Speaker 1: A Zone Media. Hello and welcome to Better Offline. I'm
Speaker 1: your host ed ZiT Troun and this is the finale
Speaker 1: of this year. Even though you're hearing it in twenty
Speaker 1: twenty five, I need you to just mentally imagine it's
Speaker 1: twenty twenty four. I did my best, Okay, anyway, In
Speaker 1: the last episode, I talked about the scale of the
Speaker 1: rot economy and specifically the practical elements and the practical
Speaker 1: results of growth at all costs thinking, And in this one,
Speaker 1: I want to talk about how we fight back. Ideas
Speaker 1: are powerful and things change as silly as it sounds
Speaker 1: from the regular repetition, and the names of those responsible
Speaker 1: and clear descriptions of the things they've done to us. Now,
Speaker 1: you know, I've written and spoken a lot about the
Speaker 1: rot economy, how the growth at all cost mindset fucks
Speaker 1: things up, and it's what directly leads tech companies to
Speaker 1: make their products worse. But what I've tried to do
Speaker 1: in these episodes is quantify the scale, both the damage
Speaker 1: it's caused and the billions of people it affects every day.
Speaker 1: Everything I've discussed around the chaos and the pain of
Speaker 1: the Internet is a result of corporations and private equity
Speaker 1: firms buying media properties and immediately trying to make them grow,
Speaker 1: each in wildly different ways, all clamoring to be the
Speaker 1: next New York Times of Variety or other legacy media brand,
Speaker 1: despite the fact that those brands already exist and the
Speaker 1: ideas for competing with them usually are built on these
Speaker 1: unsustainably large staffs and expensive consultants telling you to hire
Speaker 1: more people. Almost every single store you visit on the
Speaker 1: Internet has this massive data layer on the background that
Speaker 1: feeds them data about what's popular or where people are
Speaker 1: spending time on the sites, and will turn and change
Speaker 1: things about their designed to subtly encourage you to buy
Speaker 1: more staff, trapping you there also that more money comes
Speaker 1: out no matter what the cost, even if it's harder
Speaker 1: to find the things you actually want, even if the
Speaker 1: data isn't personalized, it's still quite powerful, and it turns
Speaker 1: so many experiences inside and outside shopping and social media
Speaker 1: and the news into these subtle, horrible manipulations. Every single
Speaker 1: weird thing that you've experienced with an app or service
Speaker 1: online is the dreadhand of the rot economy, the gravitational
Speaker 1: pull of growth that demands upon you the user to
Speaker 1: do something something for the company. And when everybody is
Speaker 1: trying to chase growth, nobody is thinking stability. And because
Speaker 1: everybody is trying to grow, everybody sort of copies everybody
Speaker 1: else's ideas, which is why we see micro transactions and
Speaker 1: invasive ads and annoying tricks that all kind of feel
Speaker 1: the same way in everything, though they're all subtly different
Speaker 1: and customized just for that one app. It's exhausting. Now
Speaker 1: for a while I've had the rot economy compared to
Speaker 1: Corey doctor O's excellent incitification theory. I think it's a
Speaker 1: great time to compare and separate the two because I
Speaker 1: think they can live together quite well. And also Corey
Speaker 1: is exceedingly smart, and I put a great deal of
Speaker 1: value in his thoughts. To quote Corey in the Financial Times,
Speaker 1: and certification is his theory explaining how the end that
Speaker 1: was colonized by platforms, why all of those platforms are
Speaker 1: degrading so quickly and thoroughly, why it matters, and what
Speaker 1: we can do about it. And I'll link to these
Speaker 1: in the show notes. He describes the first three stages
Speaker 1: of the climb. First, platforms are good to their users,
Speaker 1: then they abuse their users to make things better for
Speaker 1: their business customers. Finally, they abuse those business customers to
Speaker 1: claw back all the value for themselves. Now I agree
Speaker 1: with Corey in some levels, but I believe he gives
Speaker 1: far more credit to the platforms in question than they
Speaker 1: deserve and sees far more intentional strategy than really exist.
Speaker 1: I fundamentally disagree about the business customers even being some
Speaker 1: elevated class in the equation. As we've seen in the
Speaker 1: Google Ads trial, Google didn't really give a shit about
Speaker 1: his business customers to begin with, and they've always sawt
Speaker 1: a monopoly and made things worse for whoever it needed
Speaker 1: to as a means of increasing growth. Maybe I'm just
Speaker 1: playing semantics though. However, Corey's theory lacks a real perpetrator
Speaker 1: beyond corporations that naturally say, all right, time for some initification.
Speaker 1: Watch this again. I don't think it's that intentional. Maybe
Speaker 1: it's an effect, Maybe it's a movement, maybe it's a
Speaker 1: naturally occurring thing. Where the rot economy separates is that
Speaker 1: growth is in and of itself the force that drives
Speaker 1: companies to in shitify, while in hitification really fits across
Speaker 1: companies and fits there neatly like Spotify and Meta in
Speaker 1: their add focus business models. It doesn't really make sense
Speaker 1: when it comes to things where there isn't a clear
Speaker 1: split between business and consumers, like Microsoft or Salesforce, because
Speaker 1: in citification is ultimately one part of the larger rot economy,
Speaker 1: where everything must grow forever, whether it's intech or not,
Speaker 1: and I believe the phenomenon that captures both is a
Speaker 1: direct result of the work of men like Jack Welch
Speaker 1: and Milton Friedman. Go back and listen to the shareholder
Speaker 1: of supremacy if you hadn't. The rot economy is selfish
Speaker 1: and potently neoliberal corporations are bowed down to like God's
Speaker 1: the powerful only seek more at all times, at all costs,
Speaker 1: even if said cost is that the company might eventually
Speaker 1: die because we burned out any value it actually has,
Speaker 1: or people are harmed constantly whenever they pick up their phone.
Speaker 1: The rot economy is neoliberalism's true innovation, a kind of
Speaker 1: economic cancer that we've he has few reasons to exist
Speaker 1: beyond more and a few justifications beyond If we don't
Speaker 1: let it keep growing, then everybody's pensions might blow up.
Speaker 1: To be clear, corey is for the most part, Right
Speaker 1: in Certification successfully encapsulates how the modern web was destroyed
Speaker 1: in a way that nobody really has I'm exceedingly grateful
Speaker 1: for Corey's work, and I think having him around is
Speaker 1: so good for society. I was so happy to have
Speaker 1: him on an episode a few months ago, and I
Speaker 1: look forward to having him again. He's also a lovely fella,
Speaker 1: and I really think that in Certification applies in a
Speaker 1: wide ranging way to a wide amount of tech companies
Speaker 1: and effects. There's also a great thing in the Vaults
Speaker 1: newsletter that old link about in Certification within climate, for example,
Speaker 1: Corey's brilliant. However, I believe the wider problem is bigger
Speaker 1: and the costs are far greater. It isn't that everything
Speaker 1: is in shitified. It's that everybody's pursuit of growth has
Speaker 1: changed the incentive behind how we generate value in the world,
Speaker 1: and software enables a specific kind of growth lust by
Speaker 1: creating virtual nation states with their own digital deaths. While
Speaker 1: laws may stop Meta from tearing up people's houses surrounding
Speaker 1: its offices in one hack away, it can happily reroute
Speaker 1: traffic and engagement on Facebook and Instagram to make things
Speaker 1: in iota more profitable, and there's no government institution that's
Speaker 1: sitting around thinking, huh is this bad? Is this bad
Speaker 1: for people? Now? The rot economy isn't just growth or
Speaker 1: cost thinking. It's a kind of secular religion, something to
Speaker 1: believe in that isn't really connected to anything other than more,
Speaker 1: And it's that everything and anything can be more, should
Speaker 1: be more, must be more. That we're only defined by
Speaker 1: our pursuit of more growth, and that something that isn't
Speaker 1: growing isn't alive, and as a result inferior. I'm not
Speaker 1: saying this is how everybody thinks, but I'm convinced that
Speaker 1: everybody is burdened by the rot economy, and that digital
Speaker 1: ecosystems allow the poison of growth to find new and
Speaker 1: more destructive ways to dilute a human being to a
Speaker 1: series of numbers that can be made to grow or
Speaker 1: contract in the pursuit of capital. Almost every corner of
Speaker 1: our lives has been turned into some sort of number,
Speaker 1: and increasing that number is important to us bank account
Speaker 1: balance is sure, but also engagement numbers follow us number
Speaker 1: of emails sent and received, open rates on newsletters, how
Speaker 1: many times something has been viewed, all numbers set by
Speaker 1: other people that we live our lives by while barely
Speaker 1: understanding what they mean or how they alter our behavior.
Speaker 1: Human beings thrive on ways to define themselves, but metrics
Speaker 1: often rob us of our individuality. Products that boil us
Speaker 1: down to metrics are likely to fail to account for
Speaker 1: the true depth of anything we are actually doing, or
Speaker 1: anything they're actually capturing. The change in incentives towards driving
Speaker 1: more growth actively pushes out those with long term thinking.
Speaker 1: It encourages hiring people who see growth as the driver
Speaker 1: of a company's success, and in turn investment research and
Speaker 1: development into mechanisms of growth, which may sometimes be things
Speaker 1: that help you, but that isn't necessarily the reason they're
Speaker 1: doing it. Organizational culture and hiring stops prioritizing people that
Speaker 1: fixed customer problems or even understand them, because that's not
Speaker 1: really the priority, nor how one may of business continue
Speaker 1: to grow. And I think the rot economies a social
Speaker 1: thing as well. We're all pushed towards growth, personal growth,
Speaker 1: professional growth, growth in our network and our societal status,
Speaker 1: and the terms of this growth they're often set by
Speaker 1: platforms and media outlets that are in turn pursuing their
Speaker 1: own growth. And as I've discussed, the way the terms
Speaker 1: of our growth is framed is almost entirely through a
Speaker 1: digital ecosystem of warring intents and different ways of pursuing
Speaker 1: and promoting growth, some ethical, but many not. Societal and
Speaker 1: cultural pressure is nothing new, but the ways we experience
Speaker 1: it are now elaborate and chaotic. Our relationships professional, personal,
Speaker 1: and romantic a process through the fun house mirror of
Speaker 1: the platforms changing in ways both subtle and evert based
Speaker 1: on the signals are received and the people we care about,
Speaker 1: each one twisted and processed the lens of a product
Speaker 1: manager and a growth hacker who may not really care
Speaker 1: about what we're doing other than that we're doing it.
Speaker 1: Changes to these platforms, even subtle ones, actively change the
Speaker 1: lives of billions of people, and it feels that we
Speaker 1: talk about it like being online is some hobbyist peersuit
Speaker 1: rather than something that many people do more than seeing
Speaker 1: real people in the real world. I believe that we
Speaker 1: exist in a continual tension with the rot economy and
Speaker 1: the growth of all costs mindset. I believe that the
Speaker 1: friction we feel on platforms and apps between what we
Speaker 1: want to do and what the app wants us to
Speaker 1: do is one of the most underdiscussed and significant culture
Speaker 1: of phenomena where we, despite being customers, are continually berated
Speaker 1: and conned and swindled and fucked. I believe billions of
Speaker 1: people are in active combat with their devices every day,
Speaker 1: swiping away notifications, dodging intrusive apps, agreeing to privacy policies
Speaker 1: that they don't understand, desperately trying to find an option
Speaker 1: they used that has been moved because the product manager
Speaker 1: has decided it needed to be somewhere else. I realize
Speaker 1: it's tough to conceptualize because it's so ubiquitous, But how
Speaker 1: much do you fight with your computer and smartphone every day?
Speaker 1: How many times does something break? How many times have
Speaker 1: you downloaded an app and found that it didn't really
Speaker 1: do the thing you wanted it to. How many times
Speaker 1: have you wanted to do something simple and found that
Speaker 1: it's actually really annoying. How much of your life is
Speaker 1: dodging digital debris, avoiding scams, ads, apps that demand permissions,
Speaker 1: and endless goddamn menu options that bury the simple things
Speaker 1: that you want to do. It's like I said, you're
Speaker 1: the victim of a scam. You've spent years of your
Speaker 1: life explaining to yourself and others that this is just
Speaker 1: how things are, accepting conditions that are inherently exploitive and abusive.
Speaker 1: You are more than likely not deficient, stupid, or behind
Speaker 1: the times, and even if you are, there shouldn't be
Speaker 1: a multi trillion dollar ecosystem built to monetize your ignorance,
Speaker 1: and it's time to start holding those responsible accountable. I'm
Speaker 1: fairly regularly asked why all of this matters to me
Speaker 1: so much, so as I wrap up the year, I'm
Speaker 1: going to try and answer that question, explain why it
Speaker 1: is I do what I do, all right, I spend
Speaker 1: a lot time as own as a kid. I wasn't popular.
Speaker 1: Actually that isn't really accurate, because that would suggest I
Speaker 1: had friends. I didn't really had friends. I had some
Speaker 1: people I knew, like similar people who were existed to
Speaker 1: be bullied. I'm not trying to be modeling here, I'm
Speaker 1: just describing the terms. I was insular. I was scared
Speaker 1: of the world. I felt ostracized, unnoticed that many teenagers do,
Speaker 1: and I felt like I was out of place in humanity,
Speaker 1: and it really like weighed on my soul and the
Speaker 1: only place I found any kind of community or any
Speaker 1: place I could build an identity was being online. My
Speaker 1: life was an ear is defined by technology, and I'm
Speaker 1: not ashamed of that. A lot of people talk about, oh,
Speaker 1: people are online too much, not even necessarily talking about me,
Speaker 1: or how the internet hurts you and it's this, and
Speaker 1: it hurts you because of the platforms. But I believe
Speaker 1: at scale, the internet is actually quite beautiful. Had social
Speaker 1: networking not come along, I'm not confident I'd have made many,
Speaker 1: if any, of the friendships I have today, or really
Speaker 1: any friendships of any kind. For the first twenty two
Speaker 1: two years of my life, I really struggled to make
Speaker 1: friends in the real world for a number of reasons,
Speaker 1: many of them my fault, by the way. But I
Speaker 1: made so many online and that became a bridge to
Speaker 1: making real friendships. I kept and I nurtured friendships, indeed
Speaker 1: with people thousands of miles away, and my shyness that
Speaker 1: I had as a person became less of an issue
Speaker 1: when I could avoid the trouble saying hey, I'm a
Speaker 1: part that really got in my way. Without the Internet,
Speaker 1: I'd probably be like a resentful hermit. I'd be disconnected
Speaker 1: from humanity. That'd be just these layers of scar tissue
Speaker 1: over whatever neurodivergent or unfortunate habits had gained from a child,
Speaker 1: and I mostly spent alone. I don't want you to
Speaker 1: feel sorry for me. By the way, none of that
Speaker 1: was about me being sad. It's actually really trying to
Speaker 1: explain something joyous, and that's a big part of who
Speaker 1: I am. Technology is a big part of who I am. So,
Speaker 1: like I said, don't feel sorry for me. Tech allowed
Speaker 1: me to thrive. I have a business, I have an
Speaker 1: upcoming book, the newsletter, I have this podcast. I had
Speaker 1: these wonderful, beautiful friends I deeply love, and if you're
Speaker 1: wondering if it's you, it is you. I love you.
Speaker 1: And these people have come pretty much exclusively through technology
Speaker 1: of some sort, like a social network or a result
Speaker 1: of a digital connection of some kind. And I'm immensely
Speaker 1: grateful for everything I have, and I'm grateful that technology
Speaker 1: allowed me to live this full and happy life. And
Speaker 1: I imagine many of you feel the same way. Your
Speaker 1: frustrations aren't just about the apps being bad, but the
Speaker 1: internet has a goodness to it. It has a value.
Speaker 1: Otherwise we wouldn't stick our hands in the box that
Speaker 1: the bene jesiit gives us every morning. And Techer's found
Speaker 1: so many ways to make our lives better, perhaps more
Speaker 1: in some cases than others. But I'm not gonna lie
Speaker 1: and pretend, and I don't love technology. I think that
Speaker 1: that wouldn't serve you or serve anyone. And I think
Speaker 1: this kind of noxious earth or texts bad. It isn't
Speaker 1: all bad, but the people running it are. The rotten
Speaker 1: economy has fucked up tex so badly. But in the
Speaker 1: process of doing this podcast, of writing my newsletter, it's
Speaker 1: just maybe intimately aware of thetuitous, avaricious and intentional harm
Speaker 1: that these people are causing, that the people running the
Speaker 1: tech industry have caused to their customers, and this horrifying
Speaker 1: and selfish world they've made, and the ruinous consequences that followed,
Speaker 1: the things that I've watched happen this year alone, which
Speaker 1: have at times been in enumeration of about a decade
Speaker 1: of rot. They've turned my god damn stomach. You know
Speaker 1: what's also done that the outright cowardice of some people
Speaker 1: that claim to inform the public but choose instead to
Speaker 1: reinforce the structures of the powerful And a little side
Speaker 1: note to my good friend Casey Newton right now, you
Speaker 1: should all go and look up his thing about the
Speaker 1: phony comforts of AI Skeptics where he bags on Gary Marcus.
Speaker 1: Why are you bagging on Gary Marcus, Casey, you fucking coward.
Speaker 1: This piece attacked AI's skeptics with the flimsiest stuff. Casey
Speaker 1: Newton has an audience above one hundred thousand people that
Speaker 1: he's ostensibly informing. This stuff hurts people. Having popular journalists
Speaker 1: that won't enumerate the damage being done, that don't won't
Speaker 1: give the honest truth about things. It's disgusting. It turns
Speaker 1: my stomach. And as these two part episodes have shown
Speaker 1: you the scale of damage done by people like Facebook,
Speaker 1: like Mark Zuckerberg, Casey's good friend, it's disgusting. Okay, wheeling
Speaker 1: that back. By the way, I don't know if they're
Speaker 1: good friends, but I know they text. Anyway, back to
Speaker 1: the show. I'll put my bitch first aside. Look, I'm
Speaker 1: a user. I'm a guy with a podcast and a newsletter.
Speaker 1: But behind the mic and the keyboard, I'm a person
Speaker 1: that uses the same services as you do, and I
Speaker 1: see the shit done to us and I just feel
Speaker 1: poison in my veins. I'm not holding back, as you've
Speaker 1: kind of worked out by now we're like sixty episodes in.
Speaker 1: I don't think you should either. What's being done to
Speaker 1: us isn't just unfair, it's last and us. It's cruel,
Speaker 1: it's exploitative, it's morally wrong. Some may try and dismiss
Speaker 1: what I'm saying as just social media. It's just how
Speaker 1: apps work, and if that's what you truly think, you're
Speaker 1: either a beaten dog or a willing or unwilling operative
Speaker 1: for people running a con. I will never forgive these
Speaker 1: people for what they've done to the computer. And the
Speaker 1: more I learn about both their intentions and the actions
Speaker 1: they've taken, the more certain I become that these people
Speaker 1: are unrepentant, and then their greed will never be sated.
Speaker 1: I've watched them take the things that made me human,
Speaker 1: social networking, digital communities, apps, and the other connecting fabric
Speaker 1: of our digital lives and turn them into devices of torture,
Speaker 1: profitable mechanisms of abuse. And I find it disgusting how
Speaker 1: many reporters seem to believe it's their responsibility to thank
Speaker 1: them and explain why it's good that this is happening
Speaker 1: to their readers. And let's run down the scumbags, shall we.
Speaker 1: Sam Altman's a goddamn con artist. He's a liar and
Speaker 1: a sleazy carnival barker who would burn our planet to
Speaker 1: the ground, steal from millions of people, and burn billions
Speaker 1: of dollars in pursuit of power. And I believe the
Speaker 1: same can be said of people like Dario Amadayo Vanthropik
Speaker 1: and Mustafasuliman of Microsoft. Tim Cook of Apple, he's a
Speaker 1: wolf in sheep's clothing. He slowly allows the rock to
Speaker 1: seep into Apple's products. Apple intelligence is goddamn awful. It sucks.
Speaker 1: It gets in the way. The summer suck, Image playground sucks.
Speaker 1: Everyone saying this doesn't suck is up their own asshole.
Speaker 1: They need to look look at the actual products. They
Speaker 1: don't work, and they've slowly been adding these bothersome subscription
Speaker 1: options and they chip away at the user experience. The
Speaker 1: one company that I really didn't want to do this.
Speaker 1: And yet let's take a step back to the beginning
Speaker 1: of the show. Apple's app store and its repeated support
Speaker 1: of exploitative micro transaction laid mobile games built to create
Speaker 1: gambling like addiction in adults and children alike. They make
Speaker 1: billions of dollars off of them, and because Apple's products
Speaker 1: are less shitty, they get a much easier time. Now
Speaker 1: let's talk about two of my phase my besties. Now,
Speaker 1: I hold Sundhar Peshai in a certain kind of esteem,
Speaker 1: by which I believe that Sundar Pieshai of Google is
Speaker 1: the Henry Kissinger of technology, a glossy executive that escapes
Speaker 1: blamed despite having caused harm on a global scale. The
Speaker 1: destruction of Google Search at the hands of Sundhar Peshai
Speaker 1: and Prabagar Ragavan should be written about like a war crime,
Speaker 1: and those responsible treated as such. And by the way, Prabagar,
Speaker 1: if you're hearing this, hello baby, I love you. I
Speaker 1: love saying your name, and I'm going to be saying
Speaker 1: it forever. Now let's get to Microsoft. Satch in Adela
Speaker 1: has aggressively expanded Microsoft's various monopolies, the most egregious of which,
Speaker 1: by the way, is the Microsoft three sixty five Suite,
Speaker 1: which is a monopoly over business software that everyone kind
Speaker 1: of hates. The Microsoft prices to undercut the competition, effectively
Speaker 1: setting conditions of most business software is either cheaper than
Speaker 1: Microsoft or slightly better than Microsoft. Nadella has overseen layoffs
Speaker 1: of tens of thousands of people in the last three
Speaker 1: years alone, and despite his bullshit growth mindset culture, he
Speaker 1: treats employees and customers as equally disposable. And of course
Speaker 1: he's the guy that has made open AI happen, which
Speaker 1: in turn means he's responsible for generative AI at scale.
Speaker 1: And let's end with metas Mark Zuckerberg, who is a
Speaker 1: putrid ghoul that has overseen the growth and proliferation of
Speaker 1: some of the single most abusive and manipulative software in
Speaker 1: the world. Meta has grown to a market cap of
Speaker 1: one point five trillion dollars by intentionally making the experience
Speaker 1: on Instagram and Facebook worse, intentionally frustrating and harming billions
Speaker 1: of people, actively into fearing with the fabric of society.
Speaker 1: These are the people in charge. These are the people
Speaker 1: running the tech industry. These are the people who make
Speaker 1: the decisions that affect billions of people every minute of
Speaker 1: every day, and their decision making is so flagrantly selfish
Speaker 1: and abusive that I'm regularly astonished by how little criticism
Speaker 1: they receive. These men lace our digital lives with asbestos
Speaker 1: and get told their geniuses for doing so because money
Speaker 1: comes out. But the truth is I don't know or
Speaker 1: care whether these men know who I am or read
Speaker 1: my work, because I only care that you do. I
Speaker 1: don't give a shit if Sam Ortman Mark Zuckerberg knows
Speaker 1: my name. I don't care about their riches or their achievements.
Speaker 1: I care that when given so many resources, such privilege,
Speaker 1: and such opportunity to change the world, they chose to
Speaker 1: make it worse. These men are tantamount to war criminals.
Speaker 1: Except in thirty years, Mark Zuckerberg may still be seen
Speaker 1: as a success, though I will spend the rest of
Speaker 1: my life telling you the damage he's caused. I care
Speaker 1: about you, the user, the person listening to, the person
Speaker 1: that may have felt stupid or deficient or ignorant, all
Speaker 1: because the services you pay for or that monetize you
Speaker 1: have been intentionally rigged against you. You aren't the failure
Speaker 1: the services, the devices, and the executives are. If you
Speaker 1: cannot see the significance of the problems I discuss every week,
Speaker 1: the sheer scale of the rot, the sheer damage caused
Speaker 1: by unregulated and unrepentant managerial parasites. You are living in
Speaker 1: a fantasy world, and I both envy and worry about you.
Speaker 1: You're the frog and the part, and trust me, the
Speaker 1: stoves on twenty twenty five will be the year of chaos, fear,
Speaker 1: and a deficit of hope. But I will spend every
Speaker 1: breath I have telling you what I believe in, telling
Speaker 1: you that I care and that you are not alone.
Speaker 1: For years, I've watched the destruction of the services and
Speaker 1: the mechanisms that are responsible for allowing me to have
Speaker 1: a normal life, to thrive, to be able to speak
Speaker 1: with a voice that was truly mine. I've watched them
Speaker 1: burn or worse, turned into these abominable growth vehicles, men
Speaker 1: disconnected from society and humanity. I owe my life to
Speaker 1: an inn. I've watched turned into these abuse factories worth billions,
Speaker 1: if not trillions of dollars, and I've watched the people
Speaker 1: responsible get glad handled and applauded. I will scream at
Speaker 1: them into my dying fucking breath. I have had a
Speaker 1: blessed life, and I'm lucky that I wasn't born even
Speaker 1: a year earlier or later. But the way I've grown
Speaker 1: up and seen things changed. Has allowed me to fully
Speaker 1: comprehend how much damage is being done today and how
Speaker 1: much worse is to come if we don't hold these
Speaker 1: people accountable. The least they deserve is a spoken or
Speaker 1: written record of their sins, and the least you deserve
Speaker 1: is to be reminded that you are the victim. I
Speaker 1: don't think you realize how powerful it is being armed
Speaker 1: with knowledge, the clarity of what's being done to you
Speaker 1: and why, and the names of the people responsible. This
Speaker 1: is an invisible war and a series of invisible war
Speaker 1: crimes perpetuated against billions of people in a trillion different ways,
Speaker 1: every moment of every day, and it's everywhere a constant
Speaker 1: in our lives, which makes enumerating and conceptualizing it difficult.
Speaker 1: But you can help you Talking about the truth behind
Speaker 1: generative AI or the harms of Facebook or the gratuitous
Speaker 1: destruction of Google Search will change things, because these people
Speaker 1: are unprepared for a public that knows both what they've
Speaker 1: done and they're sickening loaths some selfish and greedy intentions.
Speaker 1: Saying prabagar Ragavan is both very fun. Try it yourself,
Speaker 1: Say prabagar Ragavan and the shower on the toilet probagar
Speaker 1: Ragavan in an NFL game, And then when someone says
Speaker 1: OHO's propagar Ragavan, you say, well, he's the guy who
Speaker 1: destroyed Google Search. No, look, I get it, it's just talking, right.
Speaker 1: But the way that people disconnect from these services and
Speaker 1: take a stand starts with the clear discussion of the
Speaker 1: problem and reframing. I don't get technology to prabagar Ragavan
Speaker 1: destroy Google Search. It spreads through groups, organizations, and governments.
Speaker 1: It gets somewhere. Most people, believe it or not, don't
Speaker 1: know about the raw economy or about the people responsible,
Speaker 1: and assume they got older rather than technology getting worse. Really,
Speaker 1: this is a moment of solidarity. We're all harmed by
Speaker 1: the row economy. We're all victims, and it takes true
Speaker 1: opulence to escape it. And I'm guessing you don't have it.
Speaker 1: I certainly don't. But talking about it, refusing to go quietly,
Speaker 1: refusing to slow up down the slot willingly or pleasantly
Speaker 1: is enough. The conversations are getting louder, the anger is
Speaker 1: getting too hard to ignore. These companies will be forced
Speaker 1: to change through public pressure and the knowledge of their
Speaker 1: deeds and pressure on the media. Outlets you read and
Speaker 1: listen to that choose willingly to prop them up. Holding
Speaker 1: these people to a higher standard at scale is what
Speaker 1: brings about change. Be the wrench in the machine. Be
Speaker 1: the person that explains to a friend why Facebook sucks
Speaker 1: now and who chose to make it suck. Adam Masseri,
Speaker 1: By the way, it's Adam Massari, Mark Zuckerberg and the
Speaker 1: rest of the growth team. Naomi Glitz another great one
Speaker 1: as well, Javier Olivan, They're all in. Go listen to
Speaker 1: the episode and tell your friends. Be the person to
Speaker 1: explain who Probago Ragavan is and what his role was
Speaker 1: in making Google Search worse. Say it, say his name
Speaker 1: with your friends. Say it to the mailman. Be the
Speaker 1: person who tells people that Sam Altman burns five billion
Speaker 1: dollars a year on unsustainable software that destroys the environment
Speaker 1: and is built upon the largest scale larceny of creative
Speaker 1: works ever to happen. Or because he's desperate for power.
Speaker 1: He is already a billionaire. He was already there. Because
Speaker 1: every time you do this, you destabilize them. They've succeeded
Speaker 1: in a decades long marketing campaign where tech people get
Speaker 1: called geniuses for making things that are necessary to function
Speaker 1: in society, and they're making them worse. You can change that.
Speaker 1: I also want to be clear, I don't give a
Speaker 1: shit if you signed me. It's cool if you say
Speaker 1: where you found it, but I really don't care. I
Speaker 1: really don't tell people. That's what matters. Tell everybody, spread
Speaker 1: the word. You yourself can be a little better offline.
Speaker 1: I don't mean that as a pump, but you know
Speaker 1: what I mean. Spread the blood the word. Say what
Speaker 1: they've done, Say their names, Say their names again and
Speaker 1: again and again, so it becomes a contagion. They twisted
Speaker 1: and broken and hyper monetized everything, how you make friends,
Speaker 1: how you fall in love, how you bank, how you
Speaker 1: listen to music, how you find information. Never let their
Speaker 1: names be spoken without disgust. Be the sampaper in their
Speaker 1: veins and the graffiti on their fucking legacies. I'm sick
Speaker 1: of it. I'm sick of it, And if you're with me,
Speaker 1: just tell people. Don't even talk about me. I'm not important.
Speaker 1: What's important is that you know, and the others know too,
Speaker 1: and you'll feel a lot of dread going into the
Speaker 1: next year. But that's what the darkness wants. That's what
Speaker 1: authoritarianism craves hopelessness, emptiness, and energy deficit that anchors you
Speaker 1: to the earth. And I can't promise you that I'm
Speaker 1: fixing anything with a podcast. I can't promise you what
Speaker 1: I'm saying is going to fix you in any way.
Speaker 1: But I hope it at least invigorates you. I hope
Speaker 1: it makes you feel less alone. I hope you know
Speaker 1: that others feel the way you do too, and that
Speaker 1: someone somewhere is outraged on your behalf because I am.
Speaker 1: Now we're going to get to the schmaltzy part, because
Speaker 1: I have to. I'm a big emotional guy. Last year
Speaker 1: in my life's being incredible. I've been very lucky to
Speaker 1: do this show. It's allowed me to meet wonderful people
Speaker 1: that I adore, and I'm going to talk about them now.
Speaker 1: And if you don't like it, what's wrong with you?
Speaker 1: I get so angry. Let me be happy for a
Speaker 1: moment and be happy for these people. They're absolutely wonderful.
Speaker 1: A year in, I want to thank Sophie Lichtman and
Speaker 1: Robert Evans for having faith in me to do this.
Speaker 1: I stood alone in my kitchen in February and I
Speaker 1: was like, pacing around, and I was like, I don't
Speaker 1: know what I'm going to do, but I'm not going
Speaker 1: to tell them because they contracted me and I mostly
Speaker 1: worked it out as it went along, and they were
Speaker 1: extremely supportive and I wasn't sure where I would take this,
Speaker 1: but both of them told me to go as hard
Speaker 1: as I needed to. However, I wanted to not once
Speaker 1: have either of them said nah, or hey, Yed, I
Speaker 1: don't know about this, or head, can you change this,
Speaker 1: except in one episode's case, where it was actually the
Speaker 1: pilots and it needed a re recording. It was not
Speaker 1: good enough. But that's what they're there for. They've humored
Speaker 1: these insane five hundred word rants that like eleven PM
Speaker 1: on a Tuesday, where I'm like, I think that this
Speaker 1: should happen, and then they've taken these concepts and being like, hey,
Speaker 1: why don't you do this? But fundamentally they have and
Speaker 1: all of cool so media has been insanely supportive, both
Speaker 1: of the ideas but also the outrage and also the
Speaker 1: true support they've given me to do this is creative
Speaker 1: expression but also a value generating podcast has been incredible
Speaker 1: and regardless of how you feel about what they do,
Speaker 1: there really isn't anything out there like better Offline. It's
Speaker 1: a result of having the kind of an army behind me,
Speaker 1: both as part of the show and these people who
Speaker 1: just show me incredible love, who I adore so much
Speaker 1: and I'm so grateful for. And you're just gonna have
Speaker 1: to sit there and let me list them. And if
Speaker 1: you don't like it, you need to tell your friends
Speaker 1: you love them instead. Pause the show, call your mum,
Speaker 1: call your friends, tell everyone you know you love them. Well,
Speaker 1: life is short, but let's start with the thanks. I
Speaker 1: want to thank Mattisowski, Ian Johnson and Daniel Goodman for
Speaker 1: producing the show. Mattasowski is the person who will hear
Speaker 1: this first, and he also so here's the cuts between
Speaker 1: them where I'm swearing and I mess up really obvious words.
Speaker 1: He's They're all amazing, the actual iHeartRadio producers are angels,
Speaker 1: all of them. They care so much about this. Daniel
Speaker 1: Goodman as well, has been incredible getting me in this
Speaker 1: studios in New York. There's gonna be a lot more
Speaker 1: of that next year, as I'm going to be in
Speaker 1: New York way more say hello. I of course want
Speaker 1: to thank Matt Hughes for editing these scripts and riffing
Speaker 1: on many of the ideas and supporting me unwaveringly. Matt
Speaker 1: Hughes is the fifth Beatle. If there were five of us,
Speaker 1: I guess the second Beatle. I don't know, but I
Speaker 1: love Matt so much. He's a wonderful friend. But also
Speaker 1: he's as angry as I am about this shit. We
Speaker 1: cook together. It's wonderful. I also want to thank Casey
Speaker 1: Kagawa right at the top, because Casey is actually the
Speaker 1: person who really worked on the rot economy with me
Speaker 1: back in February twenty twenty three. He has been someone
Speaker 1: who's been formative more work. Love you, man, I love
Speaker 1: all these people. I'm not just gonna say I love
Speaker 1: you every time, but I've told all of you. Matt Weinberger,
Speaker 1: of course, Kylie Roberson, Christina Warren, Tajanavn Shnovik, Phil Broughton,
Speaker 1: Caleb Wilson, Hassan, They've all regularly helped me work ideas out,
Speaker 1: even when I'm just rambling to them in signal. And
Speaker 1: if you're not on this list, please reach out. I'm sorry.
Speaker 1: What I'm gaina is that. Look, I'm lucky to have
Speaker 1: so many wonderful people that I've been able to connect
Speaker 1: with in my life. And whatever you hear or read
Speaker 1: me say is only possible as a result of these
Speaker 1: people that've given me this strength. And all of them
Speaker 1: came from the Internet. All of them came from it.
Speaker 1: All of them are a result. Every single person I've
Speaker 1: listed there is someone I've met digitally. I'm not kissing
Speaker 1: up to the platforms, but the concept of the Internet
Speaker 1: has been so important to me, and I think it
Speaker 1: has been to you too, And the anger in my
Speaker 1: heart is that I see it being stolen from us.
Speaker 1: I see it being taken away by people who make
Speaker 1: so much money, making it worse. And the forces I
Speaker 1: criticize they don't see beauty in human beings. They don't
Speaker 1: see us as these remarkable things that generate ideas both
Speaker 1: incredibly stupid and incredible. And they don't see talent or
Speaker 1: creativity as something that's innately human. They see it as
Speaker 1: a commodity to be condensed, to monetize and replicated so
Speaker 1: that they ultimately own whatever value we have. Something you'd
Speaker 1: only believe was possible if you were a disgusting management
Speaker 1: consultant gargoyle with no connection to real people that should
Speaker 1: be put in the carnival prism. Look, you deserve better
Speaker 1: than what they've given you. You deserve better than what
Speaker 1: I've given you, which is why I'm going to work
Speaker 1: even harder in twenty twenty five. I'm lucky to have you.
Speaker 1: I'm so grateful for this podcast. I'm it's a privilege
Speaker 1: to do this, and I love hearing from you. Email
Speaker 1: me at e that's e z or Z at better
Speaker 1: offline dot com. I try and respond to every email.
Speaker 1: I have a big following on Blue Sky. That's a
Speaker 1: place to find me. I hear from a lot of
Speaker 1: people thanking me, and each time I want you to
Speaker 1: know it's extremely meaningful and I love it and thank you.
Speaker 1: It means a great deal to me. You take it
Speaker 1: even a second out of your time, let alone the
Speaker 1: thirty minutes for this episode, or however it much ends
Speaker 1: up being. I'm really lucky, and I hope I'm helping,
Speaker 1: and I'll continue to try. I'll continue to do my
Speaker 1: boat my bet here look whan key as it sounds,
Speaker 1: this has been a very personal journey. The last year
Speaker 1: has been personally and professionally crazy for me, but also
Speaker 1: digging through all of the tech industry, trying to work
Speaker 1: out why Facebook's bad, Instagram's bad, Google's bad. I did
Speaker 1: this because I did not understand you. Hear on this
Speaker 1: podcast me working things out. You hear my personal journey
Speaker 1: with technology in the fact that my life is technology.
Speaker 1: My life's kind of chaotic, but a lot of that
Speaker 1: chaos is rained in by technology by being able to
Speaker 1: digitally handle things. I don't know what I do without it.
Speaker 1: I write o nine words per minute. My hand physically hurts.
Speaker 1: I don't know how I'd get by without the digital
Speaker 1: connections I have. I don't know what I would do
Speaker 1: without this, And I don't know if you feel the same.
Speaker 1: I don't know. And maybe I'm strange for being so online.
Speaker 1: I don't mean I'm extremely online in the performative sense,
Speaker 1: like I'm on Tumbler and I can tell you what
Speaker 1: means the popular I mean I'm online talking to my friend,
Speaker 1: I'm online, digging around on blue Sky. I'm online writing
Speaker 1: business emails or writing scripts. It's how my life has been,
Speaker 1: It's how I've done everything, it's how I've got everything,
Speaker 1: and I'm so grateful for it. And then this last
Speaker 1: year I've just been constantly reading the people sending emails
Speaker 1: to each other, celebrating how much worse it's got, how
Speaker 1: much more profitable it is, and seeing journalists that actively
Speaker 1: see these people acting this way, these people who are
Speaker 1: either making platforms worse or making things that don't work
Speaker 1: very well that burn the environment, that burn billions of
Speaker 1: dollars of cash, and clapping and being like, oh sir,
Speaker 1: oh miss mister Altman, you're so good. Oh mister Amadi.
Speaker 1: Please give me more broken anthropic products. I need them.
Speaker 1: And it's fucking sickening to me. Build a real internet,
Speaker 1: build something that matters, help people be stronger, be better,
Speaker 1: have deeper connections, not this rot economy bullshit. And I
Speaker 1: know I'm a dramatic person, and I'm not going to
Speaker 1: get less dramatic. I'm sorry. If anything, it's going to
Speaker 1: get more dramatic. But the outrage and emotion you hear
Speaker 1: in me is because I've watched something that forms me
Speaker 1: as a person get destroyed or poisoned, toxins dumped on
Speaker 1: top of it. Its user's forced to slurp it down,
Speaker 1: and it pisses me off. It pisses me off because,
Speaker 1: as I've said in these two episodes, you can really
Speaker 1: see the scale at which the rot economy hurts people.
Speaker 1: But also, like I said, this is a personal journey.
Speaker 1: Even though it's a business thing with like numbers and
Speaker 1: such economic analysis and all this, a lot of it's
Speaker 1: me trying to work out why something I love is
Speaker 1: being hurt while the tech industry that really gave me
Speaker 1: my life is run by people who don't seem to
Speaker 1: care about technology or the people it serves. It fills
Speaker 1: me full of anger because there's goodness here. There's greatness here.
Speaker 1: The people I hear from every week, even every day. Now,
Speaker 1: I'm really lucky I do so I hear from them
Speaker 1: because of the Internet. They managed to get through the
Speaker 1: noise to me, and it's lovely and I'm so grateful.
Speaker 1: I promise you the next year is going to be wild.
Speaker 1: I'm going to put my all into it. The first
Speaker 1: week of January, you're going to get the most insane
Speaker 1: CES coverage. Me Edward and Graso Junior and David Roth
Speaker 1: of DEFECTA will be on the floor. We will have
Speaker 1: two episodes a day, an hour and a half each
Speaker 1: with a rotating cast of different people, including Robert Evans
Speaker 1: and Gare Davis. You're going to have some really fun
Speaker 1: coverage of the show. But what CES is going to
Speaker 1: mean every year going forward is a bubble of sorts,
Speaker 1: a bubble of how everyone's feeling about technology. I don't
Speaker 1: think they're feeling good, but know this listener, you're who
Speaker 1: I care about. Don't care about the tech people. I
Speaker 1: care about the tech and how it helps you, and
Speaker 1: if it hurts you, I want to hurt it back.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for listening to the last year.
Speaker 1: I can't believe how far this show's gone, but work
Speaker 1: my ass off to make it even bigger and better
Speaker 1: for you. Thank you for listening to Better Offline. The
Speaker 1: editor and composer of the Better Offline theme song is Matasowski.
Speaker 1: You can check out more of his music and audio
Speaker 1: projects at Mattasowski dot com, m A T T O
Speaker 1: S O W s ki dot com. You can email
Speaker 1: me at easy at Better Offline dot com, or visit
Speaker 1: Better Offline dot com to find more podcast links and
Speaker 1: of course, my newsletter. I also really recommend you go
Speaker 1: to chat dot Where's Youreed dot at to visit the discord,
Speaker 1: and go to our slash Better Offline to check out
Speaker 1: our Reddit. Thank you so much for listening. Better Offline
Speaker 1: is a production of cool Zone Media. For more from
Speaker 1: cool Zone Media, visit our website cool zonemedia dot com,
Speaker 1: or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you get your podcasts.