Marshall here, welcome to Ari something interesting, the Reelignment's new weekend show where I speak to someone about a topic that may be a little off the political and policy slash history train we focus on during the week, but it could be fun to check into over the weekend.

Today's episode is with the journalist Jason Del Rey.

He wrote a book last June, Winter sells all, Amazon, Walmart. and on last week's Thanksgiving, Supercast. They wanted to know what the deal with Black Friday was,

how Cyber Monday has changed, and whether or not people are going to be in person in the same way

they used to be when they came to their shopping back in the 2000s

when I was back in K through 12 and really remember waking up to go to Best Buy in person.

Jason was immediately the person I thought of because he's covered the commerce space for decades

but also has written a book that speaks to both the post-Covid and pre-Covid challenges

that have affected the space including of course the end of the zero interest rate phenomenon that fueled so many of the

startups and the businesses in the space.

Hope you all enjoy this conversation, and once again, this was an episode that came to you

by listener's suggestion, so if there are any

topics you're wondering about that don't have to do with the realignment's day

the day definitely write in a realignment pod at gimo.com as last week's

listener did.

Jason Del Rey, welcome to Ari something interesting.

Thanks for having me.

Yeah, it's great to chat with you, Jason.

So, number one, this episode came together very quickly. I got a bit of audience feedback slash questioning about the state of Black Friday, what kind of happened last weekend with the like e-commerce versus the in-person aspect.

So I instantly thought back to a book you published back in June, took it in this week, so we have lots to talk about.

Let's just kind of start here.

What is your kind of personal reaction and take

...