Nirvana of Personalization

Brian: [00:01:07] Welcome to Future Commerce, the podcast about cutting edge and next generation commerce. I'm Brian.

Phillip: [00:01:11] I'm Phillip.

Brian: [00:01:13] And we're on episode...

Phillip: [00:01:18] 71

Brian: [00:01:19] 71

Phillip: [00:01:19] 71... And also, we might be the smartest kids in the room right now. I went back and looked to pat our own back... In fact, I went back and looked and I thought to myself... When we came up with the term "secondhand commerce," which, by the way, it's been the topic of two or three of our last episodes, which are doing really, really well. People seem to like them a lot. Getting a lot of positive feedback about those episodes. But when I it to look like where else that term "secondhand commerce" is being used... It's not a phrase that's being used. I think we might have coined that phrase.

Brian: [00:01:53] Maybe.

Phillip: [00:01:54] Hastag thoughtleader

Brian: [00:01:55] Although we can never say we're the smartest kids in the room because then we're not, obviously.

Phillip: [00:02:01] We're the smartest kids on this podcast. How's that?

Brian: [00:02:03] There you go. I like that. Secondhand commerce is a real thing. The fact that it's not a term, or it hadn't been a term yet, is really surprising to me. But yeah, you're totally right. If you go Google it, we hit like the...

Phillip: [00:02:18] We were like the top five spots. Yeah. It's fantastic. So but I really definitely want to continue on that theme of talking about that because I think it's really... It ties in very well to what's happening other places in our economy and in the global economy, what with, you know, the sharing economy and all that stuff. So I think it's really, really interesting, and we'll continue to talk about that. But that's all that today's show is about.

Brian: [00:02:48] Wait. Can we riff on it for a minute?

Phillip: [00:02:51] You do this to me all the time?

Brian: [00:02:53] I know. I do this. But it's like, "Oh shoot, there's an idea," like every time we talk about something, then new ideas pop up.

Phillip: [00:03:00] Got it. Got it. Got it.

Brian: [00:03:00] So just thinking about it. America's always kind of had a secondhand economy. And this is kind of interesting. It's not talked about in like leading commerce circles because I think it's pretty foreign to them. But garage sale-ing in the US was a sure very, very, very big thing.

Phillip: [00:03:21] Oh for sure.

Brian: [00:03:21] In fact, probably I mean, I want to say it was a fairly unmeasured thing. Like it could be that a lot of commerce happens secondhand, just no one track it ever.

Phillip: [00:03:34] Well the IRS wants to know how much money you're making from selling goods that you own. Somebody's trying to track it.

Brian: [00:03:41] I'm sure. I highly doubt that anyone ever reported anything from their garage sale, though. But no, but think about this. Before Craigslist, that's how a lot of like peer to peer type transactions happened was garage sales, and they still happen today. But I think Craigslist...

Phillip: [00:04:00] Yeah Swap Shop, swap meets, that sort of thing for sure.

Brian: [00:04:04] Yeah, it's funny. It's funny because I actually I remember garage sale-ing a lot as a kid and loving it. It's funny the secondhand economy's always been there. It's just been there different ways that we see it now.

Phillip: [00:04:16] So can I segue now?.

Brian: [00:04:19] Ok. Segue now.

Phillip: [00:04:20] Speaking of secondhand, Adobe made a big acquisition.

Brian: [00:04:28] {laughter}

Phillip: [00:04:29] See, you like that. You like that. Speaking of secondhand...

Brian: [00:04:37] Like third or fourthhand?

Phillip: [00:04:37] Oh, yeah. Maybe thirdhand. Adobe made a big acquisition. Adobe announced late on Monday this week that Magento... Well, they've acquired Magento for 1.68 billion dollars, subject to regulatory approval and all that customary stuff. So Magento was in private equity, as most of you, some of you may know. And before that was owned by eBay and was sold off as part of eBay's divestiture of its eBay enterprise unit. And many parts of that were sort of spun out. You know, we had the GSI eCommerce property, you know, eventually I think got spun out with the marketing suite to become what is now Radial. And then we had their marketing. What was their...? They have another like affiliate networking, affiliate marketing group that had its own name.

Brian: [00:05:35] Pepperjam.

Phillip: [00:05:36] Yeah Pepperjam has now reverted back to its old brand. So and then Magento retained its brand right through those years. So now it's owned by Adobe. So what do you think, Brian? We've talked about Magento now, I think three or four shows in a row, which is unheard of for us. That's the kind of thought leaders we are. It was so top of mind that we called this acquisition. No, I'm just kidding.

Brian: [00:06:00] {laughter}

Phillip: [00:06:00] Did we call this? I feel like we talked about this at some point.

Brian: [00:06:03] We may have. I mean, obviously, we've talked about this. But maybe not on the show. I mean, the rumors that swirled around this one for a while. I think it's actually a really fantastic deal for both sides.

Phillip: [00:06:17] Yeah, I do, too.

Brian: [00:06:18] And it's something that the Magento team should be really proud of. I think Adobe also got a good deal. The momentum that Magento has right now is strong. And so I think Adobe picked it up at a good time. And maybe Adobe was looking to purchase it earlier. Maybe they waited. Maybe Primera said they wanted to wait. I don't know who said they wanted to wait, but all in all, I think the timing is really smart, and the price point is reasonable for the type of value that Adobe is walking away with here. I mean the size of Magento's ecosystem is so vast. Adobe didn't just buy a Magento, they bought an ecosystem.

Phillip: [00:07:07] Potentially. I also want to point out, just to be perfectly clear, I work with Magento every day. Some of my professional fate is tied to Magento's success. So I'm bullish on this. I will say I think it's a little like you said, they did get a good deal. I think Adobe got a phenomenal deal. When you look at the revenue multiple that they paid for.... I don't know how to say that properly because I'm tongue-tied today, but Magento had reported revenues in 2017 about 150 million, and they paid, you know, a little over ten times that for the whole kit and caboodle. If you look at the same multiple on Shopify's IPO, it's somewhere in the 16 to 18 range for investors for what the IPO was worth over earnings for Shopify. So I think just as far as e-commerce platforms go, and you could look at other examples, too...

Brian: [00:08:13] Yeah, Demandware.

Phillip: [00:08:13] Like the Demandware acquisition. Salesforce Demandware acquisition... SAP's Hybris acquisition... Magento actually is a lower multiple, but Magento had more market share than any of those properties combined.

Brian: [00:08:26] Right.

Phillip: [00:08:27] Right?

Brian: [00:08:27] That's the crazy part.

Phillip: [00:08:28] That's the insane part.

Brian: [00:08:29] Magento's market share is so big, and their network and their community around Magento is so big. It's bigger than any... I mean, I probably shouldn't say this without having stats, but I believe it's bigger than any other e-commerce ecosystem out there. This is actually I mean, I don't want to say Adobe got it at a discount, but I would say that they got it for a really good reasonable price. And the value that's coming with it far exceeds just the company itself. I think that's what, to the untrained eye or to the less informed consumer, this might look like, oh, well, just another e-commerce platform purchase. Well, no, actually, this comes with a lot more than just a product company.

Phillip: [00:09:23] Somebody is worried. Shopify... I almost said Shockify. But actually that's sort of funny, Shopify's stock was down as much as 5.2%, or something like that, after markets closed, when the announcement was made by Adobe. So somebody was kind of concerned, and then they opened a few percent down as well, the following day. I think there are people, and shareholders of Shopify who have had to face some bad news already, in particular, Shopify continues to make big claims about its forward momentum and doesn't quite deliver on it year to year. We saw some big numbers quoted right up front, like in their first quarterly earnings about a year and some change ago about potential installs in progress. So Shopify Plus, which is their premium, more enterprise grade platform. We saw a bunch of announcements a year ago that didn't quite make it across the finish line before their annual user conference in 2018. I've done some work with Shopify, too, so not to be critical, but I do think shareholders looking at the market, if Adobe decides to come down market a bit with Magento, and Adobe being masters of cloud software, if they can find a way to package Magento in a way that seriously competes with Shopify, Shopify doesn't really outside of big commerce, Shopify doesn't have any competition right now that's not a marketplace. Right?

Brian: [00:11:03] Right.

Phillip: [00:11:04] I think Adobe could stand to really swing some of their weight around if they put some money into a product like Magento with the ecosystem and everything. Anyway, I'm bullish on it. I like it.

Brian: [00:11:18] Yeah. And as always, my words on this show are not a reflection on my employer. I think one more thing to point out on this is the interesting thing here is also on Magento side, you know, they've done a lot of work to move up market, and I think they've had some great progress there. And I think they highlighted that pretty well in some of the press releases they put out.

Phillip: [00:11:48] Right.

Brian: [00:11:49] And in some of the blog articles that they wrote. I think the other thing is Adobe is kind of the master of the enterprise level market. Right?

Phillip: [00:11:58] Right.

Brian: [00:11:59] They've got their product suite into just about every enterprise business you can think of.

Phillip: [00:12:05] Yeah. If it's not on the consumer creative side, like with creative cloud, they're in on the enterprise side with experienced manager and on the business analytics and even data warehousing and document storage side. I mean, they're covering every single facet.

Brian: [00:12:23] Right.

Phillip: [00:12:24] Like even the... It's insane.

Brian: [00:12:26] Think about what this does from Magento's market now. They've already got upward momentum. Now they've got a connection to... Technically Magento customers are Adobe customers and vice versa. Like the co-sale opportunity here or the cross-sell opportunity, is just vast. So there are a lot of things to like about this deal. Obviously, everything's in execution. And so we'll see how that pans out. But they're keeping the same Magento team on board. I think that's also a really positive sign.

Phillip: [00:13:03] Yeah, so far.  Probably won't close for, you know, five or six months. So, you know, I think it's probably business as usual. By the way, I want to point out, for all the people that say that sometimes we take some bunny trails that aren't commerce... Come at me, bro. Albeit this is more right now commerce than Future Commerce. But I do think that this is an important leading edge indicator, as Brian likes to say. It's a leading indicator of of, well one, just tremendous economic growth, but we're also there's still life in e-commerce. And I've been heralding the death of e-commerce at some point. I think commerce will be everywhere in the next 10 years. Like literally, you pick up a product... Like what Amazon's done. You pick up a product, and it's yours. This idea that we have to go through, like we have to shepherd our own shopping carts online will probably go away and sort of like the way we manage and groom shopping carts will probably go away. So Magento and Adobe and all that, they think that the near-term looks very, very good and that more retail outlets will be moving toward selling online. And that fares well for the near to mid-term. I think that I fully agree with that.

Brian: [00:14:29] Yeah, you think about this. E-commerce is still a pretty minor part of retail.

Phillip: [00:14:37] Right. Of our global commerce.

Brian: [00:14:38] And so that's going to grow. That's gonna grow. It's going to continue to grow. And so there's still a ton of opportunity available in the market for for businesses to do a better job with their e-commerce presence and to grow their sales online. That's still very much on retailers' and brands' minds. And so I think that I wouldn't call this a leading indicator because there's already been a lot of these purchases that have happened, like Demandware and others. But I do think this is just another indicator that there's still a lot of life left in e-commerce, and there's still a lot of opportunity. And I think we're gonna see some really cool things happen online with your online shopping experience in the next three years.

Phillip: [00:15:35] Yeah. Dare I call it a boomtown? I think that's where we are. I think we're booming. And I think if you're in digital commerce right now, you probably have a lot of work for the next four or five years.

Brian: [00:15:47] Yes.

Phillip: [00:15:48] Which may actually buck any other economic trend, because I think it's a really expensive proposition going forward for people to have retail space and to put, you know, a ton of capital into displaying product in that store that may not sell to the demographic where that store is located. I really think that's an avenue that is not going to die. And it is the vast majority of retail today. But a lot of investment's coming to digital in a big, big, big, big, big way. That's not a controversial thing to say, by any means.

Brian: [00:16:26] No. Not at all. I don't see that being controversial. That's just a fact.

Phillip: [00:16:29] It's obvious. It's just obvious, right?.

Brian: [00:16:32] Yeah.

Phillip: [00:16:33] OK.

Brian: [00:16:35] Speaking of digital...

Phillip: [00:16:40] I love how we just chuckle to ourselves at how smart we are when we make these nice segues.

Brian: [00:16:47] Not super obvious.

Phillip: [00:16:50] Yeah. Go ahead.

Brian: [00:16:54] Netflix is or was. I don't know if it still is that as of the moment of the speaking...

Phillip: [00:17:00] Yeah. It was there for a minute. I don't know if it's gonna...

Brian: [00:17:03] For like all of two seconds, Netflix was the largest pure content producer in the world, valuation wise.

Phillip: [00:17:11] Wow. Wow.

Brian: [00:17:12] Crazy. Beat out Disney. Beat our Comcast. Yeah.

Phillip: [00:17:20] Oh, my word. That's insane.

Brian: [00:17:25] That is insane. Something about that doesn't quite strike the right chord with me, I don't know why. It doesn't feel like Netflix owns that much of my life.

Phillip: [00:17:40] But they really do. There's such a diverse amount of content that they're producing now. I mean, they're doing like cooking shows. They're making like reality TV. They're making like cooking competition shows now.

Brian: [00:17:57] Ugh. I know.

Phillip: [00:17:58] That's where we are in the long tail of the type of content that Netflix is producing.

Brian: [00:18:03] Do you watch it?

Phillip: [00:18:04] Yes, I do. {laughter}

Brian: [00:18:09] {laughter} I haven't.

Phillip: [00:19:56] Here's the deal. Netflix has pretty much everything anybody wants on demand, and it's commercial free. Nobody else has that. Even if you do Hulu or any other streaming service, they just they don't get it. And Netflix is producing consistently good content. I mean, even standup comedy. Actually there's... If I could make a recommendation, and this is we're not a TV or movie podcast, but there is a...

Brian: [00:20:27] Here we go. It just became a move and TV podcast. {laughter}

Phillip: [00:20:30] Yeah. There is a series on Netflix. It's like a mini series. It's a standup comedian, a guy named James Acastor. Have you seen this?

Brian: [00:20:40] No.

Phillip: [00:20:41] Ok. So he is... He does a standup. I hate to call him a stand up comedian. He is a stand up comedian. But it's so much deeper than that. He's actually like a performance artist, and he has a four part series that is one of the most deeply personal and incredible one man show performances I have ever seen in my life, to the point that the moment it ended at the end of three and a half hours of straight comedy, my wife and I turned it back on and watched it again from the top.

Brian: [00:21:15] Oh, my goodness, that's like...

Phillip: [00:21:18] It is so unbelievably good and deep and rich and incredibly heartwarming. And at times, just like emotionally draining and just so good. And I feel like that would never have existed in the context of The Tonight Show brought to you by Clorox. Netflix has given us a means and a platform of having evolved and fully realized content that doesn't have to bow to the boundaries of what traditional media has given us.

Brian: [00:21:54] sEnough said. That's just unbelievable. It's unbelievable what they've been able to do. You're absolutely right.

Phillip: [00:22:03] I want to project a little bit into the future, because I think we've touched on this before. And this is not an original thought. I wish I could credit the person on Twitter that I saw say this, but I'll try to deliver it with the same sort of approach. Just as we went through an interesting time where we had a boundary in newspaper and in journalism that had to be crossed in order for its distribution model to be self-sustaining. It had to be supported by advertising. So advertising actually subsidized the journalism that came through newspapers. And eventually when we realized that that might be problematic, we crossed the threshold into people actually paying for journalism and paying directly for it. And we had the same issue with television. Television used to be free over the air, but it was bound by the ability for advertisers to be able to subsidize the cost of the infrastructure for us to have free television in every house and color TVs in the United States. So once we realized that maybe that's not a good thing, or we were limited by the amount of advertisers or channels or that delivery method, we evolved into a system where we're willing to pay for content that's not bound by advertising. And now you see what HBO has done over 25 years, 30 years of original programming. You see what Netflix has done with an entire platform of original programming that people are willing to pay for. And I have to wonder where we're heading next with social media in that our understanding of social media is bound by the ability for advertisers to be able to give this to us as a free medium that's only able to be subsidized by the willingness of advertisers to pay to get that content into our eyeballs. And I have to think to myself that we are heading towards an eventuality where people see social media as being such a benefit in their lives that they will pay for it. And what will that free us from? What boundary are we going to cross then? So anyway, I'm just pointing that out.

Brian: [00:24:11] I mean, I think it's interesting because we're having all this GDPR pressure, right? That would be a very easy answer. Like, oh, hey, guess what? Social media without advertising. You just have to pay for it.

Phillip: [00:24:26] And maybe with with actual privacy and with real...

Brian: [00:24:31] Yea.

Phillip: [00:24:31] And with a real conscience. How about that? That's crazy.

Brian: [00:24:37] Exactly.

Phillip: [00:24:38] I honestly, if a switch was flipped... Actually, you know what? Maybe that's not true. Maybe I'm lying to myself. I find it interesting because we had talked about Twitch some time ago, and how I didn't realize that you get all these benefits by being an Amazon Prime member. But I've had the ability to sign up for YouTube Red, which is I think now called YouTube Premium. They just rebranded, which has original programming, which has live cable TV, which has live sporting events and background. Like there's all these tangible benefits where I don't have to sit through mercilus advertising, but I refuse to pay for it. And I wonder when I'll come around on that, because I seem to think that if I weren't subjected to advertising on social media, that I would pay for that, too. But maybe I'm just lying to myself. I don't know.

Brian: [00:25:33] Well, I think we've already all given up on privacy. That's the thing.

Phillip: [00:25:38] Isn't that the problem here? Right.

Brian: [00:25:40] As much shouting as there is, as much noise as there is about this, I think millennials and down are just used to giving up our data. It's part of our daily lives.

Phillip: [00:25:58] %We've actually gotten really good at it. I mean, the 3,000 emails that I got for GDPR reminding me of all the relationships that... Somehow I'm subscribed to Hohner Harmonicas email newsletter that I've never received an email from. They had to tell me a harmonica company is sending me emails telling me about their update to their privacy policy. All I want to do is play harmonica, bro. I don't want your e-mails.

Brian: [00:26:33] {laughter} Show title.

Phillip: [00:26:33] So that's kind of where we are. We're at that threshold. And I wonder actually, I wonder what kind of impact that's going to have moving forward. If we're immune to it, if that's how immune... We're so immune to it that I just command A, select all, and delete those e-mails because I don't even want to bother.

Brian: [00:26:56] Well, if we don't have to deal... If we don't have to think about it, and we can just stick lawmakers on it, then we'll do that instead. So I think what we'd rather do than pay $8 a month for Facebook is tell the government to say to Facebook, "Hey, you're not allowed to share our data."

Phillip: [00:27:19] I wonder, though, if it's more equitable for them or not. If Facebook's global footprint is 2 billion, let's say that 1% of those people, let's say 2 million people decide they want to pay eight bucks a month for Facebook. That's not a small amount of money. Oh, well... It's 16 million a month. That's actually not that big.

Brian: [00:27:48] {laughter}

Phillip: [00:27:49] Actually they stand to make way more money by doing what they're doing now than selling premium subscriptions. I think we're worth a lot more than eight bucks a month each is what I'm trying to say.

Brian: [00:27:59] Yeah. We're worth way more to advertisers.

Phillip: [00:28:02] TWay more.

Brian: [00:28:03] I can tell you that right now. If $8 a month turns into... If they can turn that into $80 a month in sales, they'll do that. They'd prefer that.

Phillip: [00:28:16] You've seen what social media has done to me, though. Okay. If all you did was watch the trajectory of the last 2 years of us doing the show and you watch how I've evolved just from like style and taste, my evolution into a journey of personal fitness became me wearing jean jackets and now I'm a sneaker head. And that's all because of social media. It's not like I've not seen jean jackets and sneakers before.

Brian: [00:28:45] That one in particular was just straight up advertising.

Phillip: [00:28:49] It's advertising. But if I were paying for premium service, I wouldn't see those products.

Brian: [00:28:53] That's a good point. Really good point.

Phillip: [00:28:55] I feel really happy about those products right now. And it's creating more opportunities for commerce. I cannot tell you how much money I've spent on shoes in the past six months. I could tell you. I don't want to tell you how much money I spend on shoes.

Brian: [00:29:09] Please tell us.

Phillip: [00:29:11] It's a lot. So it's interesting, too, though, because I know what I'm doing. I know that I'm being manipulated. I know that I am, but I'm enjoying it.

Brian: [00:29:23] Hold on here. Are you being manipulated or actually do you have a higher quality of life as a result? That's another question in of itself. I think advertisers would say, "Well, look, instead of manipulating you into buying you things that you don't want. Well, actually what we want to do is match with products and services that actually make your life better and are actually relevant for you and do give you a higher quality of life. And so why don't you give us your data..."

Phillip: [00:29:50] So just give me your data. You'll be so much happier.

Brian: [00:29:54] Yeah.

Phillip: [00:29:54] Here's the thing. Am I happier or is there a sense of happiness because what I value is to feel like I belong to an elite group? So when I look at... Is that truly happiness, though? I definitely feel happier for the weight loss. Don't get me wrong. But a lot of the other stuff, like, I guess I could argue that I had shoes before. I had cool shoes before. I had expensive shoes before. Am I better off because I have, you know, suede Jordans now? That's the question I have to ask myself.

Brian: [00:30:32] You have suede Jordans?

Phillip: [00:30:33] I do. I have suede Jordans.

Brian: [00:30:33] Get out of here.

Phillip: [00:30:35] Suede retro high Jordan ones. Yeah. Anyway, what I do find fascinating about it is that as a person who knows what's sort of happening to me, I can be sort of analytical and trace back the beginning of the journey. And a lot of it does come back to having a more heightened awareness of this stuff because I know how social media works.

Brian: [00:31:02] Hold on. So which is it, Phillip? Are you being suckered into making purchases that you don't really need but you're happy with? Or is it that you have a better quality of life because you were able to be matched up with ads and social shares that you wouldn't have had before?

Phillip: [00:31:21] I mean, I think it's probably somewhere in between the two. I do get some sort of weird intellectual stimulation by knowing that it's being personalized to me and knowing that I'm making a conscious decision to click on this ad. There's some sort of little sly smile that I get. And I'm like, "Yeah, I know what you're doing right now, Tracksmith. Overpriced running apparel. Those are some pretty cool looking track pants. I bet those would look good with my suede Jordans." But I know I know what's being done to me, but I also sort of am cynical in that this nirvana of personalization, the only people who are doing it the way that we all suppose that merchants are doing it is like Facebook and Amazon. And that's it. Everybody else, it's a poor facsimile. And they're trying to replicate these experiences that they just don't have the audience or the data to drive. I don't know how to answer the question. Like I'm both. Yeah, I'm cynical, but I'm also reaping some sort of benefit. Also, it gives me more people groups to be able to identify with and talk to about stuff, which I get a benefit out of.

Brian: [00:33:00] That's true. That's true. In that I mean, that's a little bit unusual. It's an unusual benefit, but I totally agree with you. Yeah, I think you're right. It's somewhere between the two. I mean, if I'm going to have to be advertised to I would much prefer ads that are relevant.

Phillip: [00:33:14] Oh for sure. Yeah.

Brian: [00:33:16] And so yeah. Okay, fine. Like if we live in an ad based economy and an ad his world where everything is driven by ads, then please give me ads that are more relevant to me because I don't want to have to deal with or think about things that are not relevant to me.

Phillip: [00:33:35] Right.

Brian: [00:33:36] I've already got way too many things to think about than to have to deal with ads that are not relevant. So I mean in some ways... I don't know if you've been getting all of the Twitter notifications about their data privacy stuff.

Phillip: [00:33:53] Yeah. Yeah.

Brian: [00:33:54] They've been really on top of it. By the way, good for Twitter. But I'm like, do I actually want to turn off data sharing? Because if I do, then I'm going to have really annoying stuff happen.

Phillip: [00:34:10] Yeah. There's gonna be some really annoying, very broad advertising that you're gonna be subject to.

Brian: [00:34:17] Exactly. And so I actually had to think about it. Like oh actually, maybe I do want them to share my data.

Phillip: [00:34:24] Wow.

Brian: [00:34:28] So, you know, I don't know.

Phillip: [00:34:28] But that's the conscious decision you have to make.

Brian: [00:34:31] Right. Exactly. Like that decision should be there. Now back to what you were saying earlier...

Phillip: [00:34:35] Wait, I just want one little wrap up thought.

Brian: [00:34:39] Yeah.

Phillip: [00:34:40] I don't like the idea that there is some sort of Calvinistic predestination that I'm subject to in that I'm going to become a sneaker head because Facebook has decided I needed to become a sneaker head. I still want to believe that I have some agency in making that decision.

Brian: [00:34:58] Whoa did you just...

Phillip: [00:34:58] But, I don't actually know if that's true. I don't know if it's true.

Brian: [00:35:03] Did you just compare big business using advertising to influence your psyche to God?

Phillip: [00:35:07] Yeah. Like moral predestination... Right. Exactly right. Anyway...

Brian: [00:35:17] That was the best. Back to what you're saying about $8 a month for Facebook vs. the billions of dollars in advertising revenue. I'm going to make a segue here, as well. It may be worth it to switch to a paid model if you don't have to deal with 3.9 and 3.7 billion dollar sets of lawsuits that have come in as a result of GDPR.

Phillip: [00:35:46] See, that's true. That's true. I think you're right. So what what's the actual story here?

Brian: [00:35:50] So I think the first day of GDPR enforcement, Facebook and Google respectively have been hit with 3.9 billion and 3.7 billion euros of... Euros...

Phillip: [00:36:07] Oh... That's different.

Brian: [00:36:07] So actually that adds up to 8.8 billion dollars combined.

Phillip: [00:36:12] Oh, man.

Brian: [00:36:15] And I think there's several different suits that were filed there. Yeah. You made the case that we wouldn't see enforcement happen quickly. This isn't enforcement, this is basically private lawsuits that are happening as a result of some of these laws happening now. Now, the question will be, of course, how will these lawsuits get enforced?

Phillip: [00:36:44] Yeah, I think that the fund, what we covered on a previous episode was the fund is only what's only being funded by actual litigation. So for them to ever enforce it at all, they have to sue somebody and win.

Brian: [00:37:05] Right.

Phillip: [00:37:05] 'So I think that it stands to reason that, in the long run, we're going to see broad enforcement, and it will start with companies that can actually afford to fill up the fund and not a bunch of mom and pops who, you know, would be otherwise put out of business. But I do think that down the line, what we're going to see is we'll probably see reciprocal regulation in other countries where they really respect data privacy. Probably not the United States for a little while unless we have some, you know, apocalyptic event. And then so we're probably a little ways away from seeing it in the United States. But when it does, you know, it will likely be something that's sort of standardized across the globe and in the developed world. So I think that US businesses who aren't doing business in the EU are probably already worried and probably working hard towards being able to have broad compliance. Yeah, it's expensive, though. Yeah. Billions and billions of dollars at stake there. And, you know, once those coffers are full, they'll be able to turn it out to the next tier and actually go after companies. They won't have to wait for private lawsuits to stand.

Brian: [00:38:30] Well I don't think they're gonna have to do anything with it because there're enough private lawsuits right now to really force this issue.

Phillip: [00:38:38] Yeah. And it'll tie people up for a little while. A company the size, you know, you have Facebook for 20 years going it on its own and, you know, saying very publicly that they want to be good citizens. Now they're shoving commercial, speaking of advertising, they've got commercials in my face trying to make me feel bad for them on primetime television. "But we want to do better." And I'm like, you've had 20 years to kind of run amok. Now you have to pay the piper, and that's what's gonna happen with you. They knew this was comin, and you can't have a company like Facebook who have been building this platform for decades, be able to sort of turn on a dime in the space of 18 to 24 months and get its whole act together.

Brian: [00:39:26] Whoa, whoa, whoa... Hold on here. Decades? Decades... That's a little too long. It's been...

Phillip: [00:39:33] No Facebook been here. Facebook's been around 17 years now?

Brian: [00:39:37] 17 years. Yeah. So a decade and a little bit.

Phillip: [00:39:40] We might actually have to end it there.

Brian: [00:39:46] Oh yes.

Phillip: [00:39:46] We had so many other really good stories. Elon Musk. We will hold that one over. Elon Musk wants to be the arbiter of all truth.

Brian: [00:39:55] Free speech for pets. That's another one we want to talk about.

Phillip: [00:40:01] That was another good one. We keep creating AIs with bias. So Microsoft thinks they're going to create an AI to cut out AI bias, which will probably itself be biased. I was going to make a whole good joke about that.

Brian: [00:40:11] Just with the tone of voice... So that was... {laughter}

Phillip: [00:40:15] Thank you so much for listening. We want you to give us 5-Star in this episode. Go and subscribe. Like and subscribe anywhere where you get podcasts. Where on Stitcher, we're on Spotify, we're on Apple podcast, and Google Play, and everywhere else that you consume podcasts these days. And we're on every smart speaker device. You can start up your Future Commerce podcast listening experience by saying to you're smart speaker, "Play Future Commerce podcast." At any rate, well, thank you for listening. And what do we say, Brian?

Brian: [00:40:46] Retail tech moves fast.

Phillip: [00:40:49] And Future Commerce is moving faster. Peace.

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