040: Wanna Buy My Lightly-used Junk?

So we decided on a name, huh? Well, it's by deciding you may flip a coin. Yeah, we decided. Yeah, like peaking behind the curtain here.

Just a little bit Well, I mean, yeah I figured there's no secret on this right like we talked about doing this and you said we were dragging ass on it And then I got to the point where we were down to like a really short list where it was two names I'm like, I don't know I don't know just pick one and so then you told me you told me you flipped a coin and this is what we landed on It's totally true. I did basically just pick up a coin that was right next to me I flipped it and boom the answer was a syntax error. So We're done not to say that the coin toss but actually resulted in sick to syntax error But the new name of the podcast will be syntax error. Yep.

So hey that a dragon ass part is over, right? Yeah, I think I think it's done So I guess you know syntax error was on the short list for a couple of reasons and the reason that I like to point to is Well syntax error because we really don't know what we're doing and you know when you're first learning to program You always run too much syntax errors and just because you don't really know the language You don't really know kind of what you're doing So I figured that was kind of appropriate for our podcast because we've now gone, you know 40 episodes And we still really don't know what we're doing So I thought it was fitting and you know It's still happening that there weren't a lot of pockets out there called syntax error probably because of the negative connotations that carries But hey, I don't care Hey, well, sometimes my life feels like a big syntax error or you know how I tackle a tech problem It feels like a big syntax error like I go through these phases where I'm like, oh, okay Yeah, I did that and it kind of solved the problem for now But you re-approach it later So I think it has multiple meanings and different takes for both of us But yeah, we don't know what the hell we're doing Yeah, I think it's fine too You know mentioning how you run into a problem There are sometimes where I've seen you like bank ahead against the wall like numerous times And just like little dancers right there What didn't even see it So, um, Lou, what happens with creative genius then? Well, uh creative genius becomes the the network now So, uh, you know, we were I guess you're gonna welcome a another podcast into the family and uh casual dads which uh yours truly uh or I shouldn't say yours truly Your hosting is uh is the thing now and so we add creative genius FM Dot com is the new domain So uh, you can go there, but we add casual dads into the mix too So we go from one to two how exciting Yeah, so casual dads officially officially launched And we talked about it a couple of podcasts back And yeah, that podcast officially launched and like Lou said, the new site is www.creativegeniusfm.com And you can find this podcast in text error as well as a new podcast casual dads with myself and mr. phil Um over there So really not a lot has changed since we added a podcast and we changed the name of something But it's the same exact format.

It's the same exact people and New name same classic coke taste Coke as a registered trademark of Coca-Cola Thank you for stating that before we got our asses sued Oh, you know, I think we just get out of takedown of this A cease and desist letter signed by mr. Coca-Cola Either way, I'm glad you mentioned that But uh, yeah, I mean, it's exciting and uh, who knows what the world ahead uh holds, you know, it could be more podcasts It could just be like casual dads and uh some syntax here for a little while It'll be more podcast Thanks for clearing the air on that so Wishful thinking man, like you don't want to like call it dead before you know is even ready Like what was it like? Don't count your chickens before they hatch typing? Or I guess that's kind of what I'm doing um I'm just being optimistic Said from a guy who raised goats when he was younger.

Yep I wasn't near a farm so I don't know any of that But uh, anyway, we should move on to follow up So uh, the follow-up that Adam put in here is that Adam can't remember what we talked about So uh, there is no follow-up Yep, verbatum from the follow-up But then I remembered something which was uh, it may is almost over As we record this it is May 30th So, did you watch your movie? So first of all, I appreciate your honesty about the uh Forgetting uh what we talked about and to answer your question You honestly forgot? I have not watched my movie Uh, but I do have some other news for you on this front I sat down to what which I was supposed to have watched our words a couple days ago And what did I watch instead? Maybe another movie you would have approved of?

Deadpool Yeah, but that's jumping into the MCU like full board Like, do you like Deadpool though? I think you would like that one It was pretty good Like I mean, so here was my take on it I would probably go see Or I would see Deadpool at home again In a sense that like I know Deadpool 2 just came out And the reason we watched Deadpool 1 was There was some talk about maybe going into Deadpool 2 And so I watched it at home And the Blu-ray DVD was like right in front of me And it had been let to us So I was like, okay, I guess I'll watch it And it was good I'll give the movie like the humor part of the movie Thumbs up and there's some good humor At some good parts in that movie And some good lines about cancer that were hilarious Of course because he has cancer So, you know, it was good Um, I don't know that I would go pay like 18 dollars to see it at the movie theater Like the movie theater prices are today But I would, um, I definitely would see number two I would, I would watch it I would withstand it So cool, Deadpool, great That's not the movie you have to watch though So you still have to watch Star Wars and you hope And you have to watch it tomorrow Yeah, I know, I like it Dude, you got a lot of stuff to do tomorrow I'm just gonna say that right now Like your day tomorrow is like packed Yeah, man, it's uh, it's gonna be a busy like couple of days We uh, like tomorrow and editing And like, oh man, it's gonna be uh, it's gonna be a crazy couple of days But it's okay, I'll get it watched I'll get it watched Made my promise Yeah, at least, I mean, at least before we record the next episode So, because then we have to talk about it Because then we gotta move on to June Oh, and June is Horner's month isn't it? Yeah Is it, is it June or such a lie? I don't remember Let's follow up for next week Very true, this is follow up So you'll actually have something to put in follow up That's very cool So this week we're gonna talk about uh, online marketplaces Which uh, I don't know it was a, I should Be a good host and have the episode number But I definitely don't right now But uh, we talked about big box retailers a little while ago But I think for this episode We're gonna kind of take a turn away from big box and go Small scale, you know, mom and pop Or uh, what we would just call, you know, like person to person So uh, Adam, what is your experience with online marketplaces as of today?

So yeah, I want to talk about it on the marketplaces Because like I said, we did, we did big box, like that's fine But yeah, what about like the swap meets? What about like the kind of like car buying, like used car buying private, you know, seller buying The auctions, you know, the classified ad type things So what about those? So as far as my exposure goes, like I can remember my mom was really big on the eBay train when eBay first came out Because it's like, oh my gosh, like I can bid on, you know, items that are all the way across, you know The world and then they will ship them to me So my mom got into like collecting these timex clocks I had like this little red dot in them Apparently that was like a way to tell if the clock had been reset or so I don't remember But um, she would go in there and like bid on all these anti clocks all the time So uh, that was kind of the first exposure I got to like an online marketplace But um, before that, like my dad always bought, you know, used cars We always bought, you know, boats used, we bought our ATVs used Uh, we would go to swap meets, you know, we would go all over the place and Go to conventions and, you know, buy stuff So now that everything has kind of gone online, I can honestly say that This was an area that I wanted to kind of explore a little bit because I'm pretty green when it comes to online marketplaces Because I really only mess with like the craiseless and the e-bays Um, but it's one of the things where online had the potential to really shake up a market And a lot of good and bad ways So that's why I kind of wanted to take into it this week But that's my exposure if it answered your question Okay, so you kind of stick to the e-bay and the craiseless, which I think are like the two most approachable names Is it fair to say? Well, I've used other ones But I mean, those are the only like type of Marketplaces I've been to, like I haven't, I've done the options I've done in the classmates But I haven't done like a lot of the other ones that we'll get into So more product-based I guess is what I'm trying to kind of get at Alright, fair enough, so uh It says you have a lot to get rid of Is it fair to say you've got a hoarders problem, Adam?

Well, no, uh, this is a little self-serving And every time I pick a topic, it's probably going to be self-serving Because I want to talk about something that's kind of affecting me That's kind of like fresh on my mind, and uh, we're looking at moving soon So uh, with moving, usually that means like, all right Before I move, I don't want to pack up all the crap with me You know, and take it with me and move it I'd rather get rid of it before we have to move So kind of what that means is I've been going through It's just the stuff that we have And trying to prune out some of the collection, right? So I'll have some, like I have a bunch of old headphones, not a bunch I guess only two pairs, so it's not a bunch So I have a couple of old headphones like I want to get rid of But there are things that I don't just want to donate They're gonna just want to give them away Um, because they have some value, like they're still like brand new headphones Or they're still, you know, good in good condition Like I have a bike that I need to get rid of So yeah, I have just stuff that I'm not going to use in the new house Or it's time, it's a good time for me to get rid of It's just a good opportunity, right? Like two birds, one stone type thing Uh, so yeah, I have a lot to get rid of So as far as, you know, the marketplace is like, the big appeal to me was, okay, How can I sell some of these things online? Because I need to get rid of them, but I need to cast a wider net To get more people interested because some of the things are, you know, pretty niche It's like, hey, this, you know, customizable, you know, gaming mouse, you know It's like, well, if I just post that in the local newspaper Not everyone's going to see that, especially people read the newspaper I don't think they're looking for gaming mice But if I put that online on one of these marketplaces, you know, I can definitely Probably catch someone's eye who wants to buy something like this So yeah, I have a lot of stuff to get rid of Lou will, I'll ask you later if you want to buy some of my stuff Kind of readle off a laundry list of things Okay, fair enough, so I think my experience here is kind of limited But most of the time when I turn to these I think you and I have something similar where we kind of turn to these when Something we have, we may know enough about to speak to it And we know it carries more value than to just junk it or donate it And so we, you know, turn to these to try to make hopefully a few bucks back And I have primarily sold the smart technology through these So I've turned to, you know, I've done eBay, I've done Craigslist And I've done Facebook marketplace, I think it's the terminology that they use Or they're advertising for it, but I've done that platform And I've had success with all three, I think Craigslist is the go-to But just because I hate shipping stuff, I don't know about you, do you hate shipping?

Well, yes, I don't like to ship things I would much rather get rid of it locally, you know, just because you don't have to worry about that Also, it's just, you know, cash, right, cool cash in your hand But Alex, my wife, she has much more experience with shipping things Because she did that for her business So she had a business shipping account, she ships up all over So if I ever need to ship something, I just say, hey, honey, I love you so much Can you please ship this for me and let me know how much it costs So she ships it, sends it to the post office and doesn't all for me And I don't have to worry about that, so thank you to my wife Damn it, why doesn't your wife still live in nearby? I think it's just like, can you make this go by by? But yeah, that is a lucrative option, Adam You might have been above your cost threshold, you know I can't just say the words I love you, it doesn't work like that No, no, I think that I love you translate to at least $250 Yeah, no, so I definitely don't have that luxury and I am the most inefficient packer So like, I'm one of those people that totally falls for the guy at the UPS store telling me That I need like, you know, 30 pounds of foam pellets in this thing Because it'll break if I ship it without it So I end up, you know, posting my item on eBay And I say, oh yeah, I can ship it for, you know, X amount And then I eat into my profit because I pay way more than I needed to ship it So yeah, I have been bit by that multiple times So can I side by really quick? You mentioned packing peanuts?

Have you ever gotten like the rice packing peanuts once they're actually made of like puffed rice? Yeah, the ones you can actually eat Yeah, have you eaten up before? Yeah, of course I have Okay, so I might tell a funny story that could go over on casual dads But I'm gonna say it here is we definitely got one of those Not too long ago, probably a couple months back And the packing peanuts are there The kids are used to seeing like Amazon boxes and, you know, the air packing peanuts And you know, the inedible packing peanuts But these ones I was like, ooh, this looks tasty Like, dad, don't put that in your mouth and I put it in my mouth and I eat it And they're like, oh, yeah, you're gonna get so sick. I'm like, no, it's good It's good.

Try it. Try it. So then I started feeding them to the dog And then I fed one to the kids and it was just, it was hilarious They thought I was going to die because I ate a packing peanut I was like, no, tasty, yummy, it's so delicious But then you have to explain to them, hey, these are special packing peanuts Do not try this with the next package that comes Because I cannot guarantee that they will also be rice packing peanuts That's good, that's good Yeah, I kind of had the same reaction I think the first time I learned that, which was probably in about middle school Or so, you know, that I like, I think I saw a teacher actually do it And I was like, what, you know, and just kind of like lost my marbles So, yeah, packing peanuts, man. Oh, they charge so much for, you know, puffed rice But yeah, exactly.

So some rice cookies in there, I think they'll do the same thing Exactly. Yeah, I mean, it's kind of a joke I've definitely shipped like a computer, a couple things like that And you know, I estimate I'm like, oh, yeah, I can ship this for like $30 or $40 Or something, you know, even I think, oh, this will cover it for sure Go to the store and I walk out spending 65 I'm like, oh my god Yep, that exceeded your cost threshold Yep, so I guess the question at hand here is that there are a million of these today Am I right out of? Yeah, so there's a lot. I mean, we can break them down into different things, right?

But I mean, just the list we had here was like the Craigslist, the let go There's the auto trader, cycle trader, Carmax, you name it There's a Facebook marketplace, which I've used that as well Or Alex's used that because I don't do the Facebooks Offer up, I haven't heard of that one or thread up Which I'm assuming thread up is more like clothes But I don't know what offer up is Such as another site, I'm gonna pull it up right now I'm actually surprised you haven't heard of offer up But um So I'm kind of surprised you threw Carmax in here Because I feel like they're a pretty big box kind of auction or you know, what reseller of used items But you can trade in your car, all that kind of stuff too And you can have it like shift for free from one to the other And I mentioned Carmax just because I was on the auto trader one But like the fact that you can now, you know, have a car that's in New Jersey And then say like, yeah, I want that car and have it, you know, brought over Or you can say, hey Carmax, here's my car, you know, I want to sell it But auto trader, I guess, is the big takeaway there So just forget I said Carmax, it's not a marketplace, it's more of a dealer Yeah, I was gonna say that they're kind of an interesting blurred line in that realm And don't get me wrong, I like them, I've actually the only two cars I've ever bought My life were bought from Carmax And quote unquote used with my site, my car that I have now has 400 miles on it when it was used So, you know, it's a definite gray area, whether you want to call it that But yeah, there's a ton of these out there And I think experience-wise, I have the most experience with Craigslist And then second Facebook and third eBay actually Which is probably a little different than yours I think Craigslist brings its own challenges You can probably speak to this, you get 1,000 emails from the Nigerian prince who needs to do Wired him $50 million to save whatever God for a second thing he needs He just needs to funnel it through his offshore account And you have to be able to look through that And so it's probably not a place to send grandma to sell her items or anything like that Because she's just gonna fall for it But it can be useful and if you structure the post in the right way I think you can kind of read through the bullshit And so, you know, a lot of times my posts say In cash offers will only be entertained and like in person will not ship item And so, you know, when you do that, I think it does come on a lot of the crap you're gonna get But it still can come through occasionally Well, the thing with Craigslist, right, is And I guess I think with all these marketplaces is I use burner emails and phone numbers for all of this stuff Right, like I have a Gmail and a Google voice number Specifically for this and they are just pure burner accounts So, like you said, people contacting me is like, I don't care Because it goes to a place that I never check unless I'm actively selling something on there But most of the time, like I don't even get notified So I'll check it, you know, like twice a day But yeah, I use burners for all this kind of stuff So, Google voice is great, especially, you know, because you grab a phone number You associate it with a Google account and then you say, hey, here's my phone number And you don't even have it forward to anything So that phone number doesn't forward to any of my other numbers It's just cool, it goes to the Google voice, you know, web interface And I just check it there So that's how you do all the text messages All of the back and forth And they have an app, so you just use that when you talk to them But burners are definitely the way to go And it makes it sound like a drug deal, like it, but it's not, you know, not for pedaling drugs on the sidewalk You know, I'm trying to sell my USB MX bike, you know, that's all I want to do And all I want to do is get, you know, $40 for it I totally know what you mean And I use, so I don't use Google, but I have thought about doing that before I actually used an app called Burner I remember this app, yeah, where you could pay for like a number for like three days or something like that Yeah, exactly, it allowed you like, you know, a hundred text messages And like 20 minutes of phone calling for like $2 or something You know, it's like, all right, cool, I'll eat into my profit for $2 for like, you know, the one time of year I do this or something like that So it works out pretty well for me and it does do like a phone relay where If someone calls that number, then it forwards to your number And they never see the vanity line, it's like a three-way call So that's kind of cool, so it works out, all right, and I, you know, don't keep that actively on my phone, I just download it when I need it and go, oh, okay, cool That's just the price is doing business that way, so Google Voice is definitely another way around this problem But I would recommend using some form of like, hey, not your normal number Not your normal email, set up something else if you're going to be communicating with people on Craigslist Now if you're doing it on eBay, it goes through eBay, if you're doing it on Facebook marketplace Everything goes through Messenger, which is interesting But it allows you to do something similar where, you know, they do VoIP And so they manage all of that messaging and communication between you and them, which is cool The one really nice part about Facebook is I think it weeds out some of the people that are kind of really shady because they have to have a Facebook account and there's a face and a profile tied to them and everything, so you have an idea of who you're meeting before you go meet them And, you know, you're able to click on the person's profile and see a little bit about them And so there's a little depth there that there just isn't always with, you know, I'm meeting Set Individual, you know, that I met on Craigslist and I've never seen a picture of them at Starbucks down the street or wherever and so that is very nice and I'd like that you can control on Facebook How wide the actual ad goes. There's literally like a little circle around where you are on the map and it says, you know, do you want to spread this five miles out, 10 miles out, 20 miles out, whereas, you know, for example, the Craigslist, you literally can target like, for example, the entire South Bay, you know, San Francisco area, which is like, okay, cool, that could be a two-hour drive Yeah, and that's a tough part is because, like you said, casting a wide net is one thing, but when you cast it too far, then that's another thing Yeah, it's a nice feature that Facebook is built in is that now offer up is something similar, I guess, to Facebook in the sense that you can sell anything on there and it does control how wide it is and how far it is away from you, which is cool and thread up your totally right is clothing related. This is for those of us that buy $58 shorts and want to sell their $58 shorts, you might be able to actually sell them back for $20, you know, a year from now or two years from now if you want to sell your $20 shorts back to somebody or vice versa. Some of those things you can either sell used or like tagged items and get, you know, a portion of your money back if you were given it or whatever, and it's just not your thing.

So those are kind of cool. The biggest thing I think you have to watch out with any of these is do they take a cut and that's the most annoying thing to watch out for just because sometimes they do and sometimes they don't. Yeah, in a lot of times, places that take a cut are usually ones that they're going to do a little more of the work for you, right? They're going to be either protecting you in some way or taking care of, you know, the shady seller type thing because that's one thing we haven't talked about, but there are some shady sellers out there.

So any place that offers like, I know eBay's always had, you know, like some fees, right, in terms of even posting the ad and, you know, just posting everything, but they took care of you as a seller and they took care of, you know, the buyers as well. So if someone flaked out on something, you at least go to eBay, they were like the central, you know, the middle neutral party, right, the mitigator that would, you know, settle all these things. So that's almost worth something in my book. If you're selling something big, right, like if I'm selling something like less than $100, I really don't care.

If I'm selling something over $250, then yeah, I kind of, you know, maybe don't want to deal with all this hassle or maybe want a little bit of extra protection around, you know, some shady seller or something like that. So I think the fees thing, you know, it's like, cool, if I'm spending a lot of money or I'm potentially going to sell something for a lot of money, yeah, I kind of want that. If I'm not and I'm just trying to get rid of odds and ends, then I don't fucking care. Like, I'd rather not pay 3% on my $50, you know, sale.

Yeah, I totally understand that. So what I forgot to throw in here too is StockX, which is a weird marketplace for the niche market of shoes usually. So I know there's a lot of sneaker heads out there that they kind of, you know, buy and save shoes in the box and like don't ever wear them. And so StockX will basically let you sell your shoes and they must be like unused, never worn.

And it's a marketplace where you can go ahead and go online and sell them. And they take a cut and they do verify that like everything that passes through that has been, you know, is unworn and never used, which is cool. So they add that protection, but they do take a cut for that. So I totally understand that.

So I have one question for you though. What is the, is there like, what's the highest price item you've ever sold on any of these marketplaces? Is there like a dollar value you can think of? I sold an old desktop computer for, I believe it was $800 maybe, I think.

But I mean, I've sold like buggies and trailers for more than that, you know, so those ones were also sold on those. So I think I've sold like some garage equipment I had for, it was $1,000, over $1,000 for some of the items, like some lifts and things like that. So I definitely have sold things for over $1,000, I can say definitely less than $2,500 though. Okay, because I definitely pushed the limit then.

I have crossed $2,000, but I haven't gone over $2,500. And it was for a computer that was pretty, pretty souped up. So, but I did get over $2,000 for this. And this was on Craigslist.

And just kind of my go to way to handle these when it gets that high is I always choose to meet them, usually at a Starbucks or something like that, that is also in the same parking lot or something like that as my bank. And so we literally look at the item, everything looks good, we walk across the parking lot into the bank and I deposit the money into my account before they've left and I give them the computer then. The bank provides a place, you know, there's lots of cameras, you can't really rob me or I hope you're not gonna rob me there. And the money's in my account before you've ever left.

So I know the money's not fake or I hope the money's not fake, you know what I mean? So it provides me a little extra protection that way. So that's just my way of approaching these if and when I ever go about these, which isn't too often, but you know, when when I hide all our value items comes, be smart. Yeah, so PSA everyone, which we'll get into like the scariest stuff later, but yeah, I mean, public place is always good to meet people.

But I guess the one other notable one that I've done is let go. And let me just say this, let go, you need to go fuck yourselves. Because your platform is just full of flakes, full of people who just either don't respond or it's too easy in your app to like accidentally, you know, reply or to an ad or a post, but oh god, I swear, I spent like a week trying to get rid of something on let go. And not just one thing, but a bunch of things and 99% of the stuff that I had, the stuff that I got in terms of replies and interest was just no fault of through.

So, and it's funny because after that, we posted on Facebook Marketplace and now half those items are gone. So, I guess moral of the story there is like you said, it's the more you identify a person on a platform, the less flaky they'll be. But let go, no, I saw your commercial once when I wasn't paying for cable and I could watch cable news or cable, you know, network programming. And I saw an ad for like, oh cool, it's like crazy, but an app and it looks kind of nice.

And then I go on there, I was like, wow, that was easy. I barely had to do anything instead of an accountant and that should have been the red flag for me. But oh, let go. No, you're not going to sponsor our podcast anytime soon.

Well, that's interesting to know and I will steer clear of that one. So anyway, what can you tell me about services and these online marketplaces? Nothing, Lou. I don't get any services from these online marketplaces.

What are, do you get services from these online marketplaces? Not really. I can't tell you, you said TaskRabbit is an example in the show notes here. And when TaskRabbit was a thing and it can...

I just say that you totally passed over the joke, but that's fine. That's okay. Oh, yeah, I missed the joke. Come on, man.

Yeah, getting serviced, you know, online. Yes, I got it. You got it now? Yeah.

Now that I like went back to first gear and put my head in the gutter. Yep, I got it. Yeah. Okay.

I was like, what can you tell me about these services online? Do you have any experience? I'm like, no. Do you?

I haven't been serviced by anyone online. Well, I'm going to pull my head out of my ass and I'm going to continue on with the non-dirty part of the podcast. I see where this is going now. You do this casual dad thing and you're like, yeah, I got to be, you know, a little more risky over here.

This is the non-PG podcast. Hey, man, there's a time and place for everything. And there's a reason that this podcast is explosive. And the other one is fucking not.

So anyway, what I was saying about TaskRabbit is when TaskRabbit was kind of coming on and launching in the major markets, I still lived in Orange County. And I was like a college student struggling and I was like, hey, I'll sign up. I don't care, whatever. I'll figure it out.

Like I'll actually become one of these taskers and go do stuff for people. Like how hard can it be? You know, and I can make my own hours, which worked well with school and whatnot. And I went to their little like orientation thing.

And I had to sit in it for like 45 minutes and watch how to use the app. And I was like, okay, cool. And then I turned on the app and it was desolate because it was day one. So by the time I moved out of Orange County, it may have gotten bigger, but yeah, I stayed on it for like a month.

And I was like, I hadn't even gotten one hit. And I was like, cool. I don't think it's that big yet. Nobody knows about it.

So I don't use it. So you were like the beta test day one rabbit and no one wanted to do anything to do with you, or you weren't active enough on it to like hop on those jobs, get it, TaskRabbit, hop on those jobs. Okay, so TaskRabbit right is now there's a bunch of these kind of services, right? Like there's Instacards and TaskRabs and Grub Hubs, right?

We're basically, you're going to pay someone to either pick up something for you or assemble something for you or do various odds and ends. So the example I put in here is like, yeah, like, you know, when you go to IKEA and you get all the stuff from IKEA and now IKEA, you know, they'll say like, oh, we'll assemble all your IKEA furniture for you. And I think they didn't go through TaskRabbit or something like that. Didn't they buy out a company that does this?

I actually think you're correct. They bought out some company. I don't think they bought TaskRabbit, but I think they bought some company. Yeah.

So basically, you know, great. Yeah, I don't want to have to deal with putting together my IKEA furniture, right? And this goes back to your whole cost special thing. It's like, oh, I will gladly pay someone $100 for this IKEA, you know, dresser to assemble itself.

And then yeah, IKEA has bought TaskRabbit. They totally did. Interesting. I didn't know that that happened, but that's cool.

Yeah, I, so I can agree with the IKEA thing. And I think the more annoying part of the IKEA thing is less about the assembly and more about the, I have to get these brown boxes that weigh like a hundred pounds out to my car in my car and then they have to magically get to my house and upstairs or wherever and then assembled. And it's that is the annoying part. Less about the assembly.

I mean, the little, you know, round pegs that I have to snap together to make the dresser go together or whatever is not the end of the world. You know, it's something that is doable. And, you know, for the most part, they get the right number of the package. So that's not a problem.

But I can understand where paying somebody to do this is a dream. But I guess this is kind of like coming back to the whole thing of an online marketplace because before, if you know, wanted someone to let's say assemble the furniture that you just bought, you'd have to pay the company that you bought it from to assemble it or you'd have to find someone, you know, in a classified dad or know a handyman or know someone to do this. And now you can basically summon a nameless person, right? Granted, they have a name with you, some of them.

But you can just go on something and say like, Hey, I need someone to assemble my furniture on Saturday at 1 p.m. And someone's like, cool. Yeah, I'll do that. And then they show up and they do it.

So I think the whole online convenience, right, where we talked about reaching more people or being more accessible, this is just another one of those things. And I think that's why I wanted to include the sole services, you know, kind of industry in there is because something like a task rabbit or something like a specialized, you know, work as people can advertise on these marketplaces to do this, or there is a service that you can sign up for where it's very easy to get someone to kind of fill in the last mile for you. So I think it's one of the great things about, you know, the online, the online. It's one of the great things about the internet.

And also one of the scary things about it. You kids today and you're online. It's not being on the interwebs, the America online. Did you pick up your CD today for 40 hours of online?

Oh, pro tip, those AOL CDs make great like scarecrows or bird, bird scarer awayers because they're a fuck light and birds don't like that. So if you have birds that are eating the fruit on your free trees, just hang up a couple AOL CDs and they'll shimmer in the sunlight and scare all the birds away. Oh, God, the people walking past that themselves, they're like, this dude has AOL CDs still. You don't have free trees in your front yard in the back yard.

The front yard is where you have all your showy trees. Those are the ones that are, you know, that are very big and they have pretty flowers on them and they don't, they're pretty hardy trees usually and they kind of complement the house. And if you're in an HOA like we are, they have to be a certain variety and they can only be one of these for trees. Yeah, so what you're telling these, they're pretty but they're useless.

Okay. Well, they're for decoration. They're just for looks, man. They're to help with the curb appeal.

But dude, in the backyard, it can be a party. It's a mullet, you know, it's all business in front but a party in the back. Oh, man. My house is definitely designed to come up with a comfort up front, but for speed in the back, I get it.

All right. So yeah, the pros and the cons. So this is something that's going to interesting that, I mean, the pros, I think we've kind of hit some of these already that, you know, for the most part, these are low cost and they don't either charge you nothing or very little. There's pretty, you know, little interaction.

You don't really have to do a lot of work on. Yeah, man. I don't have to talk to anyone on the phone. It's great.

Yeah, I know. This is definitely way up your alley. I don't have to talk to anybody. I don't have to interact with anybody.

I just text the words into this thing and it just sends it to this other dude or this other person and they kind of pick up my crap. Cool. The other thing that's cool here is that you cast a wider net. I mean, you only know a certain amount of people and so you can only market to those people.

But I think where you and I have both found success is a wider but specific net. It's like, it's so nice to be able to go to eBay and to, you know, look at something like, you know, computers, but then they have categorized this stuff so specifically down to like, if you wanted to find like this one specific computer, you could probably find the one dude in the world that has that computer and selling it on eBay. So that's cool. And the fact that there's all these like niche, you know, marketplaces that are popping up, but like, we were talking about StockX or thread up or some of those that have organized this data into, you know, smaller subsections, you're more likely to hit on the person that actually wants your crap.

So hey, that's a win, right? A little bit we could call it a crap, you know, but it's like, it's not that people are buying it. I think it's crap. It's just that we think it's crap.

It's like, oh, this is crap because I don't want it anymore. But that's the whole thing is I would donate stuff if it was just crap. And I'm not saying I'm gonna just donate crap to, you know, places but like clothes that have been worn, you know, and like older shoes or plate toys or things that just don't have any like monetary value anymore, let's say, I'm totally gonna donate those because that supports a good cause and, you know, gives people jobs and gives people a great place to, you know, buy cheap things that have been used and you're not just contributing to a bunch of crap and landfill. But the stuff that still has some life in it, right?

And you still want to recoup some costs. Like, that's why, like you said, this whole wider but specific net, right, is great because yeah, I can target the people who are going to buy the gaming mouse that I spent, you know, a fortune on and now wants to kind of recoup at least 10% of what I spent on it. And that's all I want. And to someone that's going to be a bargain, right?

Because I'm not asking, you know, what it's worth. I'm asking, you know, just enough for me to, I guess justify the time that I got out of it and justify not sending it off to, you know, somewhere for free. So I think the whole wider but specific is, is important here because that's the benefit of the online thing. And that's what gets scary too, because you can, I don't know, this gets the whole face book, you know, privacy stuff is like, you can just learn a lot from people, right?

And if you were able to browse a marketplace and see what all these people are telling and see where they are, it's like, yeah, that's scary. But I don't know, I think this isn't a pro category can also be a con, but I agree with you that's mostly a pro. Yeah. So, um, shocker, sit back.

I'm gonna drop a movie reference here, but, you know, one man's toxic sludge is another man's potpourri. So, uh, you know, I don't know if you know what movie that's from, but that's, that's what I think. Can you just go power rangers in front of me? No, no, wait, that's not power rangers, is it?

No, are you struggling with this one? What movie is that the Grinch? Oh, yeah, that's like bad Grinch though. Is like the cartoon Grinch, the Grinch?

Yeah, cartoon Grinch is by far the better Grinch. Let's come back to that. I don't want to get, I don't want to get too sidetracked here, but now I, now I picture Jim Carrey in a green suit saying that and it makes me mad. Yeah, I thought it was power rangers.

Because I remember power rangers, they had that weird slime ooze guy. I guess this were all ooze puns though. Nope, I don't remember power rangers, but anyway, moving on. So, uh, the cons of it.

Um, well, let's be honest, you've already covered this, the flaky people. Dude, flaky people, so many flaky people. Like, have you ever purchased something? I didn't ask this and I can't believe we didn't talk about this yet.

Is, have you ever purchased something from these marketplaces? Like the Facebook marketplace or like Craigslist or let go, anything like that? Nope. Hell no.

Really? No? Not even once. Nope.

Wow. I definitely have. I think I would just be that, that person that would be like, Oh my God, this person won't show up. I should have just put it in my fricking Amazon cart and paid more, but you know what?

Amazon wouldn't have failed me. I, uh, I once bought a Bluetooth keeper from a guy and he gave it to me and I opened the box and it had a track bed in there as well. And I was like, Oh, what? A track bed too?

But then I messaged him. I'm like, Hey, there's a track bed in here. He was like, Oh, just go ahead and keep it. I don't need it.

I didn't pay you for this stuff. He's like, it's fine. It's fine. Keep it.

I think I'm just happy that I was honest. But that was like one of my best scores, like just paying, you know, a small amount of money for someone was getting rid of because they had no need for it, finding something else in it. It's like, Oh, it's like anti-surocho all over again. And I was like, Oh, there's a special thing where what is that garage gold or insert name of cleanup?

Antiques roadshow. Oh my God, that thing used to be on like PBS and they would, they would put on like the most terrible. It used to be it's still on PBS. Oh shit.

Oh shit. They're like, Hey, this, this jump that you have is could be worth $500, you know, $1,000, but you cleaned it. And the fact that you cleaned it. Now it's worth nothing.

Those are my favorites. It's like, yeah, it was all, you know, rusty and stuff before. So I cleaned it all up and I brought it here to the antiques roadshow. I was like, wow, this is an amazing piece.

It was amazing. You have a picture of it before it was all clean. Like, yeah, yeah, here it is. Like, yeah, so this item in this condition, like once I, you know, the picture of it all like dirty and stuff would be worth millions of dollars.

This right here, you basically wiped away all the history and all the value. So it's worth, you know, maybe 400 bucks. They're like hyperventilating and crying. Great.

Yeah. So I'm actually curious. Have you been bitten by the second thing where you say it's easy to Photoshop something when you post pictures online? Oh, yeah.

I've got hit with the angles. I've got hit with the basically just people putting product images instead. And I put easy to Photoshop because, I mean, do you ever, do you remember the MySpace movie? Do you ever watch the MySpace movie?

There was a movie? No, I didn't watch it. Yeah, there was, there was a movie. It was a MySpace movie.

And it was all about how, this guy, he's going to go on a date with this girl and his friend thinks it's the guy. He's like, no, dude, it's, you know, this girl. She's really hot. And he's like, dude, she's got the angles.

He's like, what? It's like the angles, the MySpace angles. It's like, look, there's no full body shot. It's all, you know, side, you know, from the top, you know, it's all like the selfie angles and stuff like that.

He's like, she's probably a guy. You know, this guy is like, this is back in, you know, 2005 or whatever, when MySpace was the thing. And the guy goes on this day with this girl and finds out that it is like this guy. So pretty entertaining.

But I put easy to Photoshop just because it's easy to make something look good in pictures, right? Especially, you know, if you go on an eBay or an object or whatever. And if you're doing something where you're not seeing the product in person before you buy it, and I call it eBay, especially for this is, yeah, you can get bit by like, oh, it wasn't disclosed that it had all these scratches on it or wasn't disclosed that it had all this or it looks like this would clearly photoshopped out of the picture. So I put that in here because it's much easier to Photoshop something on the internet, especially in today's day and age.

Then it was like, if you're putting an actual ad in the paper, and this is kind of what I was comparing it to, is like, if you're going to put an ad in a paper and you gave the paper, you know, these pictures, it was much harder to say, like, you'd have to doctor these pictures before you gave them to the newspaper. Now, granted, a picture in a newspaper is not going to have the fidelity and the resolution that a picture on the internet is going to have these days, but you kind of catch my directions as much harder to do that in an analog medium than it is an additional one. So to answer your question, though, I've never been bitten by it, but I know it's anything that's out there, but I can't tell you how widespread it is. Interesting.

Well, I mean, I know it's a thing. I definitely know what happens. I just was curious if really you've been, you know, the victim of it. And sometimes you can see it.

I mean, they just drag in the website photo or whatever, but the box, they'll take a picture of the box and they'll be like, oh, yeah, brand new PS4 box or the Xbox box, right? Yeah, yeah. So the other one that, you know, always scares me is when they say, oh, still in shrink wrap. And then you're like, did you re shrink wrap it?

Because that's totally a thing. So don't don't tell me it's new in shrink wrap. And then I go to open it like after I hand you've dashed right now and there's like a weight inside of it. Yeah, there's like a medicine ball or, you know, a five pound weight with a bunch of rice back and peanuts.

Like well, at least I have breakfast. Yeah, that's an expensive breakfast. But but do you want to have the serious dad talk? Well, so I made the joke about servicing the other earlier, but it is worth calling out that these marketplaces have also been a kind of a safe harbor or a safe place for sex trafficking.

And there has been legislation kind of put forward to kind of block or ban sites that have this where they'll be fined very large amounts of money if there is anything like this on the platform. But you know, something that we talked about all these pros in terms of self-serving for us. Hey, like I can get gadgets, you know, like I can sell my gadgets, but there are also people who will basically sell other people or, you know, prostitution, you know, kind of runs all these things. So there's a lot of illegal things that can happen.

I mean, you talk about like drug trade, you know, like drug marketplace is never still big thing, you know, where that was all done on tour and what they call the dark web, right? So I think this is definitely the conside. This is the Black Mirror, you know, a version of online marketplaces is where you get into all these horrible things happening to people every day. And how do we kind of combat that, right?

Where we've talked about this Rosie side, but there is a serious side and, you know, human trafficking has definitely been a problem and continues to be a problem since day. And with the anonymity you get from being online and being able to both serve as different places and kind of mask yourself in different ways, as, you know, let people kind of be sneaky with this stuff. And it's a difficult problem to solve, right? Because every time you make something easy and anonymous, it means that some people are going to use that.

And this is just one of the things is like, this is, I think, a problem that we as a society need to figure out. But how to solve that is it's a question I can't answer right now, because I don't know the correct way to do it. Like, how do you take away enough freedom while also keeping it open enough for people to participate in, you know, basically business to thrive, right? Like, it's easy to say, like, Hey, don't do this.

But I don't know, I'm gonna get off my soapbox before we get too serious. So the serious talk is that online marketplaces are great, but they also have some problems. And that's something to keep in mind. So when you're going and saying, on that marketplace, it should be everywhere.

And they should be everything. And I should be able to post whatever I want. And I should, you know, never have to say who I am, or I should never even have to give an email or an age or anything like that. It's like, no, there are some things you need to actually give because we have to combat some of the darker sides.

Yeah, they definitely come with their sort of shady undertones and other sides that, you know, we definitely don't want to use it for. But you know, they just come with any business has these. And so I think we can't ignore them. That's for sure.

Anyway, so moving on to hopefully a brighter subject, but I want to have no idea what you're talking about, but virtual marketplaces. And you asked me about a specific one it looks like here, Adam, but I've never heard of this. What is this? So this is a movie.

So of course you haven't heard of it because you don't know what it is, but Valerian. So question, why did you even ask me then? Well, you never know. I mean, you saw the Grinch.

So, you know, like, there's there's definitely some things you've seen. But Valerian, and I think it's the city of 1000 planets or something like that, or whatever. It's a movie that came out, I want to say like a year ago. And it's a sci-fi movie kind of by the same guy who did like the fifth element and the professional and Lucy, a French filmmaker, but it's they have a scene in there where they have to steal this item from this virtual marketplace.

So essentially what these people do is they put on these VR helmets, like big, you know, Oculus riffs on their heads, and they just basically turn them loose in like this giant like playpen area. It's just this big fence off desert. And they go walking through, but with the VR goggles, they can see like this whole bustling marketplace. And basically, there's this whole, you know, digital space where there's all these shops and all these vendors and everyone's selling everything.

So I asked the city of this movie, which I can safely say the answer is no, but I kind of want to, you know, paint this picture for you. So this virtual marketplace. So you're in this playpen, you put on this VR headset, and you go walking through, and you can browse all of these different, you know, shops and anything you want to imagine. So, what happens when you want to buy something though, right?

So you go and you buy something, and then there's this transaction that happens, and you can pick up your items back at the front. But in the movie, they have to steal this item from the virtual space into the physical space, but they have this little like contraption that's basically going to capture the item in virtual space and teleport it. However, you're going to do that into the physical space, and it's pretty crazy. But I put this in here because this is obviously not to where the future of marketplaces can go is one day, you're like, oh, you know what, I really want to go, you know, kind of browse around and just go shopping today, right?

Go to the mall. Let's put up the mall, let's say a marketplace. So you put on, you know, your VR helmet and you get on your little, what are they, little hamster wheels, right? Essentially for humans.

So you get in that and you start walking around in your marketplace and you start, you know, oh, yeah, like that. And you buy that and then the task grab a person, you know, delivers it to your door in an hour or less or the Amazon drone goes and drops it off, you know, at your front porch. But just think, man, that's going to be the future, is going to get up off your couch just to go into virtual space and walk around and shop. I'm kind of just letting this mold onto my mind for a second.

And I don't know, I can kind of see where this could be useful. It just seems at this point a little far fetched. But I think it has the potential. The seeds are there, if that makes sense.

Well, if you think about it, we're halfway there, right? If you look at IKEA, you know, putting AR in their app, right, to where you can try things out in your home. And I was like, well, what if I want to, you know, just go browse around something or I want to see how something looks or how something, you know, is in a virtual space, right, where you have, you know, yourself there walking through, you can look at things, you can browse through things. It's kind of more of a physical, let's say interaction with things.

And let's say other people are there, it's more of a social thing. I mean, if you've ever looked at like the VR chat that is out there right now, like people go on there just to, you know, hang out and be social, right? It's kind of like a second life thing. So well, what's another place that, you know, humans naturally congregate or naturally meet to do stuff and well, that's like malls and marketplaces.

People go shopping, you know, and people run into each other or they like to browse. And if you like to browse, like right now, on the internet, the way you browse is you just kind of click between web pages. But awesome. What if you could see that thing in a three-dimensional space, right?

Walk around it or hold it and kind of manipulate it in real time, in a virtual world. That may be, you know, the pushing point for people to buy something, you know, add more engagement and have more kind of like natural discovery, especially when you have things, you know, next to other things, and, you know, you're seeing advertisements for things and tracking cookies or following every move that you do and tracking your heart rate to see, you know, like, if you're heart rate elevated when you picked up a certain item so they can flag that item for later to remind you, you know, next time that, hey, you know what, you had an elevated heart rate the next time you saw this, like maybe now it's time to buy it. Dude, this is the scary future that we live in where, you know, the marketplace and marketing itself, you know, has a large poll on, I guess, human influence or human behavior. So, you never know, man, I think that's definitely going to be a roby lockdown, especially because you kind of see the baby steps out of it right now.

This episode of Black Mirror has been brought to you by Adams Dark Side of his brain. Yeah, the dark side of your brain is, it is, it's all scary over there. I don't know that I want to gander down that side of it again. Yeah, you said lighter notes and then I just was determined to make it darker again, so.

Yep, you definitely went dark with it. But anyway, is there anything else you want to mention before we move on past the hollows of Adams brain? I think we'll keep it short. We'll get out of my head.

Cool. So in a little bit of wrap up, which we're just going to kind of, you know, trail off from the show here, but you're trying to pitch me now on stuff you want to sell to me, I guess? Yeah, so I have a pair of headphones. I'll sell to you for $100.

Nope. Nope. I have a guitar. I'll sell to you for $20.

Nope, I'm not musically talented at all. I have a laptop stand. I'll sell that to you for $20. It's a nice one.

It's adjustable. Fits a laptop. Make it the same height as your display. I wear my laptop and glam show mode.

So that doesn't really help me. Hi, such a waste. Such a waste. I have a 27 inch 5k monitors.

I don't see it as a waste. And you could have a 13 or 15 inch monitor right next to it. Why would you say no to having two monitors? Two is better than one.

I don't really have the space to do it where I'm at, but I need to like rethink my desk setup. That's a plan. Anyway, so I don't want to go through the whole list of things, but it's safe to say that you don't want any of my stuff. Yeah.

I want it. Yeah. Cool. All right.

Yeah. So in other news, I do have to plan a trip to San Diego sometime this summer for business. So the next time I'm in San Diego, it's definitely going to be a time to meet up again, like we did last time, get some pizza and beer. Hopefully, it won't be like kind of overcast and rainy like it was last time in Carlsbad.

But I don't know. We'll see. I have to go check out some things and check out the rental while I'm there. So keep some of your weekends open this summer, Lou.

All right. Well, I would prefer to know before like a week ahead. So if you can tell me that, that would be great to know. Yeah.

Yeah. I'll try to get on that, but it all depends on when I have to buy the blankets. So what you're telling me is you're flying when Southwest is cheap. Well, let's just say when there's a deal.

Yeah. Like Hey, Phil, I'm coming out or Hey, Lou, I'm coming out on a Tuesday and I'm leaving on a Wednesday and it's tomorrow. Yeah. I leave at the random ass times of this time and this time.

All right. Cool. Yeah. Are you available?

Well, I can I can speak to you that my month of travel is July. So July is pretty busy by the but I can speak and say the June and August shoot away. All right. I will try to do that.

It's really funny because you mentioned in the middle of the episode that you have bought things off of these before. So what did I do? I kind of like picked my iPad while we were talking about the con section here and I really I downloaded like let go and offer up and I just started like scrolling through and like while you were going down your dark, you know, the side of your brain, I was like, you know, I'm just scrolling through stuff over here. And so I don't know that I will throw money at any of these, but I just think it's funny that you kind of peak my interest.

Yeah, I saw $200 PlayStation 4 on my also coffee table like last coffee table for $15. This is really in trouble. And now I'm just going through here. Oh, yeah, I have a pair of Raybans.

I need to get rid of two and see those are things where it's like they're brand new Raybans. And if I sent them to go to donation, it's like I'm not going to get anything for them. But like, if I sell them for $40, which is way less than what you pay for Raybans, like that's pretty good. Not bad.

Also, I don't know who would buy a white Christmas tree for $15. And you mentioned this a couple episodes back where there's like a whole marketplace for you shoes is like, dude, I don't want you shoes. I mean, you were talking about how, you know, like, after a cycle workout, you know, it kind of smells like crusty shoes. Used is different than new being able to put a whole wine bottle in a hydro flask and like go to the beach or something.

Drinking wine on the beach from your little hydro flask. Hey, man, you know, it's just a classy person.