Is the FCC independent?

Åhead of our last Friday episode of 2025, FCC Chairman Brendan Carr did The Vergecast an enormous favor: he went in front of Congress and said a bunch of wild things about regulation. So, of course, Nilay and David have to talk about them. For a really long time. After that, the hosts look at all the ways YouTube and Netflix are becoming more like one another, and then update the Go90 Scale of Doomed Streaming Services to round out the year. Finally, in the lightning round, there's talk of web apps, EVs, Bluesky, and the metaverse.

Further reading:

• The Vergecast live at CES

• Brendan Carr doesn’t regret his threats to broadcasters 

• Former FCC Chairman Michael Powell: ‘Cable companies are at the mercy of content companies’

• The Oscars will stream on YouTube in 2029 

• Netflix’s next big TV game is FIFA soccer 

• My Favorite Murder and The Breakfast Club podcasts are ditching YouTube for Netflix 

• Warner Bros. wants its shareholders to reject Paramount’s latest offer 

• Netflix is “100% committed” to releasing WB films in theaters. 

• Even Jared Kushner thinks the Paramount WB bid sucks.

• Peacock will bombard you with ads as soon as you open the app 

• HBO Max’s new channels keep Friends and Game of Thrones playing 24/7 

• Instagram is putting Reels on your TV 

• LG forced a Copilot web app onto its TVs but will let you delete it

• Mercedes-Benz discontinues feature that syncs music to driving

• Ford’s big bet on EVs didn’t pan out — now it’s pivoting to hybrids and energy storage

• Bluesky claims its new contact import feature is ‘privacy-first’ 

• Gemini 3 Flash is here, bringing a ‘huge’ upgrade to the Gemini app 

• The ChatGPT app store is here

• Alexa Plus’ website is live for some users 

• Meta pauses third-party Horizon VR headsets program 

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