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DP David Pierce Editor-at-large at The Verge who covers consumer technology and product reviews, and writes the Installer newsletter of recommendations.

“It's like most of the time you're not using it. And what it does when no one is using it is so incredibly important. And what Amazon decided, for a decade, was that the thing to do when you're not using it is show you ads. And like, no, wrong, incorrect answer.”

The Vergecast · Tech Strategy & Big Tech · October 2026

“It's like most of the time you're not using it. And what it does when no one is using it is so incredibly important. And what Amazon decided, for a decade, was that the thing to do when you're not using it is show you ads. And like, no, wrong, incorrect answer.” — David Pierce, The Vergecast

Context

Discussing Amazon's new 16-inch Echo Show, which can be set to show just a calendar, photos or a smart-home panel, David says what a home display shows while idle is the central design question, and that Amazon had been getting it wrong.

Transcript

The Vergecast Around 08:10 into the episode
Speaker 1

…just have your photos if that's what you want. And you can just have a Fire TV interface if you just want it to be your TV. So yeah, it's definitely the evolution of the smart display. And I feel like it's gone all the way from really, really simple to actually, this is a full-on computer in your

Speaker 2

kitchen.

David Pierce

So, yes, but also this feels to me like Amazon finally figuring out what people actually want in their house, right? Like we give Amazon a lot of crap about its just relentless Amazoning of everything. They're like, oh, any device that you want. Do you want to shop right now? It's like actually not how people experience devices. But this to me is exactly, exactly the way that you should handle a device like this in your house. It's like, what I don't want is just a screen randomly showing me stuff as I attempt to live my life. What I do want is to be able to have access to this kind of ambient computer. And then when it's not doing its job, it does something else for me, right? Like this is the thing. It's so much better to me that I can just say, when this is not in use, I want it to be a photo frame. And it will. Like, just the hoops you have had to jump through to get this to do those basic things for you over time. And the idea with these computers, and I've talked about this with every person who has ever tried to make one of these, and I…

Speaker 1

Yeah, it is. I mean, it is, it feels right because you can customize it now.

Speaker 2

That was one of the

Speaker 1

problems before is that you just got what Amazon gave you. There was a little bit of customization options, but you never could just have what you wanted. And Panos even said this several times at the event. He said, this is what people have been asking for.

Speaker names come from our own diarization. The position is estimated from where the line sits in the episode.

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