay Patel?

  It's a lot.

• 41:26David Pierce?

  Yeah.

• 41:26Nilay Patel?

  But I, I feel, I feel confident with, especially as a third pick in the 4K category.

• 41:30David Pierce?

  Yeah.

• 41:30Nilay Patel?

  So home run.

• 41:31David Pierce?

  It's a good pick.

• 41:32Nilay Patel?

  I'm winning so far. I just want to be very clear about this.

• 41:34David Pierce?

  Yeah, we're, we're all really proud of you, Eli.

• 41:39David Pierce?

  As much as I don't want to have two YouTube things, I feel like at this point, I have to pick like YouTube man. It is, it is by a mile, the most watched streaming service. It is like, it has won the internet.

• 41:52Nilay Patel?

  Yep.

• 41:53David Pierce?

  I now have, I now have Amazon Prime, YouTube TV and YouTube, which makes me like least interesting American consumer of all time.

• 42:02Speaker 05

  You know what that gets you though? Not only does that get you Mr. Beast's channel, it gets you Amazon's Mr. Beast reality show.

• 42:10David Pierce?

  That's true. I get Mr. Beast and Beast Games.

• 42:12Nilay Patel?

  What category are you in?

• 42:13David Pierce?

  I'm trying to decide.

• 42:16David Pierce?

  I think I'm gonna put it in 4K because.

• 42:19Nilay Patel?

  So you're paying for premium?

• 42:21David Pierce?

  On principle, I'm paying for premium.

• 42:23Nilay Patel?

  Okay.

• 42:24David Pierce?

  I, I like, I seriously believe that no ads on YouTube is the best money I pay for entertainment every month.

• 42:32Nilay Patel?

  Wait, is premium 4K on TVs? Is that a thing on YouTube? Am I just making that up?

• 42:36David Pierce?

  It's not all, not everything is 4K, but it is, it is, you do get lots of 4K stuff.

• 42:41Nilay Patel?

  And you don't if you have ads?

• 42:43David Pierce?

  That I don't know. I'm truly just paying for no ads. I am, I am happy.

• 42:47Nilay Patel?

  But why does it, why does that go in the 4K content?

• 42:49David Pierce?

  Because I get 4K content. I could put it in cheap if I was doing ads, is my point.

• 42:54Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 42:54David Pierce?

  But I'm not doing that.

• 42:55Nilay Patel?

  I'm saying you might have to put this in wildcard.

• 42:58David Pierce?

  But I get 4K content.

• 42:59Nilay Patel?

  Cause you're not buying it for 4K.

• 43:02David Pierce?

  Oh, interesting. Well, no, but it doesn't, I get 4K. There is 4K.

• 43:08Nilay Patel?

  We gotta, we gotta rethink this whole category.

• 43:09David Pierce?

  Marques Brownies out here doing it in like 16K. I could have made that a category.

• 43:13Nilay Patel?

  So we're gonna rename this crispy?

• 43:16David Pierce?

  Yeah, I mean, yeah, we could do that. You wanna do that?

• 43:18Nilay Patel?

  All right, I'm, I'm allowing it this year.

• 43:20David Pierce?

  Okay.

• 43:21Nilay Patel?

  But I, I think the 4K category is under a lot of pressure.

• 43:24David Pierce?

  Okay, that's fair. Maybe, maybe that is the one that, that needs to change. Cause you're right that, uh, access to 4K content is increasingly just everywhere.

• 43:33Nilay Patel?

  No, it's, it's what you, it's gated. It's you have to pay for it everywhere.

• 43:38David Pierce?

  Right.

• 43:38Nilay Patel?

  I don't know. You send us your notes.

• 43:40David Pierce?

  But Jake picked Hulu and you just get it on Hulu. So we're, we're, we'll allow it this year, but fair. This is under reconsideration for 2026.

• 43:47Nilay Patel?

  And, and I would like to hear the feedback about it.

• 43:49David Pierce?

  Yeah, agreed. Um, all right. So I'm picking, I'm picking YouTube main or YouTube, YouTube main, YouTube premium. I feel good about it. Jake, you're up. What do you?

• 43:57Speaker 05

  All right, guys. I have a real problem here, which is, uh, at this point, David's got YouTube, you know, he's got TikTok. I don't really have a social presence here. So I'm, I'm gonna throw something out there. I need you to tell me if, if this, if this fits. I'm combining too many things. Are the, the requirement for the live categories, there needs to be some sort of live content.

• 44:19Speaker 05

  I don't need that live content to be any good. I just need this service.

• 44:22David Pierce?

  That's correct. It just needs to be live.

• 44:24Speaker 05

  Listen, hit me up with Instagram. Reels is a perfectly fine knockoff. And there's some live streams in there. I don't, I don't know what they're doing. They're selling some stuff, whatever. I will watch all your TikToks two weeks later. And you know what?

• 44:38Nilay Patel?

  You're going with Instagram Live for your live?

• 44:41David Pierce?

  Yeah, okay, so this, this, Neelai makes the correct point. You can't have Instagram as a whole. Because Instagram as a whole is not a streaming service.

• 44:47Speaker 05

  Are Reels and Live one thing?

• 44:49David Pierce?

  No, which is your problem. You can have Reels or you can have Live, but you can't have both.

• 44:54Speaker 05

  You know what, guys?

• 44:55Nilay Patel?

  Because in classic Instagram fashion, they've made them two different products where there are one product on TikTok.

• 44:59David Pierce?

  They are two different features.

• 45:01Speaker 05

  Why are they two different features?

• 45:02David Pierce?

  Because YouTube hates you.

• 45:04Speaker 05

  Here's the thing, I'm locking it in, Instagram Live.

• 45:06David Pierce?

  Wow.

• 45:07Speaker 05

  Listen, there is a big year ahead for Instagram. TikTok's getting banned. Instagram's gonna have to figure their product out. It's gonna be one thing. And I'm, this is, this is a long play.

• 45:19Nilay Patel?

  It's just Jake and the decaying corpse of Versus.

• 45:21Speaker 05

  Someone is gonna have a rock and roll Instagram Live by the end of 2025. This is gonna pay off. It's gonna be more interesting than if I had chosen Sling Blue. So I feel good about this.

• 45:35David Pierce?

  So Jake, the, the thing that might work for you here is that, like, you, you now have to actively root for TikTok to be banned. That's, that is the main thing you need for this pick to pay off. Because now there's all these, all this reporting and rumors out there about like Instagram is once again trying to capitalize on TikTok going away and like, maybe they're gonna do a separate app again. And like, there are people out there who are like, IGTV was a good idea. We just, you know, bad timing.

• 45:59Speaker 05

  They're finally making an iPad app.

• 46:01David Pierce?

  Maybe. It could happen. It really, it could happen.

• 46:04Nilay Patel?

  You have to know, like, Instagram's response to TikTok being banned is iPad app.

• 46:10David Pierce?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 46:10Nilay Patel?

  What's going on there, guys?

• 46:12Speaker 05

  They can get there.

• 46:14Nilay Patel?

  What are, what are we doing?

• 46:16David Pierce?

  They're gonna buy meerkat or something like they're gonna pull it all together. Love it.

• 46:20Nilay Patel?

  I'm excited for you, but yeah, you are now.

• 46:22David Pierce?

  I, I, this, this one, I'm buying low, trying to sell high here.

• 46:27Nilay Patel?

  Okay, not for, again, everyone's very confused about, by the stock market and that might be us too. That's fine.

• 46:35David Pierce?

  Yeah, so I will say this means Instagram reels is still available. You can still have it if you want it.

• 46:40Nilay Patel?

  You picked Instagram live.

• 46:42David Pierce?

  Yeah.

• 46:43Nilay Patel?

  I'm like, okay.

• 46:43David Pierce?

  I feel, I feel absolutely fine about this.

• 46:45Nilay Patel?

  It's funny because I know, I, my prediction is that reels will not get picked over the course of this draft, but it's why I've got picked.

• 46:53David Pierce?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 46:54Nilay Patel?

  Okay.

• 46:55David Pierce?

  I, I agree with both of those assessments. What was your third place live pick?

• 47:00Nilay Patel?

  Oh, this is my, it's my pick now.

• 47:01David Pierce?

  Oh, this is, you're up, go for it.

• 47:03Nilay Patel?

  This is what I was, this is what I, this is what I was trying to game out against David.

• 47:08David Pierce?

  Okay.

• 47:08Nilay Patel?

  Because I know the NFL is important to both of us. So I'm just picking Sunday Ticket standalone. Which you can just buy.

• 47:16David Pierce?

  Yeah, you can.

• 47:17Nilay Patel?

  You don't need YouTube TV. You can just buy it. It's a million dollars, but that's my live pick.

• 47:23David Pierce?

  Yeah, you don't even need, I don't even think you need YouTube Premium. You can truly buy it on its own.

• 47:27Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, and you just get it on like the YouTube page, which is a weird way to watch football. Like it, that's just, we, it's just, that's a weird thing.

• 47:35David Pierce?

  Yeah.

• 47:35Nilay Patel?

  But all of my games are out of market. So this works for me. So yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm just picking dead ahead Sunday ticket.

• 47:43David Pierce?

  Interesting. All right, that's fair. I was not gonna pick it only because God help me, I cannot have another YouTube product.

• 47:51David Pierce?

  But it's a good pick and it seems to, it seems to be working. Do you get, if you buy Sunday ticket on its own, isn't it like $500 a season or something insane?

• 47:58Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, it's like, it's like 350 or so, it's, it's nuts, it's.

• 48:01David Pierce?

  All to watch the Packers lose in the wild card round.

• 48:03Nilay Patel?

  It's, it's not, it's nuts, even, even if you like buy it in like the regular, like I have a real playoffs problem here. I'm gonna figure something out, but I'll go to the bar, it'll be fine.

• 48:14David Pierce?

  Okay. All right. So you got Sunday ticket. I feel good about it.

• 48:17Speaker 05

  Go to the bar is wild card.

• 48:18Nilay Patel?

  And by the way, it even if you have Sunday ticket, you, the NFL is like, here's a game on Amazon Prime. Like, it's all bad. So the, there's a reason I was asking about that piracy backstop. You see what I'm saying?

• 48:31David Pierce?

  Yeah, it's good. Uh, all right. My next pick, I think I'm going cheap. I think I'm gonna pick Peacock, uh, which I just confirmed you can still get for $8 a month. We're not publishing this episode for a few days, so that's plenty of time for them to raise the price. But, uh, Peacock continues to be the, like, place I watch The Office and Parks and Rec and New Girl. And it's increasingly getting, like, pretty good movies pretty quickly after they come out. It's just, it's kind of, it's, it's, it's doing a thing. I suppose this is where we should disclose that Comcast NBC Universal is a investor in our parent company, Vox Media.

• 49:16Nilay Patel?

  Round five.

• 49:17David Pierce?

  They do not pay for my.

• 49:18Nilay Patel?

  Peacock still exists, round five.

• 49:20David Pierce?

  Exactly.

• 49:23David Pierce?

  Well, yeah, I think, uh, I think I'm doing it just because I still haven't watched Wicked. And at some point this year, I am going to watch Wicked and I need Peacock to watch Wicked. So I think I'm doing it.

• 49:33Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 49:34Speaker 05

  Peacock, eventually you'll watch Wicked.

• 49:36Nilay Patel?

  Dirty Comcast money well smashed.

• 49:40David Pierce?

  And Poker Face, Jake, like you said.

• 49:42Speaker 05

  Yeah, I know, it's real, it's real. Poker Face, they got some, they got that one show.

• 49:46David Pierce?

  There's a lot of, like, SNL 50 stuff I still have to watch. Like, there's, I got stuff to do.

• 49:51Speaker 05

  Which, by the way, is also on your other pick, YouTube.

• 49:54David Pierce?

  Oh, crap, you're right. That's okay. I'm just, I'm just SNL for life now.

• 50:00David Pierce?

  This is good. Uh, all right, I'm taking, I'm taking Peacock. Uh, all right, let's do one more round before we take another break. Uh, Jake, you're up.

• 50:09Speaker 05

  All right, guys, are you ready for this? It's about to hit the niche category. Tell me, have you ever thought to yourself, I would love to watch a 14-hour documentary about the history of New York City by Ken Burns' brother?

• 50:27David Pierce?

  By Ken Burns' brother?

• 50:28Speaker 05

  Have you ever thought?

• 50:30David Pierce?

  Zen Burns?

• 50:31Speaker 05

  For these bootleg clips of Antique Roadshow that I'm seeing on TikTok, I would love to check out the entire series. PBS Passport.

• 50:41Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 50:41David Pierce?

  Wow.

• 50:42Speaker 05

  I'm telling you, this is a winner.

• 50:43Nilay Patel?

  All right.

• 50:44Speaker 05

  And if you need the specific genre, I'm gonna say this is TV you can fall asleep to. I think this is gonna be a big hit.

• 50:52Speaker 05

  You get to help support public access TV, which hopefully will exist by the end of this year.

• 50:57Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, will not be here next year.

• 50:58Speaker 05

  And you know what? Your subscription to PBS Passport will help.

• 51:02Nilay Patel?

  All right. I respect it.

• 51:03Speaker 05

  I feel good about this one.

• 51:04Nilay Patel?

  A big theme here is that everyone is falling asleep to the TV. Like, why are we all paying so much money for streaming services when mostly what we're doing is passing out?

• 51:13Speaker 05

  Oh, I've got more where that comes from.

• 51:15Nilay Patel?

  Okay.

• 51:15Speaker 05

  Just, just wait.

• 51:16David Pierce?

  That also appears to be how everyone watches TV. Like, do you guys ever see this thing that floats around every once in a while? That one of the directives Netflix gives to people who are making a show is that everyone has to always say what they're thinking and what's happening out loud, because most people aren't watching the show. So they have to, like, you can't, there can't be any unsaid important details in a Netflix show, because they understand that lots of people are just sitting there looking at their phone. So they have to say everything out loud, and it drives creatives absolutely insane. But like, this is the world we live in now.

• 51:48Speaker 05

  This is horrifying. This is also what you just described earlier, where you're just like, I have TV on in the background while I'm cooking all the time. And this is like how you watch everything.

• 51:55Nilay Patel?

  Doing exposition all day long in the background of David's house.

• 52:01David Pierce?

  Yeah.

• 52:01Nilay Patel?

  This apple is delicious. Like, there's a reason that Hollywood is dying. And it's that and the Frame TV, which we will come to at a later time.

• 52:09David Pierce?

  It's bleak out there. All right, PBS, love it. No notes. Neel, what do you got?

• 52:15Nilay Patel?

  All right, it's time. It's time for Neel to do a niche pick as well.

• 52:20David Pierce?

  Okay.

• 52:21Nilay Patel?

  So I'm picking Kaleidoscope, which is an ultra-high bitrate day-and-date movie server.

• 52:28David Pierce?

  What? God. What?

• 52:30Nilay Patel?

  You gotta have one. You gotta have one. To run Kaleidoscope, you have to buy a server called the Terra Prime, which you like put in a rack in your basement, because obviously you have a rack in your basement. The Terra Prime for the 24 terabyte version is $10,500.

• 52:46Nilay Patel?

  And then you need to buy the Strato C or Strato V players for all the TV in your house. The Strato C is the budget model, that's $3,000. The Strato V, which is a player and with an integrated server, that's $4,000. And then you get day in date, you can buy full quality movies.

• 53:04Speaker 05

  How much is the movie?

• 53:05Nilay Patel?

  The movies are tremendously expensive.

• 53:07David Pierce?

  Is this a service that like Tom Cruise uses to watch theatrical movies in his, in his home theater?

• 53:13Nilay Patel?

  There's a little bit of that going on. It feels like they're a little later now than they used to be.

• 53:17David Pierce?

  Okay.

• 53:18Nilay Patel?

  There's this thing called the Bel Air circuit where all the houses in Bel Air have like screening rooms in them, like a day in date. They used to be the circuit because they run the physical reels around. Now there's digital distribution. But the movies are not always expensive. It depends, right? Like some of them are $30, but some of them are like $200 because they're day in date.

• 53:38David Pierce?

  Okay, I'm just, I'm on Kaleidoscapes webpage and Jake, I just want to read you this paragraph, which is the most Neelai-coded thing I think I've ever heard. It says Kaleidoscapes movie experts annotate each movie with data such as screen size, end credit and intermission cues. This allows our players to integrate with your home automation to dim lights, close shades and adjust seating when the titles roll and automatically screen mask to match the ratio of each film. Immersive experiences that streaming services simply can't achieve. Like I guarantee you Neelai read this and just started just slinging money at his computer screen.

• 54:05Speaker 05

  The worst part about this is that Neelai's right. Like this is, this sounds awesome.

• 54:09Nilay Patel?

  Easily the sickest thing.

• 54:11Speaker 05

  This sounds incredible. Yeah, yeah.

• 54:13Nilay Patel?

  Easily the sickest possible movie. I have stared at a Kaleidoscapes so many times. I'm like, I should sell one of my cars and I can't, I don't watch enough movies.

• 54:23Speaker 05

  One of us picked Tubi, the other picked like $30,000 setup to watch Wicked.

• 54:29Nilay Patel?

  Hell yes. I have a cousin who sent me a picture of the rack in his brother-in-law's house in Virginia with like five Strato Vs in it. And I was like, I'm going to this house. Like, let's go. Like, I'm very excited about it.

• 54:45Speaker 05

  What screens do you play on?

• 54:46Nilay Patel?

  I've been waiting this entire time to make this pick. When do you do it? I could have done it at number one. I've been on edge this whole.

• 54:54David Pierce?

  Some, one of us could have gotten there first.

• 54:57Nilay Patel?

  It's, yeah, easily the sickest movie experience you can have.

• 54:59David Pierce?

  It sounds great.

• 55:01Nilay Patel?

  It is ridiculous.

• 55:02David Pierce?

  You watch it on the frame?

• 55:04Nilay Patel?

  Watch it on the garbage. No, you have to build, you don't have to, but you're supposed to build a theater so that the.

• 55:09David Pierce?

  It's optional though.

• 55:10Nilay Patel?

  So that the Strato V can send 12 volt triggers to various home automation devices.

• 55:16David Pierce?

  I'm just imagining you being like, Max, I'm so sorry. You have to move out of your bedroom and turning it into the Kaleidoscope theater.

• 55:23Nilay Patel?

  It's very good. I'm very excited about this idea. I've never been more excited about anything, actually.

• 55:27David Pierce?

  That's good stuff.

• 55:27Nilay Patel?

  I think you might only need a Strato V at this point. I don't know. It's just a lot of money. That's, that's what I have for you.

• 55:33David Pierce?

  I, honestly, if you sell your car, you will go fewer places. So you'll have more time to watch movies.

• 55:38Nilay Patel?

  It's true. You'll still be alone in my house. Look, if anybody is listening and you want to tell us about your Kaleidoscope.

• 55:44David Pierce?

  We will come to your house and watch movies.

• 55:47Nilay Patel?

  I will be there.

• 55:48David Pierce?

  Yeah, this is not a question.

• 55:50Nilay Patel?

  And then you will wake up and you'll be like, where did my Kaleidoscope go?

• 55:55David Pierce?

  All right. I am going to go content and I'm going to pick Stranger Things, season five.

• 56:01David Pierce?

  Which I think is going to be enormous and humongous and might win me this draft all by itself. I think in terms of like, stuff that is going to be on streaming services in between now and next year, this one is the one that is like, if I can't have Netflix, at least I get to have Stranger Things.

• 56:20Speaker 05

  Yeah, I think that's a, that's a big win for you.

• 56:23David Pierce?

  This, the season might be awful. Like there's, all these actors are like in their 40s now.

• 56:28Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 56:28David Pierce?

  They've been doing this for forever. It's, it's gonna, it's gonna be insane, but I, I kind of feel like everyone on earth is gonna watch it.

• 56:36Speaker 05

  It's also, it's like the biggest thing that Netflix will have maybe ever, right? Like this is, is the single biggest show they've had, at least like culturally. This conclusion has been coming for years. I think a lot of people are very hyped about it. I'm very hyped for it. I'm not even necessarily sure it's going to be amazing, but yeah, I'm excited. So yeah, good. I think, I think that's a good get for you.

• 56:57David Pierce?

  I, I feel good about it. I'm a little worried it's not going to come out this year because it has been like imminent for a very long time. But I, I have faith.

• 57:05Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 57:05David Pierce?

  And I choose to believe that it's gonna happen. I think they can get it there. I almost picked Ted Lasso season four, but then I knew Niniya would make fun of me for a really long time. And I just don't need that in my life.

• 57:15Nilay Patel?

  Well, I just want to tell you that Cloudescape streams in 65 megabits per second, which is higher than a 4K Blu-ray.

• 57:20David Pierce?

  I knew when you had not said anything in a minute, it was because you were reading about Cloudescape. We've lost Niniya in lossless audio, my man. Come on.

• 57:31Nilay Patel?

  It's just a $15,000 initiative.

• 57:35David Pierce?

  Look, I love this for you. All right, we gotta take one more break, and then we got two more categories to do. We will be right back.

• 57:49Speaker 02

  Flowing ad budget on metrics that look great till the CFO sees them? That's bullspend, and marketers are calling it out in Dashboard Confessions.

• 57:59Speaker 03

  I remember telling my boss, "It'll be good for the brand," when leads were slow. Yeah, it wasn't.

• 58:06Speaker 02

  Cut the bullspend. LinkedIn lets you target by company, job title, and more. Advertise on LinkedIn. Spend $250 on your first campaign and get a $250 credit. Go to LinkedIn.com/campaign. Terms and conditions apply.

• 58:19Speaker 04

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• 58:50Speaker 07

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• 59:23David Pierce?

  All right, we're back. We're five categories in. We got two more to go. Quick recap before we finish. Jake has picked Tubi, Netflix, Hulu, Instagram Live, for some reason, and PBS Passport. Uh, some choices in there. Uh, Neelai has picked TikTok, Max, Disney Plus, NFL Sunday Ticket, and Kaleidoscope, and has ceased paying attention to this podcast since he picked Kaleidoscape.

• 59:47Nilay Patel?

  I've done everything I need to do.

• 59:48David Pierce?

  Neelai is finished. Uh, and I have Peacock, Amazon Prime Video, YouTube Premium, YouTube TV, and Stranger Things, Season 5. We have two more categories each. Jake, you're up.

• 59:58Speaker 05

  All right, guys. It's gonna be a stressful year. We all need something to kind of chill out, relax to. Also note that, uh, you know, we're talking about video here, but, uh, I don't know what this does for our, our ability to listen to music. So I've been thinking about that. I don't have YouTube, so I'm gonna grab Lo-Fi Girl.

• 1:00:18David Pierce?

  Oh.

• 1:00:18Speaker 05

  Listen, lock that in while the world is burning.

• 1:00:21David Pierce?

  Whoa.

• 1:00:22Speaker 05

  I'm gonna be in my bedroom, studying, little scarf around my neck, just sort of zen-ing out. I think this is gonna be a good one for 2025.

• 1:00:32David Pierce?

  It's a strong pick, actually, because if, if, if the shtick here is, these are the only things you're allowed to consume this year, you do need that. That's a, that's a strong pick. I like that for you.

• 1:00:42Speaker 05

  I think it's not covered by anything else that I've got. You know, it, it's providing, uh, I think, a very distinct service. So, yeah, I, I feel good about Lo-Fi Girl.

• 1:00:51David Pierce?

  Which Lo-Fi Girl station do you listen to? There's like three or four of them now.

• 1:00:55Speaker 05

  Uh, we're just gonna go with the main for this pick. I, I, I'm gonna be honest, I'm not a con-.

• 1:01:00David Pierce?

  You can have the whole channel. I'll give you the whole channel. I'm just curious which one you listen to.

• 1:01:04Speaker 05

  Uh, whichever one comes up. I mean, I, I'm gonna be honest, not personally a big Lo-Fi Girl listener, uh, which maybe defeats the purpose of this draft, but I'm trying to think holistically here, right?

• 1:01:15David Pierce?

  Sure.

• 1:01:15Speaker 05

  I wanna get some music in. Um, this is, I think, the single hottest music channel on, uh, streaming services that I know of. Um, I don't think I can pick the entire, like, uh, channel for, uh, God, does it even exist anymore? What was the, uh, YouTube music video service?

• 1:01:33David Pierce?

  Vivo?

• 1:01:34Speaker 05

  Vivo. That was it.

• 1:01:36Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, they broke it up into individual artists. You would have to pick, like, Billie Eilish, Vivo.

• 1:01:40Speaker 05

  Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Billie Eilish, uh, Billie Eilish's YouTube channel is not a bad pick. Probably could just go with that. No, lofi girl. Uh, listen, it's not necessarily my, uh, constant jam, which maybe, uh, defeats the purpose of this pick, but, um, it, I, I, I think it is, uh, the right tone for 2025.

• 1:02:00David Pierce?

  I like it.

• 1:02:01Speaker 05

  That's, that's why I'm locking it in.

• 1:02:03David Pierce?

  I support it. I also, for anyone who spends all of their time on the regular lofi channel, which is very good, the, the synthwave channel, also very good. Not nearly as popular. I'm looking at it now. It's like a 10th as many people on the channel right now. Uh, but it's called Synthwave Radio on lofi girl. It's very good. Highly recommend. There's also a jazz one that I'm not nearly cool enough to listen to. Uh, but Jake, you could be. You wear good sweaters. You could, you could listen to jazz. Listen, now that I have lofi channel, I'm gonna find out. I love this for you. Uh, all right, Neelai, what do you got?

• 1:02:33Nilay Patel?

  I'm realizing that I made an error in that I did not pick Clyde escape for every one of these. Uh, so for content, could I have picked just NFL and gotten the out?

• 1:02:47David Pierce?

  No.

• 1:02:48Nilay Patel?

  Okay. Could I have picked like Reddit slash NFL live streams and gotten the out? Can I pick that for wild card? Do you see what I'm saying?

• 1:03:00David Pierce?

  Interesting.

• 1:03:00Nilay Patel?

  Cause I made a very important pick for live and I'm thinking, oh, I could've, I might, there's only one reason I needed it.

• 1:03:08David Pierce?

  I'm gonna say no, because I think lofi girl qualifies as more or less a piece of content. Like, I think if you were to say, under content, you're gonna pick the Superbowl, I'd give you the Superbowl. But I don't think the NFL sees, I think it's too big.

• 1:03:23Nilay Patel?

  Too big?

• 1:03:24David Pierce?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:25Nilay Patel?

  And the collected catalog of lofi girl is not too big.

• 1:03:28Speaker 05

  That's a non-stop stream. That thing doesn't, she doesn't sleep.

• 1:03:32Nilay Patel?

  Sometimes she gets a murder, apparently. From what I understand, there's some sort of like a LARP situation.

• 1:03:37Speaker 05

  The meta story of the fight girl.

• 1:03:40Nilay Patel?

  Every now and again, she disappears and people have to do a quest. It's like a thing.

• 1:03:43Speaker 05

  So this is, I've got gamification built in here, too.

• 1:03:47David Pierce?

  Oh yeah, the lore is so much deeper than you know, Jake.

• 1:03:50Nilay Patel?

  So the one thing I don't really have here is any kind of news content.

• 1:03:54David Pierce?

  True.

• 1:03:55Nilay Patel?

  Except for whatever extremely weird version of CNN they run on Max, which is like not worth watching, cause it's not actually CNN. It's like, what if this was worse? You're like, ah, I don't want this. So here's what I'm picking. I'm gonna throw it in content. I'm throw, uh, I gotta put a news service here, right? That's what you need live television for, especially in this moment. And I feel like the regular cable news channels have just become weird podcasts unto themselves. So if I'm gonna pick a weird news podcast, I'm picking my pals at CNBC. I'm just putting that here in content.

• 1:04:35David Pierce?

  Okay.

• 1:04:35Nilay Patel?

  Cause if line's gonna go down and I'm gonna panic with a bunch of weirdos, it's my buddies.

• 1:04:41David Pierce?

  Okay.

• 1:04:41Nilay Patel?

  So that's my, my content.

• 1:04:43David Pierce?

  I like, I'm glad we got a podcast in here. Yeah. Is it, is it a CNBC like podcast stream like what?

• 1:04:49Nilay Patel?

  CNBC literally, if you go onto their homepage right now, there's a button that says watch live stream, which is an incredible button for a cable channel to have. And then it says prefer audio, because I think they've realized that it is just a weird podcast about a chart. Like what does CNBC make every day? A podcast about a chart. The hosts come and go, but they're making a podcast about a chart.

• 1:05:11David Pierce?

  Sure.

• 1:05:12Nilay Patel?

  And so there's a button where you can just listen to it. And they put out all the shows as podcasts. I don't know if any of this is working strategically and obviously they're being spun out of Comcast into their own, they're gonna live whatever weird life in a company called literally SpinCo.

• 1:05:26David Pierce?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:27Nilay Patel?

  I don't know if it's gonna happen, but I do know that if I wanna listen to people panic about line go down, this, I would, I prefer that over the general interest news channels. I can get that for my bastardized CNN and Max. You see what I'm saying?

• 1:05:42David Pierce?

  Yeah, I like it. And I think CNBC is like, it's gotta be weird to program a thing that you know many of your viewers are gonna watch with no sound and many of your viewers are only gonna listen to. It's like you, you, like very few people seem to actively sit and listen and look at cable TV. They all, it's one or the other. It's like you're in an airport with no sound.

• 1:06:01Nilay Patel?

  Oh, you put audio stream here. I'm just saying.

• 1:06:03David Pierce?

  Well, yeah, you can have the live stream. I don't care.

• 1:06:05Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, just from the live stream CNBC. My, my point is all cable news broadcasts are now weird podcasts. Like if you just look, if you look at what we do every week, was like, here's some people talking to each other for a while about stuff. And you like, watch any major cable news, they're like, here's 35 people in a grid talking about stuff and it's just a podcast. And like, everything's converging on this forum, but you do need the like, live reactive to news. In your content mix.

• 1:06:34David Pierce?

  We need more charts on the Vergecast is what I'm hearing.

• 1:06:36Nilay Patel?

  A podcast about a live podcast where we panic about a chart is like, that's, that's cable news in 2025.

• 1:06:42David Pierce?

  I'm ready for it. All right. That's a good one. I will be watching as little news as possible over the rest of this year. So I will, I will skip on that one. All right. I'm up next. I have niche and wildcard left. I think I'm going to pick wildcard and I'm going to go paramount plus with, with great sadness and trepidation. But I need sports and paramount plus has a lot of very good sports. Paramount plus is how I watch March Madness. It's how I watch the masters. It's how I watch Champions League soccer. It is like, there's just this like steady drumbeat of very important sports to me on CBS that I can only get through paramount plus. And I don't love giving them my money because it's not a good service other times.

• 1:07:27David Pierce?

  Although they do also have the Mission Impossible movies, so that helps.

• 1:07:29Speaker 05

  Guys can be big this year. They got another one coming up. You're going to have a rewatch marathon. I think there's something there. Yeah.

• 1:07:35David Pierce?

  So I'm, I'm taking paramount plus.

• 1:07:38David Pierce?

  But like, I will probably cancel it three separate times over the course of this year.

• 1:07:44Nilay Patel?

  That's right.

• 1:07:45David Pierce?

  But I want to have it available to me. Also, this is the Alex Cranz memorial pick.

• 1:07:51Speaker 05

  And you know what? Turned out to be a winner. So maybe a strong option.

• 1:07:55David Pierce?

  Yeah. Whoever picks paramount plus. Listen, if they finally make the great Star Trek show, I'm, I'm sitting pretty. It's going to be amazing.

• 1:08:02Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:08:03David Pierce?

  All right. We got one round left. Jake, you have wildcard left. Neela, you have wildcard left and I have niche left. Jake, you're up.

• 1:08:10Speaker 05

  All right, folks. I'm going to pick a service that I do not believe has appeared in the Vergecast streaming draft to date.

• 1:08:20Speaker 05

  This is one of the greatest streaming services I've ever used, but is also not widely available. And that is Canopy.

• 1:08:27David Pierce?

  Oh.

• 1:08:27Speaker 05

  Canopy is the service that you can get through your library. This thing is free for you because your library pays for it. They have an excellent library of movies, including, you know, new stuff, old stuff. This is, is once again, the library that you do not find on Netflix because Netflix doesn't want to pay for this because it's a bunch of weirdos who watch this stuff. The only, the only downside to the service is your library has to be a partner of Canopy. But if your library is a partner of Canopy, you just watch as much as you want for free and it's great.

• 1:09:00Nilay Patel?

  What's the, what's the bit, right?

• 1:09:01Speaker 05

  Uh, like 480p probably? What are we talking about? Like, I don't know.

• 1:09:06Nilay Patel?

  You gotta privatize libraries, Jake.

• 1:09:07Speaker 05

  I gotta be honest, I did not check out the bitrate requirements and that.

• 1:09:14Speaker 05

  I do, I'll be honest, the New York Public Library does not currently support Canopy. So I do need to pretend I live somewhere else and get another library card in order to take advantage of this pick. However, there was a brief period of time when I had Canopy access and my god, it was, it was a shining star. It was the best service I've ever used.

• 1:09:35David Pierce?

  I'm not saying I recommend this, but I'm also saying it's not very hard to get a library card somewhere you don't live. That's all I'll say.

• 1:09:42Speaker 05

  Wow.

• 1:09:44Nilay Patel?

  Have you ever been to reddit.com, our library cards?

• 1:09:50Speaker 05

  There we go.

• 1:09:51David Pierce?

  That's a good pick. Canopy, Canopy is sneakily very good. And the like, the whole sort of stuff you can get with your library card on the internet ecosystem is perpetually way better than it gets credit for. Canopy is great, Libby is great. It's like, there's a whole universe of good digital content out there that you can get with your library card. Please don't close all of our libraries.

• 1:10:09Speaker 05

  Support your libraries, people.

• 1:10:10David Pierce?

  That's a good pick. I think Canopy has come up before, but I don't think anyone has ever picked it. So you've done it. You've also really, between Canopy and PBS Passport and LoFi Girl, you've really like Brooklynized your draft in a way that I very much approve of.

• 1:10:25Speaker 05

  There are some ups and downs in my selections, but um, you know, I'm feeling good about, about a few of these.

• 1:10:31David Pierce?

  That's strong. I love it for you. All right, Neelai, last pick, what do you got?

• 1:10:35Nilay Patel?

  All right, because I was not allowed to just pick an entire sports situation as content, this really changed my dynamic. So for my wild card, I'm picking F1 TV.

• 1:10:46Speaker 05

  That's good, that's good.

• 1:10:48Nilay Patel?

  And, and really, I've been inspired by how much sleeping we're all doing. And that's what I sleep. But those middle 15 laps, you just, I'm out. Like, middle 30 even.

• 1:11:00David Pierce?

  I saved Nish for last because I was positive no one was gonna pick F1 TV and I was gonna pick it.

• 1:11:05Speaker 05

  Oof.

• 1:11:06Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. Ross, you and I have been dancing around the sports situation this whole time.

• 1:11:10Speaker 05

  David, can I tell you, Instagram reels is still out there.

• 1:11:13David Pierce?

  F1 TV is also a very good streaming service in the like, how should sports be broadcast? It's like, show me a million different angles. Show me all the data. Show me none of the data. Just like, make it chaotic in cool, interesting, sporty ways. F1 TV does a very good job.

• 1:11:27Nilay Patel?

  I was looking in Reddit thread for a bar around me that would like, show races, which is a weird thing because it's either very early in the morning or you gotta, everyone's got to agree to watch a replay. And there's a number of comments there that are like, I will never watch this in a bar because I need to be locked in with data from F1 TV. And it's like, not, does anyone want to go to a bar? Locked in with an Excel spreadsheet measuring tire degradation live from F1 TV. That's how I prefer to experience the sport. It's like, okay, so I'm going to be taking a nap at home.

• 1:12:03Nilay Patel?

  It's very good. A strong correlation, by the way, between people who love video games and F1, because they're just, they're just doing video game stuff. Like, they're just like min-maxing.

• 1:12:13David Pierce?

  Like European boys.

• 1:12:14Nilay Patel?

  It's very good. The Polygon people love F1. They're always like, is it a spreadsheet game? There's a lot of it.

• 1:12:21David Pierce?

  It is. It is very much. It is like the nerdiest sport you could possibly imagine in all of the best space. Well, this sucks because now I don't know what I'm going to pick.

• 1:12:32David Pierce?

  I want to say, by the way, this officially means, uh, Apple TV is going to go undrafted.

• 1:12:37Nilay Patel?

  I was, I was wondering.

• 1:12:40David Pierce?

  I thought about taking it in wild card, but I think I need, I need, like Severance already happened, so like, I'm good on Apple TV for a while.

• 1:12:47Nilay Patel?

  Did anything happen, David?

• 1:12:50David Pierce?

  I'm not doing this video again.

• 1:12:54Nilay Patel?

  Same conversation about White Lotus, by the way. It seems, it appears Netflix has issued rules where everyone just has to be doing, like, bold-faced exposition. And Apple and Macs have been like, nothing happens for three episodes in the middle. But it's beautiful, so people can look at their phones.

• 1:13:10David Pierce?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:10Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:11David Pierce?

  Huge, gorgeous establishing shots. The end. End of episode.

• 1:13:16Nilay Patel?

  Will this monkey murder someone? No, actually, nothing. Nothing will happen.

• 1:13:22David Pierce?

  Okay. Also ESPN Plus, undrafted.

• 1:13:27Nilay Patel?

  Interesting.

• 1:13:27David Pierce?

  And I think ESPN Plus doesn't count as a streaming service. That feels too mainstream, right? I don't think I can get away with that. I'm gonna take BritBox as mine. BritBox is just an unbelievable repository of, I believe, BBC-specific British content. A, lot of good stuff. Like, oh, boy, do you want people quietly solving murders in beautiful countrysides? BritBox has you covered forever. Lot of good house shows on BritBox. But really, I'm taking it because I think in a time where people are looking for less America in their lives, we're all going British. It's just, it's just gonna be me and my BritBox homies.

• 1:14:13David Pierce?

  Just checking it out.

• 1:14:14Nilay Patel?

  Is that what we're doing?

• 1:14:15David Pierce?

  That's what it's gonna be. That's the bet I'm making.

• 1:14:17Nilay Patel?

  I feel like you ought to pick a Russian streaming service.

• 1:14:20Speaker 05

  We want this again.

• 1:14:22Nilay Patel?

  Like, what's going on over there? Is it cool? Because it seems like we ought to know.

• 1:14:28David Pierce?

  Yeah, I'm just looking at this now. There's a show called Douglas Is Canceled that I think I can watch.

• 1:14:32Speaker 05

  Anytime people tell me what they're watching on BritBox, truly just shows I've never known existed. I'm sure they're delightful, but it's just, it's very goofy names. They've been on for a decade. I've just never heard of them.

• 1:14:48David Pierce?

  Jake, there's a show on here called Gardener's World that I'm pretty excited about.

• 1:14:51Speaker 05

  Oh, you know what? That is a hit, though. Gardener's World is the number one worldwide gardening competition series.

• 1:15:00David Pierce?

  Monty and the team are back, full of the best practical tips and advice for gardeners. Five seasons.

• 1:15:05Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:15:05David Pierce?

  Let's go. This is the cozy TV I'm looking for.

• 1:15:09Speaker 05

  There was a big contract negotiation issue with Monty, so that actually was a big deal.

• 1:15:13Nilay Patel?

  Monty actually got replaced in season three silently. Uh, look, David, extremely weird pick. That's what I had to say.

• 1:15:21Speaker 05

  Good about it.

• 1:15:22Nilay Patel?

  We really, really fizzled out here at the end where David just started Googling cool streaming services and realized that both Canopy and Lo-Fi Girl were taken.

• 1:15:32Speaker 05

  In person, Neil, I give a very solemn sigh after you did.

• 1:15:37Nilay Patel?

  Just like scooping up the bottom of the barrel. All right, that's why I can't. You picked this over Apple TV Plus. I think that's really saying something.

• 1:15:45David Pierce?

  Apple TV Plus doesn't, doesn't count in niche. If I, if I had truly, if I had known you were gonna pick F1 TV, I would have done it backwards and then I would have had a real Paramount Plus versus Apple TV Plus debate to have. But I, I, I played myself.

• 1:16:02Nilay Patel?

  Only one of those has both Top Gun movies, David. It's not a debate. I don't know what you're talking about.

• 1:16:07David Pierce?

  Ted Lasso, season four is coming someday in the future.

• 1:16:10Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:16:10Nilay Patel?

  Do you think he's gonna be optimistic?

• 1:16:15David Pierce?

  Listen, do I every once in a while tap a wall and say, believe to myself? Yeah, I do. That's who I am.

• 1:16:21Nilay Patel?

  Do I walk into a bars and just blow people out of the water at darts every couple of days?

• 1:16:25David Pierce?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:25Nilay Patel?

  That's where I, that's.

• 1:16:26David Pierce?

  Be curious, not judgmental, Neil.

• 1:16:31David Pierce?

  Uh, all right. To recap, the 2025 Verdict streaming draft. Jake, in cheap, you picked Tubi. In awards, you picked Netflix. In 4K, you picked Hulu. In live.

• 1:16:42Speaker 05

  Pause there. Let's pause there.

• 1:16:44David Pierce?

  I am the draft and.

• 1:16:45Speaker 05

  A really winning selection right there.

• 1:16:48David Pierce?

  In live, you picked Instagram Live.

• 1:16:50Nilay Patel?

  What a choice.

• 1:16:51David Pierce?

  You picked PBS Passport. In content, you picked Lo-Fi Girl. And in wildcard, you picked Canopy. Uh, I think most of those are strong picks.

• 1:16:59Nilay Patel?

  David described this as, um, as very Brooklyn. I would describe this as guy who insists they don't watch TV.

• 1:17:06Speaker 05

  No, this is, this is straight up, this is accurate. I'm, this is the cheapest slate, right? I'm paying for two of these. PBS Passport, you just make a donation. Like, once.

• 1:17:19Nilay Patel?

  I mean, it's good. I I'm not saying I wasn't the kid who did that on TV, but it there's a real vibe here.

• 1:17:26Speaker 05

  No, that's that's completely right. I I want to watch a bunch of old movies that nobody else cares about, that are only available with ads on Tubi because nobody else wanted to pay for them. I'm going to the library because it's the only place you can check out, you know, the the Peter Greenaway movies I want to watch. And then I don't know, I'm not in touch culturally. And so I'm like, what's happening? Let's check Instagram Live.

• 1:17:48David Pierce?

  I just feel like you've also won the unofficial, how many of these companies will send me a tote bag? Race in in pretty handily.

• 1:17:57Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, you get a lofi girl tote bag. That's the move.

• 1:18:00Speaker 05

  There we go.

• 1:18:00Nilay Patel?

  You're the winner.

• 1:18:02David Pierce?

  All right. So Neelai, in cheap, you picked TikTok. In awards, you picked Max. In 4K, you picked Disney Plus. In live, you picked Sunday Ticket. In niche, you picked Kaleidoscope. In content, you picked CNBC. And in wildcard, you picked F1 TV. This is a real like content monster lineup.

• 1:18:19Speaker 05

  Yeah, it's strong.

• 1:18:19Nilay Patel?

  I feel like I've outed myself as a dad in the worst possible way with this.

• 1:18:24Speaker 05

  This is like you have five TVs on a wall and they've all got something going on.

• 1:18:29Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, it's it's a lot. And I, yeah, I I needed one cool one and I didn't pick one. Instead, I picked CNBC. But I'm okay with it.

• 1:18:38Speaker 05

  F1's up there. F1's cool.

• 1:18:40David Pierce?

  F1 is cool.

• 1:18:41Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, it is in its way. You're like, I'm a nerd who washes cars at 3:00 in the morning. That's me. It's a deeply me, but.

• 1:18:48David Pierce?

  Yeah. And you have TikTok, so you still get trucks jumping over stuff. So I think I think you've you've represented yourself fairly accurately here.

• 1:18:55Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, as a dad.

• 1:18:57David Pierce?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:57Nilay Patel?

  That's that's that's my choice. And I have a Kaleidoscape server, which is sick. I've won on strength of streaming quality alone.

• 1:19:04David Pierce?

  In terms of like number of bits delivered to the house, you've won and it's not close. No question about that.

• 1:19:10Nilay Patel?

  It's so many. You need an $11,000 server just to download them overnight. Do you understand what I'm saying? They, you know, it pre-downloads a bunch of movies so you can buy them locally and watch them right away.

• 1:19:23Speaker 05

  They're just assuming you're going to give them another 200 bucks every week.

• 1:19:26Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, they're just like, we're just going to preload your Terra Prime. So you're ready to go.

• 1:19:31Speaker 05

  Sound bad.

• 1:19:31Nilay Patel?

  That's why you need the server in the basement.

• 1:19:33Speaker 05

  That's good service.

• 1:19:34Nilay Patel?

  Look, if you're out there, I'm guessing it's Steve Kaleidoscape. Just give me a call. Let's let's work on that.

• 1:19:40David Pierce?

  I give it like 12 days before you reappear on the show in New York. So let me tell you what I've been up to.

• 1:19:46David Pierce?

  All right. And then my picks were in cheap, I picked Peacock. In awards, I picked Amazon Prime. In 4K, I picked YouTube Premium, Live, YouTube TV, Niche, BritBox, Content, Stranger Things, Season 5, and Wildcard Paramount Plus. I would call this the like, basic parentheses derogatory set of picks.

• 1:20:05Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, this is David has passed out in the aisle of a Best Buy. Like, stuff is just happening to you and you don't know why.

• 1:20:12Speaker 05

  There's a real like B tier selection to the streaming. I don't, I don't mean to criticize you as a person, David. You're great, but.

• 1:20:19David Pierce?

  No, I'm looking at this and I'm like, no, this is pure, just like, the algorithms get to decide. Like, I don't, I don't care what I watch, just put something on is like the energy I'm getting from my picks here.

• 1:20:29Speaker 05

  There's an argument that YouTube alone tops everything else. Like, if you have YouTube, you can, you have access to the entire world of content in some ways.

• 1:20:38David Pierce?

  Frankly, the combo of YouTube Premium and Amazon Prime Video, like, who was going to run out of content last? It's me and by, lifetimes. So I'm good on that.

• 1:20:49Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:50David Pierce?

  But like, I don't know, the ceiling's pretty low on David's picks over here.

• 1:20:55Nilay Patel?

  The combo platter of Peacock and Paramount Plus ending up on your board, but not Apple TV Plus is perfect. You're like, I could have, but I did not choose the one that has won an Oscar.

• 1:21:08David Pierce?

  Yeah.

• 1:21:08Nilay Patel?

  It's good.

• 1:21:08David Pierce?

  There's that.

• 1:21:09Nilay Patel?

  You do get all of the weird Jurassic Park movies.

• 1:21:13Nilay Patel?

  And I'm not saying that they weren't successful. They've made billions of dollars. Super weird movies.

• 1:21:18David Pierce?

  Can you name the titles of any of them?

• 1:21:21Nilay Patel?

  It happened again.

• 1:21:23David Pierce?

  Oh, no, Mortal Kombat.

• 1:21:25Nilay Patel?

  Whoops.

• 1:21:26David Pierce?

  All right. We're done. We gotta get out of here.

• 1:21:30David Pierce?

  Tell us who you think won the draft. I guess we have like a year to really figure this out, right? So like, maybe we'll, we'll ask a bunch of overtime. But we should, we should put a poll in the, in the post on the site about who won the draft. Spoiler alert, it's, it's me. I won the draft. But, uh, I don't know. I don't know that any of us did great this year, but we'll see. And we have 12 months to figure it out. Maybe TikTok will still be here. And maybe Instagram Live will have taken over the internet. We will see.

• 1:21:55Nilay Patel?

  I just feel like my choices are very good. And like, by rights on the winner, but I'm also wearing a quarter zip. You know what I mean? It's like,

• 1:22:03Nilay Patel?

  it's rough.

• 1:22:04David Pierce?

  The net worth of your picks is very high. Do you know what I mean?

• 1:22:07Nilay Patel?

  That's what I, you know? It's like I have a golf sponsorship now.

• 1:22:12David Pierce?

  Yeah.

• 1:22:13Nilay Patel?

  I won. I'm saying I won as, but you know.

• 1:22:16David Pierce?

  But you're sad about it.

• 1:22:17Nilay Patel?

  I'm caveatting my own victory.

• 1:22:18David Pierce?

  Yeah.

• 1:22:19Nilay Patel?

  I'm saying I could have won in a cooler way.

• 1:22:20David Pierce?

  Yeah. All right. We gotta get out of here. Jake, Neelai, thank you guys so much. This is really fun.

• 1:22:27David Pierce?

  All right. That's it. That's the show for today. Thank you to Jake and Neelai for doing that with me. And thank you as always for listening. For lots more on everything we talked about, if you want to see our picks again, if you want to see previous drafts, if you want to just yell at us in the comments about who won, head over to the verge.com. And seriously, I honestly do want to know who won. You can also send us an email, [email protected], call the hotline, 866-VERGE11. All of your feelings, everything about who we should have drafted sooner, if you think it's like nuts that Disney Plus didn't go first, if you think I'm a lunatic for picking BritBox, which I'm not, but if you think that I am, tell us. We want to hear from you. Leave us comments. Everything. We see it all and we love hearing from you. This show is produced by Eric Gomez, Brandon Kiefer, and Will Poor.

• 1:23:10David Pierce?

  Vergecast is a Verge production and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Neelai and I will be back on Friday to talk about AI news, politics, news, tariffs, chaos, and everything else going on right now. We'll see you then. Rock and roll.

• 1:23:23Speaker 05

  Guys, I think this went poorly for most of us.

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