Evan Shapiro: Why The Netflix Ad Model Is Broken And The Streaming Wars

disruptors and curious minds welcome to another episode of thinking on paper I am Jeremy Gilbertson I'm on the right side of your screen today uh coming to you from Atlanta Georgia with my friend Mark Fielding across the pond Mark how are you today sir I am excellent today thank you Jeremy Friday not our usual Thursday spot but i' like to go into the weekend with a bang so I'm very excited about this uh yeah we should also add disruptors and curious minds but also today War and Peace Nick in honor of our very special guest so very quickly for those who don't know me I'm Mark I'm a writing mercenary available to hire to the highest bidder um and that's it no Small Talk No chitchat let's get to the main event Jeremy yeah absolutely quick shout out to our sponsor Ripple uh w i p marketing on Dem man Talent platform they've been a great partner of us of ours and allowed us to do some really great things so if you're looking to flex out got a project uh whether it's a website or some deep strategy work they've got over 3,000 solopreneur preved Freelancers uh Mark and I are actually on that list too should you decide if we could be helpful to you so uh thanks to Ray and Dixie and the folks at Ripple without further Ado Mark let's Jump Right In I'm really excited about our guest today there's a lot to unpack why don't you give a quick intro and then we'll we'll bring him on yeah I think most of our guests are familiar Evan Shapiro the the media cartographer he is a writer a thinker a at time controversial figure he's a keynote speaker and as I've said in a few posts recently I don't think anybody he might be able to collaborate or disagree knows more about the media landscape in 2023 than Evan so yeah ladies and gentlemen Evan shyro welcome to the show and I'm gonna start and I'm G to let you introduce yourself but do you think you could introduce yourself introduce the media landscape and for our guests do that with the bull case and the be case for Netflix is can we can can we can you do all of that in your introduction in my introduction well I think you did a really good job of introducing me I don't know that I can approve upon that all I mean I I started my uh I'm a recovering television executive uh and so I've run television networks IFC Sunday's Channel I created a channel for participant media called pivot rip I created a streaming service for NBC called ciso Rip um uh I also teach at NYU and Ford I'm in the business schools that teach media and entertain the business of media entertainment um but yeah I write about the the media industry uh on my newsletter uh media War and Peace uh there's a nice plug um I I write you know for free on LinkedIn I consider myself I guess uh one of the OG linked influencers um and uh you know the the the the reason I write I I when I was inside um corporate media um I got paid a lot to not be listened to so I got paid gobs of money um to have people they would bring me in because they thought they wanted a disruptor and then the second you start getting in there and actually suggesting you disrupt the business they're like wait a second yeah people don't like that and so you know I I just I got I I I got paid a lot of money for a decent amount of time to be ignored um and so when I left Comcast uh mostly by their decision uh and went out on my own I decided to basically start saying the things I was saying internally allowed louder and more often um to try to help people um the other Executives frustrated Executives and and and practitioners in media um understand what was happening around them um but also um you know have I think a better understanding of the the the overall um we have so much data that gets spit at us on a regular basis um that it's hard to know what the the Chafe and the wheat are necessarily and therefore I think it's often um you know difficult to understand the trends that are being mapped out in front of us um because you can you can equal weight often is given to a thousand person survey and a million data point um you know piece of uh beh behavioral technology um you know you look at surveys from like companies like Harris which are thousand people's surveys and then you look at data from antenna which is literally millions of data points and they're given equal weight in the marketplace as if they're the same thing and that's just Bonkers um so I really wanted to try to take um the truth math and turn that into actionable insights and when you look at Netflix when you look at a company like Netflix the the the bull case for it is um they have more subscri subscribers um than any other video platform paying subscribers than any other video platform on the face of the Earth um they had gained nine million subscribers last quarter um they are now in a positive cash flow uh position which is rare when you look at their entire history um and so they are the most successful streaming paid streaming platform on the planet Earth without question there's not even a close second place because nobody else is really profitable um and nobody else has been able to both acquire and maintain the number of subscribers in as many territories as they have as Netflix has the the the bull side is they're just a television channel now um they're mature business they're a television channel um and they're a television channel with one Revenue stream and in the history of Television um you have to go back you know 50 60 years to find a profitable a truly long term profitable sustainable television channel um that had one Revenue stream and that was back when there were three channels broadcast um and they only had advertising right um now you're in a a a cacophony a cornucopia a schmorgus board of choice good right and uh you know I opened my source early this morning and um and you you know what you see is yes they increased their subscriber base last uh quarter but that's because they're cracking down on password sharing it's exclusively because they're cracking down on password sharing it's not because people are finding new things to watch there because they're not viewership um uh next TV actually issued a report this week that showed that viewership on Netflix is actually decreasing uh not increasing and that's you know for two different reasons one they're losing content from major other providers who are now their direct competitors and then secondarily it's hard to find something to watch um you know you you you get on you search I I did watch the new David Fincher movie which was the yeah yeah okay um and you know that's kind of the the the you know as they shoot much more towards the middle and away from the edges as they become you know another Walmart of Television um and you know the the processed Vita cheese of streaming content um it's going to be harder and harder for people like me who don't watch Love Island you know what I mean who don't watch the same stuff that everybody else watches to find stuff to watch and I'm the high-end user right so I'm the I'm the I'm the you know recurring subscriber um who you know even if I don't watch during a month I keep my subscription but how long am I going to do that and then secondarily what's happening because of this increased um competition in paid streaming what's happening is an antenna um you know just quick side note uh do both of you have banking apps on your phone um I do yes did either of you read the terms and conditions of the banking app before you installed it and Sh all 200 pages of it no yeah it's this this is interesting real quick I'm gonna I'm gonna throw something at you because I think I know where you're going it's this it's this convenience versus privacy seesaw that I always think about this it's like ways when you drive around town and avoid traffic you're giving away all the stuff but go ahead yeah I'm down my my app's in French as well so like I definitely haven't read it so so um antenna actually has deals with banking apps to track transactions so they they're not surveying people whether they cancel their subscriptions to these different Services they know they know you know they don't know specific people but they know how many people sign up for premium streaming services and how many people cancel and they came out with a study or their recent report that showed that onethird of news subscribers to premium streaming services right now onethird uh are what they call and I call serial churners people who sign up for a service binge the out of something and then cancel before the next billing cycle and when I ask rooms full of discriminating high-end users if they've ever done that most of the room raises their I've done it I did it like last month yeah so churn is up 28 to 30% across the entire industry um you know year on year and Netflix is going to experience that after this bump of password uh Crackdown sharing sh password sharing Crackdown happens and they're going to get this bump and it's going to continue it's going to roll out because they're just they're they didn't roll out all the Crackdown At Once by the way they're they're rolling it out in cohorts um and and I know this because I have students who say like all of a sudden I was asked to pay for this uh uh Netflix that I've been sharing with my parents and I'm like just now they're like yeah yeah that started months ago so they're rolling it out month after month quarter after quarter so they don't see this big upswing and big downswing Netflix is very good at hiding the actual usage on their platform and and so one their viewership is going down two they're gonna face a churn problem and three their ad product is a joke um they uh couple weeks ago on the first anniversary of their ad product um their new head of AD sales who's never worked in ad sales before never had a job in advertising before ever um issued a Blog celebrating their one-year anniversary uh of their ad product and celebrating the accomplishments and the new uh features they were adding so the major accomplishment that they touted was 15 million monthly active users on their ad tier do you know how adorably small that is insignificant that is monthly not subscribers not 15 million subscribers 15 million monthly active users to put that in context Samsung uh TV plus has a 100 million active users Pluto has about 18090 100 million monthly active users YouTube has 2.7 billion 2.7 billion monthly active users uh Tik Tok is 1.7 billion mon L active users Instagram has two billion monthly active users if you had a website that had 15 million monthly active users you couldn't get through the front lobby of most advertising agencies in in advertising right now it's like not it's not a real number's are they are they panicking are they just feel like they have to like hey why have they hired someone who's had no experience in in advertising to be that spokesperson anyway and yeah what's driving their dropping the the ball so much so badly so dramatically well they moved they moved their so they fired the person they hired to run ad sales and then they moved somebody who was in content acquisition over to run so she's been at the company some time um but she's never worked in ad sales before frankly other than the new people they've brought in to work in advertising no nobody there's ever worked in advertising the major problem a at Netflix is their last Innovation was streaming their last think about it the last major other than like ux and UI improvements or their top 10 list which is not a tech Improvement um but just kind of a packaging Improvement um you know the major the last major Innovation at Netflix was when they went from discs to streaming name name another major Innovation on that platform since this not Innovation but they tried they've added gaming haven't they they added gaming you ever played a Netflix game no I haven't okay they've added people they haven't put anything out yet yeah yep and so and so you know they don't really they added podcasts that was shortlived um you know they they're not they are not an in Innova they're not Innovative they're not an Innovative company anymore um and you know they were forced basically at gunpoint by their own CEO on an earnings call where they had a really bad subscriber quarter uh almost two years ago year year and three quarters ago um to add advertising and he didn't even tell the executives on the call that he was going to do that and then they rushed to get this ad product out and it's a disaster it's a dumpster fire um it's too expensive none of the buyers want to buy it and no one's using it there are no users there the the big innovation that so that yes that we have 15 million monthly active users which is basically saying my third grader grew two inches um and then secondarily uh their thing is like our new innovation is we're adding 30 and 60c ads that that most people would pay to avoid in a way too I mean like but like every television channel on the face of the Earth has 30 and 60 second ads like that's not an innovation right wow oh we suddenly breathe in and out and so when you when so you talk a lot about the I love your analogies you you use like the media apocalypse the streaming Wars you your newsletter is War and Peace Nicks and um you've spoken about the the user Centric era and is this where Netflix the real be case for Netflix arises is this where they're doomed could you expl I mean doomed I don't like doomed is doomed is hyperbolic they're not going to go out of business but they're going to basically gently become what CBS is now you know they're if you want to see what what Netflix looks like in five years look at CBS now look at Fox right now they're becoming they are just basically a television channel the best television channel on the planet Earth make no mistake they are better at being a television channel than anyone else on the planet is right now um but that's not a long-term growth business anymore that is a declining business um and it is one that's going to come under increasing pressure from the big Tech death stars because apple is also a television channel but they are also an audio Channel and they also provide you iPhones and they also provide you cloud storage and they also have an actual gaming platform and they Alo also have a news product and they also have major league baseball and they also have major league soccer Netflix has none of those things Netflix had has a TV chip CH so what's the difference between um basically Netflix now and ABC which is a product that Bob Iger is desperately trying to sell like an old man in a bathrobe with a c table on his lawn um you know it's it's a it's a better version of ABC in that it's has an algorithm that that feeds you content um but longterm five years 10 years it's it's not a growth business it's not doomed it will continue to be profitable it will continue to be successful but it's going to Plateau you know it's it's going to be it's it's it's up and to the right is over um it's now going to be a plateau for for a a very long period of time probably a decade and then it will start to decline just like CBS FOX ABC and NBC are doing now so you know it's a bare case because its growth is over um and and and that's you know that's really it like when you look at what they're doing now they're talking about 8% Revenue growth right they're talking about managing to the bottom line they're talking about free cash flow these are things that mature businesses do not growth industries that's a that's a really good point too and you can almost say like Netflix is just a piece of what other successful companies are doing Beyond it it's just a little piece of the equation it's not the end all BL anymore um I wna I want to go back to churn you you brought up churn and uh I love the stuff you do because it's rooted in numbers right there is some subjectivity into some things and some analysis that you do but you have the background to provide that but the numbers don't lie right so you did a study uh 27,000 is participants 7% of those people said and correct me if my phrasing is wrong that they're going to stay with their existing slew of apps or or engagement means right so how do you design if you're a media company how do you design a strategy for that yeah and that's very accurate that is exactly what the survey said 7% said that they were going to stay with the suite of subscription services that they have today and by the way that's across video audio gaming News sports the whole anything you can subscribe to um and then Hub research put out another so that study was with Publishers Clearing House 27,000 people Hub research put out a study that showed that um no matter how many uh different Services you have um free and paid less than half are considered must have so 93% of consumers are reconsidering more than half of their different services on a day-to-day basis and it's easier to cancel something and and swap out of it than it's ever been um we we are we are we have entered the user Centric era um is one where the consumer is in complete control and changes the suite of services the bundle of services that they program for themselves in their system settings with the thumbs every morning right they just they cancel they uncan they subscribe they unsubscribe um you know pretty much regularly and the serial churner is this existential crisis that is facing Al the entire subscription economy but also free free uh as well because I can just as easily log out of a free service as I can unsubscribe from a paid service um you know we the the the user Centric eror puts the power in the hands of the consumer but the consumer wields that power with big Tech they use their iPhones they use their Google phones they use their ctvs their Samsung TVs so the Weaponry they use to battle uh overpaying for something is the big Tech that's in their hand so big Tech the big Tech death stars are are basically the the the canvas by which these folks um you know paint their own bundles um I'm GNA go back in time and then I'm going to answer your question so the misperception uh about the cause of the current media apocalypse is that it's the death of the Cable Bundle and that's just part of the story The the reality of it is the the Cable Bundle the video bundle that mvpds and payv services have been offering hasn't been profitable for them in over a decade kind of the L leader right for the other two it's the it's the marketing hook of the Triple Play telefony and broadband and what people fail to realize is that you know basically starting at the beginning part of this century and moving up to about you know a little less than a decade ago the the gravy that came from broadband in particular and telefony um which were add-on services that cost the the mvpds and isps very little to add on to video so they took video as a loss leader that was the marketing hook that got people roped in that's a lifestyle bundle of services that each home subscribed to and the gravy from broadband and telepan was what enabled the cable companies to overpay for ESPN and CNN and USA and all these other services and and that's what enabled the the the Publishers to overpay for sports rights and madmen and Walking Dead and all these other television shows it's the disintegration of the Triple Play of that lifestyle bundle that had is really the cause um of the uh falling apart of the entire media ecosystem the media apocalypse because television became a bad business for Disney and disco brothers and Paramount all of of a sudden because they couldn't overcharge for these channels now that triple play that lifestyle bundle is that's not a new idea right that's been around for almost 20 years um it's been replaced by Amazon Prime that's the new lifestyle bundle so we went from a super aggregator called Comcast to a super aggregator called Amazon and that's the new table Stakes you have to be part of one of those bundles in order to survive and increasingly you're going to have to provide one of those bundles yourself in order to compete in the user Centric era you're going to have to provide a suite of services across their hierarchy of feeds to satisfy your high-end user enough to generate uh sufficient Revenue per user on a monthly basis to maintain a business that's competitive um Amazon does a really good job of this apple is actually hitting a wall they had a really bad earnings call um this past quarter but if they can combin you know and they have apple one but they're not doing a very good job of selling it but if they can combine their cloud service their news service their arcade their music television service and service to a device as part of that bundle in a regular basis that's a an Amazon Prime competitor I think uh Google is beginning to to to make a a bundle that is almost unbreakable and it's not just YouTube uh regular which is now the most watched television channel on the face of the Earth by the way more watched on TV than Fox and Netflix and CBS and anything else that's out there um but YouTube premium YouTube TV YouTube kids YouTube music um that's becoming a real Suite of services that the home can't do without um and you're going to see those things connected more and more NFL Sunday Ticket was a really smart move for them you know it's going to be hard to just ify the cost based on the profit of that one product but then when you wind into you look at the number of new homes they have for YouTube TV and YouTube premium as a result of that product that's a good product they spread it out across everything right the cost of that of acquisition and and one one quick question followup question on that's the compet but that's the competitive landscape and if you want to look at a smaller real just to to finish this thought if you want to look at a smaller less big techy version of that look at the New York Times the New York Times has probably probably one of the best lifestyle bundles one of the best super aggregation Platforms in media um gaming podcast news food Sports um this is a really tight package and they're doing it with 10 million subscribers not 200 million subscribers um they're and by the way a creakier more out-of-date business you can't imagine than the old gray lady in 2010 and they transformed themselves into to a best in breed lifestyle super agregator bundle in a way that none of the rest of traditional media has been able to do sorry I was you were gonna ask another question no no you're that great great that that makes makes a lot of sense so I want to go back to revenue for a bit I just had a question pop up in my mind as as revenue is coming in and being accounted for and tracked or projected what percentage do you think of that revenue is just people hanging on and forgetting to release the the subscription like that's an interesting point to me basically yeah I think that's you know um and by the way how much of how much of Amazon Prime's Revenue comes from people not using the service they get mine from not being accidentally subscribing and then not having the time to find out how I freaking unsubscribe yeah yeah it's really hard to unsubscribe from Amazon Prime it's also is um uh yeah I think it's a decent amount um but I think the what you're seeing in increase in churn is that's going to get lower every quarter um you know the the interesting thing is in the United States we were supposed to be in a recession right now we're not um I think if e time Economic Times were harder you'd start to see that lesson quicker um but I do think especially for younger consumers um who you know are more active um older consumers are really costc conscious right now um and so they are cancelling services at a higher risk great than anybody um younger consumers when they when they stop using their parents money to subscribe to you know and by the way like you're 26 and you're still in your parents life insurance right or health insurance so at least in the United States Mark doesn't understand any of that because he's not from this country um socialize socialism well I'm from the UK and there you know I don't think I left home till I was like 30 but yeah yeah well and by the way that's the new Norm I mean you know for good reason a lot of people in in young gen wies and older Jers are staying at home not because they love their parents although there is a a demonstrable closeness between Generations that wasn't present for you know my generation we just hated our parents and they're the Boomers so um kind of deserved it but the the but the to save money um for economic reasons people are are staying at home longer so that they can can Bank more of their paycheck um and and save their money for you know travel and buying a home eventually and things like that um they're also waiting to have kids so that expense is being delayed as well so I think as you see um Millennials become parents and homeowners you're going to see less and less of the breakage less and less of the kind of just retention through inertia um that has been traditional uh in the uh in the subscription economy and I think with Gen Z as they start to leave home and go out on their own um for the first times in their lives you're going to see that really drop off um and you know what's interesting is that younger consumers same survey by the way younger consumers are much more likely to pay for Content than older consumers so they have no problem paying for it um but they want to get their money's worth um and and the best example I can give you is Spotify like they they they you know they are very active Spotify paid subscribers um but they that's a product they touch every day every day um and they share subscriptions with other people so it's a real high use case like I get my I squeeze every uh piece of usage out of every dollar I spend on Spotify as opposed to some of these other services where that's not true they're sharing their music as well they're living like they're living in the musical universes of their friends and their peers and I wonder when all the these Generations leave home and take their you YouTube subscriptions with them what happen happens I mean you've spoken a lot about the next Generations and how this will change your your map your your Universe I mean like the the New York Times how much of that is held up by Generation X and how much um will the next 10 years change your universe will it change the will it change the the death stars I mean you've mentioned that maybe Nvidia will become a death star I I I think they are a death star they're worth a trillion dollar they up to a trillion now um I think tenson maybe uh might become a a death star is that going to change a lot I mean they're held back there's the there's the Chinese government cap that that is always on any any China chinese company um yeah absolutely I mean I think the New York Times has pivoted incredibly well I think part of that is demonstrated through their gaming product um their gaming product is is a best-in-class mobile gaming product that has a really wide demographic um uh play to it their food product um their food subscription product has a really good intergenerational um uh uh uh audience to it and then they bought the athletic um and then basically fired their entire Sports Department I think in particular to attract so their their gaming product and their food product really attracts um a primarily uh I would say queer and female audience whereas I think their Sports product attracts a much more heavily male um audience so I think you know uh I think the greatest uh thing that the New York Times Did first led by um by uh Mark Thompson and now by their new CEO copit um is change the culture there um you know yes they changed a lot of their the aspects of their business model from you know print to digital from advertising description first from a single product to life faceted um you know uh uh lifestyle bundle but crucially what they did was they hired a bunch of 20 and 30s somethings as project manager managers and product managers and empowered them to make decisions on the ground without running everything up to the Sea suite and that cultural shift um was really the most important thing that they did um and so I think um you know right now you know as consumers there won't be a more important block than uh Gen Y and gen Z for the next decade and then Gen Y Gen Z and gen a for the next 25 years but you also have to understand that as the as the deciders you know right now Gen Y and gen and gen Z are about 45 or 50% of the workforce in the United States little less than Europe because Europe is super old um but um you know by the end of this decade it'll be 80% of the workforce are millennials and gen Z with Gen a taking up a decent percentage of the remainder of that so companies will shift their mindsets based on who's in charge and who's you know the deciders in the room in these companies um I think though you know when you whether it's I think Microsoft is a great example of a company that is pivoting you know from Gen X and Boomers to Gen Y and gen Z Minecraft um they just bought Activision um so they are a company that is shifting their product set um to meet consumers of new generation on a on a on a regular basis I think Google does a really nice job of that I think Amazon does a decent job at that I think you know I think they don't utilize twitch as well as they might um as a as a significant part of their overall ecosystem um I don't think their music product is as good as it should be to to to Really apply to gen uh Z and gen a in particular um you know I think apple is facing some issues um I think you know crucial I think Apple's products skew first of all they skew to the rich um you know the cost of their products are exorbitant um and you know they they you know every single one of their Hardware products fell in sales in uh in uh third uh quarter except the iPhone and it only went up two the iPhone one only went up 2% um so I do think that there is uh you know built-in obses obsolescence fatigue setting in uh for some apple devotees like myself I didn't buy the 15 um you know I also kind of wait for the new I you know like I wait a couple weeks to install the new ios's these days because like it's usually a dumpster fire the first couple of rounds um you know so I think you know I think Apple I think Apple's facing a generational crisis right now I think you know Tim Cook is 60 some 65 years old I think um you know and being queer is not enough to make irrelevant um so I think he's got I think it's time you know it's it's it's it's you know you you they lost Johnny IV like Eddie Q is old as well like it's it's probably time for a generational shift at that company I mean the CEO of Microsoft the CEO of Google are much younger uh uh than than than him um you know the CEOs of meta and and some of these other companies are also younger than him and on say you you have to be young in order to be relevant but when you look at the companies who are facing issues right now they're they're they're run by old white men and and when not coincidence no it's not actually it really isn't where do you so this yeah I totally agree with you on this generational shift it's coming we're starting to see it we're we're we're we're projecting the potential effects of it so where so these new pilots that are going to be driving these death stars and these ships where are they going to be pointing to do you think what are you what do you see as the trend coming out where are they going to be steering their Death Star towards C can I just add a quote from Evan to that question actually from from one of his um um blog post fenom at the gates I believe it's called um and I quote from this moment forward half of the real potential value of any IP will come from the community economy this translates not just to content but also to Brands Publishers who only rely on the traditional content economy will leave half their upside on the table producers only sell be to be will only find their slug getting Slugger and Brands who only buy reach from the gatekeeper economy will find themselves upsurt by competitors who create communities that they control themselves is that I think that plays into what me and Jo have been talking about a lot recently in this community generated content anyway I just thought I'd add that yeah I you know I I most people call it the Creator economy I call it the community economy um and that's because at the end of the day and and what's interesting is you still have to go through The Gatekeepers of Tik Tok and Google and and meta and the rest to get to the to your community but they do enable direct conversation and relationship with your community that you can control and the more platforms you're on um the more you control it so if you if you dedicate all of your efforts to just one platform well then you're beholden to that platform's Al algorithm for your relationship um to your audience but but what what that I really mean there is first of all so consumers now see Creator Le content as as equal in quality to professional content or Hollywood content um and now the big shift of the last 24 months is advertisers also see that so two-thirds of advertisers based on a survey from this year um now see Creator Le content um as equal in quality and greater in Effectiveness as uh Prof content or Hollywood Le content um secondarily um you know the value you can get from going through Gatekeepers and selling to Gatekeepers is there it's not going away it's just going to be um shared uh the pie is going to be split into two with the community economy your relationship directly with your consumers the New York Times has a wide audience of people that they reach on social um but the the the Great Value they have is the the Rel direct uh user relationships and consumer relationships they have with their most valuable consumers um Netflix is very good at not letting people subscribe through the app store or Google play this actually came out in a court case um you know that's happening this this this past week um they force you to go to their platform either their app actually their app on on here or to their website to subscribe um but but more importantly um your ability to have a direct conversation with your own community and whatever the size of that Community is it does again the New York Times has 10 million subscribers not a 100 million subscribers um you know patreon as another good example that substack you know I I I have my own user base on substack that creates basically all of the value I have in my Enterprise not only through the subscriptions which are nice and generate a decent amount of revenue for me but the passion that even the free users have for my subst stack or my writing on LinkedIn generates all of the larger uh Revenue buckets either from commissions on on on white papers or clients that I get for Consulting all of it comes through there um and every conversation I have with a client starts with love your stuff love reading your stuff read your stuff every day um and that's because I have my own relationship with my own community that I control nobody curates it for me nobody censors it for me and this is going to be true for Brands when you look at the Dual lingo Tik Tok uh Channel which I think has eight million um followers at this point or you look at the Washington Post Tik Tok Channel or the Crocs Tik Tok Channel um you know or or brands that have very active content uh uh uh relation content L relationships on Instagram and snap um and other places those are the brands who rely Less on paid marketing and much more on on organic marketing uh on the efforts um that their content and their and their brand values generate for them on a regular basis um and so that's that's a big part of it the second part so I do think you're going to see um you know that's why Microsoft bought Activision um to amplify you know Minecraft is this massive massive platform um you know what 60% of the planets eight to 15 year olds or what I'm not exactly sure the age range but somewhere between seven and and and 15 play Minecraft what was that percentage so 60 yeah wow and I think one of their issues is that they then then they turn 15 and stop playing Minecraft as much and so the Activision purchase which also has blizzard in it um and a bunch of mobile and and online games um that's meant I think to kind of add on to that Kingdom and add on to that EOS system so that they can keep those consumers around for a longer period of time um you know LinkedIn um as much as I think people on other social media platforms make fun of LinkedIn it's the last Bastion of Peace in social media you know what I mean it's the last PL it's the last place in social media where being a douchebag isn't celebrated um and except for me I'm a douche um but but it is it is a it is a community um and so they you can see the communitybased uh ecosystem that they're building and by the way Nvidia with GeForce um if you want to play uh fortnite on an iPhone right now you have to go through Nvidia um and their open uh Source collaboration Omniverse platform om Omniverse platform um you know where people make games together you know across space and time that's another community-led uh uh platform uh for them uh uh Google I think you know as much grief as I and everybody gives them for anti-competitive monopolistic practices you know the YouTube Community is a very especially when you dive into individual aspects of it very tight-knit Community think about book talk uh and all these other places um that exist that are all community-led um so that's that's where I think you'll see one aspect of the death stars pointing the other is the fastest growing 20 economy on the face of the Earth are in Latin America Asia and Africa 50% of the population of Africa are under the age of 20 the fastest growing incomes on the planet Earth now it's not mean they make the most money but the fastest growing individual incomes on the face of the Earth are all in Africa so when you want to see where the opportunity is growing um you got to look to where the opportunity is actually growing you know North America is pretty stagnant uh Europe is in Decline um mostly because their age demographics are upside down from the rest of the world there are big Parts Japan is completely upside down China is completely upside down de demographically speaking right um but when you look at other corners of Asia and you look at uh all almost all of the African continent that's where the opportunity is grow growing so I think when you when you look at successful companies um over the next 25 years they should be investing heav where the growth is happening you know you get in early and you benefit when when the markets mature um so to me that's those are the those are the great um areas of opportunity and then it's a generational thing generation a um is coming up fast right they're 13 years old now at the highest end so you know when they turn 18 19 and 20 there's going to be brand new businesses built around their consumption of Education um of entertainment of food of automobiles of clothing um of Technology um and they're going to buy in different ways and so companies who are investing heavily in understanding that audience uh will also do well epic changes quick sounds like you need to get on Tik Tok Jeremy for the thinking on paper brand Community because I'm not doing it oh my gosh hurts my brain a little bit but uh no so Evan quick thought experiment on the Creator economy okay uh I read a book a while back uh by Tim woo called the master switch I thought it was a really cool illustration of open and closed systems and how they how they interrelate and you know net neutrality right is about access to your audience in a way right so how does how do these death stars start to see like folks like you and I and Mark we're building these great communities that we control and we access and we monetize you know do they look at that as as a existential threat at some point I think I think there's this misperception I I call them death stars so that kind of like and that's more built around their anti-competitive practices frankly all of them are monopolists at heart um but um no they really don't most of these when you talk to the the the strategist inside these companies they don't see content creators whether they be Public Service Media in Europe um or publishers here in the United States work individual creators as comp competition they see them as fuel they they see us as fuel like I I I power the Apple platform I power the Amazon platform I power the Google platform um you know because of the content I put out there right um you know I get Google Alerts and this is part of my narcissism but I get Google Alerts you know based on stuff I've said or written you know on a regular basis that means the algorithm is using me to generate information and content um for their users Google can't survive without creators Amazon can't survive without creators meta can't survive without creators um now the the the fairness in their transactional relationship between the two definitely needs to be reoriented and I actually had a conversation with somebody about the great Labor Reawakening that's happening in this country when you look at the SAG strike um the the writer strike but also the UAW strike and the healthcare strike and Starbucks went out on strike yesterday um I think you're going to start to see like Reddit saw with mods um over the last year I think you're going to start to see creators go on strike against platforms like Tik Tok and YouTube and meta um you know to get better uh uh shares of Revenue and better treatment by the platforms I think it's only a matter of time um but what I think you'll see in reaction to that is if if creators decided to take their toys and leave on mass um if Mr Beast woke up one day and leted out a Creator's revolt against Google Google would crumble Google would would would cave because they can't survive without the content that the creators and Publishers provide they are they are not a a Creator platform and as much as you know Amazon likes to talk about you know the content they make Lord of the Rings and and Jack Ryan and that other uh stuff in at the end of the day the the the users generate so much more value for them than any of the the professionally produced content and that's both as a shopper by the way and as a as a user of their their various other products you know the data that Amazon has is entirely user generated and that is you know the whole value of the Amazon platform is the data that they generate that's amazing yeah it's it's like it's like then the value of the platform becomes this this purely infrastructure play it's like audience infrastructure right and that's the value there because as a single Creator I can't build that kind of infrastructure and network in this like this why would you want to it would be so expensive totally yeah don't yeah I don't want to be in the tech business that's that's a losing business and and just like Comcast and you know the the pipes of past that you know they're kind of agnostic at the end of the day and should be um you know Amon wants to sell you a television set and they want all content to come now they want to Li they want to take a big chunk of every dollar that passes through that gate but at the end of the day if the content providers go away from that television they're absolutely this has this has been an amazing chat we're trying to be mindful of time I know you got a lot of things going on Mark you had some did you have some hot buttons you wanted to end with with Evan before we get out of here I'm just thinking what Mr Beast could do if he just decided one day to wake up and say I'm I'm creating Beast TV who's coming with me um yeah it's been fascinating uh I've got another question to add is that book stack behind you books to be read or books you've just read uh not just but i' yeah I've read all of these I mean a bunch of them are travel books you know that that I use remember travel books um but yeah no I've I've read all I've read all these that's the 911 Commission there um that's good to great one of my seminal books that's Neil Gaiman Philip Roth Michael shamban which Neil book uh that is an an ANC boys oh nice yeah graveyard book is one of my favorites yeah I'm a huge that's John Irving Widow for a year forged in crisis which is probably one of the most important books about leadership uh eating Animals by Jonathan sephron fer um yeah so those are all books that I've that I've read and by the way it's not it's not a stack it's a it's actually a bookshelf oh oh it's magic very clever um any pull through on the Travel you know Paul through youan travel book He's a travel writer oh know I know check him check out Paul through I think you'll like him okay um yeah we end sometimes with a couple of hot buttons this is just to to know our guests a bit more personally kind of what drives them behind the scenes so a few a couple of one-word answers to questions if you one word yeah one word um rock or reggae rock Sopranos or Madmen Sopranos Roblox or fortnite Roblox Sony or Nintendo Nintendo um and I know you're a big Star Trek fan and I wanted to ask you actually about one of the things you wrote about the the depressing nature of modern television and how there's nothing optimistic for children to watch which um kind of agree with you but um Kirk or Picard that's tough that's a hard one I don't know that I can choose I mean I I I I I love peard um but I mean I spent most of my childhood pretending to be Captain Kirk so I'd have to go with Kirk brilliant thank you um and and just crucially there the the point of that article that you're referring to is uh Gene Roddenberry created Star Trek um with something that he called infinite diversity and this is in 19 in the 1960s um and science fiction used to forell peace and prosperity um the first time we saw a cell phone the first time we saw a GPS the first time we saw an MRI the first interracial kiss on television were all on Star Trek uh they went on a peaceful mission to make the universe more sustainable for all species um now every superhero movie every sci-fi movie is post-apocalyptic so basically like it assumes the apocalypse has happened and now what what if we start as writers and creators to not assume the apocalypse has happened that assume that the apocalypse didn't happen and that what society looks like on the other side if we Greenlight more optimism and less apocalypse might we also Inspire the next generation of Roddenberry or Steve Jobs um you know might we Inspire more creation and less destruction that's a challenge accepted on my behalf my next uh story will be non apocalyptic I don't think we can end on a better note than that Jeremy I think that's wonderful thank you that's amazing Evan so thankful that you joined us today we we love your work we love following uh where you're where you're seeing the future going and um we'll be posting some follow-ups Mark does a great write up and we'll include links and everything uh with that so thank you for joining us another thank you to our friends at Ripple wri p marketings on demand Talent platform check them out if you need to flex out your team for a project Mark where can everybody find us everyone can find us and so I don't know if if you didn't know everybody we've launched a book club if you go to thinking on paper doxyz you can learn more about me and joy watch all our past shows get show notes on all our guests and join the book club um in fact the first ever book club email will be going out in about 20 minutes so you have 20 minutes to sign up thinking on paper. XYZ or Z that's it thanks for joining everybody Evan thanks again we see everybody next week have a great week no we won't because we're off next week we'll see in two weeks with Neil reading there we go awesome see you then bye

Channel: Thinking On Paper Podcast & Book Club

Views: 1,457

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Id: lQ6lPtOcgnE

Length: 52min 37sec (3157 seconds)

Published: Fri Nov 17 2023