Better Offline
Better Offline
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 tech’s elite wants to build. Combining narrative-form storytelling, one-on-one interviews and panel-based discussions, Better Offline cuts through the buzzwords and obfuscation of the tech industry, investigating and evaluating the schemes a…Social links:
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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 tech industry and the tech media, and how 404 Media has built a worker-owned outlet that genuinely works. Follow Jason: https://www.404media.co/ https://x.com/jason_koeblerhttps://bsky.app/profil…
58:44
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 controlled by ads - and whether companies like OpenAI and Perplexity can hope to plug the gaps in their leaky revenue models. Follow Ryan: https://x.com/Ryanbarwick https://www.marketi…
41:10
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 data centers isn't going to create any good products. In this episode, Ed Zitron walks you through what might happen - and why we should still have hope. --- LINKS: https://www.tinyurl.c…
31:56
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 how we may have finally have reached peak AI. --- LINKS: https://www.tinyurl.com/betterofflinelinks Newsletter: https://www.wheresyoured.at/ Reddit: https://www.reddit.com…
19:45
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 - led a coup so that he could run Google Search, and how an email chain from 2019 began a cascade of events that would lead to the outright decay of the most important website on the in…
31:49
The Rot Society
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 that our digital lives are unchecked ecological disasters. In this episode, Ed Zitron draws a direct line from the rot of the digital ecosystem for wha…
38:25
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 of Massachusetts, who is also the co-founder and president of the Academic-Industry Research Network, to talk about how the incentives of shareholder capitalism and stock b…
53:51
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, and member of the board of Bluesky to...well...talk about quite literally that. A banger episode. https://www.techdirt.com/user/mmasnick/https://bsky.app/profile/mmasnick.bsky.socia…
54:04
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 Economics, to talk about his daring - and likely effective - plan to tax all digital advertising revenue over $500m at 50% as well as how we might adjust incentives to bring big tech under …
33:10
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 "Chief Technologist," benching him in favor of a McKinsey-Google Lifer. In this episode, Ed ZItron walks you through how the removal of Prabhakar Raghavan shows that Google is in d…
18:48