Speaker 1: Media.
Speaker 2: You are the victim of a con You have more
Speaker 2: than likely said to yourself some time in the last
Speaker 2: few years, even ten years, that you just didn't get tech,
Speaker 2: or you getting too old, or that tech's gotten away
Speaker 2: from you because you found a service or an app
Speaker 2: or your computer annoying you or someone you love have
Speaker 2: convinced themselves that their inability to use something is a
Speaker 2: sign that they are deficient, that they've failed to keep
Speaker 2: up with the times, as if the things we use
Speaker 2: every day should be in a constant state of flux.
Speaker 2: You're listening to Better Offline and I'm d Zetra, and
Speaker 2: this is the two part episode that ends this season
Speaker 2: of Better off Line, and it's about the true scale
Speaker 2: of the rot economy and how the tech industry is
Speaker 2: waging an endless, invisible war against the user and we're losing,
Speaker 2: by the way, We're losing really badly. They're slowly taking
Speaker 2: everything away, adding tolls and growth hacks around basically every
Speaker 2: part of our lives. And they can't even give us
Speaker 2: the dignity of making sure the things that make them
Speaker 2: billions keep functioning. No, I don't know. They have to
Speaker 2: twist them at every goddamn corner to make them more profitable,
Speaker 2: because they know, in many cases that we have nowhere
Speaker 2: else to go. Think about it, The tools we use
Speaker 2: in our daily lives outside of our devices have mostly
Speaker 2: stayed the same, right, buttons on our cars might have
Speaker 2: moved around a bit. And I'm not talking about testa.
Speaker 2: By the way, we generally have a brak and an
Speaker 2: accelerator and a wheel and a turn signal. Boarding an
Speaker 2: airplane has mostly worked the same way since I started flying.
Speaker 2: Our trains are buses, restaurants, toilets, houses. They all have
Speaker 2: the same mechanisms, and we're not expected to update them
Speaker 2: or adapt to new circumstances. We don't walk into our
Speaker 2: apartments and the door opens a different way for some reason,
Speaker 2: the toilet still flushes. I believe just used it. Just
Speaker 2: checked now what I'm getting into in this episode. There
Speaker 2: are some exceptions. Some people really just don't try and
Speaker 2: learn how to use the computer or a smartphone, and
Speaker 2: they just kind of reject technology or they refuse to
Speaker 2: pick it up because it's not for them. These people exist,
Speaker 2: they are real, We all know them, and I don't
Speaker 2: think anybody hearing this falls into that camp. Basic technological
Speaker 2: literacy is a requirement to live in society, and there
Speaker 2: is some responsibility on the user. But even saying that,
Speaker 2: even if we assume that these people are very common
Speaker 2: and this is the case, should companies really take advantage
Speaker 2: of them? And the answer is no, of course. Now,
Speaker 2: our apps and platforms, the things we use every day,
Speaker 2: operate with a totally different moral and intellectual compass to
Speaker 2: other things in our lives. Well, the idea of an
Speaker 2: updates fairly nobleor that something you've bought can be maintained
Speaker 2: and improved over time, that's a good thing. Many take
Speaker 2: platforms see it as a means to further extract and exploit,
Speaker 2: to push users into doing things that either keep them
Speaker 2: on the app longer or take more profitable actions. We
Speaker 2: as a society need to reckon with this, and we
Speaker 2: need to reckon with how this twist. So it makes
Speaker 2: us more paranoid, more judgmental, more aggressive, more reactionary, because
Speaker 2: when everything is subtly annoying, we all simmer. We suffer
Speaker 2: in these manifold ways. There's no digital world in physical world,
Speaker 2: by the way they are and have been for some time,
Speaker 2: quite the same thing. And reporting on tech as if
Speaker 2: this isn't the case is a failure of the user,
Speaker 2: failure of reality, and honestly a failure of curiosity. If
Speaker 2: you're still doing this as a writer, you're full of shit.
Speaker 2: And I want to be clear that I'm not just
Speaker 2: talking about one single product or company. I'm talking about
Speaker 2: most digital experiences. I'm talking about the digital interference with
Speaker 2: constantly having to dodge the litley of buttons on every
Speaker 2: app that are all there to distract us to offuscate
Speaker 2: the path of the things we actually want to do.
Speaker 2: I'll choose an example for you now. My British Canadian
Speaker 2: listener is not going to love this. But as an
Speaker 2: app called Sleeper, which I used to play fancy football NFL,
Speaker 2: there are so many buttons to try and make me
Speaker 2: do different kinds of sports gambling. All I want to
Speaker 2: do is check my lineup. But no, no, no, no,
Speaker 2: Sleeper must have a way to further monetize me. The
Speaker 2: way that apps present information in ways that the design
Speaker 2: to be illogical and unhelpful is just disgusting, and they
Speaker 2: artificially force us to engage for longer with the apps
Speaker 2: in question. It's not about providing a service, and I
Speaker 2: sound kind of panicky and emotional. But I need you
Speaker 2: to understand how common this is in your lives. Every
Speaker 2: different digital experience is a small version of the little
Speaker 2: pieces that make up an annoying day at work, except
Speaker 2: for either paying for them or being actively monetized for
Speaker 2: the pleasure. Let me give you an example. Back in
Speaker 2: twenty twenty three, Spotify redesign its app too and I
Speaker 2: quote the verge b part TikTok, part Instagram, and part YouTube,
Speaker 2: which in practice meant replacing a relatively clean and straightforward
Speaker 2: user interface with one made up of full screen cards
Speaker 2: like TikTok and auto playing video podcasts also like TikTok,
Speaker 2: and CEO Daniel Eck claimed that this would and I'm
Speaker 2: quitting sky News here make the platform come alive with
Speaker 2: different content on a platform that was built in sold
Speaker 2: as a place to listen to music. And the tech media,
Speaker 2: by the way, waived off this redesign without really thinking
Speaker 2: about it. They ain't consider its significance. At the drop
Speaker 2: of a hat, hundreds of millions of people's existence, their
Speaker 2: experience of listening to music would change at the whim
Speaker 2: of a multi billionaire with the express purpose of forcing
Speaker 2: them to engage with completely different content than they sign
Speaker 2: up for as a means of increasing engagement, metrics and
Speaker 2: revenue for a public company. By all means, try and
Speaker 2: pretend that this is just an app. It's just music, right, No,
Speaker 2: people's relationships with music and entertainment are intrinsically linked to
Speaker 2: their moods and their motivations, and no matter how you feel,
Speaker 2: it's clear that Spotify, are company best known for fucking
Speaker 2: and exploiting its artists, treats its customers, both paying and otherwise,
Speaker 2: with a similar level of contempt, and they're far from alone.
Speaker 2: Earlier in the year, smart speaker company Sonos released a
Speaker 2: redesign of their app that removed their accessibility features, the
Speaker 2: ability to edit song cues or play music from your phone,
Speaker 2: and this was an attempt, in their words, to modernize
Speaker 2: the interface, with Wired suggesting that these changes could potentially
Speaker 2: open the door to adding a subscription service of some
Speaker 2: sort to help. So nos is you never guess ailing
Speaker 2: growth meta great example as well continually redesigns Facebook and Instagram,
Speaker 2: the latest of which happened in October to focus Facebook
Speaker 2: on gen Z users, and they're probably the most egregious
Speaker 2: example of the constant chaos of our digital lives. Well,
Speaker 2: we might complain about these things, we stuck with them
Speaker 2: because the conditions of our investment in tech are that
Speaker 2: we need accounts, we have the features that are customized
Speaker 2: for us. The more time we put into it, the
Speaker 2: more it becomes ours. But really, the more we become
Speaker 2: owned by the companies. We have ways. We've set things
Speaker 2: up that mier us further to an ecosystem, and that's
Speaker 2: fine for a time. It's kind of like having to
Speaker 2: buy specific outfits for specific occasions, except they might stop
Speaker 2: fitting at random, and I don't mean based on your way.
Speaker 2: They just expand and intract at random. We load websites
Speaker 2: expecting something to go wrong, because it probably will. With
Speaker 2: mobile websites that cover entire screens with pop up ads
Speaker 2: that can break the entire experience. My favorite example, by
Speaker 2: the way, is ign dot com, which is a site
Speaker 2: that receives over one hundred and eighteen million unique monthly
Speaker 2: visitors that will regularly crash your mobile browser. No really,
Speaker 2: go and look up the God of War Ragnarok guide
Speaker 2: right now and try scrolling on your phone. If it
Speaker 2: doesn't crash your browser, I'll be very bloody surprised. Seemingly
Speaker 2: every experience online demands our email address, and giving them
Speaker 2: our email address adds another email to inboxes already stuffed
Speaker 2: with two types of spam, the actual get the biggest
Speaker 2: laser spam that immediately hits your junk folder, and then
Speaker 2: the growth hack emails we receive from clothing brands we
Speaker 2: wanted to discount from or newspapers we pay that still
Speaker 2: feel it's necessary to email us three to five times
Speaker 2: a day. Every app we use is intentionally built to
Speaker 2: growth hack, a term that means moving things around in
Speaker 2: such a way that the user does the things we
Speaker 2: want them to do. As a company, dating apps gag
Speaker 2: your best matches behind dollar ninety nine or more micro transactions.
Speaker 2: Uber puts suggestions and massive banners throughout their apps to
Speaker 2: try and convince you to use one of their other apps,
Speaker 2: or maybe you accidentally hit them, which gives Uber and
Speaker 2: a better chance to get you to try them. Outlook,
Speaker 2: one of the most popular email platforms in the world,
Speaker 2: puts advertisements in your email inbox that are near and
Speaker 2: distinguishable from new emails, and they're actually at the top
Speaker 2: of your inbox too and meta my favorite, They have
Speaker 2: these video carousels previously just on Facebook, but they just
Speaker 2: added them to Instagram that intentionally only play the first
Speaker 2: seconds of a clip as a means of making you click,
Speaker 2: giving them more clicks, more engagement, and more things to
Speaker 2: trick the street with. What I'm getting at, and I
Speaker 2: think you kind of experienced yourself, is that our digital
Speaker 2: lives are actively abusive and hostile. Our ahaps are ever changing.
Speaker 2: They're adapting not to us, not to our conditions or
Speaker 2: our needs, but to the demands of investors and internal
Speaker 2: stakeholders that have reduced who we are and what we
Speaker 2: do to an ever growing selection of manipulatable metrics, things
Speaker 2: that don't really tell them anything other than how to
Speaker 2: knock us around to make us do more. It isn't
Speaker 2: that you don't get tech. I must insist you understand this.
Speaker 2: It's that the tech you use every day is completely
Speaker 2: and utterly insane. Every app has a different design, Almost
Speaker 2: every design is growth hacked to optimize your activity on
Speaker 2: said app, with each app trying to make you do
Speaker 2: different things, with some apps having entire growth hacking teams
Speaker 2: that continually evaluate what you do and what your friends
Speaker 2: are doing, and perhaps find new ways to mash them
Speaker 2: together so they can make more money come out. It
Speaker 2: doesn't matter if the experience sucks. That's not what they're
Speaker 2: there for. They're not there to make things better. I
Speaker 2: want you to realize that this is in almost every
Speaker 2: application you use. I know I'm repeating myself, but it's important,
Speaker 2: and I'm not saying this to complain, But it's because
Speaker 2: I believe, as I've hinted that previously, that we're in
Speaker 2: the midst of the largest scale ecological disaster of our time,
Speaker 2: because almost every single interaction with technology, which is required
Speaker 2: to live in modern society, has become actively adverse aial
Speaker 2: to the user. These issues hit everything we do all
Speaker 2: the time constantly. We're constantly interrupted, and I believe it's
Speaker 2: so much bigger than social media and algorithm though I
Speaker 2: must be clear they're absolutely a big part of it.
Speaker 2: The average person's experience with technology is one so aggressive
Speaker 2: and so violative that I believe it leaves large parts
Speaker 2: of our society with a low level trauma. I know
Speaker 2: it sounds dramatic. Some of you hearing this may scoff
Speaker 2: at the idea. Even after all, you're smart, right, you
Speaker 2: know about this information, You know about what these companies
Speaker 2: are doing, and thus most people do right wrong. Most
Speaker 2: people don't think about the things they're doing at all,
Speaker 2: and they're just trying to get buy in a society
Speaker 2: that increasingly demands we make more money to buy the
Speaker 2: same things, with our lives both interfered with and judged
Speaker 2: by social networks with aggressive algorithms that feed us more
Speaker 2: things based on what we'll engage with, which might mean
Speaker 2: things that piss us off or actively radicalize us. People
Speaker 2: are nagged constantly by these goddamn notifications and average forty
Speaker 2: six a day. Some useful some advertisements, like say Apple
Speaker 2: telling us that there's a nail by a college football game,
Speaker 2: regardless of whether we've interacted with any football contact ever,
Speaker 2: or a Slack message saying that you haven't joined a
Speaker 2: group you were invited to a week ago, or Etsy
Speaker 2: letting you know that you can buy things for an
Speaker 2: upcoming holiday. It's all the time, it's everywhere, it's constant,
Speaker 2: it's relentless, and the more time you invest in using
Speaker 2: a device, the more of these notifaications you get, making
Speaker 2: you less likely or capable of turning them off. After all,
Speaker 2: how well are you doing keeping your inbox clean. How's
Speaker 2: that going? What's that? What was that? You get twenty
Speaker 2: five emails a day, many of them from a different
Speaker 2: company owned by Williamsonoma. Damn, that's crazy. But the indignities
Speaker 2: don't end there, because these people also have to be
Speaker 2: constantly aware of scams and outright misinformation, both on social
Speaker 2: networks that don't really care to stop it and on
Speaker 2: the chum box advertisements below most major news publications, and
Speaker 2: if you don't know what that is, those are those
Speaker 2: weird little stories at the bottom promising miracle cures are
Speaker 2: trying to sell you weed or well fake weed from
Speaker 2: Chu Chin Chong. Plenty of people who read and write
Speaker 2: about technology have this insipid amount of privilege. They assume
Speaker 2: that it's natural that you'd know that there are entities
Speaker 2: out there trying to scam or trick you, And I'd
Speaker 2: argue that most people don't. Most people are just trying
Speaker 2: to get by, and to most people, a video from
Speaker 2: rumble dot com may as well be the same thing
Speaker 2: as a video from CNN dot com. And most people
Speaker 2: would believe that every advertisement is somehow verified for its
Speaker 2: accuracy versus the truth, which is it's sold at scale
Speaker 2: all the time to whoever will pay money. I want
Speaker 2: to give you a really good example, and this one
Speaker 2: turns my fucking stomach. This one really pisses me off,
Speaker 2: and I want to just say what I'm about to say.
Speaker 2: CNN dot com. It's on nbcnews dot com and it's
Speaker 2: also on the Verge. Nill Patel, you need to fix
Speaker 2: this shit. It's disgusting. But let's talk about CNN dot com,
Speaker 2: a website that had five hundred and ninety four million
Speaker 2: visitors in October twenty twenty four. At the bottom of
Speaker 2: CNN when you scroll down, it's something that says paid
Speaker 2: partner content, including things in publications like finance Buzz that
Speaker 2: tell you about the and I quote nine dumbest things
Speaker 2: smart people waste money on finance Buzz immediately when you
Speaker 2: click through, asks you to turn your notifications on, you know,
Speaker 2: so that they can ping you and they have new
Speaker 2: articles and each bullet on the story leads to one
Speaker 2: of a different kind of affiliate marketing arm of the
Speaker 2: company trying to sell you car insurance and credit cards,
Speaker 2: where they get a little smidgeon of commission every time
Speaker 2: someone buys something. And you offered the chance to share
Speaker 2: your email address to receive and I quote vetted side
Speaker 2: hustles and proven ways to earn extra cash sent to
Speaker 2: your inbox, which I assume includes things like the advertorial.
Speaker 2: I was led to where they were telling me that, yes,
Speaker 2: you could make money playing online bingo in games such
Speaker 2: as Bingo Cash against other people. And I saw that,
Speaker 2: and I said, that doesn't sound true at all, so
Speaker 2: went and looked them up. Papaya Games, developer of Bingo Cash,
Speaker 2: was sued in March by rifle gaming company Skills for
Speaker 2: using bots in allegedly skill based games that are supposed
Speaker 2: to be between humans, and the Michigan Gaming Control Board
Speaker 2: issued a season desist ordered against the company for violating
Speaker 2: multiple gaming laws, including the Lawful Internet Gaming Act. Quote
Speaker 2: the lawsuit. Papia's games are not skill based, and users
Speaker 2: are often not playing against live, actual opponents, but against
Speaker 2: Papyah's own bots that direct and rig the game so
Speaker 2: that Papyah itself wins its users' money while leading them
Speaker 2: to believe that they lost to a live human opponent.
Speaker 2: This is a website and its associated content that had
Speaker 2: prime placement on the front page of a major news outlet.
Speaker 2: As a normal person, it's reasonable to believe that CNM
Speaker 2: would not wilfully allow advertisements for websites that are in
Speaker 2: and of themselves further advertisements masquerading as trustworthy third party entities.
Speaker 2: It's reasonable that you, as a normal person, would believe
Speaker 2: that finance buzz was a reputable website and that their
Speaker 2: intentions were to share great deals and secret tricks with you.
Speaker 2: If you think you're not this stupid, your privileged, and
Speaker 2: need to have more solidarity with your fellow human beings,
Speaker 2: it's disgraceful if you hear this and you're like, huh,
Speaker 2: stupid idiots, God damn you. People are being screwed. People
Speaker 2: are being screwed right now in this way that you
Speaker 2: might scoff at, that you might look down your nose at,
Speaker 2: but this is serious, and this is horrible. And companies
Speaker 2: like outbrain and Taboolah who make these chumbox advertisements, they
Speaker 2: make millions and millions of dollars doing this and really
Speaker 2: putting aside any privilege you might have, or maybe you don't,
Speaker 2: maybe you get what I'm talking about here. Why wouldn't
Speaker 2: you think that the content on one of the most
Speaker 2: notable media outlets in the entire world is trustworthy. Now,
Speaker 2: nothing I'm saying is meant to be polemic or pessimistic
Speaker 2: or describing anything other than the shit that's happening in
Speaker 2: front of my eyes and your eyes and the eyes
Speaker 2: of billions of people. Dismissing these things as just how
Speaker 2: it is as we have for years, allows powerful people
Speaker 2: with no real plan and no real goals other than growth,
Speaker 2: to thrive, and sneering at people dumb enough to get
Speaker 2: tricked by an Internet and tech industry built specifically to
Speaker 2: trick them, suggests that you have no idea how you
Speaker 2: are being scammed because you're smug and arrogant. And I
Speaker 2: realize I'm possibly making up a person to be angry at,
Speaker 2: But I've had a few conversations recently with people who
Speaker 2: had this reaction, and it sucks. We all learn things
Speaker 2: for the first time, and it's like, if you never learned,
Speaker 2: how would you learn? And I'm trying to, I guess,
Speaker 2: make up this person. But if anyone listening have that attitude,
Speaker 2: it's important. I need you to stop trying to explain
Speaker 2: away how fucking offensive using the Internet and technology has become.
Speaker 2: I need you to stop making excuses for the powerful
Speaker 2: and consider the sheer scale of the cycle wrap fucking
Speaker 2: happening on almost every single device in the world, and
Speaker 2: consider the ramifications of the difficulty that the human being
Speaker 2: using the internet has trying to live an honest, dignified,
Speaker 2: and reasonable life. And maybe you're in the middle ground.
Speaker 2: Maybe you didn't judge them, maybe it just wasn't you.
Speaker 2: Either way, it's I think it's important to put this down.
Speaker 2: To exist in modern society requires you to use these
Speaker 2: devices or otherwise sacrifice large parts of how you'd interact
Speaker 2: with other people. You need a laptop or smartphone for work,
Speaker 2: probably both for school or for anything. Really, you need
Speaker 2: messaging apps otherwise you kind of don't exist. And as
Speaker 2: a result, there's this societal monopoly of sorts, or maybe
Speaker 2: it's more of a cartel in the sense that for
Speaker 2: the most part, every tech company has accepted these aggressive
Speaker 2: anti user positions, all in pursuit of growth. The stakes
Speaker 2: are so much higher than I think anyone realizes, especially
Speaker 2: in the tech media, and I don't know why they're
Speaker 2: not more willing to discuss the scale. They can pick
Speaker 2: the issues, they can say this is bad, and this
Speaker 2: is bad, and then they can run glossy coverage for
Speaker 2: Zuckerberg or Musk. But it's bad. It's worse. It's worse
Speaker 2: than a lot of things, and just it's undiscussed, and
Speaker 2: they feel almost like I'm saying something obvious. But I've looked.
Speaker 2: This isn't being put down like this. No, one's just
Speaker 2: pointing at the everything, the bad ex and look the
Speaker 2: extent of the damage, the pain, the frustration, the terror.
Speaker 2: It's so constant, and we're all, in some level just
Speaker 2: kind of numb to it because discussing it requires accepting
Speaker 2: that a vast majority of people live poisoned lives thanks
Speaker 2: to their phones laptops. And this isn't even an anti
Speaker 2: technology position. I want it to be better. And as
Speaker 2: you'll hear soon, I do love the computer. But we
Speaker 2: really need to get into this and we need to
Speaker 2: realize we all live in the ruins created by the
Speaker 2: rot economy. Were the only thing that matters is growth,
Speaker 2: growth of revenue, growth of business, growth of metrics related
Speaker 2: to said business, growth of engagement of clicks, of time
Speaker 2: on the app of purchases, of microtransactions, of impressions of ads,
Speaker 2: of things done that make executives feel happy and make
Speaker 2: the growth team see the number go up. It's goddamn sickening. However,
Speaker 2: if you want to feel better, I'm pretty sure that
Speaker 2: after I stop speaking here, there's going to be an AD.
Speaker 2: And I am one hundred percent confident that this ad
Speaker 2: follows it will align with everything I've been saying. It
Speaker 2: won't be for something that has a kind of an
Speaker 2: ironic context considering my work. You're going to chuckle and
Speaker 2: shorten because of how right I am here, not because
Speaker 2: the thing that follows is completely disgarden and we're back. So,
Speaker 2: as you know, as a listener, I'm a dickhead, and
Speaker 2: if you haven't been listening, you probably work that out
Speaker 2: by now you're twenty minutes or so in and you've
Speaker 2: heard me get pissed off. But I was trying to
Speaker 2: work out as I wrote this script, how would I
Speaker 2: frame this, How would I really show you the scale?
Speaker 2: So I went on Amazon dot com, the Everything Store,
Speaker 2: and I bought the best selling laptop at two hundred
Speaker 2: and thirty eight dollars, Aceerus Spire one with a four
Speaker 2: year old seller on N four five zero zero processor,
Speaker 2: which I'd consider fairly representative of how millions of people
Speaker 2: interact with the Internet. I also believe it's a powerful
Speaker 2: illustration of the damage caused by the rot economy and
Speaker 2: this abusive, poisonous and exploitive way in which the tech
Speaker 2: industry treats people. In a very practical sense, So I
Speaker 2: opened this piece of sheit up and it really you're
Speaker 2: gonna hear as I discussed this the anger that I experience.
Speaker 2: So I hit on on it and it took one
Speaker 2: minute and fifty seconds from touching that power button for
Speaker 2: the laptop to get to a setup screen. It then
Speaker 2: took another minute and a half to connect and begin
Speaker 2: downloading updates, which then took several more minutes. After that,
Speaker 2: I was faced with a licensing agreement where I agreed
Speaker 2: to binding arbitration to use Windows. Another twenty four second pause,
Speaker 2: and then I got shown a screen of different and
Speaker 2: I quote ways I could unlock my Microsoft experience with
Speaker 2: animations that shut it and jerked violently. It really didn't
Speaker 2: feel good. It was just immediately you could tell this
Speaker 2: thing was cheap. Now throughout using this thing, this cheap
Speaker 2: track pad on this laptop, it would just miss the
Speaker 2: occasional click. And at this point I was forced to
Speaker 2: create a Microsoft account and hand over my cell phone
Speaker 2: or another email address to receive a code, or I'd
Speaker 2: not be able to use the laptop at all. Each
Speaker 2: menu screen takes three to five seconds to load, and
Speaker 2: I'm asked to customize my experience with things like personalized ads,
Speaker 2: tips and recommendations with every option on by the ford,
Speaker 2: by the way, and then I had to sign up
Speaker 2: for another account, this time with ASA. At one point,
Speaker 2: I'm simply shown an AD for Microsoft one Drive and
Speaker 2: their cloud storage product with a qrco to download it
Speaker 2: on my phone, and then I'm told that Windows has
Speaker 2: to download a few updates, which I assume are different
Speaker 2: to the updates I did before. Now I'm not just complaining,
Speaker 2: I just I'm trying to explain how much stuff happens
Speaker 2: when a regular person who cannot afford a MacBook, who
Speaker 2: cannot afford a nice Dell laptop, just buys the first
Speaker 2: one off of Amazon, as we all do with different products. So,
Speaker 2: by the way, at this point, around twenty minutes have
Speaker 2: passed just to get to this screen. It then took
Speaker 2: another thirty three minutes for the updates to finish, and
Speaker 2: then another minute and fifty seven seconds to log in,
Speaker 2: at which point a screen popped up, telling me to
Speaker 2: set up a browser and discover the best of Windows,
Speaker 2: including finding the apps I love from the Microsoft Store,
Speaker 2: and the option to create an AI generated theme of
Speaker 2: my browser or for my browser. Even the laptop, by
Speaker 2: the way between each screen felt like it was just
Speaker 2: shaking visually, like the animations jutted viciously. You just get
Speaker 2: this constant sense that this thing sucks from the moment
Speaker 2: you use it. And so I finally at this point
Speaker 2: got to my new laptop, my beautiful new Asa laptop
Speaker 2: that's stunk. And then I opened the start bar, which
Speaker 2: is ostensibly a place where you'd have apps, right, apps
Speaker 2: that you'd use on the computer, and I saw some
Speaker 2: of the things like Outlook, an email client that's not
Speaker 2: actually installed and requires you to download it. You click
Speaker 2: it and it then downloads again. At an option for
Speaker 2: a travel website called booking dot com, just an ad
Speaker 2: along with a link to LinkedIn another ad for Microsoft property.
Speaker 2: One app Clipchamp, was installed, but immediately needed to be updated,
Speaker 2: which did not work when I hit update, which then
Speaker 2: forced me to go find the updates page, which then
Speaker 2: showed me at least forty different apps called things like
Speaker 2: sweet Labs, Inc. I do not know what any of
Speaker 2: this stuff was. It's just so strange. I tiped Sweet
Speaker 2: Labs into the soar and it took a little shaky,
Speaker 2: juttery like the animation's hitched a bit. And then it
Speaker 2: opened this giant menu with half of it dedicated to
Speaker 2: Mark Twain's birthday, and which had two different Mark Twain
Speaker 2: related links, a quiz of the day in four different
Speaker 2: games available for download. At this point, by the way,
Speaker 2: I've been able to do nothing on this computer. I
Speaker 2: could have loaded Edge, but I'll get to that in
Speaker 2: a minute. I also should be clear that the computer
Speaker 2: was pausing slightly every time I typed a letter. Every
Speaker 2: animation felt so clunky and juttery. Even moving the windows
Speaker 2: around didn't feel smooth. It's just slow. It felt cheap.
Speaker 2: And the operating system, previously something I'd considered to be
Speaker 2: the thing that operates the computer, it's actively rotten. It's
Speaker 2: full of ads, sponsored content, suggested adds, and intrusive design
Speaker 2: choices that make the system slower and actively upset the user.
Speaker 2: Now at this point it's important to add what operating
Speaker 2: system it is. I'll get to that shortly, and the
Speaker 2: reason I'm explaining all of this in such agonizing detail
Speaker 2: is that this is the experience that I believe is
Speaker 2: more indicative of the average person's use of the computer
Speaker 2: than anybody else's. It's this, It's Windows, the crappiest, shittiest Windows.
Speaker 2: And though it's tough to gauge how many of these things,
Speaker 2: these crappy laptops are sold to make it a best
Speaker 2: seller on Amazon, laptops in this price point, which use
Speaker 2: a specific version of Windows called eleven Home in S mode,
Speaker 2: dominate Amazon's bestseller lists, along with apples significantly more expensive
Speaker 2: MacBook Air and Pro series. It's reasonable to believe that
Speaker 2: a large amount of laptops sold in America match this
Speaker 2: price point and spec There are two similar ones on
Speaker 2: best Buyers best Sellers, or at least they were at
Speaker 2: the time I wrote this script, and as of writing
Speaker 2: this sentence down, which would have been very beginning of December,
Speaker 2: multiple different laptops of this very specific specification are on
Speaker 2: the front of Target's laptop page. And if I haven't
Speaker 2: made it completely clear, this means that millions of people
Speaker 2: are likely using a laptop that's burdensomely slow, full of
Speaker 2: targeted advertising. And content baked Inton operating system in a
Speaker 2: way that's either impossible or difficult to remove for millions
Speaker 2: of people, and it really could be tens of millions
Speaker 2: of people considering the ubiquity of these laptops. The experience
Speaker 2: of using the computer is both actively exploitative and incredibly
Speaker 2: incredibly slow. Even loading our MSN dot com, the very
Speaker 2: first page you see when you open a web browser
Speaker 2: in Windows Home S immediately hits you with ads for eBay,
Speaker 2: QVC and QuickBooks with icons that sometimes don't load. By
Speaker 2: the way, about Windows eleven Home in S mode that
Speaker 2: you might not have heard of. This it's a special
Speaker 2: version of Windows where you can only use apps from
Speaker 2: the Windows Store, and on top of that, it's supposedly
Speaker 2: more efficient. I've used quite a few of these laptops now,
Speaker 2: and they're the slowest, won keyest pieces of shit ever.
Speaker 2: But they're cheap. And it's not just the crappy hardware either,
Speaker 2: it's every part of the operating system, which feels like
Speaker 2: it's built to hound you to use some sort of
Speaker 2: Microsoft product, or some sort of product that Microsoft or
Speaker 2: the laptop manufacturer has been paid to make your set. Well,
Speaker 2: one can hope that people buying these laptops have an
Speaker 2: awareness of anything. The reality is they're being dumped into
Speaker 2: a kind of tjmax version of computing, except Tjmax clothes
Speaker 2: don't sometimes scream at you to download TJ maxplus will
Speaker 2: stop functioning because you use them too fast. Now I
Speaker 2: say this, haven't shopped there in a while, but I
Speaker 2: assume this is still the case. Again, this is how
Speaker 2: most people are experiencing modern computing. And it isn't because
Speaker 2: this is a big business. It's because laptop sales have
Speaker 2: begun to fall, and they've been falling for over a decade,
Speaker 2: and manufacturers and Microsoft need as many ways to grow
Speaker 2: revenue as possible, even if the choices they make are
Speaker 2: actively harmful to the consumer. Also, I swear to God,
Speaker 2: if your answer here is get a MacBook Air, there
Speaker 2: are only six hundred dollars. I beg you. I plead
Speaker 2: with you to speak with people outside of your income
Speaker 2: bracket at a time when entire election was decided in
Speaker 2: part because everything's more expensive. At this point, said person
Speaker 2: using this laptop can now log onto the Internet, by
Speaker 2: the way, and begin using websites like Facebook and Instagram
Speaker 2: and YouTube, all of which that have algorithms we don't
Speaker 2: really underst but they have been regularly proven to be
Speaker 2: actively and deliberately manipulative and harmful. And I know I'm angry.
Speaker 2: I mean whatever. You listened to this show and this
Speaker 2: is the finhale of this year. You know how pissed
Speaker 2: off I am. But the picture I'm trying to paint
Speaker 2: is one of terror and abuse. The average person's experience
Speaker 2: of using a computer starts with aggressive interference delivered in
Speaker 2: a shoddy, sludge like frame, and the wider Internet opens
Speaker 2: up to said user, which has already been battered by
Speaker 2: a horrible user experience by the way, They're immediately thrown
Speaker 2: into this heavily algorithmic feed of some sort, each different
Speaker 2: feed built to condom in a unique way, feeding whatever
Speaker 2: holds their attention and chucking ads in there as best
Speaker 2: they can as they browse the web, websites like the Vergin,
Speaker 2: NBC and used feature stories from companies like world Trending
Speaker 2: dot com with advertisements with bizarre toys written in the
Speaker 2: style of a blog so intentional in their deceit that
Speaker 2: the page in question has a huge disclaimer at the
Speaker 2: bottom saying it's an ad as they're clunky, shuddering, shitty
Speaker 2: laptop hitches between every scroll they go to ESPN dot com.
Speaker 2: When the laptop slows to a crawl, everything slows to
Speaker 2: a crawl. Why why, god damn it is everything so
Speaker 2: fucking slow? These people say, I'll just stay on Facebook
Speaker 2: or Instagram or YouTube. At least that place doesn't crash
Speaker 2: half the time or trick me. Sadly not, The biggest
Speaker 2: trick that these platforms played wasn't the algorithm, but the convenience.
Speaker 2: In an internet it's so horribly poisoned by growth capitalism,
Speaker 2: these platforms show a degree of peace and consistency, even
Speaker 2: if they're specifically engineered to manipulate you. Using the computer
Speaker 2: in the modern age is so inherently hostile that it
Speaker 2: pushes us towards core part authoritarians like Apple, Microsoft, Google
Speaker 2: and Meta. And now that every website is so desperate
Speaker 2: for our email to show us ads and to push
Speaker 2: stuff on us, it's either harmful or difficult for the
Speaker 2: average person to exist online. So of course they're going
Speaker 2: to go to the big box websites they feel comparatively safe,
Speaker 2: even if they're not. When every single website needs to
Speaker 2: make as much money as possible because they're private equity
Speaker 2: or head which fund or massive corporate owners need to
Speaker 2: make more money every year without fail. The incentives are
Speaker 2: building the Internet, veer away from providing a service or
Speaker 2: information and towards putting you the listener in silent service
Speaker 2: of a corporation. If you're technologically savvy in reading this,
Speaker 2: by the way, sit down and think. Think for a
Speaker 2: second about the amount of effort you've put into mitigating
Speaker 2: the problems with the Internet and modern computing. Fresh in
Speaker 2: stores of windows and new machines, avoiding certain websites because
Speaker 2: you've learned what the bad ones look like, not interacting
Speaker 2: with random people in your dms because you know that's
Speaker 2: what a spambot looks like, and so on and so forth.
Speaker 2: Think about it. I know a lot of you are
Speaker 2: very technologically savvy, but you're instinctually ducking and weaving around
Speaker 2: an Internet and digital ecosystem that continually tries to interrupt you.
Speaker 2: You're batting away pop ups and silencing notifications, knowing that
Speaker 2: they all want something from you. And I need you
Speaker 2: to realize that most people are not like you, and
Speaker 2: you too are actively victimized by the tech ecosystem as
Speaker 2: a result, And like I said a few weeks ago,
Speaker 2: I believe that most people are actively can cast by
Speaker 2: their daily lives because most people's daily lives are on
Speaker 2: the computer or their smartphones, and those lives have been
Speaker 2: stripped of dignity. When they look at the media, the
Speaker 2: best they'll get is a degree of hmm. Algorithm bad
Speaker 2: is bad? Is computer? Is Facebook? Not good? Actually, I
Speaker 2: take it back. You don't really get that either. You
Speaker 2: don't really get you know how bad Facebook and Instagram are.
Speaker 2: You don't even get the media really covering it. It
Speaker 2: drives me insane. Yet it's so much more than just
Speaker 2: the algorithm. It's almost the entirety of the digital ecosystem,
Speaker 2: from websites to apps to the devices we use every day.
Speaker 2: The fact that so many people likely use a laptop
Speaker 2: that's equal parts unfit for the task and stuffed full
Speaker 2: of growth, hacked poison is utterly goddamn disgraceful because it
Speaker 2: means that the only way to escape the poison is
Speaker 2: to simply have more money. Those who can't afford a
Speaker 2: three hundred dollars at least phone or a six hundred
Speaker 2: dollar laptop are left to use this offensively bad technology,
Speaker 2: and we have at society scale simply accepted that this
Speaker 2: is how things go. The result is that everything's a
Speaker 2: chaotic mess. By everything, I mean almost every digital experience,
Speaker 2: like I've been saying. And if you still believe the
Speaker 2: digital world has no bearing on the physical world, you're
Speaker 2: a dumbass. Everything you do, for the most part, goes
Speaker 2: through absent websites. It's impossible to avoid, and it gets
Speaker 2: harder to weighe through if you aren't wealthy enough or
Speaker 2: lucky enough to have someone teach you or own a
Speaker 2: powerful enough device, which is not something that really happens
Speaker 2: in school. In any case, they're not really loading you
Speaker 2: up with the most powerful stuff. Nor do I believe
Speaker 2: that schools are sitting there and telling people not just
Speaker 2: how to use the computer, to make sure the computer
Speaker 2: doesn't use you. Yeah, even on the expensive devices, you're
Speaker 2: still a victim of algorithmic and growth hack manipulation, even
Speaker 2: if you're aware of it. Knowing allows you to fight back,
Speaker 2: even if it's just to stop yourself being overwhelmed by
Speaker 2: the mess, and means that you can read things that
Speaker 2: can tell you what new horrors we can avoid next. Still,
Speaker 2: the target, and you're still receiving hundreds of marketing emails
Speaker 2: a week, you still receive spam calls, and you're still
Speaker 2: unable to use Facebook or Instagram without being bombarded by
Speaker 2: ads and algorithmically charged content. And I realized in this
Speaker 2: episode I've kind of brought the hammer down that I've
Speaker 2: called imaginary or real people dumbasses attack people that are listening.
Speaker 2: I'm not really angry at you. I'm not. I know
Speaker 2: it might sound like that, and it really isn't. The
Speaker 2: conditions of society have adjusted so that we've just accepted
Speaker 2: how bad things are. That we've just said it sucks,
Speaker 2: but you know, it's everywhere. So what you're going to
Speaker 2: do about it? And I'm angry about it because I
Speaker 2: feel like my peers in the tech media don't take
Speaker 2: it seriously either. They've just become numb to it like
Speaker 2: we all have, and it sucks. We shouldn't become numb
Speaker 2: to this. If we just had toxic dump in the streets,
Speaker 2: and who knows what the upcoming EPA, whether we will,
Speaker 2: we'd say something right. If we were getting burned by
Speaker 2: random things, we would be upset, we'd be like ough ouch.
Speaker 2: But because these little attacks, these little indignities are so
Speaker 2: subtle and so common, they're everywhere. It's kind of hard
Speaker 2: to talk about. It's kind of hard to have language about.
Speaker 2: And in the next episode, I'm going to talk about
Speaker 2: why that language is so important, about how fighting back
Speaker 2: is discussing and raising these problems. And I don't mean
Speaker 2: with your congressman. I don't mean with elected officials, though
Speaker 2: that might work, that might help. It's about having a
Speaker 2: continual societal conversation. It's about the next time that you
Speaker 2: or your friends says I just don't get how the
Speaker 2: computer works, stopping your someone saying no, probably not. It's
Speaker 2: that they keep changing how the computer works to make
Speaker 2: it work against us. It's why I've been so annoyed
Speaker 2: the last year. And in this two part finale, I
Speaker 2: want you to remember that you're the victim. You're the
Speaker 2: victim of a con and I can't wait for you
Speaker 2: to hear the next episode to come in a few days.
Speaker 2: Thank you for listening to Better Offline.
Speaker 3: The editor and composer of the Better Offline theme song
Speaker 3: is Matasowski. You can check out more of his music
Speaker 3: and audio projects at Mattasowski dot com.
Speaker 1: M A. T.
Speaker 2: T O s O W s ki dot com.
Speaker 3: You can email me at easy at better offline dot
Speaker 3: com or visit better offline dot com to find more
Speaker 3: podcast links and of course my newsletter. I also really
Speaker 3: recommend you go to chat dot Where's Youreed dot at
Speaker 3: to visit the discord, and go to our slash.
Speaker 2: Better Offline to check out our reddit. Thank you so
Speaker 2: much for listening.
Speaker 1: Better Offline is a production of cool Zone Media. For
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Speaker 1: dot com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app,
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