Another Classic Marco on this week’s ATP.
I’m not sure at this point how many laptops he has bought over the last two years.
Listening to him explain his tech purchases is always worth the price of admission.
What is interesting to me with tech podcasts and the lines between editorial and marketing, or lack therein. Back in the print days, there was (usually) a line between editorial and marketing. With podcasts, that line is gone.
I view the podcasts as entertainment, and skip the ads, but I also know the grain of salt I need to take them with is much larger.
My recommendation still stands if you want a quality tech podcast untainted by marketing.
Has TWIT really dropped in quality? I mean, Tom Merritt was cool, but, I still listen to some interesting conversations on TWIT. I no longer have a 2 hours of driving every day, so I don’t listen to as many podcasts, but most of the ones I listened didn’t feature Tom much.
I haven’t listened to TWiT for years. Got sick of Leo rambling and not listening to his guests and Dvorak being completely out of touch. I know he hasn’t been on for a while but I don’t see a need for that show with DTNS instead.
Drastically.
I knew Andy Ihnatko from back in our days at the Boston Computer Society, and am generally a fan of his. I stopped listening to MacBreak Weekly years ago.
Laporte is also turning out to be a despicable man. He’s accidentally shown his, and his wife’s private parts when he showed something on his phone on camera. The shows are in such decline they moved out of the Brick Twithouse into a strip mall.
There aren’t many people in tech I boycott, but Leo rose above that line.
Huh? I hadn’t noticed. As you said, @LMN8R, Dvorak never comes by anymore, and for the most part, I feel like Leo does listen to his guest with some interesting points of view that conflict with his (although most are reporters or futurists that seem to believe that Tech Firms are out of touch and maybe a bit too powerful). He still rails against Facebook, how Google goes to far, how Apple doesn’t really innovate and how scary Amazon is on TWIT, and again, maybe I like it because I happen to agree with him.
Triangulation is hit or miss, but it has had a few really good interviews, such as Randall Munroe, David Hewlett and Scott Galloway, but maybe these are just people like.
I sometimes listen to Windows Weekly because I like Paul Thurrott and infrequently This Week In Google or Android.
I can’t speak for MacBreak Weekly. I find everything Mac related more than a little repulsive. It’s just a general hatred for the products, the company and everything it stands for, so you’ll understand that I don’t really have any experience with MacBreak Weekly.
In any case, that is just my take. I’m sorry that your experience has been different and like I said, I haven’t found anything Leo said too drastic. I mean, is Facebook evil? Pretty much? Does Google Muddy the water by competing with the items its supposed to searching for? Sounds about right? Does Amazon exploit its workers and destroy as many competitors as possible? Total. Is Apple failing to providing anything other than overpriced services and gadgets to people with more money than sense, in a bid to become a fashion icon, rather than a tech company? Of course.
So, maybe my personal biases play a role in my preferences. People say stuff on the show that I usually agree with.
What I like about DTNS is that they don’t “rail” on companies. At this point that level of analysis is just lazy. What DTNS does is thoroughly research each story before presenting anything. If it’s a Facebook or Amazon story or whatever, they’ll criticize them if warranted, but they also do a great job avoiding populist bandwagons for stories which other outlets blow out of proportion.
You should check it out, especially during CES week.
It’s Amazon and Facebook? There isn’t much to blow out of proportion when it comes to those two firms. They are pretty shitty companies. There isn’t much they don’t warrant.
I don’t think it’s necessarily a populist bandwagon to recognize that these two companies are just bad for society. Sure, Conservatives are wrong about why Facebook is a shitty, but that doesn’t mean that Facebook isn’t shitty.
As Francis Galton showed in his work on variance and Standard Deviation, you can have a lot of people be wrong about something, and still have the average answer be correct. That was mostly about the weight of livestock, where all the people that guessed the weight were incorrect, but the mean average was nearly spot on. I feel like the general population is on to something. Most of them are wrong about what is wrong about Facebook, but all agree that there is something truly wrong with Facebook. Same with Amazon.
I really don’t need to listen to Facebook or Amazon apologists when I get my news, anymore then I need to listen to Fox News.
In any case, I think you are wrong about Leo not giving his guests time to speak, and I’m fine with not have Merritt in my life.
I’m sad that “accurately describing what a controversy is about” is considered being an apologist these days, but alas I don’t think I’m spending my time effectively in this thread so I’m out after one example: Libra
No one on DTNS really thought Libra would succeed or that it was smart for Facebook to try to introduce it. But DTNS was the only site or podcast I follow which accurately described what Libra even was, or how Facebook was involved or in control of it (or not) in the first place.
Every tech website out there hyperventilated about Libra would put Facebook fully in charge of some financial system and how it was a way for Facebook to get even more personal info from people, even though the proposal did nothing of the sort.
It was still a bad idea for countless other reasons - not the least of which Facebook shouldn’t be trusts because of the other bad stuff they’ve done - but only DTNS of all the podcasts and sites I follow took the time to at least describe it accurately alongside explaining why it was a bad idea which probably wouldn’t succeed.
Actually, I’m going to go and say, that listening to TWIT, they did describe Libra to a T. On the shows about Libra, several guests talked about the advantages and how it would make transferring cash much simpler, how Facebook had the reach and had gotten a lot of other large companies to participate. It was even seen as a positive that it challenged large banks. As time went on, several guests noted as well how Facebook wasn’t seen as a good steward of this enterprise and wasn’t trusted and noted the eventual collapse as people pulled out. Facebook didn’t need the extra leverage or information on us. The story moved as the facts became clear.
So, in this case, I’m arguing that DTNS wasn’t special in their coverage. I heard pretty much the same thing on the Sunday show This Week in Tech.
https://youtu.be/iUNMB0z91ng?t=4527 This is July, when Libra was first announced. Pretty even handed, but you tell me if that isn’t the case.
As for accurately describing stuff, well, it depends on who you talk to. Fox claims to be fair and balanced, but I see no reason to listen to their coverage when I already have NPR. Not saying that DTNS isn’t accurate, but I am saying that they aren’t the only ones doing this whole tech news thing. When it comes to Facebook or Amazon, well, the evils they have already done are well documented so I’m not sure why I should give them the benefit of the doubt ever.
Who else still listens to both Back To Work and Accidental Tech Podcast?
A couple weeks ago Marco went on a rant about the frustrations of home automation and I was nodding along in agreement. Everything works like 80–90% of the time, but the unreliability makes it more frustrating than having no automation at all, so I gave up on Homekit and the like a couple years ago and never looked back. It was fun hearing someone else rail against it.
But then what really made me laugh was that on this week’s B2W, Dan asks Merlin for advice on getting into Homekit/home automation, and Merlin advocating for it felt like an even more damning indictment of the whole system than Marco ranting against it.
Now some of that is Merlin’s frantic style, which seems to get more frantic and less coherent year by year as he slowly becomes a caricature of himself (regardless of topic). But seriously, hearing every question from Dan answered with a sprawling “Well, it depends…” response just really highlights how chaotic the whole internet of things world is, and how much I’m glad I’m not interested in it right now.
I don’t listen to BTW any longer. At some point, Merlin fell into my category of “self employed productivity expert” which is like a rich person saying “my personal trainer and chef really help me”. None of these people know what it is like for line-workers.
Now, that said, Merlin also sucks at actually getting stuff done. When the podcast bubble eventually bursts, I really wonder what he will do for work.
I don’t think the podcast bubble (by which I assume you mean advertising money?) will kill Merlin. The Patreon for Do By Friday is still decent, and I doubt Roderick On the Line or Reconcilable Differences have ever generated much income at all from their advertising. Back 2 Work has only been nominally about productivity for longer than I can remember, and I certainly only listen to it for the familiar banter between personalities I’m accustomed to.
I have no insight into how B2W does but I’ve assumed for years now that Dan and Merlin just keep doing it because they enjoy it too, not because it’s necessarily a big money-maker for the 5by5 network. I seriously doubt You Look Nice Today is getting anyone any money.
All of which to say, I think Merlin’s grateful for the Patreon success of DBF and whatever ad revenue he does get, but mostly only podcasts because he enjoys it, and I think that will naturally just fade out when he or his specific (and usually loyal) audience loses interest. I don’t think any particular bubble is going to wipe him out. I don’t have anything to back this up, but it’s always felt like he doesn’t particularly need to do anything, at least from a financial perspective. Maybe his wife’s job is great or something, I don’t know.
I think his loyal audience is in for the long haul. He reminds me of that line from Young Frankenstein, “So, what is it you do do?” He also has some overhead with an off-site office I think. I can’t imagine that is cheap in the Bay Area.
The guy I have a lot of respect for is Casey Liss. He is managing to make this work with his wife not working and raising a family with his podcast income.
Yeah, I assume ATP does do well on revenue, and unfortunately I think that means they’re going to be much more vulnerable to the pod-pocalypse when Spotify finishes ruining everything or ad revenue dries up or whatever.
And of course Marco (doesn’t need to work) and Siracusa (kept his day job) will both be fine. But that’s going to suck for Casey.
I keep thinking of putting in an Ask ATP about how they handle the finances, without getting into the numbers. They run 3 ads at $5500 each. Outside of hosting and the like, before taxes they probably clear almost all that. Even if overhead is $1500 (it won’t be that high, but easy math) they make 5k a week off it.
I don’t know what the cost of living in Richmond is, but they do well enough to afford nice cars and drones. I think his wife, Erin, does a good job at keeping track of their finances so I hope they are putting a lot away.
Siracusa is famously frugal so I imagine all this is going into a retirement fund.
An Apple silicon Mac Pro fund.
I am curious how long his current Mac Pro survives. I’d also love to hear his thoughts on a $10k computer going to the attic after 5 years.