Media Conglomerates Are Taking Over The World

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[00:00:00] David: Thank you zoom for letting me know you are now recording. This is the hacker noon podcast. I am David Smooke from hacker noon. And today I'm with the reliable and insightful Amy and . Hello. Ooh,

[00:00:21] Amy: reliable. I like

[00:00:23] David: that.

[00:00:25] Amy: Oh, that's I'm insightful. Okay. That makes actually that makes a lot of sense.

[00:00:29] David: Also my mic record.

Cord is broken. So I apologize in advance for my lack of reliability as the leader of hacker noon. But today we're going to get into some articles from around the internet because it's this week on planet internet, and our first article has many countries. It's on a site we've been personally deleted from because of some sort of different vested interests, and it's called Wikipedia.

And the first site we're going to first entry on Wikipedia is media conglomerate. And I will read what they define this. Immediate group, a media conglomerate media group or media institution is a company that owns numerous companies involved in mass media enterprises, such as television, radio publishing, motion, pictures, theme parks, or the internet.

According to the magazine, the nation media conglomerate strive for policies that facilitate their control of markets around the world. So media controls markets is the undertone here to define the term they picked an interesting quote. But I don't know how they settle on what quote defines it.

And we're reading it on Wikipedia, which has many arms in and of itself, Wikimedia Wikipedia, which I would argue is also a media on. The last email I got from them was from a priest saying hacker noon. Isn't notable. So

terminology and conglomerate is a large company composed of a number of smaller companies engaged in generally unrelated business. So that's a little bit of a stretch on the unrelated, but. Who knows unrelated

[00:02:10] Amy: to who

[00:02:13] David: usually when you own a company, there's some relation to the other companies that are knowns that has some sort of competitive overlap

[00:02:19] Amy: related to the general naive.

[00:02:23] David: Yes. It's still people still have to if they tell a certain average people that Instagram's owned by Facebook, WhatsApp is owned by Facebook. Like the outage last week, the paranoid people were like, oh, this is just Facebook reminding everyone how important they are to their daily lives and reminding how much of the internet they own.

Oh, let's just go down for six hours. So everyone talks about how important we are to all of our day-to-day operations. Basic human. I think central functions like messaging around the world. I think competition is good, but growth is also good. And the word synergy is important too, something to do with corporations.

So what do you guys think? Media how our media conglomerates shaping the content we see in our daily lives.

[00:03:05] Amy: To me, the word conglomerate is like the key, right? Because it's like the mass enterprises, the big boys that are doing the conquering of the world in terms of the media. And yeah, I think.

That a lot of the, a lot of times when can gold these conglomerates get more and more power, they think that they can do anything and control the way that the media is. And they're right. So it's a scary world out there.

[00:03:41] Utsav: So I guess what this article doesn't go into is the concept of Krantz. So what happens?

It's let's say that I create something that is worth a hundred dollars to me. And because like I bought at hacker noon, I'm like, David, could you buy it off me for a thousand dollars? You said yeah. Why not? And you get a thousand dollar backs back, like right off. Which is why, like, whenever some organization starts to get bigger, they start creating these subsidiaries.

And like in time they become these conglomerates. I guess like this definition should have to differentiate between how it is a large organization compared to a congruent. It itself should be like something along the lines of transfer pricing, or like what could be in that without that, I don't think it makes sense.

And they are according to this magazine, the nation, like what they're paid by it it's the way. Yeah, biggish definition. It's the jaws to pick a Fort at the top of the beat. And along with a backlink no way.

[00:04:50] David: To read it again. It is media conglomerate strive for policies that facilitate their control of markets around the world.

It's interesting because they're positioning it as the point of the conglomerate is to actually move the market. As the point of the conglomerate is to take over the media. So that's interesting because they like to get bigger. It has to then grow an unrelated market to be a conglomerate.

I think there'd be a conglomerate. It could just grow more media industry. If Facebook bought Twitter, they own more of the social media discussion. And is that really selling like policies that control other markets? What's social media probably, but it's not the definition just feels a little I don't know.

I don't quite understand why it's positioning the control of other markets as what a conglomerate primary job is, as opposed to I think at a base level, Many businesses owned by one business, which could be for any reason to impact any market or just to reduce competition. And not even go after another market just to have a larger market share of the same thing.

But I think it's definitely the undertones are bad, right? Can go along

[00:06:01] Amy: for policies to facilitate control.

[00:06:03] David: Could you imagine if the Wikipedia donation came down and were like, we need support for our media can go on. What got me to get in our army of unpaid volunteers, aren't doing well, you need to donate to our conglomerates so that we can be the best sex encyclopedia in the world.

It's this same function as what's happening now, but it's just calling it a conglomerate, which would be like, it would just hurt. It wouldn't work as well.

[00:06:25] Amy: Yeah. It's a dirty market

[00:06:28] Utsav: conurbation. Yeah.

[00:06:31] David: You guys have any favorite, dirty words?

[00:06:35] Utsav: I have like sinful birds, like the editor in me is still hung up over the word who set up the word Skype.

Like, how do they like say that like they have driving on it? Is it in their vision documents? Their mission documents are the board meetings about striving for policies to control the finding. After that it's worthy enough to be at the top off of, they give me the

[00:07:04] David: update. So yeah. Strive you once you can follow strive with almost anything it's aspire is the one that's similar to me.

It's are you actively doing it or is it just this daydream you had in your head? You're just aspiring towards it. Like whenever you're just wondering, oh, I got. What about you, Amy? Any words you're trying to cut from your vocabulary?

[00:07:24] Amy: Not off the top of my head, honestly. I'm well, maybe like I'm trying to cut out all of the pandemic COVID words from my, any kind of like writing, because I just like I'm over

[00:07:35] David: it. I know what you mean. New normal. Yeah.

[00:07:39] Amy: Normal, any kind of pandemic content, anything about like technology advancing in the time of the pandemic? Like I'm over it.

[00:07:50] David: And that's what the media conglomerate once you to think.

So let's move to one of our favorite media conglomerates, Forbes, and I will read this new headline from forbes.com, August 26, 10,315 view views, Forbes to become public company through business combination. That's a new one through business combination. So they're are combining businesses like a conglomerate Forbes to become a public company through a business combination with special purpose acquisition company, Magnum Opus, author Forbes, press release, name for staff tag leadership.

Here are the kind of the high level here that about how Forbes is going public. The company has secured an additional 400 million via pipe. That includes funds and accounts managed by top tier investors, a leadership team to remain there and Forbes to remain as the front and center name.

We've talked some about these special interests going public groups before, but I will read the CEO statement on the subject. Leveraging our iconic global brand Forbes has been executing a data led platform strategy and is fast becoming the gateway for deep breath, businesses, entrepreneurs, and customers to join the conversation and participate in trends that are shaping the world.

First sentence over second sentence. With this transition into a publicly traded company, Forbes will have the capital to accelerate growth by executing its differentiated content and platform strategy, and fully realize the potential of our iconic brand. Woof. Okay. What are your thoughts on this Forbes going public situation?

[00:09:38] Utsav: So they're very flat skillfully with the word like special purpose acquisition company. You must have heard about the abbreviation that they use. It's called let's back. Like all of the youth, like silicone VC guys, they are like setting up specs or whatnot. And a SPAC is basically a blank check company or what you would call.

Shell corporation. And again, shell has going up these negative

[00:10:03] David: connotations and then the headline wouldn't look as good. If they said to become public, a shell corporation, wrong branding, special interests. They just keep adding words in there.

[00:10:14] Utsav: Okay. Like special purpose acquisition company. Like okay.

[00:10:20] Amy: I get it now.

Why do we have to use this like convoluted language to describe everything, especially in law,

[00:10:28] David: let's look at this. You want to see the cautionary statement regarding for forward-looking statements? It's longer than it's like a massive it's one paragraph. So it's harder to read by design it's skipped by design.

In some cases I'll just read next, sir. We don't have time to read the whole thing. This podcast will get super boring. In some cases you should identify forward-looking statements by the following words. So if you see these words, that means the whole statement is forward-looking and you should roll it out for any individual words.

May. Could would, should expect intend plant anticipate, believe, estimate, predict project potential, continue ongoing target, seek. I only added the, all the other ones are real

[00:11:18] Amy: and the negative or plural of all of these words, just to clarify,

[00:11:23] David: oh, wait, one more course. Similar expressions that are predictions to indicate future events or prospects, although not all forward-looking statements contained.

And also make a forward looking statement without may, will, could, should, would expect in 10 plan, anticipate believe, estimate, predict project potential. Continue on going target and seek.

[00:11:45] Utsav: I'm $45 million. I'm busy with that template. I hire.

[00:11:52] Amy: So to break this down, that's all you're telling me that the spec special purpose acquisition company is just a shell corporation that they've made up. So Magnus, Magnum Opus is like just new corporation that they spun up just so that these people can acquire Forbes or.

[00:12:12] Utsav: Yeah, it was a shell corporation that was probably

[00:12:17] Amy: Magnum Opus.

[00:12:19] Utsav: It could be forced like, although like corporations can own other corporation. So like it could be layer of Shands pink off the Panama papers or the more recently Pandora papers. So it could be layers of shells. I probably wouldn't know.

Or rather don't know the answer to. But yeah, this shell corporation was set up listed on at least one exchange for the express purpose of buying Forbes. The standard is like 20% of your initiative is given out. And they pretty much were like, okay. Forbes probably had about 45 million line somewhere.

And they were like, yeah, let's use that for 20%. And now the company valuation just got more, more like in faded away. Private placement of ordinary shares. It's a private place, man.

[00:13:14] Amy: They do it so that they can increase their value of their company.

[00:13:19] Utsav: Exactly. Like about hacker noon, hive, only five. Like it would be five of us and they, and like I could say, David, would you buy my shed for $1,000?

[00:13:31] David: the expert here. It's the transaction is expected to raise 600 million of gross proceeds consisting of the contribution of approximate. 200 million in cash held in the Maxim Opus, SPAC, assuming no redemptions by public treasury holders and 400 million of additional capital through a private placement of ordinary shares of the new combined company priced at $10 per share.

Assuming no redemptions by the public shareholders of Maxim Magnum Opus, Forbes shareholders own approximately 22% of the new combined company at closing Forbes will be capitalized with 145 million in cash.

[00:14:12] Utsav: It basically means that nobody else can invest unless you are what is going to quantify the investor. So I cannot buy that even if it says $10. It has gone to be already close to the people who are net.

[00:14:26] Amy: I see. Interesting seems fishy.

[00:14:33] David: Often views it's every state Forbes has a story with more than 10,000 views.

Like they exactly wanted a lot

[00:14:39] Amy: of, I want people to know. Yeah, it seems shady. I want to know who owns Magnum. Like, why did they do this? Oh, here Ella two capital who owns L two capital the private investment firm.

[00:14:53] Utsav: Ben ward and to capital setup.

[00:14:55] David: Okay. Anyway, let's move on to a list of the 15 largest media conglomerates in the United States. I will read this list. This is a. According to zippier a site we've never heard of, but ranks high in Google for this search result. The 2001 based revenue for, and audience size. I don't know how they ranked by both of the same time.

That seems like competing numbers, that they should probably have two separate lists for, but who am I to argue? Zippy via the career expert. Number one at and T number two, Facebook number three, Walt Disney, number four, Comcast five Warner media six box seven, Viacom eight Netflix, nine Hearst, 10 news Corp, 11 Nexstar, 12 iHeart, media, and 13 Gannett.

So that's the list, 80 and T still up there. I dunno how this list doesn't consider alphabet, Google a media company. I mean they own the discovery experience of searching for stuff on the internet, but who am I to say if what you're searching for is media or not? Anyway, this is a list what surprises you about this?

[00:16:06] Amy: I dunno. I would've thought that the Disney company would have ranked higher it's number three, but they own I guess maybe they probably took a hit. Like in-person things, but they own the Disney pictures, the animation studios, Pixar, Marvel Disney plus ESPN. So I would have thought that they would have had a higher ranking.

[00:16:33] David: Yeah. And the article says 20, 21 at the top, but then for revenue, they start, they site 2019. Not the best. It doesn't have Disney plus revenue channel, which is like, what is it? 17 million people paying $10 a month. It's a pretty solid expansion in there.

[00:16:50] Utsav: What's like half media. I never heard of them.

[00:16:53] David: They own a bunch of companies. Let's take a look at their shortlist of what her stoned.

Whoops. What number were they?

[00:17:01] Utsav: How about the gamut?

[00:17:02] Amy: Cosmopolitan. Oprah.

[00:17:05] Utsav: Okay.

[00:17:08] Amy: Yeah, this seems like something more for me

[00:17:13] David: following the good housekeeping empire. And it's real.

[00:17:21] Amy: Oh, wait, hold on. This company also owns a and E networks in a 50 50 split with the Walt Disney company. Interesting.

[00:17:30] David: So according to Vanessa, they have 360. So pretty solid. The first is a case that conglomerate, but they're all in media. So according to the Wikipedia definition of owning all these media companies, how are they using these companies to facilitate their control of the markets around the world?

And how

[00:17:50] Amy: are they generally unrelated businesses?

But the Oprah magazine targets different people then Ella?

[00:18:03] David: No. They're different because Oprah targets at a different time of day. Yeah. By then they're like a different human with difference.

[00:18:12] Amy: Yeah. I only read Oprah in the morning and then I'd read out in the evenings.

[00:18:17] David: I guess it's the argument could get more interesting when you get into local news, because there, then they're providing like the same business service, but they're doing it in a different market which is if you've learned stuff about infrastructure and distribution, how to scale printing, how to scale papers, how to scale hosting, how to have a newsroom.

So there's like some overlapping there and then, but they reached very different people cause it's mostly local people. I think that was like the old way to do a conglomerate of all local news stuff. Let's look at Fox here. I think Fox owns a ton of local news. So they really, they put the list as Fox broadcasting, Fox TV, Fox news, but is

[00:18:55] Amy: Fox not mostly owned by Disney as well?

A majority of the stock was acquired by the Walt Disney company.

This is why, doesn't Disney just own everybody. It's a crazy.

[00:19:13] Utsav: Yeah, that I did that because that works on south park. When, like, whenever they want a batter to avoid Disney, they show a picture of Mickey mouse coming out and like kicking people around.

[00:19:24] David: Oh yeah. Mickey mouse and south park is definitely worth the time. Interesting Easter party, any update on Walt Disney's cryogenic chamber lately 95.

Oh, my gosh, this knee arranged to have himself frozen in a cryogenic chamber full of liquid nitrogen upon his death. Have you heard, has he woke him up? Is he back? I don't think so. Oh, I love these popups on snoops. They're so refreshing, which one should I click on? What do you think? But I go with the big overlay video, or should I go with the connection by wallet or else?

I think I'm going to go with the X out of the site now. Yeah.

All right. Let's look at another Wikipedia article since we're a little confused who owns what? And this one's called the concentration of media ownership. The concentration of media ownership also known as medium consolidation or media converter. It's a process whereby progressively fewer individuals or organizations control increasing shares of the mass media contemporary research demonstrates increasing levels of consolidation with many media industries already highly concentrated and dominated by a very small number of firms globally.

Large media conglomerates. A-list here. That's similar to the list we had before. And then they say as of 2020, the largest ones, similar to our source, Comcast, Walt Disney, 80 and T Viacom AF

[00:20:58] Amy: it has performs

[00:21:02] David: citation needed.

[00:21:05] Amy: Classic Wiki. Yeah. I love how, like the definition of it. It's like fewer individuals more share.

Great. Great. Just what we love.

[00:21:17] David: I do like that. They lead the definition with basically this is bad for competition, saying it without saying it, if there's one player in the market, it's obviously very easy to win. You don't have to do any, you can literally do anything and you win.

Some, someone gets good. It makes sense to overpay for them when they're young than it does to let them grow and become. So there's a lot of anti competitive behaviors and media, and that there's the reason this Wikipedia article exists. It's a, it's enough of a thing that like, all right, let's look about how this affects competition.

What do you guys think? Are there solutions or is this just how capitalism works? And it's once there's a price that they want to sell their company for, they just do it. And the consumer lives with the. Let me defend Gabbert coming in hot and

[00:22:06] Utsav: most one that is absolute complication that is more content creation off radio on.

I should have. I'd like meters wide behalf that deregulation coming into. But yeah, the real world is neither purely capitalistic or nodded, neither is it communistic our social mistake by whatever you like. so I guess like VR, like that's my defense of capitalism. Let's

[00:22:35] Amy: I don't know if we have a communism specialist in house right now.

[00:22:40] David: Yeah, I think it community manager, right? The manager, the new communist

going by your definition of defending the capitalist market there. Okay. Here's the problem. If I, if we go to play a poker game and I have a million dollars and you have $10, I don't need better cards. I just don't need better cards. The blinds will get yet. You'll have to play. I can just make you go all in.

20 times in a row. And by the end of it, I have all of your money, so that's what these conglomerates are. They don't need a better product. They can just come in, buy the existing product and then let it die out or let it grow. Or and I like capitalism. I'm just saying this I didn't quite buy the comparison there.

[00:23:25] Utsav: Okay. Let's look at it.

[00:23:29] Amy: I was just going to ask David Lee as a owner of a media publishing company, if you were to be offered by Disney would you sell out or are we continuing the dream of disrupting the internet forever until we took

[00:23:48] David: over Disney? My first question to wall would be how did you cryogenically freeze your body?

And if you're offering to buy my company and you're not letting me meet Walt, I'm not in on the secret yet. I'm not in the compartment and your money is more of a

[00:24:04] Amy: check down.

[00:24:06] David: Yeah. I'm looking for someone to come in hot with some real secrets of the world. I don't even, it's those insights that I need.

How does this thing actually?

[00:24:14] Amy: Oh, that's what you're interested in. More so than the money we need. So secrets to life. Okay. I'm here for.

[00:24:23] David: Okay. Max media pluralism, the concentration of media ownership is commonly regarded as one of the crucial aspects. Reducing media pluralism. I highly concentrated. A high concentration of the media market increases the chances to reduce the plurality of political, cultural and social points of view. Even if ownership of media is one of the main concerns when it comes to assessing pluralism, the concept is broader as it touches many accents for merger control rules, to editorial freedom, the status of public service broadcasters, the working conditions of journalists, the relationships between media and politics.

So essentially, do you have free speech? Does your publication have free speech? There's no I don't think there is such thing as true. True free. It's you can say whatever you want, but there will be consequences to all of it

if anyone's listening, which if they're not there's consequences to that too. I really like going insane talking to yourself on the internet.

[00:25:29] Utsav: Yeah. It's a nice light concept about brutalism. And then they like in the second product last it has back to for demand. It's turn off. The word might be for dementia, but I can see this challenge just to make sense.

The government's we need to have more competition, like bag, I guess every side of the eye agrees upon. It's more like

which I guess makes all the difference.

[00:26:06] David: Yeah. Where are you guys getting your news lately?

[00:26:08] Amy: I get my news from Instagram, like a proper millennial

[00:26:13] David: and.

[00:26:14] Amy: Sorry, let me clarify. I only get my news from hacker news, Instagram account.

[00:26:21] David: You're going to say four Chan.

[00:26:22] Amy: No, and also. In Canada, they have these sign like media signs everywhere that have news on them like from global news or whatever the source is. But when you go into the elevators and stuff or you're just like walking around sometimes they'll get, pick up headlines from that as well.

[00:26:43] Utsav: Nice to have a joke about it, but I will let it

[00:26:48] Amy: great. Where are you picking up your news in India?

[00:26:53] Utsav: So I get my news like primarily from Twitter and if it is like something that I really want to know about, I tried to find some tart leader on that and say, Hey, do you want to be on the academic podcast?

They usually agree. I might talk to them about what I want to know about, and that helps. Like these automated domain specific

[00:27:13] David: information. I note I'm totally for anyone creating a podcast just to meet the people they want to meet. It's works. It's a good way to do it. If you're considering it, I highly recommend going for it.

Yeah.

[00:27:28] Utsav: And these are like what I would call domain specific news, like related to blockchain or crypto or whatnot, different. See general news about politics. I just zoned out of it on two days ago, I don't get any problems and South Sudan like gonna be politically incorrect, but right now I don't care.

[00:27:50] David: Okay. You only had 10 minutes to read the daily news. Would you pick 50 headlines or the one top story of the day? Ooh, 50 headlines.

[00:28:03] Utsav: It would be 50 headlines for me as

[00:28:05] David: well. Fun in practice. It's 50 headlines for everybody. So there's no one reads any stories,

[00:28:13] Amy: geriatrician. Yes. As I'm only picking up the headlines from the TV.

[00:28:20] David: All right. Let's get to a full story here on the site. Hacker noon.com. Ooh. It's called how to explain NFTs to people who think they're just JPEGs. Feature image note. No, and NFT is not a JPEG, but is it

all right? I will read here as an expert. A common error that people make when trying to explain F a F N NFTs to those outside the trading spaces that they fall, that they failed to elaborate on. What an NFT actually is. I did that actually voiced to that's my Italian. Actually you've likely heard them equated to digital baseball cards, which while that isn't a terrible argument to make while discussing the hobby of collecting NFTs, it fails to make clear what the differences between purchasing one and just having a JPEG, saving a JPEG, a non fungible token is exactly that.

Similar to a Bitcoin token or an Ethereum token, and NFT is completely impossible to duplicate these tokens. However, come tethered to external media, such as JPEG tickets, documentation itself. The important point they're trying to make the media itself is not the NFT. And that is something that most people seem to miss now, but someone who has posted many memes comparing the JPEG and the NFT.

And yourself,

[00:29:48] Utsav: right? So the way I say it, like I have this very wonderful, like video by Gary Vaynerchuk, who, what he said was that you might think that NFP that does the bags, but imagine the value that a Twitter blue check mark has or ask like for those. On hacker noon, the verified by the accounts that you have all that verified by the check marks that you have it in front of your profile victim, that has an intangible benefit.

Just because the story is by a verified writer, you take it more seriously. And on MSP, it's like that when you whore something that probably is not. And the physical sense of how to use a baseball or baseball card, but it makes a lot of sense for people who understand the value that verified check not has.

So that is like in defense of the people who say that. And if these are not two banks, but if you ask me personally and their fees are just JPEGs plain, they aren't anything more than that. Yes, they are our token of Scott's. Oh, on a very technical level, you cannot call a Bitcoin a token. It's a coin.

Like we make this different is based on a blockchain. A Bitcoin is a coin. It, PDM is a coin and all of the others are like what you would call token. So it's not apples to oranges comparison, but yeah. It goes both ways. There was this meme safe, like people with IQ was under like 50.

They say that the NSPs are just deep. And then people with IQ is from 51 to let's say one 30. They say

And then at the other end people where IQ is over one 30, even that NFP NSPs identity.

like different things with it. So yeah, we live in I could never understand why people pay thousands of dollars for a comic book to Harvard and what God meant condition. If you aren't reading it, why are you collecting it? The way I see it, but yeah, like the bypass.

[00:32:07] Amy: So you see it really more as a collectors item than a token, like a blockchain token.

[00:32:14] Utsav: Yeah. It doesn't have to be a blockchain token. It's more of it or there's a thing, but it's more like now I make it a transparent. Now I make a de-centralized and there are questions that are bad as the return. I don't think that we should go into, but if you are a pre. We were so at the coming up with this podcast series called Amy laws to crypto and we'll go all over with it.

[00:32:38] Amy: My favorite NFT JPEG me is the one that's like, why do men want to trade JPEGs instead of investing in women own businesses?

It's true though. And it's so funny.

[00:33:05] David: Yeah.

[00:33:06] Utsav: Like the lean closer to what I like red was like, when would read like word literally by make believe JPEGs and start getting therapy.

[00:33:19] Amy: Why are you buying a PNG?

[00:33:26] David: It's an investment it's worth now, and it'll be worth that much later. Make sense? I saw them metallic talking about it of the most surprising uses of the blockchain that actually work. And he brought up an NFTs was the first thing he hopped to. I'm just not anticipating this to be a valid.

And I actually I think it's going to pass the test of time as a controlling reprints. I think it really is a good who printed it first, who printed it when it does this technology trust that this is the seventh one or the first one or the 45th one. I think this technology actually works for that.

It's just how many types of goods do we need? 50 reprints of and do we need 50 different owners? So it's it makes a lot of sense for celebs. It makes a lot of sense for those guys, but if you're not a celebrity, do you think 50 people are going to want to hold a JPEG, prove that they're the 50th JPEG print of your design?

Like your design better be good. That better be a good image that 50 other people want to cause it's 50 people up to hold it. And then just like 500 people want to have to bid on it so that the 50 people could sell it at some point and keep the value going.

[00:34:36] Amy: David, I need a magical unicorn number seven.

[00:34:40] David: It's true. It's true. And that means that these $69 million bids and a hundred billion dollar bids of the asset, because there are millions of people that saying, I want the first one. My daughter wants to go to school first. It doesn't matter if she's first. No, but it's the thing to her. It matters.

It's like winning that moment. And at the sun level venture capitals or investors are a little bit like children collecting rocks on the playground, and that's, if you have a rock that the other three one, and they have rocks that they think are worse, they're going to try and get the better rock.

So this proves that the rock is slightly better. Cause it was printed first by someone who is, a better printer. Yeah,

[00:35:21] Amy: or who was just first it to get there.

[00:35:27] Utsav: When people say that I cleave from NFPS or some art pieces, I used for money laundering. I had 69

[00:35:37] David: million, I would say that's not new to NFTs has always been like a way you could just put any number in there and you could move the money. And they're like, trust me, it's worth it. Someone else was bidding one less, the other money launder.

So I think, NFTs maybe. Made it a little easier, just like Bitcoin made it easier for silk road and drugs to sell and all that. But I think money and art laundering have been connected as long as people have been paying large sums of money for art. Exactly.

[00:36:07] Utsav: And the point is that Bitcoin was already very anonymous.

And now when you buy a nest piece, you think Bitcoin, like it's laundering on a second layer, like a layer, two money laundering. If you block.

[00:36:30] Amy: After Amy learns crypto, I will

[00:36:33] Utsav: like first, before, like layer to blockchain. And you will find like what that joke was about. So basically like death, the blockchain, and then all of these ICO's like they are called, they are tools. So this, these transactions. All of them like mildew money, learn that.

[00:36:52] David: Alright. PC Mag's definition, a blockchain that confirms transactions faster than a major blockchain network layer. Two chains are often designed to handle small transactions with lower fees. So they're really going on the practice side as the definition and not be. I guess money raising side,

[00:37:11] Utsav: the fourth light has drawn.

The second one is right now by that actor.

[00:37:18] David: So the first line, yeah. Why would it be faster as the defining characteristic of the second layer? That's untrue. This is the number one hit for the definition in Google. All right. Sentence to which we believe to be correct is layer two change are often designed to handle small transactions, micropayments with lower fees or no fees as well as to reduce traffic on the main network.

You could say lower fees, no fees, or they've built a community of people willing to pay higher fees. That's probably actually the most popular layer two solution, because then they can pay the feet of the main blockchain and then come to the other side and have a higher fee for their community to do whatever they're doing.

Oh sweet. I was on here for 15 seconds. I got the overlay for my free copy of the digital. All I have to do is enter my email to continue reading, sell your soul. Here's where the X button for the browser is, guys.

All right. Do we have any favorite products in your daily lives that you would like to give a shout out to.

[00:38:23] Amy: Okay. So I've been on a little bit of a shopping spree for my tech because hello everybody, I will be traveling for the next few months and podcasting abroad. So I have invested in some traveling and podcast stuff, and I have decided that I'm going to corner the market on being. Abroad podcaster. So watch out world, I'm going to do all of these guides and different tech reviews and things like that for people who want to podcast abroad.

[00:38:52] David: Huh. Cool. I think you should definitely take your equipment onto the streets and see who's willing to talk to you, right? That's a

[00:39:00] Amy: great idea. Okay.

[00:39:05] Utsav: Nice. Oh. Okay, I can go next. Like I have a special shout out for all of these 2000 to 5,000 to be nominees of the new knees, like best letters. I love you guys and hopefully at least 200 off your way, I'll be able to have special prices for all of you.

So shout out to all of you guys. You might not know who you are, but

[00:39:30] David: and you will at return of the new knees. Which is our annual voting for stuff like top tech, YouTuber and software testing writer of the year blogger

[00:39:45] Amy: of the air.

[00:39:45] David: My, I don't know if I have any shout outs of the week, I guess I would say we had our first snow here in Colorado.

And I will show you my shovel The shovel. I forget what it's called. I bought it on Amazon. And now it's available at every Walmart in America. So I got it like two years ago. And the main point of this device is it has a second handle at the top back. Yeah. It's way easier on your back. I can probably shovel twice as my own twice the amount of snow with it, or okay.

More than this company blew up and they were basically Amazon exclusive and then they went through Walmart and every. And this little second lever on the shovel is this is like this it's hundreds of millions of dollars, this little thing right here,

[00:40:37] Amy: as long as laughing, but like you have clearly never had to shovel snow.

Like you probably never had to shovel snow.

[00:40:45] David: I will say the global warming situation may not be great until the well

[00:40:49] Amy: that's true. That's true. Maybe back

[00:40:52] David: into the company, the second handle. I don't know how effective their patents. I be like, can you really walk anyone else from putting a second handle on a shovel?

Unless it's by a snow, Joe, I guess is the company. So that's my physical product of the week. All right. I'm here overlap my digital product of the week. I don't have one right now. I don't want to sell it. I don't know. I have one. I don't want to say it. It's how I've been reading. I'll preview it for anyone that makes it to this point in the YouTube video and an idiot.

It's the way to access our whole library. Anyway, I don't want to say too much. I've already said too much. All right, guys, should we head out and get back to work and type in what have you, did we record. Yeah.

[00:41:39] Amy: Yeah, we did

[00:41:41] David: wait. Alright. This has been the hacker noon podcast. I'm the founder, David Smooke with our podcast hosts, Amy, Tom, and our VP business development and blockchain editor slash retired dentists.

Let's have let's all. Give everyone Amy, a big safe travels and follow hacker noon on the internet.

[00:42:08] Amy: Yes, goodbye.