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Hi, everyone, and welcome back to Fast Companys Plugged In. Our new print issue features How YouTube Ate TV, an oral history of the video-sharing sites impact on entertainment, culture, and business as told by dozens of eyewitnesses past and present. As we stitched sound bites together into a story, it became clear that our interviews had provided an embarrassment of riches. Indeed, we had too many great stories and insights to cram into one magazine article. So we expanded the online version of the article into five oral histories. Two are live on our site now, covering the companys earliest days and acquisition by Google. Three more will roll out next week, bringing the story up to 2025and, in the case of AIs sweeping impact on the platform, beyond. One of the joys of working on this project with my colleagues and fellow interviewers, María José Gutiérrez Chávez, Yasmin Gagne, Steven Melendez, and David Salazar, was having an excuse to think back to what the web was like 20 years ago. Its not just that YouTube was brand new and rapidly becoming a necessity of everyday life. At the time, the whole proposition of being able to easily watch videos on the internet at all was a novelty. The technology that made itand sites like YouTubepossible at all was Macromedias Flash. By the time YouTube came along, Flash was more than a decade old. Initially known as FutureWave SmartSketch, it morphed from a drawing app for pen-based computers into a browser plug-in that allowed websites to offer more motion and interactivity than the early web could muster on its own. Flash jazzed up the internet without requiring much in the way of bandwidth or computing cyclesa critical virtue back in the days of pokey dial-up connections. A whole universe of Flash-enabled animations and games sprung up. Flash was so manifestly useful that Netscape and Microsoft bundled it with their browsers. Eventually, the plug-in added support for video playback, dramatically simplifying a process that had formerly required clunky software such as RealPlayer. Instead of video being something you watched in a separate app with its own interface, it could be rendered right inside sites. Thats why YouTube was so easy to use. It also permitted the fledgling site to make its videos embeddable on any web page, spreading them all over the internet. If you were online back then, you may recall all this. But Im afraid Flashs reputation was tarnished by what happened well after it helped YouTube become, well, YouTube. A couple of months after YouTube was founded, Adobe agreed to acquire Macromedia. Once Flash came into its portfolio, the software giant aggressively stuffed the plug-in with new features. What had begun as a complement to the plain-vanilla web became a platform unto itself. As Flash got more powerful, it lost its original spritely nature. Increasingly, it was a bloated resource hogsomething you reluctantly allowed onto your computer because a sizable percentage of the web wouldnt work without it. In 2011, I wrote about how Flash had mucked up my MacBook Air, and how much better the laptop worked with the plug-in disabled. Did I mention that Flash also had some pretty significant security issues? By the time I banished Flash from my Mac, the PC-centric web that had given us Flash in the first place was receding into history. Apples introduction of the iPhone in 2007 and iPad in 2010 had put browsers onto new classes of gadgets with smaller displays and touchscreen interfaces. But Apple didnt give Adobe the kind of technical access it needed to put Flash on an iPhone or iPad. On those devices, Flash content showed up as empty boxes. In 2010, Steve Jobs published an open letter, Thoughts on Flash, that argued that Adobes software was rife with problems and Apples platforms were better off without it. Adobeand a fair percentage of technology enthusiastssaw Apples exclusion of Flash as being about locking out competition, not enhancing the user experience. Now, Googles Android mobile operating system could run Flash. And for a time, makers of Android devices considered that a major advantage. BlackBerry, the maker of the PlayBook tablet, even ran TV commercials trumpeting Flash support as a defining feature. The only problem was that mobile Flash was awful. It taxed the devices of the period beyond their breaking point. Even if it had been more efficient, much of the worlds Flash content simply didnt work well on a tiny touchscreen. In 2011, Adobe gave up on mobile Flash. Then a suite of open web technologies known as HTML5 largely replicated Flashs features as part of web browsings basic functionality, no plug-in required. Many big sites started abandoning Flash, period. Adobe decided to wind down the technology in 2017 and stopped supporting it altogether in 2020. Todays internet is entirely Flash-free. I dont miss Flash in the sense of thinking we were better off when it was central to our computing lives or fantasizing about it coming back. Even in the days when Flash was quite pleasant, a single company bearing so much responsibility for how websites worked was never ideal. That became painfully clear when Adobe lost track of the values that had made Flash popular in the first place. When it finally died, I was able to reallocate the brain cells Id dedicated to wrestling with it to happier pursuits. Nevertheless, it was nice to remember the days when Flashs impact on the web was largely positive. As a startup, YouTube got a lot of things right, such as seeing its users as a community, not just a morass of eyeballs. But none of that would have mattered if the internet had still been stuck in the RealPlayer era. As Billy Biggs, a software engineer whos been at Google and YouTube since 2006, put it when I spoke with him for our YouTube history, Flash video is what made this all possible. It was the right technology at the right time. Thats as much a part of its legacy as its later regrettable evolution and descent into obsolescence. Youve been reading Plugged In, Fast Companys weekly tech newsletter from me, global technology editor Harry McCracken. If a friend or colleague forwarded this edition to youor if you’re reading it on FastCompany.comyou can check out previous issues and sign up to get it yourself every Friday morning. I love hearing from you: Ping me at hmccracken@fastcompany.com with your feedback and ideas for future newsletters. I’m also on Bluesky, Mastodon, and Threads, and you can follow Plugged In on Flipboard. More top tech stories from Fast Company This interactive AI-generated podcast app from ex-Googlers blew my mindHuxe makes podcasts almost uncannily personaland even lets you talk to their AI hosts. Read More Inside Amazon’s ‘Iliad Flow,’ the deceptive UX at the center of its federal trialWe unpack the FTC’s claims that Amazon used design to trick customers into buyingand keepinga Prime subscription. Read More A Facebook dating app hopes to be the cure for ‘swipe fatigue’The AI-powered bot can even suggest pickup lines. Read More AI tools aren’t making much of a difference for companiesChat GPT, Copilot, and their competitors are boosting productivity without moving the needle on profit and loss. Read More 5 time-saving Outlook features you’re probably overlookingOnce you know these gems, you can’t go back to not using them. Read More I gave ChatGPT $500 of real money to invest in stocks. Its picks surprised meI told ChatGPT with GPT-5’s ‘Thinking’ model selected that I would give it $500 to invest however it saw fit. Read More
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E-Commerce
Whats the biggest company in the world? Apple? Amazon? Microsoft? No. Its Nvidia, which in early August became the worlds first $4 trillion company, overtaking both Apple and Microsoft. Last weeks results were eagerly awaited by the worlds markets and actually helped push the S&P 500 and Dow Jones to all-time highs. By the end of August, Nvidia accounted for more than 8% of the S&P 500, the largest weighting for a single stock in the indexs history. Yet, Nvidia isnt a household name. It doesnt make the devices in your pocket or the apps you use every day. Nvidia makes chips. Excellent chips, yes, but not unique in the way we tend to assume a $4 trillion product must be. Its success is not just a product story; its also a brand story. B2B is often treated as B2Cs poor relation. When budgets are tight, brand is first to be stripped back, reduced to a logo refresh or a new color palette. Nvidias rise proves thats a mistake. Its transformation from graphics chipmaker to the engine of the AI revolution shows how brand strategy can create enormous value. Here are six lessons B2B brands can take from Nvidias playbook. 1. More than a logo Nvidias brand identity hasnt changed much since the 1990s. The typography has been updated, but the odd, retro eye-and-square graphic remains. Many organizations would have dropped it long ago, worried it looked dated or alienating. Nvidias decision to keep it reflects confidence in what the brand stands for and in the loyalty of its audience, especially the developers and gamers who value its heritage. Many B2B brands struggle here. A new CMO arrives and the instinct is to refresh the logo. These changes are often driven more by internal pressure than by real market insight. In doing so, companies risk eroding recognition and alienating the very customers that anchor their brand. Companies need to ask: What do our core users value from us? What signals show continuity and confidence? Consistency builds familiarity, and that in turn builds trust. 2. Own a story, not just a product Nvidias two main rivals, AMD and Intel, have longer histories and strong product reputations. Yet Intel is seen as legacy computing and AMD as fast and affordable, while Nvidia is synonymous with the future. This isnt because Nvidia started AI, but because it positioned itself as the essential platform for enabling it, shifting from being a graphics processing unit manufacturer to the company powering the AI revolution, and framing its value in terms of possibility rather than price or speed. That positioning has contributed to a market cap 15 times AMDs and 47 times Intels, despite smaller revenues. Many B2B firms struggle to look this far ahead. Brand vision often gets tied to short sales cycles and annual budgets. The challenge is to set an ambition that stretches beyond the next quarter. Microsoft did this successfully with its cloud-first pivot. Intel seemingly failed to capitalize on the AI growth wave, falling behind AMD and Nvidia. Although it is reportedly working hard on a comeback, will it be enough to make up for lost time? The lesson: dont just describe what you make, own the bigger shift your products make possible. 3. Be more peacock Brands are regularly the victims of trends. The more established and reputationally safe they are the harder it is for them to stay connected to new audiences while remaining true to themselves. However, Nvidia has remained remarkably true to its central vision. It uses its core brand assetsthe logo, the greeneverywhere. This consistency reinforces recognition, particularly among its most loyal audience: a technically minded, brand-aware community that values the companys history. Where some brands tone down their heritage as they grow, Nvidia has leaned into it. Salesforce and Slack have both succeeded by sticking with distinctive, even playful, visual identities in a category prone to beige professionalism. In contrast, many brands caught up in the 2018 blanding epidemic traded characterful logos and flourishes for neutral sans-serifs, diluting their identities in the process. Often B2B brands should have the courage to lean into the brand assets that make them distinctive and unique, rather than feeling they need to follow the latest trend. 4. Make the brand an experience Nvidias GTC (GPU Technology Conference) has been described as the Super Bowl of AI, stadium-scale events wrapped in the brand, bringing together developers, researchers, and business leaders. These conferences position Nvidia not just as a supplier of hardware but as the platform powering whats next. Most B2B brands dont think about experience in this way. Customer experience is often a trade show booth or a sales meeting. Yet experience is where brand comes to life: through service design, digital platforms, physical spaces, and above all, people. Not every business needs stadium events, but every B2B brand can look at the moments where clients interact with them and ask: does this experience reflect who we are? Does it build confidence? Deloitte is a good example here. Its investment in connected digital and service experiences has made it the highest-valued commercial services brand by Brand Finance. 5. Partner for relevance Nvidias partnershipsfrom Tesla to Disney Research to Google DeepMindhave put it at the center of conversations about robotics, art, graphics, and AI. Each collaboration reinforces the companys relevance far beyond chips. B2B companies often fall into one of two traps: chasing partnerships haphazardly without alignment, or avoiding them altogether for fear of losing control. But the right partnerships extend credibility, and relevance. The lesson is to find partnerships that complement your brands value and purpose. Co-branded thought leadership, for example, can build credibility for both parties. Deloitte and Apples collaboration to accelerate enterprise mobility is a good example. The misstep comes when brands partner without clear alignment. 6. Build a human figurehead Nvidias CEO, Jensen Huang, has become a brand asset in his own right. Known for his leather jackets and unscripted keynote style, hes built a followingeven a nickname for his fanswhich is unusual in the world of B2B hardware. His visibility has amplified Nvidias vision while keeping the brand rooted in the community that uses its products. Most B2B leaders arent visible in this way. Either they avoid the spotlight, or they show up only in highly scripted investor calls. Yet charismatic leaders can create strong brand momentum. Marc Benioff, CEO of Salesforce uses his personal platform to advance the companys narrative. Deloitte CEO Joseph Ucuzoglu has also become a recognizable voice on leadership and the future of work. For B2B brands, the takeaway isnt to manufacture celebrity. Its to encourage leaders toshow up authentically, in ways that reflect the brands values and ambitions. Brand is the differentiator From the outside, many B2B products can look more alike than they really are: another chip, another service, another platform. Thats when brand becomes the differentiator. Nvidias rise to the top wasnt just about cutting-edge engineering. It was about confidence: sticking with distinctive assets, claiming ownership of the future, showing up consistently, building meaningful experiences, partnering with intent, and amplifying it all through visible leadership. The lesson for B2B brands is simple. Dont treat brand as decoration. Allow your brand to be vision-led. Nvidia shows that even in categories that seem invisible or interchangeable, brand confidence can drive both growth and value.
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E-Commerce
For years, Mercedes-Benz has relied on touchscreens as the command center of its vehicles. Is it too hot? Tap the screen to set the AC temperature. Want to listen to the news? Tap. Defrost the rear window? Tap, tap, tap. While the automaker has retained some physical controls in its cars, its modern user experience is effectively built around the screen. But that’s about to change. Magnus Östberg, chief software officer for Mercedes-Benz, recently announced that the company would be centering future car design around physical controls instead of screens. “The data shows us physical buttons are better,” Östberg told Autocar at the Munich motor show. He says Mercedes will begin integrating more physical controls into its digitally focused cabins starting in 2026. Mercedes’ announcement is part of a bigger industry trend… with carmakers like Hyundai leading the charge to bring back knobs and buttons to its cars. Earlier this year, fellow German automaker Volkswagen, also announced plans to fix its touchscreen problem, saying that it was “taking a step back to move forward.” After more than a decade of car screens growing bigger and brighter, the auto industry finally seems to be acknowledging what drivers (and science!) has known all along: physical buttons are safer and more pleasant to use. Why automakers went crazy for screens You can partly blame Buick for this mess. The General Motors’ brand introduced the first 3-by-4-inch car touchscreen with the 1986 Buick Riviera. It turned out that drivers found the design distracting and cumbersome, so Buick eventually cancelled it. Still, it serves as an early glimpse of how automakers would eventually come to think about integrating technology into the driver experience. Throughout the ’90s and early 2000s, automakers like BMW and Lexus began to integrate small, low-res screens into their cars to handle functions like navigation. But the touchscreen revolution didn’t happen in earnest until 2012 when Elon Musk installed cheap vertical 17-inch displays in his Model S. The sleek, tech-forward design intrigued other automakers, who realized they could cut costs by reducing the number of expensive physical controls in their cars. And sure enough, lots of car companies followed suit. Throughout the 2010s, touchscreens became the default mode of interaction for carmakers across the price spectrum. But screens were not without their problems. Tesla’s reliance on electronic controls has lead to some high profile issues. The screens themselves started failing, leading to a 158,000-vehicle recall for the company. Drivers, meanwhile, didn’t seem to like touchscreens all that much, and science didn’t either. Evidence began mounting that touchscreens, despite their perceived convenience, were actually not all that helpful. The physical controls of the center console of a third-generation Volvo v70/xc70 [Photo: Volvo] In 2022, Swedish car magazine Vi Bilägare conducted a comprehensive study of 11 modern touchscreen-equipped cars. It found that physical controls dramatically outperform digital interfaces for driver tasks. Its testing revealed that a 17-year-old Volvo V70 with only physical controls allowed drivers to complete essential tasks in just 10 seconds, while modern cars with touchscreens took anywhere from 23.5 seconds to a disastrous 44.9 seconds to accomplish the same functions. But going back to physical controls is not just about convenienceit’s about safety. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration says any distraction that requires drivers to look away from the road even for a second is a potential accident. Touchscreens, by nature, require drivers to take their eyes off the road to navigate through multiple menu layers in order to perform simple tasks that once required an easy-to-find single physical button press or dial twist. As design expert Amber Case says, “Because buttons are not fixed to specific locations, screens inhibit muscle memory and findability. Touchscreens compete for attention with the driving process, adding to the dangers of distracted driving.” Back to basics All this has lead automakers to reconsider their devotion to the screen. In early 2025, Volkswagen announced a significant policy shift, with the company committing to restore physical controls for essential functions across all future models. Design chief Andreas Mindt acknowledged publicly that the company’s touchscreen-heavy strategy had failed users. He said that cars are not phones, so they require a different interface. Hyundai also reversed direction in late 2024, when they reintroduced physical controls with its Ioniq 5. It came after a 2023 epiphany, when its internal testing revealed driver frustration with capacitive controls during critical moments. The Korean automaker’s research showed that touch-only interfaces create anxiety when drivers need imediate access to vehicle functions. I think its great, designer Chris Kernaghan told Fast Company at the time. Im not dismissing touchscreens in cars entirely, [but] there are certain critical controls that are better suited to good old-fashioned buttons and knobs. As a designer, Im all about tactile feedback whenever possible. It just feels natural to push a button and get an immediate response. You dont get that same sense of control with touchscreens. Manufacturers like Toyota, Honda, and Nissan maintained hybrid approaches throughout the touchscreen boom, preserving tactile controls alongside digital displays rather than eliminating buttons entirely. Chinese brands also offer hybrid a touchscreen-physical button UX, although some, like the Xiaomi SU7, provide it with an optional full physical control system that attaches magnetically to the dashboard, under the main display. Trend spotting If I were a cynic (and I am), I would say that Mercedes took these steps mostly because there seems to be a reversal to this useless fad. Plus, regulatory pressure is mounting: Europe’s safety testing organization will penalize vehicles starting in 2026 if they lack physical controls for essential safety systems including climate, signals, emergency features, and driver-assistance functions. But Östberg explained that the companys real-world usage datarevealed by its own cars electronicspointed out that something needed to change. A Mercedes spokesperson told Fast Company that consumer feedback played a role in the shift: “We’ve listened closely to customer feedback and analyzed real-world usage data from our software-defined vehicles. Physical controls offer superior usability and comfort for many drivers.” The spokesperson added, “The rollers and these physical buttons are very important for certain age groups and certain populations.” This may be true, but it’s a strange way to frame a decision that is ultimately about making cars safer for everyone. A solution in progress The solution Mercedes has chosen starts with a redesigned steering wheel featuring “a host of rockers, rollers, and buttons” that will become standard across all Mercedes models going forward. This wheel will be fitted to all car models already on sale, with implementation beginning early next year. Mercedes tells me that the manufacturer is reintroducing tactile elements like a rocker for the limiter and Distronic (its cruise control system) and a roller for volume control. These will all be on the steering wheel. The picture of the wheel shows a lot of buttons crammed in its horizontal axis, like an oversize PlayStation gamepada bit complicated, but definitely better than using the display. Is this the solution to the problem? I always found these types of button-heavy wheel designs problematic. In theory, not having to take your hands away from the steering wheel is good. In practice, I find myself looking down to make sure Im clicking the right button. Or missing the target if I dont look. When asked about usability testing for the new GLC wheel controls, Mercedes told me the new steering wheel had undergone extensive testing as part of its development process, though no specific details about the results were provided. The interior of the new electric GLC [Image: Mercedes-Benz] It’s interesting timing for the announcement. Mercedes has just fitted its new GLC SUV model with what is allegedly the biggest screen ever put in a production car: a 39.1-inch display called an MBUX Hyperscreen. It spans the entire dashboard width. As Mercedes-Benz design chief Gorden Wagener acknowledged to Autocar, the company has reached a point where you cannot make the screen much bigger.” Perhaps the industry’s screen-enlargement race has finally reached its logically absurd conclusion. Mercedes plans to add more physical controls elsewhere in future cabins, though Östberg indicated this will likely be limited to SUVs because “in larger cars we have more freedom to package” and buyers of those vehicles “care more about buttons.” When asked about expanding changes beyond the steering wheel, the Mercedes spokesperson told me the company doesnt disclose details of future portfolios but continually evaluates customer needs and preferences.” Maybe this is indicative that the company is still trying to balance cost considerations with user experience, rather than committing fully to what its own data shows works best. Perhaps its FOMO, as the Chinese industry seems to be fully committed to displays everywhere and companies like BYD are poised to dominate the global car industry. In fact, Östberg hinted that different wheel designs might be used depending on location, explaining that “while Europeans like buttons, Asian drivers prefer more touchscreen and voice controls.” This market-specific strategy suggests Mercedes is prioritizing regional preferences over the safety and usability benefits its own data has uncovered. Can AI fix it? At the same time, Mercedes says it is investing heavily in voice command technology, with Östberg noting that voice command usage in the CLA has “tripled” among Mercedes drivers, calling the increase “phenomenal.” This AI integration could represent the future solution to the buttons-versus-screens dilemma. If voice recognition becomes really good rather than the current Larry David level of accuracy, drivers might eventually interact with their cars through natural conversation. This mirrors the prediction of usability expert Jakob Nielsen, who believes that user interfaces will eventually disappear entirely as AI anticipates user needs. In such a future, the current debate about buttons and screens might be irrelevant. Back in the real world, however, things need to change. More manufacturers should embrace the retur to physical controls, even if it will cost them more to make those cars because of the complex electronics that rolling wheels and buttons require. Mercedes deserves credit for acknowledging the touchscreen problem like its VW colleagues have done and attempting to address a real problem with data-driven solutions. But there is still a way to go before we can say automakers are truly prioritizing drivers’ best interests. What will the cars of the future look like? Right now, the industry seems to be hedging its bets.
Category:
E-Commerce
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