Like right now, everyone getting Muse'd to save the money on their subscriptions or other things — they are the savings printing machine. Yes. And I'm just telling you, in the long run, we'll see how that actually plays out.
Oh, well, that's a disappointing thought, but probably an accurate projection of how this is going to go. As far as the Meta opportunity here, I want to read this note from Ian. He says, 'Ben and Andrew, I think one way Meta can justify and pay for all of their compute related to Muse is the incredible opportunity they have to use Muse's access to boost ads across Meta's apps. Before Muse, Meta didn't have a legitimate reason to ask for access to data like your calendar, emails, outside shopping history, etc. Instagram has an incredible ability to figure out what products users like and serve them relevant ads. But all of this additional data unlocks much more intent. For example, with calendar access, Muse could know that I have a 5K booked in a few months and then target ads very specifically around that event — running shoes, nutrition, race gear, etc. Instagram likely already knows I'm interested in those topics, but this data could make the timing much more precise. Second, email access specifically could help close the loop on Meta's ad performance.' I read that because I think a lot of people have made the assumption that Meta is going to benefit from the data in Muse, and I was fascinated to learn from your update on Tuesday that Meta is not accessing any of that data for its ad engine on other platforms. Is that right?
That is right. And it's actually more interesting than it seems, because Muse is off to this tremendous success with everyone assuming that Meta is just taking all your data.
So there's a few really fascinating takeaways here. So number one, just for clarity, Meta is not taking any of your Muse data. They've made, or are making, a number of provable guarantees that that is not happening. I don't know if that's fully a place for amusement, but like, for example, Apple did — and Apple kind of led the way here with the remember Apple did private cloud compute.
Which is like, 'We're going to cryptographically guarantee,' and they did that, it was all their chain, and then they're like, 'Uh, we actually need more compute, we need to run on Google, on Nvidia chips.' And so they had to do work with Nvidia, with Intel, with Google to extend that cryptographic guarantee to another cloud service, to other processors. So it's a legitimate guarantee — Apple can prove that they don't have access to the data that you're running through Siri, like the queries that you're making. Meta is in the middle of building out the same sort of guarantee. And for now, I think it might be more of a policy thing. So, of course, it could change, and it's weird they didn't really put this front and center, but no, Muse data is not used for ad targeting. And it is honestly really interesting.
Here's the thing. No one cares. Like, did they even need to make that promise? Like, that's the crazy thing. It is tremendously validating, I think, to my take all along, which is that no one cares. This is completely a media-made-up sort of thing, a tech-industry sort of thing. Actually, people love free services. They don't care about data. Apple's whole spiel is a strategy credit that it sells on, and no one actually cares, because once Muse comes along and it's super cool.
No, [laughter] no one cares. They're using it. Yeah, no, it's okay because Meta did make this promise. But no one seems to know they made this promise, and yet it's successful all the same. So, number one, it's kind of funny to consider that Meta actually handicapped themselves and could have just as much success and get all this data and have the greatest ad targeting in the history of humanity — which they already have, but like times a hundred. [laughter] So that's number one.
Number two, I don't care. It doesn't matter what the business model is, because this is such a powerful position in the value chain. You are aggregating all of the internet. To get hung up on what the business model is is to miss the point that a business model doesn't matter until you have a business, and you don't have a business until you have a product. And it looks like they have a product, and the position of that product, if it succeeds, is in the single most attractive, most powerful place in the history of humanity. They can do anything. So they could keep their promise to not use it. Number one, their ads aren't threatened, because people are still going to watch Instagram, still watch Reels. That's the beautiful thing.
Google, on the other hand, this is completely disintermediating search. The big mistake that I made with Google is the reason why Google survived chatbots and basically made search into a chatbot is because chatbots still need humans. Humans are still in the loop. This makes the whole point: as long as humans are looking at something, Google can figure out how to show you ads and make money from it. And they've accomplished that. This is the actual threat, because the whole idea is there's no human. It is a computer operating a computer on your behalf. There's no human in there. This is why Amazon's freaked out. This is why Google's freaked out. And it's actually, I'm loving it, because I hate the exploitative — I've always distinguished two kinds of ads. I like Meta ads, because they show me stuff I didn't know about, and they're often entertaining. It's like another piece of content. I think they're great. I hate Google ads and I hate Amazon ads. All they are is a tax.
Google or Amazon could easily show me exactly what I'm looking for. They lard it up with ads because they benefit from diminishing the user experience, so that it's a tax on both merchants and consumers. Search advertising is a scam. Like, it's not a scam — it's totally legitimate, it's a great business model, and I'm grateful to have access to Google for free for many, many years. But all things considered, Google would give me what I'm looking for. I don't need the ads in the way. I don't complain because it monetizes it. But relative to Meta ads, from this perspective — as the only person in America who loves Meta ads — it's delicious. Like, it's the crappy ads that are getting wiped out by this, and Meta's ads...
They should be fine. [laughter] It's insane. They have created this product that is prepared to aggregate everyone, and it's going to do so without touching their business. Their core business is going to be totally fine, and it could be better again if they were feeding data.
That's why I wanted to highlight it, because it was a throwaway line in your update, I believe Wednesday. But it really is an interesting window into consumer psychology, because I think everybody would still be using this if Meta had not made these explicit promises to not share any of the data that you put into Muse with any of its other ad engines. So that's interesting in its own right, but also it underscores how badly Meta wants this bet to work, that they were not going to take any chances with data concerns perhaps scuttling the momentum, and they are all in on making this bet work.
— speaks to how out of touch everyone in tech and the media is about this whole data and privacy thing. No one — it's a victory lap for me — no one cares. [laughter] Like, the reason why...
Back in your seat. Love to see it.
No one cares. No one cares. Like, this is evidence. And it's funny — they actually cost themselves massive, massive amounts of business because they thought everyone cared, and in fact no one cared. They listened to their critics instead of listening to their own data, which they should know no one cares. Now, that said, the reason all this is — their business is still great, it's going to be fine. It's going to get better with LLMs even if they don't get the data from Muse.
