Quibi's epic fall and the future of books

28:18Yeah. It was Steven Spielberg's idea. He like came to them was like, I hear you're 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 engage with the technology in a way they haven't with other streaming platforms. Like even TikTok, they just haven't touched like, oh, there's an actual product here I can fuck with the way they did with Quibi. But then none of it was successful and they never tried it again. That sounds about right. All right. Before we get out of here, let's roll through the big questions that we do here on Version History.

28:49What was the best thing about this thing? Turnstile. Legit. I think it's a fascinating technology. I kind of agree. Like, I don't know that it was a good idea, but it was awesome. Yeah, it was just cool. You just look at it and you're like, this rips. I don't know if it's going to work. Yeah, like, did it accomplish anything? I don't know. What are you two talking about? David and I are just having the best time over here. What are you talking about? Turnstile was awesome. That was the only part of it. You can go read the Turnstile pattern. They had very complicated ideas about how you should frame a video so you could turn it inside the viewport.

29:27That's cool in the sense that, like, you know, you look at a Rube Goldberg machine. You're like, that's very impressive. Or like a giant, you know, those, like, videos where people have set up a huge amount of dominoes. Yeah. And you're like, I just want to see them fall down. Like, I don't care about the millions of hours you spent setting them up. turnstile is brain ASMR. It's just like, yeah. I just want to like soothingly think about this. Neil, what do you think was the best thing about Quibi? Going back to what I said Casey's reaction was, if you just remember that period, that was like, it was a dark and boring time in tech in like a particular way.

30:01And like, here's this explosive amount of money and new ideas. And like, we're going to blow it up in the, we can do it with just like confidence and bluster and an enormous amount of cash was actually great. Like it was a good reminder that you can have a new idea. And what contextually, especially through the pandemic, was like not a choice. And so like there's that of it. But at the same time, like I don't even remember this. At that same CES, Samsung introduced a TV that rotated. And like Katz was like furious at it because he was like, They stole my idea. And I was like, no, dude, like all the videos are vertical.

30:42Yeah. But they are reacting to Instagram and TikTok. Like they didn't steal Quibi's idea. Can you imagine people just getting up and flipping their TV? Like, oh, I wonder what this scene will look like this way. I mean, they still have it. The frame TV, you can buy a mount for a frame TV that auto rotates it when you play vertical video on it. I have not bought such a mount. I've stared at it many, many times and then tried to bring myself to a place where I think the right thing to do is cast a vertical video to a TV that's motoring around. We're staging an intervention if you ever reach that place like emotionally.

31:16I'm like this close to you. But like we're many generations deep into those products now because the companies understand that people are watching vertical video. So I think the thing about it was the idea that Hollywood would have some bluster here and that would be a counterbalance. And it all got blown up for all the reasons it got blown up. And you just haven't seen that. You've just sort of seen Hollywood like fall over instead. And I would like to see some energy come back. Fair enough. All right. What was the worst thing about Quibi? I have a very strong opinion about this, but I want to know what you guys think.

31:48It's the name. It's got to be the name. There we go. It's the name. As I've said many times on this show, one of my strongest held beliefs is that you cannot overcome a terrible name. Like I honestly, it sounds like a bit. I believe it so sincerely. I don't know, man. ipad it's it's fine you can turn like a name into a good name you cannot turn a terrible name i can't survive like a c a c or higher is fine but if you if you have an f name you're it's never coming back okay yeah i agree with you quibi is an f name quibi is one of the worst i had so much fun ripping on that name and everything i wrote about that site like like just looking for puns looking for it's just a horrible horrible name and the fact that they tried to make it that unit of time in the like awful like it was just you were trying to they were trying way too hard to make quibi happen do you think do you think that they're like forever pissed that tiktok won like the kesha spelling of tiktok yes i think that like kesha gets it they should have gone to her and been like hey help us fix this name but i think if if tiktok had come out being like you know it's like the clock does right guys it would have been worse yeah if they'd done a super bowl ad where they're like i'll be there in a tiktok like yeah exactly yeah maybe the super bowl ad was the worst yeah actually take it back super bowl ad was the worst thing it really just put it all together if you could go back in time and make quibi before somebody else made quibi what would you do differently make it before 2020 fair you know that golden arm thing is really interesting because it went viral just not on Quibi if you remember this they they it was a Hollywood app it was like heavily DRM you couldn't even screenshot it yeah uh and at one point they were like oh we know people want to screenshot Quibi we're gonna build this like convoluted system where we pre-select screens and clips for you to share in the and it's like no to just let people do like let people make memes that's the one thing I would have changed is like make this thing more social because that was the thing that he missed yeah i agree i think that was going to be my answer too is like embrace the other parts of tiktok right which are like let people i think you you probably can't like let people stitch and duet stuff like that doesn't feel right but like let people clip stuff and share clips let people make memes out of it like you're talking about let people share screenshots like they had done so many different things even just with like the way they licensed content that And it's like, just blow up the idea of what it means to be a show even further.

34:17And I actually think there's some really interesting stuff you could do there. Also, I would name it not Quibi. I realize Sam Raimi directed that. The Golden Arm? Speaking of sea material. I feel like the Golden Arm gets a bad rap. It's in my brain. I'm not going to burn the calories to get it out. But it was a joke in some way. and it got decontextualized as a joke into people believing Quibi thought it was serious and then it became a different kind of joke? The actress was like, this was a joke. We were like making fun of people obsessed with like tech and stuff. And instead everybody was like, nope, you got a dumb golden arm.

34:52I'm gonna laugh at the golden arm, dumb. It's dumb. I don't, again, it's in there somewhere. And I, you know, someone else can Google it and send it to us. All right, we have two more Quibi questions. Question number one is, could you reboot it in 2024? for. Could Quibi, post-pandemic, post-TikTok, could we do Quibi now? Yeah, but they 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 lawsuits, basically. Yeah, exactly. Neelah, you're very pensive. I want to say yes. Really? Yeah. I'm trying to make the case, and it's much harder than I thought it would be.

35:32You know, you don't want to be a reflexive no. it would be really hard to raise the money now quibi was a true zerp uh zero straight phenomenon the content would be easier to get because all the other streamers are kind of falling apart and they want to sell things but getting people to download an app that isn't tiktok in 2024 and pay money for it seems hard do you think the thesis that somebody at some point will do a really good high-end mostly vertical streaming service is real like can holly will somebody eventually make a vertical feature film starring Chris Pratt that is like good and successful?

36:09Not as long as YouTube and TikTok and totally free content exists, right? Like if there's no real clear path to making money back on that, who is going to invest the money in that? You know what? I think vertical video, I was reading a story about fashion brands wanting things shot on iPhones for their ad campaigns now because it's more authentic, uh which is fascinating for a million reasons i think vertical video is personal and horizontal is hollywood and i don't think you can cross that gap that's that's just my that's my guess i i i'm switching my answer to no you can't do it i try i tried let it be said that i really tried and it's still it's still not good idea youtube still exists yeah i i don't know part of me wonders i I mean, like YouTube and TikTok are forever trying to find ways to get fancy content.

37:02And fancy content is forever trying to find ways to get the engagement and excitement and user generated content of those other platforms. And it does feel like at some point there might be a middle ground that makes sense. But maybe it's just the two ends of the spectrum. And actually, every time you try to cross the two, it doesn't work. The economics are just super weird because, OK, you start making movies for YouTube. then you need contracts with the unions, which means why aren't all the people making stuff already for YouTube not getting contracts? And then it's like, oh boy, nobody wants to touch that.

37:35Okay, well then let me ask the question slightly differently. Will Netflix ever make a vertical movie that is just vertical? No. No? No way. Why not? Because where are you going to distribute it? You're going to distribute it on phones only? On Netflix. Not TVs? There's no way anyone's going to watch a vertical video on their TV. But what if you have a TV that turns? This is it. Samsung's going to buy the first vertical Netflix show. Wait, what's Samsung's streaming service called? That's where it's going to appear. It was called Milk Video.

38:09All right. Okay, last question. Does Quibi belong in the Virgin History Hall of Fame? No, no, no, no, no, no. I feel a strong reaction for P-Line. Absolutely not. I'm sorry. It's like my personal Hall of Fame, just because it was so nuts. Like it was all of tech and media were conspiring to gaslight the American public. It definitely goes in the good content Hall of Fame. Not itself, but the content about it was it was it 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 Famer, just not like a good product. In which respects would you say this is a Hall of Famer?

38:51Again, from what you said, like the drama. The drama was beautiful. Like the clown Hall of Fame? Yeah. The trolls Hall of Fame? No. No, no, no. We got a high bar. The Hall of Fame is like an industry shaking. You remember what life was like before and what life was like after. So the juicero goes in the Hall of Fame. No, your idea of what a Hall of Fame is is very confusing. Here's my early idea for the Hall of Fame. 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 Hall of Fame. And I think Quibi was just interesting.

39:29That's fair. 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 just, I don't know, the other failure that comes to mind was, like, Theranos. Theranos, I think, was very interesting and very important in that what it meant in the bigger world was a lot more than just quickly. This Hall of Fame sucks. Theranos will probably never be on this show, let's be clear. We'll put the Game Boy or something in there, yeah. There will be good things someday. We'll get to those. The iPhone 5 is going to go in there. This is a deeply confusing Hall of Fame.

40:04It's going to be great. I'm excited about it. Listen, these are just pilots. We're just figuring stuff out here. That's all it is. All right. Thank you both for doing this with me. This was delightful. If you have an idea for a better name than Quibi, tell us and we'll bring it back. It'll be amazing. All right, we got to take a break. Then we're going to go back. We have more pilots. We'll be right back.

40:32Sometimes the difference between success and failure comes down to one chance encounter or following a counterintuitive instinct or ignoring conventional wisdom to make a bold decision. Like when the founders at Palo Alto Networks wanted to redefine cybersecurity for the modern age. Everybody thought we were crazy. Nobody would use the cloud for cybersecurity. Or when mobile gaming giant Supercell could only rewrite the rules of the industry after failure in the company's formative stages. Many of the best things we've learned have actually come through failures. These are all examples of Crucible Moments, turning points in a company's journey that made them what they are today.

41:14Hosted by Sequoia Capital's Rolafota, Crucible Moments is back for a new season with stories from Zipline, Stripe, Palo Alto Networks, Supercell, and more. Subscribe to season three of Crucible Moments. New episodes are out now, and you can catch up on seasons one and two at cruciblemoments.com, on YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. Listen to Crucible Moments today.

41:45All 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, I'm very into it. Naming things is hard. Let's just say that. We've been talking about these names forever. We haven't landed anywhere we really like. I think the debate show should be called Gotta Hear Both Sides, but not everybody finds that as funny as I do. So if you have name ideas, structure ideas, show ideas, anything, hit us up. Vergecast at theverge.com. Call the hotline 866-VERGE-11. We love to hear it all.

42:17But anyway, back to the debate show. The idea with this one was basically to just have a mini courtroom on the Vergecast. 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 debates about Windows phone versus Android. There were so many of these things. We've had teeny tiny inconsequential debates about which music app you should listen to. All of this stuff is very fun. And Liam James, our producer, has been wanting to find a way to structure this for a while and kind of put us in a room, pit us against each other and have us like fight for real about which thing is better.

43:00So that's essentially what this show is. Last week, we talked about CarPlay versus the automakers. Neelai and I got, I would say, more heated than either of us expected. I definitely won, but, you know, that's neither here nor there. This week, the debate is about books. Print books, digital books, who reads in the future, and what do they do it with? Let's do it.

43:23Good day. I am Liam James, the moderator for today's debate, and my job is to facilitate a debate between today's VergeCast hosts on the topic of books versus e-readers. First up, we have Alex Kranz, Deputy Editor. Welcome to the debate, Alex. Hi, I'm so happy to be here and destroy my competition. First, as Kranz, we have Kevin Nguyen, our Features Editor at The Verge. Welcome, Kevin. Thanks for having me. Before we get started, I'd like to share the rules for our audience. Each person will make their case directly to the VergeCast audience. A virtual coin toss will determine who gets to go first.

43:56Following open statements, each host will be given two minutes to answer my questions with an option of up to a minute in rebuttal from the opposing host. The questions were not shared in advance, and our hosts may use the internet to confirm factual details, but they use their limited time while doing so. Okay, so with the rules out of the way, let's move on to the topic for today. We're going to talk about ebooks versus printed books. Now, ebooks as we know them today have been around for decades, believe it or not. In fact, you can go all the way back to the 1970s to get early examples and prototypes of what we now consider to be an e-book.

44:31But it was in 2007 that Amazon released the first Kindle and it kind of revolutionized the whole e-book market. Kindle 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. At Virtual Coin Toss, let's see, Kevin is the visiting person.

45:13So he gets to pick heads or tails. Kevin, heads or tails. I see how it is. Let's do tails. It's rigged. Okay. Okay, it is tails. Kevin, would you like to go first or second? You know, I'm a gentleman. Alex, why don't you go first? I see how it is. I see how it is. Kevin wants 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 e-books and why they rule. Number one, you can put them on anything. Can't do that with a book.

45:53Books, you have to like take with you. You can only have one, two at a time, unless you're 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 a company says, hey, we need to release an edit for this book because we messed something up, they can just push that edit out. and then you'll get the fixed version of that book. And I think that's really great and can never go wrong for anyone. Also, eBooks are really, really nice because of accessibility. They are very, very easy to read.

46:29There are wonderful fonts out there that allow people with dyslexia to read a little easier. There are ways to make the fonts bigger so people with really bad eyesight can see 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 Books Palma or the Kindle, you know, any of them, or the Libra from Kobo.

47:02A lot of different companies make really, really nice e-readers that have really, really nice displays. They have really, really good features in them. And 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 11 seconds left, but now it's over. Oh, and in conclusion, e-books rule. Regular books are fine. Thank you for your time. Okay, Kevin, what say you? Well, I just want to start. I feel like I'm being cast as a Luddite by my opponent. And I have to say, I do think e-books are an interesting technology.

47:48I own a Books Palma, like half of the Verge staff now. And so I'll start with some concessions. E-books are faster. Sometimes they are cheaper. We will talk about that later. And they are great for accessibility, especially for the visually impaired. That said, the book, the print book, is an old and near-perfect technology. It's inexpensive. It's durable. It's shareable. 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 of the media we consume, video games, TV, film, music, a little more skeptical of our platforms and what kind of access we'll have to our media in the future.

48:32Print books give you that access forever. Owning a library of your own physical books means you'll be able to read them in perpetuity, to sell them, to share them with friends, to get rid of them if you want. That's a kind of freedom that is not offered by most of the ways we read digitally. But 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 the things on your phone. And that's what makes the reading experience so powerful, meaning that when you read, you'll be more focused and hopefully more patient, and you'll just take in more ideas.

49:13You'll have more enjoyment out of what you're consuming. Maybe you'll even think about it outside of consumption itself. You know, art is meant to be experienced. I also think books allow you to be very deliberate with your time. The physical presence of a book on your nightstand 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 is in e-books, and I think every publisher and author and bookstore would probably say that it's not great for the ecosystem.

49:47You know, if you, listener, don't believe in monopolies, I think you have some skepticism about how much you buy from Amazon. There's also a whole ecosystem of independent bookstores that sell print books 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 Kranz. Alex, in your opening statement, you mentioned the ability to carry more books with you than is possible with printed books. This reminds me of the iPod. But in that category, music has very much moved into the digital realm.

50:22Why haven't books been able to do the same? You know that Monopoly Kevin mentioned? And I think that does actually have a lot to do with it. I think e-books are not consumed the same way that music is consumed. And so people are much more, as Kevin said, deliberate with their choices. And there have been very, very few options for them historically, right? Historically, it was Barnes & Noble and Amazon, and they both kept very, very tight control over their e-book marketplaces. That has begun 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.

50:59So I think things are changing due to companies like Kobo, due to choices like Libby, which allow you to check out e-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 does 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, Gen Z is actually reading less. It's just the format that they're reading in. And honestly, you know, with Zoomers, however they want to read, that's great with me.

51:39I still think reading is just a greater way to access a deeper level of idea and thought than, you know, maybe consuming a lot of YouTube content. But I think it's 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 and publishing books around those topic areas is probably the place to start. because I actually don't think the resistance to reading has anything to do with books themselves, but what publishers are choosing to put out in the landscape.

52:16Krantz, 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. No, that's not true. You look at TikTok, you look at BookTok, 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 paper side. They'll never show you the spine, 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 Gen Z, and they enjoy reading other ways, right? The phone is the center point of their technological universe and having those opportunities there are really, really important.

52:59But I do agree that there has been a struggle due to the fact that Amazon, That's right. It's all Amazon's fault. We're actually going to end up in agreement here. Yeah, we're going to be like, actually, both are great. Amazon's the real villain. Okay, Kranz, the next question is for you. I want to stick on book sales for a moment here. One of the more harsh criticisms that is perennial to e-books is the cost of them, that they are oftentimes, if not usually, cheaper than their printed counterparts. Apple notoriously colluded with other book publishers to try to raise the cost of e-books when they introduced their own digital book platform.

53:42Do you think authors are getting the short end of the stick when consumers buy e-books? Depends on their publisher, honestly. I think authors are highly dependent on their publishers and the deals they make with their publishers. Both Kevin and I are published authors. There's Kevin with his name, me under a pseudonym because it was a romance novel. And what you find out is 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 sentient 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 authors receive via e-books is the same as via traditional print, despite the fact that traditional print has a much higher cost.

54:36Kevin, a chance to respond? Yeah, I'd like to respond. And this is strange because I actually, in some ways, I think I'll be siding with Kranz on this. But e-book royalties are actually, by percentage, higher for authors than they are in the print book space. For hardcover and e-book, it usually nets out to about the same. But once he gets a paperback, you know, selling an e-book versus a paperback actually nets a lot more for the author on a per unit level. But I actually don't think publishers are the villain here. They do a lot to protect, I think, you know, Apple and, you know, PRH did collude to raise the cost of books, but it was like to protect, you know, an existing infrastructure of cost that was being driven down by the digital marketplace by Amazon.

55:21So publishers do understand that like when they're healthy, authors are healthy too. And they do a lot more to protect the interests of authors than Amazon does. So it's Amazon's fault. It's Amazon's fault. Okay, moving on to the more of the technology side of these two technologies. The next question is for you, Kevin. What do 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.

56:01I think we all wish we read more. I think we all wish we had time to read more. I think we all wish we had the patience 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've talked a little bit about e-ink devices or dedicated digital reading devices. Some of them are very good. But I just think the focus, even to just choose one book and stick with it, is a very powerful thing a print book does that a device doesn't give you. The device just gives you too much choice. And it's just kind of you don't want the same feeling of scrolling Netflix endlessly when you're trying to read a book.

56:43Kranz, instead of giving you a chance to respond, I'm going to ask you a similar question. Ebooks 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 minimum required? All right. First, I am happy to answer that question, but I'm going to take five seconds to respond to Kevin. And one thing books provide that e-books don't is paper cuts.

57:23So take that, Kevin. I've never gotten a paper cut from my books, Palma, that I've had for two days. But I have gotten a paper cut from is a yearbook in my childhood bedroom. It sucks. Anyway, that was more than five seconds. But what really matters about e-books 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 the focus problem that Kevin has discussed, I don't have myself. And so I like to read a book and then just move on to the next one.

57:58And I hate having to wait because I want everything now. And the fact that I get instant access with an e-reader 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 oftentimes, while still paying an independent bookstore and making sure they get a cut of the profit, is just something really rewarding about the e-book and digital books in general. Great. And it doesn't give you paper cuts. Kevin, a chance to respond? I just want to say, I don't think I've ever gotten a paper cut from reading a book.

58:29You're going to now. I think... You need to be reading more of those really big like tabletop books, you know, with the super thick pages, you'll be getting a ton of paper cuts. That Taekwondo one I had in fifth grade, oh my God, all over my fingers. But yeah, no response from me there. And our final question for you, Kevin, while doing the research for this episode, one of the things I saw that came up more often than not for the side for printed books is the experience of marginalia. 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.

59:17It's an order of magnitude different to them. Do you think marginalia 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 one that's just imitated from the print book, right? So I don't think it surpasses it unless you feel very strongly about your highlights sinking to the cloud, in which case I would urge you to read digitally 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.

1:00:00My issue with reading 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 in art, when you're taking in information, when you're trying to learn, when you're 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 refer to them later. It's because it does something to your brain that helps you process it. And I think that experience isn't quite as replicated in e-reading as it is in a print book.

1:00:30That said, I'm someone that writes really stupid things in the margins, so I'll revisit some of my books and I've just written LOL. Can I respond? Yes. Okay, my response. Why are you all writing in your books? Get a notebook. Everybody, just go get a notebook, put the little page number down, do the librarians and booksellers in your lives a favor. Don't go writing in your books. That's just, that's not even an argument. I'm just upset everyone's writing in their books to the point that we have a whole word described for it. It's now a feature on a Kindle.

1:01:08Okay, fascinating POV from you both. It's time now to move on to closing statements. And up first, we have Alex Kranz. Yeah, I mean, I could just say e-books rule and regular books drool. I think that would be like a really evocative statement here. because e-books do rule. And if an e-book gets read, it's fine. You just dry it off or you buy a new e-reader and you still have all your books. You leave your copy of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table out on the porch and it gets totally soaked. And then 20 years later, you're like, why are my pages all weird? That sucks. That's why books suck compared to e-books.

1:01:44But really the truth of it is, is that even though e-books are, I think, substantially better at of market improvement over the traditional 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 you can technically write in the marginalia. Is that what it's called? You can write in your books on an ebook, but you shouldn't. And you can just go get a notebook. You can just write in it like a five-star binder. You get yourself a Trapper Keeper.

1:02:19You write all your notes in there. You can organize them. It'll 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, I just think that e-books are a really, really powerful new medium that provides opportunities for a lot of people that might not otherwise have the opportunities or access to libraries, which are an endangered species in the United States. So support your public library. Go check out some books, e-books specifically, and that's why e-books are the best. And a note for our listeners that were born in the 21st century, a trapper keeper is a fancy binder from the, or I believe the early 90s that had a fabric covering and a zipper.

1:03:04There was unicorns. Unicorns, pockets, all kinds of things. All right, Kevin. I don't think I'm going 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 to appeal to the reader who doesn't think of books as merely content. I want to speak to the person that sees not just the value of books as a medium, but also wants to see a future where making books is healthy and sustainable. Because those are 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 hydraulic press smushes everything violently into an iPad.

1:03:38I'm an author. Kranz is an author. Many of our friends are authors of fiction, of nonfiction, and for the friends that are a little crazier, of poetry. Not one of them would prefer you read their work as an e-book instead of print. No editor, no publisher would prefer you read the digital version. Every independent bookstore could 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 bucks because their 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 of appreciation of understanding of what goes into making the things you enjoy.

1:04:19In this moment where AI threatens 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? Wow. I can't. And I don't even have a rebuttal time? this is outrageous only a minute and 26 seconds too that was impressive I don't care about winning this debate I just want people to think Alex Kranz is a bad tipper which isn't even true I'm going to get so much hate now for tipping 5 % it was one time guys just one time it's an accident okay Vergecast listeners what do you think?

1:05:04Did Kranz make the case for e-books or was Kevin Wright about the perfect technology that is printed books? Let us know what you think by calling 866-VERGE11 or email us at vergecast at theverge.com. And let us know what you think of this format and what other topics you'd like us to debate. There's a whole lot more stuff from this conversation at theverge.com. We'll put some links in the show notes, but also read theverge.com. It's great. All I found in e-books.

1:05:35All right, we got to take one more break, and then we're going to do a question from the Vergecast hotline.

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1:06:38three players. Hey, Vergecast. This is Anonymous from San Diego, 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's certain aspects of my job that we're not allowed to have, you know, Bluetooth or we're not allowed to have cameras. And so there for 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 having music that I can carry around with me and not have some sort of external attachment, whether that be Bluetooth or Wi-Fi.

1:07:19And I'm just wondering, is there any other solution other than buying an old, old iPod off of eBay and using that? Is there no modern solution? Because it seems to be that everything has Bluetooth or Wi-Fi. And what I'm looking for is just a strict MP3 player that has headphones out, like a three and a half millimeter headphones out, like no Bluetooth, no Wi-Fi, something I have to either load on a SD card or maybe plug it in my computer to add the music. But I was just wondering, maybe somebody somewhere inside your place of business has an answer or a fix. If I ever hear back from you, I would be super ecstatic to see what you guys come up with.

1:08:00Thanks. I love you guys. okay so every once in a while we get a question on the verge cast hotline that sends somewhere between one and all of us just deep down a rabbit hole this time that happens to our producer andrew marino hi andrew hi david so what'd you find this time okay so yeah this was actually kind of hard like a lot of this stuff is connected to the internet you have to use bluetooth to connect to it um sony still makes walkmans and a lot of them are very high end they're basically an android phone it's like has android on it touch screen that's all connected to the internet but they do make one walkman for 80 it looks like an ipod nano okay wait can i just quibble with that for just a quick second so you just you just held it up to the camera as we're recording and what i would say is like if you imagine an ipod nano but like the ipod nano you would find like on timu or like if you searched on on alibaba express like you know it's it's a real like we have ipod nano at home kind of situation at least from what i can tell yes it's an ipod nano without a scroll wheel it's yeah okay yeah that's that's right yeah sony still makes it like a walkman mp3 player what is great about it it is not connected to the internet it does not have bluetooth it is exactly what this person wants.

1:09:19It has only eight gigabytes of memory on it. It's not a lot, but you know, that's enough to swap a bunch of 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 MP3 player. I brought it over to a PC, plugged it into a PC, same thing showed up, dropped a song into it like a thumb drive and it showed up on the player. It works just, it works great. I feel like there's a catch coming here. What is the catch? There's actually not a huge catch. It doesn't sound amazing. Okay. I'm actually like surprised how easy it is to get one now.

1:10:03It's$80. You can get one on Amazon. You get one on Sony's website. It has micro USB. There's a catch. Yeah. I would also like to note that it has an FM radio in it. So when you plug in your headphones, your headphones act as a little antenna. You can listen to the radio. And I think that's just a beautiful thing. That's cool. And it has a headphone jack, which seems very important. It has a headphone jack. Yeah. Okay. Wait, so what is the full name of this thing? I'm assuming it's some insane hexadecimal nonsense like Sony likes to do. It is the NWE394 Walkman Digital Music Player. That is the fakest sounding name I've ever heard in my life.

1:10:42Okay. So this is good news. This thing exists. I was thinking we were going to end up down the road of like modding an iPod classic, which is a 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 will do it. If other people are looking for something like this but can use Bluetooth, the Mighty Player is another good option.

1:11:18Do you remember that one? That was the one that was meant for Spotify specifically, right? Yeah, it syncs with your Spotify. Like an iPod Shuffle looking thing. Yeah, exactly. It uses the internet to sync and Bluetooth to sync, but it doesn't use the internet while you're actually using it disconnected from your phone. So that is a fun option. if you can do Bluetooth. But yeah, the Sony one, no Bluetooth, no Wi-Fi. You're all set to go. It's like a thumb drive with a screen on it. Isn't it wild that that feels like sort of magical now that you can just plug a thing in, drag some MP3 files and it just like works?

1:11:54What a concept. It is, yeah. I will say it is kind of odd that Sony is making this thing as a low-end device because you would think the people who might want something like this are also the people who want the kind of high-res, super high-fidelity audio that you're talking about. to make it as kind of an entry-level device is a little surprising. I wonder if Sony imagines this as like mostly a thing for kids. Yeah. Instead of, you know, super duper music fans. That's probably right. Maybe for people who work on military bases, we don't know. That's fair. I mean, listen, there's a lot of them out there.

1:12:26Yeah. All right. Well, no reasonable person should be required to remember that bottle name. So we'll put the link in the show notes. But Andrew, this is like the most successfully we've ever answered a hotline question. This is great. We just found the thing. Happy to help. Anonymous, I hope that helps. Let us know how you feel about your cool new Sony Walkman. Andrew, thank you as always. Thank you. All right, that's it for the Vergecast 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 Quibi coverage.

1:12:58The Verge was alive during Quibi, unlike the Roku Netflix player a million years ago. So we have coverage of the whole life of that company. And it is wild to read in retrospect. plus lots of stuff on e-ink devices and lots of stuff on books tons of stuff check out theverge.com we'll put some stuff in the show notes but as always read the site again it remains a very very very newsy summer so keep it locked this show is produced by andrew marino liam james and will poor the verge cast is verge production and part of the vox media podcast network neil i alex and the gang will be back on friday to talk about whatever news is going on i'm on vacation so i really have to worry about it for right now.

1:13:33But there's a lot going on. I will miss them terribly. I miss talking about the news. They're going to be back. Lots to cover. I'll see you next week. Rock and roll.

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