Day: 12 February 2020

Meet Makan Delrahim, the Lawyer Who Leads the Antitrust Division at the U.S. Department of Justice ⇥ hollywoodreporter.com

Speaking of the T-Mobile and Sprint merger, Eriq Gardner of the Hollywood Reporter wrote a profile of Makan Delrahim:

In addition, the Antitrust Division has in recent months raised eyebrows about politicization of competition law. During the trial of a multistate challenge to the proposed T-Mobile/Sprint merger, which federal regulators approved, text messages emerged that showed Delrahim laboring behind the scenes during the government’s review last summer to save a deal that would shrink competitors in the wireless arena, helping to arrange the sale of the two companies’ mobile spectrum to a third party, Dish Network, and offering its chairman, Charlie Ergen, advice on how to lobby the FCC and lawmakers. “Why Is the Justice Department Treating T-Mobile Like a Client?” asked a New York Times editorial in December. (On Tuesday, a judge rejected the states’ antitrust challenge and approved T-Mobile’s Sprint acquisition.)

Delrahim is notable for leading the antitrust investigations of large tech companies, disputing the AT&T and Time Warner merger, and his opposition to the Paramount Consent Decree. He has a bizarre view of antitrust law: big tech companies are scary to him, but ISPs and entertainment conglomerates — which are increasingly the same thing — are not. Oh, except for AT&T and Time Warner, which he disputed for ostensibly good reasons, only to lose that case and find that the newly-merged AT&T and Time Warner conglomerate is doing exactly what it said it wouldn’t.

T-Mobile and Sprint Were Allowed to Merge Because Sprint Sucks ⇥ theverge.com

Laurel Wamsley, NPR:

T-Mobile is closer to taking over Sprint after a federal judge rejected arguments by several states that the merger would stifle competition and lead to higher prices for consumers.

The deal would combine the country’s third- and fourth-largest wireless carriers. The new company, to be called T-Mobile, would still be the third-largest, after AT&T and Verizon.

U.S. District Court Judge Victor Marrero concluded that the proposed merger “is not reasonably likely to substantially lessen competition” in the wireless market.

Nilay Patel of the Verge read the decision and put together a terrific explanation of how Judge Marrero arrived at that conclusion:

And… it turns out that Judge Marrero thinks CEO John Legere and the rest of T-Mobile’s executives are extremely cool and smart and that Dish Network is definitely trustworthy and that everything is going to work out great.

Also, the judge thinks that Sprint sucks. Really, if there’s one major takeaway here, it’s that Victor Marrero, a federal judge selected by Bill Clinton for a lifetime appointment on the federal judiciary, thinks that Sprint is a bad company with a crap network run by dummies. This is the law now.

In Canada, our three major carriers operate in near lockstep. The United States is now down to three major carriers. Should be fine, right?

Essential Is Shutting Down ⇥ essential.com

The history of Essential is blessedly short, yet dramatic and inherently entwined with the personal life of its founder and CEO Andy Rubin. Its first product, announced in May 2017, was supposed to be out in June of the same year, and missed that deadline for a week before journalists realized that it hadn’t started shipping yet. It ultimately wasn’t available until August, then received a price cut in October.

In November — this is all in 2017 — Rubin took a leave of absence after the Information reported that he had what they deemed an “inappropriate relationship” with a subordinate at Google. It took until the following year for the New York Times to report that Rubin was asked to resign from Google after being credibly accused of sexually assaulting the employee. He was given $90 million to leave, leading employees to walk off the job in protest of the way Google has protected men accused of sexual assault. Oh, and Rubin was also accused, in court papers, of running a sex ring.

After it cancelled work on a successor to its first phone, Essential tried to sell itself, found no buyers, and instead bought an email startup. A few months ago, it showed off a prototype of a tall and skinny smartphone.

Essential today:

In October, we introduced Project GEM, a new mobile experience that our hardware, software and cloud teams have been building and testing for the past few years. Our vision was to invent a mobile computing paradigm that more seamlessly integrated with people’s lifestyle needs. Despite our best efforts, we’ve now taken Gem as far as we can and regrettably have no clear path to deliver it to customers. Given this, we have made the difficult decision to cease operations and shutdown Essential.

The email app is also shutting down, effective April 30. I feel bad for the employees who were understandably excited to work for a unique company, only to find it subject to the distractions of its CEO’s wrongdoing and the company not publicly communicating a clear path to relevance.

See Also: Daisuke Wakabayashi and Erin Griffith’s report for the New York Times.

The Vinyl Pause of 2020 ⇥ steadystatesea.com

Chris Eggertsen, Billboard:

The manufacturing and storage facility for Apollo Masters Corp. — a Banning, Calif.-based manufacturing plant that supplies the lacquer used for making master discs, which are then used to create vinyl records — has burned down in a massive fire, the company confirmed in a statement posted to its official website.

[…]

The fire, which was first reported around 8 a.m. PT Friday morning (Feb. 7), broke out while employees were inside the building, though all escaped safely, according to The Desert Sun, which first reported the blaze. But the loss of the plant — which, along with MDC in Japan, is one of only two worldwide that produces the lacquers needed to create vinyl records — comes as a difficult blow to the booming vinyl record industry. Billboard reported just last month that 26% of all physical albums sold in the U.S. in 2019 were vinyl.

While vinyl may be on an upswing relative to ten or twenty years ago, its sales are nowhere near the 1970s and 1980s.

Still, I’ve long been one of those buyers. While I’m glad all of the employees of Apollo Masters are safe, I’m gutted by the likely fallout from this fire.

“Steady State Sea” (via Coudal):

You will be able to buy new vinyl titles in 2020 — or most of 2020, anyway. Ironically, the long waiting time to get a respective record pressed after cutting its master may be critical in delaying the consequences of low supply of vinyl offerings. That waiting time to press can take several months — and that’s assuming all money needed for the pressing is gathered and ready to spend. (Incidentally, before the mid 2000s, the waiting time used to be dramatically shorter.) Many new albums coming out in 2020 already had their respective masters cut in 2019.

[…]

However, from the end of 2020 onward will be the big question mark regarding vinyl supply in retail.

And it wouldn’t be surprising if labels began to start a more conservative release schedule effective ASAP. If any label does have a stash of lacquers, they will likely be reserved for releases that the label would consider low-risk in sales — such as legacy artists or hot new acts.

I listen to music in two formats: for convenience, a large local library of digital files mixed with streaming; and, for a more relaxed, immersive experience, vinyl. I love spending a couple of hours in a decent record store, walking my fingers along the shelves until I find something I like. This fire has the possibility to make all of that a rare occasion. It is going to be tough to recover from, but not impossible — it sounds like direct metal mastering is a good way out.