Better Offline

By: Cool Zone Media and iHeartPodcasts
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  • Summary

  • 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.
    2025 iHeartMedia, Inc. © Any use of this intellectual property for text and data mining or computational analysis including as training material for artificial intelligence systems is strictly prohibited without express written consent from iHeartMedia
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Episodes
  • How Growth Is Killing Video Games

    How Growth Is Killing Video Games
    Mar 5 2025

    In this episode, Ed Zitron is joined by Gita Jackson and Nathan Grayson of worker-owned games site Aftermath to talk about how the growth-at-all-costs mindset is destroying games, how fandom culture naturally feeds extremism, how Aftermath does games journalism differently, and how despite everything, great games are still being made.

    Gita Jackson:
    https://bsky.app/profile/xoxogossipgita.bsky.social
    https://aftermath.site/author/gita-jackson

    Nathan Grayson:
    https://aftermath.site/author/nathan-grayson
    https://bsky.app/profile/nathangrayson.bsky.social

    Stream Big: The Triumphs and Turmoils of Twitch and the Stars Behind the Screen
    https://www.amazon.com/Stream-Big-Triumphs-Turmoils-Twitch/dp/1982156767

    Article on Skin Deep from Aftermath: https://aftermath.site/skin-deep-steam-next-fest-demo-impressions-pc

    The New York Times: Video Games Can’t Afford to Look This Good
    https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/26/arts/video-games-graphics-budgets.html

    Aftermath - Fuck WB
    https://aftermath.site/warner-bros-discovery-games-wonder-woman-monolith-shut-down

    Pyre - https://www.supergiantgames.com/games/pyre/
    Supergiant Games - https://www.supergiantgames.com
    Avowed - https://store.steampowered.com/app/2457220/Avowed/

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    LINKS: https://www.tinyurl.com/betterofflinelinks

    Newsletter: https://www.wheresyoured.at/

    Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/BetterOffline/

    Discord: chat.wheresyoured.at

    Ed's Socials:

    https://twitter.com/edzitron

    https://www.instagram.com/edzitron

    https://bsky.app/profile/edzitron.com

    https://www.threads.net/@edzitron

    See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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    1 hr and 14 mins
  • Generative AI Is Not A Real Industry

    Generative AI Is Not A Real Industry
    Feb 28 2025

    In the second of this week's two-part episode, Ed Zitron walks you through the dark truth of the generative AI industry - that consumer adoption of Claude, Gemini, Copilot and Perplexity is incredibly small, and it’s time to accept that there is nothing coming to justify the ruinous costs of Large Language Models.

    ---

    LINKS: https://www.tinyurl.com/betterofflinelinks

    Newsletter: https://www.wheresyoured.at/

    Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/BetterOffline/

    Discord: chat.wheresyoured.at

    Ed's Socials:

    https://twitter.com/edzitron

    https://www.instagram.com/edzitron

    https://bsky.app/profile/edzitron.com

    https://www.threads.net/@edzitron

    See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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    43 mins
  • Monologue: What Bursts A Bubble?

    Monologue: What Bursts A Bubble?
    Feb 27 2025

    In this week's monologue, Ed Zitron walks you through what's making everybody worried about the bubble bursting - and what other signs might tell you that the party's over for AI.

    ---

    LINKS: https://www.tinyurl.com/betterofflinelinks

    Newsletter: https://www.wheresyoured.at/

    Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/BetterOffline/

    Discord: chat.wheresyoured.at

    Ed's Socials:

    https://twitter.com/edzitron

    https://www.instagram.com/edzitron

    https://bsky.app/profile/edzitron.com

    https://www.threads.net/@edzitron

    See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
    Show More Show Less
    11 mins

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