WEBVTT - How The Tech Media Can Beat The Rot Economy

0:00:02.440 --> 0:00:03.560
<v Speaker 1>A zone Media.

0:00:05.360 --> 0:00:08.360
<v Speaker 2>Hello and welcome to Better Offline. I'm your host ed Zichron.

0:00:20.120 --> 0:00:22.920
<v Speaker 2>And you know, sometimes recording this show kind of feels

0:00:22.960 --> 0:00:25.599
<v Speaker 2>like narrating the end of the world and watching is

0:00:25.600 --> 0:00:27.600
<v Speaker 2>the growth of or costs right economy. It kind of

0:00:27.600 --> 0:00:30.960
<v Speaker 2>poisons every corner of our digital lives, changing everything in

0:00:31.000 --> 0:00:34.000
<v Speaker 2>search of growth, growth of revenue, growth of engagement metrics,

0:00:34.280 --> 0:00:37.280
<v Speaker 2>growth of anything. And my core frustration isn't just how

0:00:37.320 --> 0:00:40.000
<v Speaker 2>shitty things have got, but how said shittiness has become

0:00:40.560 --> 0:00:45.120
<v Speaker 2>insanely profitable for so many companies. Meta made twenty point

0:00:45.159 --> 0:00:48.520
<v Speaker 2>eight billion dollars of profit in its last reported quarterly

0:00:48.520 --> 0:00:50.400
<v Speaker 2>earnings off the back of products that are bordering on

0:00:50.479 --> 0:00:54.040
<v Speaker 2>non functional. Microsoft made twenty four point one one billion

0:00:54.080 --> 0:00:57.440
<v Speaker 2>dollars in profit with an increasingly deteriorating series of productivity

0:00:57.480 --> 0:01:01.360
<v Speaker 2>products and cloud based solutions that its customers absolutely fucking hate.

0:01:01.520 --> 0:01:04.080
<v Speaker 2>And Google made twenty six point five billion dollars in

0:01:04.120 --> 0:01:07.160
<v Speaker 2>profit from multiple monopolies and making its core search product

0:01:07.240 --> 0:01:09.400
<v Speaker 2>worse as a means of increasing the amount of times

0:01:09.400 --> 0:01:12.160
<v Speaker 2>that people search for stuff. You see the business of

0:01:12.200 --> 0:01:15.080
<v Speaker 2>making our shit worse to increase revenue growth year of

0:01:15.160 --> 0:01:18.760
<v Speaker 2>a year. It's absolutely booming. The products you use every

0:01:18.840 --> 0:01:21.399
<v Speaker 2>day are more confusing and more frustrating to use because

0:01:21.560 --> 0:01:25.520
<v Speaker 2>everything must grow, which means in practice that product decisions

0:01:25.600 --> 0:01:27.720
<v Speaker 2>now driven in many cases by companies trying to make

0:01:27.760 --> 0:01:30.559
<v Speaker 2>you do something rather than do something for you, which

0:01:30.600 --> 0:01:33.280
<v Speaker 2>in turn means that basic quality control things like I

0:01:33.280 --> 0:01:38.000
<v Speaker 2>don't know usability or functionality, they're more secondary considerations to

0:01:38.080 --> 0:01:42.240
<v Speaker 2>the grander rot economy thing. It's why your Facebook newsfeed

0:01:42.280 --> 0:01:44.679
<v Speaker 2>doesn't show your posts from friends and family, but happily

0:01:44.680 --> 0:01:48.000
<v Speaker 2>bombards you with ai generated slot of weirdly shiny faced

0:01:48.040 --> 0:01:51.240
<v Speaker 2>old people celebrating their birthday alone with a weird heartstring

0:01:51.280 --> 0:01:54.880
<v Speaker 2>tug in caption that doesn't really make any sense. It's

0:01:54.920 --> 0:01:57.800
<v Speaker 2>why whenever you search for something, not just on Google

0:01:57.840 --> 0:02:00.400
<v Speaker 2>but anywhere, the keywords you use aren't treat. There's an

0:02:00.440 --> 0:02:03.200
<v Speaker 2>explicit instruction of something you want to do or see,

0:02:03.520 --> 0:02:07.200
<v Speaker 2>but a kind of interpretive dance of information where maybe

0:02:07.280 --> 0:02:10.040
<v Speaker 2>something you want comes out of the end. Look, we

0:02:10.080 --> 0:02:13.079
<v Speaker 2>don't use the computer. We negotiate with it to try

0:02:13.120 --> 0:02:14.720
<v Speaker 2>and make it do the things we want it to do.

0:02:14.760 --> 0:02:18.360
<v Speaker 2>Because the incentives behind modern software development no longer align

0:02:18.400 --> 0:02:21.360
<v Speaker 2>with the user. Too often, when you open up an app,

0:02:21.400 --> 0:02:24.600
<v Speaker 2>you start bargaining with the company behind it, Like Dropbox

0:02:24.680 --> 0:02:27.679
<v Speaker 2>is a great example. You log in and it says, hey, look,

0:02:27.720 --> 0:02:29.720
<v Speaker 2>you could save money switching to an annual plan this

0:02:29.800 --> 0:02:32.320
<v Speaker 2>big pop up and if you agree to that, they've

0:02:32.360 --> 0:02:36.160
<v Speaker 2>just secured your annual recurring revenue and they've done something

0:02:36.160 --> 0:02:38.359
<v Speaker 2>that they hope you'll forget, which is switch you from

0:02:38.400 --> 0:02:41.399
<v Speaker 2>a monthly to a yearly subscription. You forget that while

0:02:41.440 --> 0:02:44.160
<v Speaker 2>you're stuck with them for a year. Tech companies have

0:02:44.200 --> 0:02:46.800
<v Speaker 2>the perseverance and desperate hunger for your money of a

0:02:46.840 --> 0:02:51.639
<v Speaker 2>timeshare salesman, and they're even more craven. And by the way,

0:02:51.720 --> 0:02:53.800
<v Speaker 2>all of these things I'm talking about with negotiating with

0:02:53.840 --> 0:02:56.600
<v Speaker 2>the computer, this is assuming whatever you're doing actually loads.

0:02:56.840 --> 0:02:58.680
<v Speaker 2>We're all familiar with the tense moment when you open

0:02:58.800 --> 0:03:01.440
<v Speaker 2>up Microsoft Teams and just hope it doesn't crash, or

0:03:01.440 --> 0:03:04.600
<v Speaker 2>that maybe I don't know your camera or your video works,

0:03:04.680 --> 0:03:08.040
<v Speaker 2>or your audio works, whether anything actually works. We live

0:03:08.040 --> 0:03:11.639
<v Speaker 2>in this weird state of constant digital microaggressions, and as

0:03:11.639 --> 0:03:14.600
<v Speaker 2>I said last year, it's everywhere. Banking apps that now

0:03:14.639 --> 0:03:17.360
<v Speaker 2>have helpful assistance that get in the way of flipping

0:03:17.440 --> 0:03:20.519
<v Speaker 2>banking pop ups during online shopping that promise discounts and

0:03:20.600 --> 0:03:23.000
<v Speaker 2>exchange for our emails and phone numbers. They can spam

0:03:23.120 --> 0:03:25.720
<v Speaker 2>us notifications from apps that are built to push us

0:03:25.720 --> 0:03:28.960
<v Speaker 2>to interact further rather than like and by the way,

0:03:28.960 --> 0:03:31.200
<v Speaker 2>a great example here is Instagram. Someone just posted a

0:03:31.200 --> 0:03:34.240
<v Speaker 2>comment on someone else's post notifications not sure if you've

0:03:34.240 --> 0:03:36.440
<v Speaker 2>got those, Or like the emails we get from Amazon

0:03:36.440 --> 0:03:38.200
<v Speaker 2>about an order shipping that don't include any of the

0:03:38.240 --> 0:03:41.320
<v Speaker 2>actual information. These are things that are happening not because

0:03:41.360 --> 0:03:43.800
<v Speaker 2>the company is like, oh, well, this's better for the customer,

0:03:44.320 --> 0:03:46.480
<v Speaker 2>but because they need you to do something or they

0:03:46.520 --> 0:03:48.800
<v Speaker 2>need to stop someone doing something else. In the case

0:03:48.840 --> 0:03:50.680
<v Speaker 2>of your Amazon emails, by the way, if you're wondering

0:03:50.680 --> 0:03:52.960
<v Speaker 2>why you don't get you don't actually get to see

0:03:52.960 --> 0:03:55.800
<v Speaker 2>what's in an Amazon package when it ships now, well

0:03:55.840 --> 0:04:00.320
<v Speaker 2>the reason is because Google was scraping your Gmail finding

0:04:00.360 --> 0:04:03.360
<v Speaker 2>out stuff about what people were buying on Amazon. So

0:04:03.720 --> 0:04:06.680
<v Speaker 2>Amazon just stopped doing that. They stopped providing any of

0:04:06.680 --> 0:04:09.960
<v Speaker 2>that information when your stuff shipped. Now, Amazon absolutely makes

0:04:10.000 --> 0:04:14.600
<v Speaker 2>money off of this themselves. This is Amazon's business, not Google. No, no, no, no,

0:04:14.880 --> 0:04:18.440
<v Speaker 2>you can't rot our customers. There are to rot yet,

0:04:18.839 --> 0:04:22.119
<v Speaker 2>and I'm going to imagine your frustration with tech isn't

0:04:22.160 --> 0:04:24.359
<v Speaker 2>born with any kind of hatred of technology, or a

0:04:24.400 --> 0:04:26.560
<v Speaker 2>dislike of the Internet, or a lack of appreciation of

0:04:26.600 --> 0:04:28.760
<v Speaker 2>what it can or could or used to do, but

0:04:28.839 --> 0:04:31.480
<v Speaker 2>the sense that all of this was once better, and

0:04:31.520 --> 0:04:34.039
<v Speaker 2>that these companies have turned impeding our use of the

0:04:34.040 --> 0:04:39.560
<v Speaker 2>computer into a kind of weird, Charlatan filled bacchanalia of capital.

0:04:40.400 --> 0:04:42.479
<v Speaker 2>And so much of the pushback I get on my work,

0:04:42.480 --> 0:04:44.560
<v Speaker 2>and the pushback I've seen toward other critics as well,

0:04:44.760 --> 0:04:47.200
<v Speaker 2>is that I hate technology. But I'd like to argue

0:04:47.240 --> 0:04:49.560
<v Speaker 2>that my profound disgust and anger is born of a

0:04:49.560 --> 0:04:51.599
<v Speaker 2>great love of technology and a deep awareness of the

0:04:51.600 --> 0:04:54.400
<v Speaker 2>positive effects it's had on my life. I don't turn

0:04:54.440 --> 0:04:56.680
<v Speaker 2>on the computer every day wanting to be pissed off,

0:04:56.680 --> 0:04:58.920
<v Speaker 2>and I don't imagine any of you do either. We're

0:04:58.920 --> 0:05:01.479
<v Speaker 2>not logging onto whatever social networks were on because we're

0:05:01.560 --> 0:05:03.640
<v Speaker 2>ready to be pissed off, or we want to have

0:05:03.720 --> 0:05:07.000
<v Speaker 2>our lives interrupted by weird slop. If anything, we'd love

0:05:07.080 --> 0:05:08.960
<v Speaker 2>to be delighted by the people we chose to connect

0:05:08.960 --> 0:05:11.120
<v Speaker 2>with and the content we consume, and want to simply

0:05:11.160 --> 0:05:14.440
<v Speaker 2>go about our business without just these microaggressions created by

0:05:14.440 --> 0:05:17.760
<v Speaker 2>this growth desperation from companies that are just running out

0:05:18.080 --> 0:05:20.640
<v Speaker 2>of runway. They're running out of things to sell us,

0:05:20.680 --> 0:05:22.440
<v Speaker 2>and well, they don't know how to build things we'd

0:05:22.480 --> 0:05:26.440
<v Speaker 2>like anyway. Technology has in many ways stopped being about

0:05:26.520 --> 0:05:28.920
<v Speaker 2>using technology to help people do things, or at the

0:05:29.000 --> 0:05:30.920
<v Speaker 2>very least help the user do something that they want

0:05:30.960 --> 0:05:34.200
<v Speaker 2>to do. Software has, as Mark Andrewsen said, it would

0:05:34.200 --> 0:05:36.599
<v Speaker 2>in twenty eleven, eat in the world, and it's done

0:05:36.640 --> 0:05:39.360
<v Speaker 2>so in the nakedly cynical and usurious way that Mark

0:05:39.400 --> 0:05:42.520
<v Speaker 2>Andrewson really wanted it to, prioritizing the invasion of our

0:05:42.560 --> 0:05:45.760
<v Speaker 2>life through prioritizing growth and the collection of as much

0:05:45.839 --> 0:05:48.920
<v Speaker 2>data as possible in the user over any particularly particular

0:05:49.040 --> 0:05:52.640
<v Speaker 2>utility or purpose or value in a stock and dres

0:05:52.680 --> 0:05:55.640
<v Speaker 2>and hint his ilk Saw and I believe they still

0:05:55.680 --> 0:05:58.599
<v Speaker 2>see software not as a thing that provides value, but

0:05:58.640 --> 0:06:00.680
<v Speaker 2>as a means for the tech industry to penetrate and

0:06:01.320 --> 0:06:05.200
<v Speaker 2>disrupt as many industries as possible, pushing legacy providers to

0:06:05.320 --> 0:06:08.960
<v Speaker 2>and I quote transform themselves into software companies rather than

0:06:09.080 --> 0:06:12.680
<v Speaker 2>using software to do things or make products better. And

0:06:12.800 --> 0:06:15.719
<v Speaker 2>recent describes Pixar the studio that made movies like Toy

0:06:15.800 --> 0:06:18.440
<v Speaker 2>Story and Inside Out, and they were required by Disney

0:06:18.480 --> 0:06:20.200
<v Speaker 2>in two thousand and six. By the way, he describes

0:06:20.240 --> 0:06:22.280
<v Speaker 2>them as a software company rather than the company that

0:06:22.640 --> 0:06:27.800
<v Speaker 2>uses software to make movies, and that distinction is really important.

0:06:27.800 --> 0:06:29.880
<v Speaker 2>I realize it sounds like semantics, but let me put

0:06:29.880 --> 0:06:33.240
<v Speaker 2>it another way. Software has for the tech industry become

0:06:33.320 --> 0:06:35.960
<v Speaker 2>far more about extracting economic value than it has in

0:06:36.000 --> 0:06:39.120
<v Speaker 2>providing it. When the tech industry becomes focused on penetrating

0:06:39.120 --> 0:06:42.560
<v Speaker 2>markets to quote Andrews and software companies taking over large

0:06:42.560 --> 0:06:45.640
<v Speaker 2>swards of the economy, there's little consideration of whether said

0:06:45.680 --> 0:06:49.360
<v Speaker 2>software is prioritizing the solution to a problem. And nowhere

0:06:49.400 --> 0:06:51.479
<v Speaker 2>is this more obvious than the software we use in

0:06:51.480 --> 0:06:55.120
<v Speaker 2>our professional lives. Microsoft Teams is one of the single

0:06:55.360 --> 0:06:58.839
<v Speaker 2>worst products I've ever used, because Microsoft's goal isn't to

0:06:58.839 --> 0:07:01.000
<v Speaker 2>make it easy to have digital meetings, but to make

0:07:01.040 --> 0:07:02.719
<v Speaker 2>a product good enough and cheap enough to make it

0:07:02.720 --> 0:07:05.480
<v Speaker 2>easy for your boss to buy the entire Microsoft three

0:07:05.560 --> 0:07:08.479
<v Speaker 2>sixty five Sweet, even if most of the sweet sucks

0:07:08.800 --> 0:07:11.760
<v Speaker 2>and people hate it and it doesn't work sometimes or

0:07:11.800 --> 0:07:14.560
<v Speaker 2>a lot of the time, and here's another great example,

0:07:14.680 --> 0:07:18.040
<v Speaker 2>Google Drive. Google Drive is one of the worst products

0:07:18.120 --> 0:07:21.240
<v Speaker 2>of all time. The people responsible for designing Google drives

0:07:21.360 --> 0:07:25.000
<v Speaker 2>user interface should be made to explain themselves before a judge.

0:07:25.240 --> 0:07:27.280
<v Speaker 2>Why can't you sort files by side? Why does it

0:07:27.320 --> 0:07:30.080
<v Speaker 2>only show an image and video thumbnails when viewing a

0:07:30.120 --> 0:07:32.200
<v Speaker 2>folder and a grid layout? Why when you attempt to

0:07:32.200 --> 0:07:34.440
<v Speaker 2>move a file to a folder are the suggested folders

0:07:34.480 --> 0:07:38.239
<v Speaker 2>literally the first window you say, always wrong without fail.

0:07:39.080 --> 0:07:42.240
<v Speaker 2>I know these things sound like I'm just complaining, goddamn

0:07:42.280 --> 0:07:44.800
<v Speaker 2>am I, but this is what it is today. This

0:07:44.960 --> 0:07:48.040
<v Speaker 2>is Google, a company with well it's like three trillion

0:07:48.080 --> 0:07:50.520
<v Speaker 2>dollar market cap, and they can't fucking make their cloud

0:07:50.600 --> 0:07:56.000
<v Speaker 2>storage product work. Jesus Christ. Look, the proliferation of software

0:07:56.000 --> 0:07:58.160
<v Speaker 2>throughout society has been led by the stewards of the

0:07:58.240 --> 0:08:02.240
<v Speaker 2>raw economy, as software, along with its associated managed services,

0:08:02.360 --> 0:08:05.560
<v Speaker 2>can effectively proliferate infinitely and can take advantage of how

0:08:05.560 --> 0:08:08.440
<v Speaker 2>many corporations are run by management consultants and of course

0:08:08.480 --> 0:08:11.160
<v Speaker 2>filled with middle managers. And they are the enemy as well.

0:08:11.520 --> 0:08:13.720
<v Speaker 2>And these people don't do any real work or have

0:08:13.760 --> 0:08:16.800
<v Speaker 2>any true connections to the problems they're solving. When your

0:08:16.840 --> 0:08:19.600
<v Speaker 2>goal is winning the market or dominating the market. You're

0:08:19.640 --> 0:08:22.360
<v Speaker 2>not necessarily optimizing for having a great product or even

0:08:22.400 --> 0:08:25.960
<v Speaker 2>really happy customers. Selling software to a big company doesn't

0:08:26.000 --> 0:08:28.000
<v Speaker 2>require you to speak to everybody who might use it.

0:08:28.440 --> 0:08:31.000
<v Speaker 2>You're selling hundreds or thousands of seats users who might

0:08:31.000 --> 0:08:32.800
<v Speaker 2>access the product. That's what that means. By the way,

0:08:33.040 --> 0:08:36.360
<v Speaker 2>to management, in kind of the dished out just this

0:08:36.440 --> 0:08:38.360
<v Speaker 2>idea of we're selling to a blob of people, and

0:08:38.400 --> 0:08:40.400
<v Speaker 2>what would the person at the top who wouldn't necessarily

0:08:40.400 --> 0:08:42.720
<v Speaker 2>touch this, what would make them feel horny, what would

0:08:42.760 --> 0:08:44.960
<v Speaker 2>make them feel happy, what's going to make them feel

0:08:45.000 --> 0:08:48.640
<v Speaker 2>warm and fuzzy inside? Because let's be honest, your manager

0:08:48.760 --> 0:08:50.880
<v Speaker 2>or their manager isn't really using any of this shit.

0:08:51.120 --> 0:08:52.840
<v Speaker 2>They just want to see what it looks like and

0:08:52.880 --> 0:08:55.920
<v Speaker 2>it feels good to buy, and it fits within the budget,

0:08:56.000 --> 0:08:57.840
<v Speaker 2>and they get taken out to a nice dinner, or

0:08:57.840 --> 0:09:01.320
<v Speaker 2>perhaps the person mentions they watch the same baseball team

0:09:01.520 --> 0:09:14.240
<v Speaker 2>some bullshit like that. You see the people leading the

0:09:14.320 --> 0:09:16.760
<v Speaker 2>charge in the tech industry. And Andrews and the Horowitz,

0:09:16.760 --> 0:09:18.000
<v Speaker 2>by the way, they've been one of the biggest and

0:09:18.000 --> 0:09:20.520
<v Speaker 2>most influential players in Silicon About the history and now,

0:09:20.559 --> 0:09:22.400
<v Speaker 2>Andres and has something to do with the Trump administration.

0:09:22.480 --> 0:09:25.760
<v Speaker 2>I'm just trying not to think about it. They've never

0:09:25.800 --> 0:09:28.960
<v Speaker 2>really seen their primary purpose as the creation of value

0:09:29.000 --> 0:09:33.320
<v Speaker 2>for anybody other than the people's selling software. And this

0:09:33.440 --> 0:09:35.679
<v Speaker 2>manifests in the rest of your daily lives in far

0:09:35.840 --> 0:09:38.840
<v Speaker 2>simpler ways. Pop ups some shopping apps you downloaded to

0:09:38.840 --> 0:09:42.360
<v Speaker 2>make just one purchase, or misleading notifications from Instagram shouting

0:09:42.360 --> 0:09:45.000
<v Speaker 2>about how you have new views that don't actually lead anywhere,

0:09:45.200 --> 0:09:48.600
<v Speaker 2>or auto playing adverts that proliferate on every single news

0:09:49.000 --> 0:09:53.000
<v Speaker 2>and reviews website. It's having to relog into websites and

0:09:53.120 --> 0:09:56.320
<v Speaker 2>use websites in particular every day because everyone must pay

0:09:56.320 --> 0:09:59.240
<v Speaker 2>and nothing could possibly get through. They could not possibly

0:09:59.280 --> 0:10:01.040
<v Speaker 2>have you read a New York Times article or a

0:10:01.080 --> 0:10:04.280
<v Speaker 2>Forbes article for free anymore. And it's emails from online

0:10:04.320 --> 0:10:07.600
<v Speaker 2>retailers you swore you unsubscribed from, and perhaps you did,

0:10:07.960 --> 0:10:09.800
<v Speaker 2>but you have no way of tracking for sure, and

0:10:09.840 --> 0:10:12.000
<v Speaker 2>there's not really a government body that gives a shit

0:10:12.040 --> 0:10:15.000
<v Speaker 2>about that anymore, maybe in the future. And it's all

0:10:15.040 --> 0:10:17.400
<v Speaker 2>the times you've had to create new passwords because of

0:10:17.440 --> 0:10:20.120
<v Speaker 2>another data breach that happened, and the company didn't even

0:10:20.160 --> 0:10:23.400
<v Speaker 2>bother to meet the basic security standards, because again, who

0:10:23.440 --> 0:10:26.959
<v Speaker 2>would stop them. All of these annoying little examples are

0:10:26.960 --> 0:10:30.920
<v Speaker 2>inherently hostile towards you, the user, and they're a direct

0:10:30.960 --> 0:10:34.200
<v Speaker 2>result of a tech industry oriented around growth, driven by

0:10:34.240 --> 0:10:37.840
<v Speaker 2>the pernicious and aggressive poison of growth focused software. The

0:10:37.920 --> 0:10:41.040
<v Speaker 2>rot economy has changed the incentives of everything you see

0:10:41.080 --> 0:10:43.720
<v Speaker 2>and do on the computer. The websites you read that

0:10:43.800 --> 0:10:48.319
<v Speaker 2>inexplicably recommend laptops that are actively painful to use because

0:10:48.320 --> 0:10:51.160
<v Speaker 2>of the affiliate revenue they drive to the website's owners,

0:10:51.360 --> 0:10:53.600
<v Speaker 2>with the intent being driven by the way, not by

0:10:53.640 --> 0:10:56.760
<v Speaker 2>the rights, but by managers who don't really look at

0:10:56.760 --> 0:10:58.679
<v Speaker 2>the product or care about the laptop. They just care

0:10:58.720 --> 0:11:02.760
<v Speaker 2>about number going up. It's when Instagram swaps the location

0:11:02.840 --> 0:11:06.040
<v Speaker 2>of your notification and message buttons, discounts on stores that

0:11:06.080 --> 0:11:08.600
<v Speaker 2>require both your email and your phone number, social networks

0:11:08.600 --> 0:11:10.520
<v Speaker 2>that put things in the way of you trying to

0:11:10.559 --> 0:11:12.600
<v Speaker 2>find the people and the things you actually logged on

0:11:12.679 --> 0:11:15.800
<v Speaker 2>to see. All ways in which software can be used

0:11:15.800 --> 0:11:19.040
<v Speaker 2>to extract from you, trick you, and mislead you, and

0:11:19.120 --> 0:11:22.240
<v Speaker 2>control you. And when I say control, I don't mean

0:11:22.240 --> 0:11:25.040
<v Speaker 2>that these companies have the ability to subconsciously manipulate you

0:11:25.080 --> 0:11:28.640
<v Speaker 2>and your desires. It's more that they have spent decades

0:11:28.640 --> 0:11:30.840
<v Speaker 2>finding new ways to gaslight you and bully you into

0:11:30.840 --> 0:11:34.280
<v Speaker 2>doing things they'd like you to. Everybody knows that Instagram sucks,

0:11:34.280 --> 0:11:36.400
<v Speaker 2>and it sucks because there's things that you actually want

0:11:36.400 --> 0:11:39.160
<v Speaker 2>to do on Instagram that matter is hidden behind hundreds

0:11:39.200 --> 0:11:43.439
<v Speaker 2>of little user interface quirks optimize to create increase your

0:11:43.440 --> 0:11:45.520
<v Speaker 2>time on the app and thus the amount of money

0:11:45.559 --> 0:11:48.080
<v Speaker 2>you make them by being on there. What so as

0:11:48.120 --> 0:11:49.960
<v Speaker 2>On the side, have you ever tried to search for

0:11:50.000 --> 0:11:52.840
<v Speaker 2>something on Instagram? You can't just type in words and

0:11:53.200 --> 0:11:56.040
<v Speaker 2>see what you want to see and like it allows

0:11:56.080 --> 0:11:58.120
<v Speaker 2>you to search for certain phrases, and it's not really

0:11:58.240 --> 0:12:01.120
<v Speaker 2>clear what makes a phrase acceptable. On not or work,

0:12:01.360 --> 0:12:03.520
<v Speaker 2>you can have two queries, each with the same words

0:12:03.520 --> 0:12:05.679
<v Speaker 2>but arranged in a slightly different order, and Instagram will

0:12:05.760 --> 0:12:07.840
<v Speaker 2>let you search for one and not the other. It's

0:12:07.960 --> 0:12:11.160
<v Speaker 2>just so weird, and the post you'll see will contain

0:12:11.240 --> 0:12:13.800
<v Speaker 2>only some of the keywords, which in the end makes

0:12:13.800 --> 0:12:16.439
<v Speaker 2>search irrelevant. The other day, I search for the name

0:12:16.720 --> 0:12:18.640
<v Speaker 2>of an event with the word live in it, hoping

0:12:18.679 --> 0:12:20.800
<v Speaker 2>to see whether someone had live streamed it. Instead I

0:12:20.800 --> 0:12:22.720
<v Speaker 2>got hundreds of posts that just had the word live.

0:12:23.920 --> 0:12:26.120
<v Speaker 2>I love the future, I love living in the future,

0:12:26.320 --> 0:12:29.120
<v Speaker 2>I love the Facebook and Meta. They just make like

0:12:29.240 --> 0:12:32.560
<v Speaker 2>twenty billion dollars a quarter and their product just fucking sucks.

0:12:33.200 --> 0:12:35.520
<v Speaker 2>And even if you get semi relevant results, they won't

0:12:35.520 --> 0:12:38.480
<v Speaker 2>even be organized in any particularly coherent fashion. You'll see

0:12:38.520 --> 0:12:40.880
<v Speaker 2>content from recent weeks mixed in with stuff from over

0:12:40.920 --> 0:12:43.760
<v Speaker 2>a decade ago. You can't even search recent posts using

0:12:43.760 --> 0:12:47.000
<v Speaker 2>a hashtag. Instagram removed that feature a couple of years ago,

0:12:47.040 --> 0:12:49.600
<v Speaker 2>and no amount of cater walling from users has persuaded

0:12:49.640 --> 0:12:51.760
<v Speaker 2>them to put it back, because they don't really give

0:12:51.800 --> 0:12:54.920
<v Speaker 2>a shit, and it's not like Instagram's alone in doing this.

0:12:55.320 --> 0:12:58.040
<v Speaker 2>Everybody knows that Google Search sucks because it's optimized to

0:12:58.080 --> 0:13:00.920
<v Speaker 2>provide results that make the company more money by showing

0:13:00.960 --> 0:13:03.640
<v Speaker 2>you more ads. But we use it because, well, the

0:13:03.640 --> 0:13:06.480
<v Speaker 2>Internet's a very big place, and Search, while broken, provides

0:13:06.600 --> 0:13:08.520
<v Speaker 2>enough of a service that it's useful to the point

0:13:08.520 --> 0:13:10.160
<v Speaker 2>that we'll push through the bullshit to get to the

0:13:10.200 --> 0:13:13.439
<v Speaker 2>things we kind of want. And now, to quote the

0:13:13.440 --> 0:13:18.880
<v Speaker 2>comedian Connor O'Malley, fucking computer's bullshit. It's fucking sick. It's

0:13:18.920 --> 0:13:21.040
<v Speaker 2>not cooling where it's not fun. It's not fun to

0:13:21.120 --> 0:13:24.360
<v Speaker 2>me on the fucking computer. They changed everything about it used.

0:13:24.240 --> 0:13:25.440
<v Speaker 1>To be so pol.

0:13:30.760 --> 0:13:34.080
<v Speaker 2>Google search was at one point extremely cool, something that

0:13:34.160 --> 0:13:35.640
<v Speaker 2>used to give us as a sense of peace and

0:13:35.640 --> 0:13:37.960
<v Speaker 2>then control over an internet they'd grown so vast it

0:13:38.000 --> 0:13:40.480
<v Speaker 2>was kind of hard to grasp and even once felt

0:13:40.520 --> 0:13:42.640
<v Speaker 2>like a place you'd go to find like a crazy

0:13:42.679 --> 0:13:47.280
<v Speaker 2>idea with Google a quality search result. Facebook was instrumental

0:13:47.320 --> 0:13:49.440
<v Speaker 2>in me building my life here in America when I

0:13:49.480 --> 0:13:51.480
<v Speaker 2>moved in two thousand and eight, both in connecting with

0:13:51.520 --> 0:13:53.120
<v Speaker 2>the people who went to college with at Penn Stay

0:13:53.240 --> 0:13:55.400
<v Speaker 2>and operating is a kind of digital address book where

0:13:55.400 --> 0:13:58.480
<v Speaker 2>people and this is an insane concept, I know, used

0:13:58.520 --> 0:14:01.680
<v Speaker 2>to post updates about their life and pictures of things

0:14:01.679 --> 0:14:04.000
<v Speaker 2>that they were doing on Facebook. I know that this

0:14:04.080 --> 0:14:07.480
<v Speaker 2>is a strange concept to some of you, but there

0:14:07.559 --> 0:14:10.080
<v Speaker 2>was a time when people did that on Facebook. In

0:14:10.120 --> 0:14:12.480
<v Speaker 2>a way it might someone might describe it as like

0:14:12.559 --> 0:14:17.360
<v Speaker 2>social networking. Crazy right, anyway, Once upon a time, Apple's

0:14:17.360 --> 0:14:20.360
<v Speaker 2>app store had actual quality standards, both in the apps

0:14:20.400 --> 0:14:23.160
<v Speaker 2>themselves and the services they sold, which made downloading a

0:14:23.200 --> 0:14:25.240
<v Speaker 2>new app feel kind of exciting because your first pop

0:14:25.280 --> 0:14:28.440
<v Speaker 2>up wasn't for some sort of monthly subscription products solved

0:14:28.800 --> 0:14:30.640
<v Speaker 2>sold in a weird way where it's like, oh, it's

0:14:30.640 --> 0:14:33.080
<v Speaker 2>actually a weekly one, and with the X to get

0:14:33.120 --> 0:14:35.320
<v Speaker 2>away from it hidden on a white background with a

0:14:35.360 --> 0:14:39.400
<v Speaker 2>white X. I know, I know, I'm romantics. I think

0:14:39.560 --> 0:14:42.280
<v Speaker 2>things a little bit. Capitalism is capitalism. These companies were

0:14:42.280 --> 0:14:45.240
<v Speaker 2>still worth hundreds of millions or billions of dollars, and

0:14:45.320 --> 0:14:50.320
<v Speaker 2>evil incentives still exists, and I realized that Microsoft and

0:14:50.360 --> 0:14:52.800
<v Speaker 2>its monopoly over operating system is a really good example

0:14:52.800 --> 0:14:55.200
<v Speaker 2>of how wrong this might be. But nevertheless, the experience

0:14:55.200 --> 0:14:57.800
<v Speaker 2>of using hardware and software felt like it was fucking

0:14:57.800 --> 0:15:01.440
<v Speaker 2>you less, it was less exploitative. The stuff we used

0:15:01.440 --> 0:15:05.200
<v Speaker 2>felt like it worked. And for the absolute avoidance of doubt,

0:15:05.200 --> 0:15:06.760
<v Speaker 2>none of this is to say that these companies were

0:15:06.760 --> 0:15:09.520
<v Speaker 2>ever perfect, or even good, or even had good intentions,

0:15:09.560 --> 0:15:11.960
<v Speaker 2>Nor is any of this an attempt to cheerlead for them.

0:15:12.320 --> 0:15:15.360
<v Speaker 2>This is not a shift to me becoming more fair either,

0:15:15.800 --> 0:15:18.240
<v Speaker 2>which is usually, by the way, euphemism for waving away

0:15:18.280 --> 0:15:21.200
<v Speaker 2>the actual wrongs of a company. I don't get free share,

0:15:21.280 --> 0:15:23.200
<v Speaker 2>and even if I did, I'd tell you. I would

0:15:23.200 --> 0:15:24.760
<v Speaker 2>tell you if someone wants to send me a free

0:15:24.800 --> 0:15:28.040
<v Speaker 2>laptop brilliant, It won't change my mind about shit anyway.

0:15:28.440 --> 0:15:30.560
<v Speaker 2>As much as I may like any given product, these

0:15:30.560 --> 0:15:33.320
<v Speaker 2>companies are providing a service as a means of making money.

0:15:33.560 --> 0:15:36.160
<v Speaker 2>I am as you are a customer. And the fact

0:15:36.160 --> 0:15:38.280
<v Speaker 2>that so many of these companies are making so much

0:15:38.320 --> 0:15:41.120
<v Speaker 2>more money as they make these products so much worse.

0:15:41.320 --> 0:15:43.680
<v Speaker 2>It feels me full of fucking poison. It makes me

0:15:43.840 --> 0:15:47.120
<v Speaker 2>very angry. And the reason I'm so onerously explaining this

0:15:47.240 --> 0:15:49.280
<v Speaker 2>is that I do not believe that the majority of

0:15:49.320 --> 0:15:52.720
<v Speaker 2>people actually hate technology. They hate what the technology industry

0:15:52.720 --> 0:15:56.080
<v Speaker 2>has become in search of growth. In fact, I'd argue

0:15:56.080 --> 0:15:58.680
<v Speaker 2>that deep down many people love technology. We love that

0:15:58.720 --> 0:16:01.560
<v Speaker 2>we can instantly connect to friends using little computers in

0:16:01.600 --> 0:16:04.440
<v Speaker 2>our pockets, or that we can share photos or videos

0:16:04.440 --> 0:16:08.280
<v Speaker 2>with effectively anyone with an Internet connection. And I quote

0:16:08.280 --> 0:16:10.640
<v Speaker 2>someone talking about me here by the way, as one

0:16:10.640 --> 0:16:13.600
<v Speaker 2>of big Tech's angriest critics, I must confess that I

0:16:13.680 --> 0:16:16.120
<v Speaker 2>absolutely love what I can do with the computer. As

0:16:16.120 --> 0:16:18.400
<v Speaker 2>deep down, I'm kind of a broken hearted romantic that

0:16:18.440 --> 0:16:20.320
<v Speaker 2>can see beneath all the slop on the shit and

0:16:20.360 --> 0:16:22.800
<v Speaker 2>the growth and the bullshit, there are many different things

0:16:22.840 --> 0:16:25.880
<v Speaker 2>I truly, deeply love. I love that I can write

0:16:25.880 --> 0:16:27.720
<v Speaker 2>a script or a newsletter and I can share it

0:16:27.760 --> 0:16:29.800
<v Speaker 2>with my head of the thousands of miles away, that

0:16:29.840 --> 0:16:31.840
<v Speaker 2>we can work on an idea or a sentence in

0:16:31.880 --> 0:16:34.160
<v Speaker 2>real time, despite being an entire land mass and a

0:16:34.240 --> 0:16:36.880
<v Speaker 2>nocean apart. I love that I can be in New

0:16:36.960 --> 0:16:38.880
<v Speaker 2>York or Los Angeles or Las Vegas and make a

0:16:38.880 --> 0:16:41.280
<v Speaker 2>podcast that gets beamed around the world through fiber optic

0:16:41.320 --> 0:16:44.080
<v Speaker 2>cables and satellite connections. I love that I can run

0:16:44.120 --> 0:16:46.800
<v Speaker 2>a business online from anywhere with a stable Internet connection.

0:16:46.960 --> 0:16:48.920
<v Speaker 2>And I love that during work I can also quickly

0:16:48.960 --> 0:16:51.280
<v Speaker 2>and easily catch up with my friends wherever they are.

0:16:51.640 --> 0:16:53.360
<v Speaker 2>I can be there for people and people have been

0:16:53.400 --> 0:16:56.280
<v Speaker 2>there for me, and it's wonderful. Beneath the bullshit of

0:16:56.320 --> 0:16:59.080
<v Speaker 2>Google Search lies the ability to research decades of journalism

0:16:59.120 --> 0:17:01.800
<v Speaker 2>in academia, and my fury and discuss comes from seeing

0:17:01.840 --> 0:17:04.720
<v Speaker 2>such a great product get mangled by fucking Prodagar Ragavan

0:17:04.800 --> 0:17:07.639
<v Speaker 2>and sun Darpischei so they can make more fucking money.

0:17:08.400 --> 0:17:10.680
<v Speaker 2>And the problem is that we as a society still

0:17:10.720 --> 0:17:13.359
<v Speaker 2>act like technology is some distinct things separate from our

0:17:13.359 --> 0:17:15.840
<v Speaker 2>real lives and that, in turn, technology is some sort

0:17:15.840 --> 0:17:19.680
<v Speaker 2>of hobbyist pursuit. Mainstream media outlets have a technology section

0:17:19.840 --> 0:17:21.879
<v Speaker 2>with technology reporters that are hired to cover, and I

0:17:21.920 --> 0:17:25.399
<v Speaker 2>could the tech industry optimizing not for any understanding or

0:17:25.440 --> 0:17:29.200
<v Speaker 2>experience in using technology, but some thirty thousand foot view

0:17:29.240 --> 0:17:32.760
<v Speaker 2>of what the computer people are doing this week. This

0:17:32.880 --> 0:17:35.600
<v Speaker 2>may have made more sense twenty years ago, though I'd

0:17:35.680 --> 0:17:37.439
<v Speaker 2>add that back in two thousand and eight you have

0:17:37.560 --> 0:17:41.119
<v Speaker 2>multiple national newspapers with multiple tech columnists, and computers were

0:17:41.160 --> 0:17:43.960
<v Speaker 2>already an integral part of our work and personal lives.

0:17:44.080 --> 0:17:46.679
<v Speaker 2>But in the year twenty twenty five, it's fundamentally fucking

0:17:46.800 --> 0:17:51.240
<v Speaker 2>stupid and a failure of modern media. Every single person

0:17:51.280 --> 0:17:54.240
<v Speaker 2>you meet in every single part of your life likely

0:17:54.280 --> 0:17:57.040
<v Speaker 2>interfaces with technology as much as, if not more, than

0:17:57.040 --> 0:17:59.159
<v Speaker 2>they do with other people in the real world, and

0:17:59.200 --> 0:18:02.120
<v Speaker 2>the tech coverage they read in the newspaper online does

0:18:02.160 --> 0:18:06.200
<v Speaker 2>not represent that experience. It's why a relatively modest software

0:18:06.280 --> 0:18:09.680
<v Speaker 2>update for Android or Windows earns vastly more column inches

0:18:09.720 --> 0:18:11.920
<v Speaker 2>than the fact that Google, a product that we all use,

0:18:12.040 --> 0:18:14.679
<v Speaker 2>does not work anymore. And you could argue, well a

0:18:14.720 --> 0:18:17.840
<v Speaker 2>software update for Android that it's a lot of people, Wow, cool, right,

0:18:18.800 --> 0:18:22.200
<v Speaker 2>it's frankly, it's not like they cover that much anymore either.

0:18:22.440 --> 0:18:24.440
<v Speaker 2>It used to be that new android lord should actually

0:18:24.440 --> 0:18:26.320
<v Speaker 2>have some stuff and people talk about it. It's fun,

0:18:26.359 --> 0:18:43.600
<v Speaker 2>but it isn't fun anymore. As a result, it's worth

0:18:43.640 --> 0:18:46.400
<v Speaker 2>considering that billions of people actually really like what tech

0:18:46.480 --> 0:18:49.479
<v Speaker 2>does for them, and in turn, they're extremely pissed off

0:18:49.520 --> 0:18:52.719
<v Speaker 2>and frustrated with what technology does to them. The problem

0:18:52.800 --> 0:18:55.879
<v Speaker 2>is that modern tech media has become oriented around companies

0:18:56.160 --> 0:18:58.880
<v Speaker 2>and trends rather than the actual experience of a real

0:18:58.960 --> 0:19:02.760
<v Speaker 2>person living in reality. Generative AI would never have been

0:19:02.880 --> 0:19:06.240
<v Speaker 2>any kind of movement or industry if the media had

0:19:06.240 --> 0:19:09.800
<v Speaker 2>approached it from the perspective of a customer and said, okay, right,

0:19:10.520 --> 0:19:13.159
<v Speaker 2>what does this do exactly? And by the way, the

0:19:13.200 --> 0:19:15.800
<v Speaker 2>same goes for metaverse and crypto no real products there,

0:19:15.840 --> 0:19:18.560
<v Speaker 2>but fuck it right, it's what the market's like. And

0:19:18.640 --> 0:19:21.280
<v Speaker 2>rather than fold their arms and demand the takeover lord's

0:19:21.280 --> 0:19:24.320
<v Speaker 2>actually proved themselves, the media decided that they would be

0:19:24.359 --> 0:19:26.600
<v Speaker 2>the ones that would prove it for them, describing chat

0:19:26.640 --> 0:19:30.160
<v Speaker 2>GPT as a revolution without ever really expressing why, parroting

0:19:30.280 --> 0:19:34.560
<v Speaker 2>narratives driven by massive corporations or associated interests, of course,

0:19:34.760 --> 0:19:37.240
<v Speaker 2>and tutting at those who would disagree. Thank you, KC.

0:19:38.080 --> 0:19:41.800
<v Speaker 2>There were multiple other companies doing exactly what GPT three

0:19:42.040 --> 0:19:45.400
<v Speaker 2>did months before chat GPT launched. It only caught fire

0:19:45.440 --> 0:19:48.160
<v Speaker 2>because the media insisted it did so. To this day,

0:19:48.400 --> 0:19:50.720
<v Speaker 2>I still can't find a single journalist who has a

0:19:50.760 --> 0:19:53.720
<v Speaker 2>cogent explanation as to why chat GPT is big, other

0:19:53.840 --> 0:19:55.600
<v Speaker 2>than the fact that lots of people use it and

0:19:55.640 --> 0:19:57.480
<v Speaker 2>a lot of rich people want it to be big.

0:19:58.200 --> 0:20:00.320
<v Speaker 2>The problem, I believe, is that the technique he has

0:20:00.320 --> 0:20:03.199
<v Speaker 2>been poisoned by a mixture of ignorance and cynical optimism,

0:20:03.320 --> 0:20:06.000
<v Speaker 2>where the narratives are driven not by any particular interest

0:20:06.040 --> 0:20:08.879
<v Speaker 2>or domain expertise, but by whatever they believe the market

0:20:09.000 --> 0:20:11.080
<v Speaker 2>or the powerful people they admire would like it to be.

0:20:11.320 --> 0:20:13.119
<v Speaker 2>And if you hear this and you're getting offended in

0:20:13.160 --> 0:20:16.639
<v Speaker 2>the media, I shouldn't be talking about you. If you

0:20:16.720 --> 0:20:19.879
<v Speaker 2>think I'm talking about you, that's your fucking problem. You

0:20:19.960 --> 0:20:22.199
<v Speaker 2>need to wipe your own ass. Don't come shit at

0:20:22.240 --> 0:20:25.280
<v Speaker 2>me anyway. I know for the fact that senior editorial

0:20:25.320 --> 0:20:28.439
<v Speaker 2>staff are the problem too, because they're handling technology at

0:20:28.560 --> 0:20:31.879
<v Speaker 2>multiple major mainstream publications and don't really care about it,

0:20:32.000 --> 0:20:34.080
<v Speaker 2>or understand it, or have any real interest in tech

0:20:34.119 --> 0:20:36.040
<v Speaker 2>other than a vague attachment to the idea that maybe

0:20:36.040 --> 0:20:39.840
<v Speaker 2>it's important somehow. As a result, mainstream tech coverage is

0:20:39.880 --> 0:20:42.760
<v Speaker 2>focused on market effects like AI or where whatever the

0:20:42.800 --> 0:20:45.639
<v Speaker 2>other thing everybody wants to read about, and by everybody,

0:20:45.680 --> 0:20:48.400
<v Speaker 2>I mean rich people and editors that don't fucking read,

0:20:49.240 --> 0:20:52.159
<v Speaker 2>And it's never really directing that coverage towards what is

0:20:52.200 --> 0:20:55.160
<v Speaker 2>happening to real people as a result of or from

0:20:55.320 --> 0:20:59.520
<v Speaker 2>being affected by technology or using technology. And I also

0:20:59.560 --> 0:21:01.959
<v Speaker 2>think that the tech media has been infiltrated and controlled

0:21:02.000 --> 0:21:04.359
<v Speaker 2>by people that want to be famous or associate with

0:21:04.400 --> 0:21:07.199
<v Speaker 2>famous people. I think they want them to win. They

0:21:07.280 --> 0:21:10.040
<v Speaker 2>want a benevolent dictator. They want their products to do

0:21:10.119 --> 0:21:11.840
<v Speaker 2>so well so they can get the interview with the

0:21:11.840 --> 0:21:14.200
<v Speaker 2>big name founder or CEO on stage at a conference

0:21:14.320 --> 0:21:17.560
<v Speaker 2>and have Siam Moltman say some bullshit that gets quoted everywhere.

0:21:17.760 --> 0:21:20.320
<v Speaker 2>They want access for big interviews, and they want to

0:21:20.320 --> 0:21:21.919
<v Speaker 2>make sure that they get the first look at the

0:21:21.960 --> 0:21:24.440
<v Speaker 2>next product release, even if eleven other people are doing

0:21:24.480 --> 0:21:27.280
<v Speaker 2>so too well. One might argue that people want to

0:21:27.280 --> 0:21:29.560
<v Speaker 2>hear about AI. What people want to hear about is

0:21:29.640 --> 0:21:32.399
<v Speaker 2>largely driven by the media narratives that the media creates

0:21:32.400 --> 0:21:34.959
<v Speaker 2>and agrees upon. You realize that if you just all

0:21:35.000 --> 0:21:37.960
<v Speaker 2>talked about turnips, it would be the fucking turnip news, right.

0:21:38.160 --> 0:21:42.560
<v Speaker 2>You could cover whatever you want. But the people parroting

0:21:42.560 --> 0:21:45.159
<v Speaker 2>these narratives, much like the executives they admire, do not

0:21:45.280 --> 0:21:47.520
<v Speaker 2>find any joy in tech at all, nor do they

0:21:47.520 --> 0:21:50.159
<v Speaker 2>experience or care about the problems that tech might solve

0:21:50.520 --> 0:21:53.320
<v Speaker 2>or create. For a real person, well, I don't care

0:21:53.359 --> 0:21:56.840
<v Speaker 2>whether a regular person has enthusiasm or domain expertise in tech.

0:21:56.960 --> 0:21:59.200
<v Speaker 2>I believe that anyone working in the tech media should

0:21:59.240 --> 0:22:04.320
<v Speaker 2>have genuine in in the tech itself, actual real domain expertise. Actually,

0:22:04.840 --> 0:22:07.160
<v Speaker 2>I want you to actually fucking use the products you're

0:22:07.160 --> 0:22:09.439
<v Speaker 2>working on. If you want to talk about agents to me,

0:22:09.640 --> 0:22:11.520
<v Speaker 2>I want you to come out and fucking use one.

0:22:11.600 --> 0:22:13.040
<v Speaker 2>I want you to talk about it because you'll know

0:22:13.080 --> 0:22:16.480
<v Speaker 2>it's bullshit. And I want you in the tech media,

0:22:16.520 --> 0:22:18.280
<v Speaker 2>if you're listening to this and you're not already someone

0:22:18.320 --> 0:22:20.000
<v Speaker 2>that's talked to me and agrees with me or whatever,

0:22:20.640 --> 0:22:22.840
<v Speaker 2>I want to have the ability to say, Okay, for

0:22:22.920 --> 0:22:25.840
<v Speaker 2>a regular person, does any of this shit actually fucking matter.

0:22:25.920 --> 0:22:28.240
<v Speaker 2>And I don't want you to extrapolate from there and say, well,

0:22:28.280 --> 0:22:30.280
<v Speaker 2>in the future maybe no no no no no, no,

0:22:30.280 --> 0:22:33.280
<v Speaker 2>no no no. If you turned over a theoretical draft,

0:22:33.280 --> 0:22:36.920
<v Speaker 2>would your editor fucking run it? Now? The tech media

0:22:36.960 --> 0:22:39.960
<v Speaker 2>continually acts without context or conscience with any kind of

0:22:40.000 --> 0:22:42.960
<v Speaker 2>appreciation of how much worse things have got. Well, I

0:22:43.040 --> 0:22:45.600
<v Speaker 2>understand that it's hard to break editorial direction at a

0:22:45.600 --> 0:22:49.560
<v Speaker 2>major newspaper. Any and all coverage of Facebook should, by rights,

0:22:49.600 --> 0:22:52.360
<v Speaker 2>cover the fact that Facebook is fucking broken and has

0:22:52.400 --> 0:22:54.880
<v Speaker 2>been for years and has never made more money than

0:22:54.880 --> 0:22:57.159
<v Speaker 2>it does today, because that in and of itself is

0:22:57.200 --> 0:23:02.359
<v Speaker 2>completely horrifying. Any discs of chat GPT should add that

0:23:02.440 --> 0:23:04.840
<v Speaker 2>it lacks any real killer app and that the company

0:23:04.840 --> 0:23:07.560
<v Speaker 2>that runs at open ai burns billions of dollars a year.

0:23:07.720 --> 0:23:09.479
<v Speaker 2>And I don't know, discuss how this thing doesn't really

0:23:09.520 --> 0:23:11.439
<v Speaker 2>have any real fucking use cases and never did, And

0:23:11.480 --> 0:23:13.280
<v Speaker 2>how do we hide? Why do we hype this? What's

0:23:13.320 --> 0:23:16.040
<v Speaker 2>going on? What are we doing here? What are we doing? Really?

0:23:16.040 --> 0:23:17.840
<v Speaker 2>If you're in the tech media, what are we fucking doing?

0:23:18.760 --> 0:23:21.480
<v Speaker 2>Why do you cover AI? Why are you covering generative AI?

0:23:22.000 --> 0:23:24.080
<v Speaker 2>What does this do? Why? Do you care? Other than

0:23:24.119 --> 0:23:26.040
<v Speaker 2>it's big? Why do you care? Why do you care?

0:23:26.119 --> 0:23:28.000
<v Speaker 2>Why do you care? Email me at my website, easy

0:23:28.160 --> 0:23:30.520
<v Speaker 2>better offline dot com. You have my phone number more

0:23:30.560 --> 0:23:34.439
<v Speaker 2>than likely I don't know, contact me, tell me and

0:23:34.480 --> 0:23:36.960
<v Speaker 2>I if I swear to God, if you say to me,

0:23:37.000 --> 0:23:39.640
<v Speaker 2>it's because there's a lot of money. I don't care.

0:23:39.720 --> 0:23:41.320
<v Speaker 2>I don't care. I don't care. I don't care. I

0:23:41.359 --> 0:23:43.640
<v Speaker 2>feel crazy. I don't care. I feel like I'm going

0:23:43.880 --> 0:23:47.359
<v Speaker 2>insane when I have these conversations because the actual AI

0:23:47.400 --> 0:23:51.760
<v Speaker 2>products they just fucking they fucking suck. They fucking suck.

0:23:51.800 --> 0:23:55.320
<v Speaker 2>There are some use cases, sure, the AI companions whatever,

0:23:55.520 --> 0:23:59.240
<v Speaker 2>the AI journals fine, is that a trillion dollar industry?

0:23:59.440 --> 0:24:04.800
<v Speaker 2>Not my not my ass fucking them? By the way,

0:24:05.440 --> 0:24:08.560
<v Speaker 2>those what's going on? Why is this important? Questions? These

0:24:08.560 --> 0:24:10.399
<v Speaker 2>are the things I get from my readers and my

0:24:10.520 --> 0:24:12.960
<v Speaker 2>listeners every single day, and I love hearing from all

0:24:13.000 --> 0:24:15.919
<v Speaker 2>of you. By the way, keep getting in touch regular people,

0:24:15.960 --> 0:24:20.720
<v Speaker 2>people that work outside of the tech industry. Teachers right as, artists, authors, academics,

0:24:20.720 --> 0:24:23.680
<v Speaker 2>criminals and someone have been asking what the fuck any

0:24:23.760 --> 0:24:25.760
<v Speaker 2>of this was since the beginning, and the fact they're

0:24:25.760 --> 0:24:28.399
<v Speaker 2>still asking is a damning indictment of the tech media

0:24:28.640 --> 0:24:34.320
<v Speaker 2>writ large, We're still regular people. Regular people are also

0:24:34.440 --> 0:24:37.000
<v Speaker 2>furious that the state of software and fully aware that

0:24:37.040 --> 0:24:40.520
<v Speaker 2>they're being conned. Yet the tech media continually frames the

0:24:40.520 --> 0:24:43.439
<v Speaker 2>growing distrust of the tech industry as some results of

0:24:43.440 --> 0:24:47.560
<v Speaker 2>political or social change or accumulation of scandals, rather than

0:24:47.560 --> 0:24:51.080
<v Speaker 2>the big unspoken scandal called how the tech industry made

0:24:51.119 --> 0:24:53.359
<v Speaker 2>things worse than the pursuit of growth and the greater

0:24:53.480 --> 0:24:56.920
<v Speaker 2>scandal of exactly how much contempt tech regularly treats their

0:24:56.960 --> 0:25:01.280
<v Speaker 2>customers with. And more importantly, people feel like they're being

0:25:01.400 --> 0:25:04.520
<v Speaker 2>gas lit by the tech media. I'm regularly told by

0:25:04.520 --> 0:25:06.640
<v Speaker 2>the people that listen and read me that they're glad

0:25:06.640 --> 0:25:08.879
<v Speaker 2>to have someone say simple things like hey, the apps

0:25:08.920 --> 0:25:12.399
<v Speaker 2>we use that, do you ever feel like they're fucking

0:25:12.440 --> 0:25:15.760
<v Speaker 2>with you? Or like, hey, yeah, that ain't that's true,

0:25:15.840 --> 0:25:18.800
<v Speaker 2>that's not you being crazy. That actually happens. And here's how,

0:25:19.119 --> 0:25:21.320
<v Speaker 2>and doing that regularly helps people. If you're in the

0:25:21.359 --> 0:25:23.800
<v Speaker 2>tech media listening to this, this is where you actually

0:25:23.840 --> 0:25:25.680
<v Speaker 2>need to be doing things. I don't give a rap

0:25:25.720 --> 0:25:30.080
<v Speaker 2>fuck about generative AI anymore. It's really frustrating, and I

0:25:30.119 --> 0:25:32.439
<v Speaker 2>know I'm going on and on and on. But the

0:25:32.440 --> 0:25:34.720
<v Speaker 2>feedback I regularly receive is that there are too many

0:25:34.800 --> 0:25:38.840
<v Speaker 2>articles about technology that seem fundamentally disconnected from reality, or

0:25:38.880 --> 0:25:42.359
<v Speaker 2>at least disconnected from the people at the receiving end

0:25:42.400 --> 0:25:45.400
<v Speaker 2>of the product. You talk about how much money open

0:25:45.480 --> 0:25:48.399
<v Speaker 2>ai has, You talk about the three hundred million weekly users,

0:25:48.400 --> 0:25:50.440
<v Speaker 2>and that numbers kind of bollocks. By the way, I'm

0:25:50.440 --> 0:25:52.800
<v Speaker 2>going to get into that later pod. Why don't you

0:25:52.840 --> 0:25:56.960
<v Speaker 2>talk about what happens next? Why don't you talk about

0:25:57.000 --> 0:26:00.880
<v Speaker 2>how regular people actually use it? To shear a Vedo

0:26:00.920 --> 0:26:03.480
<v Speaker 2>at the Washington Post. She's been on this with chat

0:26:03.520 --> 0:26:06.600
<v Speaker 2>GPT since twenty twenty three. There are good members of

0:26:06.640 --> 0:26:09.159
<v Speaker 2>the tech media. It's just all of this is just

0:26:09.320 --> 0:26:13.720
<v Speaker 2>very frustrating. But at the risk of sounding like a cliche,

0:26:14.240 --> 0:26:16.280
<v Speaker 2>that's all the time we have today. But we're not done.

0:26:16.400 --> 0:26:18.639
<v Speaker 2>There's another episode coming up. Next episode, we're going to

0:26:18.640 --> 0:26:21.639
<v Speaker 2>talk about the people responsible for this mess and the

0:26:21.760 --> 0:26:25.600
<v Speaker 2>kind of marass of filth that our digital lives has become,

0:26:26.000 --> 0:26:28.040
<v Speaker 2>and I want to talk about their motivations behind it,

0:26:28.359 --> 0:26:29.760
<v Speaker 2>and I want to talk to you about how we

0:26:29.800 --> 0:26:32.520
<v Speaker 2>can fight back, because this is a fight and it's

0:26:32.520 --> 0:26:35.240
<v Speaker 2>one we need to win, and it's one I believe

0:26:35.280 --> 0:26:38.960
<v Speaker 2>we can win. I'll hear you in the next episode. Well,

0:26:39.040 --> 0:26:41.200
<v Speaker 2>I guess you'll hear me, but I'm not re recording that.

0:26:49.920 --> 0:26:51.600
<v Speaker 2>Thank you for listening to Better Offline.

0:26:51.720 --> 0:26:54.160
<v Speaker 1>The editor and composer of the Better Offline theme song

0:26:54.240 --> 0:26:56.879
<v Speaker 1>is Metasowski. You can check out more of his music

0:26:56.880 --> 0:27:01.119
<v Speaker 1>and audio projects at Matasowski dot com a T O

0:27:01.359 --> 0:27:05.480
<v Speaker 1>s O W s ki dot com. You can email

0:27:05.520 --> 0:27:07.960
<v Speaker 1>me at easy at Better offline dot com or visit

0:27:08.000 --> 0:27:10.359
<v Speaker 1>better Offline dot com to find more podcast links and

0:27:10.400 --> 0:27:13.520
<v Speaker 1>of course, my newsletter. I also really recommend you go

0:27:13.560 --> 0:27:16.160
<v Speaker 1>to chat dot where's youreaed dot at to visit the discord,

0:27:16.400 --> 0:27:17.720
<v Speaker 1>and go to our slash.

0:27:17.440 --> 0:27:20.560
<v Speaker 2>Better Offline to check out our reddit. Thank you so

0:27:20.680 --> 0:27:24.080
<v Speaker 2>much for listening. Better Offline is a production of cool

0:27:24.160 --> 0:27:26.959
<v Speaker 2>Zone Media. For more from cool Zone Media, visit our

0:27:27.000 --> 0:27:30.000
<v Speaker 2>website cool Zonemedia dot com, or check us out on

0:27:30.080 --> 0:27:33.879
<v Speaker 2>the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.