A Bundle of Bills
Apple's AI Bake Off • Beatles Anthology 4 • Netflix's Box Office Win • Elon vs. Apple/OpenAI• Perplexity's Rev Share • Meta's Midjourney • Ian Fleming • Sam Altman, CEO • NFL Copilot Tablets
When YouTube TV launched in 2017, it was $34.99/month. It was such a breath of fresh air in the cable environment, both the product and the price. Sadly, that didn't last long. Before I cancelled a couple months back, that price had been jacked up to... $82.99/month. Sure they added more content/channels, but I didn't ask for any of it. And yet I had no option to decline it. Obviously some level of price increases over time are warranted (assuming value is being provided!), but more than doubling in eight years was too much, literally.
Of course I say that, and then I just signed up for the new Disney/Hulu/ESPN bundle. The cost there? $38.99/month (because I opted to keep my Disney and Hulu services ad-free – the $29.99/month intro offer is for the ad-supported tier). Yes, I'm now paying more for a bundle of just three services than I was paying for YouTube TV when it launched. It's a good reminder to check what all the streaming services combined are now costing me a month – especially since even Apple TV is now raising prices. But obviously it's going to show that cable – which we all hated in part because there was little to no choice – was quite the deal.
But we also knew that. We unbundled anyway. Just to now rebundle in a more expensive fashion. Funny that.
• Written on an M4 MacBook Air 💻
• Sent from London, England 🏴 I Wrote…
🥧 Apple's Great AI Bake Off
Gemini enters the tent alongside Claude, ChatGPT, and Apple's own models to see who can bake the best Siri...
🎸 The Fab Four Anthologies
A new entry into The Beatles canon...
🍿 KPopping Netflix's Theatrical Stance
Netflix just had the number one movie at the box office – yes, Netflix.
I Think…
⚖️ Elon v. Apple & OpenAI
Well, he finally filed the lawsuit. Still, it's hard to see how it goes anywhere because, well, it's stupid. Then again, it is filed in Texas, which was obviously intentional and likely to be more sympathetic to Musk's pathetic argument here. Regardless, the intent may simply be to fuck with both Apple and OpenAI – two of Elon's favorite pastimes – and so... If this makes it to an actual discovery phase, maybe we'll get some interesting nuggets about Apple's deal with OpenAI to use ChatGPT as a part of Siri. Certainly, this is a tangential headache that neither Apple (as it deals with the ramifications of the Epic case and their upcoming antitrust case) nor OpenAI (as it continues to try to become a PBC) want to deal with. But is it more – a "canary in the coal mine" for broader AI litigation? [NYT]
💸 Perplexity's Publisher Rev Share
On one hand, Perplexity keeps getting sued over their content crawling. On the other, they are at least trying to come up with a model for how all of this could work going forward. The latest attempt involves putting aside $42.5M to pay out to publishers when their content is clicked on via AI routing. One big caveat is that this is only through their new Comet browser – which makes it also feel like a way to get publishers to help them spur usage. And really, sign-ups to their new 'Comet Plus' subscription tier – which apparently will keep providing the money fueling this 80/20 split to publishers. Also, the whole concept of "clicking" feels like last generation's model for Google Search. It probably has to be something more akin to content being crawled and used to surface information for customers. But that's harder – and undoubtedly more expensive – to do. Mainly I love that Perplexity keeps coming up with these very specific (and too small) numbers for things. [Bloomberg 🔒]
🎨 Meta's Midjourney "Partnership"
The way Alexandr Wang is framing this is strange. Is a "technical partnership" technically a partnership or something more? As Alex Konrad scooped, it seems like the two sides had the usual – insofar as they're "usual" in our current environment – "hackquisition" talks. But given that Midjourney has no outside investors and instead just opted for the path of making money from day one, there's no real pressure to sell. And this deal will presumably now have them making a lot more money. Still, any alignment here seems smart by Meta as Midjourney has had arguably the best AI image generation product from day one (the outputs have since been surpassed by OpenAI and Google, IMO, but those are still harder, and slower, to use). [Upstarts 🔒]
🍸 Ian Fleming, International Man of Mystery
While this piece is ostensibly about the new Broadway production of 'Operation Mincemeat' – a true story and mission that Fleming helped concoct during WWII to outsmart Hitler – the post is just as much about Fleming's real life background as a British intelligence officer, which gave him the insider knowledge required to write the James Bond novels. Such as the time he was sent to the US to perhaps help nudge them towards joining the war effort and maybe had a hand in creating the OSS – the precursor to the CIA. Also the nugget that Winston Churchill was friends with Fleming's father, as both were members of Parliament, before he was killed in WWI when his son was just 9 years old. And then, of course, how JFK (and Jacqueline Kennedy) helped make the Bond books popular in America. [NYT]
I Quote…
"I can’t run four companies. It’s an open question if I can run one, but I certainly can’t run four."
– Sam Altman, answering a question from Alex Heath about if he envisions OpenAI eventually resembling a holding company with a bunch of products, such as Alphabet. Notable since Fidji Simo has has just started at OpenAI in her "CEO of Applications" role – which seemingly has a lot of overall CEO responsibilities...
I Note…
As Elon fights OpenAI becoming a PBC um, is xAI no longer a PBC?! Sure seems like it. Perhaps related to the environmental issues with data centers? [CNBC]
You can add Meta to the list of frenemies with large Google Cloud deals, alongside Apple and OpenAI as well. [Information 🔒]
Denmark is scrapping their tax on books to try to spur more reading amongst young people. Hard to imagine is solves the underlying issues, but 25% was nuts. [BBC]
Alongside the new ESPN and Fox sports streaming launches, Yahoo has a new FAST offering – read: free – no games, just original content around sports. [Variety]
OpenAI comes out against SPVs – well, at least the unauthorized variety – following Anthropic's more behind-the scenes move. [TechCrunch]
The company also discussed giving every citizen in the UK a ChatGPT Pro account, which, living in the UK, I would have appreciated. But apparently isn't really happening, as it would cost billions. [Guardian]
Yet another TikTok ban (and deal) delay? Why not. It's probably illegal but who cares? Seemingly no one aside from, you know, China. Fourth time is always the charm. [NYT]
Is the September 5 launch day for 'TikTok 2' still a go even if there's no deal? Nobody knows.
Keurig Dr Pepper buys Peets to be able to split out Keurig and Dr. Pepper again. Because the coffee market is a drag while gross soda flavors are all the rage. [WSJ 🔒]
Peacock is going full binge-mode with The Paper, their sequel-ish to The Office show. All 10 episodes will now drop on September 4. So it's either really good or really bad. [THR]
I Spy...
I don't know about you, but if there's one thing I think about when I see the Microsoft Surface brand, it's NFL players destroying the tablets on the sidelines each and every football season. And in particular, a certain best QB of all time – who did so multiple times in his playing days.
Presumably, these players are upset about the play they're reviewing, but as viewers, we can't see what they're seeing. So instead, it just looks like they're beyond frustrated while using the devices. Which is basically the opposite of a 'halo effect' – one for which Microsoft pays the NFL millions, of course.
And now we get a new punching bag, it seems. Copilot! Yes, because everything has to be all about AI all the time, Microsoft's is injecting some new marketing onto the field. You can just cue the 'Aaron Rodgers hates Copilot' memes now.
One more thing: if you really want to squeeze the Copilot logo on the back as well, maybe don't make the case a shade of blue where it renders the logo almost invisible? Just a thought for your multi-million dollar marketing deal.
