Lumber guitar licks

The music industry is (and has been) undergoing significant changes. Join Nilay Patel, Micah Singleton, Emily Yoshida, and Sam Sheffer as they discuss Spotify’s expansion, Sony Music’s no-to-secret contract with Spotify, Apple’s upcoming music service, iTunes, and more. 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.

• 0:00Nilay Patel?

  Today's episode of The Vergecast is sponsored by Dashlane. Dashlane is a password manager that has already helped over 2 million users online.

• 0:06Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 0:07Nilay Patel?

  If you're like me, you have too many passwords. I always forget what passwords I use on which site. I spend way too much time clicking on "reset password." It's even the worst when I'm on the go, no way to remember all those passwords. That's true, actually. I don't even log into things on the go. I live a completely...whatever. Now I use a password manager called Dashlane. Dashlane, you'll never forget another password. It's that simple. They're secured on all devices, they're always up to date, one place, and because Dashlane's on my computer, on my phone, my passwords are always with me wherever I go. Dashlane even helps by filling out the passwords online. I can use complex passwords with numbers and symbols without having to type them, and get in my accounts automatically, saving hours of valuable time. And Dashlane is free. Wow. Yeah. Vergecast listeners can download Dashlane for free if you go to dashlane.com/vergecast right now.

• 0:50Nilay Patel?

  So go to dashlane.com/vergecast and never forget another password. That's D-A-S-H-L-A-N-E dot com slash vergecast.

• 1:04Speaker 01

  What's going on?

• 1:05Nilay Patel?

  Hey, buddy.

• 1:05Speaker 01

  Why is everybody on their computers right now? This is like, this is...

• 1:09Nilay Patel?

  This show is not ever starting well. Hi, and welcome to The Vergecast. I am Neelai Patel. I work here at The Verge. I am joined today by a cast of characters, past, present, and future, who are going to take us on a journey through, I would say mostly Spotify news, but also everything that The Verge covers.

• 1:31Speaker 01

  That was weirdly anticlimactic.

• 1:35Nilay Patel?

  Well, that's what I like to build. If I was like an EDM producer, I do all builds that never resolve. Just like endless builds and then like...

• 1:43Speaker 01

  It's just existential EDM.

• 1:44Nilay Patel?

  This person talking is Emily Oshida. Hello, Emily.

• 1:47Speaker 01

  Hi, how's it going?

• 1:48Nilay Patel?

  It's going really great.

• 1:51Speaker 01

  I'd love to talk about Spotify. I'm a frequent user of Spotify and I have opinions about it.

• 1:55Nilay Patel?

  There you go. That's all you need for the show.

• 1:58Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:58Nilay Patel?

  Just to get on. Emily's our entertainment editor. You have probably seen her work and heard her voice and, I don't know, felt her presence. Over here, who's this?

• 2:06Speaker 02

  I am Micah Singleton, also a frequent Spotify user.

• 2:10Nilay Patel?

  And far too far away from the mic.

• 2:12Speaker 02

  I am.

• 2:12Nilay Patel?

  Get up on it. Yep. Both of you.

• 2:14Speaker 01

  Get up on it.

• 2:15Speaker 02

  That's great.

• 2:16Nilay Patel?

  Micah, you might know from his frequent travels around the country. We put him on a plane once a week now so that he can get hot Spotify scoops. Who's over in the corner?

• 2:27Speaker 03

  Is this a corner? I guess. Hi, I'm Sam.

• 2:29Nilay Patel?

  I mean, Sam, you're literally like in a lumberyard right now.

• 2:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, what's going on over there? You're on a train track.

• 2:39Nilay Patel?

  For the home listener.

• 2:40Speaker 03

  Welcome to the Vergecast.

• 2:41Nilay Patel?

  The audio listener, Sam.

• 2:42Speaker 01

  Are you building some kind of gazebo?

• 2:44Speaker 03

  I was building a, I don't even know.

• 2:46Nilay Patel?

  Sam was, if you're just, if you're listening to this, I want you to close your eyes wherever you are, unless you're in a car.

• 2:54Nilay Patel?

  And imagine Sam playing a two by four, like a guitar, because that's what he was just doing.

• 3:00Nilay Patel?

  So really cool look for Sam in the hype corner. But yeah, let's get right into it. It is, let's say it's the May 21st. That's the thing that I'm supposed to do. Say the date.

• 3:11Speaker 03

  That's the date of today.

• 3:12Nilay Patel?

  That's today.

• 3:13Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 3:13Speaker 01

  Thursday, May 21st, the year 2015 of our Lord.

• 3:17Nilay Patel?

  Oh my God, the year 2015.

• 3:19Speaker 03

  I've just, I've seen people say that they like hearing when we do the week of May 18th.

• 3:26Nilay Patel?

  This is like an endless debate.

• 3:27Speaker 01

  That's incredibly confusing and I disagree with that wholeheartedly.

• 3:32Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, it's too much.

• 3:32Speaker 01

  I'm vetoing it right now, right this second.

• 3:35Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, well.

• 3:38Nilay Patel?

  Well, no one cares as much as you do, so we're picking what we want. No, what, do you prefer the date, the, you clearly don't prefer the week of date.

• 3:47Speaker 01

  Let's talk about Spotify.

• 3:50Speaker 01

  Right?

• 3:51Nilay Patel?

  I'm so bad at talking about, at starting this show. It is, it is just such, like, I believe that I have other talents, right? That there are things I'm good at. But then there's like, the crushing realization that I'm really bad at this one thing that I do in front of tens of thousands of people once a week.

• 4:09Speaker 01

  It's good. No, there's something to be said for warming people up, like getting them used to the sound of your voice, your.

• 4:14Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, that's like what a hype man does. Like, I feel like I should leave and like, somebody else, alright, we're all warmed up. The time for some Spotify, describe, ready to go? Sammy, take it away!

• 4:24Speaker 01

  Oh my God.

• 4:26Nilay Patel?

  All right. So a huge week in news, actually, and I was not joking about Spotify news. And neither was Emily, who's deadly serious at all times. But Spotify had an event this week where they announced podcast integration in Spotify. Where they announced videos in Spotify. That's a little bit weird. And then Micah broke a huge story by publishing Spotify's contract with Sony Music, which I think is where we should start because that was honestly, I think, one of our biggest stories of the week, month, year. And as we go sort of into the second half of the year, when Apple launches its streaming service, Jay-Z does whatever he's going to do with Tidal, Taylor Swift does whatever she's going to do in this world. There's so much action in the music industry right now that that contract is the first kind of set of specifics that we've ever seen.

• 5:10Nilay Patel?

  So, Micah, why don't you walk us through it a little bit?

• 5:12Speaker 02

  So we got our hands on a 42-page contract between Sony Music and Spotify that was signed back in 2011, before they came to the States. And it shows how the label structured their deals, how much money they're taking from Spotify that may not be going to artists. And it really shows why Spotify can never turn a profit. I mean, they're not going to do it at all with these kind of deals.

• 5:35Nilay Patel?

  Right. I think Ben Popper was pointing out that Spotify always makes more money and always loses more money.

• 5:40Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 5:41Nilay Patel?

  Walk us through sort of that mechanic.

• 5:43Speaker 02

  So first, they pay advances before they get anything to get access to the catalog of the music label. They'll pay it in advance. This one, they paid 25 million for two years and 17.5 for a third option layer.

• 5:56Nilay Patel?

  And this is all on Sony's? Just Sony's whole catalog?

• 5:59Speaker 02

  So this is just for Sony. It's not independent. This is not Universal, Warner. They're going to pay probably a hundred million dollars in advances. And this was when they were a very small company. So now that's going to be more. They're renegotiating some deals now. They're going to spend probably a couple hundred million.

• 6:15Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 6:15Speaker 02

  Just to get access. Um, then royalties break out royalties are still.

• 6:20Nilay Patel?

  Wait, so let me just set this up at the top level. The, the argument in the music industry right now is basically who gets paid what. Right. And the argument is breaking down because we've gone from buying, I don't know, records and CDs. Which were like physical objects and you like had to buy them to a world of like basically music everywhere all the time.

• 6:41Speaker 01

  Just having a pass to certain music, like a subscription.

• 6:45Nilay Patel?

  A subscription, but it's like, it's also just like on YouTube, right? It's like, it's just around us. Like music has gone from physical objects that we buy to like. They just everywhere constantly all the time because of the internet. And what is that like destroyed the music industry, but also revitalized it. And I think in another kind of important way, right? Like there are more. Bieber stories in this world where like he's a kid on YouTube who got discovered on YouTube because he has access to like a broader community.

• 7:10Speaker 01

  And music is just way more integrated in our lives because we can listen to it all the time and we can listen to whatever we want all the time. And like. I think you see that just in the music itself, like artists that younger artists that grew up. Uh, since the age of file sharing and the access to having everything like in influences and music are are cross pollinated all over the place. Because nobody is limited anymore. Everybody can listen to everything.

• 7:33Nilay Patel?

  Uh, which is by the way, kind of exactly the argument Taylor Swift made around this time last year. When she pulled her stuff out of Spotify and said music should not be free. It was like around this time last year in the Wall Street Journal. I, I wrote, I was not at The Verge. I was at vox.com and I wrote a piece. Called Taylor Swift Doesn't Understand Supply and Demand, which was, uh, which is basically like. You can't in a world of like infinite music supply. It's really hard to say for the average artist, my stuff should be expensive. It is very easy for Taylor Swift to say her stuff should be expensive.

• 8:05Speaker 01

  Taylor Swift's argument for, because she did not say that music should not be free. She said that certain kinds of music should not be free.

• 8:12Speaker 03

  Neel, this was November, by the way.

• 8:14Nilay Patel?

  It was November.

• 8:14Speaker 03

  Yeah, it wasn't, it wasn't a year ago. It was November.

• 8:16Speaker 01

  Well, when she, she dropped out of Spotify in the summer, she wrote an op ed for Wall Street Journal. Those are two different events.

• 8:22Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think that was in July or August.

• 8:23Speaker 01

  The resident expert on everything that Taylor Swift does and I know what month. And when and what her stipple portrait looked like in the Wall Street Journal.

• 8:32Nilay Patel?

  That was definitely Taylor Swift dropped out of Spotify and wrote the Wall Street Journal. Wait.

• 8:36Speaker 01

  No, no, no, no.

• 8:37Nilay Patel?

  She did the journal thing a year ago.

• 8:38Speaker 01

  In the summer, yeah.

• 8:39Nilay Patel?

  And then she dropped out in November.

• 8:40Speaker 01

  In November, yes.

• 8:41Speaker 02

  Yeah, she wrote in July.

• 8:43Nilay Patel?

  Okay.

• 8:44Speaker 01

  I could have told you that, but it's cool.

• 8:46Nilay Patel?

  Just blowing up Emily's spot, dude.

• 8:48Speaker 01

  I did an entire podcast. I feel like what was probably an entire podcast about that, that op ed. Whoops.

• 8:54Nilay Patel?

  You could, like, you could talk about that for days.

• 8:56Speaker 01

  No, it was because what she was arguing was that she, the kind of musical artist that she is, and like by extension, I guess, people like, like John Mayer, or people with guitars who, who play instruments and, and, and create a narrative around themselves.

• 9:15Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 9:16Speaker 01

  That that is, that relationship that they have with fans is something that fans will pay for to continue getting the story and building their relationship.

• 9:25Nilay Patel?

  Building a mystery.

• 9:26Speaker 01

  Whereas like, and she, you know.

• 9:27Nilay Patel?

  You're really just letting that building a mystery joke go.

• 9:29Speaker 01

  Oh, well, yeah. I mean, no, we'll talk about that some more.

• 9:35Speaker 01

  But, but, and, and, and really kind of being more disparaging about the idea of, of, of one-hit wonders and, and, and novelty songs and stuff like that, which, I mean, and then she goes and releases her first pop album, but goes out of her way to say that this is not evil pop. Like, it's very, it's very, it's very Taylor Swift-centric, like her view of the world.

• 9:59Nilay Patel?

  Well, I, I, I think that's like, that, that conflict was not resolved at that time.

• 10:05Speaker 01

  No.

• 10:05Nilay Patel?

  The conflict was, we're not gonna let anybody stream 1989. You're gonna have to go buy it. And Taylor Swift commands an army of fans.

• 10:16Nilay Patel?

  And they went and bought it because they want her new stuff.

• 10:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 10:18Nilay Patel?

  But that is, and then she's been releasing videos off it. Bad Blood just came out. And that did not prove that music should cost money. It proved that people will pay for Taylor Swift.

• 10:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 10:30Nilay Patel?

  Right? Which is a great thing because she has a great career and that's cool. But it's not great for like, other artists. Particularly smaller indie artists, which is kind of where Tidal launched a few months ago. And they like, that's weird because that's just artists wanting to get paid too. The same message as Taylor Swift.

• 10:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 10:49Nilay Patel?

  Being like, hey, the future of streaming, we've launched our own streaming service. This is like Jay-Z and Kanye and all these people. So that we can get paid. And then the reaction was, but you're already rich.

• 11:00Speaker 01

  Right.

• 11:00Nilay Patel?

  And that it just really, the disconnect between Taylor Swift saying, you should pay me for CDs or album downloads and not pay me for, because I can't, I don't understand the business of streaming. To now where we are, which is the consumer is overwhelmingly going to pick streaming, right? They're going to pick YouTube, they're going to pick Spotify, they're going to pick Apple, whatever. They're not going to pick downloads every time.

• 11:21Speaker 01

  Right.

• 11:22Nilay Patel?

  What are the economics of that?

• 11:24Speaker 01

  Well, and, and it's all, it's also so much more in the interest of a smaller artist. Because, I mean, nobody makes the most money in their career from album sales, regardless of if you're streaming it or not. Nobody's going to do that. But especially for smaller artists, that's going to be miniscule, that's going to be nothing. You're going to make your, your money from touring, from selling tickets to like getting gigs places or getting licensed somewhere for like a commercial. And, and that's going to come about because your music was available to a bunch of people. And somebody who is making a commercial for Charmin heard it on Spotify and was like, oh, that's a good jingle for this commercial.

• 12:00Nilay Patel?

  Oh, my God.

• 12:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 12:01Nilay Patel?

  That is the darkest timeline.

• 12:03Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, no, that's, that's everything now. That's indie music now. Like, that is independent music.

• 12:09Nilay Patel?

  The toilet paper people found me on Spotify, I'm rich.

• 12:12Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 12:13Nilay Patel?

  So the, the broad strokes of how these deals have worked, and this is what Mike was saying earlier about advances, is Spotify pays a company like Sony $20 million for access to Sony's entire library. None of that money at that time, we don't know, goes to artists. Because what Sony doesn't have is the information Spotify will then provide them, which is who listened to what when.

• 12:34Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 12:35Nilay Patel?

  And Spotify will swear up and down that they don't pay per stream because the numbers per stream are so miniscule that it makes them look like garbage. But we looked at the contract and they kind of do pay per stream.

• 12:48Speaker 02

  Yeah, sometimes.

• 12:49Nilay Patel?

  Sometimes.

• 12:50Speaker 02

  Yeah, for the free tier.

• 12:52Nilay Patel?

  For the free.

• 12:52Speaker 02

  Yeah, and it's really low. I mean, it's like 0.2 cents, it's really bad.

• 12:57Nilay Patel?

  You know, it's 0.02 cents.

• 12:58Speaker 02

  Oh. It's even worse.

• 13:00Nilay Patel?

  So you just see like, it, we were reading this contract. Let me paint this picture for you. Imagine Mike and I in a room. That's it, that's the whole picture.

• 13:10Speaker 01

  It looks a lot like this. Well, I was there for part of that. No, never mind. I won't.

• 13:15Nilay Patel?

  No, you can be in the room.

• 13:16Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 13:18Nilay Patel?

  Everyone's in the room. No, it was me and Micah holding. Can I say this? I'm gonna say this.

• 13:24Speaker 02

  Say it.

• 13:25Nilay Patel?

  We got this contract. I think a lot of people think it came out of the Sony hack, but that's not.

• 13:29Speaker 02

  No.

• 13:30Nilay Patel?

  Micah, Micah's like, did some like dogged reporting and like, straight up, old school Woodward and Bernstein style.

• 13:37Speaker 01

  Running all around Manhattan, Haley Habs, being like.

• 13:41Nilay Patel?

  Meeting in like parking lots, shows up at our office, like the Verge office, where literally like, this never happens. He's got 186 pages.

• 13:49Speaker 01

  Paper, real pulp, like tree guts.

• 13:53Nilay Patel?

  It was crazy. We were all like, what is that? Where did that come from? It's like binder clips. It was like old school. So we're like all reading this contract together, like, like a book, like a novel, like over each other's shoulders.

• 14:06Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 14:06Nilay Patel?

  And we get to the math and Mike and I are just like standing in front of a whiteboard. Desperately trying to figure out this math because it's so complicated.

• 14:15Speaker 02

  It really is.

• 14:16Nilay Patel?

  And it all works out to where there's Spotify, it looks like such a simple thing, right? It's like, here's some music. Here's this interface. And behind it is this endlessly complex layer of deals and negotiations and shady garbage.

• 14:34Speaker 02

  Yeah, and clauses.

• 14:35Speaker 01

  And I mean.

• 14:36Nilay Patel?

  Words, commas.

• 14:38Speaker 01

  Just looking at the numbers on their own too, when you look at like the, the deal where they get, what's it called? Where they buy just the rights to have the music from the 25 million?

• 14:47Nilay Patel?

  That's the advance.

• 14:48Speaker 01

  The advance, yeah. So you look at a number like that, that's so huge. And then you look at these like laughably small, like fractions of fractions of pennies. And you're like, how does this exist in the same?

• 14:58Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 14:59Speaker 01

  Like transaction. It just doesn't, it's completely, yeah, it's bananas.

• 15:04Nilay Patel?

  But what's crazy is like that was, that's the old contract. Right now, we believe that, that, that, you know, they're like basically just like waiting to renegotiate a new contract. So everyone's like riding dirty. No one has a deal to like any of this music and they're just paying whatever. And it seems like the artists are definitely getting screwed.

• 15:24Speaker 02

  I mean, that's.

• 15:24Nilay Patel?

  It does, and it's unclear if, it really is sort of unclear whether it's Spotify doing it or the labels doing it. Cause we don't have that last piece of information.

• 15:32Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 15:32Nilay Patel?

  Well, we need to get, you need to get like YouTube's contract.

• 15:37Nilay Patel?

  Like you need to call up Bono.

• 15:38Speaker 02

  Yeah, okay.

• 15:39Nilay Patel?

  That's your next move.

• 15:40Speaker 02

  Sure, add his number.

• 15:41Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, who doesn't?

• 15:43Speaker 02

  It's on everyone's iPhone.

• 15:45Nilay Patel?

  Bono's on your phone, right?

• 15:48Nilay Patel?

  Anyway.

• 15:49Speaker 01

  But we're pretty positive that the artists are not aware of the fact that like half of their money is being taken off the top before anything.

• 15:56Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 15:57Speaker 01

  Right, yeah.

• 15:58Nilay Patel?

  And then, and then, I mean, this is like the fun drama, and then Sony flipped out. Yeah, like they sent us not one, not two.

• 16:05Speaker 01

  Poor Sony.

• 16:06Nilay Patel?

  But four cease and desist letters asserting their copyright in the contract, which is amazing. Because what are they worried that, that like people will copy?

• 16:16Speaker 01

  They're beautiful proof. This seems like a pretty good idea.

• 16:19Nilay Patel?

  Oh man, this is a great movie.

• 16:24Nilay Patel?

  This section on, on annual true up of royalties.

• 16:27Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 16:27Nilay Patel?

  There's some real character development here. Like what are they paying? So they, four cease and desists, which is amazing. And again, that claim, I tweeted it last night and some of the copyright lawyers I like tweet with, thought that was all very amusing. Uh, so we, we, because it's not worth fighting, it was up on our site for so long and I'm sure you could find it on the internet if you need to. We, um, uh, we took it off our site.

• 16:49Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 16:50Nilay Patel?

  So Micah, but I still have the hard copy. And I'll never, I'll never forget it. But so that's like, that all sets up.

• 17:03Nilay Patel?

  Kind of this moment that's about to happen in the music industry, right? Like.

• 17:07Speaker 03

  What is that moment?

• 17:09Nilay Patel?

  It's just the turn from we're buying albums on iTunes.

• 17:13Speaker 02

  To everything.

• 17:14Speaker 03

  To everything is streaming.

• 17:14Nilay Patel?

  Everything is streaming.

• 17:15Speaker 03

  It's, yeah. It's one, you pay one, pay a monthly fee and you get a catchall, depending on what service.

• 17:21Speaker 01

  You pay several monthly fees if you want to actually.

• 17:23Speaker 03

  If you want everything, right?

• 17:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 17:25Speaker 03

  Right.

• 17:26Speaker 01

  And that's, I think.

• 17:27Speaker 03

  Or you could just keep using YouTube and listen to music at 480p quality. If you don't care about, you know, listening to music in lossless.

• 17:35Speaker 02

  Which is probably what's gonna happen.

• 17:36Speaker 01

  But like, what do you do when you're out and about?

• 17:38Speaker 03

  No, I know, I'm mostly kidding, but yeah.

• 17:40Speaker 01

  I mean, that's the main argument for me about not using YouTube. Like, that's fine if you're in your office just wanting to bring up a song.

• 17:47Speaker 03

  Right.

• 17:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 17:48Speaker 03

  It's way easier to have everything in the bucket versus going after everything.

• 17:51Speaker 01

  And there's like, there's not a way you can take off ads from YouTube, is there?

• 17:55Nilay Patel?

  Well, you have to buy YouTube Music Pass or sign up for Google Play Music.

• 17:58Speaker 03

  Or use.

• 17:59Speaker 02

  Or get ad block.

• 18:00Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, or use ad block. Or use that. But every single week I sit here and complain about music services and every single week somebody tells me to sign up for Google Play Music. And it's like, I have it. I just, people of the Vergecast, I have Google Play Music. It's not very good.

• 18:14Speaker 02

  No.

• 18:14Nilay Patel?

  Like, I just, I'm just gonna say it out loud. It's fine. It's, it's, it's, it's a seven. There you go. That's, that's the number I've given it.

• 18:22Speaker 01

  Well, I think the weird thing about where it's going as far as there being different services that, like, these different groups of A-list music artists are kind of, like, they're a part of this team now. Like, we've definitely seen that, like, the optics of that, at least with Tidal, just like, we're Team Tidal, like, you know? Just imagine, like, Coldplay, like, Daft Punk, Madonna in the same room, like.

• 18:50Speaker 01

  And then, you know, like, I, I forget who the, like, who the Beats artists are. I mean, right now, there's the, like, now everybody's sending around this thing of Kanye being on, um, on Beats or with Apple.

• 19:03Speaker 01

  And it's really funny because it's starting to mirror the way the old studio system

• 19:08Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 19:08Speaker 01

  looked in Hollywood, which was

• 19:10Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 19:10Speaker 01

  deemed like completely illegal and anti constitutional in the 30s or the 40s, I think.

• 19:18Nilay Patel?

  Well, that was like super vertically. I mean, it's weird here because at the end of the day, all these companies have to somehow kind of play nice with Apple, right?

• 19:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 19:27Nilay Patel?

  They have, they have to deliver an app onto the iPhone. Like you can't have an Android only music service and like really see it succeed.

• 19:35Speaker 01

  Well, that's why when, when the reports were coming out about the title app just like dropping off in the second week, I was like, well, you're getting it on the iTunes store. It's in their interest to like fudge that a little bit, maybe. I don't know. I wouldn't trust them necessarily.

• 19:48Nilay Patel?

  Right. And then we had like a, the, uh, two weeks ago, Micah had many, many quotes from music industry people saying like, this sucks for us because we put an app in the iTunes store and you can't actually sign up for our service there without us having to pay Apple an extra 30% on top.

• 20:05Speaker 02

  Which raises the subscription prices through the app.

• 20:08Nilay Patel?

  Right. Or, and I think this is the future for all of these services where you do have a service that's like mostly streaming, but Beyonce wants to drop an album and you can buy it. So it's all in the same place, which is, I think a great model, right? Like mostly streaming, but some artists are like, you have to buy my stuff. And I'm like, cool, but at least it's all in the same place. Those services get dinged at 30% too.

• 20:29Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 20:29Nilay Patel?

  So Apple's going to build the first unified service. I mean, I, it would, they'd be dumb not to. Where you can buy the stuff and you can stream the stuff and everyone else will be at a huge disadvantage on their platform. And like, that's rough. And like that studio model, that thing you're saying about, they used to be vertically integrated. So they would shoot, they would hire their own actors that were in their own movies. They would shoot their stuffs on their own studio.

• 20:49Speaker 01

  And they'd release it in their own theaters.

• 20:51Nilay Patel?

  Right. And it was totally vertically integrated. And you go like, well, that looks so much like what Apple's about to do with music, especially if they have Jimmy Iovine running around signing artists to exclusive contracts.

• 21:00Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 21:00Nilay Patel?

  I cannot wait until Kanye starts making Elvis movies.

• 21:06Nilay Patel?

  Like, that's the future, isn't it? Like, Kanye goes to Hawaii?

• 21:10Speaker 01

  He's already been to Hawaii.

• 21:14Nilay Patel?

  Like a remake of Blue Christmas with Kanye.

• 21:17Speaker 02

  The biggest complaint about the App Store I heard from other streaming services and people in the industry was, Apple doesn't let them point users back to the website where they can get it for cheaper. That's against the rules, so.

• 21:29Speaker 01

  Oh, wow.

• 21:30Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 21:31Speaker 01

  You mean back to the, that label website or back to the artist website?

• 21:35Speaker 02

  Yeah, back to Spotify.

• 21:37Speaker 01

  Oh, oh, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 21:38Speaker 02

  You can sign up for it at spotify.com for cheaper.

• 21:40Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah, it's, I don't know. I, I, like I said, I've said before, I feel like on this podcast about title, or maybe it was something else, I don't know. I, Spotify is what I use right now, but it's like by no means like easy.

• 21:57Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 21:57Speaker 01

  Nor do I like it particularly. It's just the first thing that came out that was like that, so, but I don't really have any loyalty or faith to it.

• 22:04Nilay Patel?

  Somewhere, the CEO of Audio is like weeping in a corner.

• 22:08Speaker 03

  Yeah, what is Audio? What's gonna happen to Audio?

• 22:10Nilay Patel?

  Hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on.

• 22:11Speaker 01

  Oh, let's talk about Groove Shark first.

• 22:13Nilay Patel?

  Wait, we're gonna make a little bit of money.

• 22:17Speaker 03

  Do the dance.

• 22:18Nilay Patel?

  We're gonna do the money dance.

• 22:22Nilay Patel?

  This episode of Vergecast is brought to you by Lynda.com, the online learning platform with over 3,000 on-demand video courses to help strengthen your business, technology, and creative skills. For a free 10-day trial, visit lynda.com/vergecast. That's L-Y-N-D-A dot com slash vergecast. Lynda.com is for problem solvers, for the curious, for the people who want to make things happen. Maybe you want to master Excel, you want to learn negotiation tactics, you want to build a website, you want to boost your Photoshop skills, Micah, looking at you, buddy. Go to lynda.com and feed your curious mind. Here are some courses worth checking out. You can program the Internet of Things with iOS, you can explore the Internet of Things, you can learn how to program those things using iOS, like Webotech, Appliance Sensors, and Programmable Hardware. You can learn Excel 2011 for the Mac. Sam, I know that that really

• 23:04Speaker 03

  It's on my to-do list, actually the top of it.

• 23:06Nilay Patel?

  Learn how to manage and analyze large amounts of data with the sorting, filtering, stucil and database analysis features of Excel 2011. Or you can design a data visualization where you can learn how to build a data visualization in Illustrator, Emily's favorite program, using scripting for speed, accuracy, and repeatability. With a Lynda.com membership, you can watch and learn from top experts who are passionate about teaching. You can stream thousands of video courses on demand, and you can learn on your own schedule. Courses are structured so you can watch from start to finish. You can consume them in bite-sized pieces. You can use course transcripts to follow along. You can search for an answer. You can skip around the video. You can take notes as you go and refer to them later. It's basically anarchy. You can download tutorials to watch on the go, including access on an iOS or Android device. You can create and save playlists of courses that you want to watch to customize your learning path, because an uncustomized

• 23:50Nilay Patel?

  learning path is for busters. Your Lynda.com membership will give you unlimited access to training on hundreds of topics all for one flat rate. So whether you're looking to become an industry expert, you're passionate about a hobby, or you just want to learn something new, I want you to visit lynda.com/forgcast and sign up for a free 10-day trial. I also want to keep talking at this register of my voice.

• 24:10Speaker 01

  That was really impressive.

• 24:12Nilay Patel?

  This is the sales register. That's L-Y-N-D-A.com/forgcast.

• 24:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 24:19Nilay Patel?

  What? I'm getting better at this.

• 24:20Speaker 03

  Yeah, that was good.

• 24:21Nilay Patel?

  Yeah?

• 24:21Speaker 03

  It was long, detailed.

• 24:23Nilay Patel?

  I was into it.

• 24:24Speaker 03

  No, the ad read was long and detailed.

• 24:27Nilay Patel?

  I hate you.

• 24:27Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 24:28Nilay Patel?

  All right. Micah, do you want to run us through the new features of Spotify this week a little bit?

• 24:32Speaker 02

  Sure. Let's see what they did.

• 24:34Nilay Patel?

  Or Sammy. You know it's up.

• 24:37Speaker 03

  It's actually pretty simple, yet important. Spotify had an event in New York. It was kind of a weird one.

• 24:45Nilay Patel?

  It was kind of a weird one.

• 24:47Speaker 03

  Weird. It was weird because they had a lot of, sort of, I wouldn't say they're random, but they had a lot of characters onstage, including the girls from Broad City. So Spotify introduced podcast integration. They also introduced video, so you can, like, watch bite-sized clips. I don't think it's, like, full episodes of anything. It's just, like, content clips of things.

• 25:10Nilay Patel?

  It's really weird. That's actually weird.

• 25:12Speaker 03

  And then they, the third thing was this new integration with running. So your running tempo, you can match music to that and like pump yourself up with Spotify music based on how fast you're running. And they, from what I can tell, didn't give too many details. For example, I'm a Spotify premium subscriber and am I going to see ads on these videos? I don't know.

• 25:39Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 25:40Speaker 03

  Also, they didn't really give any detail of the podcast situation. Am I going to be able to get any and every podcast? Are they curating podcasts? I don't know. Also, where's the update? I don't have it on my computer. I don't have it on my phone.

• 25:56Nilay Patel?

  Spotify updates on the computer are, I would say, the worst. And I know I have harshed on Spotify in the show a lot.

• 26:02Speaker 03

  Can I just say, since we had that amazing debate on this Vergecast, there have been multiple people asking us to go at it again about Spotify. They love it. They love the harsh debates that we talk about.

• 26:12Nilay Patel?

  Look, if you, why do you come to the Vergecast? You come for sparkling banter. You come for flawless introductions, ad reads that draw money directly out of your pocket into various companies' bank accounts. And you come for real talk about Spotify, which is garbage. Just put it out there.

• 26:30Speaker 03

  It's not garbage. But yeah, so that's Spotify news. It'll take, again, whenever these, I feel like whenever these kind of news updates and big events happen for these tech companies, it takes a while for the normals and for the information to dilute amongst the masses. So we'll see how people respond to this. I bet you that most people didn't even know Spotify had an event. So yeah, it seems cool. As someone who doesn't listen to podcasts regularly, because I don't, I just don't. I don't really have a reason why I've just.

• 27:10Nilay Patel?

  Do you have any respect for competitors, man? You gotta get out there. You gotta learn some podcasts, like trips and tricks.

• 27:15Speaker 03

  Well, so now I think that I'm going to start listening to podcasts because they will be embedded in Spotify, which I use every day.

• 27:23Speaker 01

  There's like an app on your phone.

• 27:25Speaker 03

  Called podcasts. I know, it's just, I don't want to open iTunes.

• 27:29Speaker 01

  It's not, it's not through iTunes.

• 27:31Speaker 03

  It's all through the podcast app. See, I don't know any of this.

• 27:34Speaker 01

  I don't know.

• 27:35Speaker 03

  I just, I don't do podcasts.

• 27:36Speaker 01

  I, I mean, I, well, as far as the content that they're gonna have, isn't it, um, they're like several networks, podcast networks. Was it, it wasn't Nerdist or was it something else?

• 27:45Speaker 03

  It was Nerdist.

• 27:46Speaker 01

  Nerdist, yeah, Nerdist is gonna-

• 27:48Nilay Patel?

  Radiolab.

• 27:49Speaker 01

  Right, yeah.

• 27:50Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 27:50Speaker 01

  Is that all WNYC or is that just Radiolab?

• 27:53Nilay Patel?

  It just says Radiolab.

• 27:54Speaker 03

  And like, will we be on there? Like, can you get the Verge Cast in Spotify?

• 27:59Speaker 01

  Doubt it, right?

• 28:00Nilay Patel?

  Oh, it says WNYC here too. So it must be both. Um, well, I mean, suit, like, there's gotta be a suit upstairs somewhere is working on that deal, like-

• 28:08Speaker 03

  Right, and that's, that's why I brought the point before. Is this a syndication of just every podcast indie or popular? Or are, is Spotify, I mean Spotify is the gatekeeper in this case?

• 28:17Speaker 01

  Right.

• 28:18Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, but I, like, there's like a really fundamental, like, who cares if Spotify is a gatekeeper? Because what we have learned is that their management of that gate has done nothing but lose money over time. You know, it's like, they're not wielding any power. They're just driving themselves slowly and slowly deeper into the red.

• 28:36Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 28:37Nilay Patel?

  Emily, you were saying something about the running. There's running features, right? They like added more features to the app too.

• 28:41Speaker 01

  That seems really silly and like a waste of whatever megabytes that will add to the app and take up on my phone where I should be keeping actual music like I can listen to on the train. Um, yeah, no, that's weird. I, as somebody who uses Spotify a lot while working out, um, I don't want Spotify to match my tempo. Well, like, that's, that's a really, really bizarre and specific thing to want from a streaming service. I don't know. Aren't you supposed to play loud, loud and fast things so you'll run as quickly as the music? Not the opposite way. Anyway, that's my hot take about running and Spotify.

• 29:19Nilay Patel?

  You want Spotify to just start slowly increasing the tempo?

• 29:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, exactly. Like, I gotta catch up to it. But, um, yeah, that's, and then, how, what does that even sound like? Like, all of your songs are sort of like, will it pitch it up? That would actually be kind of amazing if the faster you ran, like, you could be listening to a slow jam and then you start running and it's like chipmunk.

• 29:39Nilay Patel?

  Oh, my god.

• 29:40Speaker 01

  That would be amazing. Never mind, I take it all back. This is a great idea.

• 29:44Nilay Patel?

  Yes, finally a version of Turn Off The Lights I can run to.

• 29:50Nilay Patel?

  Teddy, you did it again.

• 29:52Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 29:52Nilay Patel?

  There's like, Spotify ads. People like sprinting to Teddy Pendigrats. That's what you need. I like Spotify and Sam and I are just gonna start.

• 30:03Speaker 03

  Here we go. I'm ready.

• 30:05Nilay Patel?

  They don't, they don't do anything.

• 30:08Speaker 03

  What doesn't do anything?

• 30:09Nilay Patel?

  This is the most they've ever done in that app to like make it better. And like, we're sitting here saying the features are like laughable and stupid.

• 30:15Speaker 03

  Yeah, I mean, you guys have your feelings about Spotify.

• 30:17Nilay Patel?

  What are you, you're gonna sit around watching clips of Vice videos in your Spotify app?

• 30:22Speaker 03

  Me? No, absolutely not.

• 30:23Nilay Patel?

  Who?

• 30:25Speaker 03

  Teens?

• 30:25Nilay Patel?

  You, but that's why you're here. That's literally why we put you at that desk.

• 30:29Speaker 01

  If it's a, if it's a suggestion content type thing where it pops up and it's like, oh, that's something I'm interested in. Or that's a music video by an artist I like and I can watch it right here on this thing I'm already about to listen to their song on. Is that useful?

• 30:41Speaker 02

  Yeah, but they're not getting music videos.

• 30:42Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 30:43Nilay Patel?

  But so Title is doing music videos and concerts.

• 30:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:46Nilay Patel?

  This is what I mean. Like when I say we're in a moment, I think the tech industry is completely, in the media industry, like next to it. Like they push and pull on each other in like, I don't know. That's why we like have an entertainment editor at The Verge, right? Like the media industry and the tech industry completely influence each other. And like for a decade, the tech industry drove the entertainment industry, right? It was in char, like Steve Jobs basically was like in charge of the entertainment industry. He was like, we're gonna do iTunes, we're gonna do iPod, we're gonna blow up the music industry.

• 31:16Speaker 03

  And everyone listened to them.

• 31:18Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 31:18Speaker 03

  Well, with a struggle.

• 31:19Nilay Patel?

  It was a struggle. And then he was like, well, now we're adding video to the iPod. Now we're doing an Apple TV. Now we're doing streaming. Here are all these services. Here's all this, like basically just organized it. And then Reed Hastings came along with Netflix and was like, and here's the next move. And that changed. And now like Woody Allen is like, why do I have an Amazon deal?

• 31:34Speaker 03

  Oh my God, remember that?

• 31:36Speaker 01

  No.

• 31:37Nilay Patel?

  No, so there's an interview.

• 31:38Speaker 03

  Totally forgot that that was happening.

• 31:40Nilay Patel?

  So there's an interview in Billboard. It's like Woody Allen at Cannes, basically. And they're like, tell us about your life, Woody Allen. You're 79. He's like saying all these things.

• 31:48Speaker 01

  I know he doesn't watch Mad Men.

• 31:49Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, he doesn't watch Mad Men. He's like, I don't have a TV. I don't care. Like I don't care about digital. It doesn't save me any time because it just, like even when I shot on film, it was just somebody else doing the work.

• 32:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 32:02Nilay Patel?

  He's like, whatever, digital's great. He's like, I signed this deal with Amazon because they like begged and begged and begged. And they're like, we just need six half hours or whatever. And I was like, it'll be like six half hours of a movie. But now it's like, oh, that sucks. I don't want to do that. It's like an amazing, he's like, super candid. He's like, I don't know what a streaming service is. I don't watch TV. I don't know why they want me to do this, but I'm doing it. God, I hope that's worth the money they're paying me.

• 32:24Nilay Patel?

  And it's like, wow, the whole industry has changed, like to the point where Amazon, nobody, like, I have Amazon Prime. Do you ever watch Amazon Prime streaming?

• 32:31Speaker 01

  No.

• 32:32Nilay Patel?

  Did you watch Transparent? Like, that's the one that we're watching, right? But like, I had to like, do a bunch of stuff to go watch it.

• 32:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 32:40Nilay Patel?

  It was like, I've got to find this new set of apps. It's not just like Netflix. But anyway, so that was like, the tech industry owning the media moment. And I think this, we're about to be in a place where the media industry completely dominates the tech industry. Because the best user experience for all of these services is not gonna pay the media industry the right way.

• 33:00Speaker 03

  Wait, what do you mean the media industry will dominate the tech industry?

• 33:04Nilay Patel?

  They're not gonna give anybody the deals, right? Like, you know, they came out this week that Apple was working on a TV, but they dropped it. And the, the Wall Street Journal report was like, um, they couldn't find a compelling hardware feature. So they first, they tried to make a perfectly clear TV that displayed an image using lasers, which just sounds like-

• 33:22Speaker 03

  Apple.

• 33:23Nilay Patel?

  It's, no, it sounds like Tim Cook called the Wall Street Journal reporter and just like spun off some bullshit. You know, it's like, we were trying to make a TV. It was gonna be awesome. Like, it was gonna-

• 33:31Speaker 01

  Have lasers.

• 33:32Nilay Patel?

  Lasers is like perfectly clear. Johnny Ive smoked a bunch of dope and came up with it. It was the best. You would have loved it, but ah, wasn't, wasn't Apple enough. Like, it's like, you could say anything you wanted.

• 33:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 33:43Nilay Patel?

  Right? Um, then, then they were gonna have one with like a FaceTime camera in it that like watched you all the time. Another like Steve, like, uh, Tim Cook, like doobie special, you know, like, they're like, we tried all these features.

• 33:56Speaker 03

  Doobie special.

• 33:56Nilay Patel?

  Can you imagine? That should be a podcast. Just Tim Cook getting like totally high and being like, what could we do? Just like gazing over the Apple campus. Um, anyway, and then they're like, we couldn't find a hardware differentiator good enough to justify a TV. And that's a year ago. And that was like, if you just look at the timeline, that's when they started talking about the watch and like watch rumors started. And the reason is because indeed and I had a big argument about it and he put it up on the site. You can't make a TV unless you can fix the software of the TV, which gets you to content. So if you don't control HBO, like if you don't get to write the HBO app, you don't get to get Game of Thrones and HBO isn't going to let you write their app for them.

• 34:41Nilay Patel?

  I mean, they they kind of do on the Apple TV, but like, that's a deal. You have to make the deal. And so you have to get deal after deal after deal after deal to deliver the right user experience. And right now, the media industry knows that they don't have to do that anymore. And that's like crazy. That's Taylor Swift being like, you know what? Screw you, Spotify. Like, I'm not giving you the deal, even though most of her fans would probably prefer to get her stuff in Spotify.

• 35:05Speaker 03

  Right.

• 35:06Nilay Patel?

  And like, I don't know. Like, when you talk to artists and labels and other people in the industry, like, do they care anymore? Like, it just seems like there's so much power.

• 35:14Speaker 01

  No, it's nothing that ever comes up anymore. It's just like, it's just sort of, I don't know. I mean, and I'm usually not talking to like artists at that level. So, I mean, they, like artists that I talk to usually just care about getting their stuff licensed, getting money in other ways, getting, getting, you know, having good festival placement and stuff like that, like not, not whether or not their stuff is streaming. I think most people just cut that up. It's just like a loss.

• 35:39Nilay Patel?

  That's so crazy.

• 35:40Speaker 01

  Regardless, you know, like.

• 35:42Nilay Patel?

  I mean, but like the festival thing and like the, I actually was, I was watching Inside Amy Schumer on Amazon Prime streaming. So I used the service.

• 35:50Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 35:50Nilay Patel?

  It hooked me in with transparent and then I used it to watch something else. And there was just a joke about, like, it's a joke. It's like a guy who dies, who died in a Weezer themed cruise ship. But it's like, that joke is funny because it's so painfully real.

• 36:03Speaker 01

  Well, there is a Weezer themed cruise ship.

• 36:05Nilay Patel?

  No!

• 36:06Speaker 01

  Yes, yeah, there was a Weezer cruise.

• 36:09Nilay Patel?

  Tell me everything about the Weezer cruise.

• 36:11Speaker 01

  Find out about the Weezer cruise.

• 36:12Nilay Patel?

  Okay, here's what I know. I, I, I think our fans. Our fans are going to be sad because The Verge is going on vacation for two weeks on the Weezer boat.

• 36:23Speaker 01

  Well, it already happened. It was last year. It was February 13 through 17. Oh, it was actually not a bad little cruise. They had cat power. They had Toro E Moi. They had dive.

• 36:36Nilay Patel?

  That's such a dad cruise.

• 36:37Speaker 01

  Ash. Remember Ash? Um, Ozma?

• 36:42Nilay Patel?

  Wow.

• 36:43Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 36:43Nilay Patel?

  That's a deep indie rock cruise.

• 36:45Speaker 01

  Anyway, that's like a, that was a thing that happened in 2014. The Weezer Cruise. There you know.

• 36:51Nilay Patel?

  But that's the, that's the industry. Like you can get more money doing the Weezer Cruise.

• 36:54Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. Completely.

• 36:56Nilay Patel?

  Than Weezer could put out a new record.

• 36:57Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, I went on a cruise that was like an artist based cruise earlier this year and like the, the, the people who did that, like they, it was such a success and they were, it was everybody won out of it, like the cruise company and the artists and everybody on it that they're actually like using the people who started organizing that cruise to keep doing it because it's just like a model that can be used for so many artists. Um, yeah, I, uh, it's all about shows and festivals. I mean, festivals just makes a bazillion dollars now. Um, and you know, big stadium shows, you know, any, any sold out show at the Staples Center is like, that's where the money comes from, not an album. The album just keeps sort of the artistic

• 37:42Speaker 01

  fuel alive. It's more a symbol than anything else.

• 37:45Nilay Patel?

  But I, but I, but that's why I think the music, particularly in music, I, I keep saying it. I think there's going to be a huge turn. Right? With the Apple thing and like Jimmy Iovine and Dr. Dre like running around and like the Kanye rumors out there that like he's going to sign with Apple. And then you have Jay-Z started his own thing and you have Spotify desperately searching for relevance and somewhere Groove Shark just endlessly rebooting itself.

• 38:09Speaker 01

  Oh, Groove Shark.

• 38:11Nilay Patel?

  They tried. They were the first and most illegal of the services. That that turn in the tech industry is gonna totally change everything. And what you're what you're describing is the money for the artists isn't in the music itself. So they have complete leverage, right? They just have to get it out there and get some money for it. And if you're a big artist, you want to get as much money as possible. But you're still just trying to get somebody to like Coachella.

• 38:38Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 38:39Nilay Patel?

  That's like your your main move in life is like get somebody to a show or get somebody to an event. Or like if you're Taylor Swift, literally license out your branding to like bath towels and like bed sheets.

• 38:49Speaker 01

  And like have a different car brand in every single country that you can have your commercial for. Like, yeah.

• 38:57Nilay Patel?

  Well, now I'm just really depressed. What happened to the artistry, man? How does Steely Dan make money? Is it just, is that why they reformed?

• 39:09Nilay Patel?

  Well, no, I was, it's funny, because all the bands that I like want, when I was like a kid, all the bands that I would have wanted to see that were broken up when I was a kid. I can definitely go see now.

• 39:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, but it's not, don't, don't go. Don't go.

• 39:21Nilay Patel?

  That's really bad. It's a bad idea. It's like, there's, there's the zombie Jimmy Page just playing the guitar. Cool.

• 39:29Speaker 02

  So the question is, when Apple drops their streaming service, what's gonna happen? Because iTunes Radio came out and I know no one that uses it.

• 39:36Speaker 01

  I use it all the time.

• 39:37Speaker 02

  You do?

• 39:38Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 39:38Speaker 02

  You're the only person I know that uses it.

• 39:40Speaker 01

  I'm not the only person I know who uses it. It's, um, it's pretty convenient. And I have to say that the gateway between listening to something, liking it, and just clicking a button to spend a dollar or $2 on it is kind of devious and perfect. Like, I use that, I do that a lot. I end up spending a lot of money that way.

• 39:58Nilay Patel?

  I'm telling you, they control everything, man.

• 40:01Speaker 01

  But yeah, I don't know what what what happens to iTunes Radio then? Like, is that just not a part of it anymore?

• 40:07Speaker 02

  We don't know yet.

• 40:08Speaker 01

  Because they do, they do a lot of the like, um, you know, they'll have the the the advanced preview of albums that they'll put on on iTunes a lot. I don't know how, what that does for artists. Like, that's also another weird thing.

• 40:20Speaker 02

  It's probably paid to the label, I'm guessing.

• 40:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:22Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 40:23Speaker 01

  But like, you know, even if it's not Apple, like NPR gets streams a lot from people a couple of weeks in advance. And it's like, I, I, I don't know if that helps anybody at all.

• 40:32Speaker 02

  I guess they, is there a way of avoiding a leak? Because they know it's gonna leak out anyway.

• 40:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:36Nilay Patel?

  I just, and and the leaked branding is Apple Music.

• 40:41Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 40:41Nilay Patel?

  But that's like, how do you walk away from iTunes as a brand?

• 40:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:46Nilay Patel?

  That's crazy.

• 40:47Speaker 02

  Everyone hates iTunes.

• 40:48Nilay Patel?

  No one hates iTunes.

• 40:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, but if you have an iPhone, it's like, it doesn't matter if you hate iTunes. It's a part of your like hand at this point.

• 41:00Speaker 01

  I mean, when I had, when I had an Android, like for the one year I had an Android phone, I used, I used, um, I didn't use, I used Google Music, the thing where you, when it was like you could upload your entire music library and stream it from your computer, I used that. Um, but I, I mostly did Amazon just, um, uh, for music downloads. Cause, um, it didn't, you could play those MP3s anywhere.

• 41:23Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 41:23Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. Pan. It's like, things I wish I loved. It's like this endless list of music services and I'm just like, I don't, I don't love any of you.

• 41:33Speaker 01

  Well, I just read, uh, from a few weeks ago, the New Yorker article about the guy who leaked like every album in the early O's, which is an incredible story. I mean, like he got caught eventually and all of these people, but like, how there was this like this competition to get all, you know, like graduation and, and, and Eminem show and stuff. All these like albums you think of as like, those were the Napster era albums and, um, uh, and just that kind of race to get things leaked out, right? Like right out of Universal, right out of the, the labels and the places where they're manufacturing them.

• 42:07Nilay Patel?

  One of my favorite stories of that era, um, I don't remember where, where I read this, but it was tremendous. And if somebody can find it and send it to me, I'd like to read it again. Um, was this like, was a story about a suburban dad who in a, in like, in New Jersey, in like his fourth bedroom had set up just like tons of computers and hard drives and just downloaded everything. And he's like, I gotta do this, man. I gotta save the culture while it can still be saved.

• 42:32Speaker 01

  Oh, my God.

• 42:33Nilay Patel?

  I'm preserving all of this stuff.

• 42:35Speaker 01

  He's like a doomsday prepper for culture.

• 42:38Nilay Patel?

  But for like a torrent. It was like an amazing, like all of his things. He's like, I know this is illegal. And I know I could go to jail and my family could suffer, but I have to do it. And it was like.

• 42:46Speaker 01

  No, he doesn't, he doesn't go far enough then because like those drives are not going to be worth anything. If, if a true apocalypse happens or if there is like a, an electro. Magic pulse or something. You gotta burn that to like a gold disc, like a, like a, like a record.

• 43:01Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, and send it to space.

• 43:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, and send it into space. Like, come on. We fully realize this dream here, guy.

• 43:07Nilay Patel?

  He's in the garage, like, carving his platinum record. Alright, I need to read one more ad and then I actually just want, I just want Emily to just generally stream of consciousness, talk about Bad Blood.

• 43:18Speaker 01

  Oh, God.

• 43:24Nilay Patel?

  Building a website can be tough. And even if you do know a way around coding, creating something that looks good and works well is a time consuming affair. Whether it's for a business site, a portfolio, a restaurant, or whatever else, in this day and age, you probably need a website anyway. So lucky for us, Squarespace makes it easy to build beautiful websites without breaking a sweat. Squarespace provides simple, powerful, and beautiful websites that look professionally designed regardless of skill level. No coding required. I encourage you to go to browser in your browser.com. That's Squarespace website Joanna Stern just made about her new puppy. Not only Squarespace provide you with intuitive and easy to use tools to create your website with. Squarespace also has state of the art technology providing your site, powering your site to ensure security and stability. And you know you can trust in Squarespace for your website needs when millions of people and some of the most respected brands in the world trust in them too.

• 44:07Nilay Patel?

  Seriously, you cannot beat the ease and simplicity of Squarespace. Squarespace provides you 24/7 online support and a beautiful website for only $8 a month. You can even get a free domain if you buy Squarespace for the year. So what are you waiting for? Start a trial with no credit card required and build, start building your website today. I encourage you to build a website where I just muff ad reads completely. That'd be great. When you decide to sign up for Squarespace, make sure to use the offer code VERGE to get 10% off your first purchase and to show your support for the Vergecast. That part is really important because we're going to upgrade Sam's seat to a throne.

• 44:39Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 44:40Nilay Patel?

  That's gonna be great. We thank Squarespace for the support of the Vergecast. Squarespace, build it beautiful.

• 44:46Nilay Patel?

  Beautiful. We need, Sam, play your wood guitar. Play, play some hot licks in your lumbar guitar. Lumbar. It smells so good. Have you ever had one of those days where you're just like, you talk so much that you completely forget how to talk? Yes.

• 45:00Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 45:00Nilay Patel?

  All the time. I'm hitting that wall right now and it's gonna be bad.

• 45:04Speaker 01

  Um.

• 45:05Nilay Patel?

  That's it. All right, Emily. There, like, there, in addition to, like, what is happening? Are you, are you just playing Bad Blood?

• 45:13Speaker 01

  Just a second.

• 45:14Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 45:15Speaker 01

  What is this? What is Cara Delevingne doing in this movie?

• 45:19Nilay Patel?

  She's in it. She's in the video.

• 45:21Speaker 01

  No, she's in the video, but there's a trailer for a movie called Paper Town.

• 45:25Nilay Patel?

  Oh, my god.

• 45:26Speaker 01

  Um, anyway, uh, Taylor Swift released a video that she had been hyping. Oh, my god, it's so annoying. Um, she, she had been hyping this for like two weeks or three weeks. It felt like a lot longer. That basically has every single famous person ever in it. Like, Taylor Swift has been casually building her um, circle of friends in a very public posed way. Her Instagram is basically pictures, like, just showing off how many people are her friends, when I feel like kind of the poetry of Taylor Swift is that she doesn't actually have any friends. Like, who can relate to her? Who can talk, who can actually talk to her? Anyway, that's just my own.

• 46:07Nilay Patel?

  Wait, because she's on such a high level or because she's such a terrible nerd?

• 46:10Speaker 01

  Because she's both, you know? Like, I, I mean, I don't know. Like, what, what is the conversation with Taylor Swift? Like, like, how do you, when do you, like, get really real? Like, she'll just go and bake you some cookies or something, like? I don't know. Anyway, so she made this, she made this video. Uh, it's got Kendrick in it, because, like, she's a really big Kendrick fan. Uh, in her profile on Rolling Stone, a couple, like, went before 1989 came out, she, like, closed it with, like, uh, uh, Quo Tu from, uh, from, um.

• 46:38Nilay Patel?

  Good to see you, Matt City.

• 46:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, it was from, uh, Backstreet Freestyle. Yeah. Like, that's her favorite song. That was her jam. Like, talking about her with a dick and this is the Eiffel Tower. I mean, it's cool. I mean, that, that was genuinely surprising. It was good. Anyway, so she, um. So this video came out and like I, I don't really know, like I have a few theories behind it, but I mean, she's, she's pretty much like, is she just YouTube? Is that like the only kind of allegiance that we know that she has as far as services or music streaming services?

• 47:15Nilay Patel?

  We don't know.

• 47:16Speaker 02

  Rumors, Apple rumors.

• 47:18Speaker 01

  Right.

• 47:18Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, I mean, if Apple got Taylor and Kanye, that really, really completes the frat row.

• 47:25Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 47:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 47:26Nilay Patel?

  Dynamic duo.

• 47:28Speaker 01

  That would be, oh man, that's actually, that would make that indispensable. Like that would make it an indispensable streaming service for me. It's like funny when we, when we post, like I think Micah, you posted something once where you're like, you know, you can't, if you have a streaming service that has, you know, a certain amount of these big name artists on it, it's indispensable. If you're, if you like those artists and you want to be able to stream their music and everybody's like, oh, well, I don't like any of those artists, so it's not for me. It's like, well, I'm pretty sure you're lying right now. There is one of those people that you like, one of those people that's either a title or rumored to be at Apple or whatever. So anyway, I think I, my theory about the, the Bad Blood video is that it is kind of an answer to the title thing.

• 48:13Speaker 01

  It's an assembly of superheroes. Not all of them are musicians, but a lot of them are.

• 48:20Nilay Patel?

  And they're actually explicitly presented as superheroes.

• 48:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. And it's sort of this like war between celebrities happening, basically. It just feels like it is about title.

• 48:35Speaker 01

  Or about somebody else. I don't know. Or I mean, it's really about Katy Perry. Where's Katy Perry gonna end up anyway?

• 48:41Nilay Patel?

  Man, she's in a real, hype check Katy Perry right now.

• 48:46Nilay Patel?

  Sam, that's not, it's an audio show.

• 48:48Speaker 03

  Six? Maybe? Seven?

• 48:50Speaker 01

  Is she cooler because she dates Diplo?

• 48:52Speaker 03

  Does she date Diplo now?

• 48:54Nilay Patel?

  Whoa.

• 48:54Speaker 01

  I can't remember if she still does or not.

• 48:57Speaker 03

  I remember she was married to Russell Brand. That was a thing, right?

• 48:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 49:00Nilay Patel?

  Good, good celebrity callback, Sam.

• 49:01Speaker 03

  Thanks. I know my culture.

• 49:03Speaker 01

  I'm all the way back in 2010 now.

• 49:05Nilay Patel?

  I've checked the Bad Blood video.

• 49:07Speaker 03

  Uh, I couldn't even, I didn't watch the whole thing.

• 49:10Nilay Patel?

  Wow. It's bad, right?

• 49:12Speaker 03

  Uh, it was mostly because I was interrupted for work, but like it was just, it was a lot of, it was a lot of choreographic ninja stuff.

• 49:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 49:19Speaker 03

  From what I saw.

• 49:20Speaker 01

  Very, it's very dumb. It's like, it's like, it's just scenes from other movies.

• 49:27Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 49:27Speaker 01

  But it's not even with the self-awareness of like a Quentin Tarantino movie. It's just like, the, like, let's do Tron for a second. Like, I don't know. It's, it's weird. Um, but it's, it's just part of her overall thing of like, look at how many people are on my side. Look at how many friends I have, which I think is sort of tragic. So anyway, those are my.

• 49:49Nilay Patel?

  That's how you're drained?

• 49:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 49:51Nilay Patel?

  She's like 0 for 2 on these videos though, right? Like.

• 49:54Speaker 03

  What? Blank Space video is great.

• 49:56Speaker 01

  Uh, I'm not a fan of the Blank Space video. I also, that house, I, I shot a, or I helped shoot a student film at that, that mansion.

• 50:05Nilay Patel?

  What?

• 50:05Speaker 01

  Yeah. It's on Long Island. It's called Ohika.

• 50:08Nilay Patel?

  Well, The Verge is going on vacation for two weeks because they're going to the Taylor Mansion. We're gonna take the Weezer boat to the Taylor Mansion.

• 50:16Speaker 01

  Um, wait, what, what was the other one? No, Style is a good video. Style just looks like the, um, True Detective opening credits.

• 50:21Nilay Patel?

  So I think that the, um, what was the first one? Shake It Off and Blank Space are fine.

• 50:27Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 50:28Nilay Patel?

  Right?

• 50:29Speaker 01

  Yeah. I, I don't like, I don't like Shake It Off. The, you mean, are you talking about the videos or the songs?

• 50:33Nilay Patel?

  The videos. The videos.

• 50:35Speaker 01

  The video is very bad for Shake It Off. I don't care that Mark Romanek made it. It's not a good video.

• 50:39Nilay Patel?

  I think that's a funny way to look. Anyway, so those are those two. And she has really good hair in that one. David Pierce.

• 50:44Speaker 01

  Oh, she has, she has great hair.

• 50:45Nilay Patel?

  David, like David, that song, when David was here in our office in New York, like you would just start to hear Shake It Off. And it was never him, like, listening to it. It was always him watching the video because he, and he was like, it's such pretty hair. It was, he was such a nerd for it.

• 51:00Speaker 01

  Oh my gosh.

• 51:01Nilay Patel?

  It was adorable. Um, so those two, but I thought style was like super medium.

• 51:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's, um, I don't know. I, I really like, I mean, I think this video, this album was fine, but I, I, I'm not that into pop Taylor. Like I, it's, it's kind of like a larger music feeling I have in general that everybody wants to be everything. I don't want Taylor to want to be like, I don't know who she wants to be like icon of pop or whatever.

• 51:28Nilay Patel?

  What's your favorite song on the album?

• 51:29Speaker 01

  Oh, um, the Lana Del Rey one.

• 51:32Nilay Patel?

  Of course.

• 51:34Speaker 01

  Uh, what's it called? Wildest Dreams. That's the best song on the album. Uh.

• 51:39Nilay Patel?

  But that's like a mode that's like weird and over. Like it's kind of like with Mad Men, right? Like that, like sad. Segue. No, it's true. Like sadness is like over.

• 51:49Speaker 01

  Oh, that's not true.

• 51:50Nilay Patel?

  You think sadness is back in? I like Mad Men ended with like explicitly like no more sadness.

• 51:56Speaker 01

  Um, yeah, that was, I feel like that was a Matt Weiner troll though. I feel like everybody expected either somebody to commit suicide or for Don to end up being D V Cooper and like Matt Weiner will never, he refuses to give anybody what they want. Like that is like his signature thing. Um, so of course he ends up like at a, at a retreat, meditating and smiling with the ocean behind him. That's just how it was gonna be.

• 52:21Nilay Patel?

  Uh, you, wait, hold on. I think this is true. I want to say this is true. Yes. Do you know where the D V Cooper theory came from?

• 52:28Speaker 01

  Um, yeah, I was a blogger actually during the second season. I can't remember her name.

• 52:33Speaker 02

  Lindsey Green?

• 52:34Nilay Patel?

  Do you, yes. Do you know who Lindsey Green is? You guys don't have any idea. Our, the editorial director of Vox Media, Lockhart Steele. That is his wife.

• 52:41Speaker 01

  Oh, really?

• 52:43Nilay Patel?

  It's like the whole world constantly collides.

• 52:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 52:46Nilay Patel?

  Um, anyway.

• 52:47Speaker 01

  Good. It was a good theory and he totally teased it in like the second to last episode.

• 52:52Nilay Patel?

  But he did, he did the Manson family thing too. Like he played into it super hard.

• 52:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 52:56Nilay Patel?

  But no, I, what I'm saying the end of sad, this is my, been my theory about sort of our mode is that everything is triumphant all the time. And Taylor Swift is like the apex of triumph. Like that's her collection of friends. That's like the, I'm on a beach with like, who was the girl band she's on the beach with? Do you know what I'm talking, there's like.

• 53:15Speaker 01

  Oh, Heim. She's always hanging out with Heim.

• 53:17Nilay Patel?

  Right. Um, it's just super funny. It's like, that's all triumph. It's all victory. All the, like EDM is like basically builds to victory. Like EDM never builds to sadness.

• 53:27Speaker 01

  Yeah. Well, that's a, that gives me an idea, though. Um, no, I, I, I agree with that in some ways. I mean, it's like, I, yeah. The, it's hard to, it's hard to succeed with, with downer music. I mean, I think that's why, like, Lorde and Lana Del Rey are interesting because they have some downer songs.

• 53:46Nilay Patel?

  Right. Or like the XX was like vaguely interesting.

• 53:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 53:49Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 53:50Speaker 01

  But that's like a different level of success. Like, they're not playing XX on the radio necessarily.

• 53:55Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, the XX is.

• 53:56Speaker 01

  That new album is gonna be the best album of the year. The new Jamie XX album is gonna be the best album of the year.

• 54:02Nilay Patel?

  Wow.

• 54:02Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 54:03Nilay Patel?

  I'm excited for it.

• 54:03Speaker 03

  What about the Ratatat album?

• 54:05Nilay Patel?

  The Ratatat album, we sampled in the toilet paper commercials from here until the, from now until the end of time.

• 54:10Speaker 03

  Wow, that's terrible.

• 54:12Speaker 01

  Really?

• 54:13Nilay Patel?

  No, that's just, it's like a, a, essential fact of Ratatat, right? Like, I was talking, you know, we have like a, every media company is like a branded agency thing that like makes native ads and we have one. And they, they did a present, you know, we had, there's like up fronts, like media companies present, like here's all the video shows we're gonna make. And so we had one. And I've been asking for the video of our upfront presentations because I want to see it. Because I'd like to know what the hell they said about the, you know. Um, anyway, so I've asked them, you know, like, we can't, we, none of the music got cleared. And I was like, why? And like, well, it's so much Ratatat, like, like if you're gonna, you know, like if you're an ad agency.

• 54:49Speaker 01

  Too much Ratatat.

• 54:51Nilay Patel?

  They're like, you know, because, you know, agencies, like, we just default to Ratatat. Like, that's like their go-to, like.

• 54:56Speaker 01

  It's so true. Yeah.

• 54:58Nilay Patel?

  So they'll be fine. Ratatat will be fine.

• 54:59Speaker 01

  No, they still use Ratatat as like transition music on NPR stories. Like, it's crazy.

• 55:06Nilay Patel?

  It's like.

• 55:06Speaker 03

  Ratatat is sick. I just, they're great.

• 55:09Nilay Patel?

  I'd check Ratatat.

• 55:10Speaker 03

  They're a great band. Like, you guys can poop on them all you want.

• 55:13Nilay Patel?

  I'm not, I'm not saying they're rich.

• 55:15Speaker 01

  I made a list of, I like my 25 favorite songs of the last decade of the, of 2000 to 2010. And they were, 17 years from their first album is like one of the best songs. It's like one of the best pump-up jock jam type songs ever. It's great.

• 55:31Nilay Patel?

  It's just amazing, like Ratatat's like the older child that no one worries about. Like they're just gonna be, oh Ratatat, he's gonna be fine.

• 55:39Speaker 01

  I think they're gonna be a go ball, like, and that'll be a nostalgia act now.

• 55:46Nilay Patel?

  Wait, when, what, when do they hit? I feel like Ratatat, like.

• 55:50Speaker 03

  It's July seventeenth or something, that album comes out?

• 55:54Nilay Patel?

  No, I meant, when did Ratatat like start, when did they?

• 55:56Speaker 01

  Two thousand four or two thousand five.

• 56:00Speaker 03

  Yeah, they've been around.

• 56:01Nilay Patel?

  I feel like they just made a huge appearance on my iPod, like one day they were not on my iPad and then like the next day it everything, my whole iPod was Ratatat. And that's all we listened to. Um, what else, we, we barely talked about Mad Men, do you want to talk about Mad Men for two minutes?

• 56:14Speaker 01

  I don't really have that much to say, cause I have to go to a meeting.

• 56:21Nilay Patel?

  The first cast, everyone. We make it explicitly clear that other things are more important.

• 56:27Speaker 01

  But, um, I will say that, um, I think it's funny, I think that, that, that there will always be two worlds, the world that, that, that watched that show and cared desperately about it every week and like assumed that because like ninety people that they knew on the internet also cared desperately about it every week, that like it was the biggest and most important show. And, uh, I mean, I watched it just because of that, cause it's like, that's just a talking point, you gotta watch it with people, but like I, I never was crazy about it, so it's very interesting to see now, like it'll be interesting to see what its legacy is because it wasn't even nearly as widely watched as something like The Sopranos, which I think has sort of a similar place in people's hearts, people who really like love TV.

• 57:11Nilay Patel?

  What do you think about bigger impact?

• 57:13Speaker 01

  Bigger impact?

• 57:14Nilay Patel?

  Sopranos or Mad Men?

• 57:16Speaker 01

  Oh, Sopranos for sure. Yeah, yeah, I mean, like, you wouldn't have Mad Men without The Sopranos, cause Matt Weiner was a writer on Sopranos, I mean, and Sopranos was like the, you know, that made the HBO drama thing, that made like the dark R rated drama thing, um, yeah, I, I mean, Mad Men.

• 57:34Speaker 01

  Mad Men is is less like a like it has less effect outside of itself than than than Sopranos. Like Mad Men was just like you had relationship with relationships with the characters like within the context of the show and it did some interesting formal things like over the several seasons. But I don't feel like there's anything about the way that it told its story that's going to affect or change anything after it. That's just me. But I liked a lot of it. I just never was wild about it.

• 58:03Nilay Patel?

  Do you watch it? You didn't watch it?

• 58:05Speaker 02

  I've never seen Mad Men.

• 58:06Nilay Patel?

  You're a crazy person.

• 58:07Speaker 01

  It's it's it's really it's it's not like I don't remember what the numbers were on the finale, but like it wasn't.

• 58:13Nilay Patel?

  It's like seven million at its peak.

• 58:14Speaker 03

  3.29 million on the finale.

• 58:16Nilay Patel?

  But it's peak, it was like seven.

• 58:18Speaker 03

  No.

• 58:19Speaker 01

  I don't think it ever.

• 58:20Speaker 03

  No, I'm looking at Wikipedia.

• 58:22Speaker 01

  Probably five million. I mean, that's being generous.

• 58:25Speaker 03

  No, it peaked at like two, two and a half, three.

• 58:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 58:29Nilay Patel?

  Well, Googling seven million Mad Men just basically takes you to a slide about guns.

• 58:34Speaker 01

  And that's the name of our new band. It's like 10,000 maniacs.

• 58:41Nilay Patel?

  Oh, man. I definitely used a streaming service to listen to Candy Everything Everyone Wants the other day. That's true. It's a true fact about me and 10,000 maniacs.

• 58:52Speaker 01

  And your relationship with streaming services. It's very interesting. Like I we were having a long debate about Spotify in the private mode. I feel like I was talking to Dan or something about it, or somebody else.

• 59:03Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 59:04Speaker 01

  And just like, I have to always put it on. Like, nobody can know the way that I use Spotify. It is very top secret.

• 59:09Nilay Patel?

  I just, yeah, I'm really worried about it, too.

• 59:13Speaker 03

  Yeah, you just you turn off scrubbing, right? You don't want anyone to see your activity.

• 59:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, but you have to do it every single time.

• 59:18Speaker 03

  No, no way.

• 59:19Nilay Patel?

  You can just turn it all the way off.

• 59:20Speaker 03

  Yeah, you could turn it off.

• 59:21Nilay Patel?

  No.

• 59:22Speaker 03

  100%.

• 59:23Speaker 02

  I don't think so.

• 59:24Nilay Patel?

  Sam, I'm looking at your your. Let's see what people. Where's my Spotify up? And let's just let's just let's just do some Spotify doxing right now.

• 59:29Speaker 01

  Oh, my God.

• 59:30Nilay Patel?

  And then we'll end the show. Sam, you think about where you want to.

• 59:32Speaker 03

  What I want to do?

• 59:34Nilay Patel?

  What you want to engage with.

• 59:35Speaker 03

  Um.

• 59:36Nilay Patel?

  Um, Joanna Stern just listened to Rocket Man by Elton John.

• 59:40Speaker 01

  What's the last thing I listened to?

• 59:42Nilay Patel?

  Uh, my friend Kyle Kramer just listened to All I Ever Need by Caribou. Casey Newton listening to Blue Bucket of Gold, Sue Jane Stevens.

• 59:49Speaker 03

  You can, uh.

• 59:50Nilay Patel?

  By the way, I'm just hard doxing.

• 59:52Speaker 01

  Oh, wow.

• 59:53Nilay Patel?

  Uh, Nathan Ingram, Charlie XCX, listening to Need Your Love. Wow, this is really bad. I'm hurting myself right now.

• 1:00:00Speaker 03

  You go on a Spotify.

• 1:00:01Nilay Patel?

  Ellis Hamburger listening to Tan Lines.

• 1:00:04Speaker 02

  Dan Seifert on my way to heaven.

• 1:00:05Nilay Patel?

  Okay, we gotta stop this.

• 1:00:08Speaker 01

  This is really cruel. This is bad.

• 1:00:10Speaker 03

  I don't get it.

• 1:00:12Speaker 01

  What's? This is amoral.

• 1:00:15Speaker 03

  Everyone has super weird music, like.

• 1:00:18Nilay Patel?

  That's it.

• 1:00:19Speaker 03

  Listening to.

• 1:00:19Nilay Patel?

  This is Big Brother right here. What did Big Brother teach us? How did the world end? We all learned that we're listening to terrible music, that Rush Rush Dick is listening to genie in a bottle right now.

• 1:00:32Speaker 03

  Look, I'm listening. I'm listening and, and I will say this publicly. Thanks to Micah Singleton, I'm listening to Trap Queen. Trap Queen on repeat.

• 1:00:40Speaker 02

  He just heard Trap Queen yesterday.

• 1:00:41Speaker 01

  He just, oh, bless your heart.

• 1:00:46Speaker 03

  It's good. It's the jam.

• 1:00:47Nilay Patel?

  Oh, my God.

• 1:00:48Speaker 01

  It's a good song.

• 1:00:49Speaker 03

  It is.

• 1:00:49Nilay Patel?

  All right, Sam, Sam, pick some social networks that are not Spotify to follow us on.

• 1:00:54Speaker 03

  Geez. Uh, you should, you know what? Because you said that, that made me think of, uh, of this is.

• 1:01:01Nilay Patel?

  That's a little social network I like to call Instagram.

• 1:01:03Speaker 03

  You should, no, no, no. Actually, all right, yeah. Okay, here, let's do this. You should, you should hit up soundcloud.com/what'stech. It is a podcast by our own Chris Plant. It is at soundcloud.com/what'stech. We explain everything from Twitter to the Marvel Universe to cameras. Uh, and the audio and, you know, sort of sound clips and music that's added in there really adds a lot to that podcast. I highly recommend it. And you should follow The Verge on Instagram. We are instagram.com/verge. We're pretty damn close to 100,000 followers. And, uh, I'm excited for when that happens because I will just tweet about it. And, uh, back to you, Eli.

• 1:01:45Nilay Patel?

  Another, another build to nothing. Oh, yeah. I always got a pitch too.

• 1:01:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, there's, there's gonna be a new podcast on the Verge Podcast Network, if that's a thing that we can refer to it as. Yeah. Um, and look for the Scope premiering sometime next week. I'm gonna say Wednesday. Um, and Liz Lapato and I, also a Verge editor, the science editor.

• 1:02:05Speaker 03

  Uh, Verge employee.

• 1:02:06Speaker 01

  Verge employee. Liz Lapato and I will be talking about art and science.

• 1:02:13Speaker 01

  And I just sang for some reason.

• 1:02:14Speaker 03

  Is that the intro? That should be the intro to the podcast.

• 1:02:18Speaker 01

  Info scope. What just happened to my headphones? The system did not like that.

• 1:02:23Nilay Patel?

  What just happened to everything? Here's what I know. Every Verge employee wants a podcast, and if you sing me a name, you'll get one.

• 1:02:30Speaker 03

  Hype check.

• 1:02:31Nilay Patel?

  Nope, nope. That was the wrong deal to make. Okay, the scope.

• 1:02:36Speaker 01

  The scope.

• 1:02:37Nilay Patel?

  That's gonna be exciting, too.

• 1:02:40Nilay Patel?

  You can find all these podcasts at iTunes.com/theverge. Vergecast, again, creeping right up to 1,000 5-star reviews, so please, please, I think we're at 980.

• 1:02:48Speaker 03

  What should, what should they ask, or what should, what should they answer, rather, on the iTunes review?

• 1:02:54Nilay Patel?

  Tell me if you watched Mad Men. Give me your thoughts on last season of, or the last episode of Mad Men.

• 1:02:57Speaker 01

  Did we talk about Mad Men enough?

• 1:03:00Nilay Patel?

  Did we? Yeah. Should we talk about it more?

• 1:03:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:03:02Nilay Patel?

  Should we start a Mad Men podcast?

• 1:03:04Speaker 01

  This is, it would be perfect timing.

• 1:03:06Nilay Patel?

  Verge Men.

• 1:03:08Nilay Patel?

  Anyway, that was our show. Sam Sheffer is at Sam Sheffer on the tweets. Mike Singleton is at Mike Singleton. Emily O'Shea is at Emily O'Shea. I'm at Reckless. Please find us, tweet at us. I'm sure you have many thoughts to share with us. I want to thank Dashlane. I want to thank Squarespace, and I want to thank Lynda.com for being our sponsors. Whether you're looking to become an industry expert, your passion is a hobby, or you just want to learn something new, please visit Lynda.com/vergecast and sign up for a free 10-day trial. That's L-Y-N-D-A.com/vergecast. And that is our show. We'll be back again next week. And actually, next week is Google I/O and the Code Conference. So it's gonna be, there's gonna be news on news. I think next week will be very exciting.

• 1:03:48Speaker 03

  And Monday's a holiday, so enjoy that.

• 1:03:50Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, just get super drunk and then get ready for a Vergecast on Thursday.

• 1:03:54Speaker 03

  So it's I/O, Code Conference, and then like a week and a half after that is WWDC?

• 1:03:59Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, it's about to be time.

• 1:04:00Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:04:00Nilay Patel?

  Ready. That's the Vergecast. Rock and roll.