Tesla's robotaxi reality check | The Vergecast - video Dailymotion

The Verge

Tesla is famous for throwing caution to the wind in the name of rolling out cool technology, so it was somewhat surprising to see its robotaxi service launch over the weekend in somewhat muted fashion. The Verge's Andy Hawkins joins the show to explain what, exactly, Elon Musk and co. launched, and what it says about the state of the self-driving revolution. After that, The Verge's Allison Johnson takes us through the history of MVNOs, and why they might just be the best deal in wireless carriers. We talk about Trump Mobile, Ryan Reynolds, e-SIMs, and what it would mean to make it easier to switch service. Finally, we answer a question from the Vergecast Hotline about how to free up storage on your iPhone. It's harder than it should be, but hopefully easier than you think.

Transcript

00:00:00Welcome to the VergeCast, the flagship podcast of being unsupervised.

00:00:07I'm your friend David Pierce, and I am doing, I think I've talked about this on the show

00:00:10before, my annual-ish full-on backup of everything.

00:00:16So over the years, I've basically developed a rule about how I think about files and folders

00:00:21and stuff.

00:00:21I want to have them in three places, and anything that doesn't allow this, I try not to use.

00:00:26I want to have all my stuff in whatever app I'm using, whether it's notes or photos or

00:00:31to-dos or bookmarks or whatever.

00:00:33I want to have it all somewhere, and then I want to have it all in some other sort of

00:00:38cloud storage thing, Google Drive, Dropbox, Microsoft, Pick Your Poison, and then I want

00:00:43to have it all somewhere on a physical drive.

00:00:46And that usually means things like text backups and a lot of HTML and PDF downloads.

00:00:52And this is the time of year when I try to make sure that all of that is intact.

00:00:57In theory, I should do this a lot more often.

00:00:59I should do this like once a month or once a week.

00:01:01There was a time where I did it once a week and was like very diligent and proud of myself.

00:01:05Not so much recently.

00:01:07So now what I'm doing is I'm downloading all of my photos.

00:01:09I'm downloading all of my notes as text and markdown files.

00:01:12I'm downloading all of the bookmarks and stuff I have.

00:01:15I'm downloading like browser history, which I'm confident is not a thing I'm ever going to

00:01:19need, but basically anything I can turn into some kind of searchable, archivable file

00:01:24gets downloaded, gets put on a drive like this one.

00:01:28I have a couple of them lying around, and I try to just make sure it all lives there.

00:01:33This is a way of like backing everything up without making my life more complicated, which

00:01:38I like, right?

00:01:39This is just like a permanent archive that in theory, I never have to touch.

00:01:43I think very rarely have I ever actually had to go onto this drive and find something.

00:01:47It's just a failsafe, and it works for me.

00:01:49I got inspired to do this, by the way, by today's hotline question, which we will come

00:01:53to at the end of the show.

00:01:55It's a fun one and an annoying one, and we'll get to that.

00:01:59But anyway, before we get to all that, today is not just about storage and file backup,

00:02:03though I could talk about that for hours.

00:02:04We're going to do two things on the show today.

00:02:06First, we're going to talk to Andy Hawkins about the slightly complicated Tesla robo-taxi

00:02:12announcement over the weekend.

00:02:13And we're also going to just catch up on the state of robo-taxis in general, because

00:02:18this market continues to be very confusing and is moving both slower and faster somehow

00:02:23than you might think.

00:02:24I'm also going to talk to Allison Johnson about MVNOs, this new type of wireless carrier

00:02:29that suddenly seems to be everywhere, and I think might be more important than we realize.

00:02:34There's Trump Mobile, there's Mint Mobile, there's like Boost, but there's something bigger

00:02:39happening here.

00:02:40And Allison and I are going to try to figure out what it is.

00:02:42All that is coming up in just a second, plus more stuff on storage.

00:02:47But first, we have to take a break, and I have to go and download, let's see, 11,000

00:02:51photos from iCloud Drive.

00:02:54Pray for me.

00:02:55This is The Verge Cast.

00:02:59All right, we're back.

00:03:01Andy Hawkins is here.

00:03:02Hi, Andy.

00:03:03Hi, how's it going?

00:03:04You know, I once again have to talk about robo-taxis that both do and don't exist, so

00:03:10this is, that question fills me with a lot of confusing feelings.

00:03:15There was a launch this weekend, we would say.

00:03:18Is that a fair assessment of what happened?

00:03:21Something happened.

00:03:22A thing happened.

00:03:23Okay.

00:03:24It was, I don't know if you could call it a launch.

00:03:27It still feels very beta to me in many ways, but we can get into that.

00:03:31But yes, I guess one could argue a thing was launched.

00:03:35Okay, so what did happen this weekend?

00:03:37There was a small, I was very confused by this because Tesla is a company that does big

00:03:45splashy things at headquarters all the time and is constantly making noise about these

00:03:50huge announcements.

00:03:51And then this, what you would think would be a big moment in Tesla's history, just kind

00:03:56of sneakily came and went on a Sunday.

00:03:58What happened here?

00:03:59Yeah, it was very muted.

00:04:02You're absolutely right in that assessment, which is not normal for Tesla.

00:04:07But then again, this is Tesla, and so few things are normal for this company.

00:04:11But yes, what happened was on Sunday, June 22nd, for several hours, a handful of Tesla

00:04:21vehicles were operating in the city of Austin, Texas, with no one in the driver's seat.

00:04:27And they picked up and dropped off a bunch of passengers.

00:04:32Many of those people were Tesla fans, extremely, extremely so.

00:04:38Sure.

00:04:38The most vocal of Tesla fans, one could say, and that is why they were allowed to ride in

00:04:46the cars.

00:04:47They were, it was an invite-only situation.

00:04:50So these invites went out to all of Elon Musk's best friends, and they got to ride in these

00:04:56driverless Tesla vehicles.

00:04:57And I'm saying driverless because there was no one behind the steering wheel, but they

00:05:02were not the unsupervised robotaxis that Musk promised at the beginning of this year, because

00:05:09there were Tesla employees sitting as safety monitors in the passenger seat.

00:05:14They didn't have steering wheels or pedals on their side, but they could effectively hit

00:05:19a kill switch and stop the vehicle from operating if they wanted to.

00:05:23As far as I can tell, I watched a lot of live streams.

00:05:26That is one thing that Tesla fans online love to do, is live stream their cars using full

00:05:31self-driving.

00:05:32True.

00:05:33And so when the robo-taxis came up, they were all ready to live stream.

00:05:36So I watched many, many, several hours-long videos of these live streams.

00:05:42So what is the rider experience, as best you can tell?

00:05:44You didn't get to ride in one, you weren't in Austin, but like you said, you've seen

00:05:47these, so like, walk me through a ride in a Tesla robo-taxi as far as we know.

00:05:53So from what I can tell, there is a separate app that is not the Tesla app.

00:05:57It is a standalone robo-taxi app.

00:05:59You download that app, it ports over your profile from the Tesla app, including all of

00:06:03your preferences and all those things.

00:06:05And then you can hail a vehicle using this app, much in the same way that Uber works.

00:06:10Yeah, it's basically Uber.

00:06:11And that was something that a lot of these folks were saying, that this is a very similar

00:06:14experience to Uber.

00:06:16The vehicles only operated in a very small part of South Austin.

00:06:20It's not clear to me how large a size of a geofence this is, but it is very small, much

00:06:26smaller than Waymo's geofence in Austin.

00:06:29Waymo right now has over a hundred vehicles operating across Austin.

00:06:33I think their geofence is around 65 square miles.

00:06:37Tesla's was much smaller.

00:06:39Um, so you had to initiate a ride in the geofence and also the, the destination needed to be

00:06:45also within the same geofence.

00:06:47So you were seeing a lot of people, uh, calling rights to their hotels or, or, uh, um, they

00:06:53would go, they would drive into the geofence to use, to use the, the robo-taxi service,

00:06:58hail a vehicle, and then take a ride to like a fried chicken place or something like that.

00:07:01And a lot of these people, folks were, would, uh, would take a ride, uh, they would get

00:07:05out at their destination and then they would immediately hail another ride.

00:07:09They were sort of just like in a, uh, a revolving cycle.

00:07:13So you use the app, you get this car, it comes, you, you get in it and there's no one, there's

00:07:19not like a person to drive away, but there is a person in the front seat.

00:07:24This is like the, the dynamics of the, like, how do I get in and start the ride strike me

00:07:29as potentially deeply hilarious in this, in this moment.

00:07:32Like you have a driver, but they're not driving.

00:07:34Yeah.

00:07:35I think we should also just be really clear here.

00:07:38Like the idea of a safety driver or a safety monitor, extremely common in the autonomous

00:07:42vehicle space, Waymo cruise, uh, everyone basically has used a safety driver at some

00:07:48point, either, uh, uh, behind the steering wheel, uh, in the passenger, sometimes both I've

00:07:53been in self-driving cars where there was two people in the front seat, uh, their hands

00:07:57were, you know, sort of off, off all the controls, but they were there to, to take control

00:08:00if something happened.

00:08:01Um, those were during test phases, I think is, is the real important thing to, to, to

00:08:06make clear here.

00:08:07Um, and what Tesla is doing is, is pretty unique in the, in the field.

00:08:12And so, insofar as they're using these safety monitors as part of a commercial service, again,

00:08:17not open to the public yet.

00:08:19It'll be interesting to see if they do open to the pub, uh, open it to the public.

00:08:23Whether they keep the safety monitors in or whether they pull those folks out.

00:08:27Um, but at this stage of the game, these are paid rides.

00:08:30Uh, Elon Musk has said he's charging a flat rate of $4 and 20 cents, entirely coincidental.

00:08:36I'm sure that price, $4 and 20 cents.

00:08:38I'm sure the accountants went over that one rigorously to figure out the exact correct

00:08:43number.

00:08:43That has no other meaning.

00:08:45I'm sure, uh, that I could tell.

00:08:47Um, but you know, these are paid rides.

00:08:49Got that safety monitor in the, in the, the passenger seat.

00:08:51I saw a few videos where, um, the riders were, would try to interact and ask questions,

00:08:56uh, of the safety monitor.

00:08:58That person was not having it.

00:09:00They were, I think it's pretty clear that their instructions were, don't talk to the

00:09:03passengers.

00:09:04Sure.

00:09:04Don't touch the controls unless you absolutely have to.

00:09:08Uh, and we can get to this, but there was one incident that I saw, um, where, uh, one

00:09:13of the vehicles drove briefly, uh, in the opposite lane of traffic on the wrong side

00:09:17of the road.

00:09:18And I thought it was super interesting.

00:09:19First of all, that it did that.

00:09:20Second of all, that the safety monitor made no attempt to grab the steering wheel or do

00:09:25anything.

00:09:26Uh, even though the vehicle was briefly on the wrong side of the road operating dangerously.

00:09:32Um, so that's kind of an interesting thing about this whole Tesla experience that is

00:09:37unique.

00:09:37I would say across the industry.

00:09:39Unique in what sense?

00:09:40Like, I think part of the reason this, this moment is so interesting to me is it is both

00:09:45the launch of a commercial product that real people can use for sure, but it is also very

00:09:51much a testing phase, right?

00:09:52Like they're not making money on $4 and 20 cents a ride.

00:09:56They're not doing this in any kind of sort of meaningful volume for people.

00:10:01That's going to make this make sense as an app to open when I just want to get somewhere.

00:10:05And like, this is very clearly a beta test, right?

00:10:09And I think part of the reason it's so interesting to me is that this is a moment that Tesla, which

00:10:14has been talking a big game about its autonomous abilities for a very long time has to actually

00:10:21show what it can do, right?

00:10:23Like a thing you and I have talked about before is like, don't listen to what Elon Musk tweets.

00:10:26Like, listen to what he says to investors, because that's where you have to, you have

00:10:29to tell the truth.

00:10:29And like, when you put the car on the road is when you at some point have to tell the

00:10:33truth.

00:10:33And this, especially compared to what we've seen from Waymo recently, which is just on

00:10:38this like relentless, massive expansion plan.

00:10:40Like Waymo feels like it's close.

00:10:43And this to me did not look like Tesla feels like it's close.

00:10:46This felt very small from Tesla to me.

00:10:48And I think that's not a bad thing.

00:10:50It's just a recognition of where Tesla is at this point.

00:10:52And I just found that, that disparity and dichotomy sort of fascinating.

00:10:56No, yeah.

00:10:56It's super fascinating.

00:10:57And I think it's a reflection of a few things.

00:11:00I think you're spot on in your analysis so far.

00:11:02I think it's, it's, it's absolutely a reflection of where Tesla is at this moment, right?

00:11:07Like they were on a tear for a few years, especially during those post pandemic years where they

00:11:15were just, their stock price was, you know, on the upward trajectory.

00:11:19They were selling a ton of vehicles, super profitable.

00:11:22Uh, and then you saw 2024 happen, the Trump endorsement, Elon Musk, uh, going full tilt

00:11:31on, on MAGA, dark MAGA, sorry.

00:11:33Uh, and then things started to change pretty drastically for the company.

00:11:36Sales started to drop.

00:11:37Uh, they ended 2024, uh, having sold fewer vehicles than they did in 2023.

00:11:42That was the first time in many years that that had happened.

00:11:45And then as we've seen, uh, in the, in the, the, the first months of 2025, that's gotten

00:11:50worse and worse as Musk has gotten more and more political with Doge and his involvement

00:11:54in the Trump administration.

00:11:55So I think that there was a sense of the company that needed to do something to recapture the

00:11:59narrative, to change, uh, to justify this enormous valuation that the company has been

00:12:03enjoying for such a long time, where they are valued exponentially more than your average

00:12:08car company.

00:12:09And that was all about robotics.

00:12:11Musk has been talking about AI and robotics for such a long time, uh, without having delivered

00:12:16a product to anybody.

00:12:17And it was just coasting on vibes, right?

00:12:19Tesla was your, was your, was your prototypical meme stock.

00:12:23It was just, it was just, uh, chugging along, uh, on the vibe, on the vibe train.

00:12:28And so I think as soon as sales started to go down and you started to see sort of chips

00:12:33in the facade, I think that that's when the company decided, okay, we need to actually

00:12:37start delivering on what we've been promising on what Musk has been promising for such a long

00:12:41time.

00:12:41I mean, it's been almost a decade that it, since he said millions of robo taxis on the

00:12:46road within the next two years.

00:12:48And every year was successively another two years.

00:12:51We just need two more years to make this happen.

00:12:53And now they finally have to, to live, to deliver in order to reverse this trend as

00:12:58it's been going on in their financials.

00:13:00And I think that's why this seems so small, so contained, so rushed in many ways.

00:13:05I mean, it was just sort of like they needed to meet this June deadline that he, he put

00:13:09in place at the beginning of this year.

00:13:11Um, and, uh, it's just drastically different than what he's been selling to people for such

00:13:16a long time.

00:13:17I mean, the, the, the, the vision of Tesla for forever was you buy a Tesla vehicle, that

00:13:21vehicle is going to be the one that is fully driverless.

00:13:24We're going to sell you this, this technology.

00:13:26You're going to be able to add your car to the Tesla network and make money off of it.

00:13:31Right.

00:13:32Cars typically lose value as soon as they leave the dealership.

00:13:35That's just the, the, the, the state of the game.

00:13:38Tesla was, was saying it doesn't have to be that way.

00:13:40You can actually earn money off your vehicle.

00:13:43It will become more valuable over time.

00:13:45That is not what is being rolled out this week in Austin.

00:13:48This is a fleet service.

00:13:49It is more akin to Uber and Waymo than it is to anything that Musk has been selling.

00:13:53Uh, and I think that is, is sort of why we're, what we're seeing today is, is so different

00:13:57than what has been promised for such a long time.

00:14:00Do you think anything that we've seen in this launch either, either makes you feel more

00:14:06or less confident about some of those bigger visions?

00:14:08I mean, obviously we should talk about the cyber cab, which is notably not these cars,

00:14:12but that's fine.

00:14:13And, and there had, there like, there is this big grand kind of galaxy brand Tesla vision

00:14:19around robo taxis like you're talking about.

00:14:21And I think none of this points to that, but also none of this makes me feel like it's out

00:14:28of the question.

00:14:29Does that make sense?

00:14:29Like, do you, do you feel like we're closer or further away after seeing all this launch?

00:14:33Uh, I mean, it's only been one day.

00:14:35So, and I think that that's like the thing that kind of makes me concerned.

00:14:40We can't, we can't really evaluate any service after just a day.

00:14:43We haven't tested it ourselves.

00:14:45Um, and the fact that it's being filtered through these extremely biased pro Tesla accounts,

00:14:50I think should give everyone a lot of pause about what we're seeing on the ground in Austin.

00:14:54Uh, that said, you know, I think it's a good idea that they have safety monitors in the

00:14:58front seat.

00:14:59You know, I think a lot of folks are trying to drag Tesla for doing that, but at the same

00:15:03time, I would prefer there to be more, more safety, safety nets, backups, fallbacks, all

00:15:09these kinds of things that you need to have in place.

00:15:10Because I think when you look at Tesla's technology versus Waymo or someone else, you can see why

00:15:16there is this concern about how this company has been rolling these things out over the

00:15:20years, uh, the fact that it's camera only of a computer vision only system without relying on

00:15:25things like radar and LIDAR as, uh, uh, um, secondary sensor inputs.

00:15:31Um, and the fact that, you know, uh, um, that it, they, it, that full self-driving as a product

00:15:37has been shown many times.

00:15:39A lot of people like it.

00:15:40A lot of people use it, but there have been numerous cases of, of crashes that have taken

00:15:43places, injuries, uh, uh, with Tesla, uh, with Tesla's driver assist products, uh, even deaths

00:15:49there, uh, and the government has been investigating Tesla for a number of years now, um, based

00:15:54on how they market their products, but also the technology itself and whether or not it is

00:15:58actually, um, uh, uh, safe as they market it to be.

00:16:02And we don't know because Tesla as a company is a black box.

00:16:05We have no visibility, um, into the safety of their products.

00:16:08They give us, um, uh, safety statistics that are extremely selective and are designed to

00:16:14make the company look good and are not actually, um, uh, verifiable in any way or peer reviewed

00:16:20in the ways that, uh, Waymo has done with their safety data.

00:16:23They have published numerous, uh, um, articles in scientific journals, peer reviewed scientific

00:16:28journals that they say show that their vehicles cause fewer crashes, cause fewer injuries, cause

00:16:33fewer deaths.

00:16:34Uh, Tesla has not done that.

00:16:36And yet they are now on the road in a city without drivers behind the wheel.

00:16:40It's been one day.

00:16:42I think we need to take a deep breath and cross our fingers and hope that nothing goes wrong.

00:16:47That's fair.

00:16:48Yeah.

00:16:48I think, I think that's right.

00:16:49And I think it seems to me that we're in a position of, uh, sort of uncharted territory

00:16:55with Tesla, which is that actually reading about a lot of this, this is much more careful

00:17:00than I've come to expect from Tesla.

00:17:02Actually, this is, this is the sort of thing that I think 12 months ago,

00:17:05Tesla even would have just been like, it's out there, fools, go see what happens.

00:17:10And this is like, this is the kind of like very thought through, very small, very cautious

00:17:15thing that we actually don't expect from Tesla.

00:17:18And a, I think that's terrific, right?

00:17:21Like that is clearly the correct outcome given where we are, but it's so unlike Tesla that

00:17:26it almost feels scarier as a result.

00:17:29And yet it still is, it's still risky.

00:17:32I mean, you're right.

00:17:33Totally.

00:17:33And you're also like, it's cause it look, because like, yes, we, I think we could very

00:17:37well have assumed that Tesla was just going to go full tilt and, you know, a thousand

00:17:42driverless vehicles on the road.

00:17:44They did not do that.

00:17:45I honestly thought at some point they would just turn it on for every Tesla that exists.

00:17:49And then the government would be like, what?

00:17:50And Elon Musk would be like, what are you going to do about it?

00:17:52That's honestly what I thought was going to happen.

00:17:53Did I do that?

00:17:54Yeah, right.

00:17:55But no, it does, it does outwardly, it looks cautious and they, I don't want to detract

00:18:02from that.

00:18:03And I, I do want to give the company some credit for, for, for exhibiting some, a modicum

00:18:08amount of caution.

00:18:09But that said, it is still lacking in some serious safety safeguards that I think we've

00:18:16seen a lot of other companies do.

00:18:17Waymo, for example, will drive six months with safety drivers behind the wheel, no passengers.

00:18:23Then they'll allow passengers in, then they'll take safety drivers out and it'll be only for

00:18:28invite only for employees only.

00:18:30And they'll test it that way for another six months.

00:18:33There's a, there's a, there's a process here that they go through.

00:18:36They don't drive on highways.

00:18:38They don't go to airports.

00:18:38Tesla also not, no highways, no airports at the moment, but they decided to go out there

00:18:44and start inviting customers, um, with, with safety monitors in the passenger seat.

00:18:50They didn't go through this sort of process of, of the, of, of testing, uh, for over a

00:18:55year, which is what they do because they, their argument is we have 3 billion miles of customer

00:18:59driven data on full self-driving.

00:19:01We have end-to-end, uh, neural nets, uh, that are, are, uh, powering these vehicles.

00:19:08We have everything that we need and yet they don't, they haven't sort of been transparent

00:19:12about how they're testing the vehicles.

00:19:14They're, uh, um, not releasing the statistics that we're seeing.

00:19:17And we don't have that.

00:19:18They don't have these, the, uh, additional sensors that other companies use because Musk

00:19:23has long argued that they're too expensive and it just doesn't make sense.

00:19:25Uh, even though the costs on those sensors have been, has been dropping, uh, pretty,

00:19:29pretty, uh, uh, steeply over the years.

00:19:31So again, you have to give them some credit, credit, but not entirely too much credit because

00:19:37there are still a lot of risks that the company is taking here.

00:19:41Um, and as we've seen in the past with full self-driving, when things go wrong, um, uh,

00:19:46Tesla's defenders will come out and say, oh, this, this, and this, and this is why this

00:19:50happened.

00:19:50Uh, you know, they'll make any excuse that they can as to why mistakes have happened.

00:19:55And we saw it yesterday when this car drove on the wrong side of the road, you saw a

00:19:58lot of people rush into the comments and say, oh, my own car on full self-driving, we'll

00:20:02do that sometimes.

00:20:03It's so annoying.

00:20:04That's a big problem.

00:20:05It shouldn't do that.

00:20:07Your car should not just decide to drive on the wrong side of the road, you know?

00:20:11And so I want to give them some credit, but I don't want to give them too much credit.

00:20:15Yeah.

00:20:16I mean, to be, to be very clear, I think, uh, for a long time, there are going to be better

00:20:19ways to get to the fried chicken restaurant than getting in a Tesla robot taxi.

00:20:23You know what I mean?

00:20:23Uh, but so I think it just, let's sort of zoom out a little bit because I think the

00:20:29way I have been thinking about the robot taxi world for a while is that there is, there

00:20:34is Waymo kind of in a, in a tier of its own.

00:20:36And then there's sort of everybody else, but Tesla was this wild card that was like, who

00:20:41knows what it's going to do?

00:20:42Who knows how well it's going to work?

00:20:43Like, we just don't know.

00:20:45And we're still, like you said, very early in this, but it does seem like we can at least

00:20:49slot Tesla in somewhere in terms of where the company thinks it is in self-driving.

00:20:55Is it still Waymo and then everybody else?

00:20:59Yeah.

00:20:59I think in a lot of ways.

00:21:01And I think you also have to talk about Uber in some respects too, because Uber has sort

00:21:05of made this move now to, um, partner with, you know, dozens of, of self-driving car companies,

00:21:10um, uh, in, in, in North America, but also in Europe and, and, and Asia.

00:21:14Uh, and they're sort of trying to become kind of like the, um, you know, like the, uh, like

00:21:19the platform for any company to come in and deploy vehicles on.

00:21:23Which seems smart, right?

00:21:24Like the, the, doing the Uber thing strikes me as a much safer bet than trying to do the

00:21:29Tesla thing where it's like, we're going to try to own everything, but that requires

00:21:32doing everything at giant impossible scale.

00:21:34Yeah.

00:21:35Uber is just like, whoever wins, we win, which actually at this moment strikes me as a pretty

00:21:39good call.

00:21:39Yeah.

00:21:39I think it is.

00:21:40It is pretty smart.

00:21:41They're working with Waymo.

00:21:42They're working with a number of other, uh, pretty, um, uh, uh, legit operators.

00:21:48So I, I do think that there is, uh, and they're also doing it on the, on the delivery side,

00:21:52on the Uber Eats side as well with, uh, with the sidewalk robots.

00:21:55Um, so that's a really interesting approach to it, but yes, I do think that like, you do

00:21:59have to say that now we, Tesla is part of the conversation.

00:22:02They are operating driverless vehicles on the road in a commercial capacity.

00:22:05And they have said, you know, Musk has said 10, 20 vehicles at launch, perhaps a thousand

00:22:11vehicles within a few months.

00:22:13And then we're going to be in California.

00:22:14He wants to start operating in Los Angeles.

00:22:16He wants to do it in San Francisco.

00:22:18These are, uh, Waymo markets as well.

00:22:20Um, and I think that that's a fascinating thing.

00:22:23And then obviously they've said that in 2026, they're going to start a production on the

00:22:26cyber cab.

00:22:27And then we're, we'll eventually start, you know, then the ball will really be rolling

00:22:30and there'll be no turning back at that point.

00:22:32But I do think that, you know, it will entirely depend on which markets that Tesla is operating

00:22:38in and what sort of obstacles they may come across Texas, zero obstacles, right?

00:22:42There's just no, all you have to do is basically show proof of insurance and you can do whatever

00:22:46you want.

00:22:47Um, and obviously you're dealing with an extremely Musk and Tesla friendly government, uh, that

00:22:52exists in that state.

00:22:54Um, that said they had just passed some regulation that says that you need to apply for a permit.

00:22:58Perhaps Tesla, you'd like to wait until September 1st when these regulations kick in and then

00:23:02apply for a permit.

00:23:03Uh, that's what a lot of lawmakers in Austin were trying to, uh, uh, pressure the company

00:23:07into doing didn't happen.

00:23:09Tesla just went ahead and did the thing anyways, uh, California, entirely different situation.

00:23:13There's any, a very rigid permitting process.

00:23:16You need to, uh, uh, uh, do have several months of testing.

00:23:20You need to, uh, um, uh, submit, you know, uh, documents to the government to show that

00:23:24your technology is up to snuff.

00:23:26Um, you know, you have to apply for a driverless permit.

00:23:28You have to apply for a commercial robo taxi permit.

00:23:30There's all these sort of a successive number of permits, but that's the market, right?

00:23:34California is the big market that, that Tesla wants to get.

00:23:37If they need to, if they want to compete with the Ubers and the Waymos and everyone else,

00:23:40they're going to need to be in those markets competing with them as well.

00:23:44Uh, and they, they may run into some problems as the sort of regulatory requirements get more

00:23:50and more difficult as they look to spread out.

00:23:52Right.

00:23:52Is, is the sense in the industry that this stuff is going to be kind of a, a let a thousand

00:23:58flowers bloom market where it'll be sort of like the car market where there's lots of

00:24:01different companies and you can choose your, your own provider and everybody can kind of

00:24:05peacefully coexist on the roads.

00:24:06Or are we running towards some kind of like winner take all, or at least winner take most

00:24:12version of the, the robo taxi future here?

00:24:16Cause if that's where we're going, I kind of have a hard time figuring out how anybody

00:24:20catches Waymo at this point, at least quickly.

00:24:23Uh, but maybe it doesn't matter.

00:24:25Maybe, maybe Waymo can continue to be Waymo and Tesla or some other company can figure out

00:24:29how to be just as successful in just as many places and everybody can coexist together.

00:24:34What is the sense of how it shakes out there?

00:24:37Yeah, I think it's going to be entirely dependent on safety.

00:24:41I don't want to mean to sound like a broken record, but really it, it's the kind of situation

00:24:46where as soon as something bad happens, someone gets hit, a crash occurs, then there's like

00:24:52a whole, the whole industry almost needs to reset at that point.

00:24:55And that's when you start to see, uh, who's a winner and who's a loser in that situation.

00:24:59Because as we've seen in the past, when there's some sort of, uh, injury or death that that

00:25:04can ruin companies happen to Uber, it happened to cruise, uh, under, under GM's, uh, um, ownership.

00:25:10Um, and it could very well happen to Tesla, right?

00:25:12As soon as, uh, there have been already injuries and crashes, right.

00:25:16But there have been people behind the wheels of those vehicles.

00:25:18And so Tesla can say, we're not liable.

00:25:21We told you to pay attention and you didn't, this is a different situation.

00:25:24And Tesla is taking on a lot more risk now than they ever have in the past and a lot more

00:25:28liability.

00:25:29Um, that said, I do think that in the future, it'll be some, you know, I think Uber's model

00:25:34is really interesting and could be the one, um, that we see, uh, as the most successful

00:25:39you get, um, you sort of like smaller AV operators, maybe more locally based, um, you know, who are

00:25:46able to deploy their vehicles to a small number of customers on Uber's platform.

00:25:50Um, and then you have sort of like your big operators, like your Waymos and others who,

00:25:55um, have, uh, more runway, more capital, uh, more financial support, and therefore are able

00:26:01to grow, acquire more vehicles, um, and then sort of spread, uh, across the country.

00:26:07Um, but, uh, you know, it will be a very safety guided, I think, um, development and it, and it

00:26:14should be right.

00:26:14If you can't prove that you can operate these vehicles, and I think the liability thing is

00:26:19the one that is the biggest hurdle for most of these companies.

00:26:22If you cannot put a driverless vehicle on the road and be confident in the fact that that's

00:26:26not going to come back and bite you in the ass and cost you hundreds of millions of dollars

00:26:29in liability, uh, um, costs, then, then, then you, then you, you should, you should feel

00:26:36confident in doing that.

00:26:37But otherwise that's going to be the thing that I think that, that we weeds out sort of the,

00:26:41the major players with, with the confidence and those that maybe are a little bit operating

00:26:45with a little bit more risk.

00:26:46Okay.

00:26:47But you think, I mean, it's an interesting way of thinking about it because there's so

00:26:50much potential for like problem and change there that maybe I'm wrong to think that

00:26:55Waymo is in any way sort of insurmountable at this point.

00:26:58Like, I mean, there, there is still so much big, huge, massive stuff left to do.

00:27:03I mean, Waymo has been able to, uh, circumnavigate the, um, the, the problems of the past with,

00:27:10um, when, when someone has, uh, deployed a vehicle that was not ready and someone got

00:27:16hurt or injured, there's been sort of the under, there's an understanding that like that

00:27:20hurts the whole industry, right?

00:27:21People don't tend to separate Waymo from, from Tesla or what have you.

00:27:26They're just self-driving cars.

00:27:28It's a technology that is not ready.

00:27:30It's not, uh, um, uh, it's not ready for prime time because of this, this incident that

00:27:34happened.

00:27:35Uh, I feel like Waymo has been able to, uh, to skirt around that a few times in ways that

00:27:40other companies have not.

00:27:42Um, but that said, you know, I, I do think that if something happens in the future and

00:27:46if it's a Tesla vehicle that is responsible for something that happens, some sort of incident,

00:27:50it will, it will be tough because it is also a perception game.

00:27:53And if you can't convince people at scale, uh, to trust this technology, they're just not

00:27:59going to use it.

00:28:00They're going to rely on human driven, you know, Uber vehicles, which is why Uber hedging

00:28:05its bets now saying, oh, we got, we got human drivers and we got robot cars.

00:28:09You know, that's a way to sort of say that, you know, it, uh, both, both can be, you know,

00:28:13if they can, both can coexist and that's a company that could potentially be well positioned,

00:28:17uh, for more success in the future.

00:28:20Um, but yeah, I, I do think that like if, if once it, and something will, something will

00:28:24go wrong.

00:28:25I don't want to be doom and gloom, but there will be eventually an incident that happens.

00:28:29Someone will get it.

00:28:30Injured, especially as more of these vehicles hit the road and, uh, you just reach a certain

00:28:34level of scale where it's unavoidable, these types of incidents, um, that it'll be really

00:28:38interesting to see who's responsible and how the rest of the industry responds to that

00:28:42incident.

00:28:43Um, and then, you know, if the public, you know, decides to reject it and say, okay,

00:28:49that's enough.

00:28:50We've had enough of this, which we saw, uh, in LA recently with these Waymos getting completely

00:28:55incinerated during these, uh, these anti-ice protests.

00:28:58Um, you know, that's a bad look for Waymo.

00:29:00It's a bad look for the, for the whole industry too.

00:29:02And I think it's, it's, it goes to show that there's still, uh, a bit of a hill to climb

00:29:06in terms of, uh, public acceptance in trust.

00:29:09Totally.

00:29:09Well, speaking of things that have fully climbed that hill, at least in my brain, can we talk

00:29:13about the Nissan Leaf just for one second?

00:29:15Oh, well, happy to.

00:29:16The last time you were on, I told you I was irrationally excited about this car.

00:29:20Uh, and then Nissan sort of fully unveiled the 2026 Leaf.

00:29:25And I feel so incredibly vindicated because this car seems awesome and I'm very into it.

00:29:30Tell me why I should or should not be excited about the, the new Leaf.

00:29:34Okay.

00:29:34So you should be excited for it because the specs look great.

00:29:37Uh, it's like over 300 miles, uh, on certain trims.

00:29:41Uh, they haven't said what the price is, but I'm sure it's going to be like in the $40,000

00:29:45range, which is where most EVs are these days.

00:29:48If it's under 40, I w I will be impressed.

00:29:50Uh, but I'm sure if, uh, that's going to be reliant on some incentives that probably

00:29:54won't exist by the time this, this car comes out.

00:29:57Um, it's got dual plugs, dual ports on it for both CCS charging, fast charging and Tesla

00:30:03Nax fast charging.

00:30:05Uh, I have not seen that before, uh, in a, in a production vehicle.

00:30:09Typically you'll, you'll, they'll come out with one or the other and they'll give you

00:30:12an adapter for the rest.

00:30:14Uh, this one, uh, D-san's just saying, why not just put two ports on this, on this bad

00:30:17boy?

00:30:18Love it.

00:30:18So that's pretty, pretty sick.

00:30:20And, uh, just the look of it, it just looks so much better.

00:30:23Right.

00:30:24It's like, it's kind of reminded me in some ways of like, um, the Prius when the, when

00:30:28the new Prius came out a couple of years ago and how much of a glow up that was, it just

00:30:31like looked sleeker and sexier, um, than the, than the old Prius.

00:30:35The same as, as with the leap.

00:30:37It just, it's sort of like cast off its frumpiness and it's now, uh, um, uh, a fully grown up

00:30:43crossover SUV.

00:30:44It, it, it just looked great.

00:30:45The downside it's Nissan, right?

00:30:48Nissan, not in a, not in a great place right now.

00:30:51Um, struggling a lot.

00:30:53They had a huge round of layoffs a few months ago.

00:30:56Um, tried to merge with Honda.

00:30:58Didn't work out.

00:30:59Um, had to, had to break that up.

00:31:01Um, but clear that the company is still going through a lot of financial difficulties.

00:31:05Uh, I don't think that's going to affect the leaf at all.

00:31:08I think that they're really gung ho about the leaf and, and are, uh, I don't doubt that

00:31:12Nissan, it's not going to be like a Fisker situation.

00:31:14Nissan's not going to cease to exist or what have you.

00:31:17Um, but, uh, I do think that that, that might get some folks pause, but yeah, otherwise I

00:31:21do think that the leaf looks awesome and I can't wait to test it out.

00:31:24Yeah.

00:31:25It just seems like we're, we're still so desperate for like compelling mainstream EVs.

00:31:32And I think the, the leaf tried and failed to be that so many times that it was like,

00:31:37it just, it just kept whiffing on like really basic stuff.

00:31:40It was like, what if we made a car that was ugly and didn't go very far?

00:31:43And I was like, well, I don't think that's it, Nissan.

00:31:46But it was like, but it was the first, it was the thing, right?

00:31:49Like everyone gives Tesla the credit for, uh, for, you know, inventing the EV market, but

00:31:54it was really Nissan that, that took the risk, right?

00:31:57They are the ones who put the, the leaf came out first.

00:32:00That was the first, it wasn't long range by any stretch of the imagination, but it was

00:32:05way more than a lot of like the very early compliance vehicles that we saw.

00:32:09Um, and it was cheap.

00:32:11It was so cheap.

00:32:12It was, you know, 112 miles of range, like 30 grand, maybe even like 25 grand.

00:32:18Like that was like, that was what this was all supposed to be before like the EV market

00:32:22got kind of hooked on luxury goods and, you know, fine leather goods and all that kind

00:32:26of stuff that you see with like the Rivians and the pole stars and whatnot, things just

00:32:29got too fancy.

00:32:30And we kind of lost sight of like, what was the point of all of this is to, is to, if

00:32:35you're, if you really want to drive adoption, you got to meet people where they are.

00:32:39And you especially got to meet them where they're, where their finances are.

00:32:42And, and so many EVs today, I think that you, you could say that Tesla was really responsible

00:32:47for that with the model S and then that sort of like kind of, um, uh, was the, was the

00:32:52model that everyone wanted to follow because they were so successful.

00:32:54So, uh, had the, had the leaf been the one that was the success and not the model S, it

00:33:00could have been a different story.

00:33:01You could have seen Ford and GM and BMW and everyone else like rushing to put $20,000 EVs

00:33:06on the road.

00:33:07Um, but instead it was Tesla.

00:33:08That was, that was the, um, the breakout star.

00:33:11Um, and thus, that's why we got, you know, uh, 70, 80, $90,000 EVs before we got any, any

00:33:18hint of a $20,000 one.

00:33:19Yeah, I am.

00:33:20I'm rooting for this car for exactly that reason.

00:33:22It feels like the thing the leaf has always wanted to be is a, is a thing we need in,

00:33:28in the car market right now.

00:33:29And at least from the, the look of the thing, it feels, it feels like it might've actually

00:33:34gotten there, but I agree with you.

00:33:36I think price will end up being everything.

00:33:37And I would not say I'm terribly optimistic given, you know, gestures broadly, all everything,

00:33:43but that's it.

00:33:44You know, we're, we're, we're supposed to be getting cheap EVs from Ford from Volkswagen

00:33:48supposed to be coming out some really cheap ones next year.

00:33:50We're going to get the R2 from Rivian.

00:33:52That's supposed to be their, their $40,000 EV.

00:33:54I do feel despite all of these headwinds and, and political machinations that are going

00:34:01on, it does seem that the industry is still committed to putting out a, a, a affordable

00:34:05EV that people can actually buy.

00:34:08Uh, and hopefully the leaf will, will, uh, be sort of like that, uh, that precursor to

00:34:12a lot of great things to come.

00:34:14I'm, I'm, you and me both.

00:34:15Uh, all right.

00:34:16We got to take a break, Andy.

00:34:17Thank you as always.

00:34:18My pleasure.

00:34:19Thanks, David.

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00:36:48All right, we're back.

00:36:50Allison Johnson is here.

00:36:51Hi, Allison.

00:36:52Hello.

00:36:53Allison, I've dragged you in on your day off because we have to talk about MVNOs.

00:36:58I wouldn't miss it.

00:37:01I love a good MVNO chat.

00:37:04So this is very fun for me because this is the sort of thing that I feel like in the

00:37:07course of my day-to-day life, I have spent almost no time thinking about this sort of

00:37:12weird world of network usage and carriers and who you buy your service from.

00:37:18I've just, like, I signed up for a Verizon account in 2004 and basically have not thought

00:37:25about it since then.

00:37:26And then with all this Trump mobile stuff, we got to, like, actually sort of have a bunch

00:37:31of conversations about how self-service works that I have just not really had before, and

00:37:34I have found myself deeper down this rabbit hole than I ever expected, and it is sort of

00:37:38fascinating.

00:37:39And I feel like you've had kind of the same journey over the last, like, seven days.

00:37:42Yeah.

00:37:43And I go into the rabbit hole sometimes when I'm writing about, you know, wireless services

00:37:48and Boost Mobile and all that, and it goes deep.

00:37:53Like, there are some people out there who are, like, so plugged into their network and, like,

00:37:59what spectrum they're using and what, you know, like, all of the kind of things that go

00:38:04on under the hood.

00:38:05There's a lot.

00:38:06But I have skimmed the surface, and it is fascinating stuff, I think.

00:38:11Yeah, I agree.

00:38:13So let's just start at sort of the very base floor here and then build up.

00:38:17What is an MVNO?

00:38:19So an MVNO is a mobile virtual network operator, and it is basically like a storefront for wireless

00:38:29service.

00:38:30They don't own the network.

00:38:32They buy service from one of, in the U.S., we have three wireless networks.

00:38:38Um, so they buy the service from one of those three providers, and they resell it.

00:38:44And it's, like, basically as simple as that.

00:38:48Um, but, so the MVNO is a little bit more of, like, a, uh, marketing exercise and, um, helps.

00:38:57They feel like they can tap into a different market that the big providers are not, like,

00:39:05addressing directly.

00:39:07Um, so there's, it's kind of fascinating.

00:39:12I talked to, um, a friend analyst, Avi Greengart, and he was like, they've been around for decades,

00:39:18actually.

00:39:19Like, I feel like I've heard about them so much in the last, you know, two or three years.

00:39:25But as, as long as there's been, like, uh, an audience to address, um, there's been, like,

00:39:33an MVNO for, for that group of people.

00:39:36So why would the big three carriers in the U.S., AT&T, T-Mobile, Verizon, allow this to happen?

00:39:44Like, you're, you're basically saying they're, they're taking their network, which these

00:39:50companies spend an enormous amount of money on, like, building and maintaining the infrastructure

00:39:55to have wireless coverage all over the United States and give it to a sensibly your competitor

00:40:00or sell it to a sensibly your competitor.

00:40:03Why would these companies do that?

00:40:05So they get, like, a guaranteed return on that bit of, you know, their capacity.

00:40:12And they might have more capacity than they're always using.

00:40:17Um, so it's a little bit of, like, like a guaranteed payday for them when they sell it

00:40:23to the MVNO, you know, they make their money.

00:40:27The MVNO then has to go, like, make their money back by reselling it.

00:40:31Um, so it, it helps them in that way.

00:40:34And there are just market segments that, like, a Verizon or an AT&T is maybe too big to go

00:40:41after or wants to uphold a perception of, like, it's the, the best, fanciest wireless

00:40:49network in the world.

00:40:50So there are, there are audiences of, like, people with poor credit or, um, you know, people

00:40:58who don't speak English that, like, Verizon is not going to, like, hire a whole team to

00:41:04translate all their marketing materials into, like, a particular language.

00:41:09Um, so, so it's, it's beneficial to them in, like, a number of ways.

00:41:15Okay.

00:41:15And my understanding of the, the capacity thing is that that has gotten more and more

00:41:22possible over time.

00:41:23And I think this is where I start to, uh, make very clear how little I understand how

00:41:27wireless networks actually work.

00:41:29But my, my sense of it is that as these networks have gotten faster, as we've, you know, gone

00:41:34up the G's, they've also gotten more efficient.

00:41:37So, like, however, whatever, a hundred million people on Verizon actually use less of this

00:41:42sort of overall capacity than before.

00:41:43So maybe even as it's getting better, Verizon and AT&T and T-Mobile have actually more empty

00:41:50space to offer.

00:41:50Do I have that basically right?

00:41:52Yeah.

00:41:52And, um, someone else I spoke to was pointed out that 5G, um, really like the genuine 5G,

00:42:02like we're in the era of all the networks have actual 5G networks.

00:42:07Now they're not trying to rebrand 4G as 5G in that technology does allow for more capacity.

00:42:15Um, so that might be partially why we're hearing a little bit more over the last like year or

00:42:22two in particular, um, especially T-Mobile, which has had kind of the head start with

00:42:27all the sprint spectrum.

00:42:29So they had just like extra capacity lying around.

00:42:33You want to sell it and, and definitely get some money back for it.

00:42:38Okay.

00:42:38So when I think of MVNOs, I think the first one I think of is Boost Mobile.

00:42:44Uh, and I feel like Boost Mobile has been around forever since like the, the early aughts.

00:42:48Um, and I think used, uh, has basically been on every imaginable network over time.

00:42:55It's been bought and sold like a half dozen times.

00:42:57The company has a crazy story, but is like pretty successful and has been for a long time.

00:43:02Uh, mostly without ever operating its own network.

00:43:05I think that's like a little murkier now in a 5G world, but it doesn't matter.

00:43:08Mostly it has been an MVNO for most people for a very long time.

00:43:12Um, the thing I think of when I think of Boost and by extension, most other MVNOs is just

00:43:18that it's cheaper, right?

00:43:19Like it is, it is, there are fewer, you know, perks that come with the account.

00:43:24There aren't as many retail stores that you go to, to get your phone service.

00:43:27You're not going to get maybe as good a deal on a phone, but the price per month is cheaper.

00:43:30And that I feel like is pretty consistently the story with MVNOs.

00:43:35Is it usually just kind of that simple?

00:43:37Like you, you trade a few things, but you get a cheaper price every month.

00:43:39Yeah, basically, I think that's, um, and there's a few other things you could be playing in there.

00:43:47Like they may not require a credit check and Verizon will, you know, needs a credit check

00:43:53for you to get on one of their plans.

00:43:55Um, so they make that a little bit easier.

00:43:59Yeah.

00:43:59They may, um, they may be okay with, you know, lower credit scores too, or in a lot of MVNOs,

00:44:07I don't know if it's exclusively all of them, but they tend to be prepaid.

00:44:13Um, so you pay for your service and then you have your month of service and the big unlimited

00:44:19plans from all the bigger carriers are postpaid and you kind of sign, sign a contract, you

00:44:27know, quote unquote, you, they can cut your service off if you stop paying them kind of

00:44:33deal.

00:44:33Right.

00:44:34Yeah.

00:44:34So what, what's your sense of the downsides of these?

00:44:38Like if you, you get a cheaper price, do you get, is it like roughly the same service

00:44:44that these things promise?

00:44:45Like this has always been my open question is like, yes, you are, you, you are, I understand

00:44:50taking T-Mobile network capacity and giving it to me for less money than T-Mobile.

00:44:55And I'm like, would I trade retail store access for that?

00:44:59Absolutely unequivocally.

00:45:00Yes.

00:45:01Like maybe not everybody would, but I happily would, I will fix my own damn phone.

00:45:05But then there's always, I feel like you look at the fine print and it's always like

00:45:09weird bandwidth priority stuff going on that I've never been able to, I don't know.

00:45:14And it's just always like, that's the stuff that makes me squirrely is like in ways I don't

00:45:18understand, is this actually sneakily less good than T-Mobile, even though it's technically

00:45:22T-Mobile?

00:45:23Yeah.

00:45:23Yes and no.

00:45:25There's deprioritization, which is something that, you know, you can buy a plan from Verizon

00:45:31and still, and still experience deprioritization.

00:45:35That's where you have an allotment of a certain amount of priority, like premium data.

00:45:42And once you hit that threshold, it's usually pretty high.

00:45:45The other thing that comes into play with the MVM knows is that the networks have these

00:45:50kind of quality, quality of service, like tiers for the way they split up traffic.

00:46:01So they put things that are really like sensitive to latency on the highest priority, like voice

00:46:11calls, first responders, that kind of thing.

00:46:13And then like down the ranks is, you know, your mobile gaming, your internet of things,

00:46:21all that stuff.

00:46:22And I think MVNOs tend to sit like just one tier or so below, like the main wireless brands

00:46:32own traffic.

00:46:35Does that mean you will experience that difference in a meaningful way?

00:46:39Like, it's really hard to say.

00:46:42I know a bunch of people on MVNOs now who are like thrilled with their service and I

00:46:49don't think it's ever bothered them if that's a factor.

00:46:54Yeah, I will say the one that I have heard about, this is purely anecdotal, but I know

00:46:59a surprising number of people who switched to Mint Mobile over the years and had really

00:47:03good experiences.

00:47:04And Mint Mobile's thing was like, it's T-Mobile, but it's 15 bucks a month.

00:47:09And also like Ryan Reynolds is here.

00:47:10And I think like that was very meaningful for people, but also the idea that you are getting,

00:47:15I think even 90% as good T-Mobile coverage for $15 a month, I think is a trade most people

00:47:23are perfectly happy to make.

00:47:25And I remember a lot of this happening, especially during COVID when people were at home a lot

00:47:30and you're on Wi-Fi a lot.

00:47:31And I was thinking about this, researching all this stuff, like the amount of time that

00:47:34I spend off of a Wi-Fi network at this point is pretty small.

00:47:40Can I tell a story real quick?

00:47:41I had my Verizon account completely shut down while I was traveling home from WWDC.

00:47:49Oh no.

00:47:50It was a whole technical, weird thing with how I kind of did it to myself, like switching

00:47:56around from eSIM to physical SIM.

00:47:59We got it sorted out, but I got off the plane.

00:48:02I was like, oh no, I'm dead.

00:48:04Like I have died.

00:48:05I don't have cell service.

00:48:07Like I just live here at the airport now.

00:48:09And it was actually like, I was like, no, there's Wi-Fi.

00:48:13And there was like Wi-Fi in the parking garage.

00:48:15And I could text on Wi-Fi.

00:48:16I could call on Wi-Fi.

00:48:17I'm like, oh, actually, like this is fine.

00:48:20And I like got my Uber on Wi-Fi and I survived.

00:48:26But it's an interesting thing that some of the, so like the cable companies also run

00:48:32MVNOs, which is such a weird thing of like, you know, you can have Xfinity mobile service

00:48:40and then Verizon wants to sell you home internet.

00:48:43And I don't know what to make of that.

00:48:44But I think one thing that cable companies are doing is like tapping into that, that

00:48:49like, hey, you're on Wi-Fi a lot.

00:48:51Like we'll just kind of facilitate that when you're out and about.

00:48:54If there's an Xfinity Wi-Fi network, like you can use that.

00:48:58And it saves us on the data that we're paying for.

00:49:03It's a whole weird, weird world out there.

00:49:08It is a strange thing.

00:49:09And I think, I mean, that goes back to your point about this kind of rise in MVNOs over

00:49:14the last few years that I think is real.

00:49:17Like I went back and was like, OK, is this just a thing that we've been hearing about

00:49:20recently?

00:49:20And there have been tons of these before.

00:49:22The answer is no.

00:49:22Like there has been a boom the last several years in MVNOs.

00:49:27And I've been trying to figure out why.

00:49:29And I have a couple of theories, but I'm curious if you if you have a sort of leading

00:49:33theory about the boom in MVNOs recently.

00:49:36So I talked to my friend Avi and he made the good point that like Ryan Reynolds really did

00:49:42like start a lot of this.

00:49:44Wait, really?

00:49:44I've been making that joke all week.

00:49:46I thought I was just kidding.

00:49:47No, I thought it was funny too.

00:49:48But he was like, no, Ryan Reynolds is actually to blame here.

00:49:52But having like a friendly face to an MVNO and like the branding of Mint Mobile is so

00:49:59cute and there's a little fox and it's just kind of like friendly and kind of appealing,

00:50:05I think attracted a lot of people and sort of helped like shake off the stigma of, you

00:50:13know, a prepaid service or an MVNO as like, oh, that's just cheap.

00:50:18And, you know, you you got to buy from the main carriers if you want actual good service.

00:50:24It's kind of like a Costco effect where you're like, oh, yeah, actually, it's kind of cool

00:50:29to shop at Costco and like save a bunch of money on like nice stuff I would have bought

00:50:35somewhere else.

00:50:36But so I think that makes sense.

00:50:38And then, I mean, you consider the fact that Ryan Reynolds like didn't start, but like bought

00:50:42into an MVNO, made a bunch of fun ads and then sold that MVNO Mint to T-Mobile, which

00:50:47provided the service for Mint already.

00:50:50So it essentially sold T-Mobile back to T-Mobile for $1.35 billion.

00:50:57Bananas, like genuine congratulations to everybody involved.

00:51:01And I think to me what that says is like, OK, there was a real understanding at the end

00:51:05of that that the brand matters a lot, right?

00:51:08That like you can have and this is what you're talking about.

00:51:10You can have network capacity, you can have whatever, but like people want to deal with

00:51:15a company that they like and that that's a really meaningful thing.

00:51:18And so I get that from the perspective of like, I get why you would start up an MVNO.

00:51:23Like this is why Trump Mobile makes sense to me, right?

00:51:25You're like, OK, any sort of affinity based thing.

00:51:29It's pretty easy to start a wireless carrier.

00:51:31It's a thing people pay money for.

00:51:32It's a relationship they have.

00:51:33It's like, I get it.

00:51:34I get why the smart list guys did it.

00:51:37There's going to be more and more of this over time.

00:51:38That makes sense to me.

00:51:39The part of it that I struggle with is like, I don't know a lot of people with a ton of

00:51:42like Comcast brand affinity.

00:51:44I guess this is where we should disclose that Comcast through NBC Universal is an investor

00:51:48in Vox Media.

00:51:49I don't know a lot of people who are like psyched about their relationship with Comcast.

00:51:53And so the idea of like, oh, sure, I'll sign up for wireless services just seems tricky.

00:51:57But then I guess the other thing this has made me think a lot about is, and I'm sure you

00:52:02and I have heard this speech from many different people many times that like people want to

00:52:06have fewer accounts and fewer bills.

00:52:08And just the idea of like, okay, I can take your wireless service away from being another

00:52:13account and another bill and another customer service line and just wrap it into this thing

00:52:16you already have.

00:52:17And I think if I'm getting like galaxy brained about it, I think that's the theory for like

00:52:21the bank, right?

00:52:22Which is a very sticky account that you're probably going to keep for a very long time.

00:52:25It's like you're used to dealing with your bank.

00:52:27Why not just deal with your bank for this one other thing also?

00:52:30Yeah, I think so.

00:52:31And there's a little bit of like, we are more used to like dealing with things online and

00:52:39it is easier to, I think like five or so years ago, if I thought about switching wireless

00:52:47service, I'm like, well, I got to walk into a store and I got to talk to a T-Mobile person

00:52:52and get a SIM card and do the thing.

00:52:54And they're going to spend an hour trying to convince me not to quit.

00:52:57And that's the thing I hate the most about it is when you call and you're like, I would

00:53:00like to cancel.

00:53:01And they're like, would you like a deal?

00:53:02And you're like, I would like to cancel.

00:53:03And they're like, would you like a better deal?

00:53:04And you're like, I would like to cancel.

00:53:06Right.

00:53:06And they're like, okay, I can offer you a year of service for 99 cents.

00:53:10Yeah.

00:53:10Just let me go.

00:53:12Yeah.

00:53:12I quit.

00:53:13Please let me leave.

00:53:14Where were you six months ago with this deal?

00:53:16Yeah.

00:53:17No.

00:53:19Yeah.

00:53:19So I know I'm not in a hurry to add any more accounts to my life, but I think

00:53:26yeah, having eSIM as an option makes it easier.

00:53:31And I think a little bit of the momentum is there with your, I talked to my hairstylist

00:53:39and she switched to Mint Mobile and she's not a tech person and was a little bit terrified

00:53:45about doing all of this, but she's like, yeah, it's, you know, they talk you through it.

00:53:51There's cute little graphical interfaces to help you like switch your plan and you do

00:53:57it.

00:53:57I think having those things there for people kind of helps spread the word of like, oh,

00:54:04this isn't as terrifying as it sounds like.

00:54:06And you don't actually have to go spend half a day at a wireless carrier retail store.

00:54:12My sort of galaxy brain theory about why this could be a very exciting trend.

00:54:17And I'm curious if you agree with this theory.

00:54:18I talked a little bit about this with Jake on Friday, but I've been thinking about it

00:54:21ever since that, uh, what we get now is we get like AT&T, T-Mobile, Verizon have spent

00:54:29tons of money building very impressive infrastructure all over the United States.

00:54:33This stuff is going to get bigger.

00:54:34They're going to keep working on this and they are going to be increasingly happy to like

00:54:38recoup that investment by selling it to MVNOS, right?

00:54:40So we're going to get this giant proliferation of ways to get more or less identical wireless

00:54:47service, like sort of within a, within a small range of quality, pretty good wireless service.

00:54:53What that means now is there are going to be a million ways to compete on everything else,

00:54:57right?

00:54:57Like the, the, they're going to compete on billing.

00:55:00They're going to compete on like how good the app is for managing your account.

00:55:03They're going to compete on different kinds of features and different stuff you can do

00:55:06and different perks that you get, or they're just going to compete on price.

00:55:09And all of a sudden that like, we've been on this constant rise in the cost of wireless

00:55:14service.

00:55:15Like a thing we talk about on the show all the time is that we get pretty bad service

00:55:18for a lot more money than almost anywhere else.

00:55:20And it's largely because there are three companies that matter and nothing else.

00:55:24And it's not the same as having like truly competitive networks everywhere, but it's, it's,

00:55:30it's the closest to that that we're going to get, I think.

00:55:32Like, and, and so maybe what we're going to get is this gigantic boom.

00:55:36And like, if not the network competition, then like interface competition on top of that

00:55:42network.

00:55:43And that might be very exciting.

00:55:44So like, I've, I've been reading about Disney mobile a bunch.

00:55:46Do you know about Disney mobile at all?

00:55:48No.

00:55:48Disney has an MVNO.

00:55:50No.

00:55:51Amazing.

00:55:51To be honest with you, I could not confirm whether it still exists.

00:55:56Okay.

00:55:56I don't think it's popular.

00:55:58I'll tell you that.

00:55:59All right.

00:55:59But it launched in 2006.

00:56:01Like to your point, this stuff has been around for a long time.

00:56:03It was originally on the Sprint network.

00:56:05And this was the thing that really was, I was like, oh, this is why MVNOs could be awesome.

00:56:09So it was basically, it was a like Disney based experience.

00:56:15They were like, we, we want to do for, for families and kids and parents what we think

00:56:21they would want in a phone service.

00:56:23So here's just a list.

00:56:24I'm reading their press release from 2006 and they have a bunch of new features that

00:56:28they were launching.

00:56:30One was set spending allowances and track usage for, for voice minutes and all this stuff

00:56:34back when minutes were a thing and you would get alerts when the allowances have been reached.

00:56:38So parents could be like, you know, you get this many text messages and this many minutes

00:56:42and then it'll, it'll let us know when you get to the end of it.

00:56:44That was a big deal back then, back when everyone was paying a ton for minutes over

00:56:48it.

00:56:49Determine the hours of the day and days of the week when kids can use their phone.

00:56:51Good idea.

00:56:52Program restricted and always on phone numbers to manage with whom kids may communicate.

00:56:56Super smart.

00:56:58Prioritize important family messages and locate kids' phones with GPS capabilities.

00:57:02So they took this thing, right?

00:57:03And they're like, okay, this is Sprint service, but we can actually like change the features

00:57:09you get with your plan and how you use it and how you access it and how we bill it

00:57:13in a way that makes more sense for this group of people.

00:57:17And that to me is like, I'm like, oh, you could, there are an infinite number of versions

00:57:21of that thing that you could do.

00:57:23And I think that is like way more so than just like one fewer bill.

00:57:28That idea I find super, super, super compelling.

00:57:30Am I just totally pipe dreaming here?

00:57:32Like, is this not where we're headed?

00:57:33Could, could I have this world or am I just insane?

00:57:36I hope you're right.

00:57:37And I think like some of that will happen.

00:57:41But the thing, the thing that makes me a little pessimistic is that it, it all starts with their

00:57:47relationship with the main three carriers and they, I don't know what level they're

00:57:53dictating, like what you can and can't do, you know, with the service.

00:57:58Um, it certainly in their interests to make sure that like their offering is the shiniest,

00:58:06best, you know, coolest.

00:58:08I think it has already happened a little bit with like with Mint Mobile and T-Mobile buying

00:58:15Mint Mobile kind of speaks a lot.

00:58:18I think about how that is an important like piece of business that they want to bring back

00:58:25in house.

00:58:26Um, so I, I don't know, I'm just a little pessimistic from the like capitalism doing

00:58:33capitalism kind of side of it, but I hope it would be cool if there were like actual

00:58:39better, like ways to interact with a wireless company.

00:58:43I definitely, we're going to see, like, I think some of the MVNOs are sort of bundling

00:58:50services in that way to kind of like differentiate and the Liberty Mobile, which is the

00:58:56network that the MVNO that Trump Mobile is just kind of glomming onto.

00:59:02They had a whole bunch of thing that was like, it's like telehealth and device protection.

00:59:08Um, it would be cool to see a company do that and do it in a good way that doesn't feel like

00:59:16upselling, you know?

00:59:18I don't know why this just pops into my head, but I was like, Headspace should do an MVNO.

00:59:23What if Headspace did like, I don't know, like built in, um, like soothing activities

00:59:31that you could do when you're dealing with your wireless carrier.

00:59:36No, see, okay.

00:59:37Here's, here's my idea for Headspace.

00:59:38Headspace dynamically replaces all hold music with meditations.

00:59:44So when you're waiting, it just, it just replaces it and it gives you just like a five

00:59:48minute meditation while you're waiting on hold to talk to, you know, your bank or whoever.

00:59:52Yeah.

00:59:52It's like, we noticed you're on hold with Walgreens for 30 minutes.

00:59:56Would you like?

00:59:57Would you like to meditate?

00:59:58Do you want to hear the sound of whales?

01:00:00Yeah, I do.

01:00:02Thank you, Headspace.

01:00:02I would love to hear whale sounds.

01:00:04Free idea.

01:00:05I will sign up for Headspace mobile.

01:00:07Headspace, get at us.

01:00:08You can, you can have this, but we do have free service.

01:00:11That's how this works.

01:00:12Um, one other question on this and, and then I'm gonna let you go.

01:00:15The, the other piece of this to me seems like, uh, phone unlocking becomes an important

01:00:21part of the equation here, right?

01:00:22Like ECMs make it easy to switch your phone, but we're still in this kind of nebulous.

01:00:27Is my phone locked to my carrier world here in the United States?

01:00:31Again, I should point out that so much of this is going to seem like esoteric and ridiculous

01:00:34to people anywhere else who have long had better, more competitive mobile phone universes that

01:00:40don't require all of the shenanigans that we're talking about here.

01:00:43Yeah.

01:00:44But here in America, it does feel like if we can get eSIMs and we can get unlocked phones

01:00:49and we can get big, vast carrier choice, we are like somewhere cool and exciting.

01:00:54Are we, are we on a good path to unlock phones?

01:00:58I think we're on a like very slow, good path.

01:01:01There's some legislation.

01:01:04Gosh, I don't know exactly where it is, if it's been enacted, but I think they were trying

01:01:09to tell the carriers, like you cannot lock someone's phone to a network.

01:01:13Like you have to unlock it after a certain amount of, it was like six months or whatever.

01:01:18I think it was 60 days was the thing they were going for.

01:01:21Yeah, that's even better.

01:01:23You know, whether, whether or not, like I've paid off my device to Verizon, that's between

01:01:29me and Verizon, but like, they can't just be like, you may only use this phone on a network.

01:01:34That's good.

01:01:36That's progress, I think.

01:01:38But I think there is a little bit of just a habit with, especially in the US of like,

01:01:43it's time for a new phone, go to Verizon or go to their website.

01:01:47And in undoing that a little bit, I don't know exactly how that starts, but like, you

01:01:54can just go to Apple's website and you can get a device like payment plan.

01:02:01Yeah.

01:02:01It doesn't have to come from the wireless carrier, but somehow the good deal always seems

01:02:06to be tied into like, well, you know, if you connect to your Verizon account, we'll just

01:02:13help pay for this phone for you.

01:02:14It's like, we will talk more about this, I'm sure.

01:02:17But all right, for now, go back to your day off.

01:02:20Thank you for doing this.

01:02:21I appreciate it.

01:02:21We are going to take a break and then we're going to come back to the question.

01:02:27Be right back.

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01:03:55All right, we're back.

01:03:56Let's get to a question from the VergeCast hotline.

01:03:58As always, the number is 866-VERGE-11.

01:04:00The email is vergecast at theverge.com.

01:04:03You can hit me up directly.

01:04:04Like, we're not hard to find.

01:04:05If you have questions, get at us.

01:04:07We love hearing all of your questions.

01:04:08Today's question is something we've talked about on the show before, but we get a lot.

01:04:13And so I want to just tackle it again in as aggressive and straightforward a way as we possibly can.

01:04:19It's about storage.

01:04:20Here it is.

01:04:21Hey, VergeCast.

01:04:22This is Anthony from Denver.

01:04:25I have a question about the best way to free up space on iPhones.

01:04:31Last week, while my mom was visiting with me, she had shared that she had just bought a new iPhone 16,

01:04:38but it was already kind of running out of space and was very slow.

01:04:42So she wanted to know what she could do to free up space on her phone and hopefully speed it up.

01:04:49And specifically, she wanted to know if there's anything that she could do to remove photos from her phone

01:04:54and back them up and store them elsewhere.

01:04:56Now, my wife and I were both Pixel users, so we were both kind of flabbergasted to learn that Apple doesn't have a photo backup solution.

01:05:09It has iCloud, which, as far as we could tell, is like a syncing service.

01:05:15But Apple doesn't really have any solution for both backing up photos while also removing them from the device.

01:05:22And so after researching for a few hours, the solution that we ended up coming to is you could use a service like Google Photos or Amazon Photos,

01:05:32or you could try downloading them to a computer and moving them to an external hard drive.

01:05:39My wife and I, we ended up deciding to solve this problem with Google Photos,

01:05:43and after about two hours or so of backing up most of the photos and deleting some of them,

01:05:47we ended up saving her about 50 gigabytes of space on her iPhone.

01:05:52But we were both kind of left wondering, like, how has Apple not made a well-designed, like, photo backup solution?

01:06:01Like, why would anyone want to use 50 gigabytes of space on their device for photos when they don't have to?

01:06:10When they probably don't even want those photos to be on their device at all?

01:06:14And is there really, like, is there anything else that iPhone users can do?

01:06:19You can see why this sent me down a rabbit hole of thinking about where all of my stuff is, right?

01:06:25And I have a few thoughts for our friend here, and for everyone who is thinking about this,

01:06:31which, as far as I can tell, is everyone.

01:06:33I think, like, I'm running out of storage on my phone is as universal a problem as anybody has on technology, right?

01:06:40Like, it's everywhere.

01:06:42So here's what I would say.

01:06:43If you use an iPhone, this is all going to be Apple-specific because, frankly, Apple does this in the worst possible way,

01:06:49and Google is at least a lot more straightforward.

01:06:51You just dump stuff into Google Photos, and there it is.

01:06:54The thing that I would say is that, A, even if you're on iOS, Google Photos is great, and you should use it.

01:06:59If there's a good chance you have lots of storage over there, that's a thing I pay for separately anyway

01:07:04just because I wanted the drive storage and the more Gmail, and so, like, there's a solid chance you're already paying for more Google storage.

01:07:11So use that.

01:07:12Use Google Photos.

01:07:13Turn on the auto backup.

01:07:14It'll send everything up there.

01:07:15I think Google Photos is a vastly better photo experience than anything Apple is doing, so that's what I tend to use anyway.

01:07:23I also will say, and I hate so much that I'm saying this,

01:07:26Apple's $299 a month, 200 gigabyte iCloud deal is a pretty good deal.

01:07:32It is absurd that you don't get that for free, that that's not the base tier,

01:07:36that Apple, the richest company in the world, is going to nickel and dime you $3 a month

01:07:40just to have, like, an appropriate amount of storage for your photos.

01:07:43But it's $3 a month to largely not have to think about this most of the time,

01:07:48and frankly, that's worth it.

01:07:51A couple of other things.

01:07:53The first thing most people should do is go to settings on their phone

01:07:57and turn on the optimized storage thing in photos.

01:08:01Let me just do this right now so I have it right.

01:08:02So you go to settings, and then you tap on your name at the very top,

01:08:07and then you go to iCloud, and then you tap on photos.

01:08:10So this is telling me I have 10,745 photos and 687 videos,

01:08:16taking up 102.29 gigabytes of space.

01:08:19That's a lot.

01:08:20I suspect there are a lot of you who have much more than that.

01:08:22And you want to turn on the thing that says optimize iPhone storage.

01:08:25So basically what that does is instead of leaving the whole kind of increasingly large file

01:08:32with every new rev of Apple's camera system on your device,

01:08:36it keeps all of it in iCloud and downloads a smaller one to your device.

01:08:40What I have found is this is just rubbish at actually working.

01:08:45Sometimes it loads things way too slowly.

01:08:47Some it seems to leave things on your device for too long.

01:08:49It is not actually optimizing space nearly as successfully as it ought to.

01:08:54Again, this is where Google Photos does it much better.

01:08:56It just leaves all the stuff in the cloud, and then you tap it,

01:08:58and it pulls it down when you need it.

01:08:59Like, much better system.

01:09:01But that should at least save you a little bit of space.

01:09:06There is also a bunch of tools in here for just deleting things,

01:09:10which I think is what I would tell most people to do.

01:09:13So again, you go into settings, and you go to your face, and you go to iCloud,

01:09:18and you go to photos, and then you hit manage storage,

01:09:21and it loads this thing for you that basically then gives you actual information

01:09:26about all of the stuff on your phone, right?

01:09:30It takes a long time in my case because it has to look through 10,000 things.

01:09:34But it pops up a thing that says review your photos and videos.

01:09:36Mine is telling me I can get 50 gigabytes of space back

01:09:39by deleting duplicates, screenshots, and videos.

01:09:42In my case, almost all of that is videos.

01:09:45And the thing I like about this is there's this one screen

01:09:48all the way deep down here in settings

01:09:50that will actually show you in order your largest videos.

01:09:54And I would bet, and I have confirmed this both on my phone

01:09:57and on some others just as sort of basic research purposes,

01:10:01that almost everybody has a few sneakily humongous videos on your device.

01:10:06You accidentally took a seven-minute-long video in your pocket

01:10:09without noticing it.

01:10:10You have one that's like six minutes of ProRes

01:10:13that is taking up half the storage on your phone.

01:10:15Like, there's just a bunch of little things here.

01:10:17So for me, like, if I delete the nine biggest videos on my phone,

01:10:23I'm looking at eight gigabytes worth of space just to free up like that.

01:10:27So that's one thing to do.

01:10:28You can delete all your screenshots.

01:10:30You can delete all of your complicated, overly done, edited photos.

01:10:36You can delete your duplicates.

01:10:37You can delete all the stuff that you don't need.

01:10:39And it's much easier to do here in settings

01:10:41than it is almost anywhere else on your phone.

01:10:43So delete the stuff, put it in iCloud.

01:10:46And then the thing that I would do if you, like, really want to invest in this

01:10:51is go to the iCloud Photos website,

01:10:53which is a better way to, like, mass move stuff around.

01:10:59Open it up.

01:11:00Make the...

01:11:00Use the little slider at the top to make the photos as small as possible.

01:11:03Scroll all the way to the top to the very first photos you took,

01:11:08which overwhelmingly, I suspect, are ones you might want to keep

01:11:11but don't need, like, ready access to.

01:11:14Download all those photos and put them somewhere else.

01:11:16Like, delete some of them.

01:11:18Download some of them.

01:11:19It is easy and quick to do from a web browser

01:11:21in a way that on your phone or an iPad

01:11:24or even in the Photos app on a Mac is just kind of messy.

01:11:26This is, like, a good mass tool for just getting everything out.

01:11:32And what I'm trying to do in this go-round

01:11:34is basically only keep the last couple of years of photos

01:11:37actually in my iCloud.

01:11:38Everything else goes into this, like, permanent storage of some kind.

01:11:42And so the idea is that I have a place to get those

01:11:45and someday when I want to go look at them, I will know where they are.

01:11:48But they're not sitting in the cloud storage

01:11:50accessible to me all the time and taking up space

01:11:52because they don't need to be and I don't need them all the time.

01:11:54So those are all my recommendations.

01:11:57You probably have lots of storage space also, by the way,

01:11:59in places like Amazon and Microsoft

01:12:01and everybody, I think, has, like, a Dropbox account lingering

01:12:04that they're not using.

01:12:06There are places you can put things other than iCloud

01:12:08and I would encourage you for almost everything

01:12:10that isn't something you think you're going to, like,

01:12:13actively need and use, put it somewhere else

01:12:15because Apple does not do a good job of managing your storage

01:12:18and desperately wants you to overpay for it.

01:12:21So just don't play Apple's games.

01:12:23Just delete all your biggest stuff, put it all somewhere else

01:12:26and I think life will be okay.

01:12:28And in theory, this is a thing you should do, I don't know,

01:12:32once a year that'll take you 20 minutes.

01:12:34It's, like, not a hard project,

01:12:36but it is a thing you shouldn't have to do.

01:12:38That is not to excuse Apple.

01:12:39It's annoying that this is the case, but that's what I'd do.

01:12:42So I hope any of that helps.

01:12:44And if you have a better tip for how to manage all of this stuff

01:12:46so that you don't have to go in at the last minute

01:12:48every once in a while and just mass delete a bunch of stuff,

01:12:51I would love to hear it.

01:12:52Tell me all of your tips.

01:12:53All right, that is it for the show today.

01:12:55Thank you to everybody who's on the show with me

01:12:57and thank you, as always, for listening.

01:12:59As ever, if you have questions, thoughts, feelings,

01:13:01storage ideas, weird things that you're as obsessive

01:13:04as I am about with markdown files, get at us.

01:13:07The hotline is 866-VERGE11.

01:13:10The email is vergecast at theverge.com.

01:13:12We absolutely love hearing from you.

01:13:14This podcast is produced by Will Poore, Eric Gomez,

01:13:17and Brandon Kiefer.

01:13:18The Vergecast is a Verge production

01:13:19and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.

01:13:21Eli and I will be back on Friday

01:13:22to talk potentially more about Tesla.

01:13:24He's going to have some FCC thoughts.

01:13:26We got a lot of stuff to catch up on

01:13:27before we all head out on parental leave.

01:13:30We'll see you then.

01:13:31Rock and roll.

Tesla's robotaxi reality check | The Vergecast

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