Aaron Francis

Ian and Aaron go in-depth Aaron's highly anticipated arrival on Bluesky - what's good, what's bad, and why he doesn't like when people tell him he's using it wrong. Plus an update on ads, a big garage idea, and more. Sponsored by LaraJobs, Screencasting.com, Mailtrap, and Mailcoach. Use code MOSTLYTECHNICAL to get 3 free months when signing up for Mailcoach. Interested in sponsoring Mostly Technical? Head to https://mostlytechnical.com/sponsor to learn more. 00:00 Time Was Infinite 08:54 The Blue Ocean of Bluesky 44:44 Early Movers 01:04:42 Texas Basement Boys 01:25:02 A Different Idea For Ads

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Transcript

Ian

00:00:00 – 00:00:00

Hello?

Aaron

00:00:01 – 00:00:06

Hello. You're already smiling. What what's what I don't even wanna know. What what is it?

Ian

00:00:06 – 00:00:09

You just got a smile on my face. I just look at you there

Aaron

00:00:10 – 00:00:10

Sure.

Ian

00:00:10 – 00:00:13

Across the Internet. It's just Yeah. Just glory.

Aaron

00:00:13 – 00:00:16

That's that's gotta be it. What is it really, though?

Ian

00:00:16 – 00:00:17

What a great pod.

Aaron

00:00:17 – 00:00:18

What a

Ian

00:00:18 – 00:00:21

great time. Bad gallbladders out.

Aaron

00:00:21 – 00:00:25

Everything's You're making me nervous, Ian. It's giving me nervous energy.

Ian

00:00:27 – 00:00:28

Too much happiness? Too much,

Aaron

00:00:28 – 00:00:33

too much. Happiness. It's it's out of character. I don't love it. What what's what's on your mind?

Ian

00:00:34 – 00:00:41

I don't know. How many thing really? I don't know. I'm gonna create I do. I went and played a glorious, glorious poker session on Friday.

Ian

00:00:41 – 00:00:46

Fabulous. And I was thinking we gotta get you playing poker, man. We gotta get you playing poker.

Aaron

00:00:47 – 00:00:54

I I was briefly, for maybe a year or so, part of a monthly house game and played some poker.

Ian

00:00:54 – 00:00:56

There you go. So you know the rules.

Aaron

00:00:56 – 00:01:07

I know the rules. It's a lot of fun. There are there's a lot of culture around it that I don't I don't I don't quite get. It's like the best part. In the house.

Aaron

00:01:07 – 00:01:28

These guys are talking about, like, limping in and doing bets and hot odds and all this stuff, and I'm like, y'all, this is I'm just kinda here to eat the pizza and lose $50. So, it's it's it's fun, though. I think, given given time so that's that what's out, you know, so it's not gonna

Ian

00:01:28 – 00:01:29

happen. I believe we're done.

Aaron

00:01:29 – 00:01:33

Yeah. Given time, I think being really into poker would be a lot of fun.

Ian

00:01:33 – 00:01:34

Yeah. There you go.

Aaron

00:01:34 – 00:01:43

This, you know, this may shock you. I think I'm smarter than a lot of people, and I think Yeah. I think I can take their money. I could use that to my advantage, which is always a master. You know?

Ian

00:01:43 – 00:01:50

And it's like the purest form of that. You know? It's not, like, abstracted through products and all this value creation. It's like No. No.

Ian

00:01:50 – 00:01:56

No. No. No. You verse me, man mano a mano. We're we're seeing who's better at this.

Aaron

00:01:56 – 00:01:58

Yep. One of us

Ian

00:01:58 – 00:02:00

walks away to the chest. Gotta get some

Aaron

00:02:00 – 00:02:02

win? How much did you make?

Ian

00:02:02 – 00:02:06

I won, $4,700.

Aaron

00:02:06 – 00:02:06

Woah.

Ian

00:02:07 – 00:02:08

Yeah. It's a nice little run.

Aaron

00:02:08 – 00:02:09

That's amazing.

Ian

00:02:09 – 00:02:10

Yeah.

Aaron

00:02:10 – 00:02:11

That's a lot of money.

Ian

00:02:11 – 00:02:15

Hot limit Omaha, which is probably not the version of poker you played, but No.

Aaron

00:02:15 – 00:02:19

Legally, you're only allowed you're only allowed to play Texas Hold'em down here.

Ian

00:02:20 – 00:02:21

In Texas. That's true.

Aaron

00:02:21 – 00:02:21

That's right.

Ian

00:02:21 – 00:02:29

They like the PLO in Texas. It's my understanding that I haven't played there. Hold them is good. I like hold them. The competition's a little stiffer nowadays.

Ian

00:02:29 – 00:02:37

People have the tools are better. People are more trained. But, yeah. Sorry. But, yeah, I don't like home games.

Ian

00:02:37 – 00:02:45

I don't trust home games. Like, what you're talking about is like just friends playing. I believe it sounds like that's like a whole that's fine. Like, whatever that was what it is.

Aaron

00:02:46 – 00:02:47

You don't trust an underground game.

Ian

00:02:47 – 00:02:57

Yeah. I don't trust the underground game. Like, if I'm going to play poker for any real amount of money in a casino or with card room in Texas or something like that, got security, got cable. You don't wanna

Aaron

00:02:57 – 00:02:59

get you don't wanna get your knees broken. You know?

Ian

00:02:59 – 00:03:09

Oh, everybody knows where those home games are. There's just people waiting. And then plus the you're gonna get scammed. That's the other thing. Like like, the scamming, it's too irresistible.

Ian

00:03:09 – 00:03:18

There's a lot of money there. Dealer's gonna be scamming you. The shit runner's gonna be scamming you. Both of them are gonna be scamming you. I don't wanna be I don't wanna get scammed.

Aaron

00:03:18 – 00:03:20

I hate getting scammed. It's one of my least favorite things getting scammed.

Ian

00:03:20 – 00:03:22

I don't mind doing the scamming, but I don't wanna

Aaron

00:03:22 – 00:03:25

I was doing a scam. Selling some oregano as weed. That's a good scam.

Ian

00:03:25 – 00:03:27

Oh, yes. Exactly.

Aaron

00:03:27 – 00:03:30

I'm not I'm not getting scammed. Get out of here. No way. Exactly.

Ian

00:03:30 – 00:03:34

So, anyway, you gotta learn to play poker. That's on our list. Maybe for retirement

Aaron

00:03:34 – 00:03:36

For retirement. That sounds great.

Ian

00:03:36 – 00:03:43

Fabulously wealthy. This is what I always tell Jamie. I'm like, retirement. I'm cruising on poker with the four one k, all that stuff. That's there.

Ian

00:03:44 – 00:03:45

Poker bankroll.

Aaron

00:03:45 – 00:03:58

That sound that sounds great. I realized I realized this, this weekend that many of the things almost all of the things that I want to do require time or money, and I don't feel like I have enough of either of them.

Ian

00:03:58 – 00:03:59

Look at you hitting the wage.

Aaron

00:04:00 – 00:04:05

You're hitting the wage. I hate it. I hate it. It's awful. It's so bad.

Ian

00:04:05 – 00:04:12

Yep. Yeah. I don't have any advice for you on that one. That's just like, yeah, it's just hitting you now. You're like, oh, shit.

Ian

00:04:12 – 00:04:13

Time is not infinite.

Aaron

00:04:13 – 00:04:18

You thought it was infinite. To be infinite. It used to be infinite. No. You're not.

Aaron

00:04:18 – 00:04:30

To be man, when Jennifer and I first got married, we would wake up on a Saturday at, like, 10AM. Mhmm. We would, like like, wander out of the bedroom and get a Keurig coffee

Ian

00:04:30 – 00:04:31

Oh, man.

Aaron

00:04:31 – 00:04:33

And then watch Shark Tank for, like, an hour.

Ian

00:04:34 – 00:04:34

Shark Tank.

Aaron

00:04:34 – 00:04:46

Yeah. And then probably catch an episode of, like, Brooklyn nine nine or The Office or something. And then it's 12:15, twelve thirty. We're still in our pj's. We're like, so what are you gonna what what do we wanna do today?

Ian

00:04:46 – 00:04:47

You're already bored.

Aaron

00:04:47 – 00:04:47

Yeah. I don't know.

Ian

00:04:47 – 00:04:49

You have so little to do. You're bored.

Aaron

00:04:49 – 00:04:50

So When's

Ian

00:04:50 – 00:04:51

the last time you were bored?

Aaron

00:04:51 – 00:05:08

Oh, I haven't been bored in years. So many years. Yep. And I look back on that, and I think, man, time was infinite. We would go to Papa Murphy's, grab a drive through Zaa, come home, throw it in the oven, watch a movie or two at night.

Ian

00:05:08 – 00:05:08

Oh. And,

Aaron

00:05:08 – 00:05:11

it's the freaking best. It's unbelievable.

Ian

00:05:11 – 00:05:15

I don't know what Papa Murphy's is, and I don't know what the Zah is, but it doesn't even matter. I didn't want you explaining it.

Aaron

00:05:16 – 00:05:18

Matter. You understand directionally. Yeah.

Ian

00:05:18 – 00:05:29

I understand the vibe. Yeah. Me and Jimmy, we had this favorite restaurant right, actually, down the street from where my office is, and we would go there. And we wouldn't even go there till nine, which is just in plan.

Aaron

00:05:29 – 00:05:31

Can you imagine? I was in bed last night at 08:00.

Ian

00:05:33 – 00:05:40

And then we would just have a two and a half hour dinner. We'd have all the courses. We'd have two bottles of wine. We're just hanging out. It's great.

Ian

00:05:40 – 00:05:45

We're everybody knows us. The waitress loves us. The whole thing.

Aaron

00:05:45 – 00:05:46

The whole thing.

Ian

00:05:46 – 00:05:48

We we were just mayors of this little restaurant.

Aaron

00:05:48 – 00:05:53

You know what restaurant I'm the mayor of? The breakfast place where I take my kids on Saturday night.

Ian

00:05:53 – 00:05:54

Taco place. Exactly.

Aaron

00:05:55 – 00:06:12

Yep. We go and we get these this terrible coffee and these little waffles, and the waitresses all know the kids by name. And it's it's great. It's adorable, but it's not it's not going out at 09:00 and having two bottles of wine. It's going out at 07:30 on a Saturday morning.

Aaron

00:06:13 – 00:06:21

And the only other people there are parents or old people who just got done running. There's just, like, all these runners clubs for 60 and up, apparently.

Ian

00:06:21 – 00:06:22

Interesting.

Aaron

00:06:22 – 00:06:31

Yeah. So it's me and all the babies and old runners that are all sweaty. It's like, that's it. That's the only people that are up on a Saturday morning at 07:30 going to a restaurant.

Ian

00:06:31 – 00:06:44

I tell you, I miss, so I gave up the coffee, like, twelve years ago or something like that. I think we touched on that here before, but and I don't miss the poofy coffee, whatever. It's nice. I don't care. I do miss when you're at just, like, a sleazy diner y kind of place.

Ian

00:06:44 – 00:06:54

Yeah. Just that cup of drudge, like, just gross filthy coffee. Like, that stuff that burns a hole in your stomach. It's kinda like

Aaron

00:06:54 – 00:06:58

a sourdough starter. The pot never empties. They just keep putting new stuff on top of it and mixing it up.

Ian

00:06:59 – 00:07:00

Been cleaned. Right? Like, there's still

Aaron

00:07:00 – 00:07:06

a million been emptied. It's just yesterday's plus today's forevermore. Burnt. It's

Ian

00:07:06 – 00:07:11

just like if somebody didn't order coffee for a while, they're not, like, dumping it and making a new one. It's just they're cooking.

Aaron

00:07:11 – 00:07:14

No. No. That's the charm. Densey. That's right.

Ian

00:07:14 – 00:07:20

Yeah. So I do sort of miss the that vibe of that is one of the few coffee experiences I do.

Aaron

00:07:20 – 00:07:31

I'm surprised you missed that and not when you said sleazy, I thought you were gonna say sleepy. Going to, like, a sleepy little coffee shop and getting a little, like, you know, just a little cappuccino or something small

Ian

00:07:31 – 00:07:32

and hot

Aaron

00:07:32 – 00:07:39

with a little bit of foam and just sitting there and thinking about life and how time is passing. Uh-oh. Whoops. Oh, pull back. Time is passing.

Aaron

00:07:39 – 00:07:45

Let me go there. But that that sounds fun. Right? Yeah. A little coffee shop with a book or

Ian

00:07:45 – 00:07:45

a I used to

Aaron

00:07:45 – 00:07:47

do that. Documentation for a database

Ian

00:07:47 – 00:07:52

or something. You know? Yeah. But, see, I can still do that. Like, I still occasionally will do that.

Ian

00:07:52 – 00:07:54

It's like, whatever. They have alternatives. I'll have my

Aaron

00:07:54 – 00:07:55

tea. I'll

Ian

00:07:55 – 00:08:05

have a steamer. So I really want that, like, milky thing. It's not the same as a nice latte or, cappuccino, I I must admit. But

Aaron

00:08:05 – 00:08:13

I, you know, I used to get a lot of steamers when I was in tenth grade. We'd go to Starbucks, and I was like, oh, coffee's terrible. You know what's great?

Ian

00:08:13 – 00:08:13

Give me the sugar.

Aaron

00:08:13 – 00:08:18

Or gingerbread steamer. Right. Just like candy. It's just warm candy milk. It was great.

Ian

00:08:19 – 00:08:21

82 grams of sugar in this little thing. Yeah. That's what I want.

Aaron

00:08:21 – 00:08:29

Also before I had diabetes. So, yeah, that checks out. Yeah. Life was a lot easier back then. Times of time and no diabetes.

Aaron

00:08:29 – 00:08:32

Wow. We gotta talk about something else. What's going on?

Ian

00:08:32 – 00:08:55

This episode is sponsored by Mailtrap, an email delivery platform that developers love. An email sending solution with industry best analytics, SMTP, and email API, along with SDKs for major programming languages, and twenty four seven human support. Try it for free at mailtrap.io. Let's talk about something wonderful with the world.

Aaron

00:08:55 – 00:08:57

Oh, okay. Yeah.

Ian

00:08:57 – 00:08:59

The big guy over here

Aaron

00:08:59 – 00:08:59

Yeah.

Ian

00:08:59 – 00:09:01

Made his way to blue sky.

Aaron

00:09:01 – 00:09:02

I did.

Ian

00:09:02 – 00:09:07

Blue ocean, a blue sky where everything's new and wonderful and fabulous. You're there.

Aaron

00:09:07 – 00:09:07

Yes.

Ian

00:09:08 – 00:09:15

You're you're a little cynical on it. You always say you're not cynical. You're a little cynical on the blue sky. I still see it. It seeps through your tweets, which I still call them tweets.

Aaron

00:09:15 – 00:09:17

They're definitely tweets.

Ian

00:09:17 – 00:09:19

Yeah. So what's going on?

Aaron

00:09:20 – 00:09:24

Alright. I got a lot of thoughts. Okay. I joined the blue sky. I'm not cynical.

Aaron

00:09:24 – 00:09:27

I am not enjoying it very much. I will say that.

Ian

00:09:27 – 00:09:28

That that

Aaron

00:09:28 – 00:09:28

is not

Ian

00:09:28 – 00:09:29

what I'm saying.

Aaron

00:09:29 – 00:09:38

Interesting. So I said all along, if it's still around post Thanksgiving, I would join. Black Friday hits still a thing I joined. Man of my word.

Ian

00:09:38 – 00:09:39

Man of your word. Yes.

Aaron

00:09:39 – 00:09:52

Man of my word. Frankly, I didn't think it was gonna last, and so I thought I was in the clear. Right? So I thought, I'll just I'll just put it off until it goes away, which is what I do with most things. Just put it off till it goes away.

Aaron

00:09:52 – 00:10:03

That's why I haven't ever learned Docker or Angular or any of these other things. I'm hoping to wait out React until it dies. Same with TypeScript. Just put it off. It'll go away eventually.

Aaron

00:10:03 – 00:10:16

Yep. That didn't work out so well this time. It's still around. So Friday morning, I, you know, I fired up the old laptop browser, logged in, found out I already had an account, which is nice. So I tried to sign up.

Ian

00:10:16 – 00:10:17

Yes. I saw that.

Aaron

00:10:17 – 00:10:18

You joined it. Like, hey. You already have

Ian

00:10:18 – 00:10:18

an account.

Aaron

00:10:18 – 00:10:31

I was like, oh, I wonder what that's all about. And I was, Aaron f dot whatever, beast guy dot social. So I I must have gone in early to, like, claim my, username and then never came back.

Ian

00:10:31 – 00:10:31

Yeah.

Aaron

00:10:31 – 00:10:58

And so I got this nice, you know, this nice little bit of lore or aura that I have this blue sky elder badge despite being notable holdout, which is kinda fun. Accidental, but we'll pretend it's on purpose. So, just, like, just a few thoughts and then and then we can riff. One is, I am trying to use the platform, and there there are just a lot it's like a it's an early platform. Right?

Aaron

00:10:58 – 00:11:12

And so there are a lot of things that aren't quite there yet, which is totally fine. I get that. When asking how to use the platform, I'm getting a lot of you're doing it wrong. Like, don't do it that way. Why are you doing it that way?

Aaron

00:11:12 – 00:11:21

You shouldn't want to do that. Don't super love that. Don't, yeah, don't, like, don't really appreciate coming in and be like, hey, guys. I'm here. How do I do this?

Aaron

00:11:21 – 00:11:33

And everybody would be like, You're here. You're doing it wrong. And so, like, you know, I joined and some people were like, I see you finally caved. And I'm like, that's a fun way to welcome someone to a party. Like, hey.

Aaron

00:11:33 – 00:11:38

Come to the party. Come to the party. Come to the party. And you get there and be like, you're an idiot. Why'd you come to the party?

Aaron

00:11:38 – 00:11:42

Like, okay. I thought you wanted me to come to the party.

Ian

00:11:42 – 00:11:42

So Right.

Aaron

00:11:43 – 00:11:51

Don't super love that. You know, the the one the one that kinda just, like, got away from us was I was trying to figure out how to mute a bunch of people. Right?

Ian

00:11:51 – 00:11:51

Mhmm.

Aaron

00:11:51 – 00:12:10

Yeah. Because that's a key strategy of mine, is muting a bunch of people about whom or people that I don't care about. Primarily, federal politicians or state governors. I have zero interest in what they have to say on a social media platform. If I want news, I will go elsewhere.

Aaron

00:12:10 – 00:12:24

I rarely want news. Also, professional sports teams and, like, ESPN and all their affiliates because, you know, despite, like, not following those teams, a lot of people like to retweet or

Ian

00:12:25 – 00:12:25

Mhmm.

Aaron

00:12:25 – 00:12:44

Re re sky, a lot of that kind of content. I'm like, I just I don't I don't ever want to see it, and that felt like a safe place and a safe thing to say out loud. I wanna mute these people without saying who I, you know, who else I want to mute and accidentally getting dragged. And everybody's like, don't use Discover. Why would you ever use Discover?

Aaron

00:12:44 – 00:12:53

Nobody uses Discover. And I'm like, okay. That's fine. I want to use Discover. That's my favorite thing about Twitter is the for you tab.

Aaron

00:12:53 – 00:12:56

I absolutely I know. I've never even

Ian

00:12:56 – 00:12:59

heard anybody say that. I've I've I know. Being totally honest here. That's why.

Aaron

00:13:00 – 00:13:04

Love it. It's a serendipity machine. Yeah. I just absolutely

Ian

00:13:04 – 00:13:05

love it. Something.

Aaron

00:13:05 – 00:13:12

Sure. It is. It is. And so I'm coming I'm coming over to this, Twitter clone. Let's be frank.

Aaron

00:13:12 – 00:13:25

It's a Twitter clone, and there's a discover tab, and I'm like, great. Let's try to make this. Let's try to put in a good faith effort and make this what I want it to be. Yeah. And I'm just getting, like, lambasted for trying to use the product as it is presented.

Aaron

00:13:26 – 00:13:47

Mhmm. And so don't super love that. I think it is I think it is objectively a better product. I think if Twitter had adopted even half of these things, nobody would have really left even with all of the the Elon backlash. I think they just totally fumbled the bag on that one.

Aaron

00:13:48 – 00:13:56

So I think it's objectively a better product. That being said, I don't think it's gonna win. I think it's gonna I still think it's gonna die out. I think

Ian

00:13:56 – 00:13:57

Interesting. I

Aaron

00:13:57 – 00:14:08

think I am, relatively smart. I am average or above average intelligence, and I'm having a hard time figuring out how to use this thing.

Ian

00:14:08 – 00:14:08

Interesting.

Aaron

00:14:08 – 00:14:29

It's like there are there are feeds. There are labelers. There are starter packs. There are moderation lists, which are different than label or different than starter packs, which is frustrating because some people will make, like, a starter pack that's like, I saw one that was like, loud Democrats ready to take back our country's starter pack. And I was like, oh, that's a good one to mute.

Aaron

00:14:29 – 00:14:36

I wanna mute all of the people who identify as loud political advocates on either side of the aisle.

Ian

00:14:36 – 00:14:36

That's right.

Aaron

00:14:36 – 00:14:49

Because loud and political is is, like, the thing I don't want in my feed. Right. And you can't mute a starter pack. You can only follow a starter pack. And so you have to, like, use these external tools to convert a starter pack into a moderation list and then mute the moderation list.

Aaron

00:14:49 – 00:15:05

And I'm like, this feels weird, doesn't it? So some of these are, like, maybe, rough edges as they're building it out. So I don't think it'll win because I don't anticipate normies, like, finding it terribly easy to onboard. That's that's one thing.

Ian

00:15:05 – 00:15:06

Yeah.

Aaron

00:15:06 – 00:15:28

And then and then finally, may maybe finally, I think so you hear a lot of this conversation of, like, oh, it's just more fun over there. It's just so much more fun over there. And so then you go over there, and the stuff that people are posting, like, let's just constrain it down to our circle. The stuff that people are posting is just it's just more fun to them, more fun stuff. Right.

Aaron

00:15:28 – 00:15:37

And my question is, like, alright. Justin Jackson, for example. You're posting on Blue Sky, how much peanut butter do you eat? Right. Right?

Aaron

00:15:37 – 00:15:41

That kind of content could be posted on Twitter, and you could have fun over there.

Ian

00:15:42 – 00:15:42

Mhmm.

Aaron

00:15:42 – 00:16:12

And so that's the thing where I'm like, is it more fun over here, or are you just being more fun over here? Right? And I think what has happened, I think, I think what has happened is when Twitter introduced the, views statistic, it just gave everybody anxiety all the time. Yeah. And so Justin, let's say, he's got 40 something thousand followers on Twitter, and he goes on Twitter and he posts how much peanut butter are you eating, and he gets a thousand views.

Aaron

00:16:12 – 00:16:21

That is probably not great. That feels depressing. Mhmm. Right? So he's over on Blue Sky, and he has no idea how many views an individual tweet gets.

Aaron

00:16:21 – 00:16:43

And he posts how much peanut butter are you eating in, like, fifteen, thirty people reply. And he's like, this is great. I'm having so much fun. But it that could have happened on Twitter as well. And so you see a lot of these, like, Justin in particular Justin in particular has done these, like, AB tests where he'll post the same thing across a bunch of different platforms.

Aaron

00:16:43 – 00:17:10

Yeah. And the actual engagement seems about, you know, seems about the same, but the view like, it's always compared against so I have this many followers on Twitter, and it got this many, views on Twitter or this many even this many replies. It should be more based on how many followers I have. And I think that is, like, I think that is what's, introduced anxiety in a lot of people. It's like, oh, the platform's dying.

Aaron

00:17:10 – 00:17:22

I've got 40,000 followers, and I get a thousand views. And I just don't think, like, I don't think that that matters very much. I think introducing views was a huge a huge disaster for Twitter as a platform.

Ian

00:17:22 – 00:17:46

I don't know about the views part. I mean, all those every comparison I've seen that praise anybody's done, it's like the likes and the replies are almost always significantly higher on blue sky just as a ratio. Now, obviously, we all know that, like, the Twitter number of followers is, like, totally artificial, like, because of, you know, whatever. You've been on there fifteen years, and lots of people were just gone even before Elon and lots more of less since. Mhmm.

Ian

00:17:46 – 00:17:52

So, like, the number of real followers you have is way less than the number that that says in that screen there. But

Aaron

00:17:52 – 00:17:53

Mhmm.

Ian

00:17:53 – 00:18:06

Yeah. I don't know. I mean, I think the more fun part is though to me is a more that's a a little more subtle than that because it's, like, the main use case like, I agree with you. You could post about peanut butter in both places. Right?

Ian

00:18:06 – 00:18:08

Mhmm. But the main use case was like

Aaron

00:18:08 – 00:18:12

just pause and say, what a wild question. Where did that come from?

Ian

00:18:12 – 00:18:14

I love peanut butter.

Aaron

00:18:14 – 00:18:19

What in the world? Justin, why did you why are you asking how much peanut butter we eat? That's so much out of left field.

Ian

00:18:20 – 00:18:22

Something I could not eat while my gallbladder was bad because a lot of people

Aaron

00:18:22 – 00:18:27

Oh, no. Sorry to hear that. That's you should have labeled that as offensive to Ian. Yeah. That's yeah.

Aaron

00:18:27 – 00:18:27

That's inappropriate.

Ian

00:18:28 – 00:18:31

I don't worry. I muted peanut. Don't worry. Oh, that's good. See that anymore.

Aaron

00:18:31 – 00:18:33

See? That's good. That's great. Good. I'm eating

Ian

00:18:33 – 00:18:48

peanut butter now. It's fine. Yeah. So the thing is like, so there's the things let's just take tech Twitter, tech, blue sky, Twitter, right? So tech, blue sky, Twitter, I want to be working on something and post a link to the thing itself.

Ian

00:18:48 – 00:19:03

Right. I want to post links to other people's things. That to me, the link is the core of the whole thing. So like, so with my day in day out, I want to read other people's links and I want to post my own links and I want them to be usable in how that's done. Right.

Ian

00:19:03 – 00:19:26

It's far superior on blue sky, even though it's just subtly different, it's far superior. So that to me is that's the whole thing. And then like, yes, so now I'm here and I like this experience better. So now if I'm gonna talk about peanut butter, I'm going to do it here because this is where I am versus yes. I could talk about peanut butter on Twitter, but my day in, day out things I more seriously discussed or more seriously want to read Mhmm.

Ian

00:19:26 – 00:19:37

Are far worse on Twitter. So I'm not gonna do it over there because it's worse. So that to me is the thing. That's the part. It's not that, like, the peanut butter post in and of itself is better on Blue Sky.

Ian

00:19:37 – 00:19:48

It's that I'm on Blue Sky because the core experience is better. And then that then leads to than me sharing all my other takes or whatever is going on on Blue Sky.

Aaron

00:19:48 – 00:20:03

Yep. I agree with that. I think the I think the link demotion is maybe the the death knell for for Twitter. It should it should it die out, I think that is gonna be one of the inciting incidents because it's so bad. It's like It's so bad.

Aaron

00:20:03 – 00:20:12

Fundamentally broke the reason most of us are here, which is to discover new things outside of this little bubble. So I I fully I fully agree with that.

Ian

00:20:12 – 00:20:32

That all leads back, like, to Elon's motivations. Right? Which I think it's like you can't totally escape the Elon factor because he wants to be able to control more thoroughly what is delivered on the platform. And so, like, yes, things like linking outside, he doesn't want to happen, which is also true of other The linking part is true of other platforms too. Right?

Ian

00:20:32 – 00:20:32

Yeah.

Aaron

00:20:32 – 00:20:39

I don't think that's an Elon thing. Everybody want everybody that owns a platform wants you to stay on the platform. Sure. That's just, like, that's economics.

Ian

00:20:39 – 00:21:02

Mostly, that's true. Yes. So Blue Sky so far isn't taking that angle, which is great. And I think, you know, then the push to algo. See, this is where I think also it's like the it's not the same because Twitter forces you into the algo very often, unless you, you know, again, like, the very technical people, right, are gonna install minimal Twitter or whatever that thing is called so that if you

Aaron

00:21:02 – 00:21:05

You can also just swipe over the following in Twitter. You do

Ian

00:21:05 – 00:21:06

have to do that over and over.

Aaron

00:21:07 – 00:21:09

I think it's relatively persistent.

Ian

00:21:10 – 00:21:15

No. No. No. I find them always in the for you until I install that, you know, the Chrome

Aaron

00:21:15 – 00:21:16

extension forces

Ian

00:21:16 – 00:21:34

it to never do that. So and, obviously, there's, like, dildo ads and all the other stuff that's on Twitter now since they don't have any real advertisers. But so that all experience is bad. Again, if you're super technical, you can have your ad blockers and things that remove all that stuff. Fine.

Ian

00:21:36 – 00:21:51

But, yeah, I don't know. I think I I I definitely disagree with you on the onboarding. I think it's actually a much better onboarding experience. I think you're coming at it from sort of a weird angle to me. It's like you're coming in and being like, I need to block everybody and everything instantly, which is not how you join Twitter.

Ian

00:21:51 – 00:22:12

Right? Like you didn't go join Twitter and like start with like 20,000 people blocked and all that. Right. So that's not how anybody else is gonna approach it. That's how you are because you're a power user of Twitter and all that kind of stuff, but I don't see the regular person coming in and being like, I'm looking to block 50,000 people day one.

Aaron

00:22:12 – 00:22:20

Well, I think the regular user is gonna come in and spend their time on the discover feed. I think that's what the regular user is gonna do.

Ian

00:22:20 – 00:22:29

I don't know about that. See, I think that this whole build out, the whole what's got the momentum of this is the starter packs. Like, that is what has created this momentum to me. Like, that was the key that has

Aaron

00:22:29 – 00:22:30

Right.

Ian

00:22:30 – 00:22:44

Kicked us off. So that's all about the followers. So now I'm following a bunch of people I find interesting and I can do that very quickly rather than, you know, just having to like dig around and find people organically. Right. And so now I'm instantly following a bunch of people.

Ian

00:22:44 – 00:23:07

The following is the default tab. Yes. You can go to discover, but you don't, if you come into a starter pack or a few starter packs or whatever, or blue sky directory, and you're following 200 people, you already have a bunch of stuff showing up for you. And yeah, you might go to the discover tab and then you'll find feeds and you'll find different algorithms besides discover. And if you wanna do an astronomy algo feed, you can do that or whatever, all the different algo feeds.

Ian

00:23:07 – 00:23:17

And that's great. But I think that's gonna be how, like, 90% of people will approach it. And that's how it push that's how it pushes you into it. It's not pushing you out of

Aaron

00:23:17 – 00:23:26

the first. I think that is a fundamental misunderstanding. I think to the extent, I think I am a power user. So I'm Yeah. I'm further out than you.

Aaron

00:23:26 – 00:23:35

I think you're slightly in for me, But the rest of the world, I'm thinking about, like, if my wife joined blue sky.

Ian

00:23:35 – 00:23:35

Mhmm.

Aaron

00:23:35 – 00:23:40

There's, like, a very minor chance she's gonna join via a starter pack.

Ian

00:23:41 – 00:23:41

Mhmm.

Aaron

00:23:41 – 00:23:54

Because that that's kinda like, that's kind of like, domain knowledge. Right? Like, oh, I have to, like, know that starter packs exist. Yeah. Go find one that, like, like, speaks to me.

Ian

00:23:54 – 00:23:57

Shows them to you when you sign up. No. I think I think that's maybe.

Aaron

00:23:57 – 00:23:57

I don't know.

Ian

00:23:58 – 00:24:03

I think it lets you know about starter packs. I think it lets you know about starter packs pretty early in there at some point. But

Aaron

00:24:03 – 00:24:07

But then but then, like, the the normal person is gonna sign up.

Ian

00:24:08 – 00:24:08

Mhmm.

Aaron

00:24:08 – 00:24:28

Maybe they follow a starter pack, maybe not. So maybe they get between, you know, ten and fifty people to follow. Right? Mhmm. But I think the normal person, the the person that uses Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, they're gonna go for the feed that shows the that just surfaces content for them, which is the discover feed.

Aaron

00:24:29 – 00:24:45

Because I think most people use it that way. They don't have this feed completion syndrome where, like, I gotta see what all my friends are saying. They're just like, alright. I'm gonna open the app, chill for a few minutes, and then I'm gonna close the app, and I'll come back at some point in the future. And so the the use case for that is the Discover feed.

Aaron

00:24:45 – 00:24:50

And I think right now, like, I know you have to see it.

Ian

00:24:50 – 00:24:52

Just the default. Like, you could be on

Aaron

00:24:52 – 00:24:56

any The default is the only thing that matters for the normal user.

Ian

00:24:56 – 00:24:58

Sure. I guess. But, again, yes, you could That's the

Aaron

00:24:58 – 00:24:59

only thing.

Ian

00:24:59 – 00:25:01

Again, just tuneable. Tune it.

Aaron

00:25:01 – 00:25:05

Yeah. You can. And that's what I was trying to do before everyone told me. Don't use discovery.

Ian

00:25:05 – 00:25:13

Pre tuning it. Yes. I don't know. See, I just think it's not so there's lots of places to get algorithm. If you just want the pure algorithm algorithmic vibe.

Ian

00:25:13 – 00:25:18

Right? Like, you could be on Facebook. You could be on Instagram. You could be on Twitter at this point. Right?

Ian

00:25:18 – 00:25:43

So, like, I like this is, Twitter's always been Twitter's problem is like, they're like, boy, we can't grow as fast as Facebook grows because at its core, at least in originally it didn't have, it wasn't algo driven in that same way as Facebook. Right? And so there's only a certain percentage of the population that's actually interested in the pure Twitter like experience that's less algo and more following base.

Aaron

00:25:43 – 00:25:47

Yes. And so is a niche. I agree with you. It's a niche. Important point.

Ian

00:25:47 – 00:25:47

That is

Aaron

00:25:47 – 00:25:53

a niche that people there are certain people that only want for you. I think that is a niche.

Ian

00:25:53 – 00:25:55

I think that's the majority of people. Right? That's why I'm

Aaron

00:25:55 – 00:25:59

saying that only only a few people want want following. Yes.

Ian

00:25:59 – 00:26:00

Yes. I think it's a smaller

Aaron

00:26:00 – 00:26:01

percentage for you.

Ian

00:26:02 – 00:26:11

Yes. I agree. So I think that most people are fine with the algo just dumping stuff on them and that's Sure. Fine. And that's but, yeah, there's tons of options for that.

Ian

00:26:11 – 00:26:32

Right? The thing that always made Twitter unique was that Twitter was the only place that wasn't pushing that angle even before the algos got more advanced. Like that was always true since Facebook started the algo based feed in 02/2008 or whatever that was. So now, so then Twitter took that away effectively and now Blue Sky has brought it back. So I think that is, like, a big part of it.

Ian

00:26:32 – 00:26:40

It's, like, I just wanna follow my follow. Yes. Sometimes I dip into the Algo stuff, and it's really nice now that I can have ones that aren't just the generic one. And

Aaron

00:26:40 – 00:26:41

That is nice.

Ian

00:26:41 – 00:27:02

Great. And so I'm gonna follow my followers. I'm gonna find stuff which I think is way more effective than a for use experience, which is via the people I trust to follow that their taste is going to be similar enough to my taste that they're gonna surface things for me. Right. But yeah, if you wanna delve into the pure algo, it's there.

Ian

00:27:02 – 00:27:23

I don't think I think they'd make a mistake if they made that more prominent, because I think Twitter already does that. If you have somebody new to social media, which is rare at this point, I guess, but, like, I feel like the ongoing experience of blue Blue Sky is gonna be way better. I mean, if you what I can't even imagine what the onboarding experience of Twitter is right now. It's gotta be, like, just crypto stuff and No. I think it's things.

Ian

00:27:23 – 00:27:29

You know? I I think you just end up in there raw with nothing. Your your default for you is gonna be be full of crazy stuff.

Aaron

00:27:29 – 00:27:36

You're I think you're prompted to follow it's, like, famous famous people, Elon and Yeah. Sure.

Ian

00:27:36 – 00:27:39

I mean, you'll follow a few people, but the for you tab is gonna be full of madness.

Aaron

00:27:40 – 00:27:43

Yeah. Which is what the blue sky tab is. It's just a different type of madness.

Ian

00:27:43 – 00:27:47

Not. It's default, state. Do you know what I'm saying?

Aaron

00:27:48 – 00:27:50

Disagree. It is the default state. I think

Ian

00:27:50 – 00:28:02

that's why everybody yelled at you because they're like, that's this is not the default state. You're trying to make it the default state, but it's not the default state. It's not the first tab. It's the second tab for a reason because it's not the default state.

Aaron

00:28:02 – 00:28:11

Yes. I don't want to just follow like, I don't want to just get content from people I follow. But see And I think everyone thinks I'm crazy for that.

Ian

00:28:11 – 00:28:16

So much of your problem. Yeah. I mean, it's not it's not totally crazy, but it solves a lot of your problems if you do that.

Aaron

00:28:16 – 00:28:29

But it but it eliminates the upside. Like, if I only saw content from people I followed, I would not have to mute I mean, I would have to mute a few people that I follow, which is something else we gotta talk about. But

Ian

00:28:29 – 00:28:29

Yeah.

Aaron

00:28:29 – 00:28:43

It would solve the whole, like well, it would solve most of the content I don't wanna see problem. It would solve most of that. There are still people that would I can't believe you can't turn off retweets from individual people on Blue Sky. That's crazy. Right.

Aaron

00:28:43 – 00:28:50

But it there are still people that would retweet stuff into my feed, and I'm like, I don't ever wanna see anything you retweet because you've got bad taste. But I

Ian

00:28:50 – 00:28:50

I'll see.

Aaron

00:28:50 – 00:28:53

I'm I'm well willing to follow along. So wait. Wait. Hold on. Yeah.

Aaron

00:28:53 – 00:29:04

Okay. So it solves it solves 95% of my, seeing content I don't wanna see. There are still people that I follow that have bad taste that would retweet stuff. Sure.

Ian

00:29:04 – 00:29:05

Sorry about that.

Aaron

00:29:05 – 00:29:08

Sorry about that. Oh, yeah. You. You, for example. Yeah.

Aaron

00:29:08 – 00:29:12

You. That's a great example. I wanna turn off your retweets. Yeah. I don't care.

Aaron

00:29:12 – 00:29:12

I don't care.

Ian

00:29:12 – 00:29:13

Yes.

Aaron

00:29:14 – 00:29:25

The but so that solves that problem. But it it, it takes away 95% of the benefit that I get from Twitter, which is discovery. Like, I see things

Ian

00:29:25 – 00:29:28

I can't imagine it's 95% of the benefit you get. I can't imagine it.

Aaron

00:29:28 – 00:29:30

Easily. Easily.

Ian

00:29:30 – 00:29:32

That can't possibly be true.

Aaron

00:29:32 – 00:29:33

It is a %

Ian

00:29:33 – 00:29:34

true. Can't possibly be true.

Aaron

00:29:35 – 00:29:54

Because a lot of, like, a lot of this the the benefit of Twitter for me is the algorithmic feed, which does a few things. It resurfaces or rather surfaces stuff that I may have missed from the people that I follow. Sure. So I don't have this feed completion syndrome where I have to, like, see whatever scroll to my last save point. Right?

Ian

00:29:54 – 00:29:55

Right.

Aaron

00:29:55 – 00:30:06

So it resurfaces some stuff. It might not surface how much peanut butter do you eat, and I am okay with that. Right? So that that that part is fine with me. But it does resurface stuff from, like, eight hours ago that's like, oh, wow.

Aaron

00:30:06 – 00:30:17

That's really good. But more importantly, it surfaces more stuff like the stuff that I like. Right. And that's why I like the discover on blue sky or the the for you on Twitter. Mhmm.

Aaron

00:30:17 – 00:30:31

It's because I like a bunch of stuff. I bookmark a bunch of stuff. I respond to a bunch of stuff, and then I get more stuff like that. And then I find new accounts outside of this little this little Laravel bubble Mhmm. That I get to follow.

Aaron

00:30:31 – 00:30:50

And so my Twitter feed is just, like, full of interesting content and the random, you know, rage bait or engagement bait, and I have to, like, fine tune my, you know, mutes and stuff like that or just ignore it. And that's frustrating. I agree. But I don't wanna lose all of the benefit of this serendipitous discovery of stuff.

Ian

00:30:51 – 00:31:12

Okay. And I think Blue Sky I don't think obviously, I would say for sure that, like, I'm I'm sure the Twitter algorithmic feed is superior to Blue Sky just because it's been around longer in terms of just forget the, like, the headings and stuff it sends you. Just if we put that stuff aside and just the good stuff it does occasionally bring up, it's probably more sophisticated feed right now. So And

Aaron

00:31:12 – 00:31:14

Twitter has way more data on me. So blue skies

Ian

00:31:14 – 00:31:33

make it better. Data. Right. So that's where, like I guess that's what that's I think people's core pushback of what you were attempting here is that, like, you've jumped into the way deep end of the pool when all you it seems like you actually need is a bunch of mute words, which you famously have, like, the 3,000 in Twitter or something. Right?

Ian

00:31:33 – 00:31:43

So if you get those out, which Twitter probably won't let you do, but if you could, then you could dump them into blue sky's mute list, and that's, like, 99% of what you want.

Aaron

00:31:46 – 00:31:48

Maybe. I I think I think

Ian

00:31:48 – 00:31:49

that would I think

Aaron

00:31:49 – 00:31:50

that would help.

Ian

00:31:50 – 00:32:04

Yeah. Like, it's like the the official accounts, like, every account out there is talking about Trump or Harris or, the the Yankees or whatever. And it's not the official accounts. It's all the other accounts, which is where you actually see the content from. So you just wanna mute Yankees.

Ian

00:32:04 – 00:32:06

Right? Like, that's what you need to do.

Aaron

00:32:06 – 00:32:25

But I also wanna mute, like, I also wanna mute, There's this one account on both platforms. I don't know who he is, but his his handle is Brooklyn dad underscore defiant. Okay. And, like, he is a political activist, and I want to mute him. And so that's what that's what I'm looking for is, like

Ian

00:32:25 – 00:32:32

Yeah. But, like, there's infinite I think approaching it that way seems a little bit wild because, like Right. There's millions and millions of accounts, and you're got Yes.

Aaron

00:32:32 – 00:32:33

There's, like,

Ian

00:32:33 – 00:32:37

two out of 24,000,000 accounts, you don't wanna see 22,000,000 of them. So you could just block them all.

Aaron

00:32:37 – 00:32:38

Three and a half million. Yes.

Ian

00:32:38 – 00:32:47

So you wanna mute word instead. Right. Just block the people who show up that are you see live in your feed, and they go, oh, story. Boom.

Aaron

00:32:47 – 00:32:59

The whole the whole promise of Blue Sky is, like, the moderation tools are incredible. Bro, you're gonna love it, bro. The layered moderation. I mean, it's hot springs. And so I show up to the platform

Ian

00:33:00 – 00:33:00

Mhmm.

Aaron

00:33:00 – 00:33:11

And I'm like, hey. Happy to be at your party. I heard the moderation tools are incredible. Can anybody point me in the right direction Yep. For some of these, like, I don't know.

Aaron

00:33:11 – 00:33:20

Let's start easy, sports teams and politicians. What's the best way to, like, mute all of those people? And I get a dunce cap and shoved in the corner. But that's like, even moderation.

Ian

00:33:20 – 00:33:21

I don't know. That's like

Aaron

00:33:21 – 00:33:28

a weird moderation. I don't know if I'd call that moderation. Layered moderation. There are moderation lists. There are mute lists that other people maintain.

Aaron

00:33:28 – 00:33:28

You don't

Ian

00:33:28 – 00:33:29

have to do

Aaron

00:33:29 – 00:33:30

all the work by yourself.

Ian

00:33:30 – 00:33:43

Think that's a huge negative. No. I think that's actually a tarot. I I actually really dislike that whole aspect of the system. I think that's a mistake and that they're gonna regret that, actually, because I could put anybody on the moderation list, and then they build up.

Ian

00:33:43 – 00:33:48

So now I can just put Aaron Francis on one. Aaron Francis on all of them. Aaron Francis is getting screwed. Right? Yep.

Ian

00:33:48 – 00:34:03

So, like, I put Aaron Francis on angry Democrat list, and Yep. He's getting filtered. Right? So, like Yep. I think that that's not gonna probably go away, honestly, because it's just gonna it's obviously the most obvious thing in the world to abuse, and I think it's just gonna get abused.

Ian

00:34:03 – 00:34:03

Aaron

00:34:05 – 00:34:07

Yes. It's gonna come out of revenue for vendettas.

Ian

00:34:07 – 00:34:11

Quite a bit, Michelle. I have no idea how you even I don't really get your style of using Twitter for sure.

Aaron

00:34:11 – 00:34:12

I know.

Ian

00:34:12 – 00:34:24

I have, like, five mute words, and I blocked, like, seven people ever. And I don't until Twitter kinda went off the rails on the algo side of things, I never had any trouble, like, seeing stuff I didn't wanna see.

Aaron

00:34:24 – 00:34:24

Yeah.

Ian

00:34:24 – 00:34:39

And I feel like the same way at Blue Sky. Like, I follow the people I wanna follow. They surface stuff to me. I very rarely see stuff I don't wanna see. And if I do, I could either mute it or I could block the account, which I've done maybe once on Blue Sky, I think, so far.

Ian

00:34:39 – 00:34:41

So I don't know. I don't know.

Aaron

00:34:41 – 00:34:48

Here's another here's another great example. Yeah. Here's another great example. Last night or this morning, I don't remember which. I think it was last night.

Aaron

00:34:49 – 00:34:59

I said, hey. Is there no way to bookmark stuff over here? Because I love using bookmarks. And the first reply first reply, nobody reads bookmarks.

Ian

00:34:59 – 00:34:59

Yeah.

Aaron

00:35:00 – 00:35:06

And my response was, well, that's factually inaccurate because I do. I read bookmarks. I I joke bookmarking tool. Constantly.

Ian

00:35:07 – 00:35:10

Why do you want your bookmarks just hidden in Twitter or and or blue sky, though?

Aaron

00:35:10 – 00:35:13

See, this is what I'm talking about. This is minimizing. This is the minimizing.

Ian

00:35:13 – 00:35:20

I don't even understand. Why would you have a bookmark tool that's got all your bookmarks from everything so that, like, you could find anything across all your services?

Aaron

00:35:21 – 00:35:21

Sounds great.

Ian

00:35:22 – 00:35:23

Yeah. I wanna I

Aaron

00:35:23 – 00:35:40

want I want to use I want to bookmark things on blue I want to be in the blue sky mobile client Uh-huh. See a tweet that has, like, a a link to this this this Postgres, you know, this Postgres performance thing. Right. And I wanna bookmark it and come back to it later.

Ian

00:35:40 – 00:35:41

Okay.

Aaron

00:35:41 – 00:35:42

And so my question

Ian

00:35:42 – 00:35:43

tools for that.

Aaron

00:35:43 – 00:35:51

Mhmm. My question my question for the peanut gallery was, hey. Is there no way to bookmark over here? I love using bookmarks. Nobody uses bookmarks, bro.

Ian

00:35:51 – 00:35:51

I I

Aaron

00:35:51 – 00:35:56

just super fun. Love being here. This is great. Thanks for inviting me to your party.

Ian

00:35:56 – 00:36:15

If you went to Twitter and asked them for and asked out into the ether, right, for features Twitter doesn't have, I feel like you're gonna get a very similar response. Like, why why aren't followers the default over here? Why aren't don't we have tiered moderation lists? And you're gonna get a bunch of people who are like, you are a freaking idiot. Like Maybe.

Ian

00:36:15 – 00:36:19

Don't don't be like that. Whatever. But Maybe. You know? It's like, this is a social media thing.

Aaron

00:36:19 – 00:36:23

Like cool, fun, chill vibe, though. It's supposed to be like, hey. We're all in this together.

Ian

00:36:23 – 00:36:25

I don't know why you would think that that's the case. It's

Aaron

00:36:26 – 00:36:28

Because that was what was sold on the tin. Well, I

Ian

00:36:28 – 00:36:30

don't think that it's sold out.

Aaron

00:36:30 – 00:36:32

Here. Everyone literally Definitely said that.

Ian

00:36:33 – 00:36:34

A %

Aaron

00:36:34 – 00:36:35

have to do that. Sold that.

Ian

00:36:35 – 00:36:36

That's not even It's happier

Aaron

00:36:36 – 00:36:41

over here. It's rinder over here. You know how many times I got pitched? Oh, it's so much grinder over here.

Ian

00:36:41 – 00:36:46

That's totally been true for me, but I don't know how you're using it. You seem to be using it oddly. So that's to

Aaron

00:36:46 – 00:36:47

use the thing

Ian

00:36:47 – 00:36:52

You're not. But I'm asking questions. Going into it super No. No. No.

Ian

00:36:52 – 00:37:04

Using it against the sort of default way, which is sometimes cause with all applications. Right? If I go into it and I'm like, I wanna use this app I we see all the time in HubSpot. People come in and like, hey. I wanna put my personal email in HubSpot.

Ian

00:37:04 – 00:37:18

I wanna connect my personal private mail into HubSpot and have it suck it all in. We're like, you shouldn't do that because it's a bad idea. It's not built for that. Other people are gonna see your email. If you have if you have other staff, they're gonna see your private email when your wife emails you.

Ian

00:37:18 – 00:37:30

They're gonna see that. Don't do that. Right? And so but people people wanna do it. So, like, you know, you're kind of you're you're you're you're you're coming in a little bit at a at a side angle, I would say.

Aaron

00:37:30 – 00:37:39

I'm coming in in good faith trying to use trying to make this platform into something that I Okay. Can use.

Ian

00:37:39 – 00:37:51

Hold on. Let's okay. We so we covered all that part. Now my thing is kind of who cares? It's like the people who didn't want not about you personally, but, like, people who didn't like Twitter for whatever reason.

Ian

00:37:51 – 00:38:07

It could be Elon, it could be links, it could be all the there's plenty of terrible things Twitter does that are just purely of Twitter the product, And then obviously you can layer on the political stuff. That group of people has for a long time been looking for an alternative. Mhmm. Right. Because they're jumping to threads, jumping to Mastodon.

Ian

00:38:07 – 00:38:33

They're like, trying to find something that sticks and works the way Twitter works, which everything else has kind of had its own weird take on it. It actually hasn't been like Twitter. And that's why I think it doesn't, hasn't really stuck the way this group wants. So now there's blue sky, which is absolutely a Twitter clone from 2011 or whatever it is. Everybody who wanted that experience has now is moving, has moved or is moving and is happy with that experience.

Ian

00:38:33 – 00:38:53

Right. And so from there, I kind of feel like blue sky now has I I disagree also that it's gonna go away. I think it's got sort of enough people there now that, like Mhmm. It's fine. And if it stops growing at the rate it's growing, that's fine because there's enough of a core group that people are gonna be happy there.

Aaron

00:38:53 – 00:38:53

It's self sustaining.

Ian

00:38:53 – 00:39:04

It's self sustaining. Just like, I mean, Twitter didn't grow for fifteen years or whatever. Like they basically stopped growing in 2013 or something. So it's the same thing. Like, maybe it's not as many people, whatever.

Ian

00:39:04 – 00:39:08

Fine. Mhmm. But, like, it's self sustaining. Yes. That's great.

Ian

00:39:08 – 00:39:17

And so now if people want the Twitter experience, it's just like some people want the the Facebook experience. Right? Like, we're not those people. The I don't want the Facebook experience. It's more than there to be.

Ian

00:39:17 – 00:39:25

Or what? Great. There's obviously, I'm in the minority there. Lots of people like the Facebook experience. 3,000,000,000 people like the Facebook experience, so they're on there daily.

Ian

00:39:25 – 00:39:41

Right. And then you'll have Twitter for people who want the, like, Elon flavored text based social media. Great. You got that. And then if you want the more, you know, links were more, I would say, like, Internet y social media experience, then you have blue sky, and that's great.

Ian

00:39:41 – 00:39:44

And people could go there and that. And, like, that's it.

Aaron

00:39:44 – 00:39:44

I think You

Ian

00:39:44 – 00:39:44

know?

Aaron

00:39:44 – 00:39:48

I think blue sky could remain as a, subculture.

Ian

00:39:48 – 00:39:57

Yeah. And I think people got overly or people wanna bring their friends there. So they're like, Aaron, buddy, we need you there. Right? Like but maybe it's not for you.

Ian

00:39:57 – 00:39:59

Right? And that's fine. Yeah. Maybe it's not.

Aaron

00:39:59 – 00:40:01

Twitter. Yeah. Maybe it's not. Or maybe

Ian

00:40:01 – 00:40:10

it is in another year. Right? Like, in a year from now, you'll be like, now I get it or whatever. Or they add bookmarks and other features or Twitter totally dies off or whatever. Who knows?

Ian

00:40:10 – 00:40:12

Anything could happen. So

Aaron

00:40:12 – 00:40:28

Yeah. I think it could remain I think it could remain as, like, a viable niche platform. I I would be very surprised if it reaches mainstream adoption. I would be very surprised if my wife ever signs up for Blue Sky. I just cannot Yeah.

Aaron

00:40:28 – 00:40:35

Imagine your wife handles .bsky.social. That's just that's just a barrier to most

Ian

00:40:35 – 00:40:35

people.

Aaron

00:40:35 – 00:40:39

I just don't think that that is gonna become mainstream.

Ian

00:40:39 – 00:40:47

But is your wife just actually signed up for Twitter either? Like, I know she's technically signed up. I know she's technically signed up for Twitter, but, like, I think she had, like, one tweet from years ago. I mean, she doesn't

Aaron

00:40:47 – 00:40:49

she's not actively She consumes.

Ian

00:40:49 – 00:40:51

Does she regularly consume?

Aaron

00:40:51 – 00:40:54

She does because I get DMs from her all the time with funny tweets.

Ian

00:40:54 – 00:40:55

I saw it. So I know. Did. Yeah. Okay.

Ian

00:40:55 – 00:40:59

There you go. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. I mean, but that's always been true of Twitter.

Ian

00:40:59 – 00:41:04

Right? Like, Twitter was never mainstream. That's a million earnings calls of Twitter being like, we're trying to get mainstream, and Right. We're trying to

Aaron

00:41:04 – 00:41:05

add this thing

Ian

00:41:05 – 00:41:08

in that thing. I mean, I don't think that's true. It's still

Aaron

00:41:09 – 00:41:10

absolutely true.

Ian

00:41:10 – 00:41:18

That's definitely not true. If you by mainstream, you mean most normies have an account, that's definitely not true. It wasn't true before, and it's still not true now.

Aaron

00:41:18 – 00:41:21

It is not it is not as mainstream as Facebook. Agreed. Living is.

Ian

00:41:21 – 00:41:24

It's not. I'm on Facebook's hiney.

Aaron

00:41:24 – 00:41:32

Behind hiney. Behind the big three, so Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok. Twitter's Twitter's up there. I mean, lots of noise happening.

Ian

00:41:33 – 00:41:41

No. It isn't. It's like literally one tenth the size, if if that. It might not even be one tenth the size. But it's still way smaller.

Aaron

00:41:42 – 00:41:48

Still way more normie than something like Reddit or Blue Sky or anything like that.

Ian

00:41:48 – 00:41:54

I think that's interesting. I wonder I don't even I don't know if I agree that it's more normie than Reddit. I don't think that's true. All of

Aaron

00:41:54 – 00:42:01

all of my offline friends, you know what they don't talk about? Reddit and blue sky. What they do talk about is Twitter. That's just, like,

Ian

00:42:01 – 00:42:20

all of my offline friends little friend group. Like, who if who who would ever think anybody who's used Facebook. Right? Would you ever think if you were in there that this application has literally half of all the humans on earth using it? Would you be like, this is such an amazing experience to of course

Aaron

00:42:20 – 00:42:20

not. No.

Ian

00:42:20 – 00:42:24

Everybody has a Facebook account. Right? No. You would be like, nobody

Aaron

00:42:24 – 00:42:25

uses it.

Ian

00:42:25 – 00:42:29

Terrible. Right? Terrible. No. Half of the humans on Earth have a Facebook account.

Ian

00:42:29 – 00:42:33

So and not just have an account. Use it.

Aaron

00:42:33 – 00:42:35

Daily. Post slop. Yes. Daily.

Ian

00:42:35 – 00:42:40

So so I think that's way, way smaller mainstream than Facebook.

Aaron

00:42:40 – 00:42:41

You know what? All of them are

Ian

00:42:41 – 00:42:44

like the same thing. I mean, it's the same company. Like so between Facebook and Instagram, it's the

Aaron

00:42:44 – 00:42:46

same company. Company, totally different things.

Ian

00:42:46 – 00:42:59

They are different, and I greatly prefer Instagram. But in terms of user accounts under a company's control, you know, now you're at 4,000,000,000 people of the seven. Right. In one company. And then Twitter is gonna be like of real users.

Ian

00:43:00 – 00:43:03

It's a hundred million, maybe a 50,000,000.

Aaron

00:43:04 – 00:43:21

Yeah. It's not a lot. This episode is brought to you by our friends at Spotsy who create all the packages, that you know and love for Laravel. But today, specifically, we're gonna talk about Mailcoach. And Mailcoach is one of their, paid offerings that is fantastic.

Aaron

00:43:21 – 00:43:42

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Aaron

00:43:43 – 00:44:02

But you pay for what you send and not the size of your audience. So when you are massively successful and you get a ton of people on your email list, you don't pay to keep those people on your list month after month. You just pay for the stuff that you send. They are, of course, privacy first by design. The tracking is all optional.

Aaron

00:44:03 – 00:44:38

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Aaron

00:44:38 – 00:44:51

So go give mail coach a try at mailcoach.app. Okay. Back to the show. The thing that the thing that all of this has made me feel, like, going to Blue Sky, all of this has made me feel like I don't wanna be a part of any of this.

Ian

00:44:51 – 00:44:52

Like, I don't wanna be a part of Twitter.

Aaron

00:44:52 – 00:45:03

I don't wanna be a part of Blue Sky. I I don't wanna be online at all. This all sucks. That is the overwhelming feeling coming out of the weekend of trying to see this blue sky. It was like, I don't like it.

Aaron

00:45:03 – 00:45:35

I hate it all. This is all terrible. And I think one, like, one, I think, one thing one, like, philosophical or meta commentary about the rush to blue sky Mhmm. Is an overwhelming, maybe a majority at least at least a big portion of, what people are saying they like about blue sky is that they're getting followers. And that to me is like, guys, this is not This

Ian

00:45:35 – 00:45:36

is very interesting.

Aaron

00:45:37 – 00:46:06

This is not this is one, it's not gonna last. Like, you're getting you're getting followers because it's a it's a land grab, and people are coming over, and they're trying to figure out who to follow, and they recognize you, and so they follow you. Mhmm. Two, like, it is not some it is not in in the majority of cases, it is not some quirk of historical timing that big accounts have a lot of followers. Like, that that may be true in some cases.

Aaron

00:46:06 – 00:46:15

Like Mhmm. Kevin Rose was maybe on the who to follow list when Twitter started, and so we got a million followers. Like, okay. Yeah. That that that's a quirk of historical timing.

Aaron

00:46:16 – 00:46:40

But in terms of, like, normies, so let's say not Kevin Rose, everybody below. Right. It is not it's not that, like, so they had some unfair advantage that they got followers. It was, in my opinion, they did something and talked about it in an interesting way, and people wanted to follow along for that journey. And so now people are going to blue sky, and they're like, I can just get followers for free.

Aaron

00:46:41 – 00:46:46

Like, I don't have to, like, I don't have to do anything. I just get followers. It's like, that's not gonna last. And I'll Yeah.

Ian

00:46:46 – 00:46:47

I don't know

Aaron

00:46:47 – 00:46:49

about that. Think it's worth I don't think it's worth it, guys.

Ian

00:46:49 – 00:47:05

Very this whole thing is we could go a very interesting metaphor here. Right? Which is, like, in obviously, in America, but in the whole world right now, you have this like populism movements. Right. And the sort of rich are getting richer and you have all that kind of stuff going on.

Ian

00:47:05 – 00:47:23

And this is kind of similar in a certain sense where it's like, I, I think it's quite hard on Twitter at this point to get any kind of following because you have the only way to do it is to play the algorithmic game. Right? You have to be outraged. No, you do. That's how you have to

Aaron

00:47:23 – 00:47:30

do it. Sam, who who responded to you on blue sky? Sam who said Yeah. That is not true. I have done it in the past year.

Aaron

00:47:30 – 00:47:40

Sam went from, like, 800 to 9,000 or whatever. Mhmm. And your response was like, well, is you're an exception because it's such high effort. I'm like, yes. That's the whole thing.

Aaron

00:47:40 – 00:47:42

Like, you have to put in effort.

Ian

00:47:42 – 00:47:59

Sure. But the algorithm angle to it is so much harder to crack. Like, I'm not saying nobody can crack it, but I think it's a lot harder than just people see it. People can retweet it. People can link to it, and people can find your high quality stuff.

Ian

00:48:00 – 00:48:07

For example, his stuff is great. Why do we assume that 9,000 is a high number? But maybe it's 10

Aaron

00:48:07 – 00:48:09

times bigger than 800 where he started.

Ian

00:48:09 – 00:48:17

But maybe it should be a hundred thousand. Right? Maybe it hurt him. There there's just the assumption that that's a good number. Maybe it's a bad number.

Ian

00:48:17 – 00:48:24

Maybe because the Algo downplayed him in all kinds of cases. He could be at 32,000, but he's not.

Aaron

00:48:24 – 00:48:25

Well Do

Ian

00:48:25 – 00:48:26

you know what I'm saying?

Aaron

00:48:26 – 00:48:27

Like, I think we're hard to

Ian

00:48:27 – 00:48:28

share his stuff.

Aaron

00:48:28 – 00:48:34

We're not arguing an arbitrary point of what is good and what is bad. We're arguing, is it possible to grow? And the answer is objectively yes.

Ian

00:48:34 – 00:48:36

I I don't think for the average person, that's true.

Aaron

00:48:36 – 00:48:44

And I also think average person because I've gone from I've gone from two or 3,000 to whatever 40 in the past three years.

Ian

00:48:44 – 00:48:45

But look at

Aaron

00:48:45 – 00:48:46

I just am an average person.

Ian

00:48:46 – 00:48:54

Look at his example. He's already at 5,000 on Blue Sky. And it's not just from starter packs. Right? It's because people have shared his stuff, and they found him like it.

Ian

00:48:54 – 00:48:56

So in a month, he went to 5,000.

Aaron

00:48:56 – 00:48:58

No. No. No. Here's my take.

Ian

00:48:58 – 00:48:58

Okay.

Aaron

00:48:58 – 00:49:17

Here's my here's my take that I think a lot of people are missing about blue sky. He can he can go from zero to 5,000 on blue sky because the, the amount of followers is an expression of some underlying action or truth. Right?

Ian

00:49:17 – 00:49:18

Mhmm.

Aaron

00:49:18 – 00:49:38

And so it's not that he, he joined Blue Sky early and got a bunch of followers. And I think that's what a lot of people think is the case. If I join Blue Sky right now, when the the wave is happening, I'm gonna get a lot of followers and a lot of engagements. That is the explicit pitch from a lot of people trying

Ian

00:49:38 – 00:49:38

Aaron

00:49:38 – 00:49:43

get people to come to Blue Sky. The engagement's better. You get a lot of followers. It's a lot more fun. Right?

Aaron

00:49:44 – 00:50:11

I think the, when in in the fullness of time, when things settle, the follower count in majority of cases is an expression of some underlying truth. So Sam Mhmm. Can go from Twitter where he has 9,000, show up on blue sky, and immediately get 5,000 because of some underlying truth. And that underlying truth is he creates great content that is very interesting and is, remarkable. People want to talk about it.

Ian

00:50:11 – 00:50:11

Mhmm.

Aaron

00:50:11 – 00:50:14

And that is the that is the underlying fundamental truth about

Ian

00:50:14 – 00:50:15

I agree.

Aaron

00:50:15 – 00:50:30

Why someone has followers. And I think what's being pitched what's being pitched and what a lot of people are believing and saying is we can you can just get followers over there. And I don't think that that that's true right now, but I don't think that that is true.

Ian

00:50:31 – 00:51:00

Well, again, I think actually the starter pack is very interesting concept and actually does allow people who join pretty newly to possibly build up a a small following, which obviously makes it more interesting to create interesting content. Nobody likes creating content for nobody. Right? Like, so there's, an element to that that I think is useful, but I, I think that the, again, like I can make good content, but do I have to adjust it for the algorithm or not? And so then that filters it down.

Ian

00:51:00 – 00:51:28

I mean, you've done a lot of your content specifically for the algorithm, right. Which if it benefits, that's good, but I don't think that's necessarily true of everybody. And it's also just different types of content. Like I might wanna write technical articles that are not gonna lend themselves to being like, you know, a video with a Beatles song. Like, I just want to have a technical article, and I want technical people to share it and be able to link to it and people will learn about me that way, which is literally impossible on Twitter.

Ian

00:51:28 – 00:51:29

So Right.

Aaron

00:51:29 – 00:51:38

I think That's a thing. You're you're going you're going back to conflating the issue. I agree, and we can hold constant that links in the top tweet are better than links in reply. That's stupid. I agree.

Ian

00:51:38 – 00:51:40

That's a huge thing for the following, though.

Aaron

00:51:40 – 00:51:55

Sure. Fine. Yeah. I but I what I what my my point is Mhmm. People are focusing on the second order of gaining followers and not on the underlying reality of you have to put out something worth following.

Ian

00:51:55 – 00:51:56

Mhmm.

Aaron

00:51:56 – 00:52:21

And I think the sum like, the putting out something worth following or doing something that's interesting or, creating stuff that people want to see is portable from platform to platform. And any, like, early mover advantage, I think, is not defensible in terms of, like, getting followers. It's not defensible, and it's gonna go away at the margin. So let's say you're in a starter pack.

Ian

00:52:22 – 00:52:22

Mhmm.

Aaron

00:52:22 – 00:52:51

And you get 5,000 followers from some starter pack, but all you ever tweet about is the fact that the barista messed up your name on the on your coffee. You're gonna lose your followers, or they're gonna stop engaging with you or something. Mhmm. And so then you're just you're just back to the exact same situation that you were in on Twitter where it's like, well, I don't get any followers, and I don't get any engagement. You know, the fundamentals of the platform are still different, and so maybe it's still a more pleasant place to exist.

Aaron

00:52:51 – 00:53:09

I I acknowledge that. But you're still back to if you were hoping for unlimited engagement forever, I think that that just goes away if you don't sustain it with, like Yeah. Let's do interesting things or talk about interesting things or share or surface or something.

Ian

00:53:09 – 00:53:10

Like, you have to have

Aaron

00:53:10 – 00:53:12

a reason for people to follow you.

Ian

00:53:12 – 00:53:26

Right. It's like whatever it is. It's like all social media is, like, 5% publishing, 95% consumption or whatever. Right? So I don't see why it would it's gonna be radically different here either, in that regard.

Ian

00:53:26 – 00:53:44

But I still think that there's benefits to having followers. So even if you do occasionally say something, I don't know. I think just tweeting into the void that, you know, literally nobody's gonna ever see is still a different vibe than, Hey, I have 25 followers. I have 50 followers. And, like, I know that they will see this in their feed.

Ian

00:53:44 – 00:54:24

It's just a different vibe than, and it's gonna encourage people to produce various forms of content, which I think is good rather than encouraging them to produce, first of all, being forced to produce a certain type of content to be seen and play all the various games of the algorithm, you know, that it requires. So I don't know. I, and I, yeah, but I do think there's an element. I agree that like everybody sees the rich at the top of Twitter being people with lots of followers and are like, Hey, here's an opportunity for me to stake a claim in a new spot that isn't overcrowded with Aaron Francis and Taylor, Otwell and Adam Wathan, who just dominate everything and also there, baby. We're there.

Ian

00:54:24 – 00:54:35

You're all there now. But, there's some opportunity there to maybe get in the mix early. And that's like I mean, yes. Of course. Like, over time, the early movers usually get advantages in Mhmm.

Ian

00:54:35 – 00:54:54

Every area of life, right? If you're there first, you have certain advantages, which may not be there in five years from now when it's right if it lasts that long and it's stable and whatever it stops growing so fast sure it's You're gonna show up and not have a lot of followers probably it's gonna be harder to get them and all that stuff. Yeah. The core rules of create good stuff are the same.

Aaron

00:54:55 – 00:55:23

Yeah. I think I think my, like what what I feel in in my heart of hearts is that people are chasing vanity and are gonna be disappointed. Because I think what what people and, like, it it is it is it's happened so much that Steve and I text each other often screenshots of, like, look. This person is saying move to blue sky because you get followers. And it's just like if it fundamentally it belies a fundamental misunderstanding.

Aaron

00:55:24 – 00:55:31

And I think they're gonna get over there, get a bunch of followers, and then it's it's not terrible. It's gonna go away.

Ian

00:55:31 – 00:55:45

Just to stand up for the the little guy here a little bit. I think that the the opposite has been completely true, which is the only people I've seen who say, blue sky. Why should I go there? It's stupid. Whatever.

Ian

00:55:45 – 00:55:54

Literally, the only people have 30,000 plus followers on Twitter. Right? Because everybody's like, hey. I put all this effort in. I got my 200,000 followers.

Aaron

00:55:54 – 00:55:54

Fully acknowledge.

Ian

00:55:54 – 00:56:08

Why do I wanna go over here and start again from zero? I don't wanna be like the plebs starting at zero again. I worked for ten years to get 200,000 followers and I don't wanna go there and start again. Right. So their, their motivation is no, no, no.

Ian

00:56:08 – 00:56:19

Like, let's stay here on Twitter because this is where I got my audience. You're all here. I worked hard for this and I don't wanna have to do it again. And which is fine. But again, that's where

Aaron

00:56:19 – 00:56:19

it's not.

Ian

00:56:19 – 00:56:36

Like, people are like for the 95 percent, they're like, well, I don't care. Like, if you don't wanna come, don't come. Like, we want you to come because we like you, but if you don't wanna come, don't come. There's nothing there for us. So we don't have the same hold it doesn't have the same hold on us that it might on somebody with 50,000 followers.

Aaron

00:56:37 – 00:56:44

I I agree that there is a, a sunk cost, we'll call it fallacy, of, like, I don't wanna abandon this thing that I've worked on.

Ian

00:56:44 – 00:56:45

Sure.

Aaron

00:56:45 – 00:57:13

But, again, I'll go I'll go back to, the the followers are the followers are an expression of a reality. Sure. So Samhoo Samhoo can go to blue sky. And even though none of it is portable, he can't export his following or rather his followers and go make them follow him on Blue Sky. Even though that's not portable in any sense of the word, it's a % portable that he can walk over to Blue Sky and say, I'm Sam Hu.

Aaron

00:57:13 – 00:57:40

I'm here now, and everybody's gonna follow him. And so, like I agree. I don't I don't think that there's, and even even speaking for myself, like, I I like Twitter for reasons we've talked about already. I have more followers on Twitter than I do on blue sky, but still, like, I go over to blue sky, and there are there are enough people that are like, oh, I understand who he is, what he does, the value he provides, and I'm gonna follow him. Like, that that's awesome.

Aaron

00:57:40 – 00:57:56

And so it's not even a it's not even like a I don't wanna grind again. It's I think what what I'm seeing is a lot of just a lot of people putting their hope in. If I'm early, I'm going to have followers. It's like I don't

Ian

00:57:56 – 00:58:09

know if that's what I'm hoping in. Because there is there is a truth to that because you're gonna be it's a smaller pond. And so you're more likely to be seen. You're more likely to get followers. There's some inherent upside as we've talked about to the platform, has some helpers there.

Ian

00:58:09 – 00:58:11

So I don't think they're wrong in that.

Aaron

00:58:12 – 00:58:14

No. I don't think they're wrong. I think it's it's been

Ian

00:58:14 – 00:58:15

Can you

Aaron

00:58:15 – 00:58:16

keep it? Objectively true. Yeah.

Ian

00:58:16 – 00:58:18

Can you keep it? Of course. Is it

Aaron

00:58:18 – 00:58:23

can can you keep it? And, I mean, is it gonna make you happy? That's the other question. It's like

Ian

00:58:24 – 00:58:24

Oh, that's I mean

Aaron

00:58:24 – 00:58:30

You're going over you're going over somewhere to get a bunch of followers, and you have all these followers, then what? What happens next?

Ian

00:58:30 – 00:58:37

I mean, I think that there's but there's all these different factors. Right? I think it's hard to I don't think you can pigeonhole it in one thing. Right? It's like, part of it is like, yes.

Ian

00:58:37 – 00:58:47

I want more followers or whatever. I don't personally feel that way, but whatever. I want more followers is one aspect of it. Or but I also don't like the Algo stuff. So I like this is Sure.

Aaron

00:58:47 – 00:58:47

Sure. Sure. That. Right?

Ian

00:58:47 – 00:59:00

And, like Yeah. I don't like so whatever. It's not I think this is where, like, people wanna boil it down to, like, the the big accounts that are like, why are you doing this? Wanna boil it down often to, like, oh, well, this is stupid. This one thing here.

Ian

00:59:00 – 00:59:11

Why would anybody care about that? But I think it's more complicated than that. It's like, there's nothing for me on Twitter anyway. That's the first thing. So there's nothing holding me there like you are held there.

Ian

00:59:11 – 00:59:20

And then on top of that, there's whether there's the politics angle, there's the links angle, there's all the things. Right? There's the other little things that are better. And the product is helping better as you've said.

Aaron

00:59:20 – 00:59:20

Mhmm.

Ian

00:59:20 – 00:59:28

So I think when you add all those up, that's what makes the momentum to move as opposed to just not just the one thing. It's it's multiple things.

Aaron

00:59:28 – 00:59:41

So I agree. And I'm I'm not I'm not talking about that. The in this segment, the only thing I am talking about is when people of their own accord Yeah. I'm not I'm not inferring. I'm not applying.

Aaron

00:59:41 – 00:59:42

I'm not I'm not

Ian

00:59:42 – 00:59:44

reading the same lines. I'm gonna get I'm

Aaron

00:59:44 – 00:59:53

I'm gonna get I'm creating the lines as written on the screen in black and white text Right. That says, I'm moving to blue sky because I'm getting a lot more followers there.

Ian

00:59:53 – 00:59:55

Right. Or But I mean you need to hurry.

Aaron

00:59:55 – 01:00:06

That's true. That's fine. You need to hurry because you can get a lot of followers on blue sky. That's what I'm that, like, that's what the screen is saying, and I assume that they typed it. Right?

Ian

01:00:06 – 01:00:07

Mhmm.

Aaron

01:00:07 – 01:00:23

And that is the thing that I am not, I'm not comfortable with. I'm not sold on. I don't think that that is a good, investment of your, your emotional state to say, like, I'm gonna go over there.

Ian

01:00:23 – 01:00:23

State is

Aaron

01:00:23 – 01:00:28

a I'm gonna go over there because I'm gonna get a bunch of followers. Then what?

Ian

01:00:28 – 01:00:42

I guess that depends what they're gonna do with it. Right? But I think that there's still the, I have an article I wanna produce and I can publish it to nobody or I could publish it to 400 people. I would still rather publish it to 400 people than nobody here. Sure.

Ian

01:00:42 – 01:00:52

So there we go. Like, that's the thing, like, can I get kick started over there easier than I can on Twitter? And I think objectively, yes. Like you can get kickstarted easier right now.

Aaron

01:00:52 – 01:00:52

Maybe. Yeah.

Ian

01:00:52 – 01:00:53

On blue sky than

Aaron

01:00:53 – 01:00:54

possible to say

Ian

01:00:54 – 01:01:04

in certain segments or whatever. Right. So, yeah, I guess that's, Twitter is not growing. Blue sky is growing. People lean towards things that are growing.

Ian

01:01:04 – 01:01:11

I mean, it's like BC or anything else. Right? Like we wanna be in the things that are growing, not the things that aren't growing and maybe the things that are growing right now won't grow forever.

Aaron

01:01:11 – 01:01:11

That's

Ian

01:01:11 – 01:01:21

true. But who knows? I mean, I I hope it doesn't grow forever. Like, I'm fine with it being small. See, that's where, like, I think Twitter went wrong for so many years trying to be not small.

Ian

01:01:21 – 01:01:27

How do we be Facebook? Led them down a bad path. So we'll see.

Aaron

01:01:27 – 01:01:30

I think, one interesting thing that could happen

Ian

01:01:30 – 01:01:30

Mhmm.

Aaron

01:01:31 – 01:01:48

Is, Twitter could reverse policy on link demotion, and I think that's just fundamentally gonna destroy blue sky. I think it's just gonna be like, well, that was, like, the thing that we all complained about was, like, the open web, and now they're like, fine. Links are okay.

Ian

01:01:48 – 01:01:56

I don't I don't I'll be I don't know. I mean, Elon literally just last week was like, this is how it is. No. It doesn't mean he can't change his mind, but he doubled down on it. It was like, no.

Ian

01:01:56 – 01:01:57

No. No. Like

Aaron

01:01:57 – 01:01:59

Just not doing that. That's basically what he told

Ian

01:01:59 – 01:02:05

Paul Graham. Yeah. That doesn't seem like it's happening. But, again, he's Elon. He could change mine tomorrow.

Ian

01:02:05 – 01:02:21

I just think that the his goals don't really align with that. And I don't think, I don't think he cares about any of this, the way that the people talking about it care about it. You know, it's like, whatever people who get paid are don't get paid equal amounts. Right. You see all these stories open.

Ian

01:02:21 – 01:02:32

Some people get paid lots of money and other people don't get paid, even though they have way more followers and way more interaction. Right. Because Elon put his thumb on somebody and said, ah, like this one's paying a bunch of money. Okay. Like, because that's, it's his thing.

Ian

01:02:32 – 01:02:40

It's literally if I had my own social network, I might do a lot of crazy shit with it. Right? Because it's like, hey. Let's, like, bump this Laravel stuff. This stuff's awesome.

Ian

01:02:40 – 01:02:55

And let's bump Aaron Francis because he's great. And, like, oh, let's promote Trump because I hate him and, like, all this stuff. Like, I would do all that stuff probably because I have the power to do it. So I think he's probably thinking along those same lines. It seems to be.

Ian

01:02:55 – 01:03:05

So I don't know. I'm not I don't think that there's gonna be, like he doesn't report to anybody. He doesn't have a board of directors who's like, oh, man. Like, our profits are in the hole. Blue sky's eating us up on these links.

Ian

01:03:05 – 01:03:08

We gotta change nobody's going to Elon being like, we gotta change the links.

Aaron

01:03:08 – 01:03:12

So But he's a sore loser. And so if he finds out

Ian

01:03:12 – 01:03:13

if he finds out feels like that.

Aaron

01:03:13 – 01:03:14

I I

Ian

01:03:14 – 01:03:14

think he feels like he's

Aaron

01:03:14 – 01:03:26

getting it. If he finds out that people are leaving and one of the main complaints is the death of links, he'll just say, I'm gonna crush you. I'm gonna put links back. It's possible. You have to admit.

Aaron

01:03:26 – 01:03:27

It is possible.

Ian

01:03:27 – 01:03:35

It's possible. He might have I feel like he has other ways to crush them. Right? Like, he He might. Well, it's a governmental organization now, so maybe he doesn't care about it.

Ian

01:03:35 – 01:03:40

Right? So I don't know. We'll see what he does. I think he could just get bored with this. Who knows?

Ian

01:03:40 – 01:03:41

Who knows what he

Aaron

01:03:41 – 01:03:46

He could. He could get bored and sell it off, and somebody could come in and say links are okay now, and then we're back, maybe.

Ian

01:03:46 – 01:03:59

That would be something to be bad. Although I don't think I think most people I don't know. I I don't think people are going back necessarily. Couldn't stop the growth for sure. I don't think the link change would send people back because there's so much bad stuff there.

Ian

01:03:59 – 01:04:11

The ads are everything's horrible. So, like, there's a lot of horrible again, it's like multilayer. It's not like just the links. It's like the links are a big part of it, I think, with this early part, but it's more than the links. So I don't know.

Ian

01:04:11 – 01:04:15

We'll see. I think that's I think we're good. I think we covered it an hour. Oh. We do anymore.

Aaron

01:04:16 – 01:04:20

We covered it. We we covered it. We definitely covered

Ian

01:04:20 – 01:04:26

it. What about your the are you happy with the fake Aaron Francis on Blue Sky? Is he still active? Or

Aaron

01:04:27 – 01:04:28

No, I think he's I think he's done.

Ian

01:04:28 – 01:04:29

He hung it up.

Aaron

01:04:30 – 01:04:33

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The spirit of Aaron Francis is no more.

Ian

01:04:33 – 01:04:34

Aaron. Thanks. Lives.

Aaron

01:04:34 – 01:04:35

Yeah.

Ian

01:04:36 – 01:04:40

All right. Well, I don't know. We have this other one. I don't want to talk about this thing right now. I'm gonna demote that.

Ian

01:04:41 – 01:04:42

You want to dig a basement.

Aaron

01:04:42 – 01:04:48

Let's talk about that. Dig a basement. So, you know, I wanna dig a pool. Right? Yes.

Ian

01:04:49 – 01:04:50

By hand Also myself.

Aaron

01:04:50 – 01:05:04

By hand, but myself for the content. I've been thinking I've been thinking we need so we have, like, a one and a half car garage. You know, we live in the big city,

Ian

01:05:04 – 01:05:04

so we

Aaron

01:05:04 – 01:05:12

don't have, yeah, we don't have a lot of space. It's I guess it's it's technically a two car garage, but it would be it would be

Ian

01:05:12 – 01:05:12

too tight.

Aaron

01:05:12 – 01:05:16

You can't you can't get kids in and out. And when there are two cards, two cars in there.

Ian

01:05:17 – 01:05:17

Yep.

Aaron

01:05:17 – 01:05:26

And so, you know, since since we live since we're urban livers, we don't have a lot of, like, land space despite being in the

Ian

01:05:26 – 01:05:26

tech space.

Aaron

01:05:26 – 01:05:31

You know? It's all vertical. And instead of going up, what if you go down?

Ian

01:05:32 – 01:05:37

We've already we this we've talked about this a little bit, but not in the sense of you actually doing it. Not in not

Aaron

01:05:37 – 01:05:44

in a personal sense, but in the societal sense. Cars belong underground. Hi hi, producer Dave. He's gonna tell me somebody's calling me. Oh.

Aaron

01:05:44 – 01:05:49

I mean, it's probably a pharmacy or somebody. Or it's producer Dave saying that I just invented subways.

Ian

01:05:49 – 01:05:52

It's like, yeah. But it's better. It's cars. Dave loves subways.

Aaron

01:05:53 – 01:05:56

So cars in in a society, cars belong underground

Ian

01:05:57 – 01:05:59

in Hold on. I gotta stop you right there for a second. I gotta stop you.

Aaron

01:05:59 – 01:06:01

No. No. No. That's that's table stakes. We can't wait.

Aaron

01:06:01 – 01:06:02

We've gotten to the good

Ian

01:06:02 – 01:06:08

stuff here. Hold on. Have you ever lived in a house with an underneath garage? Okay. I have.

Ian

01:06:08 – 01:06:13

Does it suck? It's not for the faint of heart, especially with four kids.

Aaron

01:06:13 – 01:06:15

You gotta go up and down the stairs with a bunch of crap.

Ian

01:06:16 – 01:06:24

Yes. Lots of crap. What does it when you go grocery shopping and when you have four kids and they get just a little bit bigger and they're eating constantly all the time

Aaron

01:06:24 – 01:06:24

Always eating.

Ian

01:06:25 – 01:06:28

Have six people's worth of food. You're dragging up and down those stairs

Aaron

01:06:28 – 01:06:29

gallons of milk.

Ian

01:06:29 – 01:06:39

Three times a day or three times a week, I should say. Like, it's it's very terrible. So I I do agree with you philosophically that I would prefer that's a better use of space, shove it under there.

Aaron

01:06:39 – 01:06:43

So philosophically, cars belong underground. Yeah. So we agree on that. We agree on that.

Ian

01:06:43 – 01:06:47

Practice. It's it's it's more tricky. But yeah. Okay.

Aaron

01:06:47 – 01:06:55

So here's here's what I'm here's what I'm, and this is Patriot Comfort. Oh, it's the HVAC company. That's who called. Fantastic. There we go.

Aaron

01:06:55 – 01:06:56

We we love a callback.

Ian

01:06:57 – 01:06:58

Put them on the air?

Aaron

01:06:58 – 01:07:03

Yeah. Exactly. Okay. So philosophically, cars belong underground. We agree with that.

Aaron

01:07:03 – 01:07:11

Producer Dave agrees with that. He hates public transportation and loves private vehicles. Thanks, Dave. Okay. So cars belong underground.

Aaron

01:07:11 – 01:07:12

We don't have a ton of space.

Ian

01:07:13 – 01:07:13

Right.

Aaron

01:07:13 – 01:07:18

I want to have space. I park in the street like like an animal. Right?

Ian

01:07:18 – 01:07:19

It's the worst.

Aaron

01:07:19 – 01:07:21

Yeah. Speaking of plebes No.

Ian

01:07:21 – 01:07:23

So it's not the worst worst, but still. It's not

Aaron

01:07:23 – 01:07:28

not great. You know? Dad dad gets the short end of the stick. That's just how it goes. You understand this.

Aaron

01:07:28 – 01:07:29

So I'm I'm parking in the street.

Ian

01:07:29 – 01:07:30

Yep.

Aaron

01:07:30 – 01:07:35

At the old house, my car got hit, like, four times on the street. People take off the mirror.

Ian

01:07:36 – 01:07:37

Oh my gosh.

Aaron

01:07:37 – 01:07:50

Yeah. One time somebody hit and run, hit and ran, hit it hit they hit it, and they drove off. They hit it. And Yep. And, I had to get the frame straightened because they just banged into it so hard that it, like I can just get rid of it.

Aaron

01:07:50 – 01:07:55

You just I know. I'm not gonna be able to sell it for anything. So park on the street like an idiot.

Ian

01:07:55 – 01:07:55

Aaron

01:07:55 – 01:08:06

I want and I've watched a bunch of YouTube videos about it, so it's definitely possible. I want to dig an underground. Obviously, dig dig an underground garage.

Ian

01:08:07 – 01:08:08

Oh, good.

Aaron

01:08:08 – 01:08:20

That's like five car garage underground. For your bras and things. For our freaking kids' Honda Civics whenever they get them. Also, this this is interesting because I don't

Ian

01:08:20 – 01:08:20

know if

Aaron

01:08:20 – 01:08:31

our kids are ever gonna have cars because self driving cars are gonna exist. So that's that's a open question. So, anyway, I wanna dig I wanna stop calling me. My mom on podcast right now. Goodness.

Ian

01:08:32 – 01:08:33

Airplane mode, baby. Yeah.

Aaron

01:08:33 – 01:08:39

Turn on DND here. So I wanna dig a a garage to go under the house.

Ian

01:08:39 – 01:08:40

Aaron

01:08:40 – 01:08:48

Now you got me thinking you got me thinking that a garage under the house is not a great idea, but what about dumb waiters? Did you guys ever have a dumb waiter?

Ian

01:08:48 – 01:08:51

Well, you could just have one of those car elevators that bring things up and down. Yeah. We

Aaron

01:08:51 – 01:09:01

could have a car elevator. What's next? Colin Furze Colin Furze is digging an underground, garage by himself, which I wouldn't do that. Really? But he has a car elevator for his DeLorean.

Aaron

01:09:02 – 01:09:07

Yeah. So we could do that. We could drive we could drive into the surface garage, have it drop you down.

Ian

01:09:07 – 01:09:08

That'd be awesome.

Aaron

01:09:08 – 01:09:16

And then drive into percent. Drive into cold storage. And if you need, like, if you need hot storage, you go back on the elevator and put you back in the surface garage. That's great.

Ian

01:09:16 – 01:09:27

I mean, honestly, that's actually probably more doable in some because, like, I don't think you can really dig under your house. Like, that's not a thing. So you're gonna have to dig in the backyard.

Aaron

01:09:27 – 01:09:32

You can. It's expensive, but you can do it. It's a pure beam foundation, so we can totally do it. Yeah.

Ian

01:09:32 – 01:09:37

I don't know. I feel like they would take it. That's a high risk factor there. I don't know.

Aaron

01:09:37 – 01:09:37

I know. I know.

Ian

01:09:37 – 01:09:44

So if you dig in the backyard, right, where it's nice and open, whatever, two days excavator, have the whole thing dug out. Great.

Aaron

01:09:44 – 01:09:45

Right.

Ian

01:09:45 – 01:09:57

And now you go into your garage. You have to tear out the garage, I guess, and dig down there too. And then boom, carb later, boom, into the back, into your parking garage. That'd be cool.

Aaron

01:09:57 – 01:09:57

That'd be awesome.

Ian

01:09:58 – 01:09:58

Do a ramp.

Aaron

01:09:58 – 01:10:00

You if you don't wanna spend money

Ian

01:10:00 – 01:10:03

on a thing, like door, ramp. Right.

Aaron

01:10:03 – 01:10:04

That's what I was thinking.

Ian

01:10:04 – 01:10:07

I didn't do it just the house, though. You gotta get out from the house.

Aaron

01:10:07 – 01:10:11

Yeah. I think under the house would probably be too expensive. I

Ian

01:10:11 – 01:10:12

think you're crazy expensive.

Aaron

01:10:13 – 01:10:15

Yeah. Because then they gotta, like, they gotta

Ian

01:10:16 – 01:10:17

Make sure your house doesn't fall down.

Aaron

01:10:17 – 01:10:21

Yeah. That's the thing. That's kinda the whole thing. Yeah. They gotta shore up all the piers.

Aaron

01:10:22 – 01:10:26

Yeah. The beams are good. It's the piers you gotta worry about because if you dig the piers away

Ian

01:10:27 – 01:10:28

Foundation. You

Aaron

01:10:28 – 01:10:33

know, there go the beams. So I don't know. As as a house scientist, I know a lot of these things. So,

Ian

01:10:33 – 01:10:37

yeah, I think So you gave them this some thought. You're actually thinking about this for real? Okay.

Aaron

01:10:37 – 01:10:49

I'm actually thinking about this for real. Here's what I here's what I one thing, rough weekend. Just long, you know, four day weekend with no no au pair. Just, like Oh. Just long brutal weekend.

Aaron

01:10:49 – 01:11:00

Kids are kids are wonderful, but also a little bit tough sometimes. Yeah. Yep. So one of the things that I felt this weekend was very stuck. Like, I'm I'm I feel like I'm just stuck.

Aaron

01:11:00 – 01:11:06

And one of the one of the, ways that I feel this is on the house stuff. Like

Ian

01:11:06 – 01:11:07

Mhmm.

Aaron

01:11:07 – 01:11:09

There's a bunch of stuff I need to do around the house.

Ian

01:11:09 – 01:11:10

Yeah.

Aaron

01:11:10 – 01:11:18

And, like, you know, minor stuff I need to do, like, replace the trash can rails because it doesn't pull out all the way, and it's incredibly frustrating.

Ian

01:11:18 – 01:11:19

A hidden trash can, though.

Aaron

01:11:19 – 01:11:29

You wanna freaking punch the door off. So that's one thing. But then also, like, are we gonna add a guest room? Because we don't have a guest room. Mhmm.

Aaron

01:11:29 – 01:11:44

And, like, once once the au pair leaves and the babies move upstairs, like, we need to redo the upstairs at some point because we have one bathroom upstairs. And, you know, in in, in the vision board, it's a boys' bathroom and a girls' bathroom upstairs.

Ian

01:11:45 – 01:11:45

Yeah.

Aaron

01:11:45 – 01:11:49

Because we got two of each. Perfect. Great. Load balanced. It's gonna be awesome.

Aaron

01:11:49 – 01:12:10

I don't wanna do a bunch of stuff that I'm then later gonna come back in two years and just, like, completely undo or redo or destroy. Right? Right. Mhmm. Because if I don't have if I don't have a, like, a plan for what everything is going to be like, if I don't have something that I'm working towards, I I don't wanna do anything because it might go against what I'm working towards.

Aaron

01:12:10 – 01:12:47

And so something I realized this weekend was I just gotta call the architect again. And even if we don't do it for five years, even if it is just not it's not immediate, I need to know what is the what's the final plan for this house. Mhmm. And if if, like, the final plan is to build a, you know, a mother-in-law suite over the garage and put two bathrooms upstairs and turn the downstairs baby's room into, like, a sitting room or or or a half bath downstairs, that's great. And then we can we can, like, knock those things off one at a time versus I don't know what's gonna happen.

Aaron

01:12:47 – 01:13:07

So, therefore, I'm not gonna do anything, and I'm just gonna feel depressed about it. And that that's where the, like, that's where the garage came into question was, you know, if if it turns out that self driving cars aren't a thing, which they're gonna be a thing, we're eventually hopefully, we're gonna have six cars at this household. You know, we're gonna have

Ian

01:13:08 – 01:13:08

Maybe. We're

Aaron

01:13:08 – 01:13:11

gonna have two 17 year olds and two 15 year olds.

Ian

01:13:11 – 01:13:17

Yeah. But they could share. The twins I mean, I would not go more than four cars with your situation.

Aaron

01:13:17 – 01:13:22

When they when they go off to college and they come home for Thanksgiving, we're gonna have a bunch of cars everywhere. Right?

Ian

01:13:22 – 01:13:27

I mean, I guess. I think that they could share all summer. Let me tell you. I had to share a car.

Aaron

01:13:27 – 01:13:29

Potentially they could potentially share a car.

Ian

01:13:29 – 01:13:40

I had to drop my mother off at work at 3PM. She was a nurse every day, and then go back for her at 11PM at night Wow. So I could have the car after school. So these kids can share a car, man.

Aaron

01:13:40 – 01:13:44

These these kids can share a car. But the point is we can't have one car garage. Right?

Ian

01:13:44 – 01:13:44

You need more than

Aaron

01:13:45 – 01:13:53

One car garage isn't gonna work because you park all you park five cars in the cul de sac out front, and people start to be like, hey. What's going on? Why you have five cars in the cul de sac?

Ian

01:13:53 – 01:13:58

Yeah. You don't have a do you have a driveway or not much of a driveway? Like, not really. Not enough. Driveway for parking.

Ian

01:13:58 – 01:13:58

Because of

Aaron

01:13:58 – 01:14:15

the alley, you can fit one car between the alley and the garage door. And so it's like, there's not there's nowhere to park in the back. It's not a street where you can just, like, park a few houses down because it's cul de sac. Right? And so you got that wonky parking angle where you're like, oh, do I pull in straight?

Aaron

01:14:15 – 01:14:17

Do I pull in with the curve? Like, wow. What am I supposed to do here?

Ian

01:14:17 – 01:14:24

There room for a bigger garage, or it sounds like not necessarily, like, to the side? Could you make it a three car garage?

Aaron

01:14:24 – 01:14:30

I don't think so. We could we could jet into we could jut into the the backyard, maybe.

Ian

01:14:31 – 01:14:36

Make a double you know, you could make it double deep. Yeah. That's a thing. No.

Aaron

01:14:36 – 01:14:43

We can't we can't make it we can't make it longer. We could make it wider. We could go into wider. We could go into the backyard a little bit.

Ian

01:14:43 – 01:14:43

Mhmm.

Aaron

01:14:43 – 01:14:48

But the the the lot is angled a little bit such that we couldn't go terribly far.

Ian

01:14:48 – 01:14:49

Okay.

Aaron

01:14:49 – 01:14:51

And so I'm thinking just get rid of the garage.

Ian

01:14:51 – 01:14:52

Right.

Aaron

01:14:52 – 01:14:55

Just get rid of the garage. Get more backyard. Put all the cars underground.

Ian

01:14:56 – 01:14:56

Mhmm.

Aaron

01:14:56 – 01:15:06

Drive down there. You got you got some woodworking tools. You got a bunch of cars. You got a bunch of hang space. And they got this great big backyard, so you don't have a garage there anymore.

Aaron

01:15:06 – 01:15:11

I don't know where the pool goes in that scenario because now there's a garage down there, but still, It's a great idea. Right?

Ian

01:15:11 – 01:15:17

I don't know. It feels like it should be very expensive, but maybe it wouldn't be. Maybe somehow it isn't.

Aaron

01:15:17 – 01:15:21

Yeah. That's the old this is the old time and money thing again.

Ian

01:15:21 – 01:15:21

Yeah. Yeah.

Aaron

01:15:21 – 01:15:24

This one, I can just do with money, but I don't have that much money.

Ian

01:15:25 – 01:15:31

You could there you have to be able to, like, are you thinking it's so big that you can turn around? I mean, that you have to.

Aaron

01:15:31 – 01:15:37

Yeah. That's the question. Because I can't have two entrances or or rather two, like, an entry and an exit now.

Ian

01:15:37 – 01:15:37

Yeah.

Aaron

01:15:40 – 01:15:42

I could get a turntable. I could get a car turntable.

Ian

01:15:42 – 01:15:43

How do they get down there? A ramp or

Aaron

01:15:43 – 01:15:45

you That's what I'm thinking.

Ian

01:15:45 – 01:15:48

Lower the grade No. So it can Oh, and I can get into it.

Aaron

01:15:49 – 01:16:00

I'm thinking, because we our house is on a hill. Yeah. So I'm thinking from the alley, there's just, like, a a ramp that goes down to a garage door that is then you go in underground.

Ian

01:16:00 – 01:16:06

What do you do you care about resale value? Or are you like, this is the forever house till the kids are big, so I don't really care so much.

Aaron

01:16:06 – 01:16:17

Well, I don't think it's the forever house. I think it's the house for the next maybe ten years. But, also, I'm gonna be rich in ten years, so I don't care that much. Yeah. Well, I guess I keep saying that, but one of these times, it's gonna turn out to be true.

Aaron

01:16:17 – 01:16:19

I said that ten years ago.

Ian

01:16:19 – 01:16:31

I like this way less if it's not the forever house. Because I think when you start doing weird stuff, it just makes your house so much harder to sell. It's like, I don't want a house with a weird den garage situation that's really funky and, like, a scary ramp I drive down.

Aaron

01:16:31 – 01:16:34

But imagine it's not weird. Imagine it's awesome.

Ian

01:16:34 – 01:16:50

Well, is that awesome? I mean, you better get rich earlier than if you're gonna build the awesome one. Because the awesome one's gonna be really big to make it, like, we can turn around and have a woodworking shop and all this stuff. Like, you're talking about a pretty sizable amount of land, I would think. Again $300,000 garage.

Ian

01:16:50 – 01:16:52

I don't know. Maybe. Again, it comes back

Aaron

01:16:52 – 01:16:57

it comes back to money. I gotta I gotta get more money. That's the problem.

Ian

01:16:58 – 01:17:06

I think you should sell this house and just move a little farther out to where the Texas houses are Texas big. And it's like, here's my seven car garage.

Aaron

01:17:06 – 01:17:09

I know. I got eight bedrooms. All above ground.

Ian

01:17:09 – 01:17:23

Yeah. I got, yeah. It's all just like, I got 20 acres and whatever. Even if you don't wanna go all the way up to 20 acres, like whatever. I got three acres in this nice little community with a five car garage and 10 bedrooms and eight bathrooms and whatever.

Ian

01:17:23 – 01:17:26

That's just what I'm doing. And it's a 1,300,000.0 or something.

Aaron

01:17:26 – 01:17:28

And Can you imagine? You know?

Ian

01:17:28 – 01:17:29

That's what you gotta do.

Aaron

01:17:29 – 01:17:37

You could probably get you could probably get that type of house out out it'd be it'd be pretty far out, but you could probably get that for $1,300,000

Ian

01:17:37 – 01:17:40

or something. In. That's gonna be way cheaper and easier in the whole thing.

Aaron

01:17:41 – 01:17:47

Yeah. But then we don't live across the street from our friends, and we don't live, like, in the, like, in the neighborhood where the elementary school is.

Ian

01:17:48 – 01:17:50

Said you're not gonna be there forever anyway.

Aaron

01:17:50 – 01:17:52

We might be in the neighborhood forever.

Ian

01:17:52 – 01:17:53

Oh, okay.

Aaron

01:17:55 – 01:17:59

Yeah. I know. We We gotta buy the neighbor's house. That's what we gotta do.

Ian

01:17:59 – 01:18:07

That was what I was gonna say. Like, then I would I like the buy the neighbor's house idea maybe or Yeah. Something is there, like, a tear downable house next to you or no? Not anything There's

Aaron

01:18:07 – 01:18:09

there's a tear downable house catty corner from us.

Ian

01:18:10 – 01:18:11

Well, that's interesting.

Aaron

01:18:12 – 01:18:12

Yeah.

Ian

01:18:13 – 01:18:18

Make make them an offer. Tear it down. That's a parking lot. Done. That's a parking lot.

Ian

01:18:19 – 01:18:23

Put a garage on that thing, you know, because it's a above ground garage.

Aaron

01:18:23 – 01:18:25

Having a house that had off-site parking.

Ian

01:18:25 – 01:18:28

Yeah. I mean, it sounds like it's not too far. It touches your lot. Right?

Aaron

01:18:29 – 01:18:31

No. It doesn't. It's across the cul de sac. Yeah.

Ian

01:18:31 – 01:18:36

Across the cul de sac. Yeah. That's still kinda cool.

Aaron

01:18:36 – 01:18:37

Still kinda cool.

Ian

01:18:37 – 01:18:37

There's no

Aaron

01:18:37 – 01:18:43

snow there. Know what? I could I could build a tunnel from the parking garage to the house.

Ian

01:18:43 – 01:18:45

Who's gonna sit there? Let you do that.

Aaron

01:18:45 – 01:18:51

It doesn't matter. It was underground. It's like international waters. Okay. Once you're underground, you can do whatever you want.

Ian

01:18:51 – 01:19:01

But this is serious business now. If you can get that house. Right? Mhmm. I mean, for the amount of your underground lair thing, you could buy the house or close to it and renovate it.

Ian

01:19:02 – 01:19:05

And that's the office. That's the office and the garage. That'd

Aaron

01:19:05 – 01:19:06

be incredible.

Ian

01:19:06 – 01:19:14

Right. That's two. So you have your garage in your house. Maybe you expand it a little. So it's like two full cars when you get, when you do some other renovation, whatever.

Ian

01:19:14 – 01:19:20

Right. And then across the street, Hey, that's the kids could park across the street. Okay. Like I, you didn't even probably have your own car when you're

Aaron

01:19:20 – 01:19:21

a kid, whatever. You know what I'm saying?

Ian

01:19:21 – 01:19:30

Like they can walk across the street to their car. That's where your office is. That's where the studios are. That all works. It's a write off?

Ian

01:19:30 – 01:19:34

It's a write off for sure. The whole thing is a write off.

Aaron

01:19:34 – 01:19:38

I can make Steve pay for it all. Oh, this is a great idea.

Ian

01:19:38 – 01:19:40

Yeah. Steve's gonna love that. Yeah.

Aaron

01:19:40 – 01:19:41

You could work it out

Ian

01:19:41 – 01:19:44

with Steve. You figure that part out. But the point is it's a write off.

Aaron

01:19:44 – 01:19:47

Pay, Steve, you pay for half, and you can stay anytime year.

Ian

01:19:47 – 01:19:50

There you go. You go. I'm sure there'd be room for a little guest suite going

Aaron

01:19:50 – 01:19:51

in town.

Ian

01:19:51 – 01:19:58

Yeah. It's on the Second Floor. You have some maybe a podcast room and, like, a guest suite. And on the main level, you blow

Aaron

01:19:58 – 01:20:10

it all out. Problem the only problem with this is Mhmm. We're not Houston, and we do have zoning in Dallas. Mhmm. And so we're it would be zoned totally residential, and so we'd have to we'd have to play it cool.

Ian

01:20:11 – 01:20:20

Yeah. But as long as you don't totally blow it out where it's like this room couldn't be a living room and so I mean, like, what do you you know what I mean? Like, I think it's fine as long as you don't I mean, you don't have people in

Aaron

01:20:20 – 01:20:21

there all the time. Yeah.

Ian

01:20:21 – 01:20:26

Yeah. I mean, who's gonna know, though? Nobody Nobody's gonna know. I like this idea. Or you can get those zoning change.

Ian

01:20:26 – 01:20:27

It's not impossible.

Aaron

01:20:28 – 01:20:34

In this neighborhood, it would be impossible. Yeah. I feel like there'd be a bunch of NIMBYs that are like, no freaking chance.

Ian

01:20:34 – 01:20:39

I was told in Texas, anything goes. And now you're telling me there's some zoning regulations

Aaron

01:20:39 – 01:20:43

that are just talking to you. Sky is awesome, so we're both disappointed today.

Ian

01:20:43 – 01:20:44

This is ridiculous.

Aaron

01:20:44 – 01:20:47

It's unbelievable. Bad data being mostly technical pod.

Ian

01:20:48 – 01:20:52

Oh, man. Alright. So I don't know. Do you have more on building this thing? Are you gonna build it?

Ian

01:20:52 – 01:20:53

Are you digging it?

Aaron

01:20:53 – 01:20:54

I'm gonna get a quote.

Ian

01:20:54 – 01:20:55

I'm gonna

Aaron

01:20:55 – 01:21:05

get a quote. I'm gonna get the architect out, and I'm gonna get a quote for, like, hey. How do I dig a 4,000 square foot garage basement? And they're gonna say, give us a million dollars, and I'll say thank

Ian

01:21:05 – 01:21:06

you

Aaron

01:21:06 – 01:21:17

for your time. Yeah. But, yeah, I need I need to I need to I need to have a plan. I need to get moving because I feel I just feel stuck. And so we're gonna do we're gonna make something happen.

Ian

01:21:17 – 01:21:26

What's up with the psychology of this, which you have badly and I also have this too, which is like you have things on your to do list. Right? Like, for your house.

Aaron

01:21:26 – 01:21:27

Mhmm. Mhmm.

Ian

01:21:27 – 01:21:32

And you could just do those things. Nope. But instead, you're gonna figure out how to build an underground lair.

Aaron

01:21:32 – 01:21:33

In instead, you need

Ian

01:21:34 – 01:21:34

what you're thinking

Aaron

01:21:34 – 01:21:38

about. A unifying theory of of the, like, the universe.

Ian

01:21:38 – 01:21:45

I need to know this is what happened to this house in the next ten years before I can This is change those light bulbs. I can't change those light bulbs,

Aaron

01:21:45 – 01:21:59

but I know what's going on. Because what if what if we remodel in here and we put in different types of lights? And so Exactly. This is the this is the problem of, before I can do anything, I have to do everything. That's that's the problem.

Ian

01:21:59 – 01:21:59

Yeah.

Aaron

01:21:59 – 01:22:10

And I don't know I don't know what it is. And and, like, the easy solution well, one easy solution would just be do the do the freaking change the light bulbs. Nah. It's not gonna work. That's no problem.

Aaron

01:22:10 – 01:22:35

The other the other easy solution is to sit down for a day, an an hour a day, a week, whatever it takes, and come up with your grand unifying theory of what the house is supposed to be. Mhmm. And then with that theory in place, begin to change the light bulbs. But for some reason for some reason, what I do is I don't change the light bulbs, and I don't come up with the grand unifying theory of what the house is supposed to be. And so I'm just stuck, and it's terrible.

Aaron

01:22:36 – 01:22:45

And it it it expresses itself across many mediums. The house, programming, making course, everything. It's all over the place. It's not great.

Ian

01:22:46 – 01:22:46

It's not good.

Aaron

01:22:46 – 01:22:49

It's not good. It's not optimal. It's not optimal.

Ian

01:22:49 – 01:22:53

I also have some bad news for you, which I hate to always drop these things on you

Aaron

01:22:53 – 01:22:55

since I'm a little bit ahead of you. Bad news. Yeah.

Ian

01:22:55 – 01:23:08

I know. But it's like the we had a grand unifying theory too for our house, and we built our house from scratch. Right? And we only had one kid at the time. And now you're not gonna be in this situation where you have more kids show up, but we still knew we were gonna have more kids.

Ian

01:23:08 – 01:23:18

So it wasn't like, oh, we didn't even know we're gonna have more than one kid. Like and then when you get in there and how you use it, there's just always gonna be stuff that's not right that you have to go fix and change.

Aaron

01:23:18 – 01:23:22

I don't like that. I wanna hold on to hope that someday everything will be fixed. Know.

Ian

01:23:22 – 01:23:23

Yeah. It's gonna happen.

Aaron

01:23:24 – 01:23:25

That sucks for me.

Ian

01:23:25 – 01:23:32

Oh, man. I'm looking forward to this grand unifying theory, though. You have to bring this back to the show. I wanna hear what you come up with. Are you gonna actually sit down and do it?

Ian

01:23:32 – 01:23:35

Are you trying to so I guess you're gonna call the architect. That's kinda the Yeah. You you

Aaron

01:23:35 – 01:23:46

call the architect, and I found there's, like, a there I found a website, Texas Texas Basement Boys or something like that. I'm like, yeah. These these guys these guys know what they're doing. I just know what they're doing. Some good old boys.

Ian

01:23:46 – 01:23:47

Situation, though.

Aaron

01:23:47 – 01:23:54

You know what? We'll see. We'll get some we'll get some notes. We'll see we'll see what it comes back at. It's probably gonna be prohibitively expensive.

Aaron

01:23:56 – 01:24:18

So I think I don't know. If we can if we can last ten years in the house, that's still pre car. You know, we'll just have two cars the whole time at that point. Yeah. And then by then, of course, I'll be very rich, and I can just buy some other house, knock it down, dig out a dig out a 4,000 square foot basement from from grade, not, like, sneak under the house and build it.

Aaron

01:24:19 – 01:24:21

And then, yeah, that'll be that'll solve all of our problems.

Ian

01:24:21 – 01:24:22

I mean, I really do like that plan better.

Aaron

01:24:22 – 01:24:24

Like, just It's a lot smarter.

Ian

01:24:24 – 01:24:31

Get a lot. Build the house you want from scratch. You'll everybody will be bigger. You'll kinda understand the dynamics. And then Yeah.

Ian

01:24:32 – 01:24:36

You can do exactly what you want. You got a whole podcasting studio. You could have

Aaron

01:24:36 – 01:24:36

Be awesome.

Ian

01:24:36 – 01:24:49

Whatever you want the garage situation to be, bedroom situation, how the kids act with each other. Like, there's all that stuff too. Are people gonna want separate rooms or do other things like being together? What do you how that's all gonna work. So oh, man.

Ian

01:24:49 – 01:24:50

We got a lot to do.

Aaron

01:24:51 – 01:24:55

Yeah. Good. So much to do, man. I've got so much to do.

Ian

01:24:55 – 01:25:04

Alright. So we got one more. We'll do one more meta thing, and then I'll save this other thing for next week. So we talked about ads on here.

Aaron

01:25:04 – 01:25:05

Your great idea.

Ian

01:25:05 – 01:25:19

Everybody's heard some ads at this point in the show. Yes. You heard two ads this week already by this point, but we have a different idea for the ads in the future. Yeah. Of them being these am radio spots, short, tight.

Ian

01:25:20 – 01:25:21

We're gonna see how that goes.

Aaron

01:25:21 – 01:25:21

Yep.

Ian

01:25:22 – 01:25:35

But much like the conversation we just talked about, we can't just do it. We can't just put up a simple link or just even say, here's our transfer information and manually build invoices. We have to have a system.

Aaron

01:25:36 – 01:25:37

Yep. We have to do everything.

Ian

01:25:38 – 01:25:41

We have to have a system. So we have the boys over at Thunk

Aaron

01:25:41 – 01:25:42

The Thunk boys.

Ian

01:25:43 – 01:25:55

Building us a system. Texas Basement boys and Thunk together are going to build us a podcast advertising basement management solution.

Aaron

01:25:56 – 01:26:03

We got universally good feedback about the AM radio reads. We did. Everybody was everybody was like, that's great. I love it. Do it.

Ian

01:26:04 – 01:26:16

People seem into it. I'll be curious to see when we're reading off these four ads a couple times a show. If I mean, if we get that many advertisers, but, how people are then, but people seem to be into it. I think it it's gotta be better than a minute long ad. Right?

Ian

01:26:16 – 01:26:18

Like, I feel like it has to be.

Aaron

01:26:18 – 01:26:23

I don't want to swim along. Easy. I think you and I will need to be prepared a little bit.

Ian

01:26:23 – 01:26:24

A little more prepared than we are.

Aaron

01:26:24 – 01:26:37

This podcast is brought to you by and just, like, boom, boom, boom Yeah. And keep going. I'm like, you read one, I read one, you read one, I read one, we move on. I think that is gonna be, like, I think that is it's unskippable. It's it's interesting.

Aaron

01:26:37 – 01:26:41

It's fast, and then we just get right back to it. I think that's gonna be perfect.

Ian

01:26:41 – 01:26:58

Yeah. I think that that would be pretty good. So yeah. So we wanna assist them, though, because, like, there is, like, eight if we get up to eight or however whatever the number we do is, you know, which ones are on for this month because they're gonna be month long chunks. So there is a little bit of, like, management that has to happen there.

Ian

01:26:58 – 01:27:20

And then, of course, like, collecting money and letting people buy or people wanna buy multiple months, blah blah blah, whatever. And to make it so we don't have to hand do it all and all that stuff. So thanks gonna gonna whip it up. I sent them a little wireframe, but an idea, Daniel, who was up late last night playing poker apparently, was, gonna be on it. And, yeah.

Ian

01:27:20 – 01:27:23

So it's gonna be a little a partnership with the Funk Pillows.

Aaron

01:27:24 – 01:27:25

I love it.

Ian

01:27:25 – 01:27:25

I'm excited about that. It's gonna

Aaron

01:27:25 – 01:27:28

be great. It's gonna be hopefully some good press for them. I

Ian

01:27:28 – 01:27:29

hope so.

Aaron

01:27:29 – 01:27:31

Put the name on it somewhere, you know, talk about them a little bit.

Ian

01:27:31 – 01:27:37

Put their name built. They're gonna get some credit for building it. We're gonna talk about it on here. We're gonna talk about it

Aaron

01:27:37 – 01:27:37

right now.

Ian

01:27:38 – 01:27:38

What can be better

Aaron

01:27:38 – 01:27:42

than that? Stunk.dev. I hope. I hope that's their domain. We'll see.

Aaron

01:27:42 – 01:27:44

Y'all find out. Let me know.

Ian

01:27:44 – 01:27:45

I think that's right.

Aaron

01:27:45 – 01:27:50

Yeah. I love it. I think it's a great idea. I think it's a spectacle, and I I think that's gonna be amazing. And Thank you.

Aaron

01:27:50 – 01:27:56

It also like, you were correct. Even even some I know. Write it down in your journal.

Ian

01:27:56 – 01:27:57

Broke

Aaron

01:27:57 – 01:28:03

people. Time you're gonna get it. I think you're correct in that it enables small advertisers

Ian

01:28:03 – 01:28:04

I'm really excited.

Aaron

01:28:04 – 01:28:05

To participate.

Ian

01:28:05 – 01:28:05

Yeah.

Aaron

01:28:05 – 01:28:18

And that makes it more interesting. So we don't have to talk about Squarespace or Eight Sleep. We can talk about whatever random person wants to pony up however many dollars. We talk about them for a month. That's great.

Ian

01:28:18 – 01:28:20

I do like I do like Eight Sleep, so we should talk about them. But yes.

Aaron

01:28:20 – 01:28:26

Like yes. Yeah. Eight Sleep. If you wanna buy out the whole thing, just let us know. We are 100% for sale.

Ian

01:28:26 – 01:28:49

But, yes, I do. I think that's gonna be awesome, especially since our pod is very to a pretty specific audience, and there's a lot of people in that audience with interesting products that aren't necessarily, you know, at the $10,000,000 a year and up sort of range. So I think that'd be really cool. It's gonna be totally affordable to get in front of our audience with a product that is likely appealing to that audience. So, anyway, I don't know.

Ian

01:28:49 – 01:28:58

It's always dangerous to go too meta on these things, but I think this is kind of interesting for us to talk about a little bit as it goes. And since we have this kinda unique angle on it, it's kinda cool to cover a bit.

Aaron

01:28:58 – 01:29:06

Yeah. That's gonna be fun. I'm glad I'm glad you thought of them to to build that because I I we can't build it. We'll we'll have time to do that.

Ian

01:29:06 – 01:29:18

We'll speak to you. That's why I approached you. I was like, this is like I know I know this is, like, eight hours of work or whatever, but I just I don't have eight hours, like, or sixteen hours or whatever it is. Like, I don't mentally have it. I have all this other stuff to do.

Ian

01:29:18 – 01:29:32

You have 48,000 other things to do. You definitely can't do it. So we need we need help. So we we put up the bat signal, and they came in like Batman. And they're punching the bad guys in the face, and they're gonna get it cranked out.

Ian

01:29:32 – 01:29:40

And it's gonna be awesome. And hopefully, you know, next week or two weeks from now, whenever it launches, we'll be out there. And you guys can sponsor us, and that'll be awesome. And we will be grateful.

Aaron

01:29:40 – 01:29:42

I'm excited for that. That's gonna be fun.

Ian

01:29:42 – 01:29:45

Aaron's children will eat, and it's gonna

Aaron

01:29:45 – 01:29:52

be glorious. You can you can sponsor one cubic meter of dirt removal from the Francis

Ian

01:29:52 – 01:29:54

household. Yeah. That would be

Aaron

01:29:54 – 01:29:55

really for?

Ian

01:29:55 – 01:29:59

Oh, for food. But, well, also, building an underground lair.

Aaron

01:30:00 – 01:30:06

With a car turntable. Please. Please help me. Car turntable. My my family is dying.

Aaron

01:30:06 – 01:30:07

Please help me.

Ian

01:30:08 – 01:30:13

That is the solution. A turntable. Oh, I love it. That is totally the solution.

Aaron

01:30:13 – 01:30:19

You really lose the man of the people vibe when you install a car turntable. That's the only problem.

Ian

01:30:19 – 01:30:24

You might have to give up that shtick a little bit there. I know. At the point you get a car turntable, probably

Aaron

01:30:24 – 01:30:29

Kinda hard to say it with a straight face. Yeah. I'm one of you. Step onto my turntable, please.

Ian

01:30:29 – 01:30:38

That is the tightest way to do it. Just a four car wide turntable. It just rotates when you wanna go out. When you wanna come in, you pull right in and park. Man, that's Not crazy.

Ian

01:30:38 – 01:30:40

That's a really good idea.

Aaron

01:30:40 – 01:30:43

It's not crazy. Man. It's crazy, but it's not crazy. You know?

Ian

01:30:44 – 01:30:50

I wonder what the mechanism involved in that. It's gotta be I mean, you need something pretty heavy duty to turn four cars. Right?

Aaron

01:30:50 – 01:30:52

I think you just turn one.

Ian

01:30:52 – 01:30:54

How are you gonna just turn one?

Aaron

01:30:54 – 01:31:02

I don't know. You just but you just have, like, you just have a a one turntable that turns you so you don't have to, like, turn around in the underground garage.

Ian

01:31:02 – 01:31:02

You know

Aaron

01:31:02 – 01:31:03

what I mean?

Ian

01:31:03 – 01:31:08

There's, like, parking spaces you back up even if it's a weird backup onto the little turntable

Aaron

01:31:08 – 01:31:12

turntable and it points you and shoots you like a rocket out up to the hope

Ian

01:31:12 – 01:31:16

that your 16 year old kid doesn't leave the front wheels, like, off the turntable

Aaron

01:31:17 – 01:31:17

Yeah.

Ian

01:31:17 – 01:31:20

And drag the car around. Rip it in half. Yeah. Right.

Aaron

01:31:20 – 01:31:24

You hope. One hopes. Okay. I like that. We can do is raise them right and hope.

Aaron

01:31:24 – 01:31:25

You know?

Ian

01:31:25 – 01:31:26

That probably is better. Alright.

Aaron

01:31:26 – 01:31:27

That's a good idea.

Ian

01:31:27 – 01:31:28

That's a good idea.

Aaron

01:31:28 – 01:31:29

Sponsors for the show.

Ian

01:31:30 – 01:31:37

Sponsor the show. Compelling pitch. Alright. Alright. We're gonna leave it on Aaron's turntable.

Ian

01:31:38 – 01:31:44

Yeah. Alright. Follow us. Mostly techno.com. Mostly tech pod on Twitter.

Ian

01:31:45 – 01:31:54

Mostly technical dot com on blue sky. Mostlytechnicalpodcast@Gmail.com. We will be back next week. See you. Bye.

Chasing Vanity

Transcript

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