Slate Money — "Will You Accept These Cookies?"

Date: October 23, 2021
Hosts: Felix Salmon (Axios), Emily Peck (Finance Fundries), Stacey Marie Ishmael (Bloomberg)

Episode Overview

This lively episode dives into the ripple effects of Apple’s privacy changes on the digital ad industry, debates the merits and drawbacks of corporate home-buying (particularly Zillow’s troubles with “iBuying”), and unpacks the infamous Mozambique “tuna bonds” scandal and resulting global fines. The trio analyzes how personal data privacy, real estate modernization, and international financial shenanigans intersect with everyday consumers and institutional players.

1. Apple, Privacy, and The Digital Adpocalypse

(00:41–19:49)

Key Points

• Apple’s iOS Privacy Change (App Tracking Transparency):
  Apple now requires iPhone users to explicitly opt in before apps can track them across sites and apps for targeted advertising.

  • More users opted out than expected, surprising industry insiders.
  • Platforms like Facebook and Snap saw dips in revenue due to advertisers not being able to confirm ad efficacy anymore.
  • The hosts explain the mechanism: apps and websites previously tracked deeply granular user data, now greatly limited if users say "no" to tracking.
  • Apple’s own ad share — especially within the App Store — appears to be rising as others lose market share.

• Wider Impacts on Ad Industry:

  • Marketers lose precision and, therefore, confidence in ad spend; some are pulling back, especially with inventory/supply chain uncertainties (04:26).

• Consumer Perspectives and UX Annoyances:

  • Privacy fatigue: constant cookie popups and tracking questions degrade user experience (09:59).
  • Differences in opt-out clarity: Apple’s "Do you want to be tracked? Yes/No" prompt achieves much higher opt-outs than vague or confusing EU-styled cookie notices.
    • Emily Peck: “Those cookie notifications are very like, when I look at them, my eyes like cross a little bit. I don't understand them as much…” (11:01).

• Surveillance Trade-Offs:

  • Some users (like Emily) admit they’d rather keep convenience at the expense of privacy—confessing Google Maps’ utility outweighs privacy concerns (15:18).
  • “I would rather not be lost in the car, you know, than … retain my [privacy].” — Emily Peck (16:49).

• What’s Actually Creepy?

  • Overly-visible ad targeting—like being stalked across the web by the same shoe ad, or infamous stories about shoppers being "outed" due to retailer surveillance—provokes real backlash (17:30).
  • “When it's clumsy, I guess. Yes, I object, I object to clumsy marketing.” — Emily Peck (17:53).
  • Stacey adds the danger of intimate, location-based data being misused or leaked (18:00).

Memorable Moments & Quotes

• “The details, the language, the language is so important. If it's just like, do you accept cookies? It's like, fine cookies. Those are good, they're tasty. Like, can I have chocolate chip please?” — Felix Salmon (11:30)
• “We have an anti-privacy campaigner on the pod.” — Stacey Marie Ishmael joking to Emily (14:51)
• “The thing that people always reacted the worst against was that one weird shoe ad that followed them around the Internet and then they saw like a billion times ... and you just keep on seeing the ad for weeks.” — Felix Salmon (16:58)

2. Zillow, iBuying, and the Case for Big Landlords

(19:49–32:00)

Key Points

• Felix's "Utopian" Rental Vision:

  • Argues the U.S. home ownership rate is too high and advocates for renting—with stable protections—as the more flexible, less risky financial choice.
  • Proposes BlackRock-type institutional buyers (via iBuyers like Zillow) could inject stability, enable painless selling, and provide quality rental stock, especially in “good neighborhoods.”
  • “That’s my utopian vision of the future where we all rent from BlackRock and I expect zero listeners to agree with me on this one…” — Felix Salmon (22:09)

• iBuying Explained and Zillow’s Retreat:

  • iBuyers make quick “click-to-sell” offers on homes; intended to streamline cumbersome, agent-heavy sales.
  • Zillow “paused” iBuying due to operational challenges and, per analysis, likely due to overpaying for homes in red-hot markets (23:33).
  • Emily: “So, I mean, there is this… real market need for iBuyers actually. But yeah, I know a lot of people agree that Zillow should [not] be buying houses and selling houses. For some reason it's bad because real estate brokers lose out.” (23:51)
  • Both the scale and impact of institutional homebuying are overstated: such corporations account for only 1–4% of single-family sales, focused in hot markets like Phoenix (25:15).

• Limitations and Data Trouble:

  • Single-family homes are “super specific” and difficult to accurately price algorithmically—unlike used cars (30:34).

Memorable Moments & Quotes

• “Do as I say, not as I do, Stacy.” — Felix Salmon, when asked if he owns his own home (20:00)
• “Shout out to the homeowners who got Zillow to overpay—congratulations on once again making out like bandits in a housing market that is like biased against a lot of other people.” — Stacey Marie Ishmael (24:02)

3. The Mozambique Tuna Bonds Scandal

(32:00–43:15)

Key Points

• What Are Tuna Bonds?

  • Mozambique’s government issued sovereign bonds, supposedly to build a tuna fishing fleet (which never materialized). Instead, funds were stolen through bribery and fraud involving state officials, foreign lenders, and bankers (35:00–37:14).
  • Credit Suisse ran the deal—one banker accepted $45 million in bribes.

• The Fallout:

  • Once fraud surfaced and there were no boats or profit, Mozambique’s government “bailed out” the defaulted debt by swapping it into sovereign bonds, saddling citizens with massive debt (37:30–38:52).
  • Such actions are compared to the Irish government’s bank bailouts post-2008.
  • Credit Suisse fined $475 million; had to forgive a further $200 million in Mozambican debt.

• Global Legal Ramifications:

  • UK involvement is clear due to London-based bond issuance.
  • The U.S. DOJ’s extra-territorial prosecution reflects America’s sweeping regulatory grip over global finance (40:30).
  • The true losers: poor Mozambicans and Credit Suisse (41:28).

Memorable Moments & Quotes

• “There was a bunch of bonds backed by tuna fishing boats that were bought that didn’t exist?” — Emily Peck (37:23)
• “Is that really fair? And the answer is, well, yes, it is really fair, because if you are a bank with halfway decent compliance, then you basically make sure that you don't get stolen from.” — Felix Salmon (41:46)
• “[Credit Suisse] has had quite a run of challenging compliance questions recently. So this does seem to me more than ... we're past the point of three makes a trend.” — Stacey Marie Ishmael (42:36)

4. Meme Stock Craziness: The Trump SPAC

(43:28–48:08)

Key Points

• Digital World Acquisition (DWAC) SPAC Surges:
  • SPAC linked to Trump’s planned “Truth Social” platform rocketed up 1300% in a week, epitomizing meme-stock frenzy and SPAC mania (43:33).
  • “If it's trading at $70, that's crazy. If it's trading at $175, that's crazier. But everything is crazy. In a world of … SPACs and meme stocks, and then you multiply them both by the power of Trump, weird things are going to happen.” — Felix Salmon (45:17)
  • Hosts marvel/worry over the perfect, scammy convergence of Trump, SPACs, and right-wing tech grievance (45:30–46:25).

Notable Quote

• “Trump thinks he can take on Amazon and Facebook with Truth Social media. It's absurd.” — Emily Peck (46:25)

5. Numbers Round

(48:08–53:19)

- 15 Million

The number of pediatric COVID vaccine doses prepped for imminent release when Pfizer is cleared for 5–11-year-olds.

• The strategy targets convenient, small-scale administration to kids at pediatricians rather than mass sites.

- $0.70

Giving people physical menus (vs. QR codes) at BJ's Restaurants raises the average customer check by 70 cents (49:34).

• The hosts discuss why tech innovation isn’t always superior to paper (and how phone-only ordering kills the social upsell).

6. Broader Takeaways & Tone

• The Slate Money crew combine wit, skepticism, real-world anecdotes, and deep finance/media know-how.
• They repeatedly interrogate the real-world effects of “technical” business news, whether it’s what privacy means for ordinary users, who actually benefits (or loses) in real estate modernization, or how financial wrongdoing in far-away countries ripples outward.
• Tone is irreverent, occasionally sarcastic, but always explanatory and informed.

Selected Timestamps

| Segment | Topic | Timestamp | |----------------------------------|------------------------------------------------------|-------------| | 00:41–19:49 | Apple’s privacy changes, ad industry impacts | 00:41–19:49 | | 19:49–32:00 | Zillow/iBuying, BlackRock as landlord | 19:49–32:00 | | 32:00–43:15 | Mozambique tuna bonds, Credit Suisse fraud | 32:00–43:15 | | 43:28–48:08 | Meme stocks & Trump’s “Truth Social” SPAC | 43:28–48:08 | | 48:08–53:19 | Numbers Round (vaccine doses, menu psychology) | 48:08–53:19 |

In Short:
Listen for a sharp, often counterintuitive, and highly digestible look at how privacy, tech, real estate, and high finance directly shape the world—and your wallet—even if you never click “accept all cookies.”