On today’s episode of the “Daily Variety” podcast, Variety’s Todd Spangler examines the collision of AI and Big Tech’s jobs as layoff notices fly. And Jennifer Mars talks about the growth of indie streamer Dropout.
Spangler said Big Tech is cutting jobs not because of financial pressures, but because it anticipates an AI-driven future.
“Tech companies are trying to prepare for what exactly this future wave of AI thinks is coming, and that’s why they’re making big investments, including Amazon, which is making billions of dollars and Microsoft, Google, and Amazon are all raising their capital spending estimates for next year as they ramp up investments in data centers that will power their AI applications,” Spangler said.
“At the same time, Amazon announced that it would cut about 4% of its white-collar workforce, or 14,000 jobs. That’s a big number. And this comes after Amazon CEO Andy Jassy sent a memo to employees in June saying, “The use of AI will improve efficiencies that will result in a net reduction in our head count.” So this happened. And three days later, on an earnings call, Jesse may have had second thoughts about being seen as a spearhead of AI-driven layoffs. He said this was a cultural issue, and that the surge in demand seen during the pandemic had resulted in a layer of jobs that could be done more efficiently.
When it comes to Dropout, the company has a subscriber base that’s so into the indie streamer’s particular brand of humor that they’re willing to pay a higher monthly fee for nothing in return. The company, founded from the ashes of College Humor, has nearly 1 million subscribers.
Maas explains that Dropout effectively leveraged its most loyal fans with marketing around the news of the price increase from $5.99 to $6.99.
“So they actually announced this new tier in a marketing announcement. They used all the social media posts where people were saying, “I want to pay more for this. This is great. Your content is great. So they’re launching a super fan tier, which costs $129.99 a year. You get a few extra items here and there. You get access to exclusive merchandise. It’s ticket sales,” Maas says. “They’re just giving you the opportunity to pay more for what you ask for, because you’re not getting any special programming that people in the regular demographic don’t have access to. You’ll probably be able to see things like behind-the-scenes here and there. But they’re promising that what you get on Dropout is the same as what you get on Superfan, and they’re just giving you the opportunity to pay more for what you ask for.”
(Photo: Dropout CEO Sam Reich)
Listen to Daily Variety on iHeartPodcasts, Apple Podcasts, Variety’s YouTube Podcast channel, Amazon Music, Spotify, and other podcast platforms.
