The original reporting, personal essays, columns, and collaborations that were our most-read stories of the year.
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Posted inBusiness & Tech, Food, Nonfiction, Quote Posts, Quotes
McDonald’s Starts Serving McTech to Survive in the Modern Age
Rapidly modernizing has caused the McDonald’s company some growing pains, but embracing Big Tech might just save them from their old analog self.
Posted inReading List
This Week In Books: I Bought Some Books
Am I ghoul for buying all these plague books?
Posted inArts & Culture, Nonfiction, Story
We’re Not All in This Together
When the only way to be a real community is to be apart, it quickly becomes obvious who is out for themselves.
Posted inNonfiction
So Much More Than Enough
My favorite director, Lynn Shelton, died suddenly this month at the age of 54. Did the spirit of indie filmmaking go with her?
Posted inBusiness & Tech, Current Events, Nonfiction, Quote Posts, Quotes
How Amazon Exploits Chinese Workers to Crank Out Its Products
How Jeff Bezos, the world’s richest man, exploits Chinese workers to manufacture Kindles and smart speakers.
Posted inEditor's Pick
Prime and Punishment
Lucrative placements within coveted search ranks on Amazon’s Marketplace are incentivizing sellers to do whatever it takes to undercut each other — not by competing on price or quality, but by creatively sabotaging the listing above theirs. Bad actors plant obviously fraudulent five-star reviews on popular listings to trigger penalties, or set rivals’ products on fire to frame them […]
Posted inStory
The Man Who’s Going to Save Your Neighborhood Grocery Store
American food supplies are increasingly channeled through a handful of big companies: Amazon, Walmart, FreshDirect, Blue Apron. What do we lose when local supermarkets go under? A lot — and Kevin Kelley wants to stop that.
Posted inBusiness & Tech, Highlight, Nonfiction, Quotes
Long Live the Oddly Charming Poetry of the Mail-Order Catalog
Hammacher Schlemmer, which publishes America’s longest-running catalog, still takes its product descriptions seriously.
Posted inStory
The Migrant in the Mirror
In recent novels, Ocean Vuong and Nicole Dennis-Benn tell stories in which young queer characters affected by migration and displacement are worthy of seeing themselves reflected in others.
