…aaaaaand, we’re back! And man oh man, what a week or turmoil and chaos in Big Tech. Court cases. Huge fines. Even bigger egos… it’s a riot.
That means Scotch and Watch is back, live, with me diving into a spicy 12-year-old Caol Ila (a trip down memory lane) and Chris supping coffee in London.
Plenty to talk about. Two trials. Two monopolists (one alleged). Both happening in one courthouse, with one goal: To break a 20-year dry spell for digital competition.
Dare I say there’s a heady mood of optimism, certainly among publishers, that this is the end of the beginning of a new and better future. ✌️
And for those of you not yet tuning in, you can get alerts when Scotch and Watch is going live every Friday by downloading the Substack app.
Do it and you won’t miss out on insights and humdingers like these…
Have I got noose for you
Google’s tightening the noose on publisher revenues as it prepares for break-up.
We talk about how the amount Google sends publishers and the rest of the open web through its programmatic ad network continues to fall.
It’s reducing the amount it shares to keep more money for itself on search ads, YouTube, and now AI Overviews.
This past quarter, programmatic fell four per cent to $6.4 billion - the lowest since 2020. Meanwhile, Google’s quarterly revenue rose 12 per cent to $90 billion.
Two things to note. First, Google only shares seven per cent of the ads it books with the rest of the web. And look at the trendline above. It’s headed down.
Chris says: “That’s reflected by any publisher that you talk to. There’s less traffic coming from Google, that it’s of a different quality.”
Ye. The market has worked on trust for years. Publishers wrote articles. Google sent traffic, and helped sell the ads.
Now there’s one winner, Google. Now that’s ending with antitrust, and publishing needs to build a new ad infrastructure and capability.
Doolally for Dolittle
Astonishing news that Google’s DeepMind has gone full Doolittle and figured out how to talk to dolphins. Google’s geeks just need to learn people now...
I lose my mind as Google’s AI geniuses reveal they have figured out how to speak to animals, because this is the same team that said anything was fair go due to fair use.
Everyone knows that’s true? Nope. No-one thinks that’s true. Maybe Google’s deep minds should focus on understanding people and your customers first.
It’s disappointing to see Google continue to focus on profit and cheap headlines, while failing to see tech has no value if it doesn’t make the world better for people.
Turbulence in the force
Meta’s egos-in-chief clash over the future of social - and whether Facebook has any future at all.
We have a good chuckle about the Dickfest between Zuck and Instagram founder Kevin Systrom.
“It was like a car accident that was eight years in the coming. There’s clearly no love lost between those two.
“We saw the alpha males. I built a platform, he built a platform, but he bought my platform because mine was better. And never liked it. Egos at 12 o’clock.”
Wonderful to watch.
Slice ‘n dice
Google’s an easy verdict, but a harder remedy. It’s the opposite at Meta. The case is harder to win, but the solution’s a cinch.
Selling Google Chrome is hard. The world’s smartest people are arguing over how that could even happen technically.
But it’s worlds easier to break-up Meta. Founder Kevin Systrom would take Instagram back in an instant. It’s the same with the WhatsApp creators.
But Chris shares some worries about whether the Meta case can be won, while I reckon it’s now too big, toxic and influential to be allowed to survive.
The $1.4 trillion question
Chris wonders: If you could own Facebook or Instagram, which would you choose? Err, neither. I’d go for WhatsApp.
We discuss the relative merits of owning the platforms in a post-Meta break-up world.
Instagram has scale and ads, but it’s just a platform, and people can bring out a better one.
But I argue that WhatsApp is something else. “It’s the one with longevity, scale, and the potential to expand into new spaces.”
Isn’t it funny how a cooler way to text has turned out to be more valuable than Meta?
Reality bites
It’s sinking in that Chrome might be sold. It’s an oh shit moment that many believed would never arrive.
So, what does that mean? Where would it go? Who would buy it? What would a post-Google Chrome look like, or do?
The marketing world is moaning that this it’s another unwelcome problem to worry about, and weary publishers are realising that yet more change is coming.
“If you spend 25 years whinging about someone stealing your territory and then your territory’s given back, you don’t get the right to moan that it’s disruptive,” I argue.
I suggest it might be time for those who see this as a hassle to retire and clear the road for those who see opportunity.
“Do you think Perplexity is viewing this as a disruptive irritation? Is OpenAI rolling its eyes over the hassle of taking on Chrome? They’re leaping at it,” I point out.
Oxygen thief
If you suffocate an Olympic sprinter, you find they can’t run so fast. It’s not that they’re suddenly a bad athlete. It’s that they can’t breathe.
Google has been suffocating the news industry’s revenue for decades and now joins in the narrative that news is just no good any more. Fuck that fellas.
It’s been a long time since the industry has had air to breath, and the chance to be proactive.
Chris and I discuss what we expect to see when the air flow restarts and who we think still has the energy for the fight.
Brain explosion
When Google’s data is cracked open, the world will get to see what omnipotence looks like. Imagine what imaginative news guys can do with that?
We joke that it’ll be like the classic movie Journey to the Center of the Earth. We’re going to walk out of a cave and be like: OMG, look at this place.
We’re going to suddenly get the opportunity to understand everything, and as a news guy, a product guy, and an AI guy, I know that with that much data, we can do amazing things.
We brainstorm what we could do with news and news creation, change formats and discovery, and chat with the headlines from our cars.
Meta goes gangsta
Europe has called BS on Meta’s pay or consent concept, exposing it as a protection racket.
We joke about Meta’s idea that users must pay a subscription to not have their data harvested.
“I’m gonna draw a picture. It’s 1930s New York, and I’m wearing a trilby and carrying a baseball bat…”
Chris notes how threatening pay or consent. That’s because it is. Meta assumes privacy is something you have to buy. It’s not, it’s a right.
Keep the vampires from your door
The news industry has failed to help the public realise that Big Tech has been sucking their blood for decades to sell ads.
We discuss how people have fought wars and died for millennia to protect against this type of surveillance.
Chris highlights that Europe leads the way on this because it has the most recent memory of its damage, from the Soviet era, and the East Germany surveillance state.
And we’re full circle back to Churchill.
Boom! How do you like them apples?
And on Apple, it’s up for antitrust next, accused of lying about its privacy record to its three billion iPhone users.
You just can’t take your eyes off these tech numpties for a moment. Download the app and join Chris and I again next Friday as we go back on the attack…
PS: The first person to add a comment naming the Frankie Goes To Hollywood reference above - giving me the song and the line - gets a free sub.
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