📬 Did someone forward this to you?Sign up here. Tomorrow: Your noisy house doesn’t have to follow you into every work call. I’ll show you the free fix.
It’s a terrific Thursday, friend.Somewhere right now, your nephew is filming himself yelling “smash that like button.” He thinks he's building an empire. YouTube thinks he's an ATM. They take 45 cents of every dollar he earns.
🎬 How many views does a typical YouTuber need to earn $1,000 from ads? A) 5,000, B) 50,000, C) 500,000, D) One, if your cat does something super adorable. Make your guess. The answer is hiding at the bottom like an unpaid brand deal.
🦴 I didn’t want to wait until it got worse: My right knee had a way of getting my attention, especially on stairs and long walks. I wasn’t ready to accept that as my new normal, so my son Ian and I worked with experts to create our own Joint Support formula. Get up to 40% off plus free shipping.** — Kim
TODAY’S DEEP DIVE
Ocean’s Eleven (and then some)
Image: ChatGPT/Kim Komando
I was at a BBQ last month, standing around with a group of people, and somehow we landed on this exact topic. I explained it. Jaws dropped. Nobody at that table had any idea how the internet actually reaches them. By the end you will, and you'll be the one dropping it at your next dinner.
So here goes. This email exists because of a hose at the bottom of the ocean. Not "the cloud." Not satellites beaming your Netflix down from space. The internet is more than 600 cables lying on the ocean floor, stretching over 900,000 miles, carrying nearly every email and stock trade on Earth. Really.
🧵 Splitting hairs
Near shore, cables are armored and buried. In the deep, each cable is about the width of a garden hose. Inside, the fibers are as thin as a human hair.
That hair carries your bank. Roughly $10 trillion in transactions crosses these cables every day. Your paycheck has been to the bottom of the Atlantic more times than Jacques Cousteau.
⚓ Anchors Away
About 200 cable faults happen per year, and boats and anchors cause two-thirds. In late 2024, a cargo ship’s anchor dragged the seabed over 100 miles, cutting two Baltic cables. That’s not an oopsie. That’s a plow.
When a cable breaks, a ship drags up the ends, crews splice them by hand and lower the cable back down in the ocean. The whole planet has about 60 cable ships, less than 20 for repairs.
The internet running your bank and before-bed FaceTime is maintained by a crew smaller than some school districts.
🛰️ Doesn’t Starlink fix this?
Fair question. Short answer: Nope.
More than 10,000 Starlink satellites are up there. When a cable gets cut, they’re a real lifeline. They kept Ukraine online when the wires got bombed.
But a lifeline isn't the main line. Add up every satellite from every company and you get about 50 terabits of data per second. The cables move around 8,750. Do the math and the entire satellite network, every company combined, carries less than 1% of what the cables do. Not the backup. The rounding error.
Here’s the kicker: Even satellites don’t escape the hoses. Those signals have to land somewhere, and the ground stations plug into fiber. The same fiber. Space handles the last few miles. The ocean does the heavy lifting.
It’s downright miraculous that it all runs on a hair inside a hose at the bottom of the sea. World Wide Web? Friend, it’s the World Wide Wet.
🎯 Send this to someone who thinks their photos live in a fluffy white cloud.
Not constantly. Just enough when I climbed stairs, went on a hike or spent a long day on my feet.
For a while, I ignored it because I figured it was part of getting older. But eventually, I started wondering where that road leads.
What I didn’t want was surgery.
So my son Ian and I worked with a team of experts to create our own Joint Support formula, using ingredients we feel good taking ourselves.
I’ll always take collagen for healthy hair, skin, nails and connective tissues. But when it came to my joints, Ian and I wanted something more targeted. That’s why ImproveLife Joint Support has five clinically studied ingredients designed to support cartilage health, mobility, flexibility and everyday joint comfort.**
These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. Individual results may vary.
🎤 PODCAST: THE KIM KOMANDO SHOW
Uber driver saves woman from scam
(Starts at 1:03:31) A woman was about to hand her debit cards to a fake Wells Fargo banker. Until someone came to the rescue and saved her. Her hero? Michael the Uber driver.
Click your favorite podcast player below to listen now or later:
🎧 Or search “Komando” wherever you get your podcasts. I’m everywhere.
WEB WATERCOOLER
🎤 AI encore leaked: Did you ever use Suno, the AI app that makes goofy songs? Your data may be on tour without you. Hackers grabbed the personal info of 55.3 million users: names, addresses, emails, phone numbers, what you bought, even partial card numbers. The break-in happened back in November, almost eight months ago. Suno never told anyone. Reporters found it. So somewhere a hacker is sorting your card digits to a soundtrack of AI yacht rock.
Pirate library fine: Anthropic, the company behind the Claude chatbot, trained its AI on books it pulled from pirate websites. A federal judge made it pay for that. The price: $1.5 billion, split among the authors and publishers it copied, about $3,000 per book across 500,000 books. FYI, I flagged this here before the March 30 claim deadline, because of course I did.
📱 Samsung accessorizes you: Samsung found three new places to charge you money: your pocket, your wrist and your face. At Wednesday's big launch event (paywall), it showed off the Galaxy Z Fold 8 at $1,899, a $2,099 Ultra with a 200MP camera (that no one needs), and the Flip 8, now $100 pricier at $1,199. Watches start at $379, and the $699 Watch Ultra 2 promises 60 hours of battery. Then Google added smart glasses.
Web traffic tanking: When you Google something now, the AI answer sits at the top and you never click through to the actual site. That's gutting the sites that wrote the answer. USA Today's Google traffic dropped nearly 50% in a year. Politico fell 23%, CNN 25%, Business Insider more than 85%. Now publishers are asking (paywall) if they should block Google entirely. Reddit's weighing it too. Our traffic is down a ton to Komando.com, fwiw.
🏰 Designated Disney scroller: Remember the unplugged family vacation? Not at Disneyland. To skip the long lines, families pay $30 to $40 a person for a pass called Lightning Lane. The catch: you only book one ride (paywall link) at a time. Use it, then book the next. So one parent spends the whole day staring at a phone, grabbing ride slots like it's a job, while everyone else rides Space Mountain. Happiest place on Earth, terms and conditions apply. Now you know.
🎤 PODCAST: THE CURRENT POWERED BY KIM KOMANDO
Meet the original voice of GPS
Long before GPS knew where your car was, Roy was the voice guiding drivers. He recorded over 5 million navigation phrases in the ’90s. Now he’s the calming voice at Disney parks. Roy shares hilarious retro tech stories, including weird street names.
Avoid your dentist’s judgment. It blasts away what your brush and floss leave behind. Pick the pressure, from gentle on sensitive gums to full power. Traveling? The rechargeable battery lasts up to 30 days.
Image: Onlyone
🧴 Waste not, want not: Flip-It!’s bottle emptying kit(27% off, $16, two-pack) lets gravity drain your shampoo, lotion and more down to the last drop.
Hotel-level quality: Wrap up in 100% ring-spun cotton bath towels(24% off, $37, four-pack). Warning: Your houseguests might want to steal these.
🚿 Curtain call: Magnets keep this thick shower curtain(24% off, $13) from billowing. The frosted look adds privacy and fights soap scum.
Spot the difference: From mirrors to car windows, a stainless-steel squeegee(23% off, $10) wipes ’em clean. Bonus: two hooks to hang nearby.
Prices and deals were accurate at the time of publication.
DEVICE ADVICE
⚡️ 3-second tech genius: Want to post the perfect lunchtime photo? Open Camera on iPhone or Android and swipe to Portrait. It blurs the background, so your meal, coffee or banana bread really stands out. Remember to get close and use good lighting, so the edges come out nice and clean.
🔐 A credit freeze is so 1990s: A credit freeze won’t stop someone from opening bank accounts, filing fake tax returns or using your info in data breaches. You need real protection that monitors the dark web, leaks and identity threats a freeze can’t touch. I used to have LifeLock, but it got so expensive. That’s why I switched and got more protection for less money. Here’s what I use, and now, get 66% off with my exclusive link.*
Forward several texts at once: Sending someone half a conversation? In Messages, press and hold the first text, tap More in the pop-up, then select the circles beside the others. Hit the curved arrow at the bottom right, add anything extra, choose a recipient and send. Much quicker than copying each message one by one.
🤔 AI needs receipts: I never trust a chatbot’s web answer blindly. Tell it to use “the latest information from reputable outlets” and “avoid rumors or speculation.” Open the links it gives you, press F3 and search for specific words, names, dates or numbers from the answer. More in my free Splash of AI newsletter every Thursday.
Walk away, Windows locks: A quick coffee run can leave your PC and everything on it wide open. Pair your phone over Bluetooth, then go to Settings > Accounts > Sign-in options > Dynamic lock. Once your phone moves out of range, Windows locks automatically. One less thing to remember when you leave your desk.
⌚ Bad news for older Apple Watches: watchOS 27 won’t support anything before Series 9, including the original Ultra. Your watch will still work, but it’ll miss out on the upcoming Siri AI, new gestures and the design refinements. My take? Trade it in while it still has some value, or wait for the Series 12 expected this fall.
WHAT THE TECH?
Image: Dyson
❄️ Only fans
Dyson finally made something for people whose summer commute feels like being microwaved in business casual.
The HushJet Mini Cool is a $99.95 handheld fan that runs for up to 6.5 hours per charge. It’s compact enough for a bag, quiet enough for the office and powerful enough to keep your face from melting into your collar.
Basically, it’s a tiny personal wind tunnel with Dyson branding. It's a breeze to use, a fan favorite, and the only thing this summer giving you the cold shoulder without being a teenager.
What you learned today: The internet runs through garden-hose-size cables on the ocean floor, that Suno leak may have exposed your info, web sites are in trouble and Dyson's pocket fan is tiny salvation from summer sweat. Not bad for one email.
Tomorrow: If your work calls sound like a dog park next to a jackhammer, I found a tool that mutes the chaos and makes your mic sound like a quiet office. Check your inbox.
💰 The answer: C) About 500,000. Yep, that’s the buzzkill. Most YouTubers earn roughly $2 to $3 per 1,000 views after YouTube takes its 45% cut, so clearing $1,000 usually means somewhere around 400,000 to 500,000 views.
Translation: A “viral” million-view video usually brings in $2,000 to $3,000, not a private island and a neon Lamborghini. Be a pal and subscribe to my YouTube channel now. At these rates, I'm about 499,000 views from a sandwich.
And on YouTube Shorts, where pay runs about 3 to 10 cents per 1,000 views, you’d need 10 to 20 MILLION views to make that same grand. That’s why real creators chase sponsorships, not ad pennies.
👩🏼🌾 Why did the dairy farmer start a YouTube channel? He was already an expert at milking content. (lol)
🚶 Don’t wait until it becomes a bigger problem: If your joints occasionally remind you they’re there when you climb stairs, go for a walk or spend a long day on your feet, it may be time to give them a little extra support. That’s exactly why Ian and I created ImproveLife Joint Support. Get up to 40% off plus free shipping.**
Drop a rating below and leave a comment. I read them all.
🌊 The entire internet crosses oceans to reach you. Make the trip worth it. Forward this newsletter to somebody, along with a kind word before you log off. — Kim
Kim Komando • Komando.com • 510+ radio stations • Trusted by millions daily
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Companies and products denoted by an asterisk (*) within this publication are paid sponsors or advertisements. As an Amazon Associate, the publisher earns from qualifying purchases. Statements regarding products denoted by a double asterisk (**) have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration; such products are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. This newsletter is provided for informational and entertainment purposes only and does not constitute legal, financial, medical, or professional advice of any kind. Readers should consult with a qualified professional before making any decisions based on this content. The publisher disclaims all liability for any loss, damage, or injury resulting from the use of or reliance on the information contained herein.
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