First in this episode, a quick update on the TikTok ban (which didn't turn out to be much of a ban at all.) Then, Sportico's Jacob Feldman joins the show to talk about Venu, the much-hyped streaming service that planned to bring all sports into a single platform — and never even managed to launch. After that, The Verge's Kevin Nguyen tells us how to read more books this year, and how to turn all your aimless scrolling time into more productive reading time. Finally, we answer a question on the Vergecast Hotline about audio sources on your phone, and why you can't listen to a thousand things at once.
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TechTranscript
00:00:00Welcome to the Verge cast, the flagship podcast of Qualified Divestiture. I'm your friend David
00:00:04Pierce, and it has been a wild weekend here in the United States. We kept a lot of this episode
00:00:12sort of fluid until the very last minute, wanting to see what happened with the TikTok ban and with
00:00:17President Trump's inauguration. There's just a lot going on kind of minute to minute right now.
00:00:22We've covered a lot of this in the run-up to it, but a lot happened kind of in the span of 36 hours.
00:00:27Or did anything happen in the course of 36 hours? So let me just level set where we are with TikTok
00:00:34kind of right this minute. TikTok went into essentially darkness on Saturday night into
00:00:41Sunday when the ban took effect. That didn't have to happen. The rules around banning TikTok
00:00:46didn't necessarily mean that TikTok had to just shut off in the U.S. at midnight on Saturday night,
00:00:53on Saturday night. But that's what TikTok did pretty performatively, I would say. The company
00:00:58put up a message basically saying, we think President Trump is going to save us. It's all
00:01:04just kind of naked political maneuvering. Like, let's just call this what it is. It is pure
00:01:08politicking. But anyway, TikTok gone for a little while and then came back in a certain way. It's
00:01:15actually still not available, at least as I'm checking right now, midday Monday, on either the
00:01:21Google Play Store or the Apple App Store. But, but you can go to TikTok.com and watch TikToks.
00:01:27And essentially what it appears we've seen is Oracle and Akamai, which are two of the companies
00:01:32that host TikTok in the United States, basically seem to believe that whatever President Trump is
00:01:37going to do, it's not going to come back on them negatively. It's a risk to keep TikTok live right
00:01:43now because TikTok is technically banned in the United States and any company that hosts it or
00:01:47hosts it on its App Store can be fined. Trump has said he's not going to do that. It's still a risk,
00:01:53but the hosts seem to believe it's going to be okay. The App Store's TBD. Meanwhile, Blue Sky
00:02:00launched a video thing that looks a lot like TikTok. X launched a video thing that looks a lot
00:02:04like TikTok. Adam Asari at Instagram said the edit app that the company has been working on for a
00:02:10while, which is essentially just a ripoff of TikTok's CapCut editing app, is coming soon. So
00:02:15all at once there is this question of, is TikTok going to continue to be around? The answer seems
00:02:21to be yes in some way. Trump said at a rally on Sunday right before he was inaugurated that he has
00:02:28a big plan to save TikTok that involves making it a joint venture with the United States government,
00:02:32which doesn't make a lot of sense and doesn't have anything to do with the law that has been passed.
00:02:38We are in unprecedented political times, especially as it pertains to the tech industry.
00:02:43So I frankly could not handicap the likelihood of any of this happening or not happening or how
00:02:49it might go down. But what I will say is that a lot happened and also not that much happened.
00:02:55We had a lot of backing and forthing, a lot of feelings. I think it's going to be really
00:02:58interesting to see if even like 12 hours of TikTok being turned off changes the way that
00:03:04people perceive the platform. Even now as Trump continues to promise to bring it back, and he
00:03:09really wants that as a political victory, the Biden administration just like walked away.
00:03:13It's all very weird. And I could talk about the machinations here forever, but I kind of don't
00:03:17want to. And I think right now, again, as I'm recording this, we are in the middle of Donald
00:03:22Trump's inauguration speech. He is officially once again, the president of the United States.
00:03:27There's a lot of stuff to come in the next few days. Trump has said to donors that he's
00:03:31planning to sign as many as a hundred executive orders like today, Monday, and that there's going
00:03:37to be more to come with TikTok very quickly. So I think what we're going to do, just to bring this
00:03:42all the way back around to the Verge cast, is we're going to talk a lot about all of that on
00:03:46Friday. I promise we're not going to spend this whole year talking about politics, but this moment,
00:03:52a lot of this stuff is coming to a head. And I think this moment matters and is going to set up
00:03:56a lot of what's going to happen for the next four years. I mean, Mark Zuckerberg and Jeff Bezos and
00:04:02Sundar Pichai and Xu Chu, the CEO of TikTok, and Tim Cook and others are all at the inauguration.
00:04:09Joe Rogan, I saw a picture of him in church with Trump this morning. Like, this connection between
00:04:14Washington and Silicon Valley is closer and different than anything we have experienced,
00:04:20and it is going to change a lot of things. But I don't think we know what they are yet.
00:04:24And so we're just going to try to kind of take it as it comes, rather than having a lot of
00:04:29insane ideas about what might happen when I don't really think anything we've seen before tells us
00:04:36what's coming next. So here on the Verge cast today, we are going to stop talking about all
00:04:41of that. And we're going to do two different things. First, we're going to talk to Jacob
00:04:46Feldman from Sportico about Venue Sports, which was supposed to be this, like, future of sports
00:04:51streaming app that died before it ever even launched. It went 90 on the Go90 scale at
00:04:58maybe record time. Like, maybe we need to rename the Go90 scale the Venue scale. That's a thing
00:05:03we're going to have to talk about. But he's going to come on, and he's going to tell us the story
00:05:06and explain what happened and just sort of lead us through what this means for streaming, for sports,
00:05:11and for the Go90 scale. After that, we're going to talk to Kevin Nguyen about reading. So I'm
00:05:17going to do two things over the next two weeks, kind of about New Year's resolutions. And the two
00:05:22that I hear from people over and over again, people want to stop scrolling and start reading,
00:05:26like, books and articles and, like, deep reading instead of just kind of aimlessly scrolling Reddit
00:05:30and TikTok or whatever. So we're going to talk to Kevin about how he does that. Kevin reads
00:05:35more and better and more carefully than anybody I know, and has also thought deeply about how to be
00:05:40good at that in a digital world. So we're going to just try and see if we can learn anything from
00:05:44how Kevin gets all of this stuff done. We also have a hotline, lots to get to. This is a very
00:05:49fun episode, and we are done talking about politics, at least for today. We're going to
00:05:53come back and try to make sense of all of this on Friday's show, because I think with a few days of
00:05:58settling and a few days of the Trump presidency, we're going to have a better sense of where we
00:06:02really are. So we're going to come back to that. For now, we've got other stuff to do. All that
00:06:06is coming up in just a second. But first, we've got to take a break, because I've been talking
00:06:10for too long, and now I need to go not think about politics for a while. This is The Verge Cast.
00:06:15We'll be right back. Welcome back. All right. So the other thing that happened this weekend was
00:06:21that it was a pretty good sports weekend. There was a lot of good football. It's the college
00:06:26football national championship. It's the NFL playoffs. Basketball is kind of coming into
00:06:31full form. This is a fun part of the sports calendar. But it's a crappy time to be a sports
00:06:37fan in a lot of ways, because watching those games seems to get more complicated and more expensive
00:06:42all the time. But there was supposed to be a better way coming already. It was going to be
00:06:48called Venue Sports, and it was going to be the one place you needed to be to watch all of your
00:06:54sports in one place. It was going to be pretty expensive, but it was going to solve a certain
00:06:58set of problems, I think. And then it died before it ever lived. So I want to understand what
00:07:04happened here. So I called up Jacob Feldman, who's a reporter at Sportico who has been covering this
00:07:09whole saga from beginning to end, which is both a lot of work and a very small amount of time,
00:07:16because boy, oh boy, did Venue come and go really fast. So Jacob is going to take us through what
00:07:21happened, what we can learn, and what 2025 might hold for sports fans. Let's get into it. Jacob
00:07:28Feldman, welcome to the Verge cast. Let's just start at the beginning of the Venue story. The
00:07:33story is both really complicated and not very long. So we're going to try to kind of tell the whole
00:07:37thing here. So go all the way back to the beginning and tell me kind of where Venue came from.
00:07:43Sure. Venue came out of nowhere, I think is a good place to start here. Last February,
00:07:49almost exactly a year ago, it was, I think, an afternoon press release from Warner Brothers
00:07:55Discovery, Fox, and Disney that they were creating this joint venture. We can talk about what that
00:08:00means. To launch the service, didn't have a name, didn't have a CEO, didn't have a price, never had
00:08:05a price. We'll get to that. And everyone was kind of wondering what this is. And we got a little bit
00:08:11of detail on a Fox earnings call. But there's a lot of questions within the industry. Obviously,
00:08:17there's huge companies coming together to create some sort of sports service. And again, it started
00:08:22with a lot of questions. If I remember right, the only thing we kind of knew from that first
00:08:28release was like, this is a thing that is going to have a lot of sports. Yes. Right? It was really,
00:08:33it was that vague that it was just like, this is, we knew the three companies and we knew that they
00:08:38have a lot of sports. That was kind of it. Yes. Right. And obviously, everybody knew that sports
00:08:45and the way we watch sports is changing. And these companies are figuring out, they're constantly
00:08:49having these carriage battles. They're constantly debating moving to streaming or not moving to
00:08:53streaming. Every company is a little bit different. And this was maybe going to solve some of those
00:08:58problems and not others. And maybe each company had slightly different priorities. I think that
00:09:03all contributed to the vagueness of it. And we got some answers over time. Some, again,
00:09:07questions maybe we'll never completely know. So, put yourself in the shoes of these three
00:09:14companies. And let's see, it was Warner Brothers Discovery, ESPN, and Fox, right? Were the three,
00:09:19Disney, ESPN. Yeah. Disney, ESPN. Exactly. Yeah. What do you think, like, rewind six months before
00:09:25that. What do you think these companies saw in each other that was like, this is a thing we can
00:09:29do that'll work? Yeah. I think they each saw something slightly different. I think Fox,
00:09:33the simplest one to start with here, because Fox does not have a streaming service. They have
00:09:37Tubi, I think. So, it's a free service. They don't put their live sports there.
00:09:43And so, I think they were looking for a way to reach fans who don't have cable, who don't have
00:09:48even antennas in some cases. And so, looking for a streaming service, streaming partner,
00:09:54I think that's what brought them to the table. Then you go to Warner Brothers Discovery. You
00:09:59guys talk about them a lot on the show. David Zaslav is always- We're big fans here on the first
00:10:04cast. Huge fans for some reason. And he's always clearly looking for ways to continue to monetize,
00:10:11to balance the balance sheet, to look for ways to make money off the rights they have
00:10:16and potentially continue to gain rights. Obviously, at the time, again, going back a year,
00:10:21they still had NBA rights and were still negotiating for NBA rights. We can talk
00:10:24about how that played out. And so, I think they saw, oh, another service, another place where we
00:10:29can reach fans at a slightly different price point, ideally, we're in. And then you get to
00:10:35ESPN Disney, which is the most complicated. We'll probably spend the most time talking about
00:10:38what they're doing and why. And for me, I think what probably brought them to do this deal is
00:10:46they're at this crucial moment for ESPN. ESPN, long the dominant sports broadcaster in America,
00:10:53is still the dominant sports broadcaster in America, but slightly less so. A lot more
00:10:58doubt and uncertainty about what its future looks like, how people are going to watch.
00:11:01And as we answer 2025, I think what we're seeing is that they're going to try a lot of different
00:11:06things over these next years, these next couple of years. How much do you want to pay? You want
00:11:10to spend $5, $50, $500? We'll have an ESPN package for you. We see tech companies do this all the
00:11:15time, right? And so, I think they're trying to figure out exactly what that looks like. The
00:11:19ability to partner with these other companies, try something a little different, I think said,
00:11:22yeah, we'll sign up for this and see where it goes. Okay. So, knowing what you know now,
00:11:27this was not going to work. Spoiler alert, it didn't work. Did you think this idea made sense
00:11:33when it first happened? Like, just to lay my own cards on the table, I thought this was going to
00:11:36work. There were problems that we should talk about. But this, as a theory of the case about
00:11:44like, here's what sports fans want and might be willing to pay for, this tracked for me. Did it
00:11:49track for you? Interesting. I thought this was going to work on a much smaller scale than I
00:11:53think some people either anticipated or feared. I think, again, once it became slightly clear what
00:11:59this product was, which was going to be a monthly streaming service, roughly $30 to $50 a month to
00:12:05start probably going up after that, and including, like you said, all the sports channels from these
00:12:10three companies, which is a lot of sports channels. I think, depending on how you do the
00:12:13math, it's like more than half of the major sports would be available here. So again, what you're
00:12:19getting is most sports for slightly less than you would pay for cable. And in my mind, you're...
00:12:25When you put it like that, that's not very compelling.
00:12:28Yeah.
00:12:28In my mind, the audience is either somebody who needs all the sports and is willing to spend
00:12:32$80 to $100 a month, or somebody who needs only some of the sports and wants to spend $10 to $20
00:12:37a month. So again, this kind of middle product, I think probably would have maybe gotten a couple
00:12:42million subscribers, something like that. Obviously, very seasonal. When you talk about the
00:12:46college football audience, maybe they're signing up to watch their teams in September, October,
00:12:50until their team's four and six, then they're churning out. And so it would have been marginal.
00:12:56And that's what always... I'm curious kind of what your reaction was, because to me, I still am kind
00:13:01of surprised at how much interest there was in the venue story, given that kind of middle-of-the-road
00:13:05nature.
00:13:06Yeah. I think, to me, it pokes at the right thing, which is that watching sports...
00:13:13There's a problem here.
00:13:14Right. Watching sports is a disaster. It has never been worse or more complicated or, frankly,
00:13:20more expensive to watch all the sports you want to watch. Even if you want the NFL,
00:13:26if I want to watch all the football games, that's four services that I have to pay for.
00:13:31At the beginning of the year, I calculated about $800 to watch every NFL game this year.
00:13:34That's nuts. That is bad. And I think for all of the stuff that we're going through in this
00:13:41unbundling and re-bundling thing, we're just doing cable again. And so I think the idea that
00:13:46we could do cable again, but mostly for sports, would have worked for me. And obviously,
00:13:53I think the main limitation is what you're saying. It had something like half the sports,
00:13:58right? It didn't have any of the things that Comcast had, which turns out to be a lot of
00:14:01things that a lot of people care about, like the Olympics. It didn't have some of the football,
00:14:06because Amazon had football and Netflix had football.
00:14:08And CBS as well.
00:14:09And CBS was probably the biggest single holdout. It had college basketball,
00:14:14it has more football, all this stuff. So if you could have put together
00:14:22all of the things, this thing makes sense. And I think people would pay slightly less
00:14:26than cable for all of the sports. I think there's an actual market for that.
00:14:30But the more it became clear that it was half the sports for slightly less than the price of cable,
00:14:36it kind of started to fall apart. But I still think there is something you could do with sports,
00:14:44if you do more than just the games, that could be interesting. And this is where we're going
00:14:50to go back to ESPN, which is trying to very much be that thing that we should talk about.
00:14:55But that was the case, at least in my head. It's like, I can see the glimmer of something here.
00:14:59Right. And I think one of the questions right away, going back to when this launched was,
00:15:04who's in this? It's Fox, Disney, Warner Brothers, adding up all those channels. And then who's not
00:15:08in this? You have your NBC, you have your CBS, you have your regional sports networks,
00:15:11which we can talk about too. And yeah, I think I totally agree that the excitement was based on
00:15:17the recognition that there is a problem here. Maybe this will solve it, even though the past
00:15:21100 attempts to solve it have not worked. Maybe this is the one. But yeah, even I could do the
00:15:26math and say, okay, this is $45. And then what is it? $7 for Peacock, and then $6 for Paramount
00:15:32to get the CBS, and then $15 for Amazon. I'm already paying that anyway. So maybe I can bundle
00:15:35this together and save $15 a month, which would be great. I'll do it. Which then we get to the
00:15:39fragmentation. Every year, people in the sports world now celebrate this thing called the sports
00:15:43equinox, which is one of the nerdier things that we do in the sports world. We don't all hold hands
00:15:49and go full Midsommar. But on one Monday in October, all four of the major men's American
00:15:55team sports are playing. And so that was a good occasion. I think this October, those games plus
00:16:00some golf were spread across 39 channels and services. Oh my God. Yeah, so this is why I
00:16:07actually think that part of the reason for the excitement behind Venue was less about the reality
00:16:13of what Venue could even possibly be, and more just the recognition that thank God somebody in
00:16:19charge understands that this sucks. Excuse me. Flipping the remote and signing it a million
00:16:23times. Yeah. Right. And I think what we've learned is that the leagues, which in theory have
00:16:29the most weight to make some of these changes, like if the NFL just wanted to sell all of its
00:16:34rights to one player and everybody would be happy, it could do that. It's never going to do that
00:16:38because there's more money in selling it to more and more people all the time. That's how Netflix
00:16:42gets games on Christmas, right? That is where we're headed. And so our only hope as fans, it seems,
00:16:49is for somebody on the other end to figure it out for us. And as somebody who just doesn't want to
00:16:54admit that it's impossible, and it might just be impossible, there was something about Venue
00:16:59that it was like, okay, at least this is somebody with some power pushing back in the right direction
00:17:04of this. Is this where we can introduce the Fubo character? This is where we bring in Fubo.
00:17:08Because Fubo said, no thank you. Well, a little background on Fubo, and I know you've covered and
00:17:14written about them too. So they started, they turned 10 this month, and they started in January
00:17:192015 with the same problem in mind, watching sports online sucks. How do we make it better?
00:17:26And for 9 years and 11 months, that was more branding than product because their service
00:17:35ended up looking very similar to every other service that's out there. It's 100 channels for
00:17:38100 bucks, more or less. They just had some clever UI stuff around sports, which was fine and good,
00:17:45but yeah, it was, they were essentially, they were more like a YouTube TV competitor than an ESPN
00:17:50competitor. Exactly. So this announcement comes out, we're talking about our reaction to this
00:17:55news. This was their reaction. Wait, what? We've been trying to do this. We've been trying to
00:17:59get your sports rights to offer a sports specific package to fans for literally 10 years. And now
00:18:05you guys are going to team up and do this yourselves and compete against us? Absolutely
00:18:10not. So within, it was two weeks, within two weeks, so their lawyers were quick. The announcement
00:18:14was February 6th of last year, the lawsuit, February 20th. Wow. And that was basically the
00:18:19beginning of the end of NU Sports. Describe FUBO's case, just sort of at a broad level.
00:18:26Yeah. So I think there's mainly two issues, both legally and in the court of public opinion that
00:18:32they raised. The first is obviously this cartel question of, aren't these competitors? They bid
00:18:38against each other for rights. They theoretically have to keep costs down because cable companies
00:18:44could theoretically only offer one or the other. Again, that doesn't really happen. But in theory,
00:18:47these companies should be competing against each other. Why are they now teaming up? So that's one.
00:18:52And then two is they never let us do this. We wanted to offer a quote unquote skinny bundle,
00:18:58which I don't know if we need to define or if we'll get to in a minute. But this idea of only
00:19:02offering a sports package is something we wanted to do. They always said it's impossible. Now
00:19:06they're allowing themselves to do it. They're kind of self-dealing in that regard. They're not
00:19:09allowing us to do it. So those are the two main arguments that FUBO made. And pretty immediately,
00:19:14it seemed that people who were paying attention thought this was a very good case that FUBO had.
00:19:19Yeah, it's interesting. I honestly, again, maybe this is because I know of the FUBO backstory,
00:19:24kind of saw this a little bit of sour grapes at the beginning of like, oh, here's some competitor
00:19:28that's being run over by the bigger companies who's hoping court will save them. We've seen
00:19:32that story a million times. It usually doesn't turn out well for the little guy.
00:19:37And so this is a good underdog story in sports in some ways. But so I do think initially,
00:19:42again, I don't have a legal background. That was kind of my first read on this. Whenever I kind of
00:19:45see a lawsuit against a new thing coming out, it's just somebody trying to slow down a competitor.
00:19:49But yeah, I think as you mentioned, as soon as we started to hear hearings,
00:19:53as soon as there were experts and legal witnesses kind of weighing in here,
00:19:58there did start to be some sense. And I think this even was true of the venue operators. At first,
00:20:03they were like, oh, you know, this is something we're going to overcome. We're still planning to
00:20:06launch six months after the announcement. And then as that launch got closer and closer and the courts,
00:20:12you know, denied motion after motion to dismiss, then I think eventually, and maybe it took even
00:20:17longer than that, they woke up to, okay, maybe this is an actual problem.
00:20:20Yeah. Do you think what happened essentially is, is somebody at venue or at one of these
00:20:28companies basically looked around and was like, why are we fighting this fight anymore? Like,
00:20:32is this, we're going to, we're going to potentially put ourselves through this incredible
00:20:36legal ringer just to launch a thing that a lot of people are skeptical is going to work at all.
00:20:40And then just like shook hands and walked away. Like, do you think that's basically where they
00:20:44landed? I think that's basically where they landed. I think ESPN, again, the biggest player
00:20:50here when it comes to sports rights is launching their own service this year. Uh, and so it was
00:20:55always a little confusing. They were going to launch this venue product last year and then
00:20:58their own direct consumer service again, does not yet have a name. They like to take their
00:21:02time with these things. Evidently they're calling it flagship, which I feel like they're going to,
00:21:05I wanted to mention this. They kind of stole that from you. No, it's the verge.
00:21:08That is true. And we will be the flagship podcast of sports entertainment for as long as it is
00:21:14necessary to be. Don't worry. Good, good. Uh, yeah, they're calling it flagship internally.
00:21:19Uh, can I give you my pitch for the name? I don't know if we can get to that. Oh no, I'm ready.
00:21:22Hit me. Okay. You've heard of ESPN2, ESPN3. I think this should be called ESPN1. So it's all in
00:21:29one. No, I don't think it's been used before. Um, you obviously have Apple one. I think there's
00:21:34some familiarity with the concept of one first of all. I actually really like that.
00:21:38Do you spell it out or do you do the number? Spell it out. I think, I think that's classier.
00:21:42I think so too. And you do it in the font. So it's just ESPN0NE. I kind of like that.
00:21:47You got some like win one play, you know, for the, for the marketing. Yeah. So I'm putting
00:21:51that down now so that I can sue, uh, if they do go with it. Yeah. TM, TM, TM. Jacob owns this.
00:21:57That's very good. Uh, yeah. Okay. So ESPN has been saying forever that it's going to launch
00:22:02this thing. I want to get in a minute into what that thing is because it's, it is also sort of
00:22:08slightly amorphous. Uh, because some people were like, Oh wait, doesn't ESPN have a streaming
00:22:11service called ESPN plus? Um, which they do, but it offers a very small slice of what you get.
00:22:17Otherwise. Right. Right. And so, yeah, so let's, let's come back to that in just one second,
00:22:21because I think the, the, what is the landscape for sports fans now I think starts with ESPN.
00:22:26So let's come back to that. But, uh, but yeah, so if you're ESPN and you're, you're Disney,
00:22:32or even if you're David Zaslav and, and Warner Discovery, and you're really focused on max and
00:22:37trying to grow that stuff. Yeah. It sort of makes sense that you would look at this and be like,
00:22:41this is way more hassle than it's worth. Let's just, let's just pull the plug. Right. Absolutely.
00:22:45Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. And so, yeah, max, as you mentioned, they launched the sports tier,
00:22:48I believe last fall, uh, which was free for a long time. I think it now costs extra. I'm not
00:22:52entirely sure. Um, I can't say I've watched a ton of bleacher report on max if I'm being honest
00:22:57with you. I, yeah, I have, I think, uh, I don't know if I'm the only one, but, um, yeah. And
00:23:03again, this kind of brings us back to Fox, which has the Superbowl in two or three weeks. I think
00:23:07they would have loved to have had a streaming service that you signed up for tied to the
00:23:10Superbowl. They would have loved to lock you in for a year to watch Superbowl. Um, and they're,
00:23:14they're kind of back to the one that doesn't have, uh, a sports streaming service and we'll see what
00:23:21their next move is here. But yeah, I think especially when you're looking at Warner and
00:23:24you're looking at Disney, they got a lot of other things going on. Uh, let's just, let's just move
00:23:29aside. And, and so Fubo, we can kind of move this in whatever you want, but Fubo, uh, signed an
00:23:35agreement with those three companies to drop its lawsuit earlier this month. And for, I would say
00:23:40for 24 to 36 hours, the venue hype was back on. Everyone's like, okay, this is happening.
00:23:44We were hearing on background that menu was going to launch. It was maybe going to launch for March
00:23:48madness or the NBA playoffs. Uh, and then 36 hours later, uh, again, it went out the way it
00:23:54came in with a press release from the three companies saying, actually, we're good. Uh,
00:23:58venue is no more. Yeah. Well, there's one other thing that happened to Fubo that I think is
00:24:02interesting, uh, which is that they made this deal with Disney. Can you explain what's going on
00:24:06there? I can try. Yeah. So as part of this multifaceted agreements to that included dropping
00:24:12the venue lawsuit and included a payment of more than $200 billion to Fubo as part of the
00:24:18legal settlement. It also included a multifaceted merger between Disney and Fubo that we'll see
00:24:25what I'm calling new Fubo. Uh, but other people are calling Fulu, um, is that Fubo will take over
00:24:32control of Hulu plus live TV, which is another service we have not discussed at all.
00:24:37Um, but has been around for quite some time. And that again is more of a YouTube TV competitor.
00:24:42It's honored channels for a hundred dollars, more or less. It's like the second fiddle to
00:24:46YouTube TV, right? YouTube TV is kind of winning the cable replacement wars and Hulu five TVs in
00:24:51second place. Very importantly, it is the second fiddle. And so last year, I don't know if you
00:24:55felt this way. I felt like YouTube TV had won this race, whatever this race was for virtual cable,
00:25:00YouTube TV won it. There was, you know, a PlayStation view moment. There was a sling
00:25:05moment. I don't know if direct TV stream ever had a moment, but it has always been there.
00:25:08But by last year, YouTube TV had Sunday ticket. Very importantly, it had very good ease of use.
00:25:15Um, and it was YouTube. Everyone knew it, trusted it, whatever. And so I, I think Disney saw that
00:25:22and said, that's not good. Uh, if the future in five years is there's only one company distributing
00:25:28cable, uh, over the internet or at all, and it's Google, suddenly we're negotiating with them and
00:25:33they could cut us off. We need a better competitor. Uh, and we have this Hulu thing here,
00:25:39which has always kind of been off to the side in the Disney streaming universe, uh, the live TV
00:25:44product. Um, and, and the Hulu plus live to me, there's actually a space between Hulu and plus
00:25:50unlike ESPN or Disney plus, which don't have a space. It never made any sense. No. Um, so this
00:25:55is a kind of a chance to fresh start Fubo. Why don't you run this? We'll take 70% of this new
00:26:00Fubo company. Uh, and why don't you try to compete with YouTube TV and importantly, probably most
00:26:05importantly for Fubo, we're going to let you launch that thing you've wanted to launch for 10 years,
00:26:09which is a sports skinny bundle, which they are, uh, at work on now planning to launch it as soon
00:26:14as they can. So that strikes me as actually a pretty big deal. And I think all the machinations
00:26:20here got so weird that I think people got confused, but I think like Fubo is very powerful
00:26:26at this moment now. And I think it, it, it kind of has, there are a lot of ways it could fumble
00:26:32this opportunity, but it does feel like, I mean, Hulu with live TV grew very much on the back of
00:26:38sports, right? Like they had that, that whole ad campaign that was just athletes being like,
00:26:41Oh, right. And, and I think, uh, and, and you know, the, the YouTube TV folks say that the
00:26:48main reason people come to YouTube TV is for live sports. That's why people, that's why they went
00:26:52out and spent all that money for Sunday ticket. Like that's still the reason people want these
00:26:56services and for Fubo to now be able to a, be a meaningful competitor cable, which I think it is
00:27:02now, uh, and be, be able to do if not like full venue, then like kind of venue, like venue light.
00:27:10Yeah. Or even venue plus arguably. Cause I, I, they are going to, again, we'll see what the
00:27:14product looks like. They'll have a chance potentially to bring in your local sports
00:27:17network or some of these other networks as well. Your MLB TV or what have you. So they even have
00:27:23a chance. It is exactly like you said. I think suddenly these leagues and distributors are
00:27:27looking at Fubo as, as exactly what they wanted to be looked at, which is, which is a tool here
00:27:31to help, um, distribute games. Yeah. We've like added a real sports competitor, just not the one
00:27:38anybody expected or meant to launch. It's a very strange outcome that Fubo is, uh, is kind of the
00:27:45only survivor in this, in this fight. It's, it's, it's, it's really, it's something. These are huge
00:27:51companies. We're talking about huge tech companies, huge entertainment companies. And this is a
00:27:55startup that launched basically with like international soccer rights 10 years ago.
00:27:59And now here they are, and maybe they're going to be watching sports in a couple of years. It's
00:28:03truly, truly crazy. I will, the one other thing working in its favor is I do think the YouTube TV
00:28:10price hike in December, uh, they announced they're going to raise prices by 15%, which is, I think
00:28:15was, you know, $10, one of their biggest jumps yet. I think that was a big wake up moment for a
00:28:19lot of people say, Oh, maybe we should try to see if there's anything else, uh, that we can use as
00:28:24an alternative here, because otherwise this could, this could run away from us. I mean, you, it just
00:28:28is cable now, right? Like it's, it's not even cable, but cheaper. It's just cable, but easier
00:28:33to cancel. And that's not nothing, right? Like it, it is meaningful that it is easier to get in and
00:28:38out of those things. Easier to cancel, easier to watch anywhere you want unlimited DVR. There are,
00:28:43there are nice things about it. I think you mentioned this earlier too. One of the things I
00:28:47pushed back against this idea that like sports is watching sports is worse than it ever was,
00:28:52is it is so much more available than it ever was. And I think we take that for granted that 10
00:28:57years ago, a lot of these things you couldn't watch, uh, or you could watch very expensively,
00:29:01or you had to put a satellite on your house. These things have gotten a lot easier, but they've also
00:29:05gotten a lot more expensive. So, so that's, that's where it sits. It definitely, it cuts both
00:29:08directions that it is. There is, there is more stuff you can watch than ever for sure. But those
00:29:15things are in more places than ever. Right. And so I guess like as a sports fan on balance, I'll
00:29:20take that trip. Like, yeah, sure. I'll pay, I'll pay all your stupid prices just to watch your
00:29:25games, but because now I can, and that's something, but the league's problem is a lot of
00:29:29people who aren't yet sports fans are saying, I'm just signing up for what I'm signing up for 40
00:29:33years of being jerked around between 12 different services. And no, I'm just gonna, you know,
00:29:37stay on Tik TOK and catch the highlights. Right? Yeah. I'm gonna, I'm gonna watch ESPNs
00:29:41social accounts, not ESPNs cable channels. Uh, speaking of let's, let's talk about what's coming
00:29:46this year, because I think other than that whole saga of last year, I think one of the big stories
00:29:53for me of 2024 was that it is now abundantly clear that all of the tech companies are all
00:29:59in on sports. Uh, Apple is in Amazon is in Google is in Netflix is in like, these companies are
00:30:05spending real money on sports things that matter that people care about. And Netflix keeps like
00:30:11sandbagging itself, but it's, it's lying. Netflix cares deeply about this stuff. Um,
00:30:17then you have this sort of lingering possibility of whatever ESPN
00:30:22is about to launch. Uh, what do you think is coming this year? What's, what's 2025
00:30:27going to look like is, are we just waiting around to see what this ESPN thing is? Is that kind of
00:30:32the big unknown at the moment? So I think, like I said, if 2024 was this year of we're all on
00:30:37YouTube TV and we're all in these services, I think 2025 is the year of sports streaming,
00:30:42getting pretty weird in a few different ways. I think we're talking about these skinny bundles.
00:30:47We just saw direct TV launched a new product called my sports last week, which again,
00:30:51it's this kind of skinny bundle concept, uh, where you're getting 20 to 25 channels,
00:30:55Fubo is going to launch theirs, uh, would not be shocked to see YouTube TV,
00:30:58try to do something like that whenever they get the ability to in their agreement.
00:31:02So we're going to see a lot of these services. And then we're going to see these companies,
00:31:05Warner ESPN, launching their own things. Uh, and then we're going to see Amazon,
00:31:09like you're saying, Amazon and Google continue to build products for sports. Apple continued
00:31:13to build products for sports. Um, and so it's going to be messy. It's, it's not,
00:31:18it's not going to be clean by the end of the year. It's going to be messy. But, uh, I think
00:31:22as you said, ESPN is going to be at the center of what that looks like. What do we know about ESPN's,
00:31:26uh, coming service? What, what is the size of that thing going to be? So yeah, ESPN flagship,
00:31:32ESPN one, TM, ESPN one, TM, almost certainly launching before football season, uh, probably
00:31:38with a different name. Again, we can start with the price. They haven't announced it yet. My bet,
00:31:44if we're putting betting, uh, putting money down, uh, and this is sports, so why not?
00:31:48Uh, is this price, they probably find a way to start this at $20 a month, whether that's a
00:31:52discount rate or, you know, uh, lock you in or whatever longer term, they're not going to want
00:31:58you to know how much you're paying for this. They're going to want it bundled in with your
00:32:02phone bill or your Disney bundle or your life insurance or, you know, whatever, whatever it
00:32:07takes to get you paying for this. I mean, I remember when Disney launched Disney plus,
00:32:11they had all of these wild promotions that if you signed up for a year at the very beginning,
00:32:16it was much cheaper. And then it just sort of slowly, steadily got more expensive, but then
00:32:19they started to bundle stuff in. So I, yeah, I think you're right. It's going to go exactly the
00:32:22same way. And that playbook worked out well for them. They're going to bring that back. So that
00:32:25is what it's going to cost. That's what it may or may not be named. So what is it going to provide?
00:32:29So it's going to provide everything that ESPN sees the ESPN empire from, from coast to coast,
00:32:37it's live rights, it's studio programming. The company is very committed to launching or
00:32:43relaunching its app tied to this so that your fantasy is going to be in there. Your bedding
00:32:48is going to be in there. Your shopping is going to be, this is going to be in their mind, the
00:32:52everything sports app. They want to, you know, they launched this where to watch feature last
00:32:59year, which shows where games are on outside of their networks, which was kind of new and
00:33:03different. They would want you to be the place you go for sports, uh, you know, forevermore.
00:33:08It's the where to watch thing that I think strikes me as the most interesting,
00:33:12because I think you're right. The, the, you can sort of see the pieces like ESPN bet continues
00:33:16to grow and it's fantasy stuff continues to grow. And the idea of putting all those things together
00:33:22and sort of making them speak to each other better makes sense, right? Like that seems fairly
00:33:27clearly where it's going to go. But ESPN also seems to have this idea of being like the TV
00:33:32guide to all sports, even the ones that aren't on ESPN platforms. Yes. Super interesting and good
00:33:39and powerful idea. If ESPN can pull it off, I actually think the, the, where to watch page
00:33:43is fabulous. It is like, it is such a good, useful thing that should have existed a very long time
00:33:48ago. That's just like, what network is this game on? Right. But like, I can't imagine everybody
00:33:54being psyched about me wanting to watch, uh, an MLS game on Apple TV and first going to the ESPN
00:34:01app in order to do that. And we've seen this before, even with like the, the TV guide, like
00:34:06services, like Netflix doesn't want to play along with those services. So it doesn't really give
00:34:10them data. Lots of these things don't like, does ESPN even have a real chance of pulling this off
00:34:15in a meaningful way? It's a good question. And I will say ESPN is not the only one that wants to
00:34:22do this. As you mentioned, you know, I think Amazon sees itself as the hub for sports. YouTube
00:34:26sees itself as the hub for sports. Fubo sees itself as the hub for sports, uh, on down the
00:34:30line. For me, when I am trying to figure out what's on or what channel it's on, like I go to
00:34:35Google and I think Google knows that. And I think Google is thinking about that opportunity too. Uh,
00:34:41you know, if they can link you out to these services and collect a fee when you sign up,
00:34:45et cetera. Uh, so it's, it's going to be challenging again, as much as we might all
00:34:50want this kind of one place, this hub, whatever. Um, it's, it's a very, very far away away. I think
00:34:56we're probably 10 years away from Amazon and Netflix and Google all giving it a go, seeing
00:35:00where things shake out and then consolidating back, uh, back into one, one place. So, but
00:35:05in the meantime, yeah, I think there's an information aspect of it that they can provide.
00:35:10They can tell you it's on Netflix. Netflix can't stop them from telling you that. And then it's
00:35:13just a question of, yeah, how, how willing ESPN is to, to send you to other places.
00:35:17Yeah. And I think it, it makes sense to me that ESPN would be willing to send you to other places
00:35:22actually just because that stuff is so immutable, right? Like ESPN is just not going to get the NBA
00:35:28rights. It doesn't have for a long time. So if you're ESPN, you can either bury your head in
00:35:33the sand until a decade from now and then try to win the rights. Or you can say, okay, we're
00:35:37going to get people here to bet, and then we can have them go watch somewhere else. And as long as
00:35:41we are the place they come first, we win. But also, you know, who wants to be the place people
00:35:46go first is literally everybody else. Right. And so, and this has been the thing with streaming
00:35:50in general forever. And it's like, again, I come back to like what users want is so clear. And I
00:35:56think the ESPN is where to watch page really worked for me because it is, it is that thing I
00:36:01should go. And it's like, here are all the games on it. Here's how to watch them. That is, that is
00:36:04a thing that ought to exist. And it's ESPN does like a medium job of it, but it's, it's great
00:36:09that it exists at all. Well, that's what I was going to say. Yeah. All these things, again,
00:36:13somewhat like venue, they have half the things you want at a cost slightly higher. Apple sports,
00:36:17I think is another example of this, right? They launched an app for the first time last year.
00:36:20It's a big step in this direction. It still doesn't have golf and tennis and NASCAR and F1
00:36:25and Olympics are on down the line. You know, I think even I think when I talked to ESPN in
00:36:31August, September, I think they had like 300 leagues in where to watch and they were still
00:36:34getting requests daily from fans and also from leagues being like, Hey, why don't you list our
00:36:40mid-American conference volleyball games in here? People want to watch these, you know,
00:36:42why don't you list our minor league baseball on down the line? So it's the simplicity and the,
00:36:48the, the exhaustiveness of this hubs is always going to be just that reach.
00:36:52Yeah. So where do you think that leaves us as sports watchers for the next couple of years? I
00:36:58mean, I think on the one hand, like you said, there is more to watch than ever. And in many
00:37:01ways, the user experience of watching those things is better than ever. Like we're kind of past
00:37:06Amazon not being very good at streaming football games. We're like, it's most football games you
00:37:12want to watch in the internet are available and they're there. They might be expensive,
00:37:14but they're pretty good. Is that as good as it's going to be for a while? Like, is the,
00:37:18is the rest of the landscape going to get really just messier before it gets cleaner here?
00:37:23That's as good as it's going to be. And like you said, I think buffering and delays was a big
00:37:28problem. You know, we saw obviously with Netflix's first time out, every time, every time a streaming
00:37:31services launch, you know, their first live sporting event, it usually goes pretty poorly.
00:37:35Beach reports crashed when they tried to launch a golf event five years ago. Netflix
00:37:40almost crashed entirely when they tried to put Jake Paul on. So I think now we've seen almost,
00:37:47I think maybe all of the players have those moments. It's reliable, right? Yeah. You,
00:37:52you search, you do have to search where the game is on Google, but once you find it, once you go
00:37:55there, once you pay, you can watch usually, you know, we can get into regional blackouts and all
00:38:00that. But, um, that's, that is working. I think we're all these companies want to make these
00:38:07games more interactive where you're talking to your friends and inside the stream. I think
00:38:12for the most part, that's more trouble than it's worth. But, but yeah, the idea of putting the
00:38:16game on, if you want to finally, I think for a lot of people is, is a reality if you're willing
00:38:20to pay the cost and, and maybe, maybe we should, you know, take a moment to celebrate that before
00:38:25we complain about everything else. Agreed. It costs a million dollars,
00:38:29but I can watch every NFL game that exists and that, that is something. So yeah, shut up and
00:38:33grab the popcorn. Yeah, exactly. Uh, who do you think is the sort of player to watch this year?
00:38:41I mean, I think to me, ESPN is, is both like the biggest name in this space and also the one that
00:38:47might have the sort of single splashiest plan for this year, but like, I don't know. Suddenly
00:38:52Fubo strikes me as a really interesting company to pay attention to as a sports fan. Like I have,
00:38:55I have never once in my life watched Fubo and I, that will, I'm sure I suspect to change this year.
00:39:01Uh, is, do you have any other bets on like who you're really paying close attention to?
00:39:05I think this is going to be the year that Amazon really establishes itself in sports. They're
00:39:09getting the NBA primarily. That's the biggest thing. So starting next NBA season in the fall,
00:39:13it'll be on Amazon. They're going to take over this in-season tournament, the NBA cup,
00:39:17um, as kind of their, their, their crowning, uh, rights there. If there's enough football
00:39:21continues to grow, they had a playoff game just this, this, this year. So I'm counting that as,
00:39:24as part of the year of Amazon sports, going back to the hub conversation, they've been involved
00:39:29in the regional sports network side of things. You can now subscribe to the regional sports
00:39:33network service for certain number of markets and it's certain, you know, blah, blah, blah.
00:39:37Um, within Amazon, I think I wouldn't be surprised to see, you know, that launch some sort of
00:39:43whether Fubo was in Amazon or, or the ESPN services, a discount for prime, you know,
00:39:48whatever. I think they have the unique position where they can monetize this. And from the prime
00:39:53membership perspective and from the advertising perspective, uh, which is what, you know,
00:39:57you've heard people who follow Amazon for this a million times, but I think that model
00:40:01is going to be the way forward. Uh, as, as sports look for places where they can reach everybody
00:40:06and make money, um, which for a long time has been a bit of a, um, a balancing act for,
00:40:12for, for sports leagues is we can be on TV with our traditional partners, Fox and CBS,
00:40:17but we're going to get more money if we go to a, the zone or, or one of these other
00:40:22subscription services that, or even an Apple who are going to put us behind a paywall.
00:40:26Um, and so I think Amazon maybe is going to find that, that middle lane here,
00:40:30uh, where everybody's happy, uh, including the folks who are spending a lot of money.
00:40:34Yeah, that would be, uh, that would put Amazon in a really fascinating position. Cause I think
00:40:39the one thing I've been learning recently is how far ahead Amazon is as an ad business
00:40:45from most of the other streamers, which I think I underrated for a long time that
00:40:49like what you're saying is, uh, Amazon can afford to pay all of this money for sports,
00:40:55not just because it's a giant company that can just, that just throws off cash from other things
00:41:00like AWS pays for it. That's fine. Exactly. But also they can actually directly monetize this in
00:41:05a way that most of these other streamers can't. And so they're in a position of like, this is
00:41:10not just a bet on other parts of our business that maybe you'll come for the Olympics and
00:41:15subscribe to Peacock, which is like a very real thing that Comcast did. Uh, they're like, we,
00:41:20we can come and maybe you'll subscribe to prime, but also we can make real money off of this.
00:41:25And that becomes, I think, pretty hard to compete with if Amazon can really pull it off.
00:41:29And so that's Amazon and that's games. And I think everything outside of games,
00:41:32I'm looking at YouTube. Um, especially once we figure out whatever this TikTok situation is,
00:41:36I think all of these companies that are looking to reach young fans are putting more on YouTube,
00:41:40you know, not that long ago, these leagues were mad at YouTube for putting up highlights and now
00:41:46they're desperate to get their highlights on YouTube, to be promoted, to get the YouTube
00:41:51creators at their games. And so I think YouTube also has a really interesting offering. Obviously
00:41:55Google knows how to sell ads too. Um, I think they have a really interesting offering to leagues as
00:41:59well. Yeah, fair enough. I think the, the, the shift towards everybody just being happy about
00:42:04highlights is one that we are like only beginning to figure out. Uh, like I watched a surprising
00:42:09number of soccer games in those 10 minute extended highlights. Sure. And I don't know what to do
00:42:14about that as a sports fan, but it feels, it feels like a change. Yeah. All right, Jacob,
00:42:19thank you for coming on. I appreciate it. You're going to come back when ESPN one launches and
00:42:23you're going to gloat about how you were right about the name. It's going to be amazing.
00:42:25My victory lap. I'm looking forward to it. All right. Thanks, man. Thank you so much for having
00:42:29me. All right. We got to take a break and then we're going to come back and we're going to talk
00:42:32about books because here on a podcast, it's time to talk about books. We'll be right back.
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00:43:51All right, we're back. So like I mentioned at the top, we're going to spend some time this week and
00:43:55next week talking about tech ways to do New Year's resolutions. And I think if you look across
00:44:01the world, two of the biggest New Year's resolutions are some version of I want to get
00:44:06in better shape. You can take that kind of as broadly as you'd like to. And I want to read more.
00:44:11And I think I hear particularly from people is I want to take the time that I spend on my devices
00:44:17and point it at better things. I want to not instinctively open Instagram or TikTok, which
00:44:24who knows where that'll go in a few weeks, or Reddit or whatever else. And I want to do something
00:44:30fulfilling. And I think reading a book is just kind of the perfect version of that. But there
00:44:35are actually lots of things to do that are better than those things, even on your phone. Kevin Nguyen,
00:44:41who is our deputy editor, has been thinking about this stuff for a long time. He actually wrote a
00:44:46story at GQ a bunch of years ago about how to read more with a lot of tips that I have really enjoyed
00:44:52and used over the years. So I figured I'd have Kevin on to talk about how he gets so much reading
00:44:56done, how we can all get more reading done, and how we should think about reading books in an
00:45:01increasingly digital and screen-based world. So let's see what we can do here. Kevin Nguyen,
00:45:07welcome to the show. How's it going, David? Where are you in the world right now? I have not seen
00:45:11your face in person in a long time. Tell us about your setup right now. Yeah, well, it's
00:45:188.30 a.m. where you are. It's 8.30 p.m. where I am, which is Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, better
00:45:24known as Saigon. And I'm talking to you through my very crummy Wi-Fi connection at the Airbnb.
00:45:32Amazing. And you've been there for like, what, almost two months at this point? You're like,
00:45:36this is a real trip you're doing. Yeah, who let me get away with this?
00:45:40Unclear, honestly. Yeah. My partner and I have been here for a couple months. I was doing some
00:45:45reporting in Tokyo, which was fine, and actually ended up accidentally helping out with some
00:45:52reporting in Seoul, because that's when we landed there. Sarah Jong happened to be there,
00:45:57so we were hanging out, and then it happened to be martial law. So that was supposed to be my
00:46:04vacation week, and I ended up editing Sarah, although those pieces turned out to be a lot
00:46:09of fun. If you guys haven't listened to it, Birchcast listeners, Sarah Jong went to the
00:46:14martial law protests kind of drunk, because we were drinking makgeolli before she showed up.
00:46:18Kind of drunk seems kind.
00:46:20That's true. Well, it was so cold out there, and she just like,
00:46:24apparently sobered up while she was there. So that's real dedication. That's real reporting.
00:46:29100%. Truly one of the weirder, like, 48-hour spans in Virg history. But it was good stuff.
00:46:36Yes.
00:46:36All right. So I brought you here to talk about reading, because you are the person I know who
00:46:41reads the most, and I would say is the most, somewhere between adamant and snobby about
00:46:50how good books are and that people should read more books. And it's January. Lots of people
00:46:54want to read more books. And you, in addition to being adamant and snobby about reading books,
00:46:59I think have a good strategy for how to be a normal person in the year 2025 and actually
00:47:05read books. So I just want to talk through that a little bit and see if we can help some people.
00:47:09Does that sound good?
00:47:10Yeah, totally with you. It's funny, like, January being like the new year, new me thing.
00:47:16Everyone kind of like wants to read more. Everyone wants to get back to the gym.
00:47:20I think there are kind of like some exercise discipline things that can help you read more.
00:47:24But actually, in the grand scheme of things, I sort of reject the idea that reading is like
00:47:29exercise.
00:47:30Oh, interesting. Tell me more.
00:47:33I think people, I mean, everyone wishes they read more. But I think a lot of it is,
00:47:38it comes from like a self-improvement idea. And, you know, I think there's a little bit of just
00:47:42like, oh, I wish I spent less time on my phone and more time with my nose in a book. That makes
00:47:47sense. It's probably just better for your eyes, for one. But I think just this thing, too, that
00:47:54just like, oh, like reading is exercise for your brain. And I think there's like some truth to
00:48:00that. But I think if you only think of it as that, as kind of a self-improvement medium, I don't
00:48:07know, I think you kind of miss out on the richness of reading and also the enjoyment of reading.
00:48:12I agree with that. Yeah, the idea that it is sort of a punishment to be endured because there is
00:48:16something good on the other side is also, and it's the same thing people say about exercise,
00:48:20right? That like the actual way to succeed at this is to learn to enjoy the thing itself.
00:48:25And that actually the thing itself is enjoyable if you do it right. And that if you just do an
00:48:30exercise that you like, and you're going to exercise a lot more, and actually that's better
00:48:34than just beating yourself up on based on somebody's idea of a good workout,
00:48:38because you think you'll feel good at the end of it. Yeah, 100%. And I do think like the,
00:48:44like, emotionally, I think the thing that exercise and reading have in common is like,
00:48:48I think it's actually kind of hard to like, make yourself sit down and open a book sometimes,
00:48:53especially after a long day, especially like, when, you know, streaming services and video
00:48:58games are kind of like, easier to just turn on and put your brain into sort of like exercise.
00:49:04It's like once you get to the gym, you know, like the feeling changes very quickly. And I think
00:49:10everyone knows that and like, you don't have to wait to get like a runner's high. It's like once
00:49:15you're in it, you're in it, you know? Yeah, yeah, I totally agree with that. So I think there are
00:49:20sort of two kinds of reading and you just alluded to both of them. I think on the one hand, there
00:49:23is the like, I am going to sit down and read as like a long activity, right? Like I'm going to
00:49:30curl up in a chair and pull a blanket over me and read for hours. And then there's the like,
00:49:36I read three pages while I'm sitting on the toilet, right? Or like,
00:49:41waiting in line at a coffee shop or whatever. And I want to kind of differentiate both of those,
00:49:45because I think you have interesting ideas about both of those ways of thinking about reading.
00:49:49But let's start with the like, curling up in a chair with a good book with plans to read for
00:49:54hours strategy. Like, do you do that? What's your what's your setup for how you do that?
00:49:59Well, I just want to say like, that's, yeah, clearly the most enjoyable way to read or
00:50:04really do anything. You know, it's just like, oh, it's it's nighttime, you're curled up with
00:50:07blanket, have like a glass of whiskey, a big book you've been excited to read.
00:50:12A tremendous experience if you can somehow manufacture that on the regular.
00:50:17Yeah. Do you manufacture that on the regular? Like, do you do you carve out that time?
00:50:22No, I think it's it's kind of impossible.
00:50:26Okay, that actually makes me feel better.
00:50:28Yeah, I think, you know, like, if you have like a family, if you have a life, it's just,
00:50:32and I guess that's the other thing. There are like ideal circumstances for reading,
00:50:37sure. But if you only read when the circumstances are ideal, then you'll
00:50:41never really make it habit. You'll never really be disciplined about it. And I
00:50:45think that like anything else, getting into a good habit requires just like a little bit
00:50:50of discipline and just a little bit of cleverness and a little bit of just like letting yourself
00:50:55off the hook every once in a while.
00:50:56Okay, fair enough. But in your in your ideal reading scenario, are you are you a
00:51:01Kindle guy? Are you a print guy? Are you like print out the PDFs and
00:51:05read them with a with a marker in your hand? Like, what is your ideal reading scenario?
00:51:10Yeah, it's funny. I'm actually like all of the above. I think, you know, if I'm going to
00:51:14have that magical situation where I'm in the chair with the fancy whiskey, yeah, I think a
00:51:20print book is the thing that's easiest on my eyes for a lot of reasons. And that would sort of be
00:51:25ideal. But I read probably 50% digitally as well. For this job, I print out a lot of things and
00:51:32highlight and mark things up.
00:51:34Okay, but wait, just before I let you off the hook on I do all the things I'm gonna I want
00:51:38you to rank them for me. So there's print book, there is giant loose leaf pieces of eight and a
00:51:45half by 11 paper. There's Kindle and there's iPad. rank those one to four for me in terms of like,
00:51:51you have you have, you're gonna read for 90 consecutive minutes.
00:51:56Okay, I'm really not trying to like elude it. elude the question because I think it does
00:52:00depend on the medium. Like for example, I think iPad is my least favorite of those. I actually
00:52:06think that we listed them, print book, loose leaf paper, Kindle, iPad is my ranking from like
00:52:12best to worst. Okay, I still like them all. But I actually love reading comic books on an iPad.
00:52:17That's actually like kind of ideal for me. And I don't know what it is. But I tend to retain more
00:52:22when I read in print. So I think there's kind of that's like, just what the spectrum is for me. But
00:52:28again, I really think they're all valid. I think actually, I do consider listening to audiobooks
00:52:34like reading, but I would put that at the bottom. Yeah, that's fair. I think I agree that I actually
00:52:40don't want to dwell on audiobooks for too long. I realized I was preparing for this. I was like,
00:52:43should we talk about audiobooks? And I was like, that is a rabbit hole. I am not prepared to go
00:52:47down. But I agree. Audiobooks are awesome. And more people should listen to them. But it is it
00:52:51is slightly different in a way that I have like not yet quite figured out. But when I listen to
00:52:55a book, and when I look at a book and read it, it does feel slightly different. But I think they're
00:53:01both okay. Different strokes. Yeah, you want to listen to books, listen to books. My sister listens
00:53:05to audiobooks and is has read more fantasy books than anyone I've ever met my entire life and
00:53:09remembers every single thing about them. So kudos to her. Where do you get your books from? Both
00:53:15digitally and in print? Are you like you get a lot of books for work. So we'll throw those out. But
00:53:20when you're like going looking for books, what are your do you have good sources? You mean like as a
00:53:25discovery method? Or where do I buy as a discovery method? Or even just if you're like, here is the
00:53:29secret to buying books for cheap that no one else knows about? Yeah, well, the secret to buying cheap
00:53:33books is to buy used books. True. We do a lot of eBay at our house. And we actually try and read
00:53:38a lot of stuff that's out of print for some reason. So sometimes that's the only option.
00:53:44But eBay, eBay is great. And then I think, you know, occasionally I'll buy ebooks off Amazon,
00:53:50although bookshop.org, which is kind of the, the indie online retailer or the only retailer
00:53:57that represents all the indie bookstores is great too. And they're, they're launching their own
00:54:01ebook service pretty soon. So I think I'm gonna move on my reading there. If you shop on Amazon,
00:54:06no judgment, but it's just what I choose not to do. And then yeah, I buy a lot online from
00:54:12or pick up from my local indie bookstores. So in New York, books are magic, Greenlight bookstore,
00:54:19and you and me books. Nice. I the the one, like great local bookstore near us just closed.
00:54:26I've only been to it a few times. And I found it like still slightly more devastating than I
00:54:31expected to to walk in and having like a 50% off sale on everything because they're just
00:54:35going out of business and really kind of bummed me out. But I also bought a bunch of books for half
00:54:39price. I know I was gonna say to I, I there was a time in my life where I was a lot more diligent
00:54:45about just like reading reviews and like just a handful of publications. Just like really being
00:54:50up on what was coming out. And somehow it would still go to, you know, McNally Jackson. And just
00:54:57like, the display tables would have tons of fun stuff that you just never heard of or never think
00:55:02to pick up. And I don't know that that perusal experience, still really valuable. And actually,
00:55:08I don't know if folks have been to a Barnes and Noble recently, they got kind of taken over by
00:55:14private equity, and they kind of have rethought all the stores to be smaller. And they're actually
00:55:21much better now. So if there's a Barnes and Noble near you, there's a good chance it's been sort of
00:55:26like revamped, and the booksellers there are great. And I don't know, it's kind of funny,
00:55:30as someone that like recently rewatched You've Got Mail, we used to think of like,
00:55:34the Barnes and Noble as the big bad. And, and clearly Amazon's big bad now. So now we're out
00:55:39there supporting Barnes and Noble, like it's the little guy. Yeah, Barnes and Noble is comparatively
00:55:43like the mom and pop upstart bookstore. I know, right? That should just show you how big Amazon is.
00:55:51Yeah, I agree. So okay, so although on the other side of the reading spectrum,
00:55:54you are also a big proponent of reading books on your phone, in tiny bursts, which I think to like,
00:56:02a lot of reading purists out there is is like blasphemy. Why are you such a why? How did you
00:56:08become such a believer in reading in the books app on your phone all the time?
00:56:13Yeah, I just think once you get into the habit of it, it's, it's immensely satisfying. Sort of
00:56:19you were laying out earlier, there's like the two modes, there's like the, you know, I also think
00:56:23there's like, depredations between these two things. But yeah, like sitting in the fancy chair
00:56:27at night and the blanket. And then I think, you know, just like the three minutes you peel off
00:56:33and you're like on the toilet or whatever. That's that time accumulates a lot, you know. And you can
00:56:39just especially if you commute on public transportation, like easiest way to just read
00:56:45is on your phone, they're in line for coffee. And I think it also depends. I usually kind of break
00:56:50out the types of reading that I do. I would say also, I'm someone that like usually reading two
00:56:55or three books at the same time. Usually I'm reading fiction in print, because I just like
00:57:00need to concentrate a little more on that. But I think a nonfiction book is a little bit easier to
00:57:04read quickly. You know, obviously depends on the kind of book, but that's the stuff that works
00:57:10really well on the phone. And just like, yeah, reading nonfiction, like three minute bursts,
00:57:14I think is actually quite satisfying. I don't know. And I think it's kind of, it's like a little
00:57:18bit part of my strategy that like, when I want to read, I like have a couple different options
00:57:25that will kind of appeal to like the mood that I'm in. If I'm like really ready to settle in,
00:57:30you know, I'll probably do the novel. If I just like want to read for 15 minutes,
00:57:35probably just the nonfiction book. If I really like don't know what I'm in the mood for,
00:57:40or like I'm thinking about playing video games instead, I'll do video games instead.
00:57:44But like the comic books on the iPad are also like a great option too.
00:57:49Yeah. Okay. So talk me through this rubric a little bit, because I think fiction versus
00:57:52nonfiction is interesting way to think about it. But this question of like, what is a good
00:57:58sort of three minutes at a time book, I think is actually a really key part of trying to figure
00:58:03this out. Because for me, the problem I've always had when I've tried to develop that habit is I'll
00:58:07read, I don't know, it's like a, like a Lord of the Rings is actually a book I tried to read on
00:58:11my phone. This was years ago, but I still remember this so concretely. I would read it on the subway.
00:58:16I had like a 17 minute subway ride from my apartment to the Verge's office. And I would,
00:58:22I would read Lord of the Rings, but I would open it up. And every single time I'm like in the
00:58:27middle of a scene. So I would have to back up a few pages, remember where I was. And by the time
00:58:31I'm caught up, I'm there. So I'm like, I'm just reading the same six pages over and over and over
00:58:37trying to remember where I was. And I had this moment of being like, okay, this is clearly the
00:58:40wrong kind of book to be reading in these sorts of increments. But how would you like delineate
00:58:45what makes a good phone book versus what makes a good, like you need to read this in, in sort of
00:58:52larger, more concentrated chunks kind of book? Yeah, that's a good question. I do think that
00:58:56like, yeah, fiction, nonfiction is a pretty clumsy way to divide it. I think you can kind of tell,
00:59:01like there are types of books that require certain kinds of concentration. And I would
00:59:06read those off the phone usually. And then anything that you can kind of breeze through
00:59:11is great for the phone. You know, I think when you're talking about Lord of the Rings where the
00:59:15scenes are long, that's probably a tough phone read, even though I think a lot of fantasy and
00:59:20genre stuff works really well for the phone, especially thrillers or romance. I did read
00:59:26The Da Vinci Code on my phone. And that's actually a perfect phone book, because every chapter is
00:59:31like four pages long. So you just like burn through two chapters, it moves really fast,
00:59:35and then you're and then you're out and you pick it back up where you were. So like that,
00:59:38that's the opposite of what I was just talking about, I guess. Yeah. Well, yeah, I mean,
00:59:42the genius of Dan Brown and a lot of thriller writers is like, I think they kept their chapters
00:59:47at like 1000 words or fewer even. So you can in five minutes, read an entire chapter. So like you
00:59:54just have a self contained unit of saying you're never jumping off in the middle of something or
00:59:59coming back in the middle of it if you kind of time your stuff, right? So yeah, obviously,
01:00:03perfect phone books. Yeah, I think the commute is just such an interesting like, unit of time,
01:00:09because it's both very distracting. But also, I think on people's commutes, like, all they want
01:00:14to do is distract themselves from everything that's around them. Maybe that's a New York
01:00:18subway thing. But yeah, no, I agree with that. And I think I'm thinking about a lot of like a
01:00:23lot of the books that I end up reading for work purposes are like, somewhere between kind of
01:00:30journalistic nonfiction and like self help. Like I just read Cal Newport's new book, which is
01:00:35basically all about like, how to be better at work and not lose your mind on the internet.
01:00:39And it is sort of a it's chunks of helpful information at a time. And that to me is like
01:00:44a perfect phone book, because it's like, each one of those things is helpful. And I go through and
01:00:49I highlight it, but it's kind of just like a bunch of articles in a row. And that that feels good.
01:00:55Whereas a lot of these other books that I end up forgetting where I am, if I haven't read it
01:01:00in a couple of days is like, that's the wrong thing to read on my phone, I think.
01:01:04Yeah, I think it also becomes like pretty hard with fiction to jump in and out of a
01:01:09scene in particular. Because you just like kind of, you know, with I think a nonfiction book is
01:01:14generally like, kind of like guiding you, and kind of telling you what it's about,
01:01:20in most cases at all times and reminding you and then in fiction, you know, like,
01:01:24I think it often literary fiction is like trying to destabilize you or confuse you for effect.
01:01:30And it's probably working. And it's probably not a great effect on the subway.
01:01:34Yeah, that's very fair. What apps do you use for reading on your phone,
01:01:39either just for reading or for like, book management stuff in general? One of the things
01:01:43I was gonna ask you about is if you're a person who like, tracks all of your reading in any
01:01:47specific way. So like, what's your reading setup on your phone?
01:01:51Yeah, in terms of tracking, I actually, I kind of go in and out of tracking what I read. So
01:01:56I'm trying to be better about it in 2025. But I don't know, I kind of don't keep track because
01:02:02I used to like, there were times when I felt like I needed to like, keep up a certain pace,
01:02:06especially for certain kinds of research. And I've been out of that for a while. So
01:02:11I don't know, I read a lot of my own. So I don't need to, to motivate myself in that way. But,
01:02:16you know, I actually think this, there's so many like apps to track things. It's just like,
01:02:20the best thing you can do is just keep track of things in like, your favorite notes app,
01:02:24like just don't overcomplicate it. It doesn't need to link to anything. The more rigid the
01:02:30thing is, I actually think the less likely you are, or the more likely you are to like fall off
01:02:35of it. So, and in terms of apps, again, I'm actually like pretty unsophisticated. I read a
01:02:40lot in the Kindle app, actually send a lot of files to the Kindle app. There's like a super
01:02:45janky way to get files onto your Kindle via email. I have said to people for years that the one job
01:02:53in the tech industry that I'm interested in, is going and being the product manager of send to
01:02:59Kindle and just make it, what if you just made it good? What if it was, you could just take a
01:03:03link and send it to the Kindle and then read that article in your Kindle? Like, what if that worked?
01:03:06I would, I would, I would do that. And then they would elect me king of the world and then
01:03:10everything would be fantastic. But it sucks. I mean, Amazon is like the funniest company when
01:03:17it comes to just products. Like the Kindle experience has clearly not been cared after
01:03:22for a long time and everything like kind of works, but it's super janky. Actually, I,
01:03:27this is obviously a very specific use case, which is why it's not very well supported, but
01:03:31I was trying to actually, I was reading David Byrne's, How Music Works. It's a tremendous book.
01:03:36And I was highlighting a lot and I was like, oh, I'd actually like to save some of these quotes in
01:03:40a doc. So I like was trying to export the annotations or the highlights that I had made.
01:03:46And it was like erroring out. It was like, you do not have an email associated with your Amazon
01:03:50account. Just not true. And I was Googling around and then it turns out the issue, and this is
01:03:55extremely specific, is that I didn't have an email address set up on the default mail app in iOS.
01:04:02Good Lord. Yeah. Like it didn't understand that I like use the Gmail app like a lot of people.
01:04:06So I like actually had to set up mail for the first time just so I could export these David
01:04:12Byrne quotes. And it's just like, at what point was that ever a solution? Like I'm sure they
01:04:19haven't updated in a long time, but like they shipped it like that. So anyway, you're asking
01:04:25about apps. Oh, and then I read a lot of PDFs in Dropbox. So just truly like inelegant solutions
01:04:32to everything. Well, you're making me wonder if the not being precious about it is maybe part of
01:04:38the point. And I think I'm realizing now that this is kind of a trap that I have fallen into too,
01:04:43which is like, I get really annoyed about how apps scroll, which is a really stupid thing to
01:04:49say. But like the iBooks or the Apple Books scrolling animation annoys me, so I don't use
01:04:54the app. And then a lot of things, like a lot of the Read Later apps just make you vertically
01:04:59scroll, which is fine for like a web article, but I hate for really long things. I want something
01:05:03that feels like pages. And so I end up using the Kindle app just because it's like a slightly
01:05:08better app. And I'm realizing now that like the more precious you are about how all this works,
01:05:12the worse it actually is. Because if I got a PDF in Dropbox that was a book,
01:05:16there is a 0% chance I would read that book. Truly, like, and I'm not proud of that, but it's
01:05:21true. It would just irritate me that the, you know, margins were too big and I would not read
01:05:26the book. But I think getting past that might be a key to doing this well. Yeah, I mean,
01:05:31every time I open the Kindle app, I'm just like appalled by the typeface choices,
01:05:35like every time. I just somehow like shocked every time and just the way it's like,
01:05:40it's like justified with it just looks horrible on the phone. And oh, yeah, it's awful. And we,
01:05:45and we just, you know, we persist. It's true. It's good bravely.
01:05:50We are we are, you know, out here doing the hard work. You're also a big proponent of
01:05:56quitting books, which I think if we give people one tip on how to read more books, I actually think
01:06:01quit books quickly and without feeling bad about it might be the best tip.
01:06:07Yeah, I like I, it just, I mean, here's the thing, like a lot of stuff, especially if you're
01:06:14reading fiction, like, or books that are like a little more challenging, just also quite
01:06:18challenging nonfiction. You know, if you read The Power Broker, like you're gonna have to get more
01:06:23than five pages in before you decide to quit, you know, I think. But I think you should just
01:06:28set like pretty clear thresholds for yourself. And I understand the idea of, you know, you bought a
01:06:34book, you should finish it. I don't know, I just don't know if I subscribe to that, because one,
01:06:38like, it's nice to buy books, they're not that expensive in the grand scheme of things, especially
01:06:43you can buy used books. And then like, two, you know, you're supporting an industry that could
01:06:47use that support. And then three, also, there's always the library. So you have an unlimited
01:06:52stream of free things that you can be reading at any time.
01:06:55Yeah, yeah. The other thing we should probably say here is that Libby,
01:06:58the app is a wonderful thing that more people should take advantage of with the library card.
01:07:03It is fabulous.
01:07:04Just like a lot of things. Once you get that sucker set up, it works like a dream,
01:07:08but it is a little bit fidgety to set up.
01:07:11It is.
01:07:11Actually, like a lot of reading stuff is fidgety to set up. For example, you know,
01:07:15I'm a Books Palma convert because of you. So I do read on an E Ink device that is phone sized,
01:07:22which I like quite a lot.
01:07:23How do you like the Palma? You were apprehensive when you first were thinking about getting it,
01:07:28and we haven't really talked about it since you got it. What do you think?
01:07:31Yeah, I know. I quite like it. I think just on principle, one, the thing is still too expensive.
01:07:36It's like nuts that it's, what, $200 or whatever.
01:07:39It's at least twice as expensive as it should be.
01:07:42And it really is like pretty crummy hardware and software, like through and through.
01:07:47It is just a clever form factor that works, and it just mostly works. And
01:07:51yeah, once I got kind of some of the settings figured out, like I had to go to Reddit for some
01:07:56good defaults. But yeah, I use this thing every day, although I run into software bugs on it all
01:08:02the time. It's like weird to sideload things onto it. I don't know if you're having this issue.
01:08:07I feel like the plastic on my Books Palma is like yellowing.
01:08:10Oh, yeah.
01:08:11Just looks kind of disgusting.
01:08:13There's a real like patina thing happening that I'm not wild about.
01:08:16But patina is like the really generous way to describe what is happening to the plastic on
01:08:21that phone.
01:08:22Fair.
01:08:23But yeah, so it just felt like a weird amount of money to spend on something like that.
01:08:28But that said, you know, I use it every day, so that thing has amortized in value.
01:08:33Yeah, big fan.
01:08:35Okay.
01:08:35And I mean, I've gotten, I really did not intend to become like America's number one
01:08:41proponent of the Books Palma, a device that I think has so, so, so many flaws.
01:08:46But the question I get from people a lot is, A, whether they should buy that device and B,
01:08:53whether a dedicated reading device is worth it at all.
01:08:57Right.
01:08:57And I think like the Kindle is cheap enough that I think it kind of,
01:09:02it's, people don't worry about it the same way.
01:09:04Like the base Kindle is like 60 bucks and you can often find it on sale.
01:09:07Like that's not a sort of investment in reading the way that like a Books Palma
01:09:11is an investment in reading.
01:09:12The thing's almost $300.
01:09:14It's very expensive.
01:09:15And the bet you're making is like, I'm going to have this with me a lot.
01:09:17And it is going to be a device that I use on purpose.
01:09:20And I wonder, especially coming from the way you're thinking about it, which is that like
01:09:23the way to read more is to not be precious about it and to have it around all the time
01:09:27and to have lots of books going at a time that you can just kind of flit in and out
01:09:30of as you have moments.
01:09:32If the idea of having a dedicated reading device is actually maybe pulling you away from
01:09:39some of the things that might make you read more.
01:09:42That's a great question.
01:09:43I also just want to say that like your average Kindle device that's like several years old
01:09:47is probably a better piece of hardware than the Books Palma.
01:09:50Oh, unquestionably.
01:09:51Yeah.
01:09:52But obviously if you want to be slightly more of a power user and sideload things, like
01:09:57I was saying, I'm like reading PDFs of books that are at print, things like that.
01:10:02Then yeah, like the Books Palma is pretty great for that.
01:10:05I don't know.
01:10:05I say this, like I've been such a snob this whole time about like, oh, it's so easy to
01:10:09read.
01:10:09I have all these systems.
01:10:10But no, it's like still easy for me to get distracted on my phone.
01:10:14So I do like having the Palma for that reason.
01:10:17Like just nothing, even, you know, even on do not disturb mode, you're just like, well,
01:10:22let me just check my email.
01:10:23And then the Palma is so funny because it just like the suckiness of the OS and the
01:10:29slowness of it and the jankiness of everything else.
01:10:32It's just like you are not going to want to do anything else on that phone except read
01:10:36Buster, you know?
01:10:37Truly.
01:10:37Yeah.
01:10:38Like the badness is the point.
01:10:41Yeah.
01:10:43And you know, like I'm not, I know we call them like dumb phones or whatever.
01:10:47I don't know.
01:10:48I don't know if I like prescribe to all of that necessarily, but I can just say like
01:10:52personally, I have read quite a lot on the Books Palma and I enjoy that experience.
01:10:57And I use this device far more than I thought I would.
01:10:59I got it in a lark because like my tax return came in and I was just like, yeah, I guess
01:11:04I trust David enough to spend $200 or whatever.
01:11:08And yeah, it pains me to say you were right.
01:11:10I mean, I really, I appreciate that my legacy is this crappy gadget that is nevertheless
01:11:15like the thing we need in our lives.
01:11:17I feel good about that.
01:11:19I love that you're like your legacy is like pushing like a 7 out of 10 device on the world.
01:11:25Seriously.
01:11:26Great.
01:11:27I'm happy to have helped.
01:11:29Last thing and then I'll let you go.
01:11:30I'm curious.
01:11:32You're also an author.
01:11:33You've written one book that's very good and you just wrote another that I think is
01:11:37just about to come out, right?
01:11:39Yeah, it's out in April.
01:11:40Okay.
01:11:40What's it called?
01:11:41Tell the people.
01:11:42Yeah, it's called My Documents.
01:11:45It's a novel.
01:11:46It's funny.
01:11:47I'm like three months out and I'm still having a hard time describing it accurately.
01:11:51But the plot is, it imagines a bunch of, well, it imagines a world where, a not too distant
01:11:57world where the US decides to lock up, incarcerate all Vietnamese Americans, kind of as an echo
01:12:04of Japanese incarceration, which happened in World War II.
01:12:09The weird thing when I talk about this is it makes the book sound like really bleak.
01:12:14A lot of the book is like zoomers trying to like live their life without the internet
01:12:19while they're in jail.
01:12:20So it's like also kind of funny.
01:12:22I like it.
01:12:22It's like, I think very quietly or maybe not so quietly a tech novel.
01:12:27Okay.
01:12:27I like it.
01:12:29You spend your day job thinking about how people read digital things on the internet,
01:12:36and then you write books.
01:12:38And I'm curious, especially as somebody who has thought this deeply about how we read
01:12:42and how we consume this stuff and how technology is part of all of this, do you think about
01:12:48how people are going to read your book when you're writing a book?
01:12:52Are you like, this is a book that you should buy and print and read with covers and fancy
01:12:56whiskey?
01:12:57Or are you like sitting there being like, okay, I have to make the chapters shorter,
01:12:59because somebody is going to be reading this on the subway on the way to work?
01:13:03It's a little bit less like imagining where people are or what device they'll be on when
01:13:07they're reading.
01:13:08But we both have like backgrounds in print magazines.
01:13:13And I think there's a way of thinking about the reader, the audience, when you work in
01:13:17print for some reason, especially if you work on features.
01:13:20You know, these stories are like five to 10,000 words at times.
01:13:24And there's just sort of this sense like you just kind of want to keep things pretty
01:13:28dynamic.
01:13:28Like you just don't want like long chunks of exposition, right?
01:13:32Like you want to move from like scenes to dialogue to exposition and back.
01:13:36And you know, you get to think about like layout in a magazine.
01:13:41You don't really get to do that in a book.
01:13:42But I think that was like in my brain as I was writing.
01:13:45Like I just wanted things to feel active.
01:13:48There's like lots of different textures.
01:13:51And actually, I kept all the chapters pretty short as well.
01:13:54So there's like a little Dan Brown in me, I guess.
01:13:57Are you non-precious as an author?
01:13:59Like when somebody sends you a photo of themselves like reading your book on a crowded subway,
01:14:05are you like, that's not the right way to read New Waves?
01:14:09No, I would be delighted.
01:14:12I am delighted anytime that happens.
01:14:14I still have yet to see anyone reading my book like out in the wild.
01:14:20That's like kind of a dream scenario for me.
01:14:23I've definitely had friends like send me photos of people like creepshotting on the subway.
01:14:29And I don't know about the ethics of creepshotting, but please keep sending me those.
01:14:34I like it.
01:14:35Okay, last thing and then truly I'm done with you.
01:14:37Do you honestly read books during commercial breaks?
01:14:39Is that you wrote this GQ article a bunch of years ago.
01:14:42And that was one of the things you said.
01:14:43And the article is very good.
01:14:44And I'll link to it in the show notes.
01:14:45And I think the advice like really holds up even all these years later.
01:14:48And it's some of the stuff we've talked about.
01:14:50But you just say very casually that you read books during commercial breaks,
01:14:53which is like unhinged to me.
01:14:55And I'm very curious about this.
01:14:57Do you really do that?
01:14:58I really do do this.
01:15:00It's funny.
01:15:00I was watching a little bit of the Australian Open before we jumped on this call.
01:15:05And yeah, like I forgot like it's actually impossible.
01:15:08It's like hard to do it during tennis because commercial breaks are so much shorter.
01:15:11But like during an NFL game, there are so many goddamn ads.
01:15:15And they're all for Draft Kings or Burger King.
01:15:18And so it's just like, I don't know.
01:15:20Honestly, like you might not have to read during commercial breaks.
01:15:23It's like just press mute for like your own fucking sanity.
01:15:27Yeah, they're reading like a book, you know, three or four minutes at a time.
01:15:31And that's like how long these ad breaks are.
01:15:32It's nuts.
01:15:34And again, you know, I'm usually reading on the phone
01:15:37and something kind of breezy and likely nonfiction.
01:15:40So I really do do that.
01:15:41Maybe that's a little bit too far advice wise for people.
01:15:45I kind of love it.
01:15:46I was actually thinking about it last night,
01:15:48because I was realizing that my instinct when there's like,
01:15:52you know, I have three minutes of downtime when it's whenever it's like,
01:15:56you know, Anna pauses the movie to go into the kitchen and get something
01:15:59or like it's commercials or whatever.
01:16:02I either open TikTok or Reddit like 100% of the time.
01:16:05I realized it's one of those two apps
01:16:06because it's like you can do it for any amount of time.
01:16:09It doesn't.
01:16:10You can just sort of open and close it.
01:16:11And however long you're there is fine.
01:16:14And I am I my goal is to replace that instinct with opening the Kindle app.
01:16:19And I think that is like that was my main takeaway from thinking about this.
01:16:22It's like just the the I have three minutes right now.
01:16:25Instead of opening one of those two apps,
01:16:27I'm going to try to read one page of a book and just see how far that gets me.
01:16:32And I think the alarming thing is,
01:16:33I think that's going to get me a lot further than I am reckoning with,
01:16:37because I think I spend a lot of time in TikTok that I don't necessarily
01:16:40clock as time I'm spending in TikTok.
01:16:43Yeah.
01:16:43So, you know, someone told me recently that they deleted TikTok from their phone
01:16:46and they only have it on their iPad, which seems kind of nuts.
01:16:50But I kind of like it's like,
01:16:51oh, you actually have to be a little more deliberate when you open TikTok.
01:16:53I don't even know if they have a dedicated iPad app.
01:16:56I almost hope it's like kind of the miniature one that gets like blown up.
01:16:59It just expands.
01:17:00Yeah, full width.
01:17:01Just like, oh, actually just like Instagram, right?
01:17:03Right.
01:17:05But yeah, we should we should check it in a few months
01:17:07and see if this strat works for you.
01:17:10Yeah, well, I'll keep you posted for sure.
01:17:12I feel like the first thing I have to do is find the right phone book to start
01:17:16and then I'm going to see how long it takes me to get through it.
01:17:18But I'll keep you posted.
01:17:18We'll keep talking.
01:17:19Cool.
01:17:20All right, Kevin, thank you.
01:17:22Yeah, thanks for having me.
01:17:23It was a pleasure.
01:17:24Good luck to everybody who wants to read more.
01:17:25And if you have reading tips, send them to us.
01:17:27I would like to hear everybody's reading tips
01:17:28because we're all going to read more this year.
01:17:30It's going to be awesome.
01:17:30Thanks, Kevin.
01:17:31See you, David.
01:17:33All right, we got to take one more break
01:17:35and then we will be back with a question from the Verticast hotline.
01:17:42Support for the Verticast comes from Shopify.
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01:17:46Let's do this.
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01:18:50All right, we're back.
01:18:51Let's get to the hotline.
01:18:52As always, the number is 866-VERGE11.
01:18:55The email is verticast at theverge.com.
01:18:57We love all of your questions and we try to answer at least one on the show every week.
01:19:01I should say the hotline app that we use got kind of broken for a few days there.
01:19:07So it's possible that we missed some of your calls last week.
01:19:12I'm hopeful that we didn't and we'll be able to get to them.
01:19:14But if you called last week and asked a question, there's a chance we didn't get it.
01:19:19So A, I'm sorry.
01:19:20And B, call again.
01:19:21I still want to hear all of your questions.
01:19:23And hopefully this stupid app doesn't break again.
01:19:26This week, we have a question about audio.
01:19:30Hi, my name is Dan.
01:19:32I got a weird one.
01:19:33I guess it's not that weird.
01:19:35Why can't I listen to a podcast and music at the same time on my phone?
01:19:38I get like, you know, like 15 years ago when the iPhone was first coming out,
01:19:43you could only have one stream going on at once because there's a tiny little
01:19:47operating system or whatever.
01:19:49But like, at this point, you know, I like to, you know, listen to quiet little lo-fi beats,
01:19:54a little rain noises while I'm doing stuff.
01:19:57And I was like, I want to listen to podcasts.
01:19:59And I could do that on my PC really easy.
01:20:01But like, can you even do that on iOS?
01:20:05Surely at this point, you can do that on iOS somehow, right?
01:20:10Anyway, big, big fan.
01:20:12Have a great day.
01:20:12Bye.
01:20:13Okay, this sent me down a very fun rabbit hole, because actually, this is a thing I
01:20:18have wondered a lot about too.
01:20:19Not because I want to do the two audio sources thing at the same time, but because Apple
01:20:25handles this terribly.
01:20:28Like, there are the sources you want to have audio from, right?
01:20:32There's whatever you use to listen to music, whatever you use to listen to podcasts.
01:20:36For me, that's Spotify and Pocket Cast, respectively.
01:20:38Then there's all the streaming services, which have, you know, audio and video.
01:20:42But then you open a specific website or a certain app that is not an audio-first app,
01:20:49and it just kind of kills the audio that you're listening to.
01:20:52Like, for me, the one that always does it is the ESPN app.
01:20:55For whatever reason, the ESPN app, as soon as you open it, before it even plays anything,
01:21:00just kind of takes over the media player and says,
01:21:03actually, I am now the source of audio.
01:21:06It's just terrible software.
01:21:07Like, this is poorly put together and poorly written.
01:21:09And I think the thing that I have learned in doing research about this and talking to
01:21:13folks about this is it is purely Apple's decision to do it this way.
01:21:17There is nothing technically that prevents lots of audio sources all coming together
01:21:22on your phone.
01:21:23I kind of get the idea.
01:21:25I think, in general, most of the time, you only want to be listening to one thing at a time.
01:21:30And, like, you know that thing where you have a background tab in your browser
01:21:35that just starts playing audio out of nowhere, and you can't figure out where it is,
01:21:38and it's super annoying?
01:21:40That kind of thing would be even worse on your phone.
01:21:42Because, A, it might just start playing in the background while your phone is locked.
01:21:46Like, it's in your pocket making noise, and that sucks.
01:21:49You'd have a much harder time finding where things are and where they're playing audio,
01:21:54because there aren't such good controls for that stuff in the system.
01:21:58So there's not just, like, a where is playing audio screen that you can go and open and do that.
01:22:03So I get the principle here.
01:22:05But I think Apple either needs to force its developers to do this better,
01:22:11or make it easier for users to mess with.
01:22:13Because the other thing that'll happen is, like, if you're listening to a podcast,
01:22:18and then you open up TikTok, TikTok will start playing,
01:22:21and it will, you know, drop the podcast audio out.
01:22:25But then if you pause TikTok, the podcast audio just comes back
01:22:28in a way that is very kind of chaotic, and I think is, like, bad UI.
01:22:33So these things are just poorly handled.
01:22:34And to some extent, I'm almost like, just give me a thing that is like,
01:22:37here is all the audio playing.
01:22:39You're in charge.
01:22:39Do whatever you want with the video of it.
01:22:41You can actually do something like that on Android.
01:22:45If you use a Samsung phone, there's an app called Sound Assistant
01:22:48that actually gives you some of that control over multiple sources of audio,
01:22:52where it's coming from, where it's going.
01:22:55And you can route everything a little bit better.
01:22:58It's hacky.
01:22:59And again, it's the kind of thing that you don't need most of the time.
01:23:02Most of the time, you just want to be listening to one thing.
01:23:04I think that is a reasonable assumption for all of these companies to make.
01:23:07But they should give you more controls.
01:23:09And also, I know how Apple should fix this.
01:23:12It's so simple to me.
01:23:14There should be an app on every Apple device that is called Now Playing.
01:23:19If you've ever used CarPlay, you've seen the thing called Now Playing.
01:23:22It's the triangle play icon with lines.
01:23:26Whatever is playing, it shows up in Now Playing.
01:23:28And you tap on that thing, and it shows you the audio that's playing.
01:23:30And you can play it or pause it, whatever.
01:23:33That should be an app that exists on your phone.
01:23:35And it should be all of the audio sources available to you at any given time, right?
01:23:38So I think about it sort of like clipboard history,
01:23:41where it just saves all the stuff you've copied.
01:23:44And then you can go back through and be like,
01:23:45oh, paste that one now and paste that one now.
01:23:47But instead, it would be audio history.
01:23:49It's like, oh, okay, you were watching and listening to 30 Rock.
01:23:54Would you like to have the audio of that playing
01:23:57in the background while you're doing something else?
01:23:59Or, you know, play your podcast while you're looking at some media player,
01:24:04but I actually just want to see the video on mute and keep listening to my podcast.
01:24:08This is a thing people should be able to choose.
01:24:10And I think we live in a world now where actually so much video and audio
01:24:16is now foregrounded in all of these apps that I think this idea that actually
01:24:21you only want to listen to one thing,
01:24:23and that thing is probably also the thing that you're looking at is just not correct.
01:24:27So what I've come to after doing a lot of research on this is that
01:24:32Apple picked a reasonable way to do this to say,
01:24:36you're only going to get one audio source at a time,
01:24:38and it is going to be sort of the last audio source that you encountered.
01:24:42Reasonable assumption 17 years ago.
01:24:45I think it's the wrong assumption now.
01:24:47And I think one interesting thing that needs to happen on a lot of these devices
01:24:51is they're going to have to get much smarter about inputs and outputs.
01:24:55I mean, especially you think about something like smart glasses.
01:24:58If they can't dynamically and intelligently
01:25:02figure out what you want to be listening to at any given time,
01:25:05they're going to fall apart.
01:25:06That's the kind of thing that you can't do easily yourself.
01:25:10And if it's choosing for you and it's picking the wrong thing at the wrong time,
01:25:16that's going to be a bad experience.
01:25:18So I think the way that these systems handle audio
01:25:21is actually going to get more important and more complicated over time.
01:25:25And the answer I am increasingly convinced
01:25:27is just to give us a little tiny bit of chaos.
01:25:30If I want to listen to music and a podcast and a show at the same time,
01:25:34I believe that I should be able to.
01:25:35I don't think that I should.
01:25:36I think that's kind of bonkers.
01:25:39But I think I should be able to.
01:25:40And that is my official stance.
01:25:42Give me a now playing app that just shows me
01:25:45all of the audio from everywhere on my phone
01:25:47and let me figure it out.
01:25:48Except for browser tabs, because if we get to the point
01:25:50where things get to do the like lazy loading audio
01:25:53that starts playing five minutes after you load a browser tab,
01:25:56that's a nightmare.
01:25:57So none of that in the browser.
01:26:00Let my apps do some weird stuff.
01:26:01We'll all figure it out.
01:26:03Anyway, that is it for the Verticast today.
01:26:05By the way, if you have tips on how to make the audio stuff make more sense,
01:26:08both on Android and on an iPhone, I am all ears.
01:26:11I know there's a way you can jailbreak an iPhone
01:26:15and get more control over the audio sources.
01:26:17That's actually one way I know the phones are capable of doing it in theory.
01:26:21But I don't think most people want to jailbreak their phone.
01:26:23But if you've figured out some clever hack
01:26:24for how to manage all the audio on your phone,
01:26:27let me know.
01:26:27I'm all ears.
01:26:28866-VERGE11, verticast-at-the-verge.com.
01:26:31Thank you to everybody who came on the show.
01:26:33And thank you, as always, for listening.
01:26:35We're going to talk a bunch more about the world in TikTok bans
01:26:38and politics and inaugurations on Friday's show.
01:26:41And then, honestly, it is my sincere hope
01:26:44that we are not going to have to keep doing that.
01:26:46I think we are in a very political moment full of a lot of change
01:26:50and a lot of new ways that the tech industry is going to exist,
01:26:54particularly in the United States.
01:26:56And we're going to talk about it in the ways that it makes sense.
01:26:58But I think we're going to try not to make this a podcast about politics
01:27:02because we don't want that.
01:27:03And I know you don't either.
01:27:05Anyway, there's lots more on everything we covered here at theverge.com.
01:27:09I'll link to Kevin's GQ story that I really liked.
01:27:11I'll link to a bunch of Jacob's reporting.
01:27:13I'll link to our reporting on Venue.
01:27:15All of it in the show notes, on the website.
01:27:18Keep it locked.
01:27:20News is nuts.
01:27:20And, as always, if you have thoughts, questions, feelings,
01:27:23or, again, audio tips for me,
01:27:25you can always email us at verticast-at-the-verge.com.
01:27:27Call the hotline 866-VERGE11.
01:27:29We truly love hearing from you.
01:27:31This show is produced by Will Poore, Eric Gomez, and Brandon Kiefer.
01:27:34The Verge Cast is a Verge Production and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
01:27:37Neal and I will be back on Friday to talk about, like I said,
01:27:40the inauguration, the TikTok ban, more AI news.
01:27:44There's a Samsung event this week.
01:27:45Then we're going to get to talk about gadgets, which I'm very excited about.
01:27:48Lots to do.
01:27:49We will see you then.
01:27:50Rock and roll.