Above Board

PJ: 00:00

Oh, hello, and welcome to the Above Board podcast from Fathom Analytics. I am, as always, Paul Jarvis, and I am joined as always by my cofounder and cohost, Jack Ellis. Good day, sir.

Jack: 00:38

Good day to you. How's it going?

PJ: 00:40

Good. It is it is going. It was a very long weekend even though it was only 2 days, but I got through it. And now we're working.

Jack: 00:50

Oh, yeah. Loads of shit bug for you, didn't it? I just think, oh, I can do. Yeah.

PJ: 00:53

Yeah. My my entire dirt bike was in individual pieces on the floor of my garage.

Jack: 00:59

Did you fix it?

PJ: 01:00

No. I I I ordered the parts. I think what happened was I blew the DC converter and possibly some of the wiring. So I've ordered, some extra parts to fix it. But, yeah, I tried to get it back together Sunday, and I just it is something isn't working with the electronics, and I think it's a 12 volt system.

PJ: 01:19

So I've ordered replacement parts for it.

Jack: 01:22

You ever shocked yourself when trying to fix stuff?

PJ: 01:25

Oh, yeah. A couple of times. I've shocked myself on, like, actual electrical outlets in the house, and that's,

Jack: 01:31

No.

PJ: 01:32

Yeah. It's not fun. It just it just feels it just it's such a gross feeling.

Jack: 01:37

Mhmm. Yeah. So I did it once and I it's funny how the body adapts, though. I remember one time oh, I don't know if I actually got shocked, but there was water and the the Barford leaked downstairs to the electrics. And I was trying to turn the fuse box back on because I was dumb.

Jack: 01:54

I didn't really understand it at the time I was doing it. And I have a memory of it just flicking up instantly, and it made me jump where it sparked or something. And to actually then get my body to go past that and do it was very hard when it was time to turn it on because I was convinced it was gonna be bad again.

PJ: 02:11

Yeah. I accidentally, my wife touched an outlet that I said was off and it wasn't when I was redoing the kitchen, I told her the outlet wasn't live, and it was she

Jack: 02:22

touched it and it was live.

PJ: 02:22

And, yeah, that wasn't that wasn't fun. That wasn't fun for either of us. Oh, god. I can imagine. Yeah.

PJ: 02:31

So alright. So we, it was a busy week last week or Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. I think I'll probably release this episode today.

PJ: 02:39

So, yeah, last week, if you're listening to this when it's released or last week for us, same thing.

Jack: 02:45

Mhmm.

PJ: 02:45

We released a new version of our interface for the Fathom application, which now matches the website. So both things are in perfect alignment now.

Jack: 02:56

Yeah. Not having to maintain 2 front ends and stuff is is beautiful. I mean, that was how's it grind? Like, because you could do everything easily in the new UI you'd build, the new framework.

PJ: 03:07

Yeah.

Jack: 03:08

But it was a grind for you to have to adapt to the old one. And it was unnecessary work, and we had to get there. Last week was good.

PJ: 03:15

Yep. And, yeah, I think one of one of the main things too was that we were able to like, all 4 of us were able to kinda QA it, before we went live. So when we did go live, there was a couple things a couple minor things that went wrong, but, like, I was I was surprised how little and this is probably gonna come back and bite us in the ass, but, like, it it went fairly well. Yeah. Like, obviously, there are some things.

PJ: 03:41

Some people noticed some things pretty quickly, that we didn't catch, But it was minor, and we were able to fix those things. We were able to get, those updates pushed out really, really quick. So overall, I was, yeah, I was really happy with how the 4 of us kinda work together to to get that, out the door.

Jack: 03:59

Yeah. That was only a few PRs that came in. I mean, yes. I literally we we went live event, and I was sick the day

PJ: 04:05

after that.

Jack: 04:05

I was just done. I'm still

PJ: 04:07

Good timing good timing on that. Thank you.

Jack: 04:09

I'm still not a 100%. Even as I'm talking on the podcast, I'm like, oh, this is I'm still not I'm gonna be there soon, but it's nice to have a team where the team can continue whilst I'm sick. Yeah. And I just had to review the PRs, which much easier than having to try and think too much. Yeah.

Jack: 04:24

But we didn't change any of the back end for the most part, which made things way easier. The only back end change I had to do was, for my work was disabling the universal analytics importer, which I suppose we should talk about. Yeah. Google has now officially retired to the API. And interesting, man, let's talk about this because they gave it a year's notice or they gave a bunch of notice after they killed that product.

Jack: 04:45

So number 1, this is interesting anyway. Google didn't automatically transition the data over, And it makes me think about us and our small team and all the effort we go to to maintain but even the joke this morning, we're still maintaining version 1 data within the interface. And to basically tell people, go fuck yourself. Like, analytical products need historical data. You want to use a company which is actually going to care about that.

Jack: 05:10

It's very weird to me that they did that and didn't bring it over to the product and didn't find a way to do that.

PJ: 05:15

Yeah. There was no way to bring UA data into GA 4, which, like, I I it's I mean, yes, it's a free product and you get what you pay for, obviously, but, like, holy shit. There were millions and millions of people using universal analytics. Like, millions, like, most of the Internet.

Jack: 05:34

Google have proven that that's their reputation, isn't it?

PJ: 05:37

They can't be trusted.

Jack: 05:38

No. Yeah. I mean, people are, you know, in Google Domains and sold to Squarespace or Wix or whatever it was. Everyone's acting surprised. I'm going, well, no.

Jack: 05:47

Google, that is their reputation. They shut things down. And I have an uneasy feeling about Google Analytics. I think some things at play there.

PJ: 05:55

I just don't think they care about, SMEs anymore. Like, I just think they want that off of their plate because especially with all the privacy stuff that we spend so much time on, I just think they don't wanna be they don't wanna faff around with that stuff anymore.

Jack: 06:11

It seems to be the case. Yes. It's a big moneymaker for them versus their advertising and showing a 100 adverts per page.

PJ: 06:18

Mhmm.

Jack: 06:19

I just have this feeling, man. I I don't know what's going to happen, but whenever someone's really confidently talking about GA 4, I'm just thinking to myself, you are aware of what they've done throughout history. You are aware that they've made the product worse for the average user. That doesn't feel like that's a successful path to a product. Yeah.

Jack: 06:38

But, yeah, in addition to that, something interesting that happened that I'm sure people will be interested to hear about, Google's API actually started breaking before the date they gave. Yeah. We've imported, I don't know, over 1,500,000,000 rows at this point, and we haven't had these issues. And then suddenly the week before it's due to close, we're seeing these issues happen. So my theory is they started winding down the sir the servers before it all closed up, and I don't I didn't know that.

PJ: 07:07

It seems likely.

Jack: 07:08

So your Google's got a so the errors the error messages they were returning, the error codes were, were the ones you return when it's your issue. Yeah. Right? I'm sorry. Your issue.

Jack: 07:19

Their issue.

PJ: 07:20

Yes. Yeah.

Jack: 07:21

Your issue being the returner. So it wasn't awesome. We hadn't changed anything. And then suddenly they're having issues returning the data. I'm thinking, yeah, that's funny, isn't it?

PJ: 07:31

Yeah. And because they don't have customer support and we do, people were contacting us.

Jack: 07:36

Yeah.

PJ: 07:37

And it sucks because there's nothing we can which like, that kind of sucks too. Right? Like, if there's a problem on our end, we will work with the customer to try to fix it. If there's a problem with somebody else's software, we can't like, it sucks because we can't do we can't do anything.

Jack: 07:51

We have to market hard on industry history. I think we need to market hard against our reputation on keeping prices good for Indian Acres and small I look at the $1 price increase for

PJ: 08:06

Once.

Jack: 08:07

Yeah. Compared to all the other analytics companies that are hiking their prices up. And I'm talking the big ones too, not just the fathom clones and stuff. Yeah. I think as we deliver more and more features and fun fact, we're just not gonna talk about what we're releasing this week.

Jack: 08:20

But as we release more and more, I think we have to go harder on that marketing of, like, yeah. We're not actually gonna screw you over. We're actually we're mindful of, you know, cost sensitivity. And, I mean, I think it's respectful. It's like, yeah, we we need to do a dollar price increase to be able to do this, this, and this, and time tied to the architecture and stuff and cost things that are going up for us, and we've had cost increases.

Jack: 08:41

Mhmm. We were I think we've been really fair on that. And I think we need to talk about how Google will kill their products when it's not making them 1,000,000,000 of dollars or or whatever else. Yeah. And how we don't need to get and there's a marketing thing there that needs to be pushed harder on pricing and people screwing their customers over because we're very different.

Jack: 09:01

The DNA of this company is so different to, like, other people, and it's weird seeing it. And I don't want people to get stung. And I'm very mindful of influencers talking about g a 4 or this and that, and I just think, no. Like, you're you're leading people down a path where they're going to get screwed. I'm just I'm becoming more mindful of that stuff, and that hasn't typically been when my quote, unquote marketing brain has been.

Jack: 09:23

I know we position against Google and stuff, but the aspect of actually screwing you out of your data, your historical data, and not including it. Imagine if we did that. Like, yeah. Yeah. Fuck it.

Jack: 09:33

You know, all your previous data, now you're gonna upgrade to fathom like, imagine v 4. We're like, fuck your old data.

PJ: 09:39

Yeah.

Jack: 09:40

It feels rude. It does. Understand the percentage.

PJ: 09:43

Yeah. It feels horrible. Yeah.

Jack: 09:47

So I've just been thinking more and more about that and then not actually letting you do the import of the data because your servers are breaking. Weird, weird, weird. But Universal Analytics is now officially dead. And I think that anyone that's still using it, that's now a risk you're taking to sorry. To use GA

PJ: 10:03

If they're using GA 4. Yeah.

Jack: 10:05

Yeah. You're basically taking a risk. And if you're an agency using that, then you're taking an even bigger risk. But I think, you know, more and more, we're just gonna keep improving our software so we can say to GA 4, bye bye.

PJ: 10:15

Mhmm. Yeah. I mean, there's a couple features that people that use GA 4 want from us, and we're aware of them. And we once we get those features out the door, I think it's just gonna be more and more of a no brainer to Yeah. To switch over.

Jack: 10:32

Yeah. I mean, the infrastructure's getting upgraded soon, doubling CPUs, doubling RAM, which is I mean, we're already fast. We're already over provisioned, but we're gonna go to the next level Yep. To run some harder queries, which is going to be very fun. Yeah.

Jack: 10:43

So, yeah, universal analytics. Just what a mess. What an absolute mess.

PJ: 10:48

Yep. To run. And I guess, on on Fathom's front, the the new UI is kind of the first phase in this next kind of iteration of Fathom. It's yeah. The good good word.

PJ: 11:01

It's a foundation for what we're building in the future. So doing things like separating out the account from the settings for site settings and email reports, We're doing that because we're going to have some features coming out for things like Teams. Right? So having the account separate from the management of of your settings needs to happen. So the the way that we've kinda built this and when we when I designed v 3, I guess, before this, we had, like, 3 features.

PJ: 11:30

Like, it was very different software, back then. So now it's been the new design kind of takes into account all of the things that we're gonna be adding to to Fathom, in the coming months years.

Jack: 11:44

The house

PJ: 11:45

room Yeah. Exactly. It's it's got room and it's, yeah, going to be really good. Like, all of the I've kind of designed the scaffolding for all of the things that are coming out and I've just kind of, like, hidden them for now. Mhmm.

PJ: 12:00

But then when we add those things, it's not gonna break the interface or it's not gonna make it crowded. It's not gonna make it, like, weird or hard to use. Because I've thought ahead for all the things we are gonna be adding and then made it work for that, but also made it work for where we are now. So, yeah, I think the the where the interface is for this v four is, is pretty good even even though I didn't use Tailwind.

Jack: 12:24

No. And and that's a that's a funny one. I think people don't realize how much you like writing CSS and HTML. Yeah. Because, like, you know, I use Tailwind.

Jack: 12:35

I don't do any CSS or HTML anymore, but I use Tailwind. Everyone's using Tailwind.

PJ: 12:41

Yeah.

Jack: 12:41

I think that you've got to use what works for you. I I like this topic. See, writing your own framework works for you. You're quick with it, and it works for your brain, and it helps you move quicker than if you were to try and pick up something new with, like, whatever else. Yeah.

Jack: 12:56

And that's that's a specific thing to you. And so that's actually you going against the the shared consensus, like the the popular thing and the common thing to do.

PJ: 13:05

Yeah. Which won't go into my life. That's always kind of been the case in tech for me.

Jack: 13:09

So they oh, well, I mean, fuck them. What what IDE do you use? I mean, you tell people the IDE you use. No one's even heard of it.

PJ: 13:15

No. Everybody uses Nova

Jack: 13:17

when you talk about it. The IDE. Exactly. So you use a random IDE. But, you know, I was talking to you about how I couldn't get PHPStorm to work.

Jack: 13:24

Yes. And how I actually so I'm more productive on a laptop. I'm less productive on a bigger screen. I like the bigger screen for certain things when you do that space, but I work better on a 13 inch laptop than I do on a bigger screen. And when I'm not sat at a desk, I also work better using sublime text with less features than I do on PHPStorm.

Jack: 13:41

And I think that just I like the theme of you doing your own framework because it's a lesson in it's okay if things work a different way for you, and it's against popular consensus. Doesn't mean that you're right or wrong. There's no objective truth. It's being it's following the path that feels right to you. Don't you don't have to do what everyone else does, and I think that that's really good.

PJ: 14:02

Yeah. It's and it's not like, I don't dislike Tailwind. I

Jack: 14:05

I That's not

PJ: 14:06

I've actually used it. It's just this is what like, I have built CSS for before Tailwind existed, I'd built CSS frameworks for most of the clients that I had around Zoom client work. So that's just, like, I know how to do that, and I know that but, like, when you ask for a page design now, it's like, okay. It's finished. Here it is.

PJ: 14:25

Like, I it's almost instant for me now because I know that I know how my brain works and I've built the framework in the way because I'm the only one who's doing CSS and HTML at the company. I can do it basically in a way that works specifically for me just like we we have a way for I think all 4 of us use a different IDE in the company.

Jack: 14:45

Oh, god. Yeah.

PJ: 14:46

And we like, it's fine. Like, we we find a way to to make it work. Like, for Nova, like, it's funny that I use Nova. I mean, it's not Dreamweaver, but it's pretty close. Yeah.

PJ: 14:58

But, like, I know all the hot keys. Like, I know where everything is. Like, I can just move so fucking fast with that because it's, like, it works the way that my brain works. And and that's, yeah, that's good and that's efficient, I think.

Jack: 15:12

And it's okay if your brain works differently to, like, no one no one is using Nova. Let's be clear here. Yeah. Like, you are in the 0.0, 0 5%, I'm sure. But for people, maybe even less than that.

PJ: 15:25

What if you use Nova, tweet at use Fathom and and let Jack know.

Jack: 15:30

Oh, no. Actually, that's Ash is on the Fathom account now. So it's Ash.

PJ: 15:33

Okay. Let Ash know then.

Jack: 15:35

K. Yeah. No one's using Nova, but it it like, this is the thing. I mean, we gotta be okay with listening to our brains.

PJ: 15:42

Yeah.

Jack: 15:42

This feels good. I like this. That you don't need an objective reason. PHPStorm, I think is one of the most amazing IDEs you can use. I like to do it.

Jack: 15:51

I even paid for it, and I was convinced I was gonna use it. But it just seeing all of the errors, it's like, oh, this, you know, this is a especially with you, Paul, with your FA wrapper. So, oh, this element doesn't exist. Do you wanna add

PJ: 16:01

custom HTML? HTML element.

Jack: 16:03

And it breaks my brain. I'm like, whatever I'm thinking about and I get told there's like a linting error or it shifts my code around or another thing it was doing with the JavaScript is it would recolor the JavaScript every time I save the chart file. Stuff like that just interrupts my brain. Like, I like I'm very good at, like, a single task. I can do I can multitask when under pressure.

Jack: 16:25

But if I'm doing just wanna focus on some code, I don't do good with all these interruptions and messages and being told that my code is wrong. And that's just me. Other people don't give a shit. That's they're completely indifferent to that. But for my brain, I like to have a single thread, and I like to just be, you know, fast and everything else.

Jack: 16:43

And I felt like I was by myself until a software engineer who actually works at Laravel, he deleted the tweet because he had a moment of just like, does the world really need to know my thoughts on this? You know, you

PJ: 16:52

play sometimes

Jack: 16:53

and you think, I don't actually need to share this, but I messaged him after. And he said that for him, it uses up his brain cycles when including this feedback stuff. And it may be making your code better and cleaner and more compliant. But my job isn't to have the most clean compliant code. My job is to get the job done.

Jack: 17:10

And I can refactor, and I can clean it up down the road, but I'm not here to do that. Let me just get this out.

PJ: 17:16

Mhmm.

Jack: 17:17

So I am a big believer. I I like that we've got a a kind of, like, coinciding. It's my brain today. Sorry. Like, side by side experiences for both of us where we're going against the norm, and that's okay.

Jack: 17:32

Without saying, like, the norm is the wrong way, we can just have our own preferred way of doing it. I think that's good.

PJ: 17:39

And that's kind of the ethos of the company too. Like, Fathom, when we released Fathom, it was a different kind of website analytics. Yeah. Like, it was literally a website analytics with less stuff, which was so counter to analytics at that time in the industry where everybody's just like, oh, we we just need to our analytics product just needs to have more features than all our competitors. And we were like, at the back of the room raising your hand, like, what if it had less, but just the stuff that people needed?

PJ: 18:08

Yep. And then yeah, that kind of changed the way analytics worked. But, like, that's we've always kind of been that, like, less less trodden path kinda company.

Jack: 18:19

When we do tech as well. Like, you know, we we go into managed services, and there's a big there's a big debate. There's always a debate on Twitter. Sorry.

PJ: 18:26

Yeah.

Jack: 18:27

And then it's about, you know, self hosted versus managed versus serverless. We always take the path that requires the least maintenance and work. And you absolutely do get people being like, what do you mean you have to hire people? You can just do it. You can get messages.

Jack: 18:39

It's like, no. I don't I don't mind getting a message. If I've committed something and my code is wrong, and I get punished, quote, unquote, punished for that, I'm, like, okay with that. But if I'm getting a message because there's a server issue or, scale up or, you know, whatever related to that, I don't really wanna deal with that. And people got in here, but nothing's ever gone wrong.

Jack: 18:58

I've been fine for years. It's it's a risk tolerance thing.

PJ: 19:01

Mhmm.

Jack: 19:02

I mean, absolutely. I like it. We could self host. I mean, it's funny actually because you have firsthand experience of self hosted going wrong. And I I enjoy that because it's like people going, oh, nothing's going wrong with mine.

Jack: 19:14

It has literally happened in Fathom in the early days, and we moved to Heroku because of your experience with that. Yeah. So don't don't people don't come out and say nothing goes wrong. Things do go wrong, and it's it's a matter of luck. And my my whole argument boils down to, I'd rather pay a premium to have Amazon deal with these server issues however rare they may be.

Jack: 19:37

Mhmm. So not only are they doing the uplink, I'm not gonna claim that the updates are the hardest thing in the world to do. I'm just not because that's intellectually dishonest. But if in the rare event that something goes wrong, we are effectively paying an insurance premium to have that handled the same way we pay for AWS Shield Advanced.

PJ: 19:55

Mhmm.

Jack: 19:55

We spend money on that, and that's effect anyway, when we talked about it, That's an insurance policy. Other people would disagree with spending that kind of money on a firewall. Right? I mean, I think it's worth it actually because we get the fire we get the WAF request included free. I think it's really good value.

Jack: 20:11

And then if we get attacked, then the underlying resources, we get credit back or whatever it is. I think it's great.

PJ: 20:17

I think people are are a bit too like, oh, well, things probably won't go wrong. And I think that's fine if it's your shit, but if it's somebody else's shit that they're paying you to take care of, then it's not okay.

Jack: 20:31

And that's been our mindset is that Yeah. Our job is to keep analytics online. And this this is the new iteration. And I've talked about I talked about this, to people before. I talked about it on a podcast somewhere else, but the new iteration is focused on, like, a whole new level of uptime and resilience.

Jack: 20:48

Right? Yeah. Where we've just I think we can get to 1,000,000 request maybe even more. I've come up I haven't prototyped this yet, but I've got a way where we might be able to get as many as 10,000,000 requests per second in support, which is just like that is our responsibility. That's our number one responsibility.

Jack: 21:04

I even talk about API uptime. My API has got great uptime and everything. But the API, being able to read, sure, it's important, but that is not as important as the collection of data itself. And that has always been the ethos. That, like, dashboard's down for 10, 15 minutes, and it's out of our control.

Jack: 21:20

Okay. That's not great, but okay. But losing data on ingest, like, that is the that's what we consider a disaster. I mean, that's been the ethos since the beginning.

PJ: 21:30

Yeah. Yeah. Like, I'm just I'm so pissed, especially in the last week. All of these emails from these, like, Fortune 500 companies, like, oh, sorry. We lost it.

PJ: 21:40

Fucking AT and T gets hacked. Ticketmaster gets hacked. Evolve and Trust Bank gets all like, I don't understand how these massive companies are just so cavalier with data that isn't really theirs. Like, it's data that belongs to their customers that lives on their servers. And I don't think enough customers understand or enough businesses understand that that's how customers think.

Jack: 22:04

Okay. But I'm just trying to think. I'm sure I shared something a few days ago in our group chat, and you quoted it. Wasn't the AT and T breach related to their database provider? I'm gonna read the title from CNBC.

Jack: 22:17

I don't know how I think this is a reliable article. I'm always here to AT and T's massive data breach deepens crisis for Snowflake 7 weeks after hack was disclosed.

PJ: 22:28

Yeah.

Jack: 22:28

So, you know, nearly all wireless customers. It seems that it was like Ticketmaster, LendingTree, Advanced Auto Parts, Live Nation Entertainment, and Santander Bank tied to Snowflake. It looks like it was Snowflake that was actually compromised, I believe. Yeah. Which Snowflake is, Snowflake is effective like a database.

Jack: 22:52

Like, they call it a data cloud. I mean, it's like, now it's an AI data cloud. I think of it as like, I mean, it's a data warehouse, but you can, I don't even know? They're like it's re technically, they're saying they're an AI data cloud, but I always thought of it as like a a data platform. Let's call it that because it's so, like, snow there's a bunch of stuff.

Jack: 23:14

I think of it as a place for data. And it's like it's a single store competitor. So obviously, I'm aware of it. I've heard of it, and it's something I've looked at before.

PJ: 23:22

So we're not switching to them this week.

Jack: 23:24

It's interesting though, isn't it? Single store take their security really seriously, and I'm glad that we use them. Yep. But I also think it comes down to what data you're storing in the database. Right?

Jack: 23:35

And we we've talked about, derisking things and how we're

PJ: 23:39

Minification. Minification

Jack: 23:40

of what we're storing, and I think that's a huge thing. Like, I trust I think Stripe is a good place to keep customer addresses because then it's like Stripe. Stripe has the most strict regular think about Stripe who are handling payment information. I think that they're going to be on the stricter, but they're gonna have bigger policies in place than than Snowflake. Yeah.

Jack: 24:00

Like, it's just it's like a gut feeling because they're handling payment information. I don't have any evidence to to prove this is just a gut.

PJ: 24:07

But also, like, it's already going to be there for payment information. We don't other companies might take that customer information and put it in another database, like, put it in their main database. We don't do that.

Jack: 24:19

No. We don't move data around. This is this is the whole thing. No. We're this and that that's another thing with Snowflake.

Jack: 24:25

I believe that you can feed stuff in from your database to Snowflake as like a data platform. And then, like, they did all that, I'm sure, to get some data for some, like, some PowerPoint presentation, and then the cost was that they had a bunch of stuff exposed. Yeah. I mean, this is huge. I mean, it isn't just AT and T.

Jack: 24:42

It's a bunch of stuff. Yeah. I I it's a scary stuff for sure.

PJ: 24:49

Yeah. Yeah. I'm not saying that people that companies are are stupid if they get hacked. That it happens. But just like the the low hanging fruit or the data minification that isn't happening is what pisses me off as a as a customer, as a consumer of places where, like, you have to give them some data.

PJ: 25:08

Like, with my cell phone company, they have to have my address.

Jack: 25:12

Right. Yeah. So why do they they have to have the data in the first place, which you'd rather not give them, but you're forced to give it to them and they fucking get hacked. Why did you ask for the data in the 1st place? Well, it has a bunch of stuff.

Jack: 25:22

Didn't they collect social security numbers or something? Did you read that?

PJ: 25:35

Certain type of plan, they do need to do a credit check, which

Jack: 25:40

I'm monitoring credit to make sure you don't do anything dodgy whilst they've got your data and what have you.

PJ: 25:45

Yeah.

Jack: 25:46

Yeah. I'm not very excited about the amount of data that companies collect. I understand there are requirements. Okay. If there are requirements to collect it, can we have a oh, I've got this.

Jack: 25:55

I'm not gonna argue for centralization, but can there be a way of verifying the information where it's kept ridiculously secure?

PJ: 26:02

Yeah.

Jack: 26:02

Or does everything just get hacked? Is is we are everything's going to get hacked, so just accept it. Maybe that's just it. Yeah. Then it comes back to the data minimization thing.

Jack: 26:14

Like, you know, imagine if we were keeping IP addresses on the website page views and stuff. We'd have tons of data. I don't know how people can sleep at night when they're collecting that much data. I guess it helps boost their business, but I'd be I'd be anxious. And can literally have years years of raw access logs.

Jack: 26:32

That's why I was hated about Google. It was so kind of opaque, and you didn't know fully what they were doing with the data. And it just it bothered you because you follow the incentives of that company as an advertiser. We talked about this before.

PJ: 26:43

Yeah.

Jack: 26:44

But, come on. I can't wait for our new DPA and our new ingestors gonna be way even better. Just

PJ: 26:50

Yep. Even things that, I guess, while we're on this topic because it is related and we did talk about it on another episode. But there there does seem to be a trend now where all of these companies are saying, hey. We're using your data to train, our LLMs. Or you have to opt out and you have to remember to opt out.

Jack: 27:10

Yeah.

PJ: 27:10

In order and it's just like, no. That's that's my, like, that's my data, please.

Jack: 27:14

I'm worried it's safe. It's only going to be done by Slack. Don't worry. It's safe. It's gonna stay over in your workspace.

Jack: 27:20

Yeah. Like, we're still in early days. I'd rather you guys chill out, or or if you're going to do it, like, give you know, you can train models. Yes. The models are 1 model per workspace.

Jack: 27:28

But even then, like, I don't I think you should have to opt in for it. My wife's just deleted a bunch of photos off of, like, Facebook or Instagram or whatever because I was I've been warning her for a while about what Facebook might be doing.

PJ: 27:41

Yeah. And

Jack: 27:41

you shouldn't trust them. Yeah. I don't know what she's seen, but they're they're now gone. I think photos of our our daughter or something she had somewhere. So they're now gone.

Jack: 27:49

But I think they were training on publicly available pictures. I just don't trust them.

PJ: 27:55

Yep. It's just a, like, it's just a shitty way to have to live to just not be able to trust the these companies to do the right thing because they never do. Like, they never it is not even being, like, conspiratorial. It's just they never do the right thing. Like, none of these huge companies do the right thing.

PJ: 28:13

So it's just, like, I believe their actions more than their flowering marketing fucking language.

Jack: 28:19

Well, and everyone gets angry at the GDPR. And, obviously, clearly, let's be real here. The GDPR did really screw over a lot of small businesses that had to now, you know, bend over backwards to comply. I think let's be honest with ourselves. The reason that was done is because these companies, big, big companies, if they were left unchecked, they can keep all the data they could.

Jack: 28:37

And so it was like a cost we had to pay. Honestly, I like the way that the the California privacy act did it where if you were below a certain revenue, there was something there was some nuance that kept you from having to stress as much. There was something there. I can't remember the specifics. Mhmm.

Jack: 28:51

The GDPR fought so many small businesses, and everyone got angry at the lawmakers. And I think that I mean, that's that's sure. That's fair. But what caused the GDPR to come about? It wasn't just, oh, we're bored.

Jack: 29:03

We're gonna do it. It was it was Facebook. It was, Google. These companies would just keep mining your data, and they would store everything. And it wasn't about what was right or wrong.

Jack: 29:12

It was about, can this make us money? Can this increase the value of the company? That was the thing.

PJ: 29:16

It it when when there are corporate incentives to be a sociopath, every corporation is going to act like a sociopath. Like, it's just like, there's you're not gonna get any you're not gonna get a different result.

Jack: 29:29

This is when we get into conversations about the yeah. You go back into pharmaceutical company history, and you look at some of the lies that they've told because it was a risk that like, they would rather tell the lie, about causing cancer or whatever. I think that is. Dose. There was something to do with Johnson and Johnson.

Jack: 29:44

I mean, this is just one case.

PJ: 29:45

Or Johnson and Johnson.

Jack: 29:46

Yeah. I don't actually know the Dunlop. There was Johnson and Johnson

PJ: 29:50

Or even like the Purdue thing with the with the opioids and stuff. Right? Like, it's just like, they would rather pay the 1,000,000,000 of dollars in fines because it's less than the the money that they've made. And when incentives are set up like that, these companies are are only going they have a fiduciary duty to make their shareholders more money every quarter.

Jack: 30:07

That that's it. That's what you just said, that line, they can be sued if they do not focus on how to make the business money.

PJ: 30:15

Yes.

Jack: 30:16

So it's funny when a when a CEO of a company does something, like if j and j are fighting something, they actually had a $6,480,000,000 settlement back in in May, to settle the talcum powder cancer lawsuits. There was something there. Now so I don't blame pharmaceutical companies for suppressing information. And that's not me saying it's okay or right, by the way. I think we're on the same page here.

PJ: 30:38

Yeah.

Jack: 30:38

But they are they are legally required to deliver shareholder value, and they would rather, you know, be hide something or maybe, like, suppress something because it's going to end up in a fine. It's unlikely to end up in jail time because money's worth more than putting someone in jail. And this happens with financial companies too. I I forget it. Was it I think it was a US or Canadian bank.

Jack: 30:58

They were selling something or they were doing something dodgy. They get a fine. It's a penalty. So, like, Johnson and Johnson had reserved $11,000,000,000 to account for the talc settlements. So there's a bunch of stuff.

Jack: 31:15

So, yeah, you've gotta look at the incentives, and that's why as someone who isn't really big into excessive regulation, I do understand why regulation is needed, and I do understand how incentives align. So I understand why GDPR came about, and I understand why, yeah, sociopathic companies behave like that.

PJ: 31:34

Yeah. They they don't have a choice because it doesn't it wouldn't make sense for them to behave any other way.

Jack: 31:40

I still have this vision, dude, of, like, one day we put together, like, a complete timeline of big tech companies listing out what they've done. Because I think a lot of people know, and they or they've got a a feel of it, often more than we do, perhaps. I no. Not perhaps. Definitely.

Jack: 31:54

Some people know more than us about Yes. Big tech history. And I think it'd be interesting to have it listed out so people can actually look at what these companies are doing. So it isn't just, oh, Google Analytics is free. It's like, no.

Jack: 32:05

Look at what this company's done. Look at it. Like, the what was the there was a lawsuit with kids. They were showing kids or they were monetizing kids or there was something. I forget the specifics.

Jack: 32:14

There's too much to remember.

PJ: 32:16

Yeah. And I think that's what they bank on. There's just too much to keep an eye on that nobody can or very few people can or it's nerd like, I was I was listening to a podcast the other day where there was a researcher who looks at, what Google chooses to show in the algorithm where and how that affects things like politics or voting in democratic countries. Yeah. And, like, it's it's scary shit.

Jack: 32:42

It's a lot of power.

PJ: 32:43

Yeah. That's a ton of power.

Jack: 32:45

Google and YouTube will pay this is in 2019. They paid a $170,000,000 for alleged violator. This is a settlement for alleged violations of children's privacy law. They collected kids' personal information without parental consent. These aren't good companies.

Jack: 32:59

I I don't know, but everyone can choose. But these aren't good companies, and I just all my brain keeps going. We gotta market harder against these fuckers. I really don't like these companies.

PJ: 33:08

Yeah. It just sucks. Like, our the differentiator in the market is the fact that we aren't fucking assholes.

Jack: 33:15

We're not incentivized to be.

PJ: 33:17

Yeah. We're not incentivized to be to be sociopaths.

Jack: 33:20

But and that's this this episode's gonna wrap up soon, but that then comes back into the whole, are you looking to get that $1,000,000,000 company so you can have an exit and make, like, how many millions? Or are you building a company to be profitable and sustainable and that's it? Right? Yeah. Like, how do we increase our revenue of our company?

Jack: 33:39

We build a few more features, a bit of marketing. There's no $1,000,000,000 valuation that is required or desired. No one's pushing us there. We can sleep. We can take a nap for 8 months, and I all the customers would be pissed, but there's no one pushing us to get this ridiculous valuation.

Jack: 33:55

We just gotta deliver for existing customers. Big, big, big difference. Incentives aren't there.

PJ: 34:01

That's the thing. The yeah. Our our only incentive obviously is to remain profitable and sustainable so we can pay us. But our our biggest duty and in the way we achieve this is by supporting our customers and doing right for the people who pay us.

Jack: 34:16

We don't need to store data for a big bet that we're gonna make in, like, we wanna do this big AI bet to make investors happy. Like, I get it. I get that there's investor pressure. I'm not singling any company out. I realize it's everyone.

Jack: 34:28

But, some companies will not do that in a in a good way. A lot of some companies will, I'm not gonna tie everyone with the same oh, I can't remember the expression. Brush?

PJ: 34:40

Paint everybody with the same broad strokes.

Jack: 34:42

Is that what it is? Yeah. Like, I know Meta and Google are different companies. You know, not every $1,000,000,000 company is bad. Just, look at the incentives, look at how they're making their money, and then, yeah, that's it.

Jack: 34:56

And free is concerning. Free is always concerning because free has to be monetized in some way. Freemium, bit different. You know, you can see how they're making money. They're taking a loss on freemium and or free.

Jack: 35:07

Sorry. You can kinda see that, but you you your your back of, the hairs on the your back should go up when you see free.

PJ: 35:14

Yeah.

Jack: 35:15

I get nervous. I like paying for software. I love paying a subscription. I know people talk about subscription, but I love it. It's whenever I subscribe to software and it's like, oh, you're gonna pay this per month or this per year.

Jack: 35:25

I always go, yes. Good. I'm I know my money's going towards the development. I can see the business model in front of me.

PJ: 35:31

What's honest, it's literally an honest business model.

Jack: 35:34

I don't care. Or even ones that where yeah. Come I I will defend the one off payment thing for certain, you know, courses and certain products. If they say, oh, it's a one off cost for the product. You get the product forever.

Jack: 35:44

But if you want to get regular updates, you gotta pay us instead of for a piece of software with no maintenance or whatever. That's cool too. I'm cool with that. As long as I'm a table plus does that. As long as there's a mechanism where I can see how you're going to make recurring revenue to be a sustainable company, that makes me happy.

Jack: 36:00

I get nervous of lifetime deals, though.

PJ: 36:02

Yeah. It's like Oh, yeah. I had my fill of those in my past and, yeah, I'm over it. But recurring revenue like, having a having a subscription based model also incentivize the company to keep doing well and to keep doing things for the customer and to keep adding things to the like, it it's not just, oh, I gotta pay this every month. It's just like, I'm gonna question paying this at because I know like, I do that as well with the subscriptions I have.

PJ: 36:24

It's like, do I still need this? Sometimes it's no and then I'll cancel. Companies who have the it's not just like a a money printing machine or a, or, like, not having to or, like, passive income. I say we we have to work every month and every year to to keep the subscriptions that we have.

Jack: 36:44

Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. And it's nice not having to we're not having to do big bets to get big returns.

PJ: 36:50

Yeah.

Jack: 36:50

I'm not saying that's always bad, by the way. I'm trying to clarify myself a little

PJ: 36:54

bit here. But Yeah. People This is not advice. This is just

Jack: 36:58

what works for us. Yeah. Unchecked unchecked data collection will just keep going unless it's regulated. Yeah. We we know that.

Jack: 37:06

So

PJ: 37:06

I hate that we're both saying, right, more regulation is required.

Jack: 37:10

No. Yeah. And I'm never

PJ: 37:11

I know.

Jack: 37:12

You know, I don't like regulate regulate I look at look at houses in Canada. We know regulation gets in the way of living affordable housing to to young Canadian, and we know that. I don't think regulation is always a good thing. I think there's a balance. Right?

Jack: 37:26

Like, I'm not anti regulation. It's allocated.

PJ: 37:28

I guess I'm less anti regulation when it's corporations. When it's people and individual freedoms, I'm very anti regulation. But when it's like sociopathic corporations that probably have some handle on the government as well. Like, they're they're too intertwined. I feel like big corporations and governments now with lobbying and that sort of thing, I feel like that that is probably something that should be regulated because it's kind of gone past like, we've left free market and Oh, contagious.

PJ: 37:58

And capitalism and the way that it's supposed to function. So if we could return to that Yeah. I'm not I'm not I'm not opposed.

Jack: 38:06

We have an episode of capitalism versus communism or something where

PJ: 38:09

you kinda

Jack: 38:10

get to the point where Amazon is just like, this is not, like, this is not capitalism. This is, I mean, I at the time, I think I referred to it as borderline communism because you've got such control. Yeah. There's a there's a word for it like Kwanzaa. There's a word for the capitalism.

Jack: 38:23

It's when you you can do it with investment as well. You can take a ton of investment. Right? And you can disrupt the market, completely destroy the market because you can subsidize it. I'm not, like, I'm not saying or anything, but you can basically take tons of money and disrupt the market, run things really cheap, and put other companies out of business.

Jack: 38:39

Amazon's a better example. So it's

PJ: 38:41

Yeah. They they literally did that with their with their shopping.

Jack: 38:44

So they had a bunch of and I think I don't know if that was from investment or if they just made loads of money, but they can effectively put everyone out of business, and then they, like, dominate the market. And Shopify, I think, is working to, you know, democratize or whatever the word is. But it it it just Amazon doesn't feel like capitalism sometimes. And I think the bigger the company gets. But we have that.

Jack: 39:06

We have monopoly staff. Do I think they should be more regulated? It's tricky, isn't it? Because what a free market does a free market mean equal competition? Because no one's people have different connections and skills.

Jack: 39:20

I mean, like, 2 founders versus another 2 founders. If those 2 founders have more skills Yeah. They haven't got to spend 100 of 1,000 of dollars on the skills and hiring them. Right? Yeah.

Jack: 39:29

Like, it's a tricky one. And money is money can lead to you having an advantage. I think it's obvious of big companies. I

PJ: 39:38

Yeah. Do

Jack: 39:38

you I don't have the answer, by the way. I do think capitalism's an important

PJ: 39:42

So so we haven't solved the world problems No. Yeah. In this episode.

Jack: 39:46

This is a people's issue. Right? Yeah. I think with with some some lines of capitalism, you think, is it really capitalism? I do generally.

Jack: 39:52

I still think communists are absolute idiots. I I truly believe that. I think it's a very, very horrible system. But I also in the first

PJ: 40:00

What doesn't work? It doesn't reward ingenuity. It doesn't reward hard work. It doesn't reward anything that makes us as a species better.

Jack: 40:07

It doesn't align with human nature is what it all comes down to.

PJ: 40:10

100% doesn't.

Jack: 40:11

And you're diluted if you think you're going to change. There's always going to be some kind of hierarchy that develops. Right? Like, you're for you, for example, you're good at designing. Well, what happens if one person wants your designing and they're like, oh, and say it's like you've got universal income or what.

Jack: 40:25

I don't know how communism distribute funds. But then how someone will get access to your stuff, someone wants it really bad. There might be some behind the behind the doors negotiation that happens, and then you've got who the ruling party is and the position in the party. I always liked animal farm. I think that's

PJ: 40:44

what I was gonna say. It sounds like that where all animals are equal, but some animals are People

Jack: 40:49

try and criticize more equal than others. Criticisms of that book, and it just makes me laugh at it. Like, that is literally what it boils down to. A hierarchy will develop, and there'll be different things. Capitalism is an imperfect system.

PJ: 41:00

And on that note, yeah, thank you everybody for listening, and we will be back at some point in the near future with another episode.

Jack: 41:10

Cheers.