Marcus Brownlee.

How's it going?

Good.

How are you doing?

Well, um, so I am curious.

I've followed your channel for a while, but I definitely did not follow it in the beginning when you were viewing software on your laptop.

You've been doing it for a long time.

What, Would you attribute your success too?

On YouTube?

Um uh, well, I do a tech videos, so I think that the obvious answer there is tech has been interesting and important for so long that just being in a text face generally for that long has has done a lot for it.

Yeah, Um, the channel itself.

I mean, there's plenty of other of successful tech channels, but has its own unique style as a consistent voice.

It's been me for 10 years.

Um so I guess just if you combine all those factors consistency plus tech, staying interesting, that's that's mainly it.

Was there any particular inflection point where it really took off?

No.

I get asked that a lot about like, you know, can I point to a certain video date or month or something like what happened to go from, like, nothing toe where it is now from to this day, I looked back and it's mainly just like you can look at charts.

Even that's just that's sort of an upward slope from zero videos to 1000 videos.

You know, it's obviously when you get to certain points like the reputable ity.

Is that a word?

The credibility of the channel becomes more significant.

So you're more likely to subscribe to a Tech guy with a 1,000,000 subscribers talking about something you should buy, then a guy with 100.

So that's helped.

But I feel like consistency again.

It's major, really, because yeah, I mean, I I follow a couple subreddit.

It's on like weird YouTube channels, and there are people that have 1000 videos reviewing elevators.

Simple, boring.

Well, I mean, there's there's always gonna be, like, niche stuff, which people will get really into.

But I think like when it comes to something as personal as a tech product, you kind of want some sort of history to go on a sort of a reputation to look back on when it was like 1000 phones or $1000 now.

So, uh, yeah, I think that's that's helped being ableto have a history of stuff, because in the beginning, you were just doing software, right?

Right.

For the most part, free software.

Yeah.

And then did you start getting phone sent to you in, like, the early days of influencer culture?

I remember early days pretty well.

It was I'd started with all this laptop stuff.

So the first, uh, stuff that got sent to me was a laptop accessories, a mouse, the keyboard with that kind of stuff.

Um, some some paid software I would get, like, a key for $30 off a $50 piece of software.

And I could have that access.

That was awesome.

Okay, um, phone stuff didn't happen till much later.

I remember the first event I ever went to was a Samsung event in New York City, where I met a youtuber for the first time.

Okay, that was probably, like, six years in.

So you're in it for a while?

Yeah.

You know, I grew up getting, like, Pirated keys off LimeWire, that kind of stuff.

Did you ever dip into that and think like men?

Maybe I should review final cut pro on my chair.

At one point, I definitely did a whole hacking tosh thing.

Oh, you did?

Which was definitely not, You know, kosher, I guess.

But, you know, Macintosh world is a whole world.

So I was I was curious about it, and I got into it.

Um, I don't I was never really into, like, you know, downloading Pirated music or any of that stuff, but I could imagine that was its own world for a long time.

Yeah.

Yeah, because I I was curious because as a kid, you have no money when you're starting out your channel.

Yeah.

And I wonder if if you grew up with that hacker ethos like like, have you done a tear down video before or anything like that?

Really?

I mean, I was I used to be much more in the building PCs on taking them apart, upgrading.

I had a Mac That one knows the tower death stop Mac Pro with the G five.

Yeah, I didn't like I was replacing the GPU and upgrading the Ram and all that, and I did x p s tower had the same thing too.

But I I guess I never was really fully into the building process as much as I was the final result.

Okay, How well that finished products would work for you.

Okay, But when I watched your videos, now you're pretty into the stats of it all.

Like all those like, hard metrics with the products, right?

Yeah.

Yeah.

So it attracts you in some way?

Yes.

I mean, I think if you just look it, if you take a huge step back and just look at what the videos are about, period, especially the reviews.

It's like, how good is this product that this company made going to work for you?

There's a whole bunch of different ways to measure that.

I'm trying to measure that.

So So what are the what are those metrics?

Like, I've heard you talk about it before in the context of, like, this is a feature that's gonna maybe, like sparks, um, interests.

And this is a feature that I'm going to use every day.

Yeah, like gimmick versus daily.

Yeah.

Yeah, that's one way.

I mean, I kind of you can pick up a phone and use a really cool feature for two seconds.

You're like, Whoa, that's amazing.

But when you actually buy the phone Are you gonna use that feature?

I'm trying trying to evaluate that.

Um, there's all sorts of benchmarks that things people do.

Like, how fast is a storage?

How much Ram doesn't have?

How fast is this chip?

Um, and that stuff is useful, obviously, if you have more demanding needs for your phone, But ah, lot of it is literally just evaluating.

Like, Is this a game maker?

Is this really gonna be daily driver material?

One thing I was talking about on a recent podcasts is how it's very hard for the market Thio to recognize how good a product's quality is like just that actual feel like when you sit when you touch an iPhone for the first time.

Yeah, right.

And so how do you go about quantifying that when you're making video?

I mean, it's really Sometimes I see my job is like a professional user, like I really just have to use it and you get the briefing, obviously, and the breakdown of all the new features and what is new versus what's not new, and you can compare to things you've used before.

Um, but at the end of the day, like you actually have to use it to figure out if it's actually useful.

Yes, there's all kinds of use cases.

There's.

They'll tell me about any future and tell me exactly There's some New York for you.

Oh, how it like the ideal use case scenario, how it works.

Well, this came up recently because I did a video with an LG phone that came out has this feature where you wave your hand over it and do these gestures to open up maps and things like that.

It's called the G eight, okay.

And like on the surface like this is cool.

This is like, future type stuff, but then you actually use it and you're like, all right, so I don't know what I have stuff on my hands.

Maybe I'm cooking, but I just want to, like, open the YouTube Afro quick and search for something like now what, like have still type in what I want to search like this.

There's ah, there's limits the usefulness of that.

So that for me fell in the gimmick bucket just because using it actually changed my mind.

But then what about the features where you thought it was great and it didn't catch on other examples of that.

Well, there's There's lots of examples of things that our great to me that aren't a big deal other people like I'm I love high resolution, really nice screens.

And you could hand you can hand me a phone with a 14 40 p Amol a great display, and you could hand me a phone with a 10 80 p l c D display and I'd look and I'd immediately want the better one.

But to an average person, a lot of times, whatever like that, they both look fine and me is one of one of them's bigger.

I like the bigger one, so sometimes there will be things that will evaluate.

You got to get this cause it's got a great screen and it won't matter to a lot of people.

But at least then you can calibrate yourself to what I've in the past liked a lot.

So in the past I keep saying like, I really like these phones because of their screens and you know, from the your past experience that screens aren't a big deal to you, then you can at least say right out I'll discount this point because screens are my thing.

Okay?

Yeah, because I've kind of wondered if we're going to reach a point of complete diminishing returns with smartphones, right?

Oh, man.

You know, iPhone 10 or whatever like this is awesome.

I have 11.

Is it 100%?

Better?

Unlikely.

Do you think we're gonna reach Peak Smartphone ik smartphone?

It's a common question.

Yeah, I don't And And the only reason I don't is because I've heard that question for the past, Like, five years of smartphones.

And then the next year, I'm like, Well, that's new.

And I think it's mostly because the trends change.

Like there was a thinness trend a couple years ago where it was like we got and nine millimeters thin and then 8.9 and then 8.1 and then 7.9.

Holy crap.

There's a six millimeter thin phone.

Have we reached peak smartphone?

And then it changed to like, Okay, now we want these specialists funds, thickness, whatever.

It's just gonna be thin.

That's just the way it is.

But now, uh, can we get a 90% screen to body ratio?

Can we get this notch smaller.

Can we get 93%?

95.

Eventually.

We're gonna be like, Have we hit peak like we got the whole screen?

Yeah, And then the next trend is gonna happen.

I don't know what that next trend is, but I feel like because of ah observed these cycles over the past couple years.

Um, it doesn't seem likely that it's just gonna We're gonna get this end product of, like, the perfect phone.

I mean, maybe we'll be great.

Yeah, but yeah, I know a lot of people are holding on to, you know, iphone, basically five form.

That's definitely true.

Phones are better.

And they last longer.

Yeah, than they ever did.

So in that sense, were closer toe peak smartphone.

Because your iPhone, if you buy an iPhone 10 s now, that phone's probably gonna be good for, like, four years.

Like legitimately IOS has gotten better.

Um, so it's true.

You can hang onto an older phone longer thing you used to be able Thio, but that's also something tech companies got to think about when they make their next bro.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So what do you make of these new Trent like the folding things like new trends.

Right now, there's a lot of folding.

One is, is one of those interesting ones, because I I'm trying to imagine the future of, like, why folding phones matter.

Uh, at this point, like generation one, folding phones, they're like, all right, proof of concept, like you can technically fold it.