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R.I.P. Vergecast

danakin

danakin

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Dec 6, 2012
356
801
Toronto
The statements below represent my personal opinions not facts.

What used to be an intelligent, informative, relevant, and entertaining podcast has completely lost the plot.

Between the addition of Chris Plante (Mr. incontinent puppy; can't control his excitement and adds little to no value) and the insufferable "hypecheck" this program is almost un-listenable. It's frankly amazing how the show can now be > 3/4 idiocy and inane commentary where it used to be relevant and intelligent with a bit of silliness.

Nilay is the constant, however, Josh's and Paul's replacements are a mess of, at best, incompetent in their role; at worst idiocy.

Colour me dismayed.
 
I respect the opinions of Nilay and Dieter, but I agree with you regarding Chris Plante. He absolutely gets in the way of every discussion. The Vergecast is missing organization characteristic of good podcasting.
 
Chris Plante is literally the worst podcaster I have ever listened to.

Everything that comes out of him is usually eye-roll worthy and stupid.
 
Having never listened to the podcast, I can say that the Verge in general has gone down hill fast.
 
Jessica Lares said:
There is definitely a lot of things going sour over there. I do still like their features, but what once used to be a website I kept open in a tab all the time, is now just in my Safari subscriptions.
Click to expand...

As a tech site they've become a shell of their former self. Anyone looking for tech news is served far better at many other sites. I truly believe they've lost the plot and it's sad. There are gems there like Vlad Savov, Nilay, Chris, and a few others. Dieter has recently disappointed in how dismissive he is of certain brands or O/S appointments. I suppose that's fine if you're a columnist, however, when under the banner of "reporter" that kind of perspective is "doing your job badly".

I'm hoping they can rebound and cull the idiot herd a wee bit.
 
danakin said:
As a tech site they've become a shell of their former self. Anyone looking for tech news is served far better at many other sites. I truly believe they've lost the plot and it's sad. There are gems there like Vlad Savov, Nilay, Chris, and a few others. Dieter has recently disappointed in how dismissive he is of certain brands or O/S appointments. I suppose that's fine if you're a columnist, however, when under the banner of "reporter" that kind of perspective is "doing your job badly".

I'm hoping they can rebound and cull the idiot herd a wee bit.
Click to expand...

Honestly, they spend way too much time on entertainment topics than they should.

I like the idea of "how technology shapes your life". Up until recently, the Verge lived up to that, but lately things have changed.
 
AustinIllini said:
Honestly, they spend way too much time on entertainment topics than they should.

I like the idea of "how technology shapes your life". Up until recently, the Verge lived up to that, but lately things have changed.
Click to expand...

Yup, nothing screams tech news as much as a headline about Kendrick Lamar's new record hitting iTunes and Spotify a week early.
 
danakin said:
Yup, nothing screams tech news as much as a headline about Kendrick Lamar's new record hitting iTunes and Spotify a week early.
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And I'm a big Star Wars fan, but I don't go to the Verge to find out about Han Solo.

Recently, the Verge is getting a lot of "iVerge" flack, but Android topics are constantly buried by viral videos, movie garbage, and SXSW coverage (And this Austinite isn't a SXSW fan). I currently am not an Android user, but I sympathize.
 
AustinIllini said:
And I'm a big Star Wars fan, but I don't go to the Verge to find out about Han Solo.

Recently, the Verge is getting a lot of "iVerge" flack, but Android topics are constantly buried by viral videos, movie garbage, and SXSW coverage (And this Austinite isn't a SXSW fan). I currently am not an Android user, but I sympathize.
Click to expand...

As you can probably tell from my screen name I'm also something of a Star Wars geek!

Most of their staff use Apple products so it never bugs me when there's a bias towards Apple products. Ask me about drums and I'll naturally polarize to my favourite brand - Pearl.

My most vivid example of where the bias got annoying was when Dieter, at IFA last September, was talking about the Sony Z3 Compact Tablet. His take on the device was "... it's an Android tablet so..." and then dismissively moved on to something else. It was annoying because frankly, I expected better of him. Sure, it will never sell as well as other tablets nor be as popular but his responsibilities as a tech journalist should have kicked in and at least given a cursory overview of the device.

My tablet use case is perfect for one of the Sonys (for example) because I don't care much about apps and use my iPad 3 as a glorified portable browser. At this point my iPad is sluggish at best and unusable at worst. My next table may very well be an Android and Sony's hardware is excellent. Dieter's dismissive and frankly arrogant display was disappointing. He's better than that.

Now, if this was that moron Sam Sheffer (apologies for the spelling) and his Hypecheck idiocy I would not be intellectually invested in the opinion presented.
 
danakin said:
My most vivid example of where the bias got annoying was when Dieter, at IFA last September, was talking about the Sony Z3 Compact Tablet. His take on the device was "... it's an Android tablet so..." and then dismissively moved on to something else. It was annoying because frankly, I expected better of him. Sure, it will never sell as well as other tablets nor be as popular but his responsibilities as a tech journalist should have kicked in and at least given a cursory overview of the device.
Click to expand...

See, I don't like that either. It's okay to say "well, there are some shortcomings which are inherent in an android tablet" and then talk about what you like and don't like otherwise, but I would agree Dieter and Nilay tend to lean towards being unnecessarily dismissive.
 
Agree with everything in this thread. I felt it went downhill after Paul left. I really enjoyed his updates from the year he went without the internet, but I thought the verge was going to be like "this is my next" not a lot of articles, but really in depth tech articles when they did publish. also their podcasts with josh, nilay, and paul, with /special/ appearances from vlad or joanna were really good. still like nilay, but the whole site is just too fragmented.
 
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