Big Companies
Is bigger really better? Does a company's product suffer the larger its owner gets? And if so, why? In this podcast, we discuss all things 'enshittification' - the perceived process of service and platform decay - and ask what is responsible: from growing beyond core competencies to ignorance of novel solutions.
Transcript
Hello and welcome to the Cognitive Engineering Podcast produced by me, Fraser McGruer, for Aleph. In this year's podcast, we take a look at interesting topics and discuss what we think they tell us about analysis and decision making. I'm here with Joe Laugie and Nick Hare of Aleph, and this week we're discussing why Windows search function is so bad. Nick, go for it.
Speaker B:Yeah, so anyone who's got a Windows machine, if you ever need to find a file or a program, the kind of standard way of doing that is to click on the little Windows button, start typing what you want. And if you do that, you'll quickly discover it's totally insane. Like if you want sound settings, you'll type S and it'll suddenly start doing a web search for something. Or you'll type S-O and the sound settings thing will come up, and then you'll type U. So it says S-O-U and it'll disappear again. Or you'll type the word sound and there it is, and you go to click on it, and by the time you click on it, it's changed to something else. It's awful, right? So there's a utility you can get, free utility called Everything by a company called Void Tools, right? Which you just download and within about two minutes, it's indexed everything on your entire computer. And you literally type in a letter and up pops everything on your computer that has that letter. If you want to search something, it's instantaneous. Now, I don't know if you know this, but Microsoft is quite a big company. It's got, I think, 220,000 employees, roughly. What? Yeah, of which something like 100,000 are allegedly software developers, right? Void Tools is a guy called David Carpenter. So why is it that he has created a utility, which obviously runs in Windows, is completely compatible with Windows, and which is so much better than anything those 100,000 software developers have managed to put together? That's the question. And so, I mean, more generally, is this a symptom of a general problem that big companies are crap at stuff? And if so, how did they get so big and be crap at the same time? So yeah, that's it. Are big companies crap? And is there anything we can do about this problem?
Speaker A:Yeah. I mean, I don't want to get too far ahead of ourselves, but maybe to be good at stuff, sorry, maybe to get big, you need to be good, right? And then you get big, and you can't be good anymore. And that's it. But you've done... First you get good, then you get big, and then you get crap. Yeah, exactly. Exactly that. Okay, that's fascinating. Joe, help us sort of narrow this down a bit. I mean, give us some definitions or, yeah, help sort of focus us a bit.
Speaker C:Okay. So, I mean, we could probably all relate to this idea that the bigger companies are crap at stuff. But what do we really mean? And what do we all imagine? Because I think there's probably a common theme in there. So I had a look at a few definitions of what would we mean by a big company here, and taking Microsoft as an example. And a couple of definitions that really kind of leapt out to me is that kind of hits the nail on the head and maybe goes some little way to explaining why they're crap at stuff. So one of those was companies that dominate their industry or have a really high market share. And the other one that I thought was particularly captured my impression of what big means is companies that have actually grown beyond their original core competencies, possibly through acquisitions and mergers. So those two definitions kind of characterize for me the kind of companies I think of when I look back at my experiences of thinking, how can this not be doing what I want? And how can it be missing the mark so much? Now, in terms of what do we mean by crap by stuff, again, kind of looked at a whole range of stuff here. And the ones that leapt out to me there were failing to meet customer expectations. And I think this is where you start to see people generally complaining about stuff in forums, and you tell your stories, and people, they've experienced the same thing. You expect it to work a certain way, and it doesn't, for whatever reason. So you start to deal with this monolithic
Speaker A:organization that as a customer, where it's just no, you just can't get a simple answer, or you
Speaker C:just, yeah, great. It's a product that you think is going to do something, and when you try, whatever that thing is, it doesn't happen the way you expect, and that is actually a problem for you. So second one was failing to address known issues. So this search issue, it's not a big secret, it's not something hard to come across. They obviously know that there are better solutions out there, but they've not addressed it. So why is that? That is kind of fairly crap. If you've got known problems, and you're not fixing them. And the third one was demonstrating a lack of creativity in the problem-solving. So, and I think this is where you see sometimes you get these really small companies that come up with something new, and it's just a great way to tackle the problem. And I guess you see it, we've seen it in things like social media, where Snapchat comes along, and they've just got some new ideas about how people might want to communicate that the big players didn't already have. And then they obviously get adopted. So it's that lack of creativity in addressing stuff. So those were the three things that I kind of, for me, captured what I thought will reflect my experience of what is being crap at stuff.
Speaker A:I mean, it feels like that built into it is like, when you become big, you naturally become more bureaucratic, right? It's just the nature of that beast.
Speaker B:Well, let's, I think we do need to talk about theories later.
Speaker A:Am I getting too ahead of myself?
Speaker B:You're theorising as to why this might be. That's because I'm just one person, right? So I'm really nimble. I think we, exactly. Well, I think we do need to discuss whether it's true or fair. I mean, partly, I think there's a sense of, well, are we actually a lot harsher on big companies? I mean, the guy who does Void Tools, who makes everything, he's only got to do that one thing. Whereas whoever it is, who's responsible for Windows Search, presumably has to do loads of other stuff. They've got probably meetings to go to, and they've got performance targets, and they probably have other responsibilities, and they have to make sure it does all these other things and meets corporate standards and all this. And actually, maybe it has a load of functionality that is useful to someone else. Whereas David Carpenter, his tool is awesome, but it has only got to do one thing. Whereas Microsoft have got to make the whole of Windows, which is horrifically complicated. So maybe there's an element to which we are just harsher. Like one bad bit of Windows sort of obscures the fact that all of the rest of Windows is an amazing thing that works really perfectly all the time. Yeah. So I was kind of looking at whether, okay, is this just a perception, or is it true that big companies are worse?
Speaker A:Also, just to say, sorry to interrupt, but there's going to be like a sample bias because big companies by definition are used by more people. And so there's more people to be exposed to issues.
Speaker B:And to be disappointed by stuff.
Speaker A:Yeah. Whereas if you're small, there's going to be less people complaining because there's less
Speaker B: the next. I think it was like: Speaker A:End shitification.
Speaker B: End shitification. Okay. In: Speaker C:Yeah, I actually questioned that last part of the cycle these days, because what I think we see these days is that the really big companies are getting better and better, they're really entrenching themselves in the market. And the way they're doing it is by building lots and lots of related products and services that all depend on each other, and building marketplaces around those, so that even if the product becomes useless, you just can't not use it. To try and exist in the corporate world without Microsoft is practically impossible, because they've managed to make the Office suite kind of the standard thing that everyone uses. And you need Windows to run that. And there's all kinds of other programs that are written to work on Windows. So once they get to that point, even if the product quality goes down and usability goes down, I feel like users find themselves unable to get rid of it anymore.
Speaker B:You can't escape it. Yeah, well, it's almost the point. I mean, that's the sad thing about all of this, is that ideally, well, a theory of perfect competition in economics is that firms are competing to produce the best value at kind of the lowest cost. But if you have the prospect of being able to carve out a monopoly for yourself, then actually, the whole point of doing that is that you don't have to bother anymore, is that you can slack off on being good, which is really sad.
Speaker A:Yeah. I mean, I was trying to think a challenge to your point there that this is a relatively recent phenomenon that you know, that you guess what, it's integrated into whatever the structure is that how we sort of work or, and whether that is a new thing has always been the case. And it does feel different, actually, if we think of previous monopoly, let's call it a monopoly for a moment, but via through different means. But if we think in the past, like, it makes me think of utilities and stuff, where it's British Rail or British Airways.
Speaker B:Yeah. And they were British, things called British something like British Leyland. Yeah, British Steel, British Telecom, like
Speaker A:Gonna be crap. All famously awful. And it feels like they were not good for different reasons, just because they had a monopoly, whereas now is you can't not use them. And perhaps because of a more complex world in which we live, and it's integrated, you got to use it simple as that. So it's monopoly via other means. Nick, we're going to come into more stuff, or?
Speaker B: hat people really like to say: Speaker A:Yeah, bad companies are big. But Nick, so I'm not quite sure where we're going to go next. But before we do, just as an economist, is there hope in that? Because you'll be able to even define this better than I can. But could it be the case that if you had just, you know, marketplace without any kind of fetters that, well, bad luck, these are monopolies, and they continue? Or is it that it gets so bad, that even if they're sort of monopolizing, that still you get disruptors, that, you know, people are so fed up. And actually, they'll, you know, something will disrupt that
Speaker B:something small. Or is that sort of? No, that's right. So the question is, can you, I mean, traditionally, you know, you have these, the concept of a natural monopoly, which is something where the fixed costs are so high, you can't really have more than one firm in that sector, like water provision, for example, you can't really have two separate sets of water pipes coming to your house, you know, there's got, there's really only room for one set of water pipes. So you can't have proper competition over the provision of water infrastructure. So in those cases, that's where you get an argument for government intervention. And, you know, and obviously, the reason we have things like the Monopolies and Mergers Commission, I don't know if that still exists, but things like the Office of Fair Trading, and all these other kind of government agencies are there to intervene on behalf of consumers, because actually monopolies are bad, whether they're natural or otherwise, right. So, you know, when companies like Joe was saying, when companies get so big, and they're kind of so integrated. So, you know, I think there was the example, Microsoft was fined, weren't there a few years ago, several, I think, hundreds of millions of pounds, because they were kind of forcing people who bought Windows to also use Edge, the Microsoft browser and stuff. You know, that's the kind of situation where once you've got that kind of lock-in, it's effectively a sort of natural monopoly. But having said that, I mean, the entry cost is in theory, low for software, you know, it's possible for probably Joe rather than me, but to write a new operating system. And, you know, and there's no reason that shouldn't happen. Why doesn't that happen?
Speaker C:Well, I think it probably does happen. But I think that for the really big companies, it's not so much of a threat, because, in a sense, what they're doing is they're almost crowdsourcing the less profitable problems to the SMEs, and whichever one solves it, they can just acquire them. And then they've got the solution without having really invested at risk in it. So, for example, Windows Search, there isn't really an argument there that they've got a monopoly on searching your computer. So there's no reason they can't just acquire this company that's provided a free version, that becomes the default search for the next version of Windows. They've suffered no consequences. Why haven't they? I guess, well, I could only guess that maybe they haven't noticed that this company is so small. I've never heard of this company before. And I guess that's another barrier to entry for the small businesses to really get traction is that everyone's heard of Windows. It's going to be on your computer anyway. You're going to use Windows Search. How much of a bother is it for people to actually go out and find these tiny one-man companies, assess them all, pick the best one? You either find that almost by chance, or by referral, or you just don't. And your life continues. Yeah. And in fact, I mean, I suppose
Speaker B:Microsoft might well say, well, just why bother acquiring it? It's just there. It's free anyway. And you're right. But I think, ultimately, there's probably that sense of, well, we don't need to make this any better. It's not like people are going to buy Windows because it's got a better search facility built in. But also, I mean, I can just imagine if they bought the bloody thing, they would then start sneaking adverts into it. And they'd have to make it somehow. I bet they've got all these kind of internal standards that it would then have to conform to. And then it would start to compete with other bits of the system. And it would get worse. So I just think it's good
Speaker A:that they haven't acquired it. Yeah. I mean, but it sounds like there's a lack of motivation on both sides of the equation, right? Because the big companies, they don't care. They're making their billions. And on the customer side, it's like, all right, it's annoying, but whatever. And a couple of things. Where are we going to go? What do we go on to next? Well, theories. Why
Speaker B:fundamentally? What are the fundamental drivers of big being bad? Okay. But before we do, I just
Speaker A:want to leaven this for a moment. Just for fun, give me an example of some... All this data stuff's all right, but let's have... Of a real world. Yeah. Let's have some real world. Let's have some anecdotal evidence of this as well, just for kicks. I'll start off with an example of where I just go, ah, I hate big companies. And it is Microsoft Word. So about nine months ago, I switched jobs and I went from a hip, groovy young company to work in the education sector. And with a heavy heart on my first day, I was sat down and introduced to Microsoft Office 365, whatever it's called, which I'd worked with like 10 years ago. And of course, in slightly different, well, very different form. And I was like, oh God, here we go. And I hate it. Hate it. So I've come from a sort of a Google universe where I'm sure it's got its problems, whatever, but it just kind of works. And it's simple. It's pretty intuitive, which for an intuitive guy like me, I like intuitive. Whereas with the Microsoft, it's just so bloody complicated. And all this business with OneDrive and Outlook and sharing it. I hate that. I was constantly trying to push OneDrive out, whatever that is. I don't want it. And I now just don't understand how the email filters work. And I try it and I just... Yes, tabs and menus and dropdowns and options. And I'm getting too old for this stuff, Nick. I just can't be dealing with this. Too old for Microsoft Word. Yeah, I know, right? And I just think, why? Why do they insist on using it? And I'm sure Google would be so much cheaper. And maybe there's stuff around security. I don't know. But like, it's just a miserable user experience, I find. I hate it. Anyway, that's my two cents. Joe, what's your sort of take as a customer on a big company stuff where you really disliked it? I think it's got to
Speaker C:be trains and that kind of stuff. I mean, if you've really got kind of command of this area of the network, and you'd think that there'd be a way to approach that and improve things and makes it super efficient and a great user experience, especially as there isn't really the same competition in the same way. But it just seems to get worse and worse and worse. And I guess we can... Some of the kind of theories behind why might factor into that quite heavily. But yeah, it's something where you almost expect it's mass transport. It should be easier, cheaper than driving a car. And it often isn't. Trains, how hard can that be?
Speaker A:But I mean, if you're British, a depressing experience is going on holiday to France, Germany, pretty much anywhere but Britain, and use the trains, you know. And even my kids, I was in France a couple of weeks ago going, wow, this train's nice. And you know, it runs on time and this and that, you know. And that's when I went on a massive rant about, look, I'm not a socialist. But you know, it's sort of... Well, you can sort of see where I would have gone with that. I actually quite like British trains. Well, we're both old enough to remember
Speaker B:British rail. Yeah. But yeah, good example, Nick. Well, I suppose for me, a really classic example I've seen from the whole life cycle of would be Starbucks. Because in the late 90s, I went to Italy and discovered a drink called cafe latte. And literally, nobody had heard of it in Britain. And within a year or two, you know, all of these coffee shops popping up. What is cafe latte? I mean... Well, it's an espresso topped up with hot milk. Is it? Yeah. Okay. And it doesn't exist in Italy. Well, it does in Rome. That's where I had one. Okay. It was built as a regional speciality that you can get in Rome. Anyway, so when it came out, Starbucks was really exciting. It was like this kind of what they said third, what they call the third space and was trendy. And it had sofas instead of kind of four mica tables. And that, you know, it was just really cool and exciting. And then it got bigger and bigger and more and more corporate and more and more bland. And every single Starbucks just looked the same. And then they started to get sort of shabby. And you know, now you go to a Starbucks at a petrol station or something, and it's just depressing, bleak. There'll be some bored looking person half-heartedly mopping the floor. You know, that's the perfect kind of metaphor, really, for all of these companies. They start out being actually good. And then eventually they just get good at being, you know, a kind of boring, homogenous experience. It's not very depressing. Well, look, we haven't talked about theories. Why? Fundamentally, why? Why can't you carry on being good when you're big? I thought we'd sort of talked about that. Anyway, go on. I mean, first of all, I think this question of economies of scale, right, which it's sort of intrinsic to bigness, really. The fundamental reason why there are economies of scale is ultimately is physics. Like, it's just cheaper. It's kind of, you know, square cube type laws, that it's cheaper to produce 1,000 things per thing than it is to produce 10 of them. It's cheaper to produce 1,000 things that are all the same than it is to produce 100 of each of 10 different types of thing. Like, it's just the pure physics of it. And so in order to be big, in general, you kind of need to homogenise what it is you produce. And I think homogenised products are going to be generally worse. Like, if you, let's imagine you are, you're trying to appeal to the 10, like, 10 people who are really discerning. You've got to make your restaurant really good, right? But if you want to appeal to 1,000 people, you don't have to care as much. Much easier to just, you know, produce something that, you know, instead of having 10 people who really like it, and, you know, 990 people who hate it, you need to have a thing which basically everyone kind of doesn't hate that much. So there's the sense of homogenisation, I think, which is intrinsic to being big. Essentially, this is one of many routes into a denunciation of capitalism. Well, I would say denunciation of consumers. Consumers are morons. Ultimately, that's who I'm blaming all of this on. Like, if consumers didn't consume things that were bad,
Speaker A:bad things wouldn't exist. As in many of our episodes, it just feels like the logical conclusion to this is setting up a hippie commune, you know, in the middle of nowhere. Okay, I didn't jump straight there, but... Well, I was ahead of you in this. Joe?
Speaker C:Yeah, so I think underlying what you've just said, Nick, is another principle that's a bit deeper. And from my thinking, it seems to be the root cause of the whole thing, which is optimising for return on investment. If you imagine a really small company that does exactly one thing, and they want to, they're going to invest in making their company better, they've only got a couple of options, and it's around that specific product. If you imagine a huge company that does 10,000 different things, it's incredibly unlikely that the best, the maximum return on investment is by investing in all of those things equally. It's going to be some of them that have a big return, and a lot of them that effectively get ignored. And if you look at Microsoft, for example, and you look at Azure, you can imagine the amount of money that's gone into Azure is much bigger than the amount, proportionally much bigger than the amount of money that's gone into improving the window search, because they're going to get more back for that. So I would say it's inevitable that as you start to produce products and services that do more things and have more markets, you're going to narrow your investment within those and some of them are going to become neglected and become a little bit kind of old and cruddy. And there'll be some that get all the money and become shiny and new.
Speaker B: billion. This is: Speaker C:Well, it's online computes, basically. It's hardware that you can access via the internet rather than having it in your room.
Speaker B:I've never heard of this. But anyway, well, you're not a business customer. I don't care about you. And then there's Windows, good old fashioned Windows, about 14 billion in a quarter that was. So yeah, that seems very plausible to me. But that touches on something I think we might, you know, which is sort of, I suppose, in defence of big companies being crap, which is that big companies generally do really big, hard things. I know I said earlier that Joe was going to write me a operating system, but I don't think he's got time. You know, a train company has to run trains. Amazon have to deliver parcels within a day to anywhere in the world. Like these things are really hard. So, you know, perhaps we just have an unrealistically high standard. You know, if I want to use a company which, you know, bakes bread, and that's all they do is they bake bread and they sell it, I will go, well, this is amazing bread. You know, I can expect that to be really good. But if that same company is also having to manage a fleet of, you know, of logistics, a fleet of trucks and, you know, deliver the bread everywhere and, you know, and also design the packaging for the bread and also do the marketing and all of that stuff, then as Joe says, you know, well, there's just loads of things that they can invest in and probably making the bread isn't necessarily top of the list of priorities.
Speaker C:One possible counterexample to the complexity argument, if you consider operating system Windows, commercial, operating system Linux, an open source operating system, and I think it's probably fair to say that users of Linux are probably happier with the experience than users of Windows, equally complex products. But the difference is that because Linux is open source, there's not a motivation to target development based on return of investment. And secondly, because it's open source, you've got people coming in tinkering with the problems that they have to fix those problems. So you're almost kind of decentralizing where resource and activity is focused. And the result is something that seems a much more streamlined, usable experience.
Speaker B:Yeah, you're just playing into his desire to set up hippie communes now. I mean, yeah, fair enough. I find it really hard to use Linux, as you know, because as soon as you're like, how do I use Linux? If you want Windows, you pay for it, you download it, and it works. If you want Linux, you have to basically become a massive nerd, look at something called distros, decide which of, you know, 15 different things to download. And even then, then there's loads of command line interface things to set everything up. And it's like, and the trouble is nerd people think that that's okay, but it isn't.
Speaker C:I think the problem might be that people have kept you away from the Windows like version of Linux.
Speaker A:Well, look, this leads on just a tiny point. One more thing. Well, okay, but just say, this is similar to when we talked about, I think we did a podcast on the cachet of using artisanal sort of products and services, which actually, which is kind of the opposite of this really, which we hate them as well, because it's just so up its own backside. And so like, this is just the human condition, which is why we need to set up our commune. So we don't, you know, so other end of the scale you go for is a nightmare.
Speaker B:Yeah, we should just all be producing and giving perhaps to each according to their need.
Speaker A:There we go. And so Nick, go on to your next point. And maybe we need to start rounding off.
Speaker B: people, there's: Speaker A:Yeah. So we actually, yes, we feel bad as customers, but we should feel even worse for the people working inside the company. At least they can be soothed by the massive fact checks they're receiving every month. Well, yeah. So this explains why my family is such a shambling disaster, because there's five of us, which, you know, we're not as big as Microsoft yet. But it does make, I noticed quite quickly the shift from me and my wife get along fine. Sort of just that sort of relationship. There's just two sort of relations, one relationship going on. One kid, OK, gets more complex. Five. Wow. Yeah. Like the amount of community, it's really difficult. So I sympathize with Microsoft.
Speaker B:No, I think that really is, you know, I think unless people have worked in a kind of big organization, they probably underestimate that. You know, I know, you know, from my time in defense, people would always sort of say, well, why haven't they done something about this? And I'm like, they probably don't even know about this. You know, someone's got to tell them and then they've got to put it onto an agenda and then they've got to have a meeting about it. And then somehow it has to be committed. It's like people, you know, they just that's how it works.
Speaker A:Yeah. Yeah. We need to finish. I've got a concluding thought. Yeah.
Speaker C:Oh, yeah. Go for it. So I think, I mean, we're looking at this from the lens of product usability and our experience. But I think ultimately the really big companies are inevitably the publicly traded companies. And they've got one kind of legal mission, which is to make money. And in that sense, they're very good. Yeah. And the way to do that optimally isn't necessarily to make the most usable products. Yeah. So maybe in that sense, it's because that's not their aim.
Speaker B:Yeah, exactly. Yeah, no, that's right.
Speaker A:Going back to your initial point, like why are big companies crap at stuff? Well, actually, they're not. They're really good at growing, let's say.
Speaker B:Well, bad at growing, let's say, but good at being big. You know, I mean, so those big, massive companies, they are not growing like a small company does. But they're already there. They're huge. And they're still making plenty of money.
Speaker A:Yeah. Look, question. Just to turn this on its head. I wanted to ask, can you think of an example where you're dealing with a big company and you've been thrilled with your customer experience? Yeah, I think that's quite a good question. And I've been trying to think of one. Actually, I can't think of one, but I'm sure I shall.
Speaker C:Okay, so a big company that I've actually really enjoyed using the product, it's got to be Apple with their iPhones. I mean, I found those such a kind of pleasure to use. And where I've kind of used phones from other manufacturers, I've found it less of a pleasure to use. And it's almost like just the feel of things and the usability. And for that reason, I've kind of ended up in that ecosystem, even though it wasn't my original intention.
Speaker A:Yeah, me too. Me too. Don't get me wrong. There's stuff that drives me mad about Apple, but there's plenty that doesn't. And in quite the opposite. I think for me, probably Virgin, you know, Virgin Atlantic and famously Virgin are meant to be sort of good at their customer services. And they've got all sorts of training on that. And also, I know there's lots of examples where it goes wrong and Virgin trains, et cetera, et cetera. But on the rare occasions that I've flown Virgin Atlantic, it is a lovely experience, broadly speaking, for any number of reasons. And yes, so hats off to Virgin. Yeah, good.
Speaker B:If it wasn't for Richard Branson, there wouldn't be Tubular Bells. Yes, true. So, you know, they can do no wrong in my eyes. That alone. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. You know, mine is not a company, but a corporation. The British Broadcasting Corporation. There's a lot about the BBC I really hate because, you know, you can't really, you know, you can't love the BBC without hating large chunks of it. I mean, BBC One, I could happily hive off. EastEnders, why am I paying for that? But, you know, Radio 4. And when I say Radio 4, I mean about 10% of Radio 4 because I hate most of the stuff on it. But, you know, it's worth the licence fee alone. But just everything the BBC does. I mean, they're unobtrusively brilliant, like streaming service. iPlayer is just really, really good. You know, and they're publicly, more or less, pretty much publicly funded. So, yeah. No, I love the BBC. And, you know, 20 years ago, if you'd have asked me when I was a much more radical economist, I would have said, well, look, you know, now we have streaming. You know, now we can do pay-per-view. There's absolutely no rationale for the BBC at all. There's no rationale. We should just make it private. Oh, my God. How wrong was I? And you know what? It boils down to consumers again. Like it's consumers are morons and they will demand terrible things. And, you know, you look at the stuff produced by, for example, Netflix or Amazon, and a lot of it is just awful. It's dross. So, yeah. Yeah, market-driven. Sadly, I've become a TV communist. Yeah, yeah. I'm a big fan of publicly owned media companies.
Speaker A:Yeah. That's a whole other podcast in itself. It probably is. Yeah, no, just so you're in good company, because friend of the podcast, Andres Taxier, of Argentinian-Polish provenance, said that, you know, just for Radio 4 alone, that's worth becoming British just for that. And so, yeah. And I think we all agreed. Nice. Okay. We'll stop there. Thank you, as always, for listening to the Cognitive Engineering Podcast. I'm Fraser McGruer. We've been here with Nick Hare and Joe Laugi of Aleph. Until next time. Goodbye. Bye. Bye. Bye.
