Better Offline
Episodes
How The Tech Media Can Beat The Rot Economy
19 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, Ed Zitron walks you through how the growth-at-all-costs Rot Economy has used software to poison so many parts of our lives - and how ...
Monologue: The Super Bowl Showed That Generative AI Is Washed
14 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In this week's monologue, Ed Zitron walks you through how the AI industry’s limp Super Bowl commercials show how little this industry has to off...
How Sports Gambling Apps Are Rotting Society
12 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In a live-to-tape recording in Ed Zitron's living room, Wide Left writer Arif Hasan and Western Kabuki Host Caleb Wilson explain in detail the cultura...
Monologue: What Happened With DeepSeek?
06 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In the first of a new series of weekly monologues, Ed Zitron breaks down what exactly happened with DeepSeek, and how it threatens to pop the AI bubbl...
How DeepSeek Showed That Silicon Valley Is Washed
03 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, Ed Zitron explains how the emergence of a much-more-efficient generative AI model has become an existential threat to the future of O...
What The Hell Is DeepSeek?
31 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, Ed Zitron explains how DeepSeek, a relatively-unknown Chinese model AI developer incubated in a hedge fund, has punctured the generat...
Radio Better Offline: Jeremy Kaplowitz of the Quorators
29 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Welcome to Radio Better Offline, a tech talk radio show recorded out of iHeartRadio's studio in New York City. Ed Zitron is joined by Jeremy Kaplowitz...
The Slop Society
24 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, Ed Zitron walks you through how lax regulation and all-too-chummy media coverage has empowered Mark Zuckerberg and other tech compani...
Facebook Was Already Zucked
22 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, Ed Zitron walks you through how the latest "right-wing turn" for Mark Zuckerberg and Meta is really just formalizing policies on Face...
Radio Better Offline: Paris Martineau, Jeff Jarvis
15 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Welcome to Radio Better Offline, a tech talk radio show recorded out of iHeartRadio's studio in New York City. Ed Zitron is joined by Paris Martineau ...
Better Offline CES 2025: Day 6 - Epilogue
12 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Welcome to Better Offline’s coverage of the 2025 Consumer Electronics Show - a standup radio station in the Venetian with an attached open bar w...
Better Offline CES 2025: Day 5 - Pt. 2
11 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Welcome to Better Offline’s coverage of the 2025 Consumer Electronics Show - a standup radio station in the Venetian with an attached open bar w...
Better Offline CES 2025: Day 5 - Pt. 1
10 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Welcome to Better Offline’s coverage of the 2025 Consumer Electronics Show - a standup radio station in the Venetian with an attached open bar w...
Better Offline CES 2025: Day 4 - Pt. 2
10 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Welcome to Better Offline’s coverage of the 2025 Consumer Electronics Show - a standup radio station in the Venetian with an attached open bar w...
Better Offline CES 2025: Day 4 - Pt. 1
09 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Welcome to Better Offline’s coverage of the 2025 Consumer Electronics Show - a standup radio station in the Venetian with an attached open bar w...
Better Offline CES 2025: Day 3 - Pt. 2
09 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Welcome to Better Offline’s coverage of the 2025 Consumer Electronics Show - a standup radio station in the Venetian with an attached open bar w...
Better Offline CES 2025: Day 3 - Pt. 1
09 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Welcome to Better Offline’s coverage of the 2025 Consumer Electronics Show - a standup radio station in the Venetian with an attached open bar w...
Better Offline CES 2025: Day 2
08 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Welcome to Better Offline’s coverage of the 2025 Consumer Electronics Show - a standup radio station in the Venetian with an attached open bar w...
Better Offline CES 2025: Day 1
07 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Welcome to Better Offline’s coverage of the 2025 Consumer Electronics Show - a standup radio station in the Venetian with an attached open bar w...
The Invisible War Criminals
03 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In part 2 of the 2024 Better Offline finale, Ed Zitron tells you how to fight back against the growth-at-all-costs Rot Economy and its destruction of ...
The Invisible War
01 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In this year's two-part finale, Ed Zitron enumerates the damage being done to billions of people by the growth-at-all-costs Rot Economy - and why you ...
FTC Chair Lina Khan: The Better Offline Interview
30 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
FTC Chair Lina Khan joins Ed Zitron to talk about competitiveness in the tech industry, controlling the cloud giants, and what should give you hope as...
CZM Rewind: Where Did Tech's Magic Go? feat. Alex Cranz & Michael Fisher
25 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In a special live-to-tape episode of Better Offline, Ed is joined by The Verge's Alex Cranz and YouTube influencer Michael Fisher to talk about what t...
Watching the Watchmen with Jason Koebler
18 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, Ed Zitron is joined by 404 Media's Jason Koebler to talk about the state of both the tech industry and the tech media, and how 404 Me...
Everything Is Advertising with Ryan Barwick
11 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Ed Zitron is joined in-studio by Ryan Barwick of Marketing Brew to talk about how the entire tech ecosystem is controlled by ads - and whether compani...
The Coming Generative AIPocalypse
06 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
We're approaching the end of the line for generative AI as big tech realizes that spending $200bn on chips and data centers isn't going to create any ...
Yep, We're At Peak AI
04 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, Ed Zitron discusses big tech's discovery of the diminishing returns in training generative AI models - and how we may have finally ha...
CZM Rewind: The Man That Destroyed Google Search
27 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, Ed Zitron tells you the disgraceful story of how Prabhakar Raghavan, Google's former head of ads - led a coup so that he could run Go...
The Rot Society
20 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Blame the tech industry for the rise of authoritarianism. Blame a news media handicapped by a deference to power and a fear of bias. Blame the fact th...
William Lazonick on How The Stock Market Killed Tech
13 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Recorded live at Web Summit Lisbon, Ed Zitron is joined by William Lazonick, professor emeritus of economics at the University of Massachusetts, who i...
The Streisand Effect with Mike Masnick
06 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, Ed Zitron is joined by Mike Masnick, CEO and Founder of Techdirt, inventor of the Streisand effect, and member of the board of Bluesk...
A Nobel Economist's Plan To Tax Digital Ads
30 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, Ed Zitron is joined by Daron Acemoglu, MIT Economist and recent winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics, to talk about his daring - an...
A Requiem for Prabhakar Raghavan
25 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Last week, Prabhakar Raghavan, The Man Who Destroyed Google Search, was removed from his position at Google and made a "Chief Technologist," benching ...
Data Vampires with Paris Marx
23 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, Ed is joined by Paris Marx, author of the Disconnect Blog and the host of Tech Won't Save Us, to talk about the historic - and horrif...
Zephyr Teachout On Corruption
16 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, Ed is joined in the iHeartRadio studios in New York City by Zephyr Teachout, Fordham Law Professor and Author of "Break 'Em Up: Recov...
The Subprime AI Crisis
11 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, Ed Zitron walks you through the brewing subprime AI crisis. The entire generative AI market is run on the back of unprofitable tech r...
Why OpenAI Is A Terrible Business
09 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
As of last week, OpenAI is now worth $157 billion - yet below the hood is a far darker story. In this episode, Ed Zitron explains the cold, hard truth...
The Department of Justice V Google Ads: Part 4
02 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Ed Zitron is joined by Jason Kint, CEO of DCN and Arielle Garcia, Director of Intelligence at CheckMyAds, for the final episode of Better Offline's co...
How To Break the Internet with Chris Stokel-Walker
27 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Just over a month after the CrowdStrike debacle, Ed Zitron is joined by journalist and author Chris Stokel-Walker to "stokel-walk" through the brittle...
The Department of Justice V Google Ads: Part 3
25 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Ed Zitron is joined by Jason Kint, CEO of DCN and Arielle Garcia, Director of Intelligence at CheckMyAds, for the third episode of Better Offline's co...
The Department of Justice V Google Ads: Part 2
18 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Ed Zitron is once again joined by Jason Kint, CEO of DCN, for the second episode of Better Offline's coverage of the Department of Justice's second an...
Silicon Valley Fashion With The Menswear Guy
13 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
After earnings failed to reassure investors about their concerns around generative AI's return on investment, NVIDIA's stock suffered a record $279 bi...
The Department of Justice V Google Ads: Part 1
09 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, Ed Zitron is joined by Jason Kint, CEO of DCN, to set the scene for Better Offline's coverage of the Department of Justice's second a...
How Google Cheated Their Way To Billions
06 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, Ed Zitron walks you through how Google used their monopolies over search and search advertising to scam advertisers - and why the ent...
How Monopolies Are Making Tech Worse
04 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
A few weeks ago, a federal judge declared that Google has a monopoly over the search industry and text-based advertising. In this episode, Ed Zitron w...
Matt Stoller Explains Monopolies
28 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, Ed Zitron sits down with Matt Stoller, author of the BIG Newsletter and Research Director of the American Economic Liberties Project ...
Algorithms and Oligopolies with Thomas Germain
21 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In the fourth live-to-tape episode of Better Offlive, Ed Zitron sits down with the BBC's Thomas Germain to talk about breaking up big tech, and how we...
Big Tech Is The Enemy of Innovation
16 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
As the AI bubble collapses, it's time for the tech industry to repent, and to recognize that the future cannot be decided entirely by four or five tri...
How The AI Bubble Bursts
14 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
After a year of opulent spending, the markets have begun to sour on big tech's $200 billion bet on generative AI, unfortunately timing with the delay ...
Enzittification with Cory Doctorow & Brian Merchant
07 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In the third live-to-tape episode of Better Offlive, Ed Zitron is joined in-studio in Los Angeles by Cory Doctorow and Brian Merchant to talk about th...
The State of Tech Journalism with Kylie Robison and Mike Isaac
31 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In the second live-to-tape episode of Better Offlive, Ed Zitron is joined in-studio by the New York Times' Mike Isaac and The Verge's Kylie Robison to...
Rot Economics with MIT's Daron Acemoglu
24 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, Ed Zitron sits down with famed MIT economist Daron Acemoglu to talk about the economics of the tech ecosystem, the ridiculousness of ...
CrowdStruck
22 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
On Friday July 19, millions of Windows PCs entered a doom-loop that rendered them non-functional thanks to an update sent by a little-known company ca...
The Academics That Think ChatGPT Is BS
19 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In a paper released earlier this year, three academics from the University of Glasgow classified ChatGPT's outputs not as "lies," but as "BS" - as def...
Pop Culture
17 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
When the money gets nervous, so should you. In this episode, Ed Zitron walks you through a remarkable report from global investment bank Goldman Sachs...
How Shareholders Are Destroying The Tech Industry
12 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The shareholder supremacy has eaten the tech industry, driving private and public companies to chase unprofitable, unsustainable ideas like generative...
The Shareholder Supremacy
10 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, Ed Zitron tracks the history of the growth-at-all-costs rot economy to a court case in 1916 that established the Shareholder Supremac...
I Will Piledrive You If You Mention AI Again Ft. Nik Suresh & Robert Evans
03 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
A few weeks ago, an Australian tech worker called Nik Suresh wrote an evisceration of the current AI hype boom called "I Will F**king Piledrive You If...
Where Did Tech's Magic Go? feat. Alex Cranz and Michael Fisher
26 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In a special live-to-tape episode of Better Offline, Ed is joined by The Verge's Alex Cranz and YouTube influencer Michael Fisher to talk about what t...
The Onion Knight Ft. Ben Collins
21 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In April, The Onion was acquired by a new entity called Global Tetrahedron, revealed shortly thereafter to be a joint venture between billionaire Jeff...
Let Tim Cook
19 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Last week, Apple announced that they're integrating artificial intelligence into your iPhone and Mac in a stunningly demure and reserved presentation....
Sam Altman Is Dangerous To Silicon Valley
14 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, Ed Zitron walks through how Sam Altman's ridiculous promises about the future of artificial intelligence could be ruinous for Silicon...
The Talented Mr. Altman
12 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Sam Altman has used his power and influence to become a multi-billionaire with stakes in hundreds of startups, but behind the curtain, he's never run ...
The Rot-Com Bust
07 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, Ed Zitron walks you through what happens when tech's growth-at-all-costs epoch begins to collapse, and how the only way to save Silic...
The Rot-Com Bubble
05 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Tech's hyper-growth era is ending, with online 100 million new people getting online between 2022 and 2023, and almost every major web platform seeing...
AI Is Breaking Google
29 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
On May 14th 2024, Google introduced their Search Generative Experience, a service that uses hallucination-prone artificial intelligence to generate an...
We're Watching Facebook Die
24 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
For three years, Facebook's monthly active users have been declining dramatically, with Facebook.com losing 397 million unique monthly visitors since ...
How Mark Zuckerberg Deliberately Made Facebook Worse
22 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In the last decade, Mark Zuckerberg and his internal growth team have repeatedly and intentionally made Facebook and Instagram harder and more dangero...
OpenAI's Video Generating AI Is Dead On Arrival
15 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Earlier in the year, OpenAI debuted Sora, an AI that can generate videos that almost look realistic. In this episode, Ed walks through why generating ...
Enron Musk Ft. Ed Niedermeyer
08 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
On April 26 2024, the NHTSA, the government body responsible for keeping roads safe, found Tesla's Autopilot and Full-Self-Driving software created a ...
The Cult of Failing Upwards
01 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Ed Zitron walks you through how career manager Adam Mosseri pushed out Instagram's original founders, turning it into an ultra-profitable app that bar...
The Man That Destroyed Google Search
25 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, Ed Zitron tells you the disgraceful story of how Prabhakar Raghavan, Google's former head of ads - led a coup so that he could run Go...
How Managers Are Breaking The Internet
24 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The growth-at-all-costs management consultant mindset has turned most of the modern internet into a painful and profitable social experiment - and in ...
How A Chinese Glycine Manufacturer Went Viral ft. Louise Matsakis and Tianyu Fang
17 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In the last few weeks TikTok and other social networks have been flooded with memes about a chinese glycine manufacturer called Donghua Jinlong, all t...
The AI Bubble Is Bursting
12 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Every major tech firm is betting billions of dollars that the generative AI revolution will change society - yet when you look under the hood, the rea...
Are We At Peak AI?
10 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
It’s been just under a year and a half since ChatGPT - an AI-powered chatbot launched by so-called non-profit OpenAI - ushered in a new era of inves...
Wikipedia Is All The Web Has Left ft. Molly White
03 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Wikipedia, a non-profit encyclopedia that anybody can edit, remains one of the few trustworthy and reliable websites left online. Ed Zitron is joined ...
Rich Idiots Are Killing The Media To Please The Tech Industry
27 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The media industry has laid off over 30,000 people in the last three years as a result of an executive sect that doesn't read, write, or meaningfully ...
How Growth Is Killing Tech's Innovation, ft. Robert Evans
20 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Ever wonder why Silicon Valley stopped making anything new or interesting? It's because of the same growth-at-all-costs mindset that's destroyed the r...
Musk's Uncharitable Charity ft. David Fahrenthold
13 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
A New York Times investigation revealed this week that Musk's $7 billion "Musk Foundation" regularly fails to donate enough money to get its multi-bil...
The Metaverse: How Mark Zuckerberg Lied To The World
06 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In 2021, Mark Zuckerberg renamed Facebook to Meta, claiming that it was now a "Metaverse company," throwing the entire tech industry into one of its m...
How The Winklevoss Twins Lost A Billion Dollars
01 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Though the Winklevoss brothers are best known for their role in the early days of Facebook, you'll be surprised to learn that they recently lost custo...
The Rot Economy ft Robert Evans
24 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Ever wonder why Google results are getting worse, or why you aren't seeing your friends on Instagram? It's all because of the growth-at-all-costs econ...
An Autopsy of Apple's Vision Pro
21 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Apple's $3500 face computer is here, and after spending far too many hours inside it, Ed Zitron has found Apple's vision of the future to be equal par...
Introducing: Better Offline
14 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Better Offline is a weekly show exploring the tech industry’s growing influence over society, and how startups, venture capitalists and big tech fir...