Better Offline

In this episode, Ed Zitron sits down with Matt Stoller, author of the BIG Newsletter and Research Director of the American Economic Liberties Project to explain what a monopoly is, why they're so pervasive, how America entered a "monopoly crisis," and what all of this means for Google, Apple, Meta, and the rest of big tech. Want to read the transcript of this episode? Go to wheresyoured.at/stoller BIG by Matt Stoller https://www.thebignewsletter.com/ Matt Stoller on Twitter https://x.com/matthewstoller  Newsletter: wheresyoured.at  Reddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/betteroffline  Discord: chat.wheresyoured.at  Ed's Socials: http://www.twitter.com/edzitron  instagram.com/edzitron  https://bsky.app/profile/zitron.bsky.social https://www.threads.net/@edzitron See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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 can find hope in the hopelessness of multiple monopolies and algorithms. LINKS: Thomas Germain: https://x.com/thomasgermain vkgoeswild: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbKM5fcSsaEFZRP-bjH8Y9w Dan Yang: https://www.instagram.com/realdanyang Cities By Diana: https://www.instagram.com/citiesbydianaSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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 trillion-dollar firms that are no longer capable of innovation, only copying other people's ideas. In this episode, Ed Zitron walks you through how the generative AI boom shows how little big tech cares about actual innovation - and how this might eventually lead to their collapse. LINKS: http://www.tinyurl.com/betterofflinelinks  Newsletter: wheresyoured.at  Reddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/betteroffline  Discord: chat.wheresyoured.at  Ed's Socials: http://www.twitter.com/edzitron  instagram.com/edzitron  https://bsky.app/profile/zitron.bsky.social https://www.threads.net/@edzitron See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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 of Nvidia's new AI-specialized "blackwell" chips. In this episode, Ed Zitron walks you through the pale horses of the AI apocalypse - and what this means for the tech industry at large. LINKS: http://www.tinyurl.com/betterofflinelinks  Newsletter: wheresyoured.at  Reddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/betteroffline  Discord: chat.wheresyoured.at  Ed's Socials - http://www.twitter.com/edzitron  instagram.com/edzitron  https://bsky.app/profile/zitron.bsky.social https://www.threads.net/@edzitron   See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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 the forces that have turned the tech industry away from innovation - and how we might turn the tide against them. CORY DOCTOROW: https://pluralistic.net/ https://x.com/doctorow BRIAN MERCHANT:  Blood In The Machine Book: https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/brian-merchant/blood-in-the-machine/9780316487740/?lens=little-brown Newsletter: https://www.bloodinthemachine.com/ https://x.com/bcmerchant Ed's Socials: https://www.twitter.com/edzitron https://instagram.com/edzitron https://bsky.app/profile/zitron.bsky.social  https://www.threads.net/@edzitron Newsletter: wheresyoured.at Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/betteroffline Discord: chat.wheresyoured.atSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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 discuss the current state of tech journalism. KYLIE: https://x.com/kyliebytes https://www.threads.net/@kylie.robison MIKE: https://x.com/MikeIsaac https://www.threads.net/@mike_isaac?hl=en https://www.instagram.com/mike_isaac Newsletter: wheresyoured.at Reddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/betteroffline Discord chat.wheresyoured.at Ed's Socials - http://www.twitter.com/edzitron  instagram.com/edzitron https://bsky.app/profile/zitron.bsky.social https://www.threads.net/@edzitronSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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 generative AI's promises, and the realities of tech's growth-at-all-costs ecosystem. Newsletter: wheresyoured.at Reddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/betteroffline Discord: chat.wheresyoured.at Ed's Socials - http://www.twitter.com/edzitron instagram.com/edzitron https://bsky.app/profile/zitron.bsky.social https://www.threads.net/@edzitron;See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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 called CrowdStrike - and in this emergency Better Offline dispatch, Ed Zitron walks you through exactly what happened, why it's so bad, and why both CrowdStrike and Microsoft executives should face criminal prosecution for such a catastrophic managerial failure. These are the dark consequences of the growth-at-all-costs movement. Newsletter: wheresyoured.at Reddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/betteroffline Discord: chat.wheresyoured.at Ed's Socials - http://www.twitter.com/edzitron instagram.com/edzitron https://bsky.app/profile/zitron.bsky.social https://www.threads.net/@edzitron LINKS: https://tinyurl.com/betterofflinelinksSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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 defined by philosopher Harry G. Frankfurt in "on BS" (and yes I'm censoring that) - and created one of the most enjoyable and prescient papers ever written. In this episode, Ed Zitron is joined by academics Michael Townsen Hicks, James Humphries and Joe Slater in a free-wheeling conversation about ChatGPT's mediocrity - and how it's not built to represent the world at all. LINKS: Paper: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10676-024-09775-5 Michael Townsen Hicks: https://www.townsenhicks.com/ Joe Slater: https://www.gla.ac.uk/schools/humanities/staff/joeslater/ Newsletter: wheresyoured.at Reddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/betteroffline Discord: chat.wheresyoured.at Ed's Socials - http://www.twitter.com/edzitron instagram.com/edzitron https://bsky.app/profile/zitron.bsky.social https://www.threads.net/@edzitronSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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 where multiple economists call BS on the AI movement - and why it's time for the rest of the world to follow suit. LINKS: https://tinyurl.com/betterofflinelinks Newsletter: wheresyoured.at Reddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/betteroffline Discord chat.wheresyoured.at Ed's Socials - http://www.twitter.com/edzitron instagram.com/edzitron https://bsky.app/profile/zitron.bsky.social https://www.threads.net/@edzitron See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The shareholder supremacy has eaten the tech industry, driving private and public companies to chase unprofitable, unsustainable ideas like generative AI as a means of expressing eternal growth to the markets. In this episode, Ed Zitron walks you through how this destructive mindset has created an entirely new kind of manager - one disconnected from labor and creation - and how the dark hand of shareholder supremacy is behind everything strange and bad in tech in the last few years. LINKS: https://tinyurl.com/betterofflinelinks Newsletter: wheresyoured.at Reddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/betteroffline Discord chat.wheresyoured.at Ed's Socials - http://www.twitter.com/edzitron instagram.com/edzitron https://bsky.app/profile/zitron.bsky.social https://www.threads.net/@edzitron See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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 Supremacy, and set the terms for General Electric's Jack Welch to fundamentally break capitalism, an era where companies moved away from building lasting, sustainable companies that created things and instead began focusing on pleasing shareholders - and how it leads to today's terrible tech companies and leaders. LINKS: https://tinyurl.com/betterofflinelinks Newsletter: wheresyoured.at Reddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/betteroffline  Discord chat.wheresyoured.at Ed's Socials - http://www.twitter.com/edzitron  instagram.com/edzitron https://bsky.app/profile/zitron.bsky.social  https://www.threads.net/@edzitron  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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 You Mention AI Again." Ed Zitron and Robert Evans sat down to talk about the blog - and the wider problems that Nik sees in the tech industry at large. LINKS: Nik's blog: https://ludic.mataroa.blog/blog/i-will-fucking-piledrive-you-if-you-mention-ai-again/ Newsletter: wheresyoured.at Reddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/betteroffline Discord chat.wheresyoured.at Ed's Socials - http://www.twitter.com/edzitron instagram.com/edzitron https://bsky.app/profile/zitron.bsky.social https://www.threads.net/@edzitron See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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 they're actually enjoying in the tech industry - and why things don't feel quite as magical and exciting as they used to. https://www.youtube.com/@TheMrMobile https://www.theverge.com/authors/alex-cranz See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In April, The Onion was acquired by a new entity called Global Tetrahedron, revealed shortly thereafter to be a joint venture between billionaire Jeff Lawson and former NBC disinformation reporter Ben Collins, now its CEO. Ben joins Ed to talk about buying The Onion, keeping its Chicago roots, and how we can save digital media. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Last week, Apple announced that they're integrating artificial intelligence into your iPhone and Mac in a stunningly demure and reserved presentation. In this episode, Ed Zitron walks you through whether you should trust Apple - and how OpenAI agreed to the worst deal in tech history to integrate ChatGPT in the least-prominent way. EPISODE LINKS: https://tinyurl.com/betterofflinelinks See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In this episode, Ed Zitron walks through how Sam Altman's ridiculous promises about the future of artificial intelligence could be ruinous for Silicon Valley, and speaks with Bloomberg's Ellen Huet about how Sam Altman - a non-technical founder with little business success - accumulated so much power.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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 a successful company, fired from both Y Combinator and, briefly, OpenAI. In this episode, Ed Zitron digs into the history of Silicon Valley's most popular confidence man, and talks to the Wall Street Journal's Tom Dotan about Altman's many, many investments. EPSIODE LINKS: https://tinyurl.com/betterofflinelinksSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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 Silicon Valley is to put power back in the hands of those who actually build things - and reject the management consultant mindset killing innovation. Episode Links: https://tinyurl.com/betterofflinelinksSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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 useless products like the metaverse, cryptocurrency and generative AI. Episode Links: https://tinyurl.com/betterofflinelinksSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.