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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The WSJ On Polymarket's Questionable Ads
In this week’s Better Offline, Ed talks with the Wall Street Journal’s Caitlin Ostroff and Katherine Long about how Polymarket is working with influencers to show videos of fake bets cashing out - and how the prediction markets have grown into a large, barely-regulated operation. Please support me…
34:41
Monologue: Tokenpocalypse Now
In this week's Better Offline monologue, Ed Zitron runs you through how organizations are freaking out after having to pay the real cost of AI tokens, and how the surge of competitive open weight models could lead to the post-bubble locally-run future of LLMs. Save $10 off a year of my premium new…
23:46
Monologue: Silicon Valley is A Cargo Cult
In this week's Better Offline monologue, Ed Zitron runs you through how AI is the pinnacle of Silicon Valley monoculture, and a monument to the cargo cult desperation of a tech industry that celebrates mediocrity and has run out of ideas. Newsletter: Cargo Culture: https://www.wheresyoured.at/carg…
08:54
The AI Industry Must Stop Doom Trolling w/ Cal Newport
In this week’s Better Offline, Ed talks with computer science professor and writer Cal Newport about AI companies “doom trolling” consumers using scary stories about conscious computers, and how we need to make fun of the scare-mongering and ridicule the executives peddling in it. Please support m…
1:02:25
Exclusive: OpenAI Spent $34 Billion In 2025, With Losses Up 8X
In a special exclusive episode of Better Offline, Ed Zitron digs into the audited financials of OpenAI from 2024 and 2025. Companion newsletter: www.wheresyoured.at/exclusive-openai-financials/ Save $10 off a year of my premium newsletter: https://edzitronswheresyouredatghostio.outpost.pub/publi…
04:01
CZM Rewind: 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 major web platform seeing a decline in growth since 2021. In this episode, Ed Zitron walks you through how tech's decline is driving the tech industry to try and sell you use…
30:52
Monologue: AI Can't Afford To Slow Down
In this week's Better Offline monologue, Ed Zitron runs you through how the “does AI have ROI?” debate is coming at the worst possible time for two companies that can’t afford to slow down thanks to their $1.1 trillion in compute commitments. Newsletter: AI Doesn’t Have ROI https://www.wheresyoure…
06:21
Why AI Has No ROI with Paul Kedrosky
In this week’s Better Offline, Ed Zitron is joined by economist Paul Kedrosky to talk about why nobody can find the ROI of AI, why there won’t be a Dot Com Bubble-style recovery for AI data centers, and how Google’s $80bn equity sale shows we’re at the top. https://paulkedrosky.com/ The Nick, Dic…
47:09
Monologue: Everyone Suddenly Cares About AI ROI
In this week's Better Offline monologue, Ed Zitron runs you through how AI’s move to token-based billing has revealed that absolutely nobody has a way of measuring AI’s ROI - and how these massive costs might finally burst the bubble. Companion newsletter: https://www.wheresyoured.at/the-revenge-…
11:50
The AI Industry Is Losing
In this week's Better Offline, Ed Zitron runs you through how Uber’s COO said the quiet part out loud - that AI’s outputs and efficacy do not match up with its ruinous costs - and how despite its bluster, the AI industry’s grift is failing. Free newsletter tie-in: https://www.wheresyoured.at/the-r…
19:27