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Comment by spike021 | Hacker News Reader

I started reading The Verge back in 2011 when it first launched. The creativity (as shown in their very detailed exclusives; one example: [1]) they had at the time was pretty incredible.

Unfortunately, I have noticed, and I think others as well, that they've kind of been in a downhill stretch for the past few months at least. Maybe not creativity-wise, but structurally and even grammatically. It's been a bit disappointing.

Hopefully Nilay can begin to refresh their vision and work on bringing overall quality back to where it used to be.

[1] http://www.theverge.com/2011/11/3/2504531/jetpack-history-fu...

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This has been my experience as well.

When The Verge launched, it was creative and full of interesting articles.

Something changed, and for the past 12-18 months, it's been pretty close to a "Cosmo for Geeks". They've also started getting some basic technology facts wrong (I first noticed this on their Nexus 4 LTE article, and have continued to notice it off and on through their latest Net Neutrality / Verizon vs Netflix articles)

> When The Verge launched, it was creative and full of interesting articles... and for the past 12-18 months, it's been pretty close to a "Cosmo for Geeks".

I've actually noticed the opposite for me: I've enjoyed the articles more over the last 6 months than I have previously.

It might have something to do with how I read it: these days I tend to read Verge on my phone, whereas I used to be more web-only. Their homepage has always overwhelmed me, so maybe the simplified interface has something to do with it.

> Something changed, and for the past 12-18 months

It's likely that a lot of these sites that made a name following consumer tech are just growing tired of it? What helped grow sites like Engadget, Gizmodo, etc was the rapid growing arena of cellphones, laptops and tablets. All of that has pretty much stagnated, and to be honest is pretty damn boring at this point. So what do you do? You explore and open to other areas beyond straight consumer technology. The problem with The Verge is I think they went too far into pop-culture type stuff.

I'm not sure if they've ever had a good record for accurate technology stories. I stopped reading them sometime last year when I noticed how often their articles were inaccurate or just outright false for the sake of click throughs.

Nilay is more likely than Topolsky to make the Verge a lifestyle magazine. He has a very limited taste in gadgets and I've never seen him broach technology topics in a very insightful way.

He wrote a bunch of aggressive 'state of the internet' op-eds that were praised, but they didn't seem to be anything more than popular rallying-cries for semi-knowledgeable tech enthusiasts.

That's actually very true, I'd forgotten that. But maybe this transition will be a challenge for him to increase his capacity and taste.

My same sentiments, his stuff is often filled with typical rally cries you'll see from places like Reddit.

I'm glad it's not just me feeling that way. I think it first hit me when I realized a high percentage of the front page stories were about drugs: legalized marijuana, Silk Road, e-cigarettes & nootropics all at once. I guess I'm not the average Verge reader if that's what gets clicks.

Their Seinfeld story a couple of weeks ago with the headline "That time Elaine threatened to kill herself with a gun" was when I added The Verge to my timewaster list. A few people complained in the comments about that one.

Scamworld is still my favorite Verge article, though "Finding Oz In The Heart Of CES" was also memorable.

I believe Nilay moved to Vox.com some months ago.

Right, he did. But apparently Nilay is actually going to be the editor-in-chief now for The Verge - unless he's meant to be the overall Vox Media editor-in-chief.

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