Direct to consumer sales was something Scion was trying to do when Farley was at Toyota. That ended up being an online configuration paired with a dealer sale. Jim knows what he's up against here, he has the experience, hopefully he can make it work this time.

We have Framework and companies like iFixit to thank for this direction. It's unfortunate that they're not getting more credit for their efforts.

I had the exact same experience. The "refreshed" app wasn't feature complete with the existing app and the UI choices were questionable. I gave it a try for a few weeks but ultimately changed when the developers implied that people were not being open minded enough about the change. I'm surprised and disappointed that NPR invested in it. I remember hearing Ira Glass schilling for the app but I didn't realize there was more than just an advertising deal. By that time it was an obvious mess and shouldn't have gotten their money.

If anyone has access, how about running some photos of the unidentified riot police through it? Seems like this thing should cut both ways.