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Better Offline
Better Offline
Cool Zone Media and iHeartPodcasts

Better Offline is a weekly show exploring the tech industry’s influence and manipulation of society - and interrogating the growth-at-all-costs future that... more

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Episodes

Monologue: The Super Bowl Showed That Generative AI Is Washed

In this week's monologue, Ed Zitron walks you through how the AI industry’s limp Super Bowl commercials show how little... more

14 Feb 2025 · 9 minutes
How Sports Gambling Apps Are Rotting Society

In a live-to-tape recording in Ed Zitron's living room, Wide Left writer Arif Hasan and Western Kabuki Host Caleb Wilson... more

12 Feb 2025 · 1 hour, 24 minutes
Monologue: What Happened With DeepSeek?

In the first of a new series of weekly monologues, Ed Zitron breaks down what exactly happened with DeepSeek, and... more

06 Feb 2025 · 9 minutes
How DeepSeek Showed That Silicon Valley Is Washed

In this episode, Ed Zitron explains how the emergence of a much-more-efficient generative AI model has become an existential threat... more

03 Feb 2025 · 42 minutes
What The Hell Is DeepSeek?

In this episode, Ed Zitron explains how DeepSeek, a relatively-unknown Chinese model AI developer incubated in a hedge fund, has... more

31 Jan 2025 · 32 minutes
Radio Better Offline: Jeremy Kaplowitz of the Quorators

Welcome to Radio Better Offline, a tech talk radio show recorded out of iHeartRadio's studio in New York City. Ed... more

29 Jan 2025 · 45 minutes
The Slop Society

In this episode, Ed Zitron walks you through how lax regulation and all-too-chummy media coverage has empowered Mark Zuckerberg and... more

24 Jan 2025 · 42 minutes
Facebook Was Already Zucked

In this episode, Ed Zitron walks you through how the latest "right-wing turn" for Mark Zuckerberg and Meta is really... more

22 Jan 2025 · 36 minutes
Radio Better Offline: Paris Martineau, Jeff Jarvis

Welcome to Radio Better Offline, a tech talk radio show recorded out of iHeartRadio's studio in New York City. Ed... more

15 Jan 2025 · 1 hour, 25 minutes
Better Offline CES 2025: Day 6 - Epilogue

Welcome to Better Offline’s coverage of the 2025 Consumer Electronics Show - a standup radio station in the Venetian with... more

12 Jan 2025 · 1 hour, 3 minutes
Better Offline CES 2025: Day 5 - Pt. 2

Welcome to Better Offline’s coverage of the 2025 Consumer Electronics Show - a standup radio station in the Venetian with... more

11 Jan 2025 · 1 hour, 56 minutes
Better Offline CES 2025: Day 5 - Pt. 1

Welcome to Better Offline’s coverage of the 2025 Consumer Electronics Show - a standup radio station in the Venetian with... more

10 Jan 2025 · 1 hour, 41 minutes
Better Offline CES 2025: Day 4 - Pt. 2

Welcome to Better Offline’s coverage of the 2025 Consumer Electronics Show - a standup radio station in the Venetian with... more

10 Jan 2025 · 1 hour, 33 minutes
Better Offline CES 2025: Day 4 - Pt. 1

Welcome to Better Offline’s coverage of the 2025 Consumer Electronics Show - a standup radio station in the Venetian with... more

09 Jan 2025 · 1 hour, 36 minutes
Better Offline CES 2025: Day 3 - Pt. 2

Welcome to Better Offline’s coverage of the 2025 Consumer Electronics Show - a standup radio station in the Venetian with... more

09 Jan 2025 · 1 hour, 34 minutes
Better Offline CES 2025: Day 3 - Pt. 1

Welcome to Better Offline’s coverage of the 2025 Consumer Electronics Show - a standup radio station in the Venetian with... more

09 Jan 2025 · 1 hour, 33 minutes
Better Offline CES 2025: Day 2

Welcome to Better Offline’s coverage of the 2025 Consumer Electronics Show - a standup radio station in the Venetian with... more

08 Jan 2025 · 1 hour, 39 minutes
Better Offline CES 2025: Day 1

Welcome to Better Offline’s coverage of the 2025 Consumer Electronics Show - a standup radio station in the Venetian with... more

07 Jan 2025 · 1 hour, 15 minutes
The Invisible War Criminals

In part 2 of the 2024 Better Offline finale, Ed Zitron tells you how to fight back against the growth-at-all-costs... more

03 Jan 2025 · 36 minutes
The Invisible War

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... more

01 Jan 2025 · 35 minutes
FTC Chair Lina Khan: The Better Offline Interview

FTC Chair Lina Khan joins Ed Zitron to talk about competitiveness in the tech industry, controlling the cloud giants, and... more

30 Dec 2024 · 29 minutes
CZM Rewind: Where Did Tech's Magic Go? feat. Alex Cranz & Michael Fisher

In a special live-to-tape episode of Better Offline, Ed is joined by The Verge's Alex Cranz and YouTube influencer Michael... more

25 Dec 2024 · 1 hour, 34 minutes
Watching the Watchmen with Jason Koebler

In this episode, Ed Zitron is joined by 404 Media's Jason Koebler to talk about the state of both the... more

18 Dec 2024 · 58 minutes
Everything Is Advertising with Ryan Barwick

Ed Zitron is joined in-studio by Ryan Barwick of Marketing Brew to talk about how the entire tech ecosystem is... more

11 Dec 2024 · 41 minutes
The Coming Generative AIPocalypse

We're approaching the end of the line for generative AI as big tech realizes that spending $200bn on chips and... more

06 Dec 2024 · 31 minutes
Yep, We're At Peak AI

In this episode, Ed Zitron discusses big tech's discovery of the diminishing returns in training generative AI models - and... more

04 Dec 2024 · 19 minutes
CZM Rewind: The Man That Destroyed Google Search

In this episode, Ed Zitron tells you the disgraceful story of how Prabhakar Raghavan, Google's former head of ads -... more

27 Nov 2024 · 31 minutes
The Rot Society

Blame the tech industry for the rise of authoritarianism. Blame a news media handicapped by a deference to power and... more

20 Nov 2024 · 38 minutes
William Lazonick on How The Stock Market Killed Tech

Recorded live at Web Summit Lisbon, Ed Zitron is joined by William Lazonick, professor emeritus of economics at the University... more

13 Nov 2024 · 53 minutes
The Streisand Effect with Mike Masnick

In this episode, Ed Zitron is joined by Mike Masnick, CEO and Founder of Techdirt, inventor of the Streisand effect,... more

06 Nov 2024 · 54 minutes
A Nobel Economist's Plan To Tax Digital Ads

In this episode, Ed Zitron is joined by Daron Acemoglu, MIT Economist and recent winner of the Nobel Prize in... more

30 Oct 2024 · 33 minutes
A Requiem for Prabhakar Raghavan

Last week, Prabhakar Raghavan, The Man Who Destroyed Google Search, was removed from his position at Google and made a... more

25 Oct 2024 · 18 minutes
Data Vampires with Paris Marx

In this episode, Ed is joined by Paris Marx, author of the Disconnect Blog and the host of Tech Won't... more

23 Oct 2024 · 38 minutes
Zephyr Teachout On Corruption

In this episode, Ed is joined in the iHeartRadio studios in New York City by Zephyr Teachout, Fordham Law Professor... more

16 Oct 2024 · 37 minutes
The Subprime AI Crisis

In this episode, Ed Zitron walks you through the brewing subprime AI crisis. The entire generative AI market is run... more

11 Oct 2024 · 47 minutes
Why OpenAI Is A Terrible Business

As of last week, OpenAI is now worth $157 billion - yet below the hood is a far darker story.... more

09 Oct 2024 · 46 minutes
The Department of Justice V Google Ads: Part 4

Ed Zitron is joined by Jason Kint, CEO of DCN and Arielle Garcia, Director of Intelligence at CheckMyAds, for the... more

02 Oct 2024 · 30 minutes
How To Break the Internet with Chris Stokel-Walker

Just over a month after the CrowdStrike debacle, Ed Zitron is joined by journalist and author Chris Stokel-Walker to "stokel-walk"... more

27 Sep 2024 · 43 minutes
The Department of Justice V Google Ads: Part 3

Ed Zitron is joined by Jason Kint, CEO of DCN and Arielle Garcia, Director of Intelligence at CheckMyAds, for the... more

25 Sep 2024 · 42 minutes
The Department of Justice V Google Ads: Part 2

Ed Zitron is once again joined by Jason Kint, CEO of DCN, for the second episode of Better Offline's coverage... more

18 Sep 2024 · 32 minutes
Silicon Valley Fashion With The Menswear Guy

After earnings failed to reassure investors about their concerns around generative AI's return on investment, NVIDIA's stock suffered a record... more

13 Sep 2024 · 39 minutes
The Department of Justice V Google Ads: Part 1

In this episode, Ed Zitron is joined by Jason Kint, CEO of DCN, to set the scene for Better Offline's... more

09 Sep 2024 · 45 minutes
How Google Cheated Their Way To Billions

In this episode, Ed Zitron walks you through how Google used their monopolies over search and search advertising to scam... more

06 Sep 2024 · 36 minutes
How Monopolies Are Making Tech Worse

A few weeks ago, a federal judge declared that Google has a monopoly over the search industry and text-based advertising.... more

04 Sep 2024 · 34 minutes
Matt Stoller Explains Monopolies

In this episode, Ed Zitron sits down with Matt Stoller, author of the BIG Newsletter and Research Director of the... more

28 Aug 2024 · 58 minutes
Algorithms and Oligopolies with Thomas Germain

In the fourth live-to-tape episode of Better Offlive, Ed Zitron sits down with the BBC's Thomas Germain to talk about... more

21 Aug 2024 · 1 hour, 27 minutes
Big Tech Is The Enemy of Innovation

As the AI bubble collapses, it's time for the tech industry to repent, and to recognize that the future cannot... more

16 Aug 2024 · 42 minutes
How The AI Bubble Bursts

After a year of opulent spending, the markets have begun to sour on big tech's $200 billion bet on generative... more

14 Aug 2024 · 40 minutes
Enzittification with Cory Doctorow & Brian Merchant

In the third live-to-tape episode of Better Offlive, Ed Zitron is joined in-studio in Los Angeles by Cory Doctorow and... more

07 Aug 2024 · 1 hour, 53 minutes
The State of Tech Journalism with Kylie Robison and Mike Isaac

In the second live-to-tape episode of Better Offlive, Ed Zitron is joined in-studio by the New York Times' Mike Isaac... more

31 Jul 2024 · 1 hour, 50 minutes
Rot Economics with MIT's Daron Acemoglu

In this episode, Ed Zitron sits down with famed MIT economist Daron Acemoglu to talk about the economics of the... more

24 Jul 2024 · 33 minutes
CrowdStruck

On Friday July 19, millions of Windows PCs entered a doom-loop that rendered them non-functional thanks to an update sent... more

22 Jul 2024 · 30 minutes
The Academics That Think ChatGPT Is BS

In a paper released earlier this year, three academics from the University of Glasgow classified ChatGPT's outputs not as "lies,"... more

19 Jul 2024 · 56 minutes
Pop Culture

When the money gets nervous, so should you. In this episode, Ed Zitron walks you through a remarkable report from... more

17 Jul 2024 · 49 minutes
How Shareholders Are Destroying The Tech Industry

The shareholder supremacy has eaten the tech industry, driving private and public companies to chase unprofitable, unsustainable ideas like generative... more

12 Jul 2024 · 55 minutes
The Shareholder Supremacy

In this episode, Ed Zitron tracks the history of the growth-at-all-costs rot economy to a court case in 1916 that... more

10 Jul 2024 · 34 minutes
I Will Piledrive You If You Mention AI Again Ft. Nik Suresh & Robert Evans

A few weeks ago, an Australian tech worker called Nik Suresh wrote an evisceration of the current AI hype boom... more

03 Jul 2024 · 45 minutes
Where Did Tech's Magic Go? feat. Alex Cranz and Michael Fisher

In a special live-to-tape episode of Better Offline, Ed is joined by The Verge's Alex Cranz and YouTube influencer Michael... more

26 Jun 2024 · 1 hour, 34 minutes
The Onion Knight Ft. Ben Collins

In April, The Onion was acquired by a new entity called Global Tetrahedron, revealed shortly thereafter to be a joint... more

21 Jun 2024 · 49 minutes
Let Tim Cook

Last week, Apple announced that they're integrating artificial intelligence into your iPhone and Mac in a stunningly demure and reserved... more

19 Jun 2024 · 33 minutes
Sam Altman Is Dangerous To Silicon Valley

In this episode, Ed Zitron walks through how Sam Altman's ridiculous promises about the future of artificial intelligence could be... more

14 Jun 2024 · 54 minutes
The Talented Mr. Altman

Sam Altman has used his power and influence to become a multi-billionaire with stakes in hundreds of startups, but behind... more

12 Jun 2024 · 55 minutes
The Rot-Com Bust

In this episode, Ed Zitron walks you through what happens when tech's growth-at-all-costs epoch begins to collapse, and how the... more

07 Jun 2024 · 41 minutes
The Rot-Com Bubble

Tech's hyper-growth era is ending, with online 100 million new people getting online between 2022 and 2023, and almost every... more

05 Jun 2024 · 30 minutes
AI Is Breaking Google

On May 14th 2024, Google introduced their Search Generative Experience, a service that uses hallucination-prone artificial intelligence to generate answers... more

29 May 2024 · 48 minutes
We're Watching Facebook Die

For three years, Facebook's monthly active users have been declining dramatically, with Facebook.com losing 397 million unique monthly visitors since... more

24 May 2024 · 37 minutes
How Mark Zuckerberg Deliberately Made Facebook Worse

In the last decade, Mark Zuckerberg and his internal growth team have repeatedly and intentionally made Facebook and Instagram harder... more

22 May 2024 · 45 minutes
OpenAI's Video Generating AI Is Dead On Arrival

Earlier in the year, OpenAI debuted Sora, an AI that can generate videos that almost look realistic. In this episode,... more

15 May 2024 · 44 minutes
Enron Musk Ft. Ed Niedermeyer

On April 26 2024, the NHTSA, the government body responsible for keeping roads safe, found Tesla's Autopilot and Full-Self-Driving software... more

08 May 2024 · 54 minutes
The Cult of Failing Upwards

Ed Zitron walks you through how career manager Adam Mosseri pushed out Instagram's original founders, turning it into an ultra-profitable... more

01 May 2024 · 38 minutes
The Man That Destroyed Google Search

In this episode, Ed Zitron tells you the disgraceful story of how Prabhakar Raghavan, Google's former head of ads -... more

25 Apr 2024 · 30 minutes
How Managers Are Breaking The Internet

The growth-at-all-costs management consultant mindset has turned most of the modern internet into a painful and profitable social experiment -... more

24 Apr 2024 · 34 minutes
How A Chinese Glycine Manufacturer Went Viral ft. Louise Matsakis and Tianyu Fang

In the last few weeks TikTok and other social networks have been flooded with memes about a chinese glycine manufacturer... more

17 Apr 2024 · 36 minutes
The AI Bubble Is Bursting

Every major tech firm is betting billions of dollars that the generative AI revolution will change society - yet when... more

12 Apr 2024 · 47 minutes
Are We At Peak AI?

It’s been just under a year and a half since ChatGPT - an AI-powered chatbot launched by so-called non-profit OpenAI... more

10 Apr 2024 · 30 minutes
Wikipedia Is All The Web Has Left ft. Molly White

Wikipedia, a non-profit encyclopedia that anybody can edit, remains one of the few trustworthy and reliable websites left online. Ed... more

03 Apr 2024 · 37 minutes
Rich Idiots Are Killing The Media To Please The Tech Industry

The media industry has laid off over 30,000 people in the last three years as a result of an executive... more

27 Mar 2024 · 48 minutes
How Growth Is Killing Tech's Innovation, ft. Robert Evans

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... more

20 Mar 2024 · 53 minutes
Musk's Uncharitable Charity ft. David Fahrenthold

A New York Times investigation revealed this week that Musk's $7 billion "Musk Foundation" regularly fails to donate enough money... more

13 Mar 2024 · 45 minutes
The Metaverse: How Mark Zuckerberg Lied To The World

In 2021, Mark Zuckerberg renamed Facebook to Meta, claiming that it was now a "Metaverse company," throwing the entire tech... more

06 Mar 2024 · 38 minutes
How The Winklevoss Twins Lost A Billion Dollars

Though the Winklevoss brothers are best known for their role in the early days of Facebook, you'll be surprised to... more

01 Mar 2024 · 47 minutes
The Rot Economy ft Robert Evans

Ever wonder why Google results are getting worse, or why you aren't seeing your friends on Instagram? It's all because... more

24 Feb 2024 · 48 minutes
An Autopsy of Apple's Vision Pro

Apple's $3500 face computer is here, and after spending far too many hours inside it, Ed Zitron has found Apple's... more

21 Feb 2024 · 49 minutes
Introducing: Better Offline

Better Offline is a weekly show exploring the tech industry’s growing influence over society, and how startups, venture capitalists and... more

14 Feb 2024 · 1 minute
Better Offline
The Rot Economy ft Robert Evans
Better Offline
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Description

Ever wonder why Google results are getting worse, or why you aren't seeing your friends on Instagram? It's all because of the... more