**David Pierce:** Welcome to the Vergecast, the flagship podcast of time travel, but only in very small increments. I'm your friend David Pierce and I am sitting here making plans for 2026. So, there is a thing that I like to do near the end of every year, sometimes it's December 31st, sometimes it's like December 6th, but I try to sit down and sort of take stock of the stuff that I did this past year and then think of some stuff that I want to do next year. This is like a yearly review cadence that lots of people really recommend and it's a really good like goaling exercise. For me, honestly, I just enjoy the process of sitting down and being like, okay, what happened this year? And sometimes I'll do it with my calendar next to me so I can actually see the stuff. One of my favorite things to do is open up Google Photos, which is where all my photos is, open up a document and just sort of journal out the year as I scroll through my photos. Big stuff that happens, important things that I totally forgot about that happened as I was going through the year. Just a sort of brain dump as I scroll through 12 months of photos. Sometimes I'll even pull the photos that I care the most about into that doc and just in the course of one sitting put together this very informal, messy, I don't know, document about the year that I just had. I don't know if it actually accomplishes much and to be honest, I don't often find myself going back and like reading old ones, but I really enjoy the process, so I keep doing it. And then at the end I try to just sit down and be like, okay, what are some actual things I would like to do next year? Sometimes they're big, sometimes they're small, sometimes they're like bucket listy type things. Sometimes it's just like I would like to, I don't know, learn how to play the recorder again because I was sick at it in third grade and I want to see if I can get it back. That's a thing that has been on the list in the past, and I didn't do it and it won't be on the list again. But anyway, that's not what we're here to talk about. What we're here to talk about on the show today is predictions. Joanna Stern and Nilay Patel are going to join me as they did last week to talk about what happened in 2025, and we're going to talk about what happens in 2026. We did this last year where we made mild, medium, and spicy predictions. We're going to do the same thing this year. We're going to go through our old predictions, we're going to make some new ones and we're going to see if we can figure out what's coming. This is a complicated business in which to figure out what is coming. Anybody who tells you they could have guessed what 2025 was going to look like was lying to you, including us, as you'll hear from how our predictions went. But we're going to have a lot of fun, and I it's just fun to figure out what we're thinking about as we go into next year. All that is coming up in just a second. But first, I have more photos to go through. Um, I had another kid in 2025 and that has meant like an absolutely gigantic explosion of 400 photos of a child lying on the ground. So, I'm going to scroll through all those. It's going to be a great time. This is the Vergecast. We'll be right back. All right, we're back. It's time for some 2026 predictions. Uh, back with me again a year later, Nilay Patel. Hey, buddy. **Nilay Patel:** Hey. How's it going? **David Pierce:** Joanna Stern also here. **Joanna Stern:** Hello. **David Pierce:** Last year, uh, all three of us came to this episode with three predictions. Uh, the the instruction was a basically a mild one, a medium one, and a spicy one. And not only did you have to make your prediction, but the other two people on the show had to decide whether they agreed or not. And we were going to we were going to score everybody on who was right. Um, our predictions were by and large very bad. **Nilay Patel:** Yeah, I'm looking at my line. Oh, that's wrong. **David Pierce:** Yeah. So, we're just we're just going to call 2025 a wash. It's been a weird year. Uh, Nilay and I both had kids. Joanna wrote a book. It's just, you know, we're call everybody gets passed on 2025. Um, but I do want to just quickly read both of you your own predictions. So, Joanna, your predictions for 2025. Your your mild prediction was that we will still be posting to a million social accounts. Uh, I think you you were correct on that one. Um, that was that was right. Uh, your medium take was that Meta is going to continue to outpace Apple on glasses, um, which I think is like true by default in that Apple did nothing. There was a new Vision Pro that added nothing. So, I'm I I guess you get that one. Uh, Nilay and I also both agreed with that, so everybody wins on that one. And then your your spicy prediction was a touchscreen Mac or an iPad with Mac OS, which has not come true, but as we discussed in the last episode, 2026, if you want to rehash that one for 2026, I think you have a real shot at it. **Joanna Stern:** Yeah, I think iPad with Mac OS like didn't come true in literally, but there were so many changes to iPadOS that make it so much more like Mac OS that I do think I was kind of right. **David Pierce:** The iPad is very Mac-ish. If I were if I were in the business of giving half points, I would probably give you a half point. **Joanna Stern:** I think we can agree that I was right there, so yeah. **David Pierce:** Is that Is that where we landed? **Joanna Stern:** Yes. **David Pierce:** Uh, and then Nilay, your mild prediction was that Alexa is going to or Alexa Plus, rather, is going to be fine. I want you to self-score on that one because you you have delivered many thoughts on Alexa Plus. **Nilay Patel:** I assumed that the industry could could put an LLM in front of a traditional smart home device and they can't. It's not even quite fine. It's available. That's what I'll give you. It's It's good enough to be available. But like, is it a downgrade from what Alexa was before? No. I think that's fine. You know what I mean? That's what I mean. Like, it's not a disaster, it's not a huge success, it's just like it's available. **David Pierce:** It's fine. **Nilay Patel:** Yeah, it's fine. It's fine. **David Pierce:** Uh, your medium prediction was that Walmart is going to buy TikTok. Uh, a prediction that I loved and Joanna and I both signed onto, um, if I recall somewhat against your will, Joanna. You just like wanted to be part of the team. Um, but that obviously did not happen. **Nilay Patel:** In fact, no one bought TikTok and we chose and said to not enforce the law Congress passed enforcing the sale of TikTok. I have no idea what's going on here. **David Pierce:** A fun medium take would have been laws don't exist. **Nilay Patel:** Yeah. That would have been We live in a post-law society. **David Pierce:** Yeah, you would have gotten points for that one. **Nilay Patel:** If this thing eventually does get sold, I think Walmart is is as aggressive about it as anyone, but I don't know who knows what's going to happen. **David Pierce:** Yeah. Fair. Um, all right. And then your spicy take was that Google is going to break itself up of its own volition before the government can do it. I would say this operated on a false assumption that the government would do it that did not turn out to be the case, at least not yet. Um, but that one obviously did not come true. **Nilay Patel:** I will say Google did replace almost all of its executives in the last year. **David Pierce:** Yes. **Nilay Patel:** Maybe that's not even a quarter point, uh, but they were certainly like, what if different people ran all this stuff? And all of those people that that's what Sundar did. **David Pierce:** Yeah. Google turned itself over in a pretty big way, but it did not break itself up. My predictions, uh, my mild prediction was that cable TV is going to pretty much totally die. Uh, I actually think I was right about that one. **Nilay Patel:** You were right. Yeah. **David Pierce:** Um, that was that that happened faster than anybody expected. You both agreed with me. Um, my medium take, which I think is this is probably the biggest whiff of the whole episode last year, was that somebody is going to make an AI gadget that actually kicks ass and it's going to be a giant hit. Um, wrong, and wrong, and wrong, and wrong on that one. Uh, and then my spicy take was that we are going to more or less give up on Matter, which I will take the loss on, but I actually don't think I get a complete loss on that one. Matter did not make the progress you would hope that it would make in 2025. They have cameras now, kind of, even though no cameras support it. It's a It is the the spec the the spec remains, the protocol exists, people are still adopting it. **Nilay Patel:** Wait, I disagree with you on this in like a minor way. **David Pierce:** Okay. **Nilay Patel:** It is now the default for everything. Like if you want to buy a light switch or a light bulb or a smart plug or any of this stuff that's already supported, all of those things are now matter by default. It's like harder to buy not matter versions of that stuff than it is to buy matter. **David Pierce:** I agree. And that's why I take the loss on this. Like we we definitely did not give up on Matter. **Joanna Stern:** I just unboxed a new Nest camera and it like had Matter instructions. **David Pierce:** Yeah. And that's frankly, honestly, the that's the that's the place you would hope Matter would get to, right? Is that it is like it is such essential infrastructure that it's just always there and you can't even tell. **Joanna Stern:** Yeah, just how all the stuff works. **David Pierce:** Yeah. So, like I am psyched that I was wrong about that one, but I was wrong about that one. Um, all right. Let's get into predictions for 2026. Uh, Joanna, you get to go first. What's your mild prediction for 2026? **Joanna Stern:** Okay. Apple releases a foldable. It's fine, because we can say the word fine means multiple things here. I will say that like spicier part of this take, even though this whole thing is mild, I think this will happen, is that the media and many Apple fans freak out because it's too expensive. **David Pierce:** Okay. I think I need I need one more tick of measurability here, which is, is it, is it a hit or not? Cuz like the iPhone Air not a hit. Like, definitively not a hit. Uh, if the foldable phone is two iPhone Airs stapled together, which is what a lot of people are saying that it's going to be, uh, is it going to be a hit at whatever price it comes out to be? **Joanna Stern:** I think it's an early adopter hit, but I think it's like two I I don't want to guess at pricing. What do you think the price What would you guys guess the price to be? **Nilay Patel:** They can't do more than $100 more than like the Galaxy Fold. **David Pierce:** Yeah, I think it's somewhere between $17.99 and $19.99 would be my guess, somewhere in that range. **Nilay Patel:** Yeah, I think $2,000 is fine. **David Pierce:** Okay. **Nilay Patel:** Yeah. But like, those numbers don't mean anything cuz you just like you're like, I will give my child to Verizon and they'll give you a free phone. **Joanna Stern:** But I think there'll be like the backlash of the media and people being like, this is too expensive, uh, or this is expensive. And I think so I like I don't think it's a it's a big hit. Like, I don't think it's an iPhone 10 hit, because that was like a completely new design, but it was still a pretty good mainstream phone. It wasn't like too, you know, crazy for people to fathom. I mean, it didn't have the home button and that was a big thing people had to get used to. Yeah, that's why I think it's fine. **Nilay Patel:** No, I think I'm going to push back. I think it is announced and we everybody overreacts and like, this is the most important phone that's ever been made and it's a huge hit because changing the form factor of the phone is the thing that they've all been chasing. **Joanna Stern:** But do you think changing the form factor out of $2,000 price point is like like when the iPhone 10 hit $1,000 plus, I think that was like one of the big things that kind of held it back from being like a mainstream phone, right? **Nilay Patel:** And it had like a not a it was like it was the high-end phone they didn't make as much of them and like the iPhone 8 was the volume seller at that time. Apple will intentionally limit the number of these phones that it makes because it's not the mainstream model yet. Whereas like today, I think the 17 Pro Max is the big seller. I agree that this is like a good good mild take. I think the overreaction will be the thing that drives everybody insane. **Joanna Stern:** Yeah, I agree. That'll be like a Vision Pro level, like reaction. Yeah. **David Pierce:** And I think just like the Vision Pro, it will become very clear that just like every other company, Apple has no good ideas about what you're supposed to do with a foldable phone. That remains the thing. They're they're too expensive and there's just no clear idea what you're supposed to do with it. **Nilay Patel:** Hey, I look I read a lot of PDFs on my phone, you guys. Just live in the think about my situation. **David Pierce:** Uh, my mildest prediction, it's very mild, actually, and it might be wrong. Um, I think after all of the weirdness with the EV tax credits and the sales spiking because everyone tried to get the credit and the sales crashing, I actually think they mount a small comeback next year. **Joanna Stern:** Mm. Hm. **Nilay Patel:** I think people actually want electric cars, regardless of like all the noise and try like people who experience them are like, this is a better experience than gas cars. I'm saying this to somebody who has gas cars and like the dumbest possible gas cars and loves them very much. There's no reason for my daily driver to be anything other than an EV, and I think that is proven out for like lots of people in lots of ways. And so I I think there's I think we'll see we'll see that market reset itself a little bit. **David Pierce:** Do you think it's entirely or just mostly because the new Nissan Leaf looks kind of sick? Is that like 60% of it or is that like 90%? **Nilay Patel:** I think it's the Leaf. I think Chevy's going to do the Bolt at like 29, like **Joanna Stern:** Yeah, I think it's a bunch of cars coming in at 30,000 or less is going to be a huge thing for that market. **Nilay Patel:** And then used EVs are just around, right? Like economically, like feel how you want about this, but like economically, the only car anyone should buy is a used Model 3. **David Pierce:** forever my favorite Nilay take, because it is unequivocally true and makes everybody feel feelings. And I love it. **Nilay Patel:** Yeah, it's like, oh, that sucks, but it's true. Like that's the only car you should buy. **Joanna Stern:** Or Y. I think a Y. But anyway. **Nilay Patel:** Yeah. **Joanna Stern:** Because those prices have come down crazy. **Nilay Patel:** There's all There's all I I'm saying used. I'm not saying enter the **Joanna Stern:** No, even the used Model Y's are crazy deals. **Nilay Patel:** Yeah. So, like I just think that there is a lot of everybody who was going to buy one, including me, I raced to buy an EV before the tax credit went away. Uh, and so I I think it feels like sales cratered because everybody was going to buy one, bought one. And then everyone overreacted to the sales going away because all those people were out of the market. And I think next year they come back a little bit. **David Pierce:** I love that for you. Um, all right. My I'm between two mild predictions in part because I can't decide how mild one of them is. Um, but I'll go with my mild prediction for 2026 is that GTA 6 is going to be just a monstrously huge hit in in a like economic and cultural way that actually no one is ready for. That like it's going to do to people what like TikTok did to people and and everyone on Earth is going to just disappear inside for a month to play GTA 6. Uh, and and it's going to it's it's there it's going to be the Skibidi Toilet of 2026. I don't know, whatever whatever thing you want, like these games that become vastly more than games, like the the Fortnites of the world and the Robloxs of the world that become these like cultural touchstones and economic events. Uh, I think GTA 6 is going to become that immediately and maybe like jump to the top of that list very fast. The other alternative is that it sucks and the gaming industry dies. It's one of those two things. **Nilay Patel:** I would just like the caution I would put there is it's so hard for games to actually cross over into popular culture. And I I'm saying that in in like finger quotes because games are popular culture, but at the same time, they're they're still even the people who play games like wall them off from what they think of is the popular culture. So, the idea that GTA 6 is going to come out and then we will have some sort of like rational or interesting conversation about the fact that everyone's playing GTA 6, no way. Like it's going to be a lot of like what I call anthropology, where like, you know, on Good Morning America, they're like, there's a new game out called The Grand Theft Auto. It's the sixth in the series where gamers steal cars. Like that's what that's going to feel like. **David Pierce:** That's going to happen. **Nilay Patel:** Absolutely. **David Pierce:** 100% that's going to happen. **Nilay Patel:** But like, it will be it will be like space aliens trying to describe **David Pierce:** I mean, yes. **Nilay Patel:** cuz everyone will actually be playing GTA 6. **David Pierce:** Which is what it's been with like everybody, you know, I I just there's nothing more fun than like local news people trying to describe the Roblox. **Nilay Patel:** But we're at I'm just saying we're at the point in in history where the local news anchors are generally young and are themselves gamers and somehow like they are forced to pretend they don't know what they're talking about. **Joanna Stern:** To be clear, I wouldn't know what I was talking about. And I have tuned out of this GTA 6 conversation. **Nilay Patel:** But you've got two young boys. Like it's coming for you whether you want it to or not. **Joanna Stern:** And then when that comes, I will call one of you and you will explain to me what is going on. **David Pierce:** Yeah, you'll you'll call us from inside of GTA 6 because I think that's going to be where we all hang out for about 12 months. Yeah, I just every everything I learn suggests to me that GTA is either going to be the biggest thing that ever happened or like one of the all-time biggest failures, and I'm I continue to bet on biggest thing that ever happened. Um, all right. Let's take a quick break, and then we're going to come back. We're going to get to more medium predictions. We'll be right back. All right, we're back. Those are boring. Predictions, we it's fine. We're all going to buy foldable iPhones and play GTA 6 inside of our EVs in 2026. This feels guaranteed. It's going to be fine. Uh, let's let's spice it up a little bit here. Uh, Nilay, you go first this time. What's your what's your most medium prediction for 2026? **Nilay Patel:** This is very medium. I think the backlash to AI slop on the social platforms is going to force them to have to label it and filter it. **David Pierce:** Be more specific. What does that look like? Like, like there's a new next to the For You feed, it's It's is there's going to be a slop feed? **Nilay Patel:** Maybe. It's like that. Like that's one version of it. I think it's also just don't show me AI content. Like I I want to see real creators, and I think that will come from the creators themselves. There's some weirdness there because I think some creators are very eager to make AI content, uh, cuz the creator game is all about volume. Um, but I think audiences are like, I don't want as much of this as you are showing me. I I'm here for the people that I open the app for. And I think that it's a floodgate, right? It's so cheap to make, it's so easy to do. If you just open the algorithm, over time, even in the past few months, like it's all flooded with AI-generated video. Like every feed I have. At some point the audiences are like, I don't like this, and the creators are like, I don't like this, and I think all of those videos have some metadata in them about being AI-generated. You can detect it if you try, and none of them are trying right now, and I think at some point, Instagram, YouTube, whoever, are going to have to say, we're going to detect it, it has to be labeled, and we're going to let people avoid it if they want to. **David Pierce:** My medium take was that what instead of all of that, what we're actually going to get is a new creator platform that is going to rise up in a in a meaningful way. Uh, for the exact same reason you just described, right? Like all of these scale players now, and it's basically just YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok, uh, are so deep down the we are just going to fill your feeds with slop rabbit hole that somebody is going to show up and present themselves as like the the human alternative to this. And like the the algorithm is hard but buildable, and there are tons of people who have now worked at all of these companies who could go off and build these things. The the like the possible time to do that, if you think you want to build a creator platform, is right now. And whether anyone can do it like economically and compete with YouTube remains to be seen. Like YouTube is just where all the money is, and that company is so rich that it would be very hard to like bootstrap your way into having the resources of YouTube. But somebody's going to try. And I think like you you start to see like maybe it's going to be Substack is going to get like weird into videos and try to do that. Patreon is like poking at these kinds of ideas. Uh, it was a thing I thought Vimeo was going to do for a while, and then it sold and now God only knows what's going to happen to Vimeo. But there's like glimmers of some new kind of platform energy that I think could work, and I think we might see it in a in a real big way in 2026. **Nilay Patel:** I mean, I would just say the hardest part for all of this any idea there is getting a new user. Like TikTok exists because ByteDance spent billions of dollars on Facebook ads. And so like you just you need It's not do you know how to do it. Like, are there a bunch of ex-Twitter employees who can like make Twitter tomorrow? Of course there are. Can they get millions, hundreds of millions of users to use it? Like, no. Um, and that's why I'm like, you can have that little bit of competitive pressure, right? You can you can already see how it's playing out with like Threads and Bluesky and X. Like they are competing with each other, and that means they release new features, which is like fascinating. But I I think fundamentally, what the it's the creators themselves who are going to say, we want to tell people like turn off the AI stuff. And I I And these platforms are responsive to creators a little bit, and I think that might work. **David Pierce:** Yeah, and I think if if anybody is going to lead that charge, it'll probably be YouTube, would be my guess. **Nilay Patel:** Although YouTube keeps saying that the future of their platform is AI. **Joanna Stern:** See, like, it almost has to be a platform that doesn't have an AI **Nilay Patel:** They all do. **Joanna Stern:** But TikTok doesn't, really. I mean, TikTok's already embracing giving people a little bit more control than others. **Nilay Patel:** TikTok is as full of AI slop as anything in the world. Like TikTok is a is a is a rich melange of ideas about piracy. Like, how can I get past this algorithm is like TikTok. **Joanna Stern:** But like, they're not necessarily encouraging you to use their AI tools in the way that YouTube, Meta, X would. **Nilay Patel:** I think yes and no. I mean, also TikTok at any moment could be sold to date like Larry Ellison. Like, there are weird it's a weird company in a weird spot. **David Pierce:** My mild take was almost nobody's going to buy TikTok this year. Uh, but I that was too mild. That was I don't care about that. Uh, can I can I offer you a possible platform that I I had not is not part of my take, but I think is like, there's an interesting next turn for this company. Uh, it's Netflix. That is like, Netflix is poking at video podcasts, it's poking at making deals with creators. It is like, there is a world in which Netflix, which has the audience and has the resources to actually go to all of these people and be like, you're humans and you want to make things for other humans, come do it here instead of at YouTube. I don't think the scale works the same way, but in the to the extent that it's like let's let's build a different kind of creator platform for humans. Netflix is as set up to do it as anybody and seems interested in it in some way, shape or form. **Nilay Patel:** The problem is that Netflix is going to kill itself by buying Warner Brothers. Like kiss of death, man. **David Pierce:** Is that your spicy take? Netflix is going to buy Warner Brothers and it's going to go horribly for everybody. **Joanna Stern:** I don't think that'd be that spicy. **Nilay Patel:** I think it's my medium take right now. Like, Greg, Ted, you know, both of you have been on Decoder. Like, come on back and I I will patiently explain to you how buying Warner Brothers will kill you. Yeah. It's done it to everyone else. **David Pierce:** Uh, Joanna, what's your medium take? **Joanna Stern:** Okay. I was going to make this my spicy take, but I just came up with a new spicy take. So, I'm going to come back to Waymo, and I said last year, I don't was that my medium last year? I don't remember which rating it was. **David Pierce:** It was one of the it was one of our 2025 predictions. **Joanna Stern:** Okay. Yeah, you were very in on Waymo having a moment in 2025. Yeah, I think Waymo's going to have an a moment in 2026, and I think it's going to be a serious incident, whether it's a death or a big traffic accident, or, um, I I hope there isn't a death, but I think we are nearing the time where there are so many Waymos on the roads in so many more cities, and they are going to be close to doubling that over the next year or two, that we are going to see that moment. And you almost hear Waymo executives prepping for that. Um, they obviously don't want it to happen, but I think it's just a case of numbers at this point. So, that's my medium take. I should have maybe made it my spicy, but I actually don't think that crazy. **David Pierce:** I don't think it's that crazy. What I wonder is, **Joanna Stern:** like, we saw what happened with it killed a cat in San Francisco, and we saw the reaction to that. Yeah, it killed a cat. You saw that news? **David Pierce:** That's awful. I missed that. That's terrible. **Joanna Stern:** Yeah, it was a whole story. **David Pierce:** So, at the risk of asking like a really rude question, would a Waymo killing a pedestrian change things? In like truly, like meaningful industry shaking ways? **Joanna Stern:** Well, that's why I think it's going to be like a big moment, because I think what will happen is you are going to have a lot of anti any of this people talking about it, and you see that happening already with the cat incident in San Francisco. Um, and then you're going to have a lot of other people citing a lot of the research that was just in the Times article this week about how much safer these have been on a whole, and you're going to have this just kind of coming to a head with politicians and media and all of it. And it's just Look, we're just heading towards that one moment where that happens. **David Pierce:** Nilay, what do you think? **Nilay Patel:** I think that's right. I think that, you know, the safety data is reasonably clear, like in the middle of the night, would you rather get into a robot that is not sleepy or an Uber where somebody might be sleepy? Like I don't know the answer. I think there's a lot of parents who are much more comfortable with Waymos than human drivers to send their kids around. It would I think it will just be a big debate. But I do think the moment where there's a bad accident that forces the debate is absolutely coming. **David Pierce:** I think the thing that's interesting to me about Waymo is that it feels like it in in it it, like, in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in and in here. The United States and other European nations. The Soviet Union and the United States became rivals, and the Soviet Union attempted to expand its sphere of influence, leading to the Cold War. In the Soviet Union, Joseph Stalin maintained a totalitarian regime that suppressed dissent and individual rights, while in the United States, capitalism and democracy were championed. The Soviet Union also attempted to expand its influence in Eastern Europe, setting up satellite states that were under its control. The United States, in response, enacted the Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan to contain Soviet expansionism. The Cold War intensified with the development of nuclear weapons by both the US and the USSR, leading to a nuclear arms race and the threat of mutually assured destruction. The Cold War was characterized by proxy wars, espionage, and political maneuvering, and it fundamentally shaped international relations until the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. **David Pierce:** Yeah. All right. So, we're just going to call 2025 a wash. It's been a weird year. Uh, Nilay and I both had kids. Joanna wrote a book. It's just, you know, we're call everybody gets passed on 2025. Um, but I do want to just quickly read both of you your own predictions. So, Joanna, your predictions for 2025. Your your mild prediction was that we will still be posting to a million social accounts. Uh, I think you you were correct on that one. Um, that was that was right. Uh, your medium take was that Meta is going to continue to outpace Apple on glasses, um, which I think is like true by default in that Apple did nothing. There was a new Vision Pro that added nothing. So, I'm I I guess you get that one. Uh, Nilay and I also both agreed with that, so everybody wins on that one. And then your your spicy prediction was a touchscreen Mac or an iPad with Mac OS, which has not come true, but as we discussed in the last episode, 2026, if you want to rehash that one for 2026, I think you have a real shot at it. **Joanna Stern:** Yeah, I think iPad with Mac OS like didn't come true in literally, but there were so many changes to iPadOS that make it so much more like Mac OS that I do think I was kind of right. **David Pierce:** The iPad is very Mac-ish. If I were if I were in the business of giving half points, I would probably give you a half point. **Joanna Stern:** I think we can agree that I was right there, so yeah. **David Pierce:** Is that Is that where we landed? **Joanna Stern:** Yes. **David Pierce:** Uh, and then Nilay, your mild prediction was that Alexa is going to or Alexa Plus, rather, is going to be fine. I want you to self-score on that one because you you have delivered many thoughts on Alexa Plus. **Nilay Patel:** I assumed that the industry could could put an LLM in front of a traditional smart home device and they can't. It's not even quite fine. It's available. That's what I'll give you. It's It's good enough to be available. But like, is it a downgrade from what Alexa was before? No. I think that's fine. You know what I mean? That's what I mean. Like, it's not a disaster, it's not a huge success, it's just like it's available. **David Pierce:** It's fine. **Nilay Patel:** Yeah, it's fine. It's fine. **David Pierce:** Uh, your medium prediction was that Walmart is going to buy TikTok. Uh, a prediction that I loved and Joanna and I both signed onto, um, if I recall somewhat against your will, Joanna. You just like wanted to be part of the team. Um, but that obviously did not happen. **Nilay Patel:** In fact, no one bought TikTok and we chose and said to not enforce the law Congress passed enforcing the sale of TikTok. I have no idea what's going on here. **David Pierce:** A fun medium take would have been laws don't exist. **Nilay Patel:** Yeah. That would have been We live in a post-law society. **David Pierce:** Yeah, you would have gotten points for that one. **Nilay Patel:** If this thing eventually does get sold, I think Walmart is is as aggressive about it as anyone, but I don't know who knows what's going to happen. **David Pierce:** Yeah. Fair. Um, all right. And then your spicy take was that Google is going to break itself up of its own volition before the government can do it. I would say this operated on a false assumption that the government would do it that did not turn out to be the case, at least not yet. Um, but that one obviously did not come true. **Nilay Patel:** I will say Google did replace almost all of its executives in the last year. **David Pierce:** Yes. **Nilay Patel:** Maybe that's not even a quarter point, uh, but they were certainly like, what if different people ran all this stuff? And all of those people that that's what Sundar did. **David Pierce:** Yeah. Google turned itself over in a pretty big way, but it did not break itself up. My predictions, uh, my mild prediction was that cable TV is going to pretty much totally die. Uh, I actually think I was right about that one. **Nilay Patel:** You were right. Yeah. **David Pierce:** Um, that was that that happened faster than anybody expected. You both agreed with me. Um, my medium take, which I think is this is probably the biggest whiff of the whole episode last year, was that somebody is going to make an AI gadget that actually kicks ass and it's going to be a giant hit. Um, wrong, and wrong, and wrong, and wrong on that one. Uh, and then my spicy take was that we are going to more or less give up on Matter, which I will take the loss on, but I actually don't think I get a complete loss on that one. Matter did not make the progress you would hope that it would make in 2025. They have cameras now, kind of, even though no cameras support it. It's a It is the the spec the the spec remains, the protocol exists, people are still adopting it. **Nilay Patel:** Wait, I disagree with you on this in like a minor way. **David Pierce:** Okay. **Nilay Patel:** It is now the default for everything. Like if you want to buy a light switch or a light bulb or a smart plug or any of this stuff that's already supported, all of those things are now matter by default. It's like harder to buy not matter versions of that stuff than it is to buy matter. **David Pierce:** I agree. And that's why I take the loss on this. Like we we definitely did not give up on Matter. **Joanna Stern:** I just unboxed a new Nest camera and it like had Matter instructions. **David Pierce:** Yeah. And that's frankly, honestly, the that's the that's the place you would hope Matter would get to, right? Is that it is like it is such essential infrastructure that it's just always there and you can't even tell. **Joanna Stern:** Yeah, just how all the stuff works. **David Pierce:** Yeah. So, like I am psyched that I was wrong about that one, but I was wrong about that one. Um, all right. Let's get into predictions for 2026. Uh, Joanna, you get to go first. What's your mild prediction for 2026? **Joanna Stern:** Okay. Apple releases a foldable. It's fine, because we can say the word fine means multiple things here. I will say that like spicier part of this take, even though this whole thing is mild, I think this will happen, is that the media and many Apple fans freak out because it's too expensive. **David Pierce:** Okay. I think I need I need one more tick of measurability here, which is, is it, is it a hit or not? Cuz like the iPhone Air not a hit. Like, definitively not a hit. Uh, if the foldable phone is two iPhone Airs stapled together, which is what a lot of people are saying that it's going to be, uh, is it going to be a hit at whatever price it comes out to be? **Joanna Stern:** I think it's an early adopter hit, but I think it's like two I I don't want to guess at pricing. What do you think the price What would you guys guess the price to be? **Nilay Patel:** They can't do more than $100 more than like the Galaxy Fold. **David Pierce:** Yeah, I think it's somewhere between $17.99 and $19.99 would be my guess, somewhere in that range. **Nilay Patel:** Yeah, I think $2,000 is fine. **David Pierce:** Okay. **Nilay Patel:** Yeah. But like, those numbers don't mean anything cuz you just like you're like, I will give my child to Verizon and they'll give you a free phone. **Joanna Stern:** But I think there'll be like the backlash of the media and people being like, this is too expensive, uh, or this is expensive. And I think so I like I don't think it's a it's a big hit. Like, I don't think it's an iPhone 10 hit, because that was like a completely new design, but it was still a pretty good mainstream phone. It wasn't like too, you know, crazy for people to fathom. I mean, it didn't have the home button and that was a big thing people had to get used to. Yeah, that's why I think it's fine. **Nilay Patel:** No, I think I'm going to push back. I think it is announced and we everybody overreacts and like, this is the most important phone that's ever been made and it's a huge hit because changing the form factor of the phone is the thing that they've all been chasing. **Joanna Stern:** But do you think changing the form factor out of $2,000 price point is like like when the iPhone 10 hit $1,000 plus, I think that was like one of the big things that kind of held it back from being like a mainstream phone, right? **Nilay Patel:** And it had like a not a it was like it was the high-end phone they didn't make as much of them and like the iPhone 8 was the volume seller at that time. Apple will intentionally limit the number of these phones that it makes because it's not the mainstream model yet. Whereas like today, I think the 17 Pro Max is the big seller. I agree that this is like a good good mild take. I think the overreaction will be the thing that drives everybody insane. **Joanna Stern:** Yeah, I agree. That'll be like a Vision Pro level, like reaction. Yeah. **David Pierce:** And I think just like the Vision Pro, it will become very clear that just like every other company, Apple has no good ideas about what you're supposed to do with a foldable phone. That remains the thing. They're they're too expensive and there's just no clear idea what you're supposed to do with it. **Nilay Patel:** Hey, I look I read a lot of PDFs on my phone, you guys. Just live in the think about my situation. **David Pierce:** Uh, my mildest prediction, it's very mild, actually, and it might be wrong. Um, I think after all of the weirdness with the EV tax credits and the sales spiking because everyone tried to get the credit and the sales crashing, I actually think they mount a small comeback next year. **Joanna Stern:** Mm. Hm. **Nilay Patel:** I think people actually want electric cars, regardless of like all the noise and try like people who experience them are like, this is a better experience than gas cars. I'm saying this to somebody who has gas cars and like the dumbest possible gas cars and loves them very much. There's no reason for my daily driver to be anything other than an EV, and I think that is proven out for like lots of people in lots of ways. And so I I think there's I think we'll see we'll see that market reset itself a little bit. **David Pierce:** Do you think it's entirely or just mostly because the new Nissan Leaf looks kind of sick? Is that like 60% of it or is that like 90%? **Nilay Patel:** I think it's the Leaf. I think Chevy's going to do the Bolt at like 29, like **Joanna Stern:** Yeah, I think it's a bunch of cars coming in at 30,000 or less is going to be a huge thing for that market. **Nilay Patel:** And then used EVs are just around, right? Like economically, like feel how you want about this, but like economically, the only car anyone should buy is a used Model 3. **David Pierce:** forever my favorite Nilay take, because it is unequivocally true and makes everybody feel feelings. And I love it. **Nilay Patel:** Yeah, it's like, oh, that sucks, but it's true. Like that's the only car you should buy. **Joanna Stern:** Or Y. I think a Y. But anyway. **Nilay Patel:** Yeah. **Joanna Stern:** Because those prices have come down crazy. **Nilay Patel:** There's all There's all I I'm saying used. I'm not saying enter the **Joanna Stern:** No, even the used Model Y's are crazy deals. **Nilay Patel:** Yeah. So, like I just think that there is a lot of everybody who was going to buy one, including me, I raced to buy an EV before the tax credit went away. Uh, and so I I think it feels like sales cratered because everybody was going to buy one, bought one. And then everyone overreacted to the sales going away because all those people were out of the market. And I think next year they come back a little bit. **David Pierce:** I love that for you. Um, all right. My I'm between two mild predictions in part because I can't decide how mild one of them is. Um, but I'll go with my mild prediction for 2026 is that GTA 6 is going to be just a monstrously huge hit in in a like economic and cultural way that actually no one is ready for. That like it's going to do to people what like TikTok did to people and and everyone on Earth is going to just disappear inside for a month to play GTA 6. Uh, and and it's going to it's it's there it's going to be the Skibidi Toilet of 2026. I don't know, whatever whatever thing you want, like these games that become vastly more than games, like the the Fortnites of the world and the Robloxs of the world that become these like cultural touchstones and economic events. Uh, I think GTA 6 is going to become that immediately and maybe like jump to the top of that list very fast. The other alternative is that it sucks and the gaming industry dies. It's one of those two things. **Nilay Patel:** I would just like the caution I would put there is it's so hard for games to actually cross over into popular culture. And I I'm saying that in in like finger quotes because games are popular culture, but at the same time, they're they're still even the people who play games like wall them off from what they think of is the popular culture. So, the idea that GTA 6 is going to come out and then we will have some sort of like rational or interesting conversation about the fact that everyone's playing GTA 6, no way. Like it's going to be a lot of like what I call anthropology, where like, you know, on Good Morning America, they're like, there's a new game out called The Grand Theft Auto. It's the sixth in the series where gamers steal cars. Like that's what that's going to feel like. **David Pierce:** That's going to happen. **Nilay Patel:** Absolutely. **David Pierce:** 100% that's going to happen. **Nilay Patel:** But like, it will be it will be like space aliens trying to describe **David Pierce:** I mean, yes. **Nilay Patel:** cuz everyone will actually be playing GTA 6. **David Pierce:** Which is what it's been with like everybody, you know, I I just there's nothing more fun than like local news people trying to describe the Roblox. **Nilay Patel:** But we're at I'm just saying we're at the point in in history where the local news anchors are generally young and are themselves gamers and somehow like they are forced to pretend they don't know what they're talking about. **Joanna Stern:** To be clear, I wouldn't know what I was talking about. And I have tuned out of this GTA 6 conversation. **Nilay Patel:** But you've got two young boys. Like it's coming for you whether you want it to or not. **Joanna Stern:** And then when that comes, I will call one of you and you will explain to me what is going on. **David Pierce:** Yeah, you'll you'll call us from inside of GTA 6 because I think that's going to be where we all hang out for about 12 months. Yeah, I just every everything I learn suggests to me that GTA is either going to be the biggest thing that ever happened or like one of the all-time biggest failures, and I'm I continue to bet on biggest thing that ever happened. Um, all right. Let's take a quick break, and then we're going to come back. We're going to get to more medium predictions. We'll be right back. All right, we're back. Those are boring. Predictions, we it's fine. We're all going to buy foldable iPhones and play GTA 6 inside of our EVs in 2026. This feels guaranteed. It's going to be fine. Uh, let's let's spice it up a little bit here. Uh, Nilay, you go first this time. What's your what's your most medium prediction for 2026? **Nilay Patel:** This is very medium. I think the backlash to AI slop on the social platforms is going to force them to have to label it and filter it. **David Pierce:** Be more specific. What does that look like? Like, like there's a new next to the For You feed, it's It's is there's going to be a slop feed? **Nilay Patel:** Maybe. It's like that. Like that's one version of it. I think it's also just don't show me AI content. Like I I want to see real creators, and I think that will come from the creators themselves. There's some weirdness there because I think some creators are very eager to make AI content, uh, cuz the creator game is all about volume. Um, but I think audiences are like, I don't want as much of this as you are showing me. I I'm here for the people that I open the app for. And I think that it's a floodgate, right? It's so cheap to make, it's so easy to do. If you just open the algorithm, over time, even in the past few months, like it's all flooded with AI-generated video. Like every feed I have. At some point the audiences are like, I don't like this, and the creators are like, I don't like this, and I think all of those videos have some metadata in them about being AI-generated. You can detect it if you try, and none of them are trying right now, and I think at some point, Instagram, YouTube, whoever, are going to have to say, we're going to detect it, it has to be labeled, and we're going to let people avoid it if they want to. **David Pierce:** My medium take was that what instead of all of that, what we're actually going to get is a new creator platform that is going to rise up in a in a meaningful way. Uh, for the exact same reason you just described, right? Like all of these scale players now, and it's basically just YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok, uh, are so deep down the we are just going to fill your feeds with slop rabbit hole that somebody is going to show up and present themselves as like the the human alternative to this. And like the the algorithm is hard but buildable, and there are tons of people who have now worked at all of these companies who could go off and build these things. The the like the possible time to do that, if you think you want to build a creator platform, is right now. And whether anyone can do it like economically and compete with YouTube remains to be seen. Like YouTube is just where all the money is, and that company is so rich that it would be very hard to like bootstrap your way into having the resources of YouTube. But somebody's going to try. And I think like you you start to see like maybe it's going to be Substack is going to get like weird into videos and try to do that. Patreon is like poking at these kinds of ideas. Uh, it was a thing I thought Vimeo was going to do for a while, and then it sold and now God only knows what's going to happen to Vimeo. But there's like glimmers of some new kind of platform energy that I think could work, and I think we might see it in a in a real big way in 2026. **Nilay Patel:** I mean, I would just say the hardest part for all of this any idea there is getting a new user. Like TikTok exists because ByteDance spent billions of dollars on Facebook ads. And so like you just you need It's not do you know how to do it. Like, are there a bunch of ex-Twitter employees who can like make Twitter tomorrow? Of course there are. Can they get millions, hundreds of millions of users to use it? Like, no. Um, and that's why I'm like, you can have that little bit of competitive pressure, right? You can you can already see how it's playing out with like Threads and Bluesky and X. Like they are competing with each other, and that means they release new features, which is like fascinating. But I I think fundamentally, what the it's the creators themselves who are going to say, we want to tell people like turn off the AI stuff. And I I And these platforms are responsive to creators a little bit, and I think that might work. **David Pierce:** Yeah, and I think if if anybody is going to lead that charge, it'll probably be YouTube, would be my guess. **Nilay Patel:** Although YouTube keeps saying that the future of their platform is AI. **Joanna Stern:** See, like, it almost has to be a platform that doesn't have an AI **Nilay Patel:** They all do. **Joanna Stern:** But TikTok doesn't, really. I mean, TikTok's already embracing giving people a little bit more control than others. **Nilay Patel:** TikTok is as full of AI slop as anything in the world. Like TikTok is a is a is a rich melange of ideas about piracy. Like, how can I get past this algorithm is like TikTok. **Joanna Stern:** But like, they're not necessarily encouraging you to use their AI tools in the way that YouTube, Meta, X would. **Nilay Patel:** I think yes and no. I mean, also TikTok at any moment could be sold to date like Larry Ellison. Like, there are weird it's a weird company in a weird spot. **David Pierce:** My mild take was almost nobody's going to buy TikTok this year. Uh, but I that was too mild. That was I don't care about that. Uh, can I can I offer you a possible platform that I I had not is not part of my take, but I think is like, there's an interesting next turn for this company. Uh, it's Netflix. That is like, Netflix is poking at video podcasts, it's poking at making deals with creators. It is like, there is a world in which Netflix, which has the audience and has the resources to actually go to all of these people and be like, you're humans and you want to make things for other humans, come do it here instead of at YouTube. I don't think the scale works the same way, but in the to the extent that it's like let's let's build a different kind of creator platform for humans. Netflix is as set up to do it as anybody and seems interested in it in some way, shape or form. **Nilay Patel:** The problem is that Netflix is going to kill itself by buying Warner Brothers. Like kiss of death, man. **David Pierce:** Is that your spicy take? Netflix is going to buy Warner Brothers and it's going to go horribly for everybody. **Joanna Stern:** I don't think that'd be that spicy. **Nilay Patel:** I think it's my medium take right now. Like, Greg, Ted, you know, both of you have been on Decoder. Like, come on back and I I will patiently explain to you how buying Warner Brothers will kill you. Yeah. It's done it to everyone else. **David Pierce:** Uh, Joanna, what's your medium take? **Joanna Stern:** Okay. I was going to make this my spicy take, but I just came up with a new spicy take. So, I'm going to come back to Waymo, and I said last year, I don't was that my medium last year? I don't remember which rating it was. **David Pierce:** It was one of the it was one of our 2025 predictions. **Joanna Stern:** Okay. Yeah, you were very in on Waymo having a moment in 2025. Yeah, I think Waymo's going to have an a moment in 2026, and I think it's going to be a serious incident, whether it's a death or a big traffic accident, or, um, I I hope there isn't a death, but I think we are nearing the time where there are so many Waymos on the roads in so many more cities, and they are going to be close to doubling that over the next year or two, that we are going to see that moment. And you almost hear Waymo executives prepping for that. Um, they obviously don't want it to happen, but I think it's just a case of numbers at this point. So, that's my medium take. I should have maybe made it my spicy, but I actually don't think that crazy. **David Pierce:** I don't think it's that crazy. What I wonder is, **Joanna Stern:** like, we saw what happened with it killed a cat in San Francisco, and we saw the reaction to that. Yeah, it killed a cat. You saw that news? **David Pierce:** That's awful. I missed that. That's terrible. **Joanna Stern:** Yeah, it was a whole story. **David Pierce:** So, at the risk of asking like a really rude question, would a Waymo killing a pedestrian change things? In like truly, like meaningful industry shaking ways? **Joanna Stern:** Well, that's why I think it's going to be like a big moment, because I think what will happen is you are going to have a lot of anti any of this people talking about it, and you see that happening already with the cat incident in San Francisco. Um, and then you're going to have a lot of other people citing a lot of the research that was just in the Times article this week about how much safer these have been on a whole, and you're going to have this just kind of coming to a head with politicians and media and all of it. And it's just Look, we're just heading towards that one moment where that happens. **David Pierce:** Nilay, what do you think? **Nilay Patel:** I think that's right. I think that, you know, the safety data is reasonably clear, like in the middle of the night, would you rather get into a robot that is not sleepy or an Uber where somebody might be sleepy? Like I don't know the answer. I think there's a lot of parents who are much more comfortable with Waymos than human drivers to send their kids around. It would I think it will just be a big debate. But I do think the moment where there's a bad accident that forces the debate is absolutely coming. **David Pierce:** I think the thing that's interesting to me about Waymo is that it feels like it in in it it, like, in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in the case of in this context, but in the context of the Cold War and the arms race, the potential for a global conflict was a constant concern. The Cold War also saw the emergence of developing nations in Asia and Africa, which sought to establish their independence from colonial powers. These nations, often referred to as the Third World, became a battleground for influence between the US and the USSR. Both superpowers engaged in aid, military support, and political maneuvering to gain allies in these regions. The Cold War, while avoiding direct military conflict between the US and the USSR, led to numerous regional conflicts and political instability around the globe.