Latest / Black Box Theory Podcast / America Runs on Monopolies — and You're Paying for It
Transcript
- Malcolm: And I was watching a video the other day If you think about it, everything in America is a monopoly, bro. Everything, every, every all of our favorite things are ran by a monopoly. Our favorite, Thomas: Allegedly. Malcolm: allegedly, right? Like everything comes Thomas: Alleg allegedly. Malcolm: down to our every plane that we ride is manufactured or like either two types of, it's it's either 737 or an Airbus manufactured by the same company, same two companies in the world, right? You have everything that we want to buy for e-commerce, you go to one website, Amazon. All of our phone products we get from either Apple or Android. All of our freaking like all of our like like like food comes from the same like it's everything like a monop everything is like, but as far on the media side, this is a little different because we've already seen kind of like how outrageous some of this pricing has gotten and how comfortable some of these companies have gotten. Like like Netflix has steady been increasing their subscription price for the last couple of years. They think they slick but because they add on like an extra dollar ninety nine cent, but they've been getting a little bold recently. like jumping like four dollars in the subscription pricing. So now you have given a company news, cartoons, movie, superhero, cinematic universes. You've given them you've given them new you've given them the news coverage angle from C B S and C and then you're given them the the movie side with you giving them children's cartoons with Nickelodeon. You're giving them, you know, everything in Warner Bros, DC, Paramount. What's stopping them from from starting to make $40 a month subscriptions, $50 a month subscriptions? Because it's they can argue, hey, this this is bundle pricing. You're getting all these script streaming services in one thing. You guys think you guys think they did this deal to make your subscriptions cheaper? Like, I hope nobody thinks that. I hope nobody thinks that they they they went and took on 79 billion dollars of debt to make your subscriptions cheaper. Thomas: Yeah. Malcolm: No, no, no, no, no, no, no. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. So what this means is that Thomas: A that's Malcolm: like, Once again, now it's two companies that control well let me not say two. We can call it let's say we can call it three companies that pretty much control all things media. You got YouTube, you have Netflix, you have Paramount. Everything is here. Everything is here. Thomas: Google so that's what Google, Netflix, Paramount 'cause who no one owns Netflix, right? Netflix is its own entity. Malcolm: Yeah, N Netflix is his own is his own entity, their own like I said, they are like I said, like Thomas: Three giants, bro. Malcolm: Three giants that control everything that we watch, everything that we see. And we have obviously the news, you know, platforms that are on, but like so we're talking about like actual monopolies that own like several, like Netflix has everything. Meta Thomas: Well meta say meta is look. Malcolm: Mess owns nothing. Meta owns all the social media. They own like the like three billion people use the meta ecosystem every day across WhatsApp, Facebook, and Instagram. That's half of the world every single day on Meta's ecosystem. And they own all the ads that we see. That's that's the pr they've been their primary source revenue for years. We are cooked. We are cooked. Thomas: That's that's so crazy. Like, I just wonder, and that's why things are gonna get even more fragmented because for I don't know if anyone else deals with these issues, but if you want to watch a sports game, if you want to follow a playoff series, like you you can have games around 50 different channels. You got some games on Amazon, some games on Netflix, some games on you know, YouTube TV, Sling, whatever other thing you get that have the channels on there. Stuff is getting it it's been out of hand, but It's like there's too many cooks in the kitchen, but at the same Malcolm: Mm-hmm. Thomas: time, it's good when you have options. And I think back in the day you had options, like different like television providers, but they you still had access to the same shows. Like if you had Tom Warner Cable or or Dish or I think Direct TV is a part of Tom Warner Cable. Malcolm: Mm-hmm. Directivity, yeah, yeah. Thomas: but it's like you still got the same channels. It was just a matter of like who you got them through. Like And and now it's it's like it seems like the way things are gonna go, you might not have access to Cartoon Network shows if you're not using, you know, Paramount or a Cartoon Network approved partner, paying possibly a premium. So it's like I don't know, this is just something to be aware of for sure. Like people need to that that I don't know what that subscription a month is gonna be for everything. This is gonna be crazy. Malcolm: be something crazy, but man. That's what I'm saying. Thomas: No. Malcolm: I ain't gonna lie, gang. I'm I'm staying on I'm staying on my folks Netflix as long as I can, bruh. I'm not gonna lie, gang.