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
In a bonus third episode, Ed Zitron reports exclusively on how OpenAI’s new "router-based" ChatGPT-5 makes it impossible for the company to cache the static prompt for any model or tool it uses every single prompt, doubling token burn for mediocre gains.
Better Offline listener deal: Get $15 Off Where's Your Ed At Premium! Deal goes until the end of August.
https://edzitronswheresyouredatghostio.outpost.pub/public/promo-su...
In part two of this week's two-part Better Offline, Ed Zitron walks you through how America’s economic growth has become dependent on Amazon, Google, Microsoft and Meta’s AI capital expenditures - and how this inevitably harms both the economy and our markets.
Better Offline listener deal: Get $15 Off Where's Your Ed At Premium! Deal goes until the end of August.
https://edzitronswheresyouredatghostio.outpost.pub/pub...
In part one of this week's two-part Better Offline, Ed Zitron walks you through how AI startups’ overstuffed valuations make them impossible targets for acquisition or IPO - and how this may cause lasting harm to Silicon Valley when the bubble bursts.
Better Offline listener deal: Get $15 Off Where's Your Ed At Premium! Deal goes until the end of August.
https://edzitronswheresyouredatghostio.outpost.pub/public/promo-subsc...
In this week’s monologue, Ed Zitron walks through the rough launch of GPT-5, and how ChatGPT’s fandom-like following has become a huge problem for OpenAI.
The Enshittification of Generative AI: https://www.wheresyoured.at/the-enshittification-of-generative-ai/
The Wall Street Journal - The Next Great Leap in AI Is Behind Schedule and Crazy Expensive:
https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/openai-gpt5-orion-delays-639e7693?ref=w...
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 conversa...
In this week’s Better Offline monologue, Ed talks about Anker’s Nebula X1, an expensive, excellent-looking and adaptable projector that can work just about anywhere.
Better Offline listener deal: Get $15 Off Where's Your Ed At Premium! Deal goes until the end of August.
https://edzitronswheresyouredatghostio.outpost.pub/public/promo-subscription/better-offline-discount
Nebula X1 Projector: https://amzn.to/45...
In this episode, Ed is joined by writer and critic Molly White to talk about how RSS can purify your news experience, the challenge of the newsletter economy, and what gives her optimism for the future.
Citation Needed Newsletter: https://www.citationneeded.news
Molly on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/molly.wiki
Better Offline listener deal: Get $15 Off Where's Your Ed At Premium! Deal goes until the end of August.
https:/...
In this week’s monologue, Ed Zitron walks you through how and why OpenAI and Anthropic use “annualized revenues” to hide that they’re nowhere near their yearly revenue projections.
https://www.theinformation.com/articles/anthropic-revenue-hits-4-billion-annual-pace-competition-cursor-intensifies?rc=kz8jh3
www.theinformation.com/articles/openai-hits-12-billion-annualized-revenue-breaks-700-million-ch...
Welcome to Radio Better Offline, a tech talk radio show recorded out of iHeartRadio's studio in New York City.
Ed Zitron is joined in studio by Mia Sato of The Verge and Dave Lee of Bloomberg to talk how companies like TikTok and Google change the web with their incentives, the nihilism of Pop Mart's viral Labubus, and why people are more game to pay independent writers.
Mia Sato, The Verge
https://www.theverge.co...
In part three of this week's three-part Better Offline, Ed Zitron walks you through how AI agents don’t really exist, how deceitful AI marketing has become, and why everything is brittle as a result.
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.
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LINKS: https://www.tinyurl.com/betterofflinelinks
Newsletter: htt...
In part two of this week's three-part Better Offline, Ed Zitron walks you through how little money there is in generative AI, how Anthropic and OpenAI are killing their own customers, and why there may never be a profitable LLM company.
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.
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In part one of this week's three-part Better Offline, Ed Zitron walks you through how the US stock market rests on the back of GPU sales, and how a lack of any real business returns spells doom for the AI bubble long-term.
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.
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In this week’s monologue, Ed Zitron walks you through the pale horses of the AIpocalypse - and how the AI bubble’s deepest weakness is that it’s almost entirely based on vibes.
Anthropic’s new data center in Indiana: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/24/technology/amazon-ai-data-centers.html
YOU CAN NOW BUY BETTER OFFLINE MERCH! Go to https://cottonbureau.com/people/better-offline and use code FREE99 for ...
Welcome to Radio Better Offline, a tech talk radio show recorded out of iHeartRadio's studio in New York City.
Ed Zitron is joined in studio by actor, writer and producer Brian Koppelman, Engadget Managing Editor Cherlynn Low and comedian Mike Drucker to talk about the current state of the tech industry, what AI can actually do, and what the tech industry looks like in the next year.
In part two of this week's two-part Better Offline, Ed Zitron makes a plea to the tech media - to stop automatically accepting what the tech executives have to say, and to admit that these people sound really, really stupid, even if they use long words.
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.
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LINKS: https://ww...
In this week’s monologue, Ed Zitron walks you through how Anthropic jacked up prices on its largest customer Cursor - and how it’s a sign that the Subprime AI Crisis has begun.
Premium Newsletter covering this:
https://www.wheresyoured.at/anthropic-and-openai-have-begun-the-subprime-ai-crisis/
Bluesky thread summarizing: https://bsky.app/profile/edzitron.com/post/3ltfabnj3ec23
In part one of this week's two-part Better Offline, Ed Zitron walks you through a radical new idea: make fun of CEOs, tear down their legacies and push back on their empty promises.
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.
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LINKS: https://www.tinyurl.com/betterofflinelinks
Newsletter: https://www.wheresyoured.at...
In this week’s monologue, Ed Zitron talks about why you should get into vinyl, and why analog music is so much fun in the digital age.
U-Turn Audio: https://uturnaudio.com/pages/turntables
Discogs: Discogs.com
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.
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Welcome to Radio Better Offline, a tech talk radio show recorded out of iHeartRadio's studio in New York city.
Ed Zitron is joined in studio by Allison Morrow of CNN, Victoria Song of The Verge and Gare Davis of It Could Happen Here to talk about the fairy tale of AGI, AI boosters’ religious attachment to the industry’s success, and how the tech industry fears admitting they’re out of ideas.
Allison ...
In this week’s monologue, Ed Zitron walks you through the murky lawsuit between OpenAI’s soon-to-be-acquired hardware wing and Iyo, a company they met with multiple times that makes a similar-sounding product with a near-identical name.
Sam Altman tweets: https://x.com/sama/status/1937606794362388674
Jason Rugolo tweets: https://x.com/jasonRugolo/status/1936933761964511721
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