Galaxy S8 hands-on, FCC privacy rulings, and Ghost in the Shell

Welcome back! We have a great show for you today. No really! If you listen to this podcast, you know Samsung announced the Galaxy S8 this week, so Nilay and Dieter bring in senior editor and friend of the show Dan Seifert; who recently took a trip to South Korea to tour Samsung’s headquarters. Second half of the show, news editor Jake Kastrenakes joins to discuss his coverage of the FCC and privacy ruling in Congress. There’s even more! Megan Farokhmanesh is here to enlighten the crew on the culture side of site; Persona 5 and Ghost in the Shell. Theres a bunch of little topics sprinkled in between this focused episode, so listen through to find them all. 00:43 - Hands-on with the Samsung Galaxy S8 17:46 - Samsung’s Bixby assistant 33:13 - Persona 5 review 42:16 - Ghost in the Shell review 50:23 - FCC reporting 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.

• 0:04Nilay Patel?

  Hello and welcome to The Vergecast, the flagship podcast of Theverge.com. It's a podcast, that's what it is. We like it. Anyway, I'm Eli, Dieter is here. Dieter's in a mood.

• 0:15Speaker 01

  I'm in an angry mood.

• 0:16Nilay Patel?

  I just want everyone to be okay with that. If you're in your car, just know that every time Dieter talks, you're gonna feel the instinct to slam on the brakes, get out of the car and run away, because you're in fear for your life. But Megan's here, hi Megan. Hi. And we have a special guest for the first half of the show. Dan Seifert's here.

• 0:30Speaker 02

  Hey, how are you?

• 0:31Nilay Patel?

  And a little bit later, Jay Castan is here to talk about the internet, which is slowly being taken away from us, the people, and handed to the evil corporations.

• 0:38Speaker 02

  But first, we have distractions.

• 0:40Nilay Patel?

  But first, we have great distractions.

• 0:42Speaker 02

  Like expensive toy distractions.

• 0:43Nilay Patel?

  So, the Galaxy S8 came out this week, we just gotta get into it. No preambles, no vodka jokes.

• 0:48Speaker 02

  If you're listening to The Vergecast, you know what the Galaxy S8 is, right?

• 0:51Nilay Patel?

  It's a phone.

• 0:53Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's a phone. It, you know, makes phone calls.

• 0:54Speaker 01

  It's a feeling.

• 0:55Speaker 02

  It does.

• 0:55Speaker 01

  It's a way of life.

• 0:56Speaker 02

  Takes photos.

• 0:57Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. But it's a phone, it's got a, like a frisson of danger. Because it might explode.

• 1:04Speaker 02

  Well, we don't know that. Maybe. I mean, the odds of the S8. It's the same with every phone, right? It's the same.

• 1:12Speaker 01

  No, it's super not the same with every phone.

• 1:14Nilay Patel?

  So, I wanna get into it. Dan actually went to Korea, I want Dan to tell this whole story. You watched a battery, Samsung exploded a battery in your face, I believe.

• 1:23Speaker 02

  Sure, yep.

• 1:24Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. They were just like, "Put it right up next to you," and they're like, "See? We can make these explode or not explode whenever we want." I believe is what Samsung said to you.

• 1:31Speaker 02

  Especially when we don't want.

• 1:34Nilay Patel?

  Sure. But I will say, I've been thinking about this all day, because Walt and I talked about whether or not the battery would explode on his show yesterday, a lot. There's no way that this phone explodes, for this reason only. It's the end of Samsung, if it does, and they have to know it.

• 1:50Speaker 02

  Yeah, oh yeah. No, they are very much aware of the importance of making sure that this phone does not explode, which just sounds stupidly obvious, but like, it's not a conversation with any other phone, and it's a conversation with this phone because of last year.

• 2:05Nilay Patel?

  It is the opening conversation with this phone.

• 2:07Speaker 02

  Correct.

• 2:08Nilay Patel?

  Everywhere that I've seen, it's like, it's a joke. I mean, literally, every headline yesterday was like, "Samsung put out its great new phone." It might, it better not explode.

• 2:15Speaker 02

  But will it explode?

• 2:16Nilay Patel?

  So, I think, I'm just gonna set aside exploding for the duration of the show. Because I, it's A, it's tired talk about it at this point. Like, either phone's gonna explode or not explode. We shall see. But, they just can't be that callous. Like, they can't, they can't have been like, "Yeah, I'll probably be fine." Like, they thought about it.

• 2:36Speaker 02

  I mean, they, they, they thought about it, they've come up with systems, they've got processes in place, they are spending a ton of money on testing.

• 2:43Nilay Patel?

  I love systems and processes. Well, also, like, the, the hardware of the phone is slightly thicker than last year, and they did not pack insane batteries into them. They're like, it's slightly smaller than they otherwise could have been.

• 2:55Speaker 02

  Right, it's very much status quo on the battery.

• 2:57Nilay Patel?

  Okay, so that's it. That's all, that's all the more exploding talk we get.

• 3:02Speaker 02

  Not even gonna tell my story of how it exploded?

• 3:03Nilay Patel?

  Well, I want you to tell that story.

• 3:04Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 3:05Nilay Patel?

  But, we're just, we're just moving on from the, the thing. So you went to Korea?

• 3:09Speaker 02

  I did. I went to Korea, I got a meeting with Samsung's executives and product planners and stuff.

• 3:16Nilay Patel?

  How many of them were in jail at the time? See, it's funny, you can set aside exploding, but you can do, how many of you are in jail and participating in the downfall of the South Korean government?

• 3:25Speaker 02

  Our visiting hours were limited to an hour, and there was no touching. So, all the executives I talked to were free on their own volition, they were not in handcuffs or, or in jail. And I was in their offices, and they were telling me all about their new phone, which is the Galaxy S8, as we know, and the S8 Plus, and all of the things that they've been doing with it, and the plans that they have for it, and they also talked me about their Bixby assistant, and some of the other services and stuff that they are looking forward on. So beyond the Galaxy S8 is really what Samsung wants to think about and talk about.

• 4:05Nilay Patel?

  Cause the thing in the present is the...

• 4:06Speaker 02

  Well, the thing in the present, alright, the Galaxy S8 looks like, to be by all accounts, an excellent phone. It's got a killer design, probably, you know, I, you know, easily saying the best hardware we've ever seen on a smartphone, I think Dieter would agree with that, who, Dieter's dude's actually touched it, he, he used it. Amazing hardware, amazing design, amazing fit and finish. The display is like jaw-dropping, it like, is pushed all the way to the edges of the phone itself, so it feels like you're just holding a screen and not an actual phone.

• 4:37Nilay Patel?

  So in photos, it, it looks like it has bezels.

• 4:39Speaker 02

  So it does have bezels above and below the screen because there are things they need to put in there like a front-facing camera and sensors. It has an iris scanning feature, so it needs sensors for that. And then there's bits of electronics in the bottom. But they are like a third of what the bezels are on an iPhone. Like, it's so minimized, or minimized, and they're black so that the edges of the black screen just kind of like meld into it. And when you're watching a video on this thing, it's a really immersive experience. And it's really cool. But what it, you know, the things that they did was they, because they use their signature curved screens on both of these devices, they're managing to put these giant displays into smaller devices that are easier to handle

• 5:22Speaker 02

  and stuff like that. These are all concerns that consumers have had. They want a bigger screen in a smaller phone, so this is how Samsung's addressing it. And it's doing it in clever ways, and they are good-looking and functional.

• 5:32Nilay Patel?

  It's also, but it's like a funky aspect ratio.

• 5:34Speaker 02

  Yeah, they're doing a funky aspect ratio.

• 5:36Nilay Patel?

  Vlad literally put a post on the site today that has like a lot of math in it.

• 5:41Speaker 02

  Or maths, as Vlad would say.

• 5:43Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, he can't help it. He's zero. There's also a picture of an avocado at the end. It's very strange. I was very confused. He did, he did like literally the Pythagorean theorem, and at the end, he's like, it equals avocado.

• 5:57Speaker 02

  Because they are using what is known as an 18.5 by 9 aspect ratio, which is taller...

• 6:03Nilay Patel?

  Oh, yes. The very well-known 18.5.

• 6:06Speaker 02

  Yes, it's very close.

• 6:09Nilay Patel?

  Famous round the world.

• 6:10Speaker 02

  Oh, man. Alright, so I will call it the 2.25 to 1. I don't know.

• 6:19Nilay Patel?

  Oh, my god.

• 6:21Speaker 02

  Which is a taller aspect ratio than the 16 by 9 that we're used to on most phones. So that makes these phones taller and skinnier than we're used to seeing, which means that a 5.8 inch version of this phone does not technically have as much screen real estate as a 5.8 inch phone with a 16 by 9 aspect ratio. That said, there's still really big screens.

• 6:39Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 6:39Speaker 02

  In a really small footprint.

• 6:41Nilay Patel?

  Does having it taller feel weird?

• 6:44Speaker 02

  You know, I only used them for a brief amount of time. It didn't really feel that weird, especially on the smaller version because the smaller version is really comfortable to hold. I, on the bigger one, which is 6.2 inch screen, it definitely is a big phone that you're holding.

• 6:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think the smaller one is way better, even though it has a smaller battery. They both have the same screen resolution because it's like a little bit narrower than you expect. Reaching up to the top of the screen isn't quite the disaster that it might otherwise be. I'm really curious to see if they're going to add like a notification button to the customizable soft buttons at the bottom of the phone, the way that LG does with the G6 because it means you don't have to reach up for the notification pane.

• 7:22Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 7:22Speaker 01

  So it is slightly easier to adjust your grip and reach the top of the screen. But I gotta say, it is, we all sort of made fun of Apple's double tap, double slightly touch the home button to like bring the screen halfway down. But man, when you use an iPhone for a while and then switch over to Android phone, you really miss it. So it's gonna be fine.

• 7:45Nilay Patel?

  That's one of the reasons I haven't switched to the Pixel full time. That and crippling iMessage lock-in.

• 7:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:50Speaker 02

  I'm gonna go with the crippling lock-in.

• 7:53Nilay Patel?

  I mean, it's like, I like double tapping. I

• 7:56Speaker 02

  Well, you know, we'll have a

• 7:57Nilay Patel?

  You can install, there's an app on Android that lets you do it.

• 8:00Speaker 02

  You don't even need an app. It's, it's, it's, it's, it's built into the platform. You like swipe into the side.

• 8:05Nilay Patel?

  That's, is that Samsung stuff?

• 8:06Speaker 02

  No, this is a Motorola. It's, this is a native Android phone thing.

• 8:10Speaker 01

  Use

• 8:11Nilay Patel?

  Wait, what?

• 8:11Speaker 01

  Just use ALO, guys.

• 8:12Speaker 02

  Yeah, you just swipe in from the corner and it makes it smaller.

• 8:15Nilay Patel?

  Wait, hold on.

• 8:16Speaker 02

  I'm blowing Neil's mind with a little tutorial on how to Android.

• 8:21Speaker 01

  No, that doesn't work on every phone, Dan.

• 8:24Speaker 02

  But it works on the Pixel. It works on a Motorola. It works on a Samsung phone.

• 8:28Nilay Patel?

  Wait, you can't do that on a Pixel.

• 8:30Speaker 02

  Yeah, you can.

• 8:31Nilay Patel?

  What gesture are you talking about?

• 8:32Speaker 02

  You swipe in from the corner.

• 8:33Nilay Patel?

  The tiny phone gesture?

• 8:34Speaker 01

  Where in settings is that garbage?

• 8:36Speaker 02

  I don't know. I'm not going to spend the show trying to figure out where in settings on that.

• 8:40Nilay Patel?

  Dan has 15 minutes left to talk about. And he's just gonna teach us how to use Android. I thought that was a weird, nevermind.

• 8:46Speaker 02

  No, no. The thing is, lots of phones had that feature.

• 8:49Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 8:49Speaker 02

  What you just gotta, it's just a different thing than double tapping the home button, like Dieter pointed out, so.

• 8:54Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. Anyhow, so what do you think of this phone?

• 8:56Speaker 02

  I think it's gonna be a great phone. I think it's the uh best Android phone of the year so far without a doubt. I think it blows away what we've seen from LG.

• 9:04Nilay Patel?

  I feel really bad for LG. A, they fucked up their marketing, super bad. Just real bad. They blew, they had a golden opportunity. They could have sponsored this show. It would have been my official phone.

• 9:15Speaker 02

  Alright, you're going this route again.

• 9:17Nilay Patel?

  I'm just saying, it was, it was sitting in the palm of their hand. Do you know what's really sad is uh, uh, there's the travel ban on flights to the Middle East with like laptops and things. And like, literally like LG, like Saudi Arabia, one of LG, one of their divisions in one of these Middle Eastern countries, put out an ad targeted to business travelers. It's like, don't worry, the G6 is fine on planes, and they use the fucking song. And I was like, this is not what I wanted from this moment in world history.

• 9:46Speaker 02

  What are royalty rates in Saudi Arabia?

• 9:47Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, they were like, don't worry, it still flies like a G6. And it's like, oh, you're just.

• 9:51Speaker 02

  Oh. So I don't feel bad for LG too much because LG operates on a much different scale than Samsung or Apple. Like, the reality is LG is a much smaller player, especially in the premium smartphone space. They just do not move nearly as many units. And especially here in the West and in the US and such, they don't sell nearly as many. So, you know, it's LG is gonna LG, and they're just gonna be there. They're gonna be there next year too, and they're gonna LG again.

• 10:16Nilay Patel?

  Can't stop. I will say that um, I, having had the Pixel, I much prefer looking at LCD than OLED screen.

• 10:22Speaker 02

  Really?

• 10:23Nilay Patel?

  Yep, absolutely. I find OLED screens are so bright.

• 10:27Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's awesome. You go outdoors and like you can read it.

• 10:27Nilay Patel?

  It's so, so bright. But I read so much on my phone that I, I prefer the somewhat like, non-nuclear brightness of the LCD.

• 10:35Speaker 01

  You know, phones have these things called brightness sliders.

• 10:39Nilay Patel?

  It's not, it's like the color. Oh man, the night mode on Pixel is like, it's like they let an intern do it. And the intern was like, it's just yellow, right? We'll just make everything yellow. That's cool. I don't know. There's something about a great LC. If the new iPhone is OLED, it's gonna be a sad day for me.

• 10:54Speaker 02

  I disagree. I think, I think OLED is a smart move for the iPhone.

• 10:57Nilay Patel?

  Also, I, I can still see the pentiled matrix. You think I can't, but I got you. I know you're cheating. Uh, Megan, I just wanna tell you a story. One of the.

• 11:04Speaker 01

  No, we're not talking about pentile on this podcast.

• 11:06Nilay Patel?

  One of the most controversial things ever published on The Verge was me noting that the Motorola, what was it, the Droid X? Had a shitty screen because of the arrangement of the pixels on the screen. And it got so heated that I had to take macro photography of the screen and publish it to prove that I wasn't crazy. Also Motorola got so mad at me, they sent me another phone and demanded that I re-review it.

• 11:30Speaker 02

  It's a, it's a common move for companies.

• 11:33Nilay Patel?

  It's a garbage screen. It's still, it was a bad phone.

• 11:36Speaker 01

  I might have to have LG send me another G6 because I just discovered I have a surprise random hairline crack on the rear Gorilla Glass for no good reason.

• 11:45Speaker 02

  LG gonna LG?

• 11:46Nilay Patel?

  That doesn't mean anything. I mean, the LG guy's phone exploded, like a tiny crack on the back is like not a thing. Um, yeah. Tell me about Bixby. There's two things I want to know about for real.

• 11:55Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 11:56Nilay Patel?

  The face unlock, which seems really cool, but very insecure.

• 11:59Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 12:00Nilay Patel?

  Uh, and Bixby.

• 12:02Speaker 02

  Okay, so starting with face unlock because they're, they're unrelated. Uh, face unlock is-

• 12:06Nilay Patel?

  They're not, you know, just look at the phone and a dog butler shows up and it's like, do you need help?

• 12:10Speaker 02

  Yet.

• 12:12Speaker 02

  Uh, the face unlock is yet another way to unlock your phone. You can look at it, uh, without having to put your fingerprint on it or it doesn't need to see your irises or put in a PIN and it will recognize your face and unlock. It sounds very similar to a feature Android has had since 2011 with Ice Cream Sandwich, which was really kind of crappy at the time. It was very slow and insecure or unsecured. Insecure, it was unsure of itself.

• 12:36Nilay Patel?

  Like all of Android at the time.

• 12:39Nilay Patel?

  Didn't quite know what it was gonna be. It was a goth face for Android. Actually, 4.0 was like a very goth face for Android.

• 12:45Speaker 02

  Yeah, good point. But Samsung says it's using a new engine that it developed. It's not using the standard Android feature and I-

• 12:52Nilay Patel?

  Shocking move from Samsung.

• 12:53Speaker 02

  Yeah. Uh, you know, I really think they built that in because the placement of the fingerprint scanner sucks so much.

• 13:01Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 13:01Speaker 02

  So they want you to forget about the fingerprint scanner and just use the face unlock because the face unlock is wildly convenient. Like it's so fast. Uh, you could see in Dieter's video when he does a hands-on, it's literally like split second, it likes, screen wakes up, it sees your face and it's unlocked. Like before you even have time to react and swipe the screen, it's already unlocked. So you almost never even see the lock screen. Uh, it's super convenient. It works at a comfortable distance. You pull the phone out of your pockets and unlocked. Samsung admits that it is not as secure of a unlock as a fingerprint, iris, PIN or passcode.

• 13:34Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 13:34Speaker 02

  Like, you can't authenticate Samsung Pay purchases with your face. It won't even let you do that because it's not secure enough. It is purely a convenience thing. I think I'll probably use the hack out of it because I hate putting my PIN code in and I also kind of hate the location of that fingerprint scanner. So, but if it's a security thing, if you want the most secure way, the most secure way is to put like an alphanumeric password on your phone, which nobody does.

• 13:55Nilay Patel?

  Well, I think, I think Addy is, of course, Dieter does. But Dieter also has like a secondary hack where he doesn't need it or like another phone types it in for him when he enters a macro.

• 14:08Nilay Patel?

  That's just a classic Dieter bone move, the, the double alphanumeric security pro tip. Anyway, um.

• 14:14Speaker 01

  I hate you so much.

• 14:15Nilay Patel?

  I love you, man. That's, that's why I tease. Uh, but is that true? Who knows? I know, I think Addy's writing a piece about the security of face unlock because we're.

• 14:25Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 14:25Nilay Patel?

  Not to go back to like airport security, but we are in a moment when people coming through TSA and DHS are like getting asked to unlock their phone. They're getting into phone search.

• 14:34Speaker 01

  Right.

• 14:34Nilay Patel?

  And if they can just point the phone at your face and unlock it, you're kind of fucking screwed.

• 14:38Speaker 02

  Right. It's not like, you know, a fingerprint's like one thing where they have to like actually physically force you to do something.

• 14:43Nilay Patel?

  And there's like a legal argument over whether or not that's acceptable.

• 14:46Speaker 02

  But like, if they can just take your phone and be like, and if they know that system is there and it does it, then yeah, that's totally a valid concern. I can tell you that when we get review units in, the first thing I'm going to do is try and trick it with a printed image. Can it, can a photo fool this? And I, I hope it can't, but you know, we'll find out.

• 15:04Nilay Patel?

  Well, it would need to have some depth sensing, right? But it has autofocus, it must have some depth sensing.

• 15:09Speaker 02

  It uses a front-facing camera. I'm sure there are, I know that Google eventually added algorithms to its face unlock thing that looks for motion. So if you're blinking or your eyes are moving so that it doesn't get tricked by an image. Um, but we'll find out. Maybe, maybe if I put a video up of, of myself talking.

• 15:25Nilay Patel?

  Or you take a print out of your face and you, and you like hold it over a mannequin head.

• 15:29Speaker 02

  Or a 3D print.

• 15:30Nilay Patel?

  Or if we switch faces. That's the classic movie face.

• 15:36Speaker 01

  I was gonna say, Nick Cage can actually open any Galaxy S8.

• 15:40Nilay Patel?

  That's actually a great feature. Also, I just want to say this, I just want to admit to the audience and you guys. I super watched National Treasure 2 last night.

• 15:50Speaker 02

  Oh, it's a great movie.

• 15:50Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, see, it's fine. It's fine. Now it's off my chest.

• 15:54Speaker 02

  So Bixby.

• 15:57Nilay Patel?

  Does Bixby know where the president's book of secrets is?

• 16:01Speaker 02

  Uh, if I knew anything-

• 16:02Nilay Patel?

  By the way, Bixby definitely also sounds like a character that would be National Treasure 3.

• 16:06Speaker 02

  Yeah, if I knew anything about National Treasure's plot, I'd make a segue.

• 16:09Nilay Patel?

  What is wrong with you? Go home right now and watch. Don't you have children? You have a child.

• 16:13Speaker 02

  Yeah, but they're like, young, man. They don't want to watch a crazy Nick Cage running around.

• 16:16Nilay Patel?

  This is how you introduce them to the richness of American history.

• 16:19Speaker 01

  The rules about talking about Bixby on The Vergecast are you must refer to it as a cute little terrier wearing shoes with a bow tie.

• 16:28Speaker 02

  That's also how I'd describe it.

• 16:29Speaker 01

  And it is the sidekick to Skates Acetone. Skittles, come on. Skittles Acetone, excuse me. Skittles Acetone, who's in the roller derby.

• 16:40Nilay Patel?

  Ah, not Skates again.

• 16:41Speaker 01

  One of our listeners, by the way, wrote like a thousand-word fanfic story about their adventures.

• 16:46Nilay Patel?

  Oh, we got an email today about Skittle. Anyway, Bixby.

• 16:48Speaker 02

  Yeah. So Bixby the dog is Samsung's spin on the virtual assistant. It's answer to Siri and Google Assistant and Alexa and Cortana, but instead of being like a knowledge database, like all of those are, it is supposed to be something that helps you use your phone. And it's kind of a very vague way to express it, but you, there's a button on the side of the S8. There's an entire button dedicated to this feature that you push the button and you hold it and you talk to it like it's a walkie-talkie and you tell it things like, send this picture to Neelai. And it knows what picture you're looking at and it like opens up a text message and it puts in Neelai's contact info and it sends it off

• 17:29Speaker 02

  without having to type in things. Or it might be like, you know, turn the brightness down on my screen and it turns the brightness down. All these like functions of stuff that you do on your phone that you might use the touchscreen for, Bixby is supposed to allow you to do that with your voice. At least that's the grand plan.

• 17:45Speaker 01

  So, let's reveal the secret of Bixby. Which is that it's a tiny dog.

• 17:51Nilay Patel?

  It's a tiny dog. No, it doesn't work right now.

• 17:54Speaker 02

  Yeah, so.

• 17:55Nilay Patel?

  Right, they haven't, they didn't demo it at the event.

• 17:57Speaker 02

  So they, they didn't demo it at the event. Uh, we got to see some private demos of the voice actions working. So I saw someone, you know, they demoed me the controlling wifi and bluetooth and brightness, or doing things like sending messages and stuff like that. The essential problem is that it doesn't do very much now, period. Like even when you buy the phone on April 21st, when it comes out, Bixby is gonna be super limited. It's gonna be stuck to like eight to 10 of Samsung's own apps and that's it. And then they're gonna be adding more app compatibility. Essentially, apps have to be built to support Bixby. So the challenge, of course, is going to be getting third-party apps to do this.

• 18:36Nilay Patel?

  Right. Which has never been a challenge that Samsung has been good at.

• 18:39Speaker 02

  Correct. Just look at all those wonderful apps for Tizen.

• 18:42Nilay Patel?

  No, I mean, that, but that's like a, A, first of all, getting Android developers to do anything is like very difficult. It's like Google was today. They're like, hey, Android developers.

• 18:51Speaker 02

  Please support these screens.

• 18:53Nilay Patel?

  Every, all these tall screens are everywhere. Are you interested in that? Android developers like, no. Basically.

• 18:59Speaker 02

  Well, I think it'd be smart of Android developers to support those screens because those are the screens on the devices that people are actually gonna buy.

• 19:04Speaker 01

  Yeah. And like honestly, I have yet on the G6 anyway, I have yet to run into an app that's like, well, screw this. Like even a bunch of the games are like, it works out fine. Like they're already used to supporting a million different screen sizes, a slightly taller screen size shouldn't break very many apps.

• 19:21Nilay Patel?

  Are you wearing AirPods right now?

• 19:22Speaker 01

  I am, yeah.

• 19:23Nilay Patel?

  Wow. How's it working?

• 19:25Speaker 01

  Uh, it's paired with Mac. Uh, it works fine in the office. If I try to move too fast or go anywhere that's any, has any sort of loudness, like the subway, I can't hear shit with them. And they also fall out. But in the office, they're fine.

• 19:38Nilay Patel?

  So there's, wait, you go ahead.

• 19:39Speaker 01

  I was gonna say, the thing about Bixby is like, the difference between it and Google Assistant is actually not as clear as Samsung would like us to believe, I think. They're like, you know, Bixby's for controlling your phone and Google's for doing Google stuff. But Bixby also sets reminders and it also apparently can do stuff with Wolfram Alpha.

• 20:00Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 20:00Speaker 01

  They basically just didn't decide or didn't work out parent partnering with either Google or Bing. And so they don't have the full assistant stuff yet, and I doubt they would, you know, they will.

• 20:10Nilay Patel?

  Well, I feel like.

• 20:12Speaker 01

  I think the plan is over time. Over time, I think Samsung actually does want Bixby to like, take those other Alexa, Siri, Google Assistant, blah, blah, blah, head on. They're just nowhere near being ready to do that yet. So they picked a feature set that was like, get justify its existence on the phone. And then later on, we'll be able to build in that other stuff.

• 20:34Nilay Patel?

  No, I.

• 20:35Speaker 01

  I really do think they want to take them on.

• 20:36Nilay Patel?

  I think, well, sure, but I think it, this, the background here kind of like leads you to it. So it was. There was the team that developed Siri and they all went to work for Apple. They sold Siri to Apple. Then they hated working for Apple. They left and they started Viv, which was like their next voice assistant. And then Samsung bought Viv. So it's the, it's the same people who initially made Siri.

• 20:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, you're wrong.

• 20:59Speaker 02

  No, Samsung built Bixby in-house is all, is a project.

• 21:02Nilay Patel?

  So what are the Viv guys doing?

• 21:03Speaker 02

  They, nothing yet.

• 21:04Speaker 01

  They're chilling.

• 21:05Speaker 02

  Technically, the acquisition I don't think has closed yet. So I don't think they're doing anything yet.

• 21:10Nilay Patel?

  My assumption was they just took Viv and made Bixby.

• 21:12Speaker 02

  No, not at all. Bixby is an in-house thing. And that's the reason that I think Samsung really wants Bixby to be known now. Before Viv has gotten its hands into it, because Samsung wants this impression that it can build good software services. And it can be a Google, a Microsoft, an Apple. And Bixby is an intelligent voice assistant that uses artificial intelligence and machine learning. And all these other buzzwords that all the other companies talk about, but nobody thinks about with Samsung. And Samsung wants to be part of that conversation. And so that's why it is putting Bixby out now, even though it's very limited. That's why it announced Bixby before it announced the S8, because it wants to be that company that's more than just. A company that makes products that run other people's platforms.

• 21:54Nilay Patel?

  Do they know that they named it Bixby?

• 21:59Speaker 02

  Do you want to hear the backstory and why it's named Bixby?

• 22:00Nilay Patel?

  Yes, I do.

• 22:02Speaker 01

  So DJ Koe has a tiny dog who loves wearing shoes.

• 22:08Speaker 02

  Also that. It's multiple reasons.

• 22:11Speaker 01

  Oh no, I got in the shoes again.

• 22:13Speaker 02

  One of them will not surprise you at all. They focus tested a bunch of names and Bixby tested really well with millennials for whatever reason.

• 22:21Speaker 01

  Was that the one that wasn't supposed to surprise me?

• 22:23Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, that doesn't surprise you. It's Samsung. Of course they're going to focus test everything.

• 22:26Speaker 01

  No, I meant the millennials.

• 22:30Speaker 01

  Bixby. Yeah, that sounds like our friend.

• 22:32Speaker 02

  The other.

• 22:33Speaker 01

  It's like vaguely British, right?

• 22:35Speaker 02

  It does seem kind of vaguely British. They say that it's a good, phonetically, it's good for computers to pick up the audible sound.

• 22:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's a good way.

• 22:44Speaker 02

  It's a unique word.

• 22:45Speaker 01

  It's like Alexa. It's got an X.

• 22:47Speaker 02

  Exactly. And then this might be the stretch, but they also gave if the reason that if you think of it metaphorically as Bixby being the bridge between Samsung, the hardware company. And Samsung, the software and services company, it wants to be. Bixby is that bridge and there's an actual bridge in California called Bixby Canyon Bridge.

• 23:08Speaker 01

  No, it's no.

• 23:09Nilay Patel?

  It's remarkably dorky.

• 23:10Speaker 02

  Hey, look, don't shoot the messenger.

• 23:12Speaker 01

  Wait a minute, wait, wait, wait. They are copying Apple and naming products after California landmarks?

• 23:17Nilay Patel?

  They just typed Bixby into Google and they're like, oh, good. It's a bridge.

• 23:20Speaker 02

  And also, nobody else has used this, so we're clear on rights.

• 23:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, Mac and West Bixby was not on the whiteboard.

• 23:27Nilay Patel?

  I mean, look, I think the Bixby stuff is really interesting. I mean.

• 23:30Speaker 02

  I think it's really interesting if they're able to execute and bring their full vision around.

• 23:33Nilay Patel?

  Search part of it where the camera search is now a system level feature of the phone. I'm shocked no one has ever done that before, right? Like.

• 23:41Speaker 01

  Amazon has. It was called Firefly. It was on the wildly popular.

• 23:44Speaker 02

  Amazon's done it before. In fact, if you have Google Assistant on your phone and you open up the camera app and open Google Assistant at the same time, it'll use computer vision and Google Goggles features right in Google Assistant. So it's not an entirely original feature. It's a feature that.

• 23:58Speaker 01

  It only takes like 15 different weird key combinations.

• 24:01Speaker 02

  It's Google. But it's something that nobody thinks about because nobody really is asking for it or, you know. Like, I don't know what the practical use of that is, other than I want to buy something and I don't know how to type in a search box. Like, the only things that Amazon, or excuse me, Samsung's really shown is that you can use it to find something to buy on Amazon, or you can use it to find similar images on Pinterest. And you can use it to like, look up a wine bottle label and landmarks. So like, if you point it at the Empire State Building, it'll recognize that.

• 24:32Nilay Patel?

  I just think we're clearly entering a world in which enhanced cameras are more and more a part of the fabric of everything, whether it's just Snapchat filters, or whether it's Facebook's copies of Snapchat filters.

• 24:43Speaker 02

  Yes, it has Snapchat filters in its camera.

• 24:46Nilay Patel?

  Of course it does. Are you kidding? You think Samsung could resist that? They're like, come on, do it. But the idea that you can point your camera at something and it will return a result to you. And we have lived in a world full of QR codes for the longest time, and everyone's like, what am I supposed to do?

• 25:02Speaker 02

  Can reads QR codes.

• 25:02Nilay Patel?

  That's what I mean. Like, that's like, that might be its most important feature. Like, it makes the world understandable to you without having to download like Red Laser or whatever the hell it is. So, I don't know. I think that part's neat.

• 25:13Speaker 02

  I'm more interested in the future Bixby vision if they're able to pull it off. What they really want to do is connect all of their various products, whether it's a washing machine, or refrigerator, a TV, a phone, a watch, or whatever with this Bixby. And they want to use that as the link between them. And if they're able to pull all that off, that might be really super interesting to me.

• 25:31Nilay Patel?

  But that's the part of Samsung, like, they put out the Wi-Fi router, Samsung Connect. No, it's the Samsung Connect Home, right, Dieter? And then the protocol is called Samsung Connect, or the platform's called Samsung Connect.

• 25:42Speaker 02

  The app is Samsung Connect, yeah.

• 25:43Nilay Patel?

  That's the part to me where it's like, this shit isn't around in a year. Like, you're buying a Samsung router a year from now, that it's not getting firmware updates anymore.

• 25:52Speaker 02

  Samsung Connect is essentially a rebranding of SmartThings. And SmartThings is a very good smart home platform. It's one of the, you know, as far as smart home platforms go, which are not great, but it's one of the better ones.

• 26:02Speaker 01

  Uh, yeah, the AirPods failed, and then they came back, and then Skype said, hey, there's some AirPods here. We're gonna take control of your entire system audio, and then everything just went to shit.

• 26:11Nilay Patel?

  So, Dieter, we were talking about Samsung Connect. Did you even play with any of that stuff? So my theory is that a year from now...

• 26:16Speaker 01

  Like, smart things will be around, that's fine, but these Wi-Fi routers are just...

• 26:19Speaker 02

  I mean, the Wi-Fi routers are like, taking advantage of the hype of Eero and Mesh and whatever. But like-

• 26:25Speaker 01

  I don't see this taking advantage of anything. This is what routers are now, and Samsung makes routers. End of story. I think Samsung is clever to have tied it to Connect and their Smart Things system. They're also clever to have built-in Zigbee and Z-Wave and all the other crap. Like, I'm actually-

• 26:43Speaker 02

  But that's smart things.

• 26:44Speaker 01

  No, I know, but this is the first, like, we are, nobody wants a frickin' Smart Things hub in their house. It's like, annoying and dumb. You want it built into your Apple TV, or your home speaker, smart speaker, or your Wi-Fi router. And Samsung just built it into the Wi-Fi router, which is where it belongs. It's where it's always belonged. And literally, nobody else has done-

• 27:09Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 27:10Speaker 01

  Like, done it as simply and cleanly and connected it to like, software that you actually might really use.

• 27:15Speaker 02

  Ironic, ironically, that was the pitch-

• 27:16Speaker 01

  I'm actually really impressed with that.

• 27:18Speaker 02

  Yeah, it was a pitch of Google OnHub like, two years ago, and Google just never executed on it.

• 27:22Speaker 01

  Well, it's because they, the OnHub team like, walked over to the Nest campus and the Nest people killed them. Matt Rogers just took them out, one by one.

• 27:33Speaker 02

  Very politely.

• 27:34Speaker 01

  So Megan, you, I always feel bad, because like, on a day like this, like, we have a culture section. I believe the culture section published 20 stories yesterday, but like, Samsung news just dominated the site. But, did you watch any of this? Do you pay attention to it?

• 27:46Speaker 03

  No, not really. I use an iPhone, I don't care.

• 27:49Speaker 01

  You don't, there's nothing that can get you to switch from an iPhone. Not a giant screen, not a dog butler voice assistant.

• 27:54Speaker 03

  Is that I can name my conversations in chats, and I like being able to share location.

• 27:59Speaker 01

  iMessage login.

• 28:00Speaker 03

  I like iMessage. Also, like, I like going on vacation and all I need is Wi-Fi to like, talk to people.

• 28:06Speaker 01

  You can do all of this, you can do all of this on Android, FYI.

• 28:09Speaker 03

  I hate Android, though, and I'm not gonna use it.

• 28:11Speaker 02

  Whoo!

• 28:12Speaker 01

  That's fair, that's totally fair. Megan is at Megan underscore Nicolette on Twitter.

• 28:17Speaker 03

  I know you can, but I'm not going to. Like, I realize these features are not that special and they're available elsewhere, but I like them on my iPhone.

• 28:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 28:25Nilay Patel?

  I think that's like the hardest thing for these companies to get over is

• 28:29Speaker 02

  Absolutely.

• 28:30Nilay Patel?

  That you can make a strong argument right now that what is happening with Android is far more innovative and interesting than

• 28:35Speaker 02

  I mean, you get better battery life, you got a better screen, you can have better cameras, like literally the hardware has surpassed the iPhone in most every measurable way. But it doesn't matter because the iPhones is good enough on all those fronts and then it locks you in with iMessage.

• 28:49Speaker 03

  Well, exactly. But also like I will be the first to admit I'm not super tech savvy. So it's like, I don't need a lot of the fancy features. Like the most things I take pictures of with my camera are myself. So I don't really care if it's like

• 29:00Nilay Patel?

  The Galaxy S8 has an 8-megapixel autofocus front-facing camera.

• 29:05Speaker 02

  I think, I totally agree with you.

• 29:06Nilay Patel?

  You both just went for it.

• 29:08Speaker 02

  I totally agree with you, Meghan. But there are things that you could appreciate, I'm sure, like better battery life.

• 29:12Speaker 03

  For sure.

• 29:13Speaker 02

  Faster charging, easier ways to charge your phone. All this other like day-to-day stuff that's not like a nerdy spec battle type of thing. But it doesn't matter because, you know, people are willing to put up with the iPhone's battery life.

• 29:26Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. I think the real question for Apple is like, they're gonna redesign this phone in September. Everyone's expecting him. I would imagine it's gonna look a lot like this phone.

• 29:34Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 29:35Nilay Patel?

  It's not gonna like hurt them at all that they, there's not like a lot, there's not a world in which Apple can push the hardware design of the phone much farther than Samsung just pushed it.

• 29:45Speaker 02

  Yeah. It'll be, it'll be interesting to see what happens. Cause if, if they do, if it does look like an S8, that means they're sourcing their displays direct from Samsung anyways.

• 29:56Nilay Patel?

  I don't think, I don't think Apple will ever do a curved screen.

• 29:58Speaker 02

  Yeah. But like the curved screen, it's a Samsung signature, but it actually solves a real problem in that people don't want to have a big phone, but they want to have a bigger screen. And the curved screen is what enables Samsung to put a bigger screen.

• 30:09Nilay Patel?

  But isn't Apple's move is gonna be hide everything under, it's gonna be to get rid of the bezels and hide everything under the screen itself.

• 30:15Speaker 02

  Yeah, but something's gonna hold the screen in place, right? Like, I mean, I'm not a, I'm not an engineer. I don't know.

• 30:20Nilay Patel?

  It's aluminium.

• 30:20Speaker 02

  But

• 30:21Nilay Patel?

  That's what holds the screen.

• 30:22Speaker 02

  They've been riding the same design for three years. Obviously, they're gonna do something crazy and different this year. But, you know, if you look at things like the Xiaomi Mi Max, which is a phone that has almost no bezels around it and does not have curved sides. It's a very difficult phone to handle because you can't really hold it without touching the screen. It's also a very big phone because in order to hide everything, they had to make it a bigger screen. So there's more room to hide the stuff underneath behind it. So there's a lot of ergonomic and practical challenges with doing that, so.

• 30:50Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. I don't know, but they have aluminium. Are you gonna spend $750 on this phone?

• 30:56Nilay Patel?

  Maybe. I mean, the answer is yes. Almost all of us are, that's the thing that we do, except for Megan.

• 31:02Speaker 03

  You're here with my iPhone 5S, chugging along with its terrible battery life.

• 31:06Nilay Patel?

  Dude, you just like dissed in a Drake song, too. The side chick has a 5S with a cracked screen.

• 31:13Speaker 03

  That's, it's actually me.

• 31:17Nilay Patel?

  What's he like? There are worse things than like to be Drake's side chick. By the way, this is a very unpopular opinion. I'm just gonna say this. I got in a big fight with Micah Singleton and Nicola Fumo the other day about it. I think more life is not good. I think it sounds like a bunch of New Order reject B-sides.

• 31:35Speaker 03

  Wow.

• 31:35Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, that's where I'm at.

• 31:36Speaker 03

  I can't believe you still have your entire face attached.

• 31:39Nilay Patel?

  Nicola, Micah, here's how this conversation went. Micah took a very professorial tone with me. And told me that he was gonna teach me all about grime. Nicola was like, how dare you?

• 31:52Nilay Patel?

  That's, that's how that conversation went with me. Anyway, uh, we gotta let you go. Sure. We gotta yell about the internet. I'm gonna read an ad. Megan, I want you to come back and talk about Ghost in the Shell and Persona 5. And then Jake will be here and we'll talk, we'll talk about this internet stuff. Bye, Dan. Bye, Dan.

• 32:06Speaker 03

  Bye, Dan.

• 32:07Nilay Patel?

  Thank you. Today's episode of The Ridge Cast is brought to you by Crizal No Glare Lenses. If you wear glasses, then you know that fingerprint, smudges, scratches, and glares can be a constant obstruction to your vision and a huge distraction. Sometimes you end up focusing more on what's on your glasses than what's going on around you. That's why everyone loves Crizal No Glare Lenses. They give you the clearest vision possible by offering resistance to glares, scratches, and smudges. That means no more blinding glares in the headlights of oncoming traffic while driving at night, no more fingerprint smudges from taking your glasses on and off, or scratches from cleaning your lenses on your shirt. And because Crizal No Glare Lenses take clear and reduce distracting glare, your friends and family can actually see your eyes, not just your glasses. So look better, feel better, and most importantly, be prepared for whatever comes your way with clear vision. Go to crizal.com, that's C-R-I-Z-A-L dot com. Start living life in the clear.

• 32:53Nilay Patel?

  I did it. I did the whole thing.

• 32:55Speaker 03

  I'm so proud of you. That was so good.

• 32:57Nilay Patel?

  I didn't stumble once. I didn't use any swear words. Buy the glasses. Buy the fucking glasses.

• 33:03Speaker 03

  There it is.

• 33:05Speaker 01

  I needed you to spend longer screwing that ad up because I was gonna try and get my AirPods working again.

• 33:11Nilay Patel?

  Oh, Jake is here. Alright.

• 33:12Speaker 01

  And now they're broken again.

• 33:13Nilay Patel?

  So Megan, we don't have a gadgetorial this week.

• 33:16Speaker 03

  Uh huh.

• 33:17Nilay Patel?

  Because we have no Paul. We have no Ashley. But we have you, and I want you to talk about Persona 5, which you were obsessed with. I was at South by Southwest, and we were like having our big team dinner at the end, and I was talking to Chris Plant, and there was a beep on his phone, he forwarded something to you, and Megan was like, "This better be a fucking Persona 5 invite." It was like a hostile moment between the two of you at the end of a very good week. But tell me about this game.

• 33:41Speaker 03

  Okay, Persona 5 is fucking incredible. It's so good. Okay, so to give some background on the Persona series, it's basically a mix of like a dungeon crawler combined with like a social sim game.

• 33:53Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 33:53Speaker 03

  Persona 5 itself is just incredibly deep, so essentially you are a teenager living in Japan who by day is just like a normal kid. You go to school, you hang out with your friends, and then sort of by night you go and fight evildoers, kind of? But the way they do it is that you find people who are bad people, who have like distorted desires, and then you break into a physical manifestation of those desires. They're called palaces.

• 34:21Nilay Patel?

  Okay.

• 34:21Speaker 03

  So for example, the first palace is a pervy high school gym teacher who considers himself to be... I know, you're giving me a look.

• 34:29Nilay Patel?

  There's a lot going on here.

• 34:30Speaker 03

  So this guy considers himself to be like, kind of like a lord of the school. He like abuses students. It's like really terrible. So you break in, and you're trying to like steal his treasure to get him to confess his crimes and punish him. But the good thing about this game, besides...

• 34:43Nilay Patel?

  So an easy concept that can be explained to anyone.

• 34:46Speaker 03

  Well, exactly. There's like a lot I have to like explain before I can be like, "Here's why it's good, though." That's the basic premise. You're part of this group called the Phantom Thieves. But the game is just good because like, aside from those dungeon crawling moments, which are really good, the game is gorgeous, the dungeons are interesting, there's a lot of good... Action when you actually get into fights. But there's also just a lot of emphasis on like enjoying your life as a kid. So you spend a lot of time going to class or hanging out with friends. I know, it's, it's the most mundane.

• 35:13Nilay Patel?

  Didn't we have this conversation last week about how all games now are about exactly what you would do in your regular day?

• 35:18Speaker 03

  Exactly. No, and I think I like, kind of mentioned this, like there's, I don't know, sometimes you take the train in to go to school and sometimes you get like a seat on the train and like, I li- we live in New York, right? Like, I rode the train to get here. I got a seat. I was like, oh, that's cool, whatever. When it happens to me in Persona 5, it's like the best day. I'm just like, oh shit, I'm gonna read this book. It's gonna be great. But yeah, it's just the game manages to gamify like really strange little moments and actually make it really enjoyable because if you get the chance to like sit down and like read a book on the subway, it means that you can potentially open up a new spot or improve on your social stats. And that's cool. You're shaking your head.

• 35:51Nilay Patel?

  I just, I just feel like I want to develop an app that gamifies actual events in your real life.

• 35:55Speaker 03

  I think they have those. I think those exist. I think those exist already.

• 35:59Nilay Patel?

  Like, that's, that's Pokemon Go, man. Don't you, don't you see little creatures everywhere you go? I gotta get back into video games in a serious way and every time we talk about these games that involve me simulating my life, I feel very confused about the entire situation.

• 36:12Speaker 03

  It's like, imagine being a teenager, but being able to live the best version of your life. Being able to like improve yourself, the way you look, the way you talk to girls, whatever.

• 36:21Speaker 04

  Invading people's dreams. Normal teenagers.

• 36:24Nilay Patel?

  Stealing their treasure so they confess their pervy crimes.

• 36:28Speaker 03

  Well, yeah, it's like essentially the dream of being like a special kid who lives an otherwise normal life, but an otherwise perfect life, right?

• 36:36Nilay Patel?

  Okay, I'm into it.

• 36:37Speaker 03

  Okay. Uh, game is about a hundred hours, so.

• 36:40Nilay Patel?

  A hundred hours?

• 36:41Speaker 04

  Okay, wait, but I, I feel like every time you see somebody in hours.

• 36:43Nilay Patel?

  Life does not move as fast as you think. Sorry, Jake, go ahead.

• 36:46Speaker 04

  Is that actual playtime? That's not like on the box?

• 36:48Nilay Patel?

  By the way, everybody, Jake Astorakis is here.

• 36:50Speaker 04

  Oh, hey, this is Jake. What's going on?

• 36:51Speaker 03

  Jake is here.

• 36:52Speaker 04

  I just walked in.

• 36:54Speaker 03

  He's like, y'all talking about Persona?

• 36:56Speaker 04

  Was there a Persona one through four?

• 36:58Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 36:59Speaker 04

  Okay. Were they all this weird?

• 37:01Speaker 03

  Yes, I would say the older ones are actually weirder because they were still kind of like working at the King's Cimberstone. It's also a spinoff of a really weird series called Shimagami Tensei, which is like a lot of like demon fighting and there are a lot of like weird, it's like a demon that just is like a giant dick. It's actually in this game.

• 37:16Speaker 04

  That, hmm.

• 37:17Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 37:18Nilay Patel?

  When you say the demon is like a giant dick, do you just mean the demon is an asshole? Cause I think demon covers that. Or do you mean that more literally?

• 37:24Speaker 03

  No, I mean like, like you can actually find photos of it online. Like it's essentially a monster that just looks like a huge wang.

• 37:32Nilay Patel?

  Okay. When I was a teenager, I definitely thought to myself, I'd like to break into someone's dreams and kill a huge penis.

• 37:38Nilay Patel?

  That was the best version. I'd like to put another 100 hours into my life.

• 37:41Speaker 03

  Those are still my dreams.

• 37:42Nilay Patel?

  That's where you are, just generally. That sounds fast. I mean, like, the reviews of this game have been off the charts.

• 37:47Speaker 03

  Yeah, I mean, the game itself is, it's, it's very good, yeah. Um, the game itself is just really deep, like, it's just very thought out and everything, like, the way it looks, the way it plays, like, everything is so detailed in a way that I don't think a lot of games do very well.

• 38:01Nilay Patel?

  So I should put 100 hours into this?

• 38:03Speaker 03

  At least.

• 38:03Speaker 04

  What platform is this?

• 38:05Speaker 03

  It's PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4.

• 38:07Nilay Patel?

  That is garbage.

• 38:08Speaker 03

  I know, I know.

• 38:09Nilay Patel?

  This game should be on the Switch. If you're gonna give me a 100-hour game that isn't like that graphically intense, is it that graphically intense?

• 38:16Speaker 03

  Uh, it looks pretty good.

• 38:17Nilay Patel?

  It plays on the PS3. It can't be that insane.

• 38:20Speaker 03

  Fair point.

• 38:20Nilay Patel?

  Let me play it on the Switch.

• 38:21Speaker 03

  No, I totally agree with you. Um, actually Persona 4, they ported it over to Vita, and it's really nice because it very much is like a pick-up-and-go kind of game, because, like, the game progresses over the course of a year. You have actual calendar days, and a day can be, you go to school, you come home, you, like, read a book, and then you go to bed. So it is very much like you could play a day and just turn it off.

• 38:39Nilay Patel?

  Right. That just sounds like, that just sounds like every day.

• 38:43Speaker 03

  But it's in a video game.

• 38:45Speaker 04

  There have been times in this description where I can't tell if you're talking about yourself or what you do in the game. You're like, yeah, on the subway, I get really excited. I'm like, is this, like, I am still confused.

• 38:56Nilay Patel?

  In my regular day, I wish I could find time to read a book. That would be really nice.

• 39:01Speaker 03

  Yeah, well, like I said, it is just like this, video games are power fantasies, right? And this one is a little bit more tame, because half of the power fantasy is just like, if I had to read a book, I could improve my charm, like, it is the idea that, like, you can put points to making yourself better or doing things in your life, like building your relationships and actually achieve your goals. So it's just very satisfying in that way. Think about, like, a farming sim, but it's with relationships.

• 39:25Speaker 04

  Is this, does the game, so the game does have an ending? It's not like Animal for all I'm saying.

• 39:27Speaker 03

  It does have an ending. No, no, it definitely has an ending.

• 39:30Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, you kill all the pervs.

• 39:31Speaker 03

  You kill, basically.

• 39:34Nilay Patel?

  It seems like where it's naturally going. Um, isn't there some big controversy about Switch ports, though, like taking up a huge amount of space? Or like downloading a thing? I think we wrote about it this week.

• 39:44Speaker 04

  I thought, well, there was also something about how like, uh, the, the memory cards that are the game cards.

• 39:50Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 39:51Speaker 04

  That, uh, for bigger games, I guess, cost more money at the factory. And so it seems like they're all trying to like, use downloads or something as a way to save.

• 39:59Nilay Patel?

  Cause the Switch has a like limited amount of storage space.

• 40:02Speaker 04

  Very small.

• 40:03Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. So I, we wrote about it this week, that like ports of Switch games in particular require massive amounts of space on the Switch as downloads. It's like, we'll see. Well, I played with the Switch for a while this week. Cause it's in the office now, like all hooked up to the TV real nice.

• 40:19Speaker 03

  Oh.

• 40:20Nilay Patel?

  And every time I walk by, I'm like, ah, it's real colorful.

• 40:22Speaker 03

  Uh, well, good news. This game is not on the Switch for that specific reason, I guess.

• 40:26Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. No, it's just interesting. Like it's, I think the, the Switch moment with Zelda is like very high. But then the Switch being a console that other games like this might be on seems, that road seems a lot bumpier going forward.

• 40:38Speaker 04

  Nintendo's planned to have, have like, what is it? An indie game a week? Like, that sounds really appealing if they can pull that off and get like legitimately good games and not like weird cell phone ports.

• 40:50Speaker 04

  Like, cause that's what I want from games right now. I feel like the indie game scene, um, is way more interesting than the mainstream console hits. Um, and that's the kind of thing that I would like to play, like portably.

• 41:03Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. I mean, I will say with the Switch, I'm definitely in the moment where I could go and just finish Zelda right now. And I'm trying not to, cause I just, I'm just trying to milk as much out of it as I can before like it's over. And then I have to switch to like whatever the next game on the Switch is, cause I don't know what that's gonna be.

• 41:19Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 41:20Nilay Patel?

  I guess it'll be, uh, Master Blaster, but. Or you could get, buy a PS4 and Persona 5.

• 41:25Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 41:25Nilay Patel?

  I, I do have a PS4. I'm thinking about Persona 5, but I don't know if I want to spend a hundred hours, um, invading the subconscious of pervy gym teachers like that.

• 41:34Speaker 03

  I mean, I would say that's not even half of the game because there's just so much other stuff to do. So it's like, if you like.

• 41:40Nilay Patel?

  There's pervy math teachers.

• 41:43Nilay Patel?

  Pervy jocks.

• 41:45Speaker 03

  That's just the real world.

• 41:46Nilay Patel?

  She's laughing because it's true.

• 41:47Speaker 03

  That's, that's just like me on my way to work today, like getting harassed.

• 41:51Nilay Patel?

  Purvey math teachers everywhere.

• 41:54Speaker 03

  No, I definitely think it's worth checking out. There's a lot to do besides just the actual like dungeon stuff. Like, the thing is, like, you can kind of customize the game to do whatever you want, right? So like, if you want to spend all your time going through dungeons, you can ignore all the side stuff and the relationship stuff. You don't have to, but you'd be missing out on the experience.

• 42:10Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. Okay, so then there's one more thing I want you to talk about before Jake and I start screaming about internet privacy. Ghost in the Shell. You saw it.

• 42:17Speaker 03

  I did, yeah.

• 42:18Nilay Patel?

  This movie mired in controversy, but you said earlier you think it's like fun-ish.

• 42:23Speaker 03

  So yeah, the controversy, I guess, has been, not a guess, like, controversy has been about whitewashing the lead, right? So it's Groucho Hanson, which is not obviously the case in the original. If you put all that aside, and I want to for a second, because without getting into the plot, they sort of address it, and I think they try really hard to like, explain their way around it, and then it's like a jump and a faceplant, because they present an interesting idea, then don't actually do a good job doing anything with that idea. That's all I'll say about that. The movie itself, though, is not bad. Like, as an action film, it's pretty enjoyable, it's gorgeous, it's pretty fast-moving for like a two-hour movie. Like, I just saw Atomic Blonde at South by Southwest, and it's the last action movie I saw, so in my head I kind of compared them. And it's like, I loved Atomic Blonde, but like, man, it really does drag

• 43:06Speaker 03

  in the middle. Whereas like Ghost in the Shell, like, I was like, really interested the entire time. The plot is not the deepest or most interesting, but also like, keeps you hooked enough and keeps you interested enough to like, make you want to see what happens.

• 43:19Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. I think my question about this movie is, so much of the anime has been ripped off. It's like a, like, it's like a Eddie Van Halen guitar solo. Like, you go back, like, so much of that got ripped off that you go back and listen to it, it sounds like a cliche now. Did they avoid that trap? Because like so much of it has been expressed in every other kind of movie.

• 43:40Speaker 04

  I compared it to like The Matrix in when I was writing about one of the trailers and a bunch of commenters told me I was a complete idiot and they were like, why, you know, like this predated The Matrix, like what are you talking about, these ideas were around, dah dah dah dah. Which like sort of excites me because I feel like there are interesting things that they could do with it and I haven't seen the anime, but it sounds like maybe this is not actually evolved upon the ideas that were presented in the original.

• 44:09Speaker 03

  I think it's like a mishmash of the anime as in like the show and both movies. That being said, I haven't actually watched it. It's like The Verge team went to go see it. It was a mix of people who were familiar, like Kwame who wrote the review, and people who weren't, like me.

• 44:22Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 44:23Speaker 03

  So to me, coming in as a fresh viewer, I think I've seen like two episodes of the anime standalone complex, it all seemed pretty novel and interesting, but like even just looking at screenshots, like there is stuff that they've taken like bit for bit from that previous work.

• 44:37Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. I mean, the last Scarlett Johansson action movie I saw.

• 44:42Speaker 03

  It's like Lucy, where she was the lead.

• 44:43Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, I just saw Lucy because of my tendency to watch terrible television every night to escape the news. Lucy is a fucking awful movie. Like, it starts out fine and then it like just takes this like weird, bad turn and you were describing this as like a jump and a face plant.

• 44:59Speaker 03

  Uh huh.

• 45:00Nilay Patel?

  And Lucy just face plants and like I'm wondering, is this like her, is this like the problem with her movies or like, is it just the nature of action movies that like have this particular theme to them? Like, I don't know. It's like Lucy, she wants to be an action star. Like you can tell, she keeps making action movies.

• 45:16Speaker 03

  I mean, I don't think she wants to be one. I think she is one.

• 45:19Nilay Patel?

  Sure.

• 45:19Speaker 03

  It's like, it's basically like if you look at what she's done before, like Kwame put it really well where he was like, this is Ghost in the Shell by way of Marvel's Black Widow and Lucy. So it's not the deepest or most like.

• 45:32Speaker 03

  Thinking Man's version of Ghost in the Shell, but like it is still a good action movie. And she does do a good job. Like, I would say there's some stuff that falls kind of short. There's one thing that threw me off, like in the movie, she walks in this really weird robotic awkward way. And obviously, like, the idea is that, well, she doesn't feel at home in her own body, so of course she looks a little awkward, but also she is like, she's the major, right? Like, she is leading a task force. But her acting sometimes falls like a little flat, kind of, because, again, she's a robot. That being said, like, Sarah L. Johansson, I think, is an excellent action star.

• 46:05Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. No, I guess, I agree with you. She is one. She like plays action roles. She's an action star. She's the caster in this movie because she's gonna sell tickets as an action star, right? Like, that much is clear. What I mean by she wants to be one is like, she has this aspiration to elevate the form, because she is talented and sells tickets. And it's like both of this, like Lucy in this movie, that wall they hit of like conceptualization falling flat, like, that's the, that's the thing that links them together. And like, Black Widow in all the Marvel movies, like, just literally, it's like formless. Like, you can throw any idea on the Black Widow and it gets, it helps the Marvel movies continue their plot.

• 46:47Nilay Patel?

  But as like a character that exists, is like, it's just, I don't know, like, that's like the thing, particularly with Black Widow, I think that's a criticism I hear all the time. Like, whatever it needs the plot to move forward, like, she'll fall in love with any of them. And like, I'd like to see her just do the thing that I think we want her to do, which is conceptually carry a movie forward.

• 47:08Speaker 03

  Yeah. I don't think this is the movie that does that.

• 47:11Nilay Patel?

  It doesn't do that.

• 47:11Speaker 01

  Do they make her, do they make her do the thing that they make too many female action stars do, which is like, do the leg takedown? To like, like, spin around somebody and wrap your legs around their head and throw them? She, she does that as Black Widow like four times a movie.

• 47:26Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's like Black Widow's like main takedown move. She spends a lot of time punching people and shooting people, but I don't recall her taking anybody down with her legs.

• 47:33Speaker 01

  That's great. That's really good news.

• 47:35Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, it's a win. I'm gonna see this Ghost in the Shell movie. I don't know if I can commit 100 hours to percent of five.

• 47:40Speaker 03

  Breaking my damn heart.

• 47:40Nilay Patel?

  But two hours for Ghost in the Shell.

• 47:43Speaker 03

  It's a fun action movie that has some deep rooted problems.

• 47:49Speaker 03

  Some deep rooted cultural problems.

• 47:51Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, I think that part's gonna be really interesting. Like, just reading our very contentious comment threads about it.

• 47:58Speaker 04

  And having talked to Kwame and hear how they address it in the movie, sounds totally insane.

• 48:04Speaker 03

  It's not good.

• 48:05Speaker 04

  And not really thought through.

• 48:08Speaker 03

  Base plan.

• 48:08Speaker 04

  Yeah, which don't wanna, I guess, spoil anything, but it sounds like they could've addressed it better.

• 48:16Speaker 03

  I think the idea they're going for is interesting, but like, it is very much how you finish off that thought. And they don't really finish it, right? They're just like, what if this? And then that's it. There's like, no ending to it.

• 48:28Speaker 04

  Do you think it would've been better if they had just not touched on it in the movie? Or would that have made it worse?

• 48:33Speaker 03

  Um, I can appreciate that I think that they tried to, and that maybe there was a little bit more thought put into it. But again, like, if you are gonna do the thing, like, you need to figure out a way to do it right. Otherwise, you almost make it worse.

• 48:46Speaker 04

  Was it like shoehorned in? Like, they clearly realized, oh, there's a controversy, we should need to throw some lines in here?

• 48:52Speaker 03

  I don't think so, because I think the film was probably written far before it was cast.

• 48:56Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, but they had to know, like...

• 48:59Speaker 03

  I mean, I'm sure they knew. The question is, did they care?

• 49:01Nilay Patel?

  The answer.

• 49:01Speaker 03

  And the answer is probably no.

• 49:06Nilay Patel?

  This episode of The Vergecast is brought to you by ZipRecruiter. Are you hiring? Do you know where to post your job to find the best candidates? Posting your job in one place isn't enough to find quality candidates. If you want to find the perfect hire, you need to post your job in all the top job sites, and now you can. With ZipRecruiter.com, you can post your job to 200-plus job sites, including social media networks like Facebook and Twitter, all with a single click. Find candidates in any city or industry nationwide. Just post once and watch your qualified candidates roll in to ZipRecruiter's easy-to-use interface. No juggling emails or calls to your office. Quickly screen candidates, rate them, and hire the right person fast. Find out today why ZipRecruiter has been used by Fortune 100 companies and thousands of small and medium-sized businesses. And right now, Vergecast listeners can post jobs on ZipRecruiter for free by going to ziprecruiter.com/verge.

• 49:49Nilay Patel?

  That's ziprecruiter.com/verge. One more time. To try ZipRecruiter for free, go to ziprecruiter.com/verge.

• 49:59Speaker 05

  Hi Vergecast listeners. I'm Kara Swisher, the host of Recode Decode. If you like The Vergecast, I think you'll like the episode of Recode Decode where I interviewed Tim Simons, Matt Walsh, and David Mandel from HBO's Beep. We talked about everything from virtual reality to deleting Twitter to how the show is reacting to President Trump. Give it a listen and then leave us a review. Five stars, please. Find Recode Decode wherever you found this show, or on iTunes, Google Play, SoundCloud, and more. See you there.

• 50:28Nilay Patel?

  Jake has been doing all of the FCC reporting lately at The Verge.

• 50:33Speaker 04

  I've been doing a lot of FCC reporting.

• 50:34Nilay Patel?

  And I've been pretending to do it on the side by asking Jake to do it for real.

• 50:37Speaker 04

  You have the show notes, which I like because I will write a thing and it will be long and, you know, let's be real, a little boring. And then you'll just basically swear a bunch on the page.

• 50:52Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, it works.

• 50:53Speaker 04

  And that's the fun version of it. And so I enjoy reading that a lot.

• 50:58Nilay Patel?

  But Jake is doing actually all the work. Let's be very clear. I'm writing the angry polemics about the FCC on the side. But a bunch of stuff happened with the FCC recently. And like, we can go through it all. But the big one is this privacy, privacy move that happened in Congress. You want to walk us through it?

• 51:13Speaker 04

  Yeah. So after the net neutrality rules passed in 2015, the FCC, yeah, the FCC got in charge of privacy for internet providers. So last year, they passed these privacy rules. They go through the whole process. They put it up for a proposal. They get comments. They vote on it. They voted on it again. Then it's October. They pass the privacy rules for good. They're like, okay, they're going to go into effect next year. Then Donald Trump becomes president. So Congress now has a chance to reverse the rules. They did that this week. And so now there were these privacy rules that were going to do a lot of things, most notably, prevent internet providers from sharing your web browsing

• 51:57Speaker 04

  history without your permission. And that's not going to happen because Congress didn't like it. They thought it was too confusing. They thought it was unfair and we're just a signature away by Trump from the rules being dead.

• 52:11Nilay Patel?

  And the White House is clearly signaling today, I think.

• 52:14Speaker 04

  Yeah, they've put out a statement, you know, Trump's advisers suggest that he sign it. Spicer. Came on today and was-

• 52:21Speaker 01

  Oh, he had a statement today.

• 52:23Speaker 04

  Yeah, he said-

• 52:24Speaker 01

  Yesterday, he had no idea what he was talking about.

• 52:26Speaker 04

  Yes, and so he came back today with a clarification. He said, "This will allow service providers to be treated fairly and consumer protection and privacy concerns to be reviewed on an equal playing field."

• 52:37Speaker 01

  Sure. Okay.

• 52:39Speaker 04

  Yeah. So-

• 52:41Speaker 01

  So there is one nuance to this that we should actually probably be clear about. We have been talking about this privacy thing in sort of a shorthand of saying ISPs can share your browsing data without your permission, which that shorthand is a little bit vague insofar as it doesn't look like I can go to Comcast and say, "I would like to buy Jake's browsing history. How much?"

• 53:11Speaker 04

  Right, right.

• 53:12Speaker 01

  How, what is it precisely that they are able to share without, like, you know, getting in trouble?

• 53:18Speaker 04

  I mean, the thing is, they're not going to do that because that would open up a whole host of problems for everyone.

• 53:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, it would be insane, and we know that insane things never happen in this world.

• 53:27Speaker 04

  Yes, that's true. I mean, the thing is, the rules are actually kind of unclear. Me and Russ are looking into this right now. The thing is, these privacy rules, there are, in fact, still privacy laws on the books.

• 53:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 53:40Speaker 04

  But they're vague, and they're confusing, and they're meant for phone companies. And they've been applied to internet providers, and these rules are meant to clarify it and say what exactly they can do with your web browsing data. But instead of having that clarification, we now have nothing. So can they share specific people's, you know, privacy or web browsing history? Probably not by name, or, you know, or maybe they could under certain circumstances. It's just entirely, like, unclear. What's actually going to happen is that they can now use this stuff to build really hyper-specific profiles of you to then, you know, target ads to you. And that's still pretty unsettling because your web browsing history is exceptionally

• 54:25Speaker 04

  revealing, and that's going to then get combined with data they can buy from, you know, other things that'll say, you know, first of all, a lot of these internet providers also know your, you know, your TV viewing habits, they also know what you do on the phone, and then they can talk to data brokers and get even more information about what you're buying, you know, from physical stores and so on and so forth.

• 54:49Speaker 04

  We were going to have this chance to give consumers the opportunity to opt into this instead of having to opt out or have no say whatsoever, but that's just gone now. And we're basically trusting internet providers to behave.

• 55:03Nilay Patel?

  Which I don't at all.

• 55:06Speaker 04

  Right.

• 55:07Nilay Patel?

  I mean, the problem here is like this, the line that they keep using is that, you know, the consumer will express their preferences in favor of privacy and internet providers will behave. But consumers never pick privacy. They never pick it. Ever.

• 55:23Speaker 01

  Well, it's not even that. It's not even that consumers never pick privacy, which is a thing that is like worth saying. It's that when it comes especially to landline internet, the idea that consumers are able to pick at all is a farce because in most places, there's only one, maybe two viable high-speed broadband providers to choose from.

• 55:46Speaker 04

  Right. Yeah. I don't even, I completely agree. It's not even fair to say that there is an option or that, you know, there could be some sort of competition because there's just not, right? In my apartment building, I have one option and it's the one provider that comes to me. I could like maybe try to cajole my landlord into letting me put a satellite on the roof.

• 56:09Nilay Patel?

  And the competition that you'd have, the competition that you have actually that the FCC points to now is, well, you can get mobile.

• 56:15Speaker 04

  Right.

• 56:16Nilay Patel?

  But like, there's only four of those and they're all going to do it too.

• 56:19Speaker 04

  And I would, it's going to be really fun.

• 56:22Nilay Patel?

  And that's way more expensive.

• 56:23Speaker 04

  Watching Netflix with my, you know, six gigabyte data cap.

• 56:25Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 56:26Speaker 04

  Like, that's not going to work. Well, actually, you know, they could zero rate it and give me 4AP video or something.

• 56:32Nilay Patel?

  That's what you want.

• 56:33Speaker 04

  Yeah, that's what I want for my home.

• 56:34Nilay Patel?

  [laughing]

• 56:38Speaker 04

  Yeah, so it's like, it's just this very, you know, we were this close to having these rules. They were literally, they were passed, they were reviewed, they were okayed. And now, you know, it's internet providers. They are the ones who are fighting against this. There's not really anybody else who's excited about it. And, you know, it's true, there are, you know, Facebook and Google, they do have this dominance in advertising right now, online. They have dominance in targeted online ads. But the stuff they're doing, internet providers have always been able to do. Internet providers were not actually, you know, losing anything that put them in a

• 57:20Speaker 04

  worse position than Facebook or Google. They're just being lazy and going, "Oh hey, you're already giving us your web browsing history."

• 57:29Nilay Patel?

  By browsing the web on our pipes.

• 57:30Speaker 04

  Right. So, we may as well take it and we may as well turn it into another business and make even more money off of you. Which is why it's so frustrating, right? Because you're paying them to deliver data to you. You're not, you know, it's not assumed that they're then going to take that and target more ads to you and make a second thing of money off of you. You're already paying them. And, you know, the, right, there's something to say about some idealistic free market da-da-da-da thing here, but that's not what consumers understand that they're buying.

• 58:05Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 58:06Speaker 04

  It's not like internet providers are hurting here. They're just not making as much money as they can.

• 58:12Nilay Patel?

  So, over the course, because I want to be clear, Jake has been doing a lot and lot of FCC reporting over the past few months. Over the course of that, where does this rank in terms of like, because there's a lot going on with these guys right now. Like, this one to me, the amount of outrage that was generated up leading to the House vote in particular, and then after the House vote, I don't know if it was surprising. It certainly didn't change any like legislature like minds.

• 58:43Speaker 04

  I mean, you got close, right?

• 58:45Nilay Patel?

  There's a lot, right?

• 58:47Speaker 04

  Yeah, I mean, this is definitely-

• 58:48Nilay Patel?

  I mean, they just squeaked it over the line. They got 215.

• 58:50Speaker 04

  They really did. And the thing is, they rushed this through, right? Like, I was talking to people in the House and they were like, "Oh my god, wait, it's happening tomorrow."

• 58:57Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 58:58Speaker 04

  You know, they pushed this through because they knew it was, especially, people didn't really know it was coming. And then, after the Senate votes, you have a bunch of headlines saying, "The Senate just voted to let internet providers share your web browsing history without permission." People freak out, right? And so then, there's pressure on the House and so they just rush it through. And this is, more than anything that the FCC has done so far, this is, I think, generally the most pushback. Because people understand how this affects them.

• 59:22Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 59:24Speaker 04

  This is bad. Everybody knows that they visit websites that they would probably, you know, not broadcast to the world if possible. That's really personal information.

• 59:37Speaker 04

  The other stuff is a lot nerdier. It's like about broadband deployment.

• 59:42Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 59:42Speaker 04

  Or it's about like the administration of subsidy programs. And these things do have really big impacts. Like the Lifeline program is, you know, there are some restrictions on it right now, which means that there are fewer people getting, you know, fewer low-income households getting subsidized broadband than there should be. That's hard to get people as outraged about because it's hard to put into like a quick little bite-sized thing. This privacy thing is the first, I think, really, really big thing that people are going to feel because this is, this is net neutrality being chipped back in a very big way.

• 1:00:21Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. Well, not, not net neutrality, Title II.

• 1:00:24Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 1:00:25Nilay Patel?

  Right? So then there's, there's the reclassification as common carriers under Title II and then all the additional power the FCC had.

• 1:00:32Speaker 04

  Because of that.

• 1:00:32Nilay Patel?

  So that's that first reclassification. What's weird is the rhetorical dance that they're doing. They're saying, "We don't need these rules because Title II already provided for those rules." And then the next thing they're going to do is undo Title II.

• 1:00:45Speaker 04

  Yeah, well, that's, and this is the thing we're watching for now, right? Because the chairman of the FCC has said again and again, he thinks Title II was a mistake. In a statement after Congress finished its vote here, he said, "I still think the best thing to do would be to return privacy oversight to the FTC," which, you know, implies he wants to undo Title II.

• 1:01:10Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:10Speaker 04

  The question is, can he do that? Does he like feel like battling it out politically for a year? We don't know. I mean, he definitely wants to. It's, the question is, you know, how difficult it will be for him? How will he go about doing it? I'm not sure that Congress is going to try just because they couldn't agree on healthcare.

• 1:01:29Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, but, uh. I mean, that's like different, right? I mean, I can see them trying.

• 1:01:37Speaker 04

  Right.

• 1:01:37Nilay Patel?

  I think what they're not excited about is the, they know, they know the outcry that net neutrality got in 2015. They felt it, right? Like the FCC switchboard crashed, which is hilarious because they control the communication network in the country. Amazing irony there. So they know that there's like popular opinion, they probably are feeling the heat from this privacy thing. So the question is, are they gonna do the next one? But Pi just seems like that's what he wants.

• 1:02:04Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:02:05Nilay Patel?

  It's his dream. Which is weird, because it, in many ways, conflicts with his stated goal, whichever one agrees with, which is like, we need more broadband all over the country. And I think what he's, what he's thinking is if it's more profitable to build networks, people will go and build networks.

• 1:02:19Speaker 04

  Right. I think that's probably true. I mean, the question is, though, right, if he starts doing, undoing the, you know, Title II proceeding, that's going to be his focus for like, a year. And, you know, that's, that's a lot of time that he could be spending building out rural broadband, under rules that are already in place and that people already understand.

• 1:02:42Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:43Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:02:44Nilay Patel?

  By the way, that is my entire emotion about this whole situation, right? It's, it was fine. Like, the broadband companies were all making a lot of fucking money. They weren't doing badly, and they were, they were happy to invest in things like 5G. They were happy to, I mean, they were doing the work.

• 1:03:02Speaker 04

  Yeah. I mean, they still are.

• 1:03:04Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:04Speaker 04

  Like, that's the thing. They keep saying that, oh, this has killed investment, da-da-da-da-da, it's so horrible. The thing is, they're still investing in huge amounts. There was like a slight dip in 2015, but then last year it was back up again. And again, we were even talking about, broadband investment is not the only way to measure the success of internet providers. Broadband investment is just important for Pi and the FCC, right? Because what matters to them is that broadband spreads to the United States.

• 1:03:35Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 1:03:35Speaker 04

  So that's the metric that they are looking at. But, the thing is, as long as these companies are making a ton of money, and they are making a ton of money, they're going to try to get new subscribers, they're going to keep building out their networks. And there's some weird disconnect here where, you know, they keep, internet providers keep saying, oh, there's this regulatory uncertainty because everybody is suing over the Title II rules, but in fact, they're the ones that are suing over it. And it's like, if everybody just chilled out, we would have these really firm rules in place, everything would be super clear about what's going on.

• 1:04:07Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. I mean, to be super blunt, they all thought Hillary was gonna win.

• 1:04:11Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 1:04:12Nilay Patel?

  Their businesses were not about to fail when the entire country was under the delusion that Hillary would win. Their businesses aren't in jeopardy now. They just could make more money now. And I think that's like a really, there's a dangerous road we go down where the biggest broadband providers all control media companies as well, and they prioritize their own media companies. And I think that's actually a danger left or right.

• 1:04:34Speaker 04

  Well, and that's the, that brings it all back to the privacy thing, right? Because they have these media companies, those media companies rely on ads. And they also get more information about what you're browsing and what you're reading. Tie that in together with what, you know, these internet subscribers are browsing. And you have these hyper-targeted ads on these websites supported by these things. It's gonna be really interesting to see how that plays out. And it's like, not all that exciting, but this integration keeps happening. You just had a video go up earlier today that was tracking how all of the big internet providers have been creating these integrations. Verizon is the really big one.

• 1:05:14Nilay Patel?

  I think we need to write the Verizon story. We haven't actually like, I did it in this video. But Verizon buying a bunch of ad tech from AOL and then doing their cookies and then not have like,

• 1:05:26Nilay Patel?

  if I worked for Verizon, the dude, the dude, I mean, it was a long time. It was like 15 years ago. But he spent two years as Verizon's lawyer. And I bet he was like, ah, this is super annoying. And now he's like walking, I mean, it's just, it's wild.

• 1:05:39Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:05:40Nilay Patel?

  Okay, that's it. We ended on a really dour note with this FCC stuff.

• 1:05:44Speaker 04

  There's more to come.

• 1:05:46Nilay Patel?

  I mean, it's like, it was really depressing yesterday. I was really down at the end of, well, I guess it was two days ago now. When this vote was taken, because they came so close. I watched the votes come in on that.

• 1:05:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, when you're watching votes come in, you're like, oh, wait, maybe there's a chance. And it's like, there wasn't, there never was.

• 1:06:02Nilay Patel?

  No, they squeaked it over the line. If one more Republican had gone the other way.

• 1:06:09Nilay Patel?

  But they literally squeaked it over the line at 2:15. And a bunch, and like, what is, 14, 15 Republicans voted against?

• 1:06:15Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, they got a bunch against, a few abstaining, I think. It was pretty close. They, I feel like they only needed to flip like five people or something like that. It was not much, which I think shows how passionately people care about this. Like, I mean, we covered this. There are people on, you know, the Donald subreddit flipping out about this.

• 1:06:35Nilay Patel?

  Breitbart.

• 1:06:36Speaker 04

  Breitbart.

• 1:06:36Nilay Patel?

  Breitbart comments, super against it. Here's a weird thing that means nothing, and it's a Twitter engagement stat, so it means less than nothing. When I tweet our stories about net neutrality and internet privacy, it's like thousands of retweets in the first few hours. Like, people desperately want to know about this stuff and care about it. And I think we all do ourselves this disservice of pretending that people don't care. But the second it's out and you're like, Comcast is gonna do a thing. Disclosure Comcast, Fox, whatever. The listeners know. Whatever. The whole disclosure is that Comcast is a minority investor in Fox Media, which I'm submerged. I can't like, just like shade over it. So take that for what it's worth.

• 1:07:18Nilay Patel?

  But people don't trust Comcast. People don't trust AT&T. They, they know, they have, after years and years of poor service and high prices and rising prices, they know better than to trust their, their ISPs. And when you say to them, your ISPs are about to do something shady, they want to communicate that out with as many people as they can because they're afraid of it and they don't know how to stop it. And I think this is just one of those moments, you know, I think, whatever you think of the Trump administration, they came in with this, we're gonna fix it all for the common person theme, and siding with broadband companies and ISPs does not feel like that. And it's, I think this Title II thing will get in the way of that.

• 1:07:59Speaker 04

  No, this is like a very clear instance of siding with huge businesses that people feel like have been screwing them over for a decade plus. If not longer.

• 1:08:12Speaker 04

  Right, nobody has a great experience with these companies. They only, they don't show up on time, they overcharge you, they bill you for bizarre things, they make you rent weird equipment that you maybe don't need.

• 1:08:26Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:28Speaker 04

  Nobody is in love with Comcast, there's an inherent distrust, like you're saying.

• 1:08:31Nilay Patel?

  I definitely tried to start the end of this, the end of the show by being like, "That was depressing." And then we just got more depressing.

• 1:08:37Speaker 04

  Speaking of depressing.

• 1:08:38Nilay Patel?

  Like, last week, we ended in like, Dog and Shoes, and this week, it's like, the internet's over.

• 1:08:42Speaker 03

  Remember when people drew us pictures and tweeted nice things at us?

• 1:08:44Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:45Speaker 03

  I want to remember that right now.

• 1:08:46Nilay Patel?

  Big speed man.

• 1:08:47Speaker 01

  Send us a, send us a picture of, of the sun shining happily.

• 1:08:52Nilay Patel?

  That's it?

• 1:08:53Speaker 01

  With a smile.

• 1:08:54Nilay Patel?

  We're just offering kindergarten-level drawing assignments to our listeners now.

• 1:08:59Speaker 01

  Just, just go outside and stare at the sun. Wait, no, don't, don't ever do that.

• 1:09:04Nilay Patel?

  That's real. Dieter, do you know when we're getting review units of this phone? Like, when's the thing ship?

• 1:09:08Speaker 01

  Uh, it ships on April 21st. Um, I would like to think that we will have a review before then.

• 1:09:13Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:13Speaker 01

  Beyond, beyond that, uh, one, one cannot say, uh, publicly on, on a podcast.

• 1:09:19Nilay Patel?

  That's not what I was asking. But, you know, like, soon, soon we'll have phones to play with. The weird iPad thing is gonna be out in the world soon, we can screw with that thing.

• 1:09:28Speaker 01

  We will, yep. We'll have reviews next week of the G6 and the iPad.

• 1:09:34Nilay Patel?

  There you go. So, look, there's tech news in this world.

• 1:09:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:09:38Speaker 03

  I can't stop hearing the G6 song.

• 1:09:39Speaker 01

  And, and your ISP knows everything that, that, that you want to know about said tech news.

• 1:09:44Nilay Patel?

  Uh, look, that was Vergecast. It ended on a dark note, which I'm sorry for, because Jake is a delight.

• 1:09:49Speaker 04

  Turn back next week, the more horrors.

• 1:09:52Nilay Patel?

  A complex inner life that I'd like to hear about from time to time.

• 1:09:55Speaker 04

  I actually fight high school gym teachers most of the time.

• 1:09:58Speaker 03

  Only the pervy ones, though.

• 1:10:00Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah, of course, yes.

• 1:10:01Speaker 01

  Little known fact, Jake is a vampire and doesn't eat solid food.

• 1:10:04Speaker 04

  That is true.

• 1:10:05Nilay Patel?

  See, there's so much about Jake that you don't know, because we make him write about the FCC all day, every day. But there's more coming. We're not going to let go of this story. It's too important, but there's other stuff that's going to happen. It's going to be great. Anyway, also, thanks again to Crizal No-Glare Lenses for sponsoring us today. If you wear glasses, then you know the fingerprint sponges and scratches and glares can be a constant distraction in your vision, a huge distraction. That's why you should wear Crizal No-Glare Lenses. They give you the clearest vision possible, offering resistance to those things. Go to crizal.com to learn more. That's C-R-I-Z-A-L dot com. Crizal, start living life in the clear. There are other shows to listen to. If you're interested in more about the S8 and you found Dan Seifert to be a delight, he was actually on Too Embarrassed to Ask with Lauren Good,

• 1:10:49Nilay Patel?

  so you can listen to that. Walt and I talked about the S8 and internet privacy on Control or Delete. It's also, it's Walt's birthday this week. Man turned 70 years old this week. He made a lot of very dark jokes on his show about it, which was pretty entertaining. Kara Swisher hosts Recode Decode, which is wonderful. Peter Kafka hosts Recode Media, which is also wonderful. You can tweet at us. Jake is at Jake underscore K on Twitter. Megan is at Megan underscore Nicollet. A lot of underscores. I'm at R underscore Eklis. Dieter is at B underscore Aklon.

• 1:11:24Speaker 01

  Dan is D C C for no underscore S E I.

• 1:11:26Nilay Patel?

  Tweet at us. We love that. We love your feedback. Go to iTunes dot com slash Verge. Find all of our shows. I promise, we're going to, next week when we do the rundown, I'm going to put the sad news first, and we're going to end at an upswing.

• 1:11:38Speaker 04

  That'll definitely encourage people to keep listening.

• 1:11:40Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. What you want is to trick people into happy emotions. You want to bring them down and then promise that...

• 1:11:46Speaker 01

  That's all happy emotions are, are tricks that you play on yourself, because really, we're all doomed and everything is terrible. And we all know it, but we trick ourselves into being happy.

• 1:11:54Nilay Patel?

  All right. That was it. That was the Vergecast. As always, we're very sorry. Rock and roll. Paul, goodbye.