Quibi's epic fall and the future of books
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Welcome to the verge cast the flagship podcast of whatever the future of the kindle turns out to be. I'm a friendly with peers, and I am still on vacation. This is the second week that I am out right now.

If you're hearing this on tuesday, I am probably at me with my parents in update, connected at just hanging in out. I'm probably on an inner two in a lake, as everyone should be at some point this summer. Anyway, while i'm gone, we've been doing this little mini pilot season.

I hope you enjoy IT. Last week, we talked about roku and we talked about car play, trying out some new formats and structures for the show. And we're going to do something similar today.

We have two more versions of those same shows. We figured instead of just doing one pilot, we'd try twice. We'd get to learn a lot about how I went.

Maybe we'd be Better out of the second time. Maybe you'd be more familiar. We'd love to hear thoughts.

We're going to try again this time we're onna talk about roku and we're going to talk about e books, both super fund. Very excited free to hear them both. And as I mentioned before, we really, really wanna hear your feedback.

I want to know everything you think about these formats, about these shows, about whether you would like to hear more of them, about whether you hope we never, ever do them again. All of IT. We've been experimenting with this stuff.

We always like trying new formats and new ideas, but we also love what the show is. And we don't want to change IT just for the sake of changing IT. So tell us everything you think about the show, about the formats, about the stuff that we're covering in particular, if you have ideas for what you wanted, see us do on either of those shows and segments.

Please let us know. Verge cast of the verge that come call the hotline. Eight, six, six, verge, one, one.

We went to hear everything. Alright, two more pilots. Let's go. This is the word cast. We will be back.

Support for this show comes from the acu, the acl. You knows exactly what threats a second Donald trump term presents, and they are ready with a battle tested playback. The acu took a legal action against the first trumpet administration four hundred and thirty four times, and they will do IT again to protect immigrants rights, defend reproductive freedom, safeguard free speech in fight for all of our fundamental rates and freedoms. Join the aclu today to help stop the extreme project twenty twenty five agenda. Learn more at aclu dot org.

Welcome back, right? First up today is the second pilot of our rewards show that we're calling version history. So if you didn't listen last week, basically the thing we've been thinking about for a long time is what a tech retouch show might look like if you ever listen to those shows like office ladies or west wing weekly or I don't know any of the million other shows where typically people who were on the show go through the show episode by episode and talk about the behind the scene stories is and what they remember from filming and what they think about that episode.

Now, like it's a good way to sort of relive a thing that you liked, but also learn new things about IT. And we've been trying to figure a way to do that attack there. There are so many old gadgets and so many old apps and so many interesting stories baked into these sort of moments in tech history.

And we even trying to figure out what is a fun way to go back through a lot of that stuff. Talk about where we were, how we got to where we are now, what still matters, the legacy of all these things and all of that. So we kind of cobbled ed together a show based on all of the different stuff that we liked from all the other.

We watch podcasts. And like I said, we have been calling IT version history. Last week, we talked about the rock u netflix player, which is very fun.

And this week we talking about, I would say, A A wilder story that either is more important or less important to the depending on how you look at IT. That's right. It's time to talk about qube.

Big stories told in six to ten minute episode des or quippy me .

up so hello, hello, alecs, hello. How do coming off .

the smashing success .

of our first version history pilot last week, I don't know people might have IT IT on on diction will figure out I want I get back works. We're going to do this again this time with what I would says, everyone's favorite streaming service of all time called crime.

And again, just quick reminder, the way that we're structuring this, we're going to do kind of a brief history lesson ah this one's going to be fun because it's very recent and we all were journalists through the whole run of this. So I think we all covered this in different ways. Then we're going to talk about reviews and how IT was perceived in both as a as a product and a cultural thing.

And then we have some questions we're going to answer about, like what IT was and its legacy in the future. And then at the end, we're going decide if IT belongs in the version history, half fame, all of the prerequisites for which we have not yet decided to be great. Alex, I feel like you should do the cube history. This is near duty or heart in a way that I find very mysterious and strange. So can you tell us the story of quiz as we go here?

I can. I can, because once one of time there is a manding jeffrey cats burg and and he was one of the most powerful man in hollywood. He he's still is.

In two thousand twenty four, one of the most met powerful man in hollywood created three works, which was major studio, and and he wanted to get in on streaming, because at this point, this is twenty eighteen. We know that nbc is got something in the works. We know disney got something in the works.

We know HBO Warner brothers at whatever that mess is, is planning in something apples planning something. Everybody is planning a streaming service. And jeff is like, I I want to to do that too.

But he he knows that he can't just be any streaming service. He knows that he did to do something different to complete with that flicks, and it's not just make good content. So he, he, he thinks of something he cause IT do TV originally back into twenty eighteen, probably a significantly Better name than could be.

He goes, he gets a lot of funding. He wait raises over a billion dollars, one point seven, five billion dollars just pulled in the money. He starts picking a bad in vitoria. I mean, he's really, he's doing good things, but he still has to make a .

product and release the product. Can I tell a story about this time? yes. So I went to a fancy like dinner, a code conference around this time, and I was sitting in just the most unusual group of people that was like, the fat of silent can I hit me? And cats.

And cats is like, i'm thinking about this thing and explain what would become. And I will tell you, my reaction was, oh, no. And I think I matter said, you know youtube exists.

continue on, it's ue. Youtube exists is a useful .

frame for all of what's about to come.

But but you know youtube was made by the tech people. And and what what jeff wanted to do was make something for the rest of for like hollywood, right? Like that was his big deal was he knew hollywood in a way that netflix and youtube and everybody else in.

And so he goes and he gets someone who also knows hollywood, famous hollywood exact, sure. right? Meg whitman on, everybody knows her hollywood .

exact hp and ebay, really too hollywood yeah yeah. If I had to two.

he goes and gets magg, largely because he does need someone in tech. He needs somebody who understands tech. So he goes and he gets magg.

And he, like, you want to be my CEO with me, we'll do IT together. And she's like, help us. And I want to be a fly on the wall in that particular coffee meeting, right? Like that.

This invention of mine. Jeff meg call me with the recordings. I wanted listen to him anyway.

So they come together and they decided release this product. And then we all were all at c twenty twenty. And we know this is coming.

We know it's called quiet. We know they are spending a ton like a billion dollars on content. And they've got theyve got what Steven spielberg, they've got uh Katherine hadwig the'd got all these big actors and actors. Everybody's working on quippy stuff and there's there's some there's some energy around IT and just going to use the word energy because I don't think any additive can describe IT. Wait.

can I also color in the energy for you? So before the C S. In there, which I know I also talk about, they had briefings.

Hollywood, like a Normal company, comes the version like we'd like to tell you our products and mbaru and right about IT. And right, great. Here's one reporter they demanded everyone though, like all of you come seriously like casey newton, who is writing the interface about platforms.

Most was like, i'm going to the qube breathing and I was like, why? And he was like, i'm just excited to see someone talk about building a platform with this much ambition and this much money. And I will never forget he came out of the briefing and he was like, the only thing I got was that they are spending more per minute of video by, like, a thousand than any other reforms ever thought of.

There are like, here's what you do. You open this APP and you watch video on youtube. They get the videos s for free from other people. No, no, no, that's what we're doing. We've taken the fancy director from hollywood and paid the millions of dollars per minute of video, not like that and how you going to and like ads and like the same ads. Yes.

a beautiful moment.

Yeah, they very proudly talked about how they were spending game of thrones level money on like everything that they were doing. And I know you there's a reason it's game of .

throne yeah and you're .

making one about like haunted house flippers at game of drones.

IT was very good. The whole thing was incredible. But that was before C S, like before they were getting the feedback before, just like so the dollars and are big and then the dollars out or small, what's your plant in the back quality?

And and I kind of IT makes sense. Well, good into IT, but IT makes sense, right? Youtube is is basically cable access, T, V. And they're like, what if we put actual, not like actual producers and people who know how to make entertainment on this, instead of everybody just experiment? A certainly a thing, maybe ten years too late anyway, so so they, I announce, could be they have this big event at ce, I know we all got invited, we all went.

And to the briefings I SAT there with, meg whitman had A A document in front of her with my name on IT, my photo and a whole bunch of information about me and you just because, I guess, and they get that right, like their city, it's an Normal way they get prepped. And he just the power move just left IT sitting right between us so I can see IT, oh my god, so good. jeff.

re. E cancer, but just pacing in the room, you were giss then I was IT gess and and came out and and we had the one briefing with with jeff and in meg, and then we had another briefing with the C T. O.

In the CPO, the chief product officer and the chief technology officer in one meeting with like a unto the actors and film liker and Katherine harbor. C was like, I just wanted, like, take control of people's phones so they can see everything I make. And I like, yeah.

me too.

I didn't say that, but I thought that very hard.

We also do this on let A I did IT with actually common and we we wrote our entire like we had, we thought there was a story, and we had been like working on IT because we already had these beauty things, and we throw the whole thing out, actually, that would cats. And we ve got to start off.

Used to know at that moment going to be a bomb.

Yeah, I don't. You can read that story. The answer is yes. So but like IT was also just, the man is very charming. Yes.

he was terrifying and quiet in my interview with them.

Oh yeah. H, H, with us. IT was a full i've i've encountered cator several time. I actually just did an event uh, about digital parenting.

One of the companies is in that student he was there yeah and ah you know he's very charming but this was like full sales pitch cats enberg and you're like this man thinks his energy can overcome reality IT was just like one of the most that we just started our whole story over. We're like this hole. The actual technology has nothing since you.

With this, he definitely approached IT differently with the gizmodo crew. O.

I mean, if you can argue that the theses of his energy can overcome reality, is the whole thesis of quit basically like this thing is probably too late. It's very specific to doing kind of a weird thing that seems to be running against everything the culture is doing. But jeffrey cats burg like that was how this thing was covered at the begin right was like, Jeffery katzenberg doesn't screw up.

He will. He will. Do IT don't bet against jeff re.

Over over. Yes, everybody assumed he was gonna IT. And they bring IT out and they knew was clear that they knew content alone was gonna win this, right? They knew we're late to this.

We have a lot of contempt. That alone is not going to win IT. Because eventually there would be the show about the lady with a golden ARM. And I was a terrible show anyway.

Anyway, our headline was quippy versus as the world. That's where we we came out. We are like, okay, this is actually what we're hearing.

They did one thing there. They're big thing. The big technology innovation here was that I would basically deliver two streams at the same time.

And you'd see you'd see a stream depending on how you turned your phone. So you either see IT in in profile or you'd see IT in landscape. Those were the only two ways to watch IT, and I would change depending on IT.

And some of the filmmakers were really, really excited about this. Other file makers gave two shits and didn't do anything with the format, but most of them did do IT. And and IT went like, I want to say, kind of impressive technology. The technology itself was impressive. Then they finally launched IT during covet, when everyone was at their home.

Can I just remind everyone the road at your phone technology?

Turn table.

or what I was turn style. IT was called turn style .

with .

a why like wild style.

Yeah, but wait with cranes, you just gloss over thing that's very important. So ce twenty twenty happens. Yes, quippy launches April six. Two between those two things. What relatively important world event would you say happens somewhere right in the middle?

Birds of prey? The movie came out and IT was really, really good but also yeah um covered which probably A A lot of us interacted with at that ce then inserted interacting with a whole lot of other people and and we had a worldwide panna mic and this device know quippy was made to be for you on the go IT was the whole pitch was yeah you watch a little bit on your way to work. You watch a little bit on your lunch break while you're at ork.

You watch a little bit on the train on the way home from work. The assumption is that you would be doing a lot of traveling in that time to win from places that didn't happen because we were all at home, because we've locked down because of covered. And this product, which was already late, was charging four ninety nine with ads, seven ninety nine without unless you wear a tea mobile customer, in which case you got IT for free for a brief period of time, but you had to be a tea mobile customer.

That's a choice you can make. And IT was just like the minute ted launched was like, well, know, this is not gonna succeed. The whole reason this exists.

cat's argument, was that everyone knows at home and he'd made a product for watching on the train.

Yeah and so then he scrambled. The panache was like, what we need to now release some sort of, like for the TV version of this APP dead is very dependent on your phone and how you rotate your phone to get the scenes. And that was a real chAllenge. And then he was doing some really wild stuff to get people in the office and get people working on and thinking about an equip itself. I'll remember that.

no.

what was going on? They were just really trying to entice people into work. And and he nei said, like he was really just using the force of being jeffrey katzenberg to get people to try to make this succeeded.

He was like, no, everything is totally fine. Yeah, we're just going through a little blip. It'll be OK. We just need to keep going.

We've all this content, we're working on an APP that we're going to release so that people can watch IT in their homes. It's gonna be fine. It's gonna be fine. IT wasn't fine.

but not fine. Uh, wait, rocket. The one I think important piece of quiet history that you so far, and is the super road commercial.

This is just like not even in my brain .

can I play you the entirety of the super world commercial? Yes, I would like to play IT for you.

What are you a be there equity .

that could be lesson ten minutes. Make stating that point, make state that point.

Quick bites, big stories queen. That's that's the whole super able commercial. Nowhere in there does IT say we made a streaming services.

Nowhere in IT does IT say here is what we're doing. But you do learn that a quip is a quick bite, and a quick bite is less than ten minutes. And that is apparently very important. That was a super bol commercial.

but I made the joke about tiktok earlier. But IT is also true that the thing that happened in the pandemic was people just started opening tiktok all day, all night because I was free. You got quick birth of content.

You could just scroll right on by a lot of the ideas that we're in quip that like LED develop were right there in tiktok. They are the same ideas. People are going to watch video on their phone. We should make IT super easy. The videos should really be .

as short as possible. The differences quippy was paying the people.

I dug up the quote I have IT from jeffrey cattle. Er, they're making content at one hundred dollars a minute. We're making content at one hundred thousand dollars.

And he says that this .

is winning argument in our the reaction in hollywood .

to this was really, really weird at that time, because a lot of the filmmakers and stuff felt that this was him trying to get around by breaking up the films and all the footage into the short bites. Get around paying the actual rates.

get around the union fees, then he's like i'm spending literally ten thousand dollars more than one hundred. That isn't always more than everybody. But weird, just weird. I just saying the money and money out was like .

a real the way that could be ended is still like the part that really gets me because he announced that like that, they are about to be layoff. S IT tells the employees that they play a song .

from the movie troll.

yes, cold, get back up again and he's like, this will make you all feel Better.

Oh, my god. And I did.

Now he is the largest streaming service america. Thank you. I just .

want to, before we get to the actual end, the part where their technical ideas and their user interface and user behavior ideas were correct is actually stunning. They were right about people are onna watch a lot of video on their phones and we should make a shorter and more vertical and maybe they needed to track hollywood and the making vertical video by doing turn sale. But like they were correct about what was about to happen to video on phones. Yes, they were absolutely wrong about the mathematics of those videos and who should make them in, why people would watch them in the all of that stuff.

Yeah, can I just quickly reduce a line from so Chris, well, to review the APP for us, when I first came out, and here's just still aligned from a religion, ed atto me, he says, opening quippy start to off in the four u tab, which uses a vertical car dinner face IT feels more instagram and less netflix caracci. You'll see a shows title meta data. And if you stay on one card for a few seconds, video begins out of playing. That's just it's just tiktok 呀。 IT really is kind of amazing .

how IT to be clear, tiktok was out and it's time conatus or like he's a smart did I also like had .

don't a lot of this specific the idea that vertical video that auto played was gonna a thing was like not surprising. But to its credit, quip was like, yeah, this is this is the thing. We're not gonna go ninety until everybody that the solution is to flip your phone over like except they did did they did IT, they little did little.

They have a pat and on turn style, which is the supply. But like I just wanted, I mean, I have someone could be more than anybody is a dark time be but the thing for a bunch of hollywood executives and mag women til I correctly identify how entertainment would change because of, like, product changes, was wide, they nailed IT, and then they got completely blown up. But not only panic, but their own sense that they could literally increase cost by a thousand and then somehow make IT up on the back and which no one can do.

To be fair, that's what all of the streaming services were doing at that time, right? Like everybody was investing ton of money into to making their own services. So could be was doing the exact same thing as everybody else.

How and what .

does harvey the .

only differences .

they were part of because, like everybody else was establish studio. This wasn't like dream works thing. This was cats burg was like, i'm going to go make my own new company to be at the start of something new and i'll get everybody else involved. And then the pandemic just cut him off at the knees, like, I genuinely think if I had come out in a different time, IT would have lasted at .

least six months longer.

Well, okay, so big.

this this is one of the the big questions I want. I was gonna to you. But let's just do this now.

Is there an alternate time line in which this thing was more successful? Feels like the question of quippy, right? Because when could be die catering? Just a hundred percent blame. The pending is like this.

what to work except of the he ended IT in maybe most noble way of ending a thing so that has raised as he just gave the money back to shape yeah, he was like, i'm not burning the rest your money. This doesn't going to happen. Here's your money back.

Yeah, so there's that. But he did fully blame the pandemic. I do feel like opening the multiple store around COVID. This is just a rough.

a rough game fair. Many different decisions could have been made during that time, yes, but this is the unusual thing that literally lived and died entirely inside of the pandemic, right? Like it's not just that it's fortune changed, its that it's its entire story is actually a pandemic story.

So I i'll just go back to what leaving the door closed. Youtube existed, tiktok existed, the game that they were trying to play had already been won by services that, you know, you can have a lot I have a lot of feelings about the fact these services do not pay very high rates. I think a lot of people holiday.

We have a lot of feelings. In fact, these services do not pay very high rates to the craters kata being like we're going to pay much higher rates and then figure out how to get people to pay for quality. Very noble.

I think no matter what, maybe you get six more months like transit saying they would have run up against the fact that youtube exists and youtube is fundamentally with all these these companies are competing with. And to some extent, tiktok is with. Tiktok is grown as quickly minus the pandemic is the multiverse door that is just like hard to figure out. But hay's snaps from its free full of infinite content versus haters snapped on your from here to pay for its full of some content is at the end of the day, it's like really hard to win that game.

right? And I think even even then, there was an understanding that they were competing against infinite content. But the belief was that, like, we can do IT Better, and Better will win. And cranes, I feel like the thing that we've learned a million times over now is that Better doesn't actually always win.

Not even Better usually win win Better. Like the most, most of the shows that were on quippy, not all a bunch of them were killed. And o gizmodo have like a documentary, I think very child one. A bunch of us had IT. They can we.

paul? That really fast. I went back and was reading a bunch of stuff, and there are like three disclosures and stories that are like, there have been conversations of adverse show on qube me, I I need to know the story.

Uh, so IT was a polygon show. And qube, yes, know could be broke. Its content up into three categories, there was the spotlights, there were quippy, and then there were something called daily essentials.

And they thought daily essentials would be sticky. And this all made sense. Again, none of this was incorrect. You got your halo things.

You ve got the stuff, every watches everyday that makes your products tiki, and then you got, whatever we are garbage to fly. That's how you program anything. So how you don't have a new show about games. And then they wanted to do a tech show, obviously. And so we were like in the mix and like I had to disclose IT constantly that like someone else is having a conversation.

And that thing I keep talking about where I don't live on the business side of our company and I don't tell them what to do and they can tell me what to do, boy, where we just like staring and each other through bullet proof, like like I don't want to waste on this. And that was where that ended. Basically.

did you ever sit in a meeting about what the verge quivi a was going to be .

only on the evokes medic de, never with quippy. What they were like here is our thought. And I was like, weird. You like.

you like.

you are going to like, we give this away for free on our website. Why would anybody watch the sunset be? But I was basically what ended for me. Yeah.

can I read just the names of a few shows that did exist? And these I actually am lifting directly from the CS presentation. So this is not just shows that exists. This is shows that like could be was very excited about, uh, there was the now there was bark tecture. Uh, nightgowns was just a show, but one was called beauty. Sure, there is one called fifty states of fright that was gonna be a whole ethology service that was a horror thing said in a different state for each one for reasons, uh, one was called, don't look deeper, which I was like, uh, and then there was one just called action seen, yeah, just called action scene. The only one I remember watching was the one with one of the he's worth where he was being hunted by Christophe z, that's the only one I I remember.

I liked that one. Yeah, there there is a lot of garbage. I think this is the best way to say IT most. None of that was very good. And and after quick kind started to die, they started selling off a lot of IT, trying to like like broke.

bought a bunch of IT IT.

yeah, roku bought a bunch of IT. And I think IT is telling that none of those shows survived. I think I think that is telling. And part of that is part of that could be part of that was the shows just weren't very good.

Yeah which, by the way, we've talked about this a bunch slogs blow through the review stuff. That thing is, is I would say the main critics, basically there are a lot of people who like. There's some really cool technology here for a one point.

No, APP is actually pretty good. A lot of people agreed with what Chris said about the the tab. People like to turn sale. Fun fact. Yeah, it's me. But overwhelmingly, it's like there's nothing here that is like particularly compelling IT just quippy didn't have like its thing I didn't have the house of cards IT didn't have its like H B O equivalent and just IT needed one winner and I just didn't have IT no Mandarin.

And the interesting .

thing I thought going to what cranes are saying about hollywood is everyone wanted cats is money. No one wanted to bet against cats. But then there were all these like contracts and labor questions about, like, how do you cut to show up like this? And so he absolutely bought everyone's like sea network.

Yes, what's what's the least risky thing that we can sell to this thing? They might blow up, but we don't want to bet against IT. So everyone, everyone made a deal, took the money. But just like very obviously, they were putting up there like sea content. Again.

the golden ARM just go. Google could be gold and arms. Take a minute, google and you'll I get there.

Were there any like underrated winners? And like, do you have any quippy shows that you hold on to like actually was a bank and nobody know. I legally .

remember there was reno nine, one one like equal that was like, that was a nice little diversion. And in the heart football show, and I don't think the Stephen spiller g when ever came out that was the one that was like we heard .

so much about before. Quip was little .

berg's idea, he like, came to them, was like, I hear you doing this stuff. Here's what I want to do. And that was, like, I think the most interesting part of this was listening to all these different filmmakers actually really engaged the technology in a way they haven't with other streaming platforms like even tiktok, they just haven't touch like, oh, there's an actual product here I can fuck with the way they did with could be but then none of IT was successful and they never charted again.

That's right. Right before we get out here, let's let's roll through the the the big questions that we do here on version history. What is the best thing about this thing?

Turn style legit. But if I think it's a fascinating technology.

I kind of a career like I I don't know that IT was a good idea, but IT was. IT was also yeah.

it's just cool. You just look at IT. You like this rips? I don't know if it's gonna.

Yeah, I did you accomplish something? I know. What are you.

David? I just having the best time over here when you talk IT about turn style was awesome. That was the only part .

of IT uh you you can go read the turn style that they had very complicated ideas about, yeah how you should frame a video so you could turn IT inside the airport that's cool in the sense like you know, you like you look at a rob golder machine. You like that very impressive. Like a giant.

There's like videos for people set up a huge amount of dominance. yeah. No, I just want to see and fall down. Like I don't care about .

the millions of hours turn sales brain A S M R. It's just like, yeah, I just want to like, suddenly think about this.

Know what do you think was the best thing .

about going back to what I said? Case's reaction was, if you just remember that period that was like a IT was a dark and boring time in tech in like a particular way and I like, here's this explosive amount, money and new ideas and like we're going to blow IT up and that we can do was just like confidence and cluster. And an enormous amount of cash was actually great.

Like IT IT was a good reminder that you can have a new idea in what contextual, especially the pandemic, was like, not a choice. And so like there's that of IT. But at the same time, like do I don't remember this at that same ces samsung trode ca TV that rotated and like, cats was a serious because like, no idea. I like, no, do you like, all the videos are vertical, but they are reacting to instagram and tiktok like the instill his idea.

can you magine people just getting up and flipping their TV? Like, oh, wonder what this seem .

will look like a little bit. The frame TV you can buy amount for a frame TV that auto rotates IT when you play vertical video on IT. Uh, I have not bought for such amount. I've stared at IT many, many times and then try to bring myself to a place where I think the right thing to do is cast a vertical video to A T, V. That's motoring around.

We're saying an intervention if you ever had reached that place like much.

but like where many generations deep into those products. Now because the companies understand that people are watching vertical video. So I think the the thing about IT was the idea that hollywood would have some bluster here, then that would be a counterbaLance.

And they all got blown up for all the reasons have blown up. And you just haven't seen that. You've just sort of seen hollywood like like follow her instead. And I would like to see some some energy come back very enough.

Alright, what was the worst thing about qube? I have a very strong opinion about this, but I want to know you just think it's the name. There is the me.

As i've said many times on the show, one of my strongest held beliefs is that you cannot overcome a terrible name. Like I honestly IT sounds like a that I believe it's so sincerely ipad, it's it's fine. You can turn like an name into a good.

You cannot turn a terrible thing. I can survive like A C, A C or higher is fine. And but if you if you have an f name, your, it's never coming back OK.

Yeah is an f name is one of the first. I had so much fun ripping on that name. And everything I wrote about that site, like, like, just looking for puns, looking for, is just a horrible.

horrible name. And the fact that they try to make IT that unit of time and IT was just.

you were trying, they were trying way too hard to make, could be happen.

Do you think, do you think that there, like forever pst, the tiktok one, like the cash, a spelling of tiktok?

Yes, I think that I like cash, get IT. They should have gone to her. But like, hey, I help us fix this name but .

I think if if tiktok had come out being like, you know, it's like the closed right guys would have been .

worse yeah if they done a super voll ad where they're like, i'll be there in a tiktok .

yeah exactly yeah maybe the super boat was the worst actually.

Take a back. Super badd was the worst thing. I really just put IT all together.

If you could go back in time and make quiet before somebody else made qube, what would you do differently?

Make IT before twenty.

twenty fair. You know, golden aren't thing is interesting because IT went viral, just not, if you remember this, there was a hollywood APP. IT was like, heavily D, R, M.

You couldn't even screen shot IT, yeah. And at one point they were like, oh, we know people want to scream shot quip. We're going to build this like convoluted system will replace select screens and clips for you to share in the and in technology. Let people do, like let people make means that the one thing I would have changes, like make this thing more social because I was the thing they missed yeah.

I I think that was going to be my answer to is like embrace the other parts of tiktok, right? Which are like let people I think you you probably can't like let people stitching do at stuff like that doesn't feel right, but like let people clip stuff and share clips, let people make memes out of IT like talking.

People share screen shots like they had done so many different things, even just like the way they are licensed content that it's like just blow up the idea of what that means to like be a show even further. And I actually think there's like some really interesting stuff you could do there. Also, I would name IT not quit. I realized .

sam rami directed that the .

golden ARM speaking of sea material.

who he just the .

golden that I ve got a bad rap. There's some, it's in my brain and I don't. I'm going to burn the calories to get IT out.

But it's like there was a joke in some way. And I got d context ized as a joke in the people believing quit. We thought that was serious. And then I became a different kind of.

the actress was like, this was a joke. We were like making fun of people obsessed with, like taking stuff. And instead everybody was like, no, you're got a dumb golden ARM. I will left the golden ARM dumb. It's dumb.

I don't again, it's in there somewhere and you know someone else can google and send to us.

right? We have two more quivi questions. Question or one is, could you read in twenty four could could be post pandemic, post tiktok? Could we do?

Could be now yeah but there would just be friends episodes cut up and put on there but like paid for instead of shadow put up on tiktok.

So it's just tiktok minus the impending copyright loss. Yes, exactly. Me like you're very pensive.

I want to say yes .

really and trying to make the .

case and it's much harder than I thought. Would you know you don't want to be a reflexive? No, you would be really hard to raise the money.

Now could be was a true is erp. You're in straight phenomenon. The content would be easier to get because all the other streamers are kind of fall apart and they want to sell things. But getting people to download an APP that isn't tiktok in twenty twenty four and pay money for IT seems hard.

Do you think the theis that somebody at some point will do a really good high and mostly vertical streaming service is real? I can hardly will somebody eventually make vertical feature film staring Chris prat, that is like good and successful.

Not as long as youtube in tiktok in totally free content exists, right? Like if there's no real clear path to making money back on that, who is gonna invest the money in that?

You know what? I think vertical video I was reading a story about fashion brands wanting things shot on iphone for the add campaign. Sound has a more authentic um which is facing for a million reasons.

I think vertical video is personal in horizontal is hollywood. And I don't think you can cross that APP. That's my guess.

I am watch my answer to know you can do IT I I tried. Let IT be said that i'd really tried and it's it's still not good. Idea up. Youtube still .

exists yeah I I don't know part of me. I mean, like youtube and tiktok are forever trying to find ways to get fatty content and fancy content is forever trying to find ways get the engagement and excitement and user generated the content of those other platforms. And IT does feel like at some point there might be a middle road that makes sense, but maybe it's just the two ends of the spectrum. And actually, every time you tried across the two.

IT doesn't work. You the economics are just super weird, because you, okay, you start making movies for youtube, then you did contracts with the unions, which means, weird, all the people making stuff already for youtube, not getting contracts. And then is an old boy, nobody wants to touch that.

Please let me ask the question. So different tly, will netflix ever make a vertical movie that is just vertical? No.

no, no way. Why not? Because we're going to distribute IT. You're going distribute on phones, only tvs, people. There is no way anyone's going to watch a vertical video on their TV.

But where you have a TV that that turns.

this is IT samsung going to buy the first vertical network .

show with samsung's streaming service called .

that's what it's gonna .

here IT was no milk video. okay。 Last question. Does qube belonging the version history? health? fame?

No, no, no.

You stronger.

And like, I like my bike, my personal hall of fame, just because I was so nuts. Like IT was all the tech media were conspiring to get late. The american .

public IT definitely goes in the good content me itself. But the content about IT was that I was a terrific year.

When we say hall of fame, what do we mean? Because like in a lot of respects, this is a hall of fame, just not like a good product.

In which respects would you say this is again .

for what you said? Like the .

draw ma the drama was yeah the .

trolls hall of fame.

No, there we get a high by holiday is like industry shaking. They're that you remember what life was like before and what life was like act.

So the just goes in a hall fame.

No idea of what a half fame is, very confused.

Here's here's my early idea of what the hall I think IT has to have either been very good, very important or very interesting. And you kind of need at least two of those three things to be in the half of fame. And I think kobe was just interesting that's like IT wasn't important and IT wasn't good.

IT was very interesting. But I feel like IT doesn't quite like move over like i've just of the other failure that comes to mind was like therefore s serranos I think was very interesting and very important um in that like what I meant in the bigger world was a lot more. There is we will probably never be on this show. Let's be clear.

We'll put the gay boy or something in there.

Yes, there will be good things. Someday we will go to those.

The iphone five .

is gonna deeply confusing.

It's going be great. I'm sure about that. This, these are just pilots.

We're just figuring stuff out. I thought that is all right. Thank you both for doing this. To me, this was delighted. If you have an idea for a Better name than qube, tell us and we will bring you back and make are we going to take a break, then we're going to go back. We have more pilots were right back.

Support for the show .

comes from the crucible moments, a podcast from the coia capital. We've all had turning points in our lives where the decisions we make end up having lasting consequences. No one knows this Better than the founders of some of today's most influential, incredible moments. Let's listeners in on the maker break events that defined major companies like dropbox, youtube, Robinson od and more told by the founders themselves.

Tune in to the season two of crucial moments. Today.

you can listen at crucial moments, stop com, or wherever .

you listen to podcasts. All right, we're back. Our second pilot today is the second episode of the, I would say, as yet, untitled verge debate show.

By the way, if you have Better names for either of these shows vary into IT naming things is hard to say that we ve been talking about these names forever. We didn't ended anywhere. We really like, I think the debate show should be called, got to hear both sides.

But not everybody finds out as funny as idea. So if you have name ideas, structural ideas, show ideas, anything hit us up, verge cast the version alcove, call the hotline, eight, six, six. First one, one we love to hear at all.

But anyway, back to the debate. All the idea with this one was basically to just have a mini courtroom on the verge cast. We get into these which thing is Better debates all the time.

Sometimes it's really high stakes stuff about whatever car brands or nokia versus apple. A million years ago, we had like big, long debate about windows phone versus android. There were so many of these things. We've had tiny, tiny, inconsequential debates about which music APP you should listen to. All of this stuff is very fun.

And liam James or producer has been wanting to find a way to structure this for a while and kind of put us in a room, Peters against each other and have us like fight for real about which thing is Better. So that essentially what the show is. Last week we talked to about car play versus the automated kers nei.

And I got, I would say, more heated than either, as expected. I definitely one, but you know, that's neither here or there. This week, the debate about books, print books, digital books, who reads in the future and what do they do IT with? Let's do IT.

Good day. I am liam James, the moderator for today's debate, and my job is to facilitate debate between today's verge cast hosts on the topic of books versus e readers. First up we have alex cranes, deputy editor. Welcome to the debate.

Alex hi. Am so happy to be here and destroy my competition.

First is grants. We have Kevin in our features that are the verge. Welcome.

Kevin.

Thanks for before we get started to like to share the rules for our audience, each person will make their case directly to the verge, cast audience a virtual coin toss will to determine who gets to go first. Following open statements, each host will be given two minutes to answer my questions with an option of up to a minute and rebuttals from the opposing host.

The questions were not sure in advanced, and our hosts may use the internet to confirm factual details, but they use their limited time while doing so. okay. So with rules out of the way, let's move onto the topic for today.

We're going to talk about e books versus printed books. Now e books says we know them today, have been around for decades, believe IT or not. In fact, you can go the way back to the thousand and seven years to get early examples and prototypes of what we now considered to be in ebook.

But I was in two thousand and seven that amazon released the first kindle. And IT kind of revolutionize the whole ebook market. Kindo had wireless connectivity that allowed people to download books directly to the device, simplifying the whole process and making IT something that regular consumers could buy and use and enjoy.

Now since then, tons of other companies have come out with similar devices to the kindle, but it's still a relatively small market compared to actual printed books. So we asked the question, which is Better an e book or a printed book? Now we move on to our opening statements, a virtual coin toss.

Let's see. Cabinet is the visiting person. So he gets to pick heads or tails.

Kevin has see how IT is.

Let's do tails.

tails. Okay, okay.

IT is tales.

Kevin, would you like to go first or second?

Um you know i'm a gentleman. Alex, when you go first.

ah I see how that is. I see how IT .

Kevin wants that. That final word in the closing arguments. okay. And with that, we'll go to our opening statements. Alex, you have two minutes.

okay? Hey, gentle readers at the verge listeners, wonderful human beings. I'm here to talk to you about books and why they rule. Number one, you can put them on anything can do that with a book. Books you have to, like, take with you.

You can only have one, two at a time unless you really strong e books, you can have like dozens depending on the storage of your e reader or phone. Also great about e books. They can be changed at any time.

So you know if if a company says, hey, we need to release an edit for this book because we we mess something up, they can just push that at IT out and then you'll get the the fixed version of that book. And I think that's really great and can never go wrong for anyone. Also, e books are really, really nice because of accessibility.

They're very, very easy to read. They are wonderful phones out there that allow people with this lexie to read a little easier. There are always to make the funds bigger, so people with really bad eyesight can can the text easier.

And you just don't have that kind of flexibility from a traditional book where you usually have to have some sort of magnifying glass and then you have to walk around Carrying a magnifying glass and then everyone judges you because you have a magnifying glass. And I think you'd want to avoid that most of the time. And you can with something like the book's palmer or the kindle, you know any of them, or the libra from cobo, a lot of different companies make really, really nice eaters.

They have really, really nice displays. They have really, really good features in them. Again, they give you that flexibility.

And I think that's what's most important about e books is the flexibility they provide you. How much longer do I go? I didn't look when I started.

You had eleven seconds left.

But and in conclusion, e books rule. Regular books are fine. Thank you for your time.

Okay, Kevin.

what's say you? Well, it's going to no, I feel like i'm being a cast as a ludi by my opponent. And I would say I do think e books, uh, are an interesting technology.

You know, I own a books poma like half of the verge staff now and soul start with some concessions. E books are faster. Sometimes they are cheaper.

We will talk about that leader um and they are great for accessibility, especially for the visually impaired. That said, um the book, the print book is an old and near perfect technology. It's inexpensive, it's durable, it's sharing. It's also accessible in a very different way. No technology, no modern technology needed, no software necessary, no updates.

And also in a time when we're being not just in books but across all the media, we consume video games, TV, film, music, a little more skeptical of our platforms and what kind of access will have to our media in the future. Print books give you that access forever. Owning a library of your own physical books means you'll be able to read them in opportunity to sell them, to share them with friends um to get rid of them if you want.

Uh that's a kind of freedom that is not offered by most of the ways we redish. I think most importantly, I think reading is about being deliberate. Reading is not about reading as much or consuming as much as you can as quickly as possible. I think reading, good reading is about good habits and discipline.

A print book is isolated from the rest of things on your phone, and that's what makes the reading experience so powerful, meaning that when you read, you'll be more focus and hopefully more patient, and you'll just taken more ideas, you will have more enjoyment out of what you're consuming. Maybe you even think about IT outside of consumption itself. You artist meant to be experienced.

I also think books allow you to be very deliberate with your time. The physical presence of a broken on your night stand is a reminder of what you're reading and what you've decided to spend your time with. I also think being deliberate about what we choose to spend our time with is important too.

We all know that amazon's monopoly I is in e books. And I think every publisher and author and bookstore would probably say that, that is not great for the ecosystem. You know, if you listener don't believe in monopoly, uh, I think you have some skepticism about how much you buy from amazon. There's also a whole ecosystem of independent bookstores that cell print books ah that support .

authors as well. And that is your time.

Yeah, i'm ready.

Kevin. You will have an opportunity to finish that thought with your first question. However, our first question goes to alex grants alex in your opening stability.

You mention the ability to Carry more books with you than as possible with print books. This reminds me of the ipod. But in that category, music is very much moved into the digital rm. Why having books been able to do the same?

You know, that monopoly Kevin mentioned, I I think that doesn't actually have a lot to do with that. I think e books are not consumed the same way that music is consumed. And so people are much more as Kevin, that deliberate with their choices.

And there have been very, very few options for them historically, right? Historical IT was Barnes and noble and amazon, and they both kept a very, very tight control over their ebook marketplaces that has become to change in the last few years, also coinciding with a rise in reading of e books and a rise in the sales of e reading devices. So I think things are changing due to companies like cobo, due to choices like libby, which allowed you to check out a books from your library.

Kevin, you mentioned in your opening statement that books are a near perfect technology. But as we look towards Younger generations, IT seems like books have fAllen off as a form of media and entertainment and pleasure. What is the publishing industry need to do to solve that problem?

Yeah, I actually don't think there's a lot of evidence to say that you know genie is like actually reading less. It's just the format that they're reading in and onesta with rumors however they want to read. That's great with I still think reading just a greater way to access the a deeper level of idea and thought, then you know maybe consuming a lot of youtube content.

But I think its publishers just need to think about what like Younger readers actually are interested in. I think the industry itself is run by a lot of like much older people that don't understand the youth. So I think just understanding the trends and what Young people are actually interested in in publishing books around those topic areas is probably the wait place to start because I actually don't think the resistance a to reading has anything to do with works themselves. But what publishers are choosing to put out .

in the landscape a quants opportunity to respond yeah.

I think Kevin's wrong and that the youth aren't reading as much because they want to read on their phones. Now that's not true. We're like you look at tiktok, you look at book talk and there is a lot of reading of actual physical books there, but they're also really, really pretty.

And they'll show you just the paperwork. They'll never show you the spine, but but they want to show those books off. However, the majority of people are not tiktok creators.

They're just people living in their home, particularly jensie, and they enjoy reading other ways, right? The phone is the center point of their technological universe and having those opportunities, they are, are really, really important. But I do agree that there has been a struggle due to the fact amazon that's it's all amazon's fault.

We're actually going to end up .

an agreement here. Yes, we're not be like actually both are great.

Amazon's the real villain. okay. Cant, the next question is for you. I want to stick on book sales for a moon here. One of the more harsh criticisms that is perennial to e books is the cost of them that they are often times, if not usually, cheaper than their printed counterparts. Apple notoriously polluted with other book publishers to try to raise the cost of e books when they introduced their own digital book platform. Do you think authors are getting the short end of the stick when consumers buy e books depends on they are publisher.

honest, sly. I think authors are are highly dependent on their publishers and the deals they make with their publishers. Both Kevin irr publish authors Kevin with his name me under a sun, because IT was a romance novel.

And what you find out is that, that you can make a lot of money through digital sales. And we've seen really good examples of that, usually involving a person boning some sort of sant dinosaur or sign. But you know, IT happens. It's out there. And the worst part of this is that I think the publishers are still getting in the way and taking a significant cut and trying to make sure that the cut that the others receive, the e books, is the same as via traditional print, despite the fact that traditional print has a much higher cost.

Have in a chance to respond .

yeah i'd like to respond. This is strange because actually in some ways I think i'll be citing with cranes on this. But ebook realities are actually by percentage uh higher for authors. Um then they are in the print book space for hard covering.

E book usually mess out about the same, but when you get a paper back, you know selling an e book verses a paper back actually gets a lot more for the author on a pre unit level. But I actually don't think publishers are the villa here. They do a lot to protect. I think you know, apple and P, R age did clue to raise the cost of books, but IT was like to protect the, you know, an existing infrastructure of cost that was being driven down by the digital marketplace, by amazon. So publishers do understand that like when their healthy authors are healthy too, and they do a lot more to protect the interest of authors than amazon.

so say a fault.

amazon's s fault.

okay. Moving on to the more of the technology side of these of these two technologies. The next question is for you, Kevin, what a books provide to the reader that e books cannot?

I'm not sure if they provide something that the e book doesn't, but I do think the experience of reading a print book is much richer. I actually think, you know, we talked earlier about how Young people, but I actually think everyone has struggles with this. Like I think we all wish we read more.

I think we wish we have time to read more. I think we wish we had the patients and space to read more. And I think the print book gives you that space more so than reading off your phone or a device or something that can do many things.

I know we have talked a little bit about eating devices or dedicated digital reading devices. Some of them are very good. Um but I just think the focus even to just choose one book and stick with IT is a very powerful thing of print device. A print book does that a device doesn't give you with the device just gives you too much choice and it's just kind of you don't want the same feeling of scrolling netflix x endlessly when you're trying to read a book crance.

Instead of giving you a chance to respond to ask you a similar question, e books provide many features on top of the reading experience. Some of these could be criticized as distractions. Some of them could be described as providing new ways to help readers understand or gain knowledge about what writers are talking about, what is essential to you as an ebook reader in terms of these features, what is the the minimum required first.

I am happy to answer that question, but i'm going to take five seconds to respond to Kevin. And one thin books provide that. E books.

Stone is paper cuts. So take that, Kevin. I've never got to.

You often never .

got a paper cut from my book's pala that i've had for two days, but I ve gotten a paper cut from is a year book in my childhood bedroom. IT sucks. Anyway, that was more than five seconds.

But what really matters about e books is, is the flexibility. I think that flexibility is so, so, so, so crucial to e readers. And that ability to be able to switch for me, it's also I read really, really quickly and I tend to read one book at a time like that.

The focus problem that Kevin is disgust, I don't have myself. And so I like to read a book and then just move on to the next one. And I hate having to wait because I want everything now.

And the fact that I get instant access with an e radar and I don't have to worry about, is somebody going to deliver IT to my doorstep? Do I need to go down to the bookstore to buy IT? I can just have IT and often times while still paying an independent bookstore and making sure they get to cut up the profit. Uh, is just something really rewarding about the e book and digital books in general, right? And IT doesn't give you paper cuts, Kevin.

a chance to respond. I just want say.

I don't think i've ever gotten a paper cut from reading a book.

You're going to now .

I think you need to .

be reading more of those like really big like table top box you do with the super thick pages. You'll be get of paper cuts. That tyana one I had when fith grade. Oh my god, all over my fingers.

No response .

there. And our final question for you, Kevin, while doing the research for this episode, de, one of the things I saw that came up more often than not for the side for printed books is the experience of marginal. I know that e books have this ability now, but many people that I read opinions of thought that it's just nothing in the just not even close.

It's an order of magnitude uh, different to them. Do you think marginally is important? Is that something as a reader you participate in? And do you think that is part of what makes the book on your perfect technology?

Yeah I mean, the marginalia in an e book reading experience is when that just imitated from the book, right? So I don't think it's her pass as IT unless you feel very strongly about your highlights sinking to the cloud, in which case I would cheat to redirect ally then. But no, I think writing in the margins highlighting, I think those physical acts actually help in terms of helping you synthesize and remember things that you're experiencing.

My issue with breeding on electronic devices is that the advantage of them is that they are frictionless. But I actually think friction is a good thing when you're taking an art, when you're taking in information, when you're trying to learn, when you trying to remember things. Writing in the margins is just a great way actually to remember things.

It's why you take notes in school. It's not just so you can further them later because he does something to your brain that helps you process IT. And I think that experience isn't quite replicated in e reading um as IT is in a print book that said, i'm someone that writes really stupid things in the margin. So i'll revisit some of my books and I just read l well.

can I respond?

Yes.

okay, my respond. Where are you writing in your books? Give a new book, everybody just go get a new book, put a little page number down. Do the librarians and booksellers in your lives of favor don't go writing in your books? That's just that does not even an argument. I'm i'm just upset everyone's are writing in their books to the point that we have a whole word described for IT is now a feature on a kindle.

okay. fascinating. P, O, V. From you both. It's time out to move on to closing statements. And at first we have alex grants.

Yeah I think I could just say e books rule and regular books really I think that would be like a really evocative statement here because e books do rule. And like, if H E book is right, it's fine. You just dry IT off.

You buy a new era tor. You still have all your books. You leave your copy of king Arthur the around nights of the round table out on the the porch, and h IT gets totally soaked in.

Then twenty years later you're like, fire. My page is all weird. That sucks. That's why books suck compared to eight books.

But really the truth of IT is is that even though e books are, I think, substantially Better in a market improvement over the regular dior book, what's really, really nice about them is that they provide for a lot of people, everyone who says that they make you ill or sick or something like that is generally proven to just be like a Normal book nerd. And uh, you can technically write in the marginalia. Is that what is called? You can write in your books on an a book, but you shouldn't.

And you can just go get a notebook and you can just write an IT like a five star binder. You get yourself a trapper er keeper, you write all your notes in there, you can organize them and a look beautiful, you put little stickers on IT. I think that is really, really crucial.

And you can do that with both books and e books. But ultimately they I just think that e books are a really, really powerful new medium that provides opportunities for a lot of people that might, not others otherwise. How the opportunities or access to libraries which are in endanger species in the united states. So support you a public library, go check out some books, e books specifically, and that's why e books are the best.

And note for our listeners that we're born in the twenty first century. A trapper keeper is a fancy banner from the, or I believe, the early nineties, that had a favorite covering and a zipper.

And there .

unicorns, packets, all kinds of things. All right, Kevin.

I don't think i'm to reach the kind of person who thinks only about efficiency. It's true. The e book is a more efficient form of a book, whatever that means. I'm here appealed to the reader who doesn't think of books as merely contents. I want to speech to the person that sees not just the value of books as a medium, but also wants to see a future we're making.

Books is healthy and sustainable because those of the conditions I think we should hope for, for all artists, writers and creative people to say otherwise, is to wish for a future where a large hydrology press smashes everything violent into an ipad. I'm an author. Cant is an author.

Many of our friends or authors, a fiction of non fiction. And for the friends that are little craig of poetry, not one of them would prefer you read their work as an ebo insider print, no editor, no publisher. We prefer you read the digital version.

Every independent bookstore can use your business, and you should shop there unless you want a future. That's just amazon. And for the folks out there who want to save a few books, because imagination is that the e book is less expensive, I think that's the logic of a cheap person. It's the same kind of argument that leads people to leave bad tips at restaurants, because the core of that argument is entitlement and a lack appreciation of understanding of what doesn't making the things you enjoy. In this moment where A I threats creative industries, I would chAllenge us to think about the people who make the art we enjoy, chAllenge us and make us think .

differently. Thank you. You waited until the end to .

call me out like that.

Well, I don't even have a robot.

I just rage only a .

minute and twenty six seconds to that was impressive.

Like, I don't care about winning this debate. I just want people to think alex cranes a bad tipper. Which isn't even true.

I'm going to get so much hate now for tip in five percent IT was one time. Guys.

what time? OK verd castle listener's.

What do you think did grants make the case for e books? Or with Kevin write about the perfect technology that is printed books. Let us know what you think by calling eight, six, six verge one one, or email us at verge cast at the verge dot com, and let us know what you think in this format, what other topics you'd like us to debate.

There's a whole lot more stuff from this conversation at the verge come. We will put some links, the shown notes, but also read the verge to com. It's great only .

found in e books.

right? We got to take one more break and then we're going to do a question from the verge has hot line.

When IT comes to S M B marketing, reaching the right small and medium size businesses can be chAllenging into IT. S M B media labs gives you the power to do more by connecting with the small businesses that need you most with access to an audience of thirty six million, you can target effectively and at scale.

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learn more and media labs that into IT not come.

Right, right back. Let's get to the hot line. As always, the number is eight, six, six, verge one one.

The email is ast at the virtual com. We love all your questions, and we try to answer at least one on the show every single week. This week we have one of my favorite questions on a while. I don't play favorite tes, but this is my favorite to Better .

be three players average. Guess this is anonymous from Sandy ago, california. I have a question that I can't really figure out if there's a modern solution to, maybe you can help out with.

I work in the military and there are certain aspects of my job that we're not allowed to have know blue too. They were not allowed to have cameras. And so therefore a while I had to Carry the light phone too, because there was no camera on IT, so I could use IT where I was working.

But the thing that gets me is heavy music that I can Carry around with me and not have some sort of external attachment, whether that be blue to the wifi. And i'm just wondering, is there any other solution other than buying an old, old ipod of the ebay and using them? Is there no modern solution? Because he seems to be that everything has blue tooth or wifi.

And what are looking for is just strict M P three player that has headphones out, like a three and half millimeter headphones out, like no blue tu, no wifi, something I have to either load on A S D. Carter, maybe put you in my computer to add the music. But I was just wondering, maybe somebody somewhere inside your place of business as an answer or a fix, if I ever hear from back, hear back from you, I would be super expanding to see which guys come up with. Thanks, I little guys.

okay. So everyone cent a while. We get a question on the verge cast hot line that sends somewhere between one and all of us, just deep down a rabbit hall this time that happened to our produce.

Andrew. Now, hi Andrew. Hi David. So what do you find this time?

okay. So yeah, this was actually kind of hard, like a lot of the stuff is connected to the internet. You have to use blue tooth to connect to a um SONY still makes Walkers and a lot of them are very high and they're basically an android phone. It's like having enjoyed on the touch screen that's all connected to internet, but they do make one walking in for eighty dollars IT looks like an ipod nano. okay.

Can I just cripple with out for just a quick second? Just held up to cameras. And what I would say is like if you imagine an ipod nano, but like the ipod nano, you would find like on tmo or like if you searched on on alibi express, like it's it's a real like we have ipod nano at home kind of situation, at least from what I can tell.

Yes, there's an ipod nano without a school wheel. It's yeah.

okay, yeah, that's first.

Yes, SONY still makes a like a walkman M P, three player. What is great about IT? IT is not connected to the internet.

IT does not have blue truth. IT is exactly what this person wants. IT has only a gig bites of memory on IT.

Not a lot, but you know, that's enough to swap a bunch stuff out. I was easily able to just plug this right into my mac, drop songs into IT like a flash drive. And IT showed up immediately on the M.

P. Three player. I brought IT over to a PC, plugged IT into a PC something showed up.

Drop a song into IT like a thumb drive, and IT showed up on the player. IT works, just IT works. great. I think .

there's a catch coming here. What what is the catch?

This actually not a huge catch. IT doesn't .

sound amazing. okay. I'm actually like surprised how easiest is to get one.

Now it's eighty dollars. You can get one on amazon. You get one on sonny's website. IT has microware .

b just there's a catch.

Yeah um I would also like to note that has an FM radio in IT. So when you plug in your headphones, your help phone's act as a little on tana. You can listen to the radio and I think that's just a beautiful .

thing that's cool. And he has a head for jack, which seems very help from jack yeah okay it's a what what is the full name of this thing? Assuming it's some insane hacky d nonsense like something likes to do?

IT is the N W E three nine four walkman digital music player. That is the .

fake of sounding that never heard of. Okay, so this is, this is good news. This thing exists. I was thinking we were going to end up down the road of lake moving and ipod classic, which is the thing i've seen a bunch of people doing recently. You can actually get IT to run sort of one specific APP or just get IT to connect Better to modern computers. I thought that might be the answer, but this is like you're telling me, there is at least one half decent dedicated offline music device that exists in the world still yeah.

totally this this will do IT if other people are looking for something like this, but can use blue tooth, the mighty player is like another good option to remember that one.

That was the one that was meant for spotify specifically.

right? Sinks with your spotify .

shuffle looking thing. Yeah, yes. OK.

IT uses the internet to sink in blue tube to think, but IT doesn't use the internet while you're actually using IT disconnected k um so that is a fun option uh, if you can do the but yeah the SONY one, no book tooth, no a wifi, you all set to go. It's like a thumb drive with a screen .

on IT that that feels like sort of magical now that you can just play a thing and drugs and p files and like that. IT is yeah, I will say that is kind of od that SONY is making this thing as a low end device because you would think the people who might also the people who the kind of high rez, super high fidelity audio that you're talking about to make IT as kind of an entry level device is a little surprising. I onder of so many imagine this is like mostly a thing for kids yeah instead of you know super or music.

That's probably right um maybe for people who work on military bases. We don't know.

I mean, listen, there's a lot of about there are well, no reasonable person should be required to remember that bottle name. So we'll pull, put the link in the shots. But Andrew, you you did.

This is like the most successful ly, we've ever answered a hot line question. This is great. We just found the thing.

Happy to help anonymous. I hope that helps. Let us know how you feel about you.

You're cool, new SONY walk, man. Andrew. Thank you. As always.

Thank you. Sorry, that's IT for the .

verge test today. Thank you to everybody who came on the show, and thank you as always for listening. There's lots more on everything.

We talked about tons of quippy coverage, the virtual alive during quip, unlike the roof netflix player a million years ago. So we have cover of the whole life of that company. And IT is wild to read introspect, plus lots of stuff on eating devices and lots of stuff on books, tons of stuff.

Check out the verse I com. We'll put themselves in the show notes, but as always, read the site again. That remains a very, very, very easy summer.

So keep IT locked. This shows produced by Andrew o liam James and will poor the verge cast is verge production in part of the box media podcast twor k. Nei, alex and the again will be back on friday to talk about whatever news is going on.

I'm on vacation, so I don't really have to worry about IT for right now, but there's not going on. I will miss them terribly and is talking about the news. They're going to be back lock to cover. I'll see you next week. Rock roll.

Hey, it's lee from decoder with neither top. We spent a lot of time talking about some of the most important people in taking business about what they're putting resources to and why do they think it's so critical for the future. That's why we're doing the special series diving in to some of the most unique ways companies are spending money today.

For instance, what does that mean to start buying and using A I at work? How much is that costing companies? What products are they buying? And most importantly, what are they doing with IT and of course, podcasts? Yes, the thing you listened to right now, well, it's increasingly being produced directly by companies like venture capital, investment funds and a new crop of creators who one day want to be investors themselves.

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