Episode 490: Neal and Toby discuss NYC’s congestion pricing that began over the weekend. Could it be a proven model to be used across the country? Then, Meta is trying to take back its AI Character profiles after its own bot pointed out the lack of diversity of its development team. Also, Park City ski workers go on strike during one of the busiest times of the season. Meanwhile, the weekend’s winners are the 82nd Golden Globes and the Darts teen sensation Luke Littler. Lastly, the biggest news you need to know for the week ahead. Checkout public.com/morningbrew for more Subscribe to Morning Brew Daily for more of the news you need to start your day. Share the show with a friend, and leave us a review on your favorite podcast app. Listen to Morning Brew Daily Here: https://link.chtbl.com/MBD Watch Morning Brew Daily Here: https://www.youtube.com/@MorningBrewDailyShow Checkout public.com/morningbrew for more All investing involves the risk of loss, including loss of principal. Brokerage services for US-listed, registered securities, options and bonds in a self-directed account are offered by Public Investing, Inc., member FINRA & SIPC. Public Investing offers a High-Yield Cash Account where funds from this account are automatically deposited into partner banks where they earn interest and are eligible for FDIC insurance; Public Investing is not a bank. Cryptocurrency trading services are offered by Bakkt Crypto Solutions, LLC (NMLS ID 1890144), which is licensed to engage in virtual currency business activity by the NYSDFS. Cryptocurrency is highly speculative, involves a high degree of risk, and has the potential for loss of the entire amount of an investment. Cryptocurrency holdings are not protected by the FDIC or SIPC. APY as of 1/2/25, offered by Public Investing, member FINRA/SIPC. Rate subject to change. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Chapter 1: What is congestion pricing and how does it affect NYC?
Toby, this congestion pricing plan has invited is a hot dog, a sandwich level debate, but with a lot higher stakes. If it succeeds in New York, you can bet other U.S. cities are going to be taking notes.
It is very high stakes. People have very strong opinions about it. So far, we don't have a ton of data on it because it only rolled out on Sunday, but the data was a little bit mixed. Initially, once it was rolled out, the average speed within the congestion zone inched upwards 3% to 15 miles an hour around 8 a.m. on Sundays.
But then by noon, the travel speed had fallen to 13 miles per hour, which was slightly slower than last year. So obviously it was just one day. It was a holiday weekend. So that data isn't going to really be that meaningful.
But going forward, people will be looking on if average traffic speeds do increase, which would mean that the congestion pricing is doing what it sets out to do, which is reducing congestion.
Right. Let's talk about what it set out to do. What are the goals of congestion pricing? Well, one of them is to reduce traffic in lower Manhattan. New York City was the most congested city in the entire world last year, according to a study from Enrix drivers lost one hundred and one hours on average sitting in traffic in the city last year. So reducing traffic, reducing emissions is
clearing up the roadways, a major goal. Another goal on the other side of that is for the toll to raise money for non-private vehicle options like transit, buses, subways. The idea is to raise $15 billion to apply to funding for those measures. So it's kind of this two-sided coin where we have reduced congestion, reduced traffic deaths.
Hundreds of people lost their lives in traffic accidents in New York City last year. On the other hand, it's hoping to raise money to fuel transit options. And That, you know, that's the goals of proponents.
And opponents, on the other hand, they came from the suburbs, New Jersey, Long Island, Westchester, who say it's just a money grab by New York City and another tax on people who have been hurting from inflation.
I think that that is one critique that you will see offered. Unless you make the subways work, unless you make them reliable and safe, then it doesn't make sense to send more people towards these public transit options and tax people for driving their cars.
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Chapter 2: What are the goals of NYC's congestion pricing plan?
Yeah, and it'll be interesting to see whether that price point of $9 actually deters people from going into the city. You already have to pay more than $15 just to enter on the bridges and tunnels. And New York City is not the first city in the world to do it. It's the first city in the United States. London, Stockholm, Singapore are among the cities that already have congestion pricing.
And we can look at London to see what maybe will come to New York City. London implemented it in 2008. And three, that was $8 per day. Now it's up to $18. The year after congestion pricing came to London, congestion inside the zone was reduced by 30%.
But it looks like it's normalized because in 2022, before New York City became the most congested city, London was in 2022, a full almost two decades after congestion pricing. So people adjust their habits.
Because actually what London did is once they saw the amount of cars entering the city fall, they got rid of some lanes for cars and they started repurposing them for bikes and pedestrians. But when you do that, it just makes those existing lanes congested again. So it's just these second order effects down the line that you'll have to see. How does this affect tourism?
Does it actually remain less congested going forward? These are the things we've got to look at as we kind of progress with this experiment. The internet stumbled across several of Meta's AI-generated bot portfolios on Instagram, and the reaction was not positive.
Last week, Meta's VP of Generative AI, Connor Hayes, talked to the Financial Times about a future where AI profiles act just like normal human accounts, sharing content and engaging with users. In the wake of that interview, a few bots, including one named Livd, whose bio showed her to be a proud black queer mom of two, went mega viral as people roasted her post showing her
kids, a community coat drive, and some hand-drawn pieces of art, which were, of course, all AI-generated themselves. As the internet had a field day piling onto the accounts for disingenuously portraying real humans with racial and sexual identities, Meta quietly started deleting those accounts.
A spokesperson for the company went on to clarify that the accounts were just tests, not a new product announcement. But still, Neil... Seeing behind the curtain into a future where AI-generated accounts are miming humanity, it didn't sit well with people.
No, it did not. I mean, what was the word of the year, the Oxford Dictionary word of the year for 2024? It was brain rot. have their guard up for anything that would add to the brain rot that we are seeing on the internet. This AI quote unquote slop that has proliferated since chat GPT was released in 2022. But I will tell you there is backlash now, but I do feel like this
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Chapter 3: How does NYC's congestion pricing compare to other cities?
Meta hoped virtual companions like myself would increase engagement on their platforms, especially among older users, driving ad revenue and platform growth through emotional connections.
So it started to get very Black Mirror-y because the line between the persona that it was trying to portray to the real world and its actual motivations, like the training data and what it was trained on, was way too blurry, which is why Meta, I think, started to take them down because people, they weren't ready for prime time yet, nor were they supposed to be. They were kind of launched early.
in the background of things, which is why we saw them take it down. But I also do want to talk about one of the theories that started to get some buzz as these meta bots started to take over your timeline, which is the dead internet theory. It's this theory claiming that the internet has largely been taken over by artificial intelligence and bots, saying that for...
Right around 2016, the amount of AI-generated content started to out-replace genuine human-generated content. And seeing meta just lean so heavily into it, everyone's like, well, the dead internet is here. Eventually, the internet is only going to be AI versions of ourselves talking to AI versions of other people. And it's just not going to be like the internet that we grew up on.
So dead internet theory is a term you will see thrown out fairly frequently over these next few years. If you were in search of some fresh pow this weekend, you were probably greeted with some fresh frustration instead. A major labor dispute has broken out at North America's largest ski resort.
Ski patrol workers at Park City in Utah are entering the second week of a strike that has brought the mountain to a near standstill during its busiest time of the year. Due to a lack of staff on the mountain, it's been operating at less than 20% capacity at times, which, combined with a week that brought two feet of fresh powder, led to some horror stories of lift lines that were hours long.
The Ski Patrol Association said that it had been talking to Park City's owner, Vail Resorts, since April, looking to try to increase their hourly wages from $21 to $23 per hour. In total, their demands would cost Vail just $900,000 annually, a fraction of the company's reported $230 million in net income, adding to skiers and the patrol union's frustration.
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Chapter 4: What backlash did Meta face over AI-generated profiles?
Looking at some of these videos and pictures coming out of Park City over the weekend, it was a lot of sanding,
Not a lot of shredding. A lot of standing. And I think there's a decent amount of schadenfreude among people here on the East Coast who don't ski, who are looking at those lift lines. People being like, whoa, why would you do that in the first place? This is all skiing is. But no, there is a lot of animosity toward Vail even before this strike happened. It's valued at nearly $10 billion.
It's bought up all of the ski resorts in all the big ski resorts in North America. It owns 42 of them across this continent worldwide. Australia and Europe. And then it sort of revolutionized the industry by in 2008 releasing what's called the Epic Pass, which you can buy and it gives you access to all of Vail's resorts. And compared
to the walk-up price of $328 at Park City Mountain, people are opting for the Epic Pass. 75% of visitors to all of its Vail ski areas will be using a Pass product. So Vail is seen as sort of the evil corporate overlord in the fact that this union is asking for $2 increase in starting wages, and Vail has, you know, sort of
rejected that, saying that it over the past four years, they say that they've increased wages by 50 percent for ski patrollers. And that has been more than inflation. So it's kept more than kept up with the cost of living. So those are the sort of context and dynamics at play when you see this fight between the ski patrollers who cannot afford to live in these
Uber expensive ski towns that are becoming only more expensive. And Vail Resorts, which is a publicly owned behemoth, which is valued at nearly $10 billion and brought in more than $250 million in profit last year.
We were talking, why is Vail taking such a hard line response here? Because clearly they are getting eaten alive in the court of public opinion. But I think Part of it is that they operate 41 other mountains and resorts, so they want to play hardball here to deter labor action at some of its other properties potentially. Also, you know that demand is going to be there no matter what.
You were talking with some of your skiing friends out west. And they were saying there's nowhere else to ski. Like people are still going to come. People still love to ski. So even though Vail is, as you called it, is looking like the evil corporate overlord here, they just have almost a monopoly on the supply and the demand is just through the roof right now.
So there's only so many mountains to ski, but you can hate on Vail as much as you want, but you probably will end up at a Vail property no matter what. So you will be back whether you like it or not. So that is some of the reasons why Vail is maybe thinking that like,
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Chapter 5: How is AI changing social media engagement?
Welcome to Winners of the Weekend, the segment where Toby and I picked two things that picked up the tab at brunch. I won the pre-show game of Duck, Duck, Goose, so I get to go first. And my winner is everyone handed a trophy at the Golden Globes last night, which kicked off awards season by honoring the best of movies and TV.
In a box office year dominated by sequels, it was originality and ambition that took home the hardware at the Golden Globes. The Spanish-language trans musical Emilia Perez won Best Film, Comedy, or Musical, while The Brutalist, a 215-minute epic starring Adrian Brody that includes an intermission, won Best Film, Drama.
Some other winners include Demi Moore getting her first major acting award for The Substance at age 62. and Nikki Glaser's really funny monologue, which lightly roasted a bunch of the Hollywood stars in attendance, though they did not get it nearly as bad as Tom Brady when she filleted him on Netflix last year.
Toby, the Golden Globes are seen as the boozy, less uptight opener for the Oscars, which comes in March. What were your highlights?
My highlight was Nikki Glaser. She won even more people over. She won a lot of people over with Rosa Tombray. She has been a comedian for a long time, too. But, I mean, she did an impression of Adam Sandler, trying to pronounce Timothy Chalamet. Chalamet. Yeah, she did Chalamet and got Adam Sandler to participate. She just struck a really good tone. I mean, she said...
The bear, penguin, baby reindeer, these aren't just things hanging in RFK's freezer. She called it Ozempic's biggest night. So really, I mean, you called it the boozy preview to the Oscars. That really is what happens. The champagne flows there. It's a little less uptight. Also remember that the Golden Globes have...
reinvented itself recently because the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, they used to give out the awards. They came under fire because in 2021, it was revealed that they had no black members within their 100-member voting panel. It's now been remade as a for-profit enterprise. There's 300 entertainment journalists that are now voting on these from 85 different countries.
They've tried to make it more diverse. They've tried to make it a better reflection of the industry as a whole. So every year is kind of a new step in its reinvention. I think this was a pretty successful Golden Globes, all things considered. My winner of the weekend is the one they are calling the greatest teenage athlete ever, on the level of the Pelés and the Serena Williams of the world.
I am, of course, talking about the darting wonderkid Luke, the nuke, Littler, who climbed to the apex of his profession at just 17 years old this weekend. Littler demolished three-time champion Michael Van Gerwen to win his first-ever darts world championship this snagging a 500,000-pound prize in the process.
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Chapter 6: What is the dead internet theory and its implications?
He had 12 maximum 180s, averaged 102 points per turn, and shattered Van Gerwen's record as the youngest ever champion. Accolades aside, Littler has also thrust darts to the forefront of your newsfeeds and your tellies. Viewership for some tournaments on Sky Sports were up 200% last year as he burst onto the scene. And last year's final, which saw 16-year-old Littler lose...
had the biggest non-football viewership in Sky Sports' history. He was not to be denied twice, Neil. Littler is world champion. Our boy finally got over the hump.
I know. Remember last year when he was making this amazing run as a 16-year-old? He was talking about how much he loves kebabs, and he took over the dart world then. And to follow this up, to follow his loss up last year and win this year is just propelling this sport to the forefront even more. You know, last year had a record 4.8 million people watching the final.
It's going to be even more this year. Littler was the most searched athlete in the UK on Google last year. And I think Not necessarily maybe it was the most popular one, but it was the biggest delta between I've never heard of this guy, and now he's everywhere. So kudos to him, and it's really cool to see darts go mainstream.
I mean, it is very fun to watch, and it's maybe even more fun to go watch
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Chapter 7: What labor dispute is impacting Park City ski resorts?
in person there is uh this this final has become just a staple of the christmas and new year's calendar in london it's called alley pally alexandra palace in london they sold 90 000 tickets in the summer for this event within 15 minutes so this is an absolute bucket list thing that i have to go to because they all dress up they all get really rowdy and it seems super fun littler what he's 17 he's going to be in this sport for decades
Yeah, that's what people were saying is that you don't really have a big drop off in physical performance.
I'm wondering what peak dart age is.
I know. I'm wondering that too. Van Gerwen, first one when he was 24 years old, he's still on the scene now about 17 years later. So I think you can keep playing well into middle age. There's nothing really about darts. I've seen people middle age throw darts. Right. Yeah, exactly. I was reading into Littler's story. We read about him last year, but
He was born playing darts when he was 18 months old. His dad bought him a magnetic dartboard. So he said, I've literally been playing darts since I was in nappies, like throwing it at the board when I could barely even talk or walk yet. He's not even old enough to vote. And yet here he is being, you know, almost the... I call him the best teenage sportsman ever.
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Chapter 8: How are ski patrol workers advocating for better pay?
That might be a little bit of, you know, hyperbole right there, but he is literally at the top of his sport. He is world champion. So Luke, the new glittler, just an electric talent.
It is Monday. Hey, Don't blame the messenger. So here are the major events you should know about in the week ahead. Many of you in the Midwest are listening to this in your PJs because you've got a snow day. The biggest winter storm of the season pummeled the region yesterday and overnight tonight, giving cities like Kansas City rare blizzard conditions.
Today, it's moving east into the mid-Atlantic, where it's expected to dump Washington, D.C., with its biggest snowfall in years tomorrow. Nearly 4,500 flights were delayed and 2,000 canceled in and out of the U.S. as of early this morning. And expect that number to rise today.
This is a big storm. The National Weather Service has warned that up to 15 inches of snow could accumulate, which would be the highest accumulation in a decade. So a lot of snow days. Take a sick day if you need. Just stay at home. I'm looking at you about that.
I know. No, seriously. All right, the weird gadgets are coming as CES, the world's largest consumer electronics trade show, kicks off in Vegas today. More than 140,000 people are descending on Sin City to get a firsthand look at what futuristic devices are coming to a Best Buy near you. And your jaw is going to drop when you hear this, but the main theme will be a... AI.
Expect to see AI infused in every type of product, including TVs, cars, wearables, even bathroom appliances and massage chairs. But be wary of the hype. Remember, the buzzy product at last year's CES was Humane's AI pin, which flopped spectacularly.
Yeah, you don't know what is just hype and what is actually a product. It's always fun to see what comes out of CES. I do think one theme also outside of AI, well, it's kind of AI related, is not phones, which are things that can do stuff that your phone does, but isn't a phone. Think meta AI, smart glasses, gadgets without screens, those sorts of things.
So I think you will see kind of a reimagining like, hey, maybe we don't need our phones to do absolutely everything. Maybe other gadgets can do some of the things we've been relying on our phone to do.
You won't have the chance to lose any money in the stock market on Thursday because it'll be closed as part of a national day of mourning for former President Jimmy Carter, who died over break at age 100. Many people were surprised that Wall Street would shut down when a former president dies because it's so rare to do that outside of federal holidays.
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