Author: openjargon

When you buy through our links, Business Insider may earn an affiliate commission. Learn more

The best streaming devices offer convenient access to popular video services, allowing you to watch your favorite movies and shows. Though most modern displays have built-in smart TV interfaces, dedicated streaming players often offer snappier performance and extra perks. Separate streaming devices are also a perfect solution for anyone with an old "dumb" TV that needs an upgrade.

These compact devices connect to your display using an HDMI cable and are typically designed as set-top boxes that rest on your TV stand or streaming sticks that hang right out of your TV's HDMI port. The Roku Ultra is my pick for the best streaming device overall, thanks to its 4K playback support, handy rechargeable remote, and easy-to-use operating system (OS). But if you're on a budget and only need high-definition (HD) streaming, the Amazon Fire TV Stick Lite is a reliable and compact option.

I've also selected recommendations geared toward high-end performance and speed, with options from every major brand, from Apple to Google. No matter which model you go with, these picks provide a huge library of TV apps to stream.

Our top picks for the best streaming devices

Best overall: Roku Ultra – See at Amazon

Best budget: Fire TV Stick Lite – See at Amazon

Best high-end: Apple TV 4K – See at Walmart

Best for speedy navigation: Fire TV Stick 4K Max – See at Amazon

Best for Google users: Google Chromecast – See at Amazon

---

Best overall

I've tested many streaming devices, but the Roku Ultra is the model I always return to for daily use. It checks every box I look for, with reliable navigation, 4K video playback, and support for all the major high-dynamic-range (HDR) formats. This enables top video quality when paired with the best 4K TVs.

The Roku OS features a huge library of video apps with access to all the best streaming services, with no major omissions. To get started, just connect the box to your TV via HDMI and install all your favorite streaming channels. Roku's streamlined interface is my favorite, thanks to its simplicity. However, its app-centric design might come across as a bit outdated to buyers who prefer a more content-focused approach. 

Like all of the best streaming devices I recommend, the Roku Ultra has HDR capabilities to enable a wide range of colors and enhanced contrast when playing HDR-enabled videos on a compatible TV. In addition to standard HDR10, it supports the more advanced Dolby Vision and HDR10+ formats, which can more precisely tell a TV how to render HDR images on a scene-by-scene basis. Check out our HDR TV guide for more details about different formats. 

The latest edition of the Roku Ultra was released in 2022, and it comes with Roku's Voice Remote Pro so you can easily adjust volume and search for content with spoken commands. It even has a hands-free feature for voice control with a wake word rather than holding a button. The remote also has a handful of extra perks that make it a bit more convenient than most competitors, including a rechargeable battery (via Micro USB), a private listening port for headphones (earbuds included), and a "lost remote" chime. 

Compared to less expensive Roku models, the Ultra adds an Ethernet port for a wired internet connection, a USB port for local media playback, built-in Dolby Atmos decoding, and Bluetooth support for pairing wireless headphones. 

This all helps cement the Ultra as the most versatile and reliable media player in its price range, and I like that it's more universal than Amazon, Apple, and Google devices. There are cheaper alternatives, but the Roku Ultra is the best streaming device for anyone who wants a feature-packed media player with a simple and intuitive interface.

Read our Roku Ultra review (2020 model).

Best budget

Amazon's Fire TV Stick Lite is one of the most affordable streaming devices on the market. And unlike the similarly priced Roku Express, it comes with a voice remote. To keep the cost down, the Fire TV Stick Lite is limited to 1080p playback, but you're still getting a capable streaming stick that pairs well with aging HDTVs that need extra smarts.

Like all of Amazon's streaming devices, the Fire TV Stick Lite uses the Fire TV OS, which offers access to every major TV app there is. Though it's not my favorite interface, Amazon has improved the design in recent years with better organization, and it should please fans of content-focused navigation. 

Compared to more expensive Fire TV Sticks, this model is missing 4K support, Dolby Vision capabilities, and TV controls on its remote. It also lacks integrated decoding for Dolby Atmos audio, but since most modern TVs can handle Atmos decoding, this isn't a big deal. However, the Stick Lite is a tad slower than the flagship Fire TV Stick 4K Max, so navigation isn't as snappy. 

But on the plus side, you still get Alexa voice control via the included remote. It also supports HDR10 and HDR10+. However, most TVs that support HDR are 4K displays, and if you have a 4K TV, you're better off paying more for an entry-level 4K model like the Fire TV Stick 4K or Roku Express 4K+.

Frequently on sale for only $20, the Fire TV Stick Lite is the best streaming device for buyers who just need a basic but capable HD media player and want to spend as little as possible. 

Best high-end

If you're looking for a high-end streaming device that seamlessly integrates with your Apple account, the third-generation Apple TV 4K is for you.

The device's tvOS interface should appeal to people who already use other Apple products like an iPhone. It's also the only major operating system that isn't available as an integrated interface on any smart TV. Though Roku, Google, and Amazon all license their streaming systems to various display brands, Apple doesn't, so the only way to get the tvOS experience is with an Apple TV device. 

The Apple TV 4K can access tons of streaming apps, as well as music, podcasts, and even games via Apple Arcade. You can also mirror content from an iOS or macOS device using AirPlay. In addition, the Apple TV 4K can serve as a HomeKit hub for Apple's smart home ecosystem.

As its name implies, the Apple TV 4K streams in up to 4K resolution. Like the Roku Ultra, it supports every major HDR format, including Dolby Vision and, new for the third-gen model, HDR10+. These formats provide the best image quality on compatible TVs, giving your display scene-by-scene instructions for optimizing color and contrast. 

The included voice remote supports Siri, and the newest edition has built-in USB-C charging, so you don't need batteries. The back of the device also has an Ethernet port if you need a wired internet connection, but this feature is only offered on the more expensive 128GB model. The 128GB Apple TV 4K also adds Thread networking support, which enables it to connect other supported devices to the internet so they can communicate with each other. 

On the downside, the Apple TV 4K is pricier than a lot of competing options from Roku and Amazon. Most people who aren't invested in Apple's ecosystem will be satisfied with the less expensive Roku Ultra. The deciding factor comes down to budget and the OS you prefer.

Read our Apple TV 4K review (2017 model).

Best for speedy navigation

Amazon's best streaming stick is also one of the snappiest streaming devices I've tested. The Fire TV Stick 4K Max plugs right into the HDMI port on your TV, adding access to a ton of video apps with support for up to 4K playback. The Fire TV Stick 4K Max is also compatible with every major HDR format, so people with Dolby Vision or HDR10+ TVs can watch videos in the best quality available. 

An Alexa voice remote is included so you can control playback and search for content with spoken commands. Though the remote requires you to press a button to activate Alexa, you can also pair the device with an Echo speaker for hands-free control. 

The Fire TV Stick 4K Max works with all of the most popular streaming apps. Though some notable services used to be missing, Amazon's selection is now on par with other major players like Roku. The interface is also solid, but I find Roku OS and Google TV to be a bit more appealing since they let you arrange more apps up top on the home screen. 

The latest version of the Fire TV Stick 4K Max launched in 2023, and this second-gen model has a revised design with rounded edges and an upgraded processor. The previous Fire TV 4K Max was already snappy, but the 2023 model dethrones it as the fastest media stick I've ever tested. It also has double the amount of storage and adds support for WiFi 6E routers. Unlike other Fire TV Sticks, the 4K Max also supports Amazon's Fire TV Ambient Experience, which lets you display art, photos, and widgets for things like the weather and your calendar. 

People willing to pay more should also consider the latest Fire TV Cube, which has a set-top box design with an integrated speaker and built-in support for hands-free Alexa. This means it can double as an Echo smart speaker. But since the Fire TV Stick 4K Max is often on sale for as little as $40, I don't think the Cube is worth the extra money for most buyers.

Best for Google users

The Chromecast with Google TV offers a sizable step forward in performance and usability over older versions. Though previous models, like the Chromecast Ultra, needed a separate phone, tablet, or computer to stream apps from, the Chromecast with Google TV features its own built-in interface with an extensive library of services.

You can still cast apps from a mobile device if you'd like, but the on-screen selection makes it more convenient to find your favorite shows and movies on your TV screen. This makes the Chromecast a more worthy competitor to similar compact players, like the Fire TV Stick 4K.

The homepage's interface is nicely organized, with a row of your favorite services up top and various content recommendations below. I still prefer Roku's navigation style the most, but I give Google TV an edge over the Fire TV OS. Similar to how Apple TVs seamlessly integrate with Apple accounts, the Chromecast links with your Google account to easily communicate with other Google services. 

From a design perspective, the Chromecast features a similar puck-shaped form factor as older models, complete with a dongle connection that hangs from your TV's HDMI port. Unlike older models, the latest version includes a handy voice remote with integrated Google Assistant support.

While initially testing the Chromecast with Google TV, I encountered a few glitches and some lag, but a lot of these issues have been ironed out by firmware since the device's launch. Like the Fire TV Stick Lite, the Chromecast can't decode Dolby Atmos audio on its own, but since most modern TVs can, this shouldn't impact most people trying to listen to Atmos audio. As it stands, the Chromecast offers solid value, especially for buyers already invested in Google's ecosystem.

Read our Chromecast with Google TV review.

What you should look for in a streaming device

Before buying a streaming device, there are a few key factors you should consider. 

First, you'll want to confirm that your chosen device has access to all the services you want. All of the best streaming devices support popular apps like Netflix and Disney Plus, but certain brands may not include some smaller services.

You'll also want to consider your TV's specs. Not all streaming sticks and boxes can handle 4K or HDR, so if you have a 4K TV, you'll want to get a device that can fully take advantage of your display's capabilities, and all of the HDR formats it supports. Likewise, if you don't have a 4K TV, you'll be better off going with a cheaper device that doesn't have those extra features. 

You should also consider the ecosystem you're most plugged into. For example, Android users will get more use from an Android or Google TV device, while those using an iPhone or Mac might prefer the Apple TV, and Alexa fans might want to opt for a Fire TV model. 

Roku devices, on the other hand, are the most versatile since they're compatible with a variety of ecosystems. On the downside, Roku devices lack integrated support for Siri, Alexa, or Google Assistant, but you can pair them with separate smart speakers that use those platforms.

Streaming device FAQs

Do I need a streaming device if I have a smart TV?

If you have a modern smart TV, chances are your display already offers access to most, if not all, of the streaming services you want. However, even operating systems on the best TVs tend to be a bit slower than many standalone streaming devices. Likewise, some people may prefer to use a different interface or digital assistant than the ones that come built into their display.

If you find your smart TV's OS to be lacking, a separate streaming stick or box is a good investment. 

What streaming device interfaces are there?

Each streaming device brand uses a different operating system, with many opting for their own proprietary interface. Though they all offer the same core features, some people may prefer one platform's visual design and organization style over another. 

Here's a rundown of different streaming device brands and the current interfaces they use:

• Roku: Roku OS
• Amazon: Fire TV OS
• Google: Google TV
• Apple: tvOS
• Nvidia: Android TV (similar to Google TV but an older system)

Generally, I prefer Roku's interface because it is the simplest and most reliable, but some may find its visual style to be outdated compared to other systems that use a more modern, content-focused approach to organization. 

Every OS has its own advantages and drawbacks, with a lot of their appeal coming down to personal preference. But no matter which one you go with, they all deliver the same basic streaming capabilities. 

Should I get a streaming stick or box?

When shopping for the best streaming device, buyers have two primary types to choose from: a set-top box or a stick/dongle. The main differences between them are size and external design.

Set-top boxes typically have a rectangular build and can be placed on an entertainment console and connected to your TV via an HDMI cable. Streaming sticks or dongles are more compact devices designed to hang directly out of your TV's HDMI port.

In general, streaming sticks can be a bit more convenient since they're smaller and don't take up space on your TV stand. But entry-level sticks tend to be slower than more expensive streaming boxes and omit extra features like Ethernet and USB ports. And though many TVs house their HDMI connections in an area that makes it easy to hide a stick from view, some displays leave sticks easily visible while hanging out from their sides.

Set-top boxes are a better choice if you want a high-end streaming device, like an Apple TV 4K or Roku Ultra, with all the bells and whistles. But streaming sticks are usually better options on a budget, and some flagship models, like the Fire TV Stick 4K Max, are now capable of navigation speeds that match or even exceed set-top boxes.

Do streaming devices offer live TV?

All of the best streaming devices include access to live TV apps. Some free apps, like the Roku Channel, offer tons of internet stations without a subscription. However, apps that include popular cable and network channels require a paid subscription. Check out our guide to the best live TV streaming services to see our top recommendations.  

Viewers looking for free access to network channels should consider purchasing a digital TV antenna. As long as you have good reception in your area, an antenna can pick up local channels like ABC and NBC free of charge. Check out our guide to the best indoor antennas for our top picks.

• Apple unveiled some snazzy new features for its Mail app at WWDC 2024.
• Updates include advanced categorization, a digest view for emails, and AI-powered writing tools.
• The new Siri integration now helps locate emails and provides real-time information from messages.

Managing your email app — and even just searching for an email you know is in there somewhere — can be unbearable.

But Apple is trying to change that.

At Apple's WWDC event on Monday, company executives announced a number of new features that will likely make the Mail app much easier to use across Apple devices, and even make it function more like an executive assistant.

Here's what you need to know about the latest email updates Apple is rolling out.

Mail app categorization

Apple is introducing new categories into its Mail app that will help you better manage and organize incoming emails.

Some of this may sound familiar to Gmail users, but there are also some differences.

A "primary" category will gather together your most important messages at the top, like emails from people you know and time-sensitive emails, Ronak Shah, Apple's director of internet technologies product marketing, said at the event.

Everything else will be divided into new categories like "'transactions' for receipts and order confirmations, 'updates' for newsletters and social media notices, and 'promotions' for marketing and sales messages," Shah explained.

In addition to these categories, the Mail app will also soon have a "digest" view that will assemble all emails from a business in one place. For example, all your emails from United Airlines will appear in one grouping so you can see all your flight information without having to search or scour your inbox.

You'll also still be able to see all your emails in one place, and you can recategorize your messages as much as you want, Ronak said, adding that the categorization feature will become available later this year.

Writing tools integrated into Mail

Thanks to Apple's new generative AI system, Apple Intelligence, some smart AI-powered writing tools will be integrated across Apple apps, including the Mail app.

With Apple Intelligence, you'll be able to pull up a sidebar from the Mail app that will help you rewrite an email draft. For example, you can choose options to make the tone of your email more "friendly," more "professional," or more "concise."

You can also choose the "summary" or "key points" options to add TL;DRs to your emails.

Smart Reply can also help you identify and answer questions you were asked in a previous email.

And, in the Mail app, you'll also be able to see summaries of emails instead of just short previews.

New Siri capabilities with the Mail app

Apple's new and improved Siri can also help you track down that hard-to-remember item.

When you're trying to remember something, like a book recommendation a friend sent you — but can't remember if it was from an email or a text message or a shared note — Siri will be able to surface it down for you, Kelsey Peterson, Apple's director of machine learning and AI, said at the conference.

You'll also be able to ask Siri things like, "When is my mom's flight landing?" And in response, Siri will find the email with your mom's flight information, and cross-reference it with real-time flight-tracking info to give you her most accurate arrival time, Kelsey explained.

Calligraphy inkstones, especially elaborately designed ones, can cost over $5,000. While the traditional practice of using an ink stick and inkstone is less common now that liquid ink exists, the artistry and labor involved in making inkstones — for use or as collectibles — keep demand alive.

• Apple's iPhones are so good it's a problem for Apple because people don't need to buy replacements.
• But the new AI features Apple showed off at WWDC will only work on Apple's newest phones and devices.
• So here's the key question: Are the new AI features enough to get you to buy a new iPhone?

What if your iPhone could scan, and understand, your emails and your texts and your calendar? So you could ask it when you're supposed to pick up your mom from the airport and where you're supposed to go to lunch afterward without looking through all of that stuff yourself?

That's the scenario Apple sketched out Monday, when it tried to explain how it was integrating AI into its ecosystem.

And that sounds … pretty good to me?

But let's reframe the question: Would you pay $800 — or a lot more — for an Apple device that does that stuff?

Because that's the key question for Apple, which says that all of the new AI features it announced at its developers conference will only be available on its top-of-the-line devices. That means the series 15 iPhones it debuted last fall, as well as its newest/most powerful iPads and Macs, and whatever new devices it rolls out later this year.

If the answer is "yes," then AI will be a very big deal for Apple because it will solve a very big problem: People aren't buying iPhones like they used to.

That problem is not a secret and is on full display when Apple announces iPhone sales numbers that show slowing growth — or, like it revealed last quarter — an actual decline.

And you can also see it in third-party reports about iPhone owners hanging on to their existing phones much longer than they used to.

In one way, this is a very high-quality problem for Apple — it makes phones so good that there's no reason to buy next year's model, or the one after that, or the one after that. (I can attest to this personally: I use an iPhone 13 that I got in 2021 and have yet to find any reason to swap it out for something new.)

But it's also a very real problem for Apple since Apple is in the business of selling expensive, high-margin hardware.

As we've discussed here before, Apple has tried to cope with this problem by emphasizing the growth of its "services" businesses, which can grow independently of its device sales. But it still really, really needs you — and me — to buy a new iPhone periodically to keep the whole thing humming.

If you were a deeply cynical person, or a journalist, you might wonder if Apple really needs its latest and greatest chips and other hardware to make the AI it is showing off work. You might suggest that this is just a convenient sales pitch for a company that can no longer say "Thinner!" or "Better camera!" and get people to pony up for a new phone.

But for argument's sake, let's assume that this is at least a bit true. (We do know, for starters, that the tech that powers stuff like ChatGPT requires an enormous amount of electricity. So maybe running it on your pocket computer requires a state-of-the-art pocket computer, too.)

So now, back to the main question: Is the stuff that Apple CEO Tim Cook showed off Monday amazing enough to make you buy a new phone, or iPad, or Mac?

Because I saw some hints of some pretty cool stuff, like the mom/airport scenario Apple says it can solve. But a lot of stuff didn't seem as impressive, like the ability to custom-create emojis in your text messages. (What's up with Apple's belief in emojis as a difference-maker?)

One reason this stuff may not have blown me away is that it may literally not be that big of a deal — just like talking poop emojis weren't a big deal in 2017. Or maybe it's that the most impressive uses of AI on iPhones won't show up until developers figure out cool new ways to use AI on iPhones — which is the whole rationale for showing this stuff off at a developers' conference.

But I do have a third, vibes-based theory about why the AI that Apple showed off didn't blow me away. It's that Apple is walking a fine line here: It wants you to think that AI is amazing — but not scary.

Because the amazing/scary dichotomy has been something we've become quite used to with other AI launches in the last few years: Chatbots like ChatGPT can convincingly "talk" to you — but can you trust anything they say? Image- and video-making tech like Midjourney and Sora can conjure amazing-looking scenes from scratch — but maybe they'll replace an entire industry? Etc.

And during Apple's Monday demo, the company played on both sides of that line: It would tell you that Apple's AI could instantly make your writing better. But it also made dark, fleeting references to other people's not-so-good AI. Like AI companies that store your data on "someone's AI cloud."

And that tension is most obvious in the name of the product itself: Apple doesn't call its AI "artificial intelligence" but "Apple Intelligence" — implicitly arguing that the other AIs aren't something you need to spend time worrying about.

Actually, it was pretty explicit. "This is AI for the rest of us," Apple executive Craig Federighi spelled out at the end of his presentation.

In Apple's framing, that's AI that's helpful, but not creepy; immediately useful, but not too disruptive. And, crucially: Cool enough to justify a new, very expensive purchase.

Are you buying it?

• Elon Musk seemed less than impressed with Apple's WWDC presentation Monday.
• He responded to posts on X about the new iPhone home screen and iPad Calculator app.
• Musk has been taking jabs at Apple for the better part of a decade.

Elon Musk seemed slightly underwhelmed by a handful of updates Apple announced Monday during its WWDC presentation.

Early on in the event, YouTube tech reviewer Marques Brownlee posted on X that the crowd cheered when Apple introduced an iPhone home screen revamp, allowing users to place app icons wherever they want.

The changes help make your iPhone wallpapers more visible, Apple said.

"Um ok," Musk retorted on X.

In addition to the ability to move app icons around, other changes coming to iOS 18 include a new look for icons in "dark mode" and the ability to adjust their tints.

Elsewhere during the presentation, Musk shared a laughing emoji in response to a meme joking that anticipation around the event wasn't squaring up with some of the more minor changes unveiled — namely, the new iPad Calculator app.

Viewers were clamoring for ambitious AI updates, according to the meme — which, to be fair, Apple did go on to deliver.

The native iPad Calculator, which Musk appeared to laugh at, goes beyond a scaled-up version of the existing one for iPhones.

A new Math Notes feature enables users to write down math problems with the Apple Pencil that the Calculator can solve — with the answer appearing in the same handwriting.

Neither Musk nor Apple immediately responded to requests for comment from Business Insider.

But perhaps the criticism shouldn't come as a surprise.

Musk has been taking jabs at Apple and its CEO, Tim Cook, for the better part of a decade — and in 2022, accused the hardware giant of market monopolization and opposing free speech.

The day after Thanksgiving in 2020, on the American bacchanal of consumerism known as Black Friday, a post appeared on WallStreetBets with a short video filmed in the parking lot of a nondescript strip mall.

A middle-aged guy came out of a GameStop store carrying a big white box containing a PlayStation 5, the newly released video game console from Sony. As he walked across the parking lot, the person holding the camera ran at the customer and pushed him to the ground, knocking the box out of his arms.

An accomplice of the cameraman, a young blond man in sweatpants and a red headband, swooped in from behind and, laughing, snatched up the PlayStation box and ran away at full speed, repeatedly spitting out the word PlayStation with deranged joy as he raced off.

The cackling of the thief made it a particularly sordid scene to watch. But in the inimitable style of WallStreetBets, the video, which had first appeared on Twitter, was pulled into a post and described amorally as a trading signal, and a very bullish one, for the store that sold the PlayStation 5—GameStop, or GME, as the company was known in the stock market.

The title and only words in the Reddit post put the thesis simply: "PS5 robbery outside of Gamestop, BULLISH long GME."

'Get in asap, we're going to Pluto'

GameStop was in some ways an odd stock for the subreddit, which had tended to go for futuristic technology companies like Tesla and Virgin Galactic. GameStop was more like a remnant of the past, and it was getting eaten alive by tech companies such as Amazon.

Since the era of the original Nintendos and Segas, GameStop had fallen on hard times. The video-game industry was booming, but much of the growth was coming from digital downloads and iPhone games, which didn't require going to a store.

The surviving GameStops were somewhat notorious for their stained carpets and musty smell. The video of the robbery captured the seedy feel of the outlets, which were often a few doors down from liquor stores and check-cashing depots.

As digital game downloads became more popular, many people assumed GameStop would go the way of Blockbuster, which had filed for bankruptcy after its physical videotapes lost out to the digital offerings on Netflix.

But on Black Friday, GameStop seemed to be getting an unlikely bump due to those new video-game consoles from Sony that had just been released and that were selling like hotcakes.

Sony had decided to include a slot for a game disk in the new PlayStations, which suggested that GameStop's physical stores might not be dead yet.

Everyone on WallStreetBets seemed to be aware of all these dynamics, thanks to the video-game-loving tendencies of the guys who hung out on the subreddit. Now they aimed their memes and their Robinhood accounts squarely at GameStop.

"Get in asap, we're going to Pluto," one longtime member wrote under the title "GME Gang Gang Gang Gang." The post showed a picture of a portfolio with $225,000 of call options on GameStop.

Part of the reason that GameStop had not broken out on WallStreetBets before this weekend was the rule Jaime Rogozinski, the founder of the subreddit, had put in place the previous spring banning posts about penny stocks and companies worth less than a billion dollars. GameStop had thousands of stores, but it was struggling so much that the whole company had essentially been valued as a penny stock.

On Black Friday, though, the company had broken through the one-billion- dollar threshold, and when the ban was removed, it was like a dam had broken.

The company surged past Tesla that day to become the most talked about stock on the subreddit. As the stock went up, Jordan Zazzara, the most active moderator on the subreddit, stayed glued to his desk, trying to contain the flood of posts about the latest meme stock.

"I've been literally staring at the sub and spamming things since market opened," Zazzara wrote a few hours into the day. "We're sending a message with dozens if not hundreds of temporary bans for low quality submissions. I've been banning since 9 a.m.," he added.

The posts coming in about GameStop reflected a remarkable degree of research and knowledge about the company. There were lengthy write-ups about the company's recent history, especially the news that a young billionaire named Ryan Cohen had bought a significant chunk of GameStop shares with an apparent interest in taking control of the company.

But there was also a lot of talk about how GameStop looked like many of the other big names that had broken out on WallStreetBets, given its unpopularity among hedge funds. Like Tesla and Palantir, GameStop was a popular stock to short among hedge funds, though GameStop took it to a whole new level.

Back in February, when Tesla had been one of the most heavily shorted stocks on Wall Street, hedge funds had borrowed around 20 percent of the company's shares to short them, a common way of measuring the degree of short interest or pessimism toward a company.

With GameStop, the short interest was five times as high, around 100 percent, which meant that hedge funds had borrowed essentially every single share of the company to short it. The early posts about these figures suggested that there was something offensive about the way Wall Street could borrow every single share a company had issued in order to bet on its demise.

The anger that began to pick up played right into the fury toward hedge funds that had emerged the previous month after Andrew Left of Citron Research had criticized and bet against the most popular stocks among retail investors.

GameStop seemed to offer a perfect opportunity to get some revenge.

If the crowd could push GameStop's stock up, they could make the hedge funds lose money on the big bets they had placed against GameStop. One popular post recalled the recent fight with Left and Citron Research to get the crowds riled up.

"How many times has a short screwed over your calls or positions because of a single Tweet ahem Citron/PLTR ahem or manipulated your stock to the point where you bought high and sold low?" one post asked.

"Well, here's a chance to redeem yourself."

'We're just trying to be careful'

Zazzara did not like the direction this was going. He had just cracked down on the efforts to take down Citron Research for fear that they would give Reddit an excuse to kill the subreddit. Now Zazzara went into action again, deleting posts that talked about pumping or squeezing GameStop.

"You know when you love your cat but it won't stop going on the fucking table and that's literally the one place you don't like it to be?" Zazzara asked. "That's how I feel about these GME posts that are using the 'P' and get in so we can cause an 'S' words that are no-nos."

He once again tried to convey that this was not about censorship: "We're not removing them because we want to impinge on your freedoms. We're just trying to be careful."

But in the days that followed, the stream of material about GameStop kept coming, and as Zazzara watched it all pour in, he could see that this was not just some pump-and-dump scheme orchestrated by a handful of people. There was a lot of very smart and detailed due diligence on GameStop, arising out of what looked to be a new kind of crowdsourced research effort unlike anything WallStreetBets had seen before.

The most visible new character on the subreddit was a guy who went by the username Uberkikz11. He wrote detailed posts arguing that GameStop had a much more promising outlook than the views coming out of Wall Street would suggest. To support his argument, Uberkikz11 relied on information he pulled from GameStop's financial filings and other data sources. Uberkikz11 had put what he said was a "majority of his net worth in GME" and he was eager to use social media to get the word out about the company's potential.

"I'm here to provide as much boots on the ground $GME intelligence as one man can deliver. Clearly I'm not doing all this financial modeling and scraping for nothing. I enjoy helping others here."

In real life, Uberkikz11 was a 31-year-old who lived in Tampa, Florida, and worked in middle management at the truck rental company Ryder. He said his odd username was from when he had been a tween soccer freak with the number 11 on his jersey.

Unlike most people on Reddit, who embraced the anonymity of social media, Uberkikz11 often mentioned his real name, Rod Alzmann, and his rather fuddy-duddy tastes, like the 2014 Chevy Bolt he drove and the Vanguard retirement account where he kept his GameStop options.

"I'm an 81-year-old man in a 31-year-old body," Alzmann joked.

But Alzmann emphasized that he was trying to do something very modern with his GameStop investment by harnessing the crowds on social media to pool their knowledge and resources so that they could compete against the hedge funds that always seemed to have such an edge over ordinary people.

Alzmann's most impressive project was an effort to estimate GameStop online revenues by collecting receipts from all the GameStop customers he met online. Alzmann had noticed that GameStop, unlike most stores, numbered its receipts sequentially. This meant that if he had receipts from the beginning of the day and others from the end of the day, he could estimate how many transactions the company had done.

During the Black Friday weekend, he had gone around asking everyone to send in their receipts as they bought their new PlayStations and Xboxes from GameStop.

"GME ORDER NUMBERS! SHARE YOUR ORDER NUMBERS HERE!" he had bayed on social media like some carnival hawker.

Alzmann used the data he gleaned to put together estimates on the company's quarterly revenues, which he frequently updated and promptly shared with his online followers.

The other person who came up in all the online conversations about GameStop was a character who went by the name Roaring Kitty. He appeared to do most of his work on YouTube, where he ran a regular livestream show that brought people together to talk about the latest news and data on GameStop. He had been ramping up the YouTube channel over the fall and by December he was holding court a few nights a week for several hours each time.

Roaring Kitty pulled up charts and documents as he spoke, but he also interacted frequently with the people who gathered in the live chat that ran alongside his video stream. Alzmann joined in the live chat and talked with Roaring Kitty and the others in attendance about their latest findings, constantly challenging them to find any detail that might make them reconsider their investment. They did not want to be bullish if being bullish was not supported by the evidence.

As they did this work, Roaring Kitty constantly made fun of himself and the others for their obsessive interest in this offbeat company.

"Who the HELL can talk about a single stock for 5 hours straight?!" he asked.

"I'll tell ya who . . . the Roaring Kitty crew."

Before December, because of the ban on posts about companies worth less than a billion dollars, most of the conversation about GameStop had been happening on other social media networks.

Roaring Kitty was one of the many online personalities who had been making a name on YouTube by talking about stocks and investing. There was even a new name going around for the financially focused influencers who were popping up in response to the post-COVID trading mania: finfluencers.

Another hub of conversation about GameStop was StockTwits, a Twitter-like messaging platform focused on investing. StockTwits had been founded during the financial crisis and now had around three million active accounts, about twice as many members as WallStreetBets.

StockTwits was often the butt of jokes on WallStreetBets because the unmoderated nature of the service made it overwhelming and attractive to scams and spam. But StockTwits offered some advantages over WallStreetBets, like allowing users to filter the conversation for particular stocks. This made it easy for fans of GameStop to find each other and chat.

Alzmann and a handful of other GameStop-obsessed investors had come together on StockTwits over the course of 2020 and used it as a place to meet up and chat during the day. This group, whose members began referring to themselves as the GME Owls, had hatched plans on StockTwits to get GameStop in front of the much larger masses on WallStreetBets around Thanksgiving.

These conversations about GameStop showed the way that a whole new media ecosystem dedicated to investing was growing up far beyond the bounds of WallStreetBets as the COVID lockdowns continued.

But in the conversations on YouTube and StockTwits, there had been increasing recognition that WallStreetBets exerted a kind of gravitational pull that none of the other sites could touch.

"If 1% of the active traders on WSB picked up 20 shares for shits and giggles, there's literally nothing left," one of the regulars on StockTwits wrote as the GME Owls began fanning out onto WallStreetBets after Black Friday.

In the week after Thanksgiving, the GME Owls from StockTwits put up a survey on WallStreetBets so they could get a sense of how many people from this rowdy crowd were buying the stock.

The 2,400 people who responded suggested that they had, as a group, bought 3.4 million shares of GameStop. That was enough to make WallStreetBets the seventh-largest holder of GameStop stock, ahead of some of the big Wall Street investment firms that had shown interest in the stock.

Some of the guys in StockTwits were skeptical of the attention span and staying power of the Reddit crew. But during the week after Thanksgiving, GameStop took a dip, and it seemed only to strengthen the resolve of the growing hordes on WallStreetBets.

"It turns out that with a culture can come strong convictions," one of the leading GME Owls wrote on StockTwits. "They actually ditched their option gambling ways and most have made a bid for shares to help the greater cause."

The most useful information that the GME Owls had uncovered in the fall of 2020 was about Ryan Cohen, the young billionaire who had purchased millions of GameStop shares earlier in the year. Cohen had not said much about his purchase publicly, but in regulatory filings he indicated that he was looking to buy enough shares so he could join GameStop's board and encourage the company to embrace the possibilities of e-commerce more fully.

Cohen had made his fortune by founding and running Chewy, an online pet store that was one of the only e-commerce start-ups that had successfully taken on Amazon. If Cohen could work his e-commerce magic on GameStop, the company might not be doomed by the rise of downloadable video games.

Alzmann and the other GME Owls obsessively tracked every new filing and bit of information from Cohen to see if he was moving ahead with his plans to remake GameStop. Alzmann went so far as to reach out to Cohen's lawyers to let Cohen know that the people gathering on WallStreetBets were behind him.

On WallStreetBets, Alzmann shared the growing evidence that Cohen was indeed planning to take a more active role at GameStop. This led to a surge of memes that portrayed Cohen as the hero of the ordinary guys in their battle against the villainous hedge funds.

This crowdsourced research and cheerleading paid off mid-December when Cohen made his latest filing, a letter he had just sent to the GameStop board. The letter indicated that Cohen was getting much more aggressive in his effort to change the company and was not going to take no for an answer. When the filing was made public, the stock shot up and the subreddit celebrated the news as vindication of all their hard work.

On CNBC, Jim Cramer had been watching and talking about the rise of GameStop warily as part of his long-standing fascination with the rise of retail investing.

At first, GameStop reminded him of the February gamma squeezes when the crowds had manipulatively seized on silly stocks like Virgin Galactic.

But when Cramer dug into the conversation happening around GameStop on WallStreetBets, he saw that something new and more sophisticated was happening.

"What I say to myself is 'Do not be a snob,'" he told his viewers. "If they're running GME, then do some work on it. Make sure that you know GME."

He said Wall Street was likely to continue viewing the Reddit and Robinhood crowds with the disdain that had marked most of the professional commentary to date. But Cramer said he was taking a different tack.

"The bottom line? I think it's time to stop disrespecting the younger investors who've nailed 2020 every step of the way. Start taking them seriously, even at this incredible run. It's not too late to join them."

From the book THE TROLLS OF WALL STREET by Nathaniel Popper. Copyright © 2024 by Nathaniel Popper. Reprinted by permission of Dey Street Books, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.

Nathaniel Popper is the author of Digital Gold: Bitcoin and the Inside Story of the Misfits and Millionaires Trying to Reinvent Money.

• The US has plans to employ thousands of drones if China invades Taiwan, the top US admiral in the Pacific said. 
• The "unmanned hellscape" would buy the US time to come to the aid of Taiwan, he added.
• China's drills around the island last month raised questions about what a blockade or invasion would look like.

If China invades Taiwan, it may face a large, lethal drone force meant to make its military "miserable."

At least that's the plan, according to the top US admiral in the Pacific, who said the "Hellscape" strategy is designed to distract China and buy the US time to respond.

"I want to turn the Taiwan Strait into an unmanned hellscape using a number of classified capabilities," Adm. Samuel Paparo, the commander of US Indo-Pacific Command, told The Washington Post at the International Institute for Strategic Studies' Shangri-La Dialogue Summit.

In doing so, he said, "I can make their lives utterly miserable for a month, which buys me the time for the rest of everything."

The plan involves launching thousands of unmanned systems, from surface vessels and submarines to aerial drones, to fight Chinese invading forces as soon as they begin to cross the Taiwan Strait, effectively acting as a kind of first line of defense.

This type of strategy would require heavy investments in cheap, reliable drones, which the US has been doing with its Replicator initiative. Last year, the Department of Defense officially announced the program, which is a long-term plan to field thousands of autonomous systems.

While progress on the ambitious plan has been relatively quiet, there have been some signs of movement.

Back in March, Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks said the Pentagon aims to spend $1 billion this fiscal year on Replicator. A few capabilities have been highlighted as necessary for the first drones in the program, and the Pentagon is working with defense partners to develop and acquire these systems.

Last summer, Hicks said Replicator aimed to counter China's "biggest advantage," which is its mass: "More ships. More missiles. More people." She said that "we'll counter the [People's Liberation Army's] mass with mass of our own, but ours will be harder to plan for, harder to hit, harder to beat."

The previous INDOPACOM commander said last year that US unmanned capabilities "will be an asymmetric advantage." He said "operational concepts that we are working through are going to help amplify our advantages in this theater," adding, "There's a term, hellscape, that we use."

Paparo's remarks on the "Hellscape" strategy come on the heels of a massive Chinese military drill around Taiwan, during which it effectively surrounded the island and showed off joint force capabilities.

While the exercise showed Taiwan and the US how quickly and easily China could employ a blockade, it was also a learning opportunity for the US military.

After the drills concluded, Paparo said they "looked like a rehearsal" for an invasion, telling Japan's Nikkei newspaper: "We watched it. We took note. We learned from it. And they helped us prepare for the future."

• Texting on your iPhone is about to look a lot more like Slack and email.
• iOS 18 will allow users to schedule text messages to be sent later, Apple announced at WWDC.
• Texts can also be formatted with bolding and italics and will have emoji reaction tapbacks.

Your iPhone is about to get some new features that'll make texting seem a lot more like email or Slack.

Apple's iOS 18 update will come with the ability to schedule text messages to be sent at a later time, it announced at its annual WWDC event on Monday. It's among the "most requested features" and can come in handy for things like sending a reminder or remembering to wish a friend happy birthday, said Ronak Shah, Apple's director of internet technologies product marketing.

Other new capabilities coming to iMessage include text formatting, such as using bolding, italics, strikethrough, or underlining. Apple is also adding emoji and sticker tapbacks you can use to react to a message.

Tapbacks are "one of the most popular ways to express yourself in messages," said Shah.

The emoji and sticker tapbacks go beyond the existing ones, which only include a thumbs up or down, heart, laugh, exclamation point, and question mark. Those are all getting a design refresh, however.

New text effects, including "shake" and "bloom," are also coming to jazz up your messages. Some will be automatically suggested based on your message, but you can also add any effect to any text.

• The iPhone is about to look more like an Android thanks to iOS 18.
• Apple's new operating system includes home screen customization options similar to Android devices.
• Some users have argued that Android phones are more innovative than their Apple counterparts.

Your iPhone will soon look more like an Android device.

IPhone users will soon be able to customize elements of the home screen as part of Apple's iOS 18 software update, the company announced at Monday's opening session of its Worldwide Developers Conference.

You'll be able to arrange app icons on your screen around your wallpaper photo of your dog, for instance, or add a colored tint to the icons, according to the presentation. All you'll have to do is press and hold on the home screen to make your selections. The icons and your wallpaper also have a new look in dark mode.

And in a feature reminiscent of Android Widgets, changes to the iPhone's Control Center mean that you'll be able to, say, swap out the flashlight button on your lock screen for something else.

"We wanted to make Control Center more extensible than ever, so now developers can include controls from their apps as well," Craig Federighi, Apple's senior vice president, software engineering, said during the WWDC presentation before using one such control from automaker Ford that can adjust the air conditioning in his car.

The level of customization caught the attention of tech fans on X, formerly known as Twitter.

"This is so horribly Android, I love and hate it. Thanks Apple," wrote a different user.

Another even suggested that the iOS18's new features could be enough to lure Android users to iPhones.

Android users have long argued that their devices are more innovative — and easier to customize exactly to their needs — than iPhones. Some iPhone users have come to agree after the release of the iPhone 15.

Android phones were the more popular choice among US consumers for years until 2022, when the number of iPhone users pulled ahead for the first time.