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 and scams of everyone from cryptocurrency scumbags to the greediest of the venture capital elite. Tech industry veteran Ed Zitron and a dynamic coterie of guests will help listeners understand the who, how and why of how tech’s most powerful players are changing the world - for better or for worse.
Episodes
Welcome to Better Offline’s coverage of the 2026 Consumer Electronics Show - a standup radio station in the Palazzo Hotel with an attached open bar where reporters, experts and various other characters bring you the stories from the floor.
In the first episode, Ed introduces you to Better Offline’s CES coverage, we talk about NVIDIA’s tepid press conference, smart glasses, LLMs on TV and Robert’s new...
In part four of this week’s four-part case against generative AI, Ed Zitron walks you through how there’s literally not enough money in the world to pay for OpenAI’s estimated $1 trillion four-year burn, and why the media tell the truth about AI to save retail investors.
Original Air Date: 10.3.25
YOU CAN NOW BUY BETTER OFFLINE MERCH! Go to https://cottonbureau.com/people/better-offline and use code FREE...
In part three of this week’s four-part case against generative AI, Ed Zitron walks you through how “AI replacing software engineers” is a myth spread by the media and investors - and how Microsoft only has 8 to 12 million active paying customers for Microsoft 365’s AI Copilot out of 440 million users.
Original Air Date: 10.2.25
YOU CAN NOW BUY BETTER OFFLINE MERCH! Go to https://cottonbureau.com/people/...
In part two of this week’s four-part case against generative AI, Ed Zitron walks you through how NVIDIA funds and pumps money into unprofitable, debt-ridden “neoclouds” all to create vehicles to buy more GPUs - all to cover up the lack of demand for generative AI compute.
Original Air Date: 10.1.25
YOU CAN NOW BUY BETTER OFFLINE MERCH! Go to https://cottonbureau.com/people/better-offline and use code FRE...
In part one of this week’s four-part case against generative AI, Ed Zitron walks you through how generative AI is sold through a complete misunderstanding of the concept of labor - and myth-building by companies like NVIDIA and OpenAI.
Original Air Date: 9.30.25
YOU CAN NOW BUY BETTER OFFLINE MERCH! Go to https://cottonbureau.com/people/better-offline and use code FREE99 for free shipping on orders of $99 or more.
-...
In part three of this week's three-part NVIDIA series, Ed Zitron walks you through why there are millions of Blackwell GPUs sitting in warehouses, and why AI’s lack of any profits makes NVIDIA’s future entirely dependent on endless debt and venture capital.
This series took a lot of work, so if you want to support me, why not subscribe to my premium newsletter? Get $10 off a year’s subscription today: https://edzi...
In part two of this week's three-part NVIDIA series, Ed Zitron walks you through the history of Enron, why it differs from NVIDIA, and why growth-desperation led big tech to waste hundreds of billions of dollars on GPUs.
This series took a lot of work, so if you want to support me, why not subscribe to my premium newsletter? Get $10 off a year’s subscription today: https://edzitronswheresyouredatghostio.outpost.pub/public/pro...
In part one of this week's three-part NVIDIA series, Ed Zitron walks you through why NVIDIA is specifically nothing like Enron, WorldCom or Lucent, and why investors might be thinking that’s the case anyway. Thank you to Ben Cahn of the Ben and Emil show for voicing "NVIDIA" - listen here - https://www.youtube.com/@benandemilshow
This series took a lot of work, so if you want to support me, why not subscribe to my premium new...
In this week's Better Offline monologue, Ed Zitron lists the questions he’s asking - and the things he’s looking for - that he believes will actually burst the bubble.
Reach out at ezitron.76 on Signal.
Want to support me? Get $10 off a year’s subscription to my premium newsletter: https://edzitronswheresyouredatghostio.outpost.pub/public/promo-subscription/w08jbm4jwg
Welcome to Radio Better Offline, a tech talk radio show recorded out of iHeartRadio's studio in New York City. Ed is joined in-studio by CNN Tech Editor Lisa Eadicicco to talk about the state of consumer electronics, Samsung’s Vision Pro competitor, and why every phone kind of looks the same.
In this episode, Ed Zitron is joined by Nathan Grayson of worker-owned games site Aftermath to talk about building an independent media outlet and the state of the game industry writ large.
Nathan Grayson:
https://aftermath.site/author/nathan-grayson
https://bsky.app/profile/nathangrayson.bsky.social
Celebrate Aftermath’s anniversary by subscribing - just $1 for your first month! https://aftermath.site/11-06-2025-...
In this week's Better Offline monologue, Ed Zitron breaks down how economically irrelevant AI is, and how no bailout is coming to save the Large Language Model era.
Want to support me? Get $10 off a year’s subscription to my premium newsletter: https://edzitronswheresyouredatghostio.outpost.pub/public/promo-subscription/w08jbm4jwg It would mean a lot!
YOU CAN NOW BUY BETTER OFFLINE MERCH! Go to https://cottonbureau.com/p...
In this episode, Ed Zitron is joined by Steve Burke of GamersNexus to talk about Valve’s new console-like Steam Machine and Vision Pro-like Steam Frame, and what this means for the future of gaming.
GamersNexus:
Valve Steam Machine, Desktop SteamOS, Steam Frame VR, & Controller | ft. Engineering Discussion: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWUxObt1efQ
Valve Steam Frame Engineering Deep-Dive: Water Coolin...
In this week's monologue, Ed Zitron thanks you for being such wonderful listeners. If you ever have a tip, reach out on ezitron.76.
Want to support me? Get $10 off a year’s subscription to my premium newsletter: https://edzitronswheresyouredatghostio.outpost.pub/public/promo-subscription/w08jbm4jwg
YOU CAN NOW BUY BETTER OFFLINE MERCH! Go to https://cottonbureau.com/people/better-offline and use code FREE99 for free...
In this episode, Ed Zitron is joined by Carl Brown, a veteran software developer and host of The Internet of Bugs, to talk about the realities of software development, what coding LLMs can actually do, and how the media gets it wrong about software engineering at large.
Original Air Date: 6.4.25
https://www.youtube.com/@InternetOfBugs
New GitHub Copilot Research Finds 'Downward Pressure on Code Quality' - https://visu...
In this episode, Ed Zitron is joined by Gerrit De Vynck of The Washington Post to discuss what an analysis of 47,000 ChatGPT conversations can tell us about how people use the service - and how willing it is to fuel basically any conversation.
We analyzed 47,000 ChatGPT conversations. Here’s what people really use it for - https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2025/11/12/how-people-use-chatgpt-data/
https:/...
In a Better Offline exclusive, Ed Zitron reveals how much OpenAI spent on inference in 2024 and 2025, as well as how much it paid Microsoft as part of its 20% revenue share. Inference costs are much higher - and implied revenues much lower - than previously reported.
(Free) Newsletter: https://www.wheresyoured.at/oai_docs/
The Information - OpenAI’s First Half Results: $4.3 Billion in Sales, $2.5 Billion Cash Burn -&nb...
This week’s Better Offline is a recording of a panel held by Clarion West in Seattle earlier this year with Cory Doctorow and Ed Zitron, discussing enshittification, The Rot Economy, and the destruction of modern tech platforms, moderated by Whitney Beltrán.
Cory Doctorow: https://craphound.com/
Whitney Beltrán: https://brightwhitney.com/
Get involved with Clarion West: https://www.clarionwest.org/get-...
In this week's Better Offline monologue, Ed Zitron talks about OpenAI hinting they’d want a federal backstop for data center loans, NVIDIA’s weird, desperate post about China, and his deep suspicion about OpenAI’s leaked numbers.
Want to support me? Get $10 off a year’s subscription to my premium newsletter: https://edzitronswheresyouredatghostio.outpost.pub/public/promo-subscription/w08jbm4jwg It wou...
Welcome to Radio Better Offline, a tech talk radio show recorded out of iHeartRadio's studio in New York City. Ed is joined in-studio by founder and writer Charlie Meyer to talk about the BS of vibe coding, why the valley went so crazy about scaling laws, and the realities of AI coding.
https://blog.charliemeyer.co/
https://csmeyer.substack.com/
Code Doesn’t Happen To You - https://csmeyer.substack.com/p/...
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