Let's Be Real About Consumer 📧
The recent reports that BeReal is struggling with either a fundraise or growth or both, is a bummer. I have no actual information about the round or company – nor am I even a regular user (I had sort of been there/done that with Front/Back back in the day!). But assuming the report is even just directionally accurate (and if my wife's own usage is any indication, I believe it may be – our family is no longer being asked to stop what we're doing once a day to pose), it's yet another data point for how hard it is to truly break out as a consumer service in this day and age. Things blow up for a time, BeReal being a prime recent example (but hardly the only one), then quietly but quickly fade away.
I feel like everyone overthinks why this is the case, when it really just boils down to time. We all have the apps and services we use on a daily basis. Once one is lodged in that cycle, it's extremely hard to dislodge both because of habits and for social apps, network effects. And whereas 10 to 15 years ago, everyone was gung-ho to try new apps to see what might stick, we're all now stuck with what we have. Yes, some of these newer ones can pop into existence and some people will give them a shot. But not to the same extent as in years past. Only some subset of your network will give it that shot. And so it's an uphill battle from day one.
When VCs and entrepreneurs talk about waiting for the "next platform" what they're really asking for is simply a new entry point to peoples' time. New devices unlock time because the novelty yields more experimentation time. Not just using the same old apps and services. But the Apple Watch didn't truly unlock that time. And it already seems clear that the Vision Pro won't either. Neither had enough scale within networks to change any of the above dynamics.
Crypto was compelling to some for a hot second because it didn't necessarily require new devices. But that also meant those services had to be so much better than what they would be replacing on "old" devices. Yet at best, they were roughly the same as what they were trying to replace, just on the blockchain. At worst, they were far worse! And now AI. There are a lot of fun things to play with in this world. And ChatGPT obviously has real consumer scale now. But it also doesn't seem like the app store model is working for them, at least right now. It's a service without network effects (but some real advantages of scale) that is relying on a combination of technical advantage and early mover brand recognition. And so it's going to need to keep iterating fast on the core service to keep those users – and to their credit, they have been, to date. But you also have to wonder how long chat itself is going to be the core component of ChatGPT...
But, but, but TikTok. Yes, you too can build TikTok, all it takes is algorithms trained over time on millions of users in China, acquiring another company which was already operating in the US market, and then spending billions of dollars to market it on Meta properties to siphon off users to your network. And even then, it won't work unless your product is actually great. Those millions of users will just churn. TikTok worked because Douyin worked. And even if it all that works, you might get banned. Good luck.
Briefly...
Vision Pro is an Over-Engineered “Devkit” – As nearly 12,000 words can attest, Hugo Barra, who used to run Oculus for Meta, has a lot of thoughts about the Vision Pro. I certainly don't agree with everything he says – I tend to think the entertainment use case will win the early days if Apple makes bespoke quality content, quickly, which they haven't been doing so far (and Barra agrees with this in the form of immersive video and sports in particular, I just wouldn't discount 3D so heavily, that content is great too, better than in a cinema) – but he has many good thoughts on the directions taken and those to come. One idea Apple needs to implement tomorrow: fast mirroring the iPhone at a literal glance into the Vision Pro. I'm still constantly looking at my iPhone (or Apple Watch) while "in" the device because it doesn't get all the push notifications I do on those other devices (in fact it gets like 1/10th of them thanks to so little app support). 🥽
8 Google Employees Invented Modern AI – Steven Levy dives into the creation of transformers within Google and the story behind the Attention Is All You Need paper – the two main ingredients that led to today's AI revolution. The former, yes, is in part a reference to the toys of our youth. The latter is a reference to The Beatles. The original design doc for transformers started out strong: “We are awesome.” 🤖
Condé Nast’s Owners Set to Reap Billions Windfall From Reddit – The publication acquired Reddit $10 million in 2006. They spun it back out in 2011 and turned that into a 30% holding. With Reddit's large "pop" upon opening up trading on the NYSE yesterday, that stake is worth nearly $2.5B. You almost never hear about such transactions actually working out. That is quite the return! 👽
Apple's iPhone is Not a Monopoly Like Windows was a Monopoly – Matt Rosoff covered Microsoft's antitrust case and points out just a few of the ways this is obviously a very different situation, despite the DoJ themselves trying to connect the two. As a reminder, monopolies themselves are not illegal, it's what you do with them. But it's not clear cut that this is even a monopoly at all. Technically, it could be, but even the DoJ isn't clear on this point! Regardless, no one would say that it is in the same way Windows had a monopoly. Except maybe the DoJ, using made-up-for-marketing market definitions like "premium smartphones"? Even if you metaphorically buy that, consumers have a choice not to literally buy an expensive smartphone! More in my link below... ⚖️
My Missives...
M.G. Siegler
The fight is on. The stage is set. Is the iPhone an monopoly?
M.G. Siegler
Xitter's "pivot to video" (and everything else)
M.G. Siegler
The potential TikTok ban is a specific action
M.G. Siegler
Absolutely not an acquisition, no, not at all...
M.G. Siegler
What worked in the past isn't necessarily going to work here...
M.G. Siegler
What is ESPN's plan in streaming?...
M.G. Siegler
The Apple/Walmart Macbook deal makes a lot of sense...
M.G. Siegler
The (rumored) Apple/Google Gemini AI deal makes a lot of sense...
Quoteable...
“Some people call it a windfall, we just call it God smiling down on us.”
Anguilla’s premier, Ellis Webster, talking about their country's literal good fortune in controlling the .ai domain, which means they're bringing in major money while riding the AI boom (and seemingly putting it to good use).
Some Thoughts On...
đźš™ The design of the Rivian R2 (versus Tesla)
🍪 NVIDIA's "Blackwell" bonanza
🤵 Aaron Taylor-Johnson may or may not be the next James Bond
🍎 It sure feels like the EU isn't feeling those Apple DMA changes...
đź“ş Will 'The Acolyte' be any good, or too deep in the forests of Endor?...
đź’° The reported terms of the Microsoft/Inflection deal
Quickly...
- Following the House, the Senate got a deep dive into what China may or may not being doing with TikTok. Sounds like some FUD, but also some major concerns. Will it push the bill forward?...
- "What's Vision Pro?" deserves another Best Actor trophy, IMO – maybe Cillian Murphy will know one day!
- Heat 2 seems on track for Michael Mann to shoot this summer – with Adam Driver potentially as a young Neil MacCauley and Austin Butler as a young Chris Shiherlis. No word yet on the young Vincent Hanna...
- Almost like Bizarro Apple, Tesla isn't under assault by regulators around the world, but by various market forces around the world all at once.
- And the stock price is really feeling it, breaking away in the wrong direction from the other "Magnificent Seven"...
- Though Apple is down too, which may or may not be why Tim Cook is in China doing what he can, optics be damned. Then I suspect all we're going to hear for the next few months is "AI, AI, AI, AI, AI, AI, AI".
- But while many of us may wish Elon Musk would stick to rockets and give up on Xitter and other nonsense, it's impossible to argue with this Neuralink result. Amazing. (Disclosure: a GV investment)
- A new 'PS5 Pro' may be coming this holiday season, running up to 3x faster. Which makes sense given the first one will already be four years old – still wild these players can go so long between hardware upgrade in our age of every-year smartphone (and computer) upgrades...
- In less good news for Sony, they have apparently paused the PSVR2 product as sales stall and devices pile up...
- Have you ever wanted to dive more into the politics of Dune and its allegories on Earth? This post has got you covered.
- A new Banksy appears in London...
- MicroStrategy is now said to own 1% of all Bitcoin. Which seems wild, and they keep cost-averaging up...
- Midjourney has a new feature which allows you to keep characters persistent between your AI generated images...
- In other generative AI news, GPT-5 is said to be "materially better" than GPT-4, as you'd hope. And it may be coming this summer.
- Meta's Threads has started to enable posting to the 'fediverse' for some users. A promise kept!
- Taylor Swift clearly moved some needles for Disney+, and while this post only focuses on her concert movie in relation to other musical content, it sure seems like it blows everything else out of the water too. A savvy $75M spent by Bob Iger...
- It seems like Sports Illustrated may be saved (albeit in a reduced capacity) by Minute Media, owners of The Players' Tribune (an old GV investment!)
- Charting peak cherry blossom season in Japan over 1,200 years suggests more not great data for climate change...
- Microsoft and Meta pile on to the complaint against Apple by Epic – I don't know about you but I'm starting to lose track of who is battling whom in all these various cases in different places around the world...
- Epic has laid out their plans to charge developers a 12% fee in their would-be app store. That's better than Apple is most cases, but actually worse in others because of Apple's range of rules for who owes which fees...
- I'd like to add you to my professional gaming network?
One More Thing...
