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Hello and welcome back to Now We Consume.
I'm your host, Gibbs, and along with me is my co-host, Pip.
Pip here, ready to rock and roll, live with a stream, live on YouTube.
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It's going to be recorded on YouTube, but we are currently live on Twitch,
having a little fun trying something a little different here today.
And all right.
So was there anything from business from last week that we wanted to address,
or we just going right into this one?
Did you find out the load capacity for the A10?
Because the AI wanted to make sure that you found out the capacity for the A10.
You know, you forgot.
Oh, of course I did. I know.
You know, I don't remember offhand, actually.
That's OK.
I'd have to look that up.
But anyways, so I want to say thank you all for all the support and everything we've gotten for the last few episodes.
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But anyways, on to today's topic.
So this this one's kind of a bit of a dual topic.
It's something that I think both flow into each other and it's very much related.
So we want to talk about the right to repair and decay of the service industry.
And I feel like both these things are directly related.
It's it's something to where because it's not solely because of one or the other,
but they very much are closely linked.
A lot of this actually comes from something that we're both very to a both very into tech,
as you guys know, both very to technology.
But we've also noticed the insane lengths that some of these companies are going to to make sure that you
as the consumer don't actually own what you buy.
You don't actually get to repair it.
You don't have the right to look at it.
Some companies actively go out of their way to make sure you cannot fix anything that you own.
So effectively, you don't really own it.
And as well in conjunction with that, the service industry is dying for a multitude of reasons.
But this does factor into it.
Right. It's not just service industries in general.
When we say service, we're also talking about customer service industries.
You you go to get a cheese.
Sorry, I can't say that word.
You go to get a meat sandwich with dairy product on it.
Oh, that's why you can't say it.
Yeah, took me by my dog is laying next to me, so I can't say the actual word.
Otherwise, she'll perk up and go crazy and expect one.
Yeah, the perks of training your dog to know a word.
You go to get one of those at a at a burger joint and the weight is ridiculous because they're putting priorities on digital orders now.
They're making the in-person customers wait.
And it's it's pissing people off to the point where they're just walking out of the stores.
Oh, yeah, I see all the time.
They're losing money, but they almost don't care because of the volume of digital orders now.
It's offset at that point.
100 percent.
But how long is it going to be before those people decide?
Well, if they wouldn't take my order in person, why would I make that digital order now?
So I think a lot of that has to do with the different generations, too.
It's a very generational thing.
Yeah, me as someone in my 40s, I'm willing to kind of go either way.
It might be more situation dependent if I'm just out and about.
Yeah, I'll stop by. I'll go to the drive through.
Maybe I'll walk in if I'm already home and I don't feel like going out.
I'll door dash it. I'll Uber Eats it, whatever.
But if I get spotted one too many times, I'm also one of those assholes who's going to say, OK, you didn't take care of me before.
I'm not going to go there for a while, at least.
So I mean, I I'm vocal with my wallet as it is.
And I know I'm one person.
I individually make next to zero difference.
But talking about it with people can make a difference.
I think a lot of people have the very same sentiment.
I see a lot around here, particularly.
I live in a state that has a higher minimum wage than you do substantially.
Most states have a higher minimum wage than mine.
But what's scary is in mine, a lot of fast food or any sort of quick kind of restaurant, they don't even have people at the register.
Sometimes it's literally it is only the kiosks or only digital pickup.
And there are some places around here that they have digital only parking spots.
Yeah. To where you have to have the online order to park.
So how long is it going to be before you get to walk up to your food order and you're greeted with the kiosk?
And when you don't have the money to pay, they just take your kid because you're a bad parent.
No, the reference. It's an idiocracy reference for anyone that doesn't get that.
That that documentary still scares me. I know that is that is required watching, by the way.
I put that up there with like Fahrenheit, 451 and 1984.
That is something where you need to watch it if you've never seen it.
Watch it, please, please.
Gible says he was baiting. But yet T-Mobile, like like Gible said, T-Mobile makes you do everything through an app now.
They're not alone. Boost, who I use, you have lost so much functionality because it's all it's now all app based.
I was trying to get some information that I know I used to be able to do back when it was through T-Mobile.
But because I switched over to boost, I no longer have that functionality, even though they're on the same network.
And little things like that really kind of piss me off because it's still there. It's still on the same servers.
So it's one of the one of the problems that we see is the fact that because they do not want to hire people to work at these companies
that rather have an simplistic AI system and have pre-made answers, they would rather you just go through an app and try to figure it out or use one of the stupid friggin AI chat bots.
I was like, how can I help you today? And then you try to ask it something and it doesn't know what you're asking.
Or worse, they pay some poor guy in a third world country that's just trying to make a buck and get by who barely understands enough English to understand what it is you're even asking.
And you have to struggle with struggle through the language barrier, trying to get through whatever it is you're trying to do.
And you may or may not get anywhere before you get cycled back into the queue again because you piss somebody off.
And they just said, yeah, please hold. And they put you back in the queue. Yeah, I've never done that during my years in customer service.
It's insane. It's just it's it's insane that we have to go through this, especially when there was a time in the US when he called a US company, someone from the US would answer.
Right. And I'm not saying well, I'm not saying that to be a dick.
But the fact is, like in America, there's a lot of slang in certain languages, certain things that people from outside the country might not understand what you mean or what you're getting at or where you want to talk about or who you want to talk to or what department or what this or that.
And it gets really frustrating as an as an as an American when you're trying to get a very specific answer and all you're met with is computers or especially if you're somebody that's disabled, has some sort of like speaking barrier or problem.
Or if you have to try to press a 97 bajillion friggin buttons to get somewhere, God forbid you can't just go to a representative and then talk to them.
And so many places, if you ask for one, you just you will be ringing forever.
I switched banks because of this. My old bank.
You could not get somebody online anywhere.
It was all chat bots.
And it was the simple BS ones they've had since like 2016.
They couldn't do anything for you.
Oh, I literally went there was like, I am stopping doing business with you because I cannot get anything online.
And their security was so bad.
My account kept getting hacked by bank account.
So they just locked me out completely.
I could not get I could not reset my password or anything.
Do this.
F this bank. Yeah, it no, I will never use them again.
Very much happy with my new bank.
But I think there's also another part in the service industry why it's dying.
You have to consider that number one, the service industry as a whole doesn't pay enough for dealing with people.
No, any retail position doesn't pay enough to deal with people.
I in fact think that you should be as a retail worker allowed to fight one customer a week.
So you have spited me.
I challenge the just if OK, all seriousness.
If you work in retail and you get those caring customers that try to like get off on belittling you,
look them dead in the eye when they're doing it and just look, look at them and just be like, yes, to grade me, mommy.
You will flip the script on them so quick they will not know what to do or how to react.
They are expecting you to flip out.
And if you just sit there and be like, degrade me more, please, I need it.
Yeah, just reach under your reach under your smock.
It's like, God, I need that degrading.
Oh, my God.
Degrade me harder.
It's but what is sad about that, though, is I'm not saying that like every job deserves a ton of money.
That's not what I'm saying at all.
But in the service industry, if you are there to represent a company, you are the face of that company.
And I'm sure what people see 99 percent of the time in most of them are these companies,
they are the least paid positions and also the least trained positions.
Usually most these places you get a couple of days of training.
It's like, all right, fucking do it.
Run the show. Do what you got to do.
And that's not necessarily smart.
That's not necessarily the best way to do it.
And a lot of these companies, they take absolutely zero pride in training people in these situations.
A lot of that falls on the fact that you go to the retail stores, the restaurants anywhere these days.
Who's running the show?
It's somebody probably under 30, maybe 25, probably doesn't have a whole lot of experience and or training under the belt to begin with.
So they're just trying to get by.
And they're going to have to train these teenagers coming up behind them with what limited training they have
and what ideas were maybe put on their shoulders to say, hey, this is where we work.
This is what we're supposed to do.
Let's try to maybe make this work a little bit.
I don't know.
I literally just on my way back from work, I picked up a fun little fact.
Domino's has a new pizza out today and I had to try it.
But besides that, there's a sponsor of Domino's.
I would have to take a sponsor.
I'll tell you right now, I put enough money into that place.
I think I would kind of owed one.
But the store that I stopped at on my way back home from work, there's literally like a 26 year old kid that runs the place.
Like he is the head manager.
And I'm sitting there thinking going, every person that works here is basically 22, 21, 20, 19.
And this one kid's 26.
And what's interesting, though, is actually everybody there was very nice.
Whereas I compared to the dominoes on the other side of town that it's run by someone that probably like their mid late 50s.
And that dude doesn't give a fuck that he's just checked out.
He doesn't give a shit.
He has absolutely no training for these kids.
They anytime I've ever been there, it's always a different group of people.
The only reason I go to that one is because it has a drive through.
So you can just stay in your car, drive up, grab your pizza, go.
Which as a fat American, let me tell you, I appreciate a drive through pizza place, probably more than I should, but I appreciate it.
Well, something I've noticed is that there is there's been this big divide, I think, where and I don't want to do this ageism thing or whatever.
But I think there's a lot of older people in the service industry that checked out forever ago and that have absolutely no desire to train younger people in it.
I'm not saying all, but boy, do I see a lot of older people in the service industry that are just like, fuck this.
I don't care whatever.
I'm getting paid.
I come in.
Did you know as as an elder person in in life, I feel I can maybe offer an answer.
We're not paid to be trainers.
Which they should be.
Period.
Shut up.
Trade, you should be trained to offset that though, like you should be paid to offset the training time.
Yeah, we're paid to do a job.
Oftentimes we're being paid to do the job of at least one or two people.
Yeah, besides our primary job.
And then we're expected to also train somebody to do their job while still expecting full throughput on our side.
And sometimes that new person is getting paid the same amount that you are because they need to hire somebody.
Most often they are at a minimum, sometimes more than you, depending on where you work.
That's always a fun one.
When you find out the new guy makes more than you.
That happened to me once.
That's who if you if you're an employer or a boss and you do that, you are a piece of shit.
I hope you know that.
Absolutely.
That's ridiculous.
No, a lot of places don't pay for experience, though.
I've noticed it's weird.
They want five years of experience, but they want new pay.
They want entry level pay with master's level experience, which is that's that's not how the world works.
But I think what we're going to be seeing, though, as the boomers have really phased out of the workforce
and even the younger boomers are starting to phase out, you're going to have this incredible skills gap at the top of a lot of industries.
And somebody has to be trained to take the spot.
Someone has to do it at some point.
And I believe it's your generation now that's starting to kind of get to that point.
And thankfully, your generation is way more apt to train people.
Oh, yeah, because because you see what it's like to not fucking have people.
Yeah, we've been kind of carrying shit on our shoulders for a while.
So we're like the last generation kind of poised to get people set up to do shit.
So we're we're like the apocalypse kids.
You shut the grid off.
We're going to survive just fine. We're the feral ones.
So you guys are the generation that have have been you.
You guys were used to being adaptable.
You've seen society go through a lot of changes throughout your lives over a long enough time period where you're just kind of used to it.
It's like times change.
Things happen. Suck it up, buttercup. It is what it is.
I was raised by it, molded by it.
The first time I saw a cell phone, I was already a man.
But I also feel like your generation was consequences for your generation was used to having consequences, though, for also behaving.
Oh, yeah. Terribly.
Yeah, there's some that the younger generation kind of gets away with, especially things like not showing up, being late, just generally not having a work ethic.
And I know at the same point for them, it's very frustrating to work for a job that doesn't pay the bills anyway.
So why fucking bother? But you then also can't bitch about not getting anywhere.
Having a terrible service industry if you're not even showing up to work, it's kind of a it's kind of a problem.
Like you got to fucking be there to like I gave a buddy of mine.
I remember this was just out of high school. I have a buddy of mine.
He lived at my house for a little while, whatever.
And he was complaining about, you know, this fucking we have a notorious Wendy's down the street from my house.
That while it's convenient, it's run by absolute fucking morons and they get your order wrong at least 80 percent of the time.
There's always something wrong with it. But we accept it because it's the only one around.
And he was thinking, man, what the fuck? Every time they get my order wrong, something's wrong.
I'm like, aren't you the guy that like doesn't show up to two or three shifts a week at a fucking movie theater because you're too lazy to get out of bed?
Like, why? Why are you bitching about those people? Like, at least there's people there.
Right. Yeah, those are.
And I agree with Gibles and chat shit. I ain't training no one, unless they pay me to do it exactly.
But that's what many employers don't. They don't recognize and they don't pay people for their talents.
And the fact they understand that training people is not something that's guaranteed.
Not everybody can train. And not only that, but as somebody from education background, you have to know something really well in order to be able to teach it.
You have to know it better than just being able to do it. You have to really know it and understand it to be able to teach it.
Yeah. So it's not an innate skill. Just say, oh, yeah, my one of my regulars can train them.
It's like they can. But that's not the way it's supposed to be. Right.
Not everybody can convey knowledge and information effectively.
And that's something that gets lost in translation when it comes to training.
But before we get too far into that rabbit hole, I do want to kind of mushroom stamp a little bit onto the companies that don't like the repair portion of their other products.
Apple, John Deere, Tesla are some of the big three that do not want their products being fixed.
So if you buy something from them, they don't want you to be able to fix it. So I can talk person a little bit about the John Deere situation because I know quite a bit about this.
Yeah, go ahead. So only because I think this is very important for people to understand.
John Deere is one of the original OG American brands when it comes to the farming industry.
That is one of the brands that revolutionized between them in case there's a few other brands farm on a few other ones.
They were instrumental in American farming and without the American farming industry, we wouldn't be the same kind of country we are now in the 30s, 40s, 50s, even in the early 20s.
John Deere was one of the premier brands coming out with a lot of farming equipment.
And for a long time, it was heavy duty, American made, American pride.
And they helped out a lot of farmers. They offered great incentive programs, financing options, things like that.
Because people don't realize most farmers have a lot of overhead. They have a lot of expenses and farming equipment is really freaking expensive.
Well, back in about 2012, 2014, a lot of a lot of John Deere actually got bought up by Chinese companies.
And what they started doing is making the software proprietary and not allowing farmers to fix them.
Now, previously, if you're a farmer, the middle of Iowa or Indiana, you might be two, four, 800 miles away from a John Deere dealership.
And when things break and when you have hay on the ground, you got things going on, you got to fix stuff.
You got to be able to fix your tractor. Your tractor is your life. Your farm equipment is your life.
And by them not allowing you to buy parts for them, not allowing you to be able to repair the stuff goes against what John Deere really made was made famous for,
which is the ease and availability of parts, as well as it being able to be serviced.
I even have an old 76 John Deere when I bought my grandfather got it.
I have three or four books that are all I shit you not huge. They are hundreds, if not thousands of pages.
I could learn everything, how to replace every line, how to relash the valves, how to rebuild the engine, how to do all the hydraulics, everything.
Because the idea was if you buy John Deere in America, you can fix it. You can operate it. You have everything you need.
Right. It was a founding core principle because you could fix and keep it was an investment that you needed to be able to keep going.
Exactly. Whereas with modern John Deere, because it was so much of it was bought up by Chinese companies,
they do not allow American farmers to have access to any of the source code, replace almost any of the internal components.
You have to even for simple fuel pumps and shit, you have to get them reprogrammed and coded for that specific tractor.
And only the dealership can do it. There is zero aftermarket support.
And guess what? If the dealership can't get to you. Oh, well, tough luck, tough shit. I guess you don't get a tractor.
And people don't realize if you buy a modern like 250 horse tractor, that's not like a $20,000 tractor.
That's not $80,000. You're talking two, three, $40,000. Even the combines are half a million.
Some of them more. Yeah, they're not cheap. So imagine buying it.
Imagine buying a car for half a million dollars and them saying, oh, you want to get it serviced?
Ah, it'll be three to six, six, what days? Three to six months, weeks. No, probably months.
Could be eight months. Who knows? Our farmers can't operate on those timescales.
No, it's insane. And that's the reason why it just really upsets me is because they were a premier American brand
that a lot of reputable farmers now won't even touch with a 10 foot pole. No fucking way.
And not just farmers, homeowners, too. Yeah, I wouldn't.
I'd say even the place that I used to work at in the past, we were placed, we repaired all sorts of like lawn equipment, tractors and things like that.
John Deere was the only company that actively came after my company and said, you cannot touch our stuff.
It must be sent to the dealer. If we find you're picking this stuff up, we will come after you.
I just tell customers all the time, like they're like, yeah, we have a John Deere tractor.
We love to have worked on. I'm like, sorry, I can't touch it.
Literally, I we had paperwork framed up in my manager's office.
That's our customer assets, like literally here. This is from them. Can't do it.
I'd love to help you, but we can't. Wow.
And not just John Deere, but places like Apple on the newer phones.
I think it's after like 13. They had part pairings. So if if an unauthorized shop replaces a screen on your iPhone, it's embedded with an ID code or a serial in the screen that when it turns on, it'll be like, oh, this isn't the same screen.
The automatic dimming will no longer work.
It's a screen for fuck's sake. Come on.
It's not like you're that petty. Are you serious? And their laptops, those things already have a premium on them because it's Apple, you know, the whole Apple culture.
I won't get into that tonight.
But oftentimes, one of the biggest fail parts on the Apple laptops is a $12 charge chip or chipset.
Guys like me can replace that in like 1015 minutes. Plus, you know, disassembly time with a laptop.
But Apple went in to the vendors, places like Mauser and DigiKey, and they were like, you can't sell this anymore to non commercial entities.
And then they actually started saying, no, you can't sell this unless you're selling it with this ultra expensive part.
And they effectively choked off the repair supply.
So, yeah, they're they're strangling the part supplies.
They're making it impossible to do small part repairs.
And then the knowledge that you need to do the repairs, schematics, wiring diagrams, manuals, all that's out the door.
You cannot get the information you need to do the repairs yourself.
So good luck trying. There are knowledge bases online that people are putting together.
There are some forums, Reddit.
Sometimes you can get some of the shit you need, but oftentimes, no, you're on your own.
Or what they want to do is just push you to get a new shiny product.
Pay for their warranty. Never pay for the warranty.
Throwaway culture, throwaway mentality has overtaken a lot of facets of society, unfortunately.
Our high tech devices are full of rare materials that are not just costly monetarily to obtain.
They're costly on the human side.
And the more I'm not trying to sound like a hippie or a tree hugger or anything,
but the more that we can reclaim those items, the less expensive they can be reprocessed into new items.
And we don't have to use that same human cost to get new materials.
There's my soapbox.
I 100% agree with you. And especially I feel like that should be a mandate, by the way.
If you're making electronic components, they should be designed to be easily be able to be broken down.
That way you can be harvest and reuse because there's only so much lithium.
There's only so many alkaline metals. There's only so much resource that we have on the planet.
And with all the stuff that gets thrown into landfills that could be used to make new devices, it's insane.
And you'll never get a 100% reuse. That's the problem.
Like for that same pound of, let's just say, lithium, for example, you might be able to capture 80% of each time,
but then you're still always going to have to mine more lithium.
Right. But not as much. Now, yeah, some some things like lithium are not fully recyclable,
but you've got things like copper, gold, silver. Those are completely recyclable.
Those are re-obtainable. The amount of e-waste that we dispose of every year,
it's in the millions of tons and the billions of dollars.
That's waste. In e-waste that just ends up at the bottom of the ocean.
So it's such a shame.
But they should be designed to be worked on that way. At least these things can be repaired.
Like, for example, the amount of things that we think are useless in this country.
But I bet you there are other countries that would happily take something.
There are other places that would happily take those older iPhones, those older iPads, computers, laptops, things like that.
Even old radio, stereos. Why not?
Why wouldn't you just ship them to somewhere like Africa or something that are India or whatever?
North Korea, you know.
If only. Right.
But they should be designed. I feel like there should be a mandate where it's like, hey,
these things should be able to be repairable, at least by a skilled technician.
It's one thing to not give up your software.
I understand that because that's more proprietary to a point.
But the hardware, something you can physically handle.
I'm not saying they have to allow aftermarket support, but you can't strangle aftermarket support as well to not exist.
And on the software, I understand not allowing access to like source code level things,
because if somebody gets in there and dicks with the software and then somebody else tries to come back and say, oh, well, now the product doesn't work after I had it repaired.
And then they want the OEM to cover like a warranty type deal.
No, that's obviously something that voided that level of warranty.
If you have a repair done there, there needs to be protections in place for the OEM.
Exactly. But when the repair is within the guidelines and it's done by a certified shop, having certification programs was a thing for a long time.
Oh, yeah. I got several certifications back in my day.
Back in my day.
But you can make it so that either A, only certified people are doing these repairs or B, you can isolate the levels of the warranty that are covered post repair.
So. And why wouldn't these companies promote these certifications?
Think about it. What they could do. They could charge money for it and have a yearly up thing.
And I feel like that that would drive so much more trust in that product as well, because at least if you could get it fixed, I'd be more apt to buy some of this stuff.
But because I know I can't get it fixed, I don't even fucking bother.
A lot of people would. You know, but like, wasn't there that phone that came out a little while ago that like you could replace every part of it?
It's like almost like different Lego bricks.
I believe it was like a Chinese phone. It was also American. Might have been a Huawei, but I know what phone you're talking about.
But yeah, it was the Lego phones. And that's why they killed it, because they didn't want people being able to have that much control over the parts.
It's it would almost make you. I really feel like these manufacturers to understand they're really selling software.
If you're Apple, you're in the business of selling software, you're not actually in the business of selling hardware.
Because the reality of it is everybody uses you not because your hardware, it's because your software.
Nobody in their right mind is buying an Apple computer or Apple laptop saying they have the best hardware.
No, they don't. I will tell you right now, for a fact, we know they don't. It's their software and their ecosystem.
So why don't they just say, hey, you know what? Let's make it so our software works on more products, works on more hardware,
and let the customer decide what they want and what they need. Because then here's the here's the inverse.
If I as somebody that does a lot of music production and a lot of other stuff clearly with the podcast and everything else,
if I could get an Apple desktop done to the specs that I want and I just throw on their software, I would have done that for the last 12 years.
And I probably average spending a couple thousand dollars a year on computer components. I spend a lot on computer stuff.
I would have happily had a nice high end Mac based desktop, but they will not freaking let me.
Because anything that I want to do, no, they don't offer it right. It doesn't support. It's not supported.
It's not allowed. Which is insane. Especially what if you wanted a phone that had a dual OS?
If you want to like like a bootleg or something like that, you can't do that.
Yeah, back in back in the early days, people would route their phones and have like a dual dual boot thing, which is so cool.
Right. A buddy of mine in high school did that. It was awesome.
But now it's very unfortunate that these companies decide to do these things.
I do think that right to repair bills is something that needs to go national because right now it's usually sorry.
Especially at a state level, which I'm glad some states care about it. But I really all need to.
There needs to be a debate and a discussion that has to happen on if you buy a product, do you own it?
And I'm talking the physical product, not the software, because I'm willing to leave that up for the debate.
But for instance, if I buy a car.
I'm going to put a big old fat, hairy donkey dick of a pen in that software discussion.
But go ahead and if you.
I feel like that's a longer discussion. I'm just talking about the physical components that you can see, which for most people, most objects they buy are physical.
Therefore, most of what they care about is physical.
So, for example, there are many car companies right now to where getting parts and replacement stuff is damn near impossible or very difficult.
I work in the industry, so I'm kind of aware of how this kind of goes.
But it becomes a pain in the ass to get anything that's even remotely complex, complicated with radio systems, navigation systems, any sort of blend controllers, HVAC controls, anything like that for cars.
It's ridiculous. But these companies purposely make it difficult because they use proprietary connections, proprietary wiring, proprietary, this proprietary that.
But yet the heart of the component is literally like a three dollar little no nothing do widget.
It's like they've spent more money trying to make it only for them rather than just making the part better or even just putting their brand on it.
Like, for example, one of the Mercedes that we were working on a while ago, that same door actuator from the dealership was like seven hundred dollars.
We found the part that goes on to an older Ford.
It was basically the same same design.
Thirty bucks on eBay. Awesome.
And I couldn't believe it because one of the techs pointed out like, oh, we could just buy one of those.
I've heard they work and same connector and everything.
All Mercedes did was pop on another character on that connector, just solder that.
So we're like, wait a minute. So they're taking a part that they can get for like probably ten dollars, slapping their own little connector on it, putting their vehicles seven hundred.
It's that kind of predatory stuff. I have no problem if it's a good product.
But it's another thing when they just slap something on a product and charge thousands more.
It's insane. Ferrari is notorious for doing that, by the way, just because it says Mercedes.
It's a quality. It's not.
It's not. I'll tell you that right now.
Don't as a side note, don't buy newer BMW Mercedes for the love of God. Don't be that person.
Don't do it.
Don't. It's not worth it.
I guarantee you. My my my manager, he got his Audi Q7 to 30,000 miles.
That's all it went. I was just saying he got it. He got it that high.
I've heard about the issues with the Audi's. Oh, it's unreal.
But unfortunately, these companies, they do it purposefully. Yeah.
So on on the software side, my big issue when it comes to digital content.
You can only have access to it for as long as the company is around if there's no download option.
Yep. So you spend the money to buy the new Venom movie that just came out in the UHD for twenty four ninety nine on Amazon or whatever.
If they decide, oh, we're going to unlicense this from Sony.
OK, well, my money bag. No.
But I paid for it and I want to watch it tomorrow night.
No. OK, then give my money back. No, no.
If you bought it, you are expected to be able to use it.
That's how it worked back when we had the little shiny frisbees that we could put in our little frisbee catcher under the TV.
We had a physical copy that we could just go and stick it after we ordered a pizza on Friday night.
I heard it's called a VHS tape.
Those those were the dog chew toys.
Oh, my bad. OK. Yeah. I know cats growing up, so that makes sense. Yeah.
Oh, the cats got a hold of the film, too.
But no, when with DVDs, I mean, you can still go buy DVDs, thankfully, for now.
But even that's getting to be a lost a lost art.
I think and this kind of segues back to our apocalypse episode, part of being prepared, have a good stock of digital entertainment
because you may not always have access to what you get or want,
whether you need to acquire it by other means through certain websites that we shall not mention
or buying hard copies or even still making your own hard copies after you've acquired said files.
Yes. Thumb drive storage is great and it's dirt cheap.
I can hold all kinds of wonderful videos on the thumb drive these days,
and I can just pop them in a laptop that I'm keeping in good condition,
watch them whenever I want on the projector, if that is what I'm in the mood for.
It's something to where having physical media will never be a bad thing. Absolutely.
That's that's something to where I'm not huge on collecting it, but I do have like an old movie collection.
And sometimes I'm thankful for having that.
Sometimes it's very nice just to kind of throw a DVD in or something like that, just have that playing in the background.
I just haven't having knowing that like I will always have my Lord of the Rings movies,
not because I watch them all the time, but because if something were to happen,
I got a solid nine to 12 hours of the director's cut. That is that's more than fine.
Look, I you you can have your flying broomstick wizard people movies all you want.
That's Harry Potter. You're numb nuts. Well, whatever.
You know, they're all the same flying broomstick. If you'd never seen Lord of the Rings.
No, not really. I don't know. What?
Well, how have you never seen Lord of the Rings? Are you kidding? It's one of the best trilogies of all time.
No, that would be Star Wars. No. The original.
I don't think it's I don't think it's well, it's one of the better trilogies. How about that?
OK, I'll give you that. It's it's one of the it's it's probably like in the well,
I don't know if I could think of a better trilogy offhand, though.
That's the problem, because most most of all the times of the trilogy, it's the third movies that suck.
That's always the problem. Not Deadpool.
Oh, dead. Deadpool's great, though. Oh, it's a little silly, though.
Side rant. Watched the new one with my kids over the weekend. Yeah.
My youngest was actually jamming out to the opening song.
Bye bye bye. He was just bopping along. He's like, this is a really good song.
Yeah, it's a classic. It's a classic.
That song will never not be a classic. Right.
Now I think about Marvel probably has some of the best trilogies as the Captain America trilogy is is awesome.
Yeah. I mean, all the Marvel movies.
Pre. Well, I think we'll cut it off at Spider-Man.
Far from home. No way home is the third one. Right. Yeah. Yeah.
That one's good. So if we call Spider-Man No Way Home, the last good Marvel movie.
Now, don't get me wrong. I love Doctor Strange. I love the Doctor Strange character.
The last movie they did for him was kind of shit. It's too silly. Yeah.
That's the problem with the multiverse. I've been saying it for forever. Yeah.
So even some of the off off shoot stuff that they've done, like the what if I liked some of those, I really liked the Ultron getting a hold of the Infinity Gauntlet one.
That was a fucking good one. I haven't seen any of those.
Oops. That's okay. You can spoil it. It doesn't. Yeah, no, it's it's not really a huge spoil, but they're they're short little cartoons.
They're all just one offs solid watch and they're not very long. I think they're 45 minutes.
To be fair, I will state Ultron deserved his own trilogy. Oh, they did.
Ultron did not get what he deserved. He he he needed at least two episodes or two movies.
Oh, yeah. So weird. Yeah. But I like the Ultron character.
But yeah, you're making good point about the fact that like we went from you bought something you owned it to now you buy temporary licenses that can be revoked at any time.
That's a big issue right now in the music industry with zero recompense to you. Yeah, I used a big word.
Oh, my God. With with a lot of the digital stuff that you get, there's even a phone home feature.
And if you don't have access to the Internet, it can't verify that you still have rights to the license.
So it might still be a legitimate copy or whatever, but it can't verify. Therefore, you can't use it.
OK, so it drives me nuts. Yeah, there are a lot of apps like that.
So I have a lot of like spare tech. I mean, here are here are two old phones.
Oh, yeah, right there. These are just sitting here on my desk.
I keep them as backup for files and apps and shit just in case, you know, the zombie apocalypse happens.
And they have apps and files that do not require a data connection or phone home feature.
Google Maps will download locations that you look at often.
And even the last used map will be at least relatively up to date if they can't contact the servers.
OK, I didn't know that's something good to know.
But it's it's crazy to me how many things now require the constant online connection for verification.
Right. Even even like single player games. Yeah.
Why should you need an online connection to play something that's one player?
No. Just let me download it like we did back in the day and let me slap the one eyed bishop and play by myself.
It was that's a phrase I never heard before.
But it's this is something that's prevalent in the music industry.
So there's a big problem where a lot of music apps or different programs, effects, even digital audio workstations,
they got completely basically ripped and then resold or repackaged or whatever.
So now a lot of them require a constant connection and verification with a serial number on your computer or motherboard and everything else.
It gets really annoying, though, because then if you're someone like me that I use some of these programs for years and years.
Well, sometimes the software goes out to date.
I have right next to me a guitar processor.
It's called an 11 rack. Basically, when it came out in 2011, it was a thousand dollars for it.
It was considered a very high end unit.
Now you can get them for like 200 bucks, 150 bucks.
They're still good if you know how to use them.
But the fucking company that made it stop supporting the fucking software.
And I'm mad about it because that software I used to be able to use to edit everything on the computer.
Now, you miss all the fucking little dials and little bullshit.
It drives me nuts. I wish these for some reason they pulled support for it for no reason.
And they decided, oh, yeah, we're no longer going to have the software around.
For zero reason other than just no.
Because they wanted you to. Oh, yeah.
Then it comes out a few years later.
Oh, they're going to drop a new line of products and they don't want anybody that use the old one to be able to even use them.
My problem is the vindictive and evil nature of the idea of supporting a product that suddenly pulling the rug out from underneath it and just saying, oh, yeah, now you have to buy the new shit.
No, that kind of stuff. It's one thing to say, hey, this is going to be our final legacy package.
This is going to continue our support, but we're not going to actively support anymore.
This is our last one. But the whole another thing to pull out the rug and just say, oh, yeah, you might have bought that thing a few years later for a lot less money.
And we're not going to support you anymore. Go fuck yourself.
That's Microsoft Office, which is now three sixty five.
I want to use their shit. You have to pay the subscription fee, which I think is now one hundred and thirty dollars a year.
That's why I switched to open office years ago.
To fucking use Google Docs like shit or Google Docs.
Yeah, Google Docs. I love it. It's way better. Yeah.
So one of the things you have to kind of start thinking about is, are we just going to be forever renting everything from from our daily use items to our homes and our appliances even?
That's actually kind of a current agenda plan, like the agenda was a twenty fifty, twenty thirty.
The idea you will own nothing and you will be happy. Yep.
So is there a middle ground for everything?
I don't know, because if you own nothing, then who's responsible for everything?
Well, that's that's the beautiful thing as a company, I can say, oh, you're renting it, but you also maintain full responsibility for that product.
So you can basically get that monthly revenue without actually losing anything without having to sell much of anything.
No, see, I as a consumer, I'm really not going to put as much effort into it if I don't own it.
But then what if you're liable for damages? What if you're liable? Like, for example, look at leasing a car.
Do you make people that lease a car compared to buy one because they can't afford to buy one and they can't afford to take the payments on?
So I'll just lease it. I'll just basically rent it. I'll never own it.
Well, if anything happens to that car while you're leasing it, it's up to you.
That's your problem. You never own it, but you are fully responsible for it.
The amount of people at least cars that don't understand that.
Probably the vast majority of them.
And that's how they make their money on that and over mileage. Twenty five cents a mile over whatever mileage package we give you because it was not adequate.
Yeah. Fuck all that shit.
No, no, no, no. Oh, I would say this right now is a bit of a advice for people.
Unless you're in a very, very specific circumstance, don't lease a vehicle. Just don't. You think you're getting out ahead.
You're not. They designed it that way on purpose.
They're very good. Literally, unless it's like a weekend driver that you're just going to use around town every other weekend or something.
Don't bother with it. Like, put it this way for someone like me that drives five miles to work in the five miles home and the car sits there.
Maybe. Maybe.
Hey, hey, I pay a lot next size taxes. Fucker. I'm allowed to have a shorter drive.
OK, you do. And in my state, they also want to put a tax on the excise tax.
Hey, we are like taxes. So here's a tax for your tax.
Oh, dude, there are words I cannot say on Twitch or YouTube, but I'm sure you could guess.
How how how much I despise that idea.
Needless to say, my governor is probably going to be kicked out for for that shit.
But yeah, probably not soon enough.
No, yesterday wouldn't be soon enough. No.
One of the. Where are we here?
So one of the ideas that a lot of these companies are pushing is planned obsolescence.
Ensuring a returning customer base, as long as they don't piss off in too many customers too much. And that's kind of what Apple got caught up in
when it was confirmed that they do release updates that do slow down your phones.
Supposedly, they don't do that anymore. I don't know. I've never owned one bullshit. I've been on Android for years.
I think every company does it, though. Yeah. If you sell software, I will say I've seen it in cars as they age and they get software updates.
All of a sudden they get an update in their car, acts a little slower with the touch screen and everything slows down and whatnot.
Yeah, I will say that.
Apple fan people are probably some of the I got to be careful here. I was going to say good luck with this one.
The Apple crowd, when it comes to consumer electronics, likes to think that they are smarter with tech than they really are because they are more easily fooled.
And this is all anecdotal. Don't don't burn me down.
They are more easily fooled by the products that Apple releases than those who go for Windows and Android type devices.
The videos that have come out of people saying that they can get upgrades on their phones and all they do is clean it and put a new case on it.
And they're like, oh, wow, this is so much nicer. This is so much faster.
No, it's not. It's it's literally your phone.
Well, I think there's there's two different sides of it. You have some people.
So there's a there's a few different avenues here.
When you have some people that use Apple because simply put, they need something that can call, text and go on the Internet and watch YouTube.
And that's fine. And for some people, it's a good option.
But you have some people use Apple because, quote unquote, they think it's just a better product, which again, you're not buying the phone.
You're buying the software. You're buying the brand. Yeah. Yeah.
Because the software is good for the most part. It's solid software.
And the way that is totally interconnected. I mean, that's great when you're sending a text and it pops up on your kids tablet.
As far as an ecosystem, it is a good ecosystem.
The problem is that means you have to buy the Apple hardware and only use the Apple hardware.
And that is the downfall every single time because they do.
They're not designed to age well. They don't have a lot of horsepower.
The idea behind the Apple system is, hey, let's make a streamlined, efficient software that way we can use cheap hardware so it keeps working.
And guess what? When it ages out, tough shit that your phone that used to run at 60 FPS now runs a five and works like a fucking brick.
Oh, well, tough shit. They're like, just get a new one. Not only that, but those super duper expensive iPhones that they charge fifteen hundred dollars for cost them maybe eighteen dollars to build.
Well, maybe not that little, but it's you know, it's down there, buddy.
I know it, which is down there when it when it comes to like human costs and raw component cost there.
They're down in like the sub fifty dollars. Yeah, probably.
Which is insane, but that's because of also volume. They're able to make millions and millions and millions of them and people buy them.
People are willing to spend that money and it unfortunately it's the reality of like people are selling. Oh, yeah, I'll spend the money.
But that's also how you end up with a few child labor factories in Sri Lanka with with no unions or bathroom breaks.
Well, it's also one of those things, too, that like I don't think people understand that if you buy modern technology in any facet, you are buying slave labor because none of the stuff is made anywhere in America anywhere in Europe.
It's especially anything with cobalt. Oh, yeah. Like your fancy electric cars that everybody's been all hyped up about getting.
Yeah, almost all the cobalt in those comes out of the DRC Democratic Republic of Congo.
And all those mines are supposed to have no artisanal mining bullshit.
You go and see the live pictures and live feeds every single miner there is an artisanal miner trying to get their little lump of cobalt so they can get enough money to feed their family for the month.
And it's disgusting the conditions that they're in. Oh, yeah. And we justify that because oh, yeah, it's it's green.
And you know what the scary part is. Have you seen the electric cars coming out of China?
Have you seen that? OK. If you guys want a culture shock.
Granted, I'm not saying they're going to last a long time, but they have Chinese. I probably won't. But you know what's crazy?
They have not five, not 10, not 20, but dozens and dozens of different electric car companies in China.
And what's crazy is they are selling things like minivans that have heated and air conditioned cup holders, big 24, 30 inch screen TVs, full fold out reclining chairs, heated and massaging everything.
And they're like 30 grand.
Massaging everything you say.
I did not fucking stutter.
That is not a good idea. I do not need to get in the handy J going down the road.
No, it's not a good idea for the driver. For everyone else, it's perfectly fine.
But but what I'm getting at is in America, because of our laws and everything else, we have stagnated when it comes to development of cars to work costs to become exorbitant.
Whereas in places like China, they're coming up with cars that do things that Teslas can't do.
I was reading about a car that a guy was reviewing. You're talking seven, 800 miles.
They're doing something that we would talk about in America for over a decade.
They use a small little diesel motor to then as a generator to put into the batteries.
You can go 800 to 1000 miles at a time.
I've been talking about that for fucking years.
Yeah. Well, guess what? China's apparently smarter than Tesla because they fucking figured it out for literally less than a third of the price.
And I'm not saying they're going to last 100,000 miles. But here's the thing in America, if I could buy a car for 20 grand that lasted 80,000 miles, it's cheaper than buying a Toyota for 40 grand.
That's going to last 160. Here's the here's here's my hold up.
There's no way that we could justify $20,000 for 80,000 miles. Not in America.
Well, think about this. People spend $80,000 on a truck that lasts 140,000 miles.
Think about that.
There are people spending 80, 90, $100,000.
Yeah, you're not wrong.
I work in the industry.
I feel like 20,000 needs to get you at least 100,000 miles.
Realistically, it should get you about 200,000 miles, maybe 150. Maybe I'm just being greedy. I don't know.
No, no. So here's the problem is in America, our emissions laws are so restrictive that our motors are not being maintained properly.
So what has been happening is everything wears out too quickly. Things are not being maintained properly. And you're having companies that unfortunately they build a motor that meets emissions regulations and that's it.
Emissions and engine efficiency standards. That's really it.
They're also they're also being built out of inferior metals.
Back when we have blocks getting milled out of steel, they didn't fall apart and crack after, you know, 50,000 miles.
Not only that, but you have to consider because of efficiency standards back then they used to have oversized blocks where basically there was a lot more not to get into jargon about like cylinder spacing and everything.
But basically back then there was a lot more material around inside the engine.
Whereas now in order of things have to be lighter. So therefore the car is lighter and therefore it meets better emission standards better mileage standards.
It becomes this ever evolving problem where with modern regulations.
It's actually very difficult to meet cars that can meet these requirements. So what happens, you make smaller and smaller engines, and you ask them to do more and more work.
No wonder why they blow up like not for nothing. You have cars that weigh five, six thousand pounds like for instance like the newer let's say the newer like Chevy Traverse.
That's like basically the third road the big SUV that's just smaller than a Tahoe and it comes with a four cylinder engine.
Like what? No, you're asking a tiny it's a small four cylinder too. You're asking these tiny motors to do a lot of work and you wonder why they break it's because you're overworking them.
I'm seeing this in the industry all the time. People buying trucks, the high end trucks are coming with V6s and they're wondering why they're blowing up.
It's because you're asking them to do the work of a diesel or a larger V8 motor that's in a much smaller package like half the size. You just can't.
There's no way. Would you would you ask somebody that's five foot six and like 130 pounds to deadlift 500 pounds?
No, you're going to ask them. They might try. They might try and you're going the hospital.
But you know what you need. It's one of the things where you need sometimes a big person to do a big job.
And the reality is with the motor sometimes you need a big motor to do a big job.
Sometimes there is there's the old phrase on motor for there's no replacement for displacement or the idea that there's no way of substituting that engine size.
And for some jobs in this world, that's just the case.
So when it comes to what you're talking about, planned obsolescence and people and things being throw away.
Look at, for example, some of the newer Kia cars. Kia as a brand right now.
Well, they make some decent cars. You guys can look it up.
There's a big lawsuit about them having to replace motors after 100,000 miles or even before 100,000 miles.
So it's one of those things where they'll say, you know, hey, we knew these motors weren't going to last.
And unfortunately, now we're on the hook to replace them.
And there was a time where most any car out as long as you took care of it, they would last.
Just do the maintenance. But also, that's also the other half of the problem.
Most people don't do maintenance on their vehicle. So that's the other half of the issue.
But yeah, but it is designed to be disposable.
It's designed for you to buy a car and after 100,000 miles, 120,000 miles, everything fell apart. Tough shit.
But yeah, it's something that's just going to stick around.
Like I was reading about a guy that bought a BMW M2 and basically they don't use a cylinder liner in it.
They just put a coating in the engine.
So if you wear through the cylinder liner, you get a whole new engine block.
It was like 20. It was had like 26 or 25,000 miles like an M2.
That's basically like an 80,000 dollar BMW.
Imagine buying it, driving 20,000 miles and say, oh, yeah, I need a new engine and be able to look soon.
Says, oh, well, tough shit.
That's just part of a buddy. Right.
You know. No, no, no, no.
Imagine buying a car and literally cost you four dollars a mile just in the engine maintenance.
Oh, think about it. If you bought an 80,000 dollar car, you only made like 26,000 miles. You're talking like three dollars and 70 cents a mile.
Yeah, no, you you don't do that.
You can also make like you can make a couple of people in the chat mods if you want.
That way they can also handle that problem.
Yeah. Sorry, I had to.
Handle some shit because for stream, you know, we.
That's all popular, apparently. So we had one of those bots come into the chat.
Yeah, I'm just mod the guys. You appreciate our homies in the chat, by the way, guys.
I appreciate you all showing up. Right. Give us some love. Appreciate it.
But yeah, since now we can wrap around to since these products are all disposable.
The service industry is not as worried about customer retainment.
They're not as worried about the idea of trying to keep that customer because quite frankly, they know their product is bad.
But they know you're just going to come back and have to buy another one anyway, because odds are, if you want to buy the good product, the quality product,
it's going to be double or triple or even quadruple in some cases.
So it's like, great, do I have to buy the cheap crap to after a few years, I can at least afford to buy it.
Or do I save up the money by the really expensive product and maybe get good service there?
But even then, from what I've heard from people in different industries, you could buy the expensive products and still get shit service.
Right. You know, that that was always the the thing that I always never understood.
Again, as a musician, I went the other day over to a guitar shop that's considered a boutique guitar shop.
They do high end stuff. It was a bit of background. I'm a musician. I've been a musician all my life.
I taught six different instruments. I play instruments, do my own music stuff, my own little recording studio, yada yada yada.
I play a lot of guitar guitar, something that I know very well.
I went into this boutique guitar store that's nationally acclaimed. It's it's it's like 20 minutes away.
I used to drive by on the way to work. And I was appalled at the fact that they did not let me play any of the guitars on the wall.
Because I brought in a guitar strap. They said, no, no, if you put on that guitar strap,
it might possibly maybe scratch a part of the guitar and therefore you'd be devaluing the guitar.
So we cannot let you play it. You must play it without a guitar strap.
And I said, I used to play casinos and like play big shows and do stuff all the time.
I've been teaching like I've just always played with a guitar strap, mostly because for me, it's an ergonomic thing.
And also, I'm fat. I'll have to tell you, like, if I play guitar without a guitar strap, it's kind of walking away from me.
Like, I just got to have that. And they're like, yeah, but sorry, we just have no interest in serving like like if you don't have a guitar,
if you have if you're playing with a guitar strap, we don't want to take that risk with you.
And I'm like, you guys realize I spent more on guitars than I have on cars.
Like I I'm somebody that would spend three, four or five grand on a guitar if it's the right one.
But because they were so concerned about some little thing like that, I purposely told him, like, look, I'm never going back.
Only because you don't treat people like that.
If it's one thing, that's fair. And especially the guitars I want to play, they were twelve hundred bucks.
They weren't even anything that expensive because I'm the kind of person as much as I have a couple expensive guitars.
I have what I already have what I want, the high price range. I don't want to buy any more like that.
Right. So they alienated a customer for no reason because they were so worried about something that was bullshit rather than talking to me.
And that's something I've seen through many sectors, through many different areas.
It's they have they have no I guess they have no skin in the game for a lot of service people.
They don't get paid any different whether they sell or not.
They don't get paid any different whether the company's doing well.
It's my job is to stand here. And if I help people cool, if I don't, I don't.
They're hourly. That's where getting rid of commission was kind of a detriment to the to the industry.
Relying entirely on commission is a terrible thing.
But making commission a nice bonus is incentive for people to drive sales.
Don't be sharks in the water kind of competitive with it.
But if you have like flat rates for certain things, that's great.
Way back in the day, I used to work at Kmart back when it was still thriving.
We had incentives to sell TVs, VCRs, DVD players, game consoles, anything over one hundred dollars.
You got one level over 250. It was another level. And then 500.
It was a whole different tier. OK. OK.
But those commission bonuses added up, especially during the holidays,
because you didn't just get them on the immediate sales.
You got them on sales that went to layaway if you're old enough to remember what layaway was.
Oh, yeah. OK. So as long as they completed the layaway purchase, you were golden.
And by the way, let's bring back layaway. That was a great thing.
Yeah, why did they get rid of it? It really was.
It took up too much inventory space and storage room space in the stores.
So what I'm. What? There was no way to make it.
People would come in and put something on layaway, it would take it off the shelves
and then they would never pay the layaway off.
So sales that could have been made were lost.
So why don't they just take like a 10 percent deposit?
Well, then you got to guarantee the item is going to be there.
Yeah, see, it's a balancing act. But but then if we have it.
But then how can you put an item on layaway if it's not in the store?
Well, that it was exactly.
So if they take that item, they say, hey, put us on language, you put 10 percent down.
That way, that store may we did. Yeah.
But then they could cancel the layaway.
And get their money back. Oh, see, I just would not.
I would not have a front of the 10 percent.
Well, but then what you're just giving money to a store for nothing.
Well, if you're going to have the source of back then long term.
Back then, the the the policies were a little more, you know, loose.
Oh, so that's why they got rid of it.
It doesn't exist anymore.
Bring it back with some different policies and let's, you know, let's make shopping less painful again.
All you have to do is make it so the layaway at the last like two weeks, three weeks, maybe a month.
Why did you pay it off? And then you're fine.
Yeah. And you know what? Not just shopping, but there are a lot of industries as a whole.
A whole trying to min max the staffing levels.
Let's knock that shit off.
They're trying to focus on the wrong areas.
Like I said earlier, pushing the digital orders, ignoring the in-person orders, trying to have six people do the work of 10.
It's it's got to stop the false hiring practices advertising that there's, you know, open positions somewhere and there's really not.
But they may or may not get bonuses or government grants or subs subsidies subsidies.
I must be getting tired. Words are getting harder than me on the weekend.
Giving money to places to not fill jobs needs to stop if it's still going on.
People want to work. Guys like Mike Rowe, huge fan of Mike Rowe.
I wish he would have gotten more involved in politics, but I do like what he's doing with micro works.
Advocating for the trades. I know my oldest son. I'm I know he wants to be an engineer.
I'm trying to kind of push him to look into trades as a backup because I know how many people go to college with these wide eyes thinking they're going to do one thing.
And they become totally disenfranchised before the end of their first year.
Also going trade route is way cheaper knowing that.
But in some places you still make more money way faster and you make a lot more money because like our buddy Austin, he does electrician work.
Once he gets all of his certification stuff, he'll be making what 40 50 60 $70 an hour as a certified journeyman electrician.
I don't know many engineers that come out of school making that kind of money.
Now that if you want to hear something really nasty.
I'm near a major city.
A buddy of mine's package is like for his union is somewhere in the 110 to 120 dollars an hour range between the health care, everything else, the retirement plan.
He takes home like 140 a year.
Yeah, which is for most people, that's like, holy crap.
Is that good money? And what's even better is with a trade.
If you do enough work, you can eventually open your own business.
And that's how you really want to make money. You own open business.
Absolutely. Yep. Then you you're basically printing money.
It's insane. Yeah. If you hire an electrician or plumber for anything, you know, it's at least five dollars for them to walk in that door.
You know, you're spending money easy. And think about this.
How many people don't make five hundred dollars in a day, let alone some of them being able to make five dollars in a couple hours.
Yeah, like that's it's going to be the new the new best thing.
You know, I thankfully I didn't go my route with education because I got sick of it being the academic world and all that bullshit.
And I went to like trade adjacent.
Basically, and way happier, way happier to that right now.
I think it's worth it. If you can get a trade, especially get a license and something or a certification at least, but get licensed in something.
Don't just go into the trades, get licensed in something.
Then you are absolutely all set in the most states, not all most states to have reciprocity.
Would that do a little bit of research if you're looking to move or go somewhere?
But if you really want to make money, there's always options for unions that have their pros and cons.
But when the private sector or with unions, you are way better off.
The amount of people I know that got degrees and don't make a lot of money is far more than the people I know that work in trades that don't make a lot of money.
Or even worse, the people that get degrees and don't make enough money to pay off those degrees.
And that's not even the alphabet folks that go and get pointless degrees like classic gender studies for the.
Oh, yes. Ecclesiastical theatrical person or whatever bullshit jumbo of words they come up with to get a degree in.
It's like, what the fuck can you get a job with that in? You know, my favorite one is.
What's that political science?
That's my favorite degree, because unless you go into politics, you have wasted your money.
Oh, yeah. What do you what are you going to do with it? Exactly. Are you going to work in government? No.
Well, then congrats. It's useless. Or or my or you or you can start a podcast.
Oh, man. But even that even then, it has to be a political podcast at that point.
Well, yeah, I would hope so. You don't go get a poli sci degree and sort of a tech podcast. You never know.
You never know.
Yeah. So I don't know. I would say college is overrated unless you know what the hell you really, really want.
So doctors, lawyers, physicists, astronomers, engineers.
Yeah, sure. I'm fully on board with having the college degree requirement.
I do think that it needs streamlined. There is no reason somebody going for, you know,
hands on shit needs to worry about philosophy, psychology.
Let's cut the bullshit. I understand that the colleges are just trying to sit there and milk more money out of the kids, parents and shit.
But no, let's streamline the shit.
Most four year degrees can probably be done in two and a half to three years if they get rid of all the ancillary crap that isn't needed.
I will say this from my degree. Most of my time I spend doing general eds or general education classes rather than actually just doing the classes I fucking signed up for.
So, yeah, a lot of it's bullshit. And I hate to say it, especially a lot of the professors as well are incredibly biased in some areas.
There's absolutely no quality control when it comes to the quality of the education you get.
And there's absolutely zero guarantee. If you get that degree, it doesn't mean you're actually going to get a job or that you met the right people, because at the end of the day, connections mean more than anything.
If somebody likes you as an employee, they're going to have you.
When I got started in the automotive world, it was literally like, you're a really cool dude. You seem knowledgeable.
You might have zero experience, but we're happy to take you on. And I got trained. And then now I'm like managing a shop.
So like I went from a year and a half ago being like, I guess I'll do teaching to now.
I'm like, I'm running an automotive shop, making a lot more money. And I didn't go to school for it.
But if you just try and put in a good effort, you're worth way more than somebody.
It's like, I have a degree. That means I could do something. It's no, it doesn't mean you can do something.
That means you could sit there and do exactly what the teacher tells you to do.
And sometimes you can be original, have an original thoughts, but there's really no guarantee.
Because at the end of the day, unfortunately, since everybody went to college, it doesn't really mean a lot.
It's not a big accomplishment anymore. It was back in the 80s or 90s.
Well, I said, wow, you earned it. You got through your way. You went through the applicants. You paid for it.
Now it's like, oh, you went to I I know more people that went to college and said, fuck that degree.
I didn't use it at all than people that actually stuck with it.
Yeah, I think back to some of the earlier like big Internet days, like with big social media, the one girl.
Oh, that really Jenna Jenna Marbles.
She had a skit where she used to sit there like talking about her day and it involved her crying and holding her degree.
I will never forget that because that drove a point home.
There are so many people that get degrees and all bullshit aside, there are a lot of people that get good degrees
that should rightfully be able to get good, solid jobs with those degrees and can't.
Because for whatever reason, at the end of the day, you a degree doesn't mean anything.
It's all about marketable skills. That is what people hire.
People do not hire a degree that sits on a wall.
They hire somebody that has a marketable skill to do a job.
And if that degree or your life experience or your job experience does not give you a marketable skill, you are doing something wrong.
At the end of the day, you are far better off getting a marketable skill and something that you are with it just than just getting any any degree.
Unfortunately, I hate to say it.
A lot of my generation's parents were lied to them or my grandparents or whatever.
Everybody thought just get a degree.
They didn't realize if everybody's fucking parents tell every kid to get a degree.
Guess what? You all got degrees.
It didn't mean they're worth anything.
It didn't mean they're useful. You have it.
You know, not not to be rude.
OK, I'm going to flack for this. I'm going to say it anyway.
The amount of people I know with degrees in women's studies, but they work at Starbucks or Dunkin Donuts at the age of 30, 35.
I hate to say it. You chose not to get something that's marketable.
You chose something that was only useful in the realm of academia.
Well, guess what? The realm of academia is not the realm for 99 percent of the population.
If you're outside the major cities, nobody cares.
Get a degree in something that is marketable for the love of God, which just side note,
if you're at a Starbucks and you need and they're pissing you off, you a solid burn.
Ask the barista how that degree in gender studies is treating them.
Yeah. You get to study a lot of genders out of Starbucks.
I guess it's working out for all of them, all all three hundred eighty seven of them.
Oh, God, I would love to have the official list at this point.
I have two now.
Yeah, federally, yes. Yes, that that is the oh, man.
We're going to cut that topic off real quick before we get demonetized.
Oh, yeah. First stream demonetized.
I actually know that before we got monetized. Right.
We just got the no button. That's yeah. You will never be allowed to earn.
Oh, sad face. OK. Looking your background.
I got to step up my background. I can't just have the planet next time.
I got to do like a right attack.
See what it this background I obviously chose for the right to repair stuff.
But it's for me, it's it's kind of all encompassing because it's a lot of my my stuff.
Like everything here is stuff that I have trained with and used and worked with in my my life.
This is kind of what one of my benches looked like for five years.
Oh, stupid question. Now that you have it up, I have a random oscilloscope I'm not using.
OK, next time you're out my way, do you want it?
I mean, sure. Probably have a useful shit up on eBay. Oh, OK.
I know if it's still worth any quarter bucks. Oh, yeah.
I just have a use for it. Just random fact. Yeah.
Well, I thought about because if I don't say it, I'll forget it. Yeah. OK.
But yeah, no, get get yourself trained up in hands on skills.
Learn to use these things as well as this thing up here.
It does more than just hold a hat still. But I know. Right.
But being able to repair and make our two skills that are rapidly going away and need to make a comeback.
And their skills that the AI won't replace you. Exactly.
For all the wonderful creative things that AI can do, they cannot use their hands like we can or think outside the box like we can yet.
And speaking of AI, we are going to do an updated AI episode in the very, very near future.
If not next episode, the one after that, because the amount of advancements that have come out of AI just since we started this podcast is horrifying.
Yeah, I. Yeah, I. I was.
I know if you guys go back and you have or if you have not listened to it, go back and listen to the our first episode.
You had asked me about the singularity. Mm hmm.
At that time, it was expected within about five years.
And as of last week, it is now estimated to be about one year.
And I'm going to cut that off because I don't want to give away too much for the episode.
But holy shit. If if you haven't seen the Terminator movies, go get some refreshers because it's coming.
All I can say is get your license to carry. That's all I could say.
I don't think a license is going to matter at some point.
So no, but I'm not going to tell people do things that are illegal.
So get get your license to carry. That's what I will say for legally.
It's just in case.
But I don't think it'll matter because there won't be a government to have a licensing say,
do you think a robot will be if I just identify as a robot, be booboo bop boobie boobop booboo bop booboo bop.
I do that episode of Spongebob where crabs get mistaken for a robot.
No, but there's there's another episode of Futurama where Fry and Lila had dress up like robots to walk around on the planet.
That yes, that'll be the.
You know what the scary thing is with the new musculature thing that I saw that they were doing with the robots that they're not going to move around like robots.
You think of they're just if anything, they're going to ultra smooth.
It's going to be weird. All of their movements are going to be incredibly smooth.
Smooth gives so incredibly smooth with a little bit of oil.
The new robots have some very realistic skin, I've heard.
I didn't adult your adult, please stop, please.
No. But no, that that isn't saying that they're going to rolling out the sex pods at some point.
I'd be rolling out all that. Oh, they've been they've been on the market.
They're just getting better. They're saying there's a movie. I haven't watched it.
I saw the companion. Is that the one with Daniel Quaid or whatever? Or what's the name that was in Jack Quaid? Yes.
Yeah, he's he's Boimler and lower decks and he's he's in the boys.
Yeah, it was already in theaters. It's on its way to streaming services now.
OK, I'm curious. I do. I do want to watch that one. That's on my list. I'd like to. Yes.
Man. Shit is getting crazy.
Yeah, I want a companion cube.
Oh, God. Yeah. After you to be called the trauma cube. Jesus Christ.
Are you kidding me? Oh, I love it.
The end quote, no, is not consent cube. That's
Hey, cubes can't say no.
She. Well, there's there's some merch for us there, buddy.
This is the Don consent cube.
Oh, I love portal.
Great series.
Gladdus has some great lines, though. Oh, God. Yes. Oh, man.
But I guess I think at this point, that kind of wraps up.
I guess today's topic, huh?
I think we can. Yeah, it was a little bit shorter of an episode, but
it was it was good. We've been kind of our episodes have been a little girthy lately.
So, yeah, you know. Yes, I've been forcing the girth on people and I'm sorry.
I know you guys can't usually take stuff like that, but I'm glad that you do.
We've had spit on it lately, but you know, it happens.
Oh, that look of disappointment gives.
Oh, anyways, we had to give it the Hawk to a.
Oh, I know.
Oh, yes.
Master Pip from now on.
Oh, I take bow.
God, Princess Bride, one of the best movies of all time.
If you've not seen the Princess Bride, I highly recommend it.
One of the best.
Oh, my God. Chat. Jesus Christ.
I know. Right. And I want to say that was cool to have chat this whole time, by the way.
I know we didn't address people that much.
I'll try to get you so we'll do in this thing live with having chat, but we appreciate you all being here.
I do like that. Hopefully in the future, we could do like a
address in the chat with questions and stuff like that and comments and, you know, doing that kind of thing.
I think we can probably hang out and do.
Which stuff for a little bit extra while we handle the episode? Oh, cool. Yeah.
Well, I'll get the edited down stuff like that. Uh huh.
Oh, man. But.
There's anything else before we wrap it up?
No, just the typical, you know, join the socials, join the discord.
Please stay tuned for the next two episodes.
The AI update is going to be a good one.
It's going to be kind of terrifying.
The other one that I want to kind of go kind of elbow deep into is the techno feudalism.
It was touched on by Joe Scott, a big YouTuber.
I'm a big fan of his.
He briefly mentioned it and talked about it for a little bit in one of his more recent videos.
But I really thought that it was something that kind of deserved a little bit more.
Well, girth worth of information and discussion just because he touched on a lot of topics and points that.
Yeah. So we're going to be talking about techno feudalism.
And we're also want to tie that into the technocratic movement.
And that is something that just needs talked about and brought back into light a little bit.
Oh, I can't wait for that one. I have an entire little segment already prepared for that one.
Oh, good. Oh, you have you have no idea.
Yeah.
For for those that have watched and or understand the more that is 40 of Warhammer 40 K.
You might have a taste of what I'm going to talk about.
But I do have an idea to prepare for that episode.
I have been listening to a podcast about it and I'm about 14 hours in.
Tell us that all this stuff to purposely prepare.
I still have another about 10 hours to go in the next week or two.
Just to prepare for that episode, because that's that's how much I have to say about it.
Good. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.
All right. So for the for the technocratic episode, get your butt cushions and your popcorn ready.
It's going to be long. It's going to be hard.
It's going to be difficult to take. Could you not get through it together?
Jesus Christ.
I have a fucking who else but Clagmire like Jesus.
Fuck God.
It's like you want everyone's butt to be sore or something. Jesus.
I mean, you know, sometimes.
I don't take a pass. No, no, no, no.
Yeah, I think that I think that probably wraps up.
Yeah, absolutely.
So, yeah, thanks for thanks for hanging out. Hit the socials and.
Tune in next time for the stand against.
Hell, yeah, we will catch you all later.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.