Better Offline

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Cory Doctorow and Ed Zitron on Enshittification and the Rot Economy Nov 12, 2025

Show notes

This week’s Better Offline is a recording of a panel held by Clarion West in Seattle earlier this year with Cory Doctorow and Ed Zitron, discussing enshittification, The Rot Economy, and the destruction of modern tech platforms, moderated by Whitney Beltrán.
Cory Doctorow: https://craphound.com/
Whitney Beltrán: https://brightwhitney.com/

Get involved with Clarion West: https://www.clarionwest.org/get-involved/give/
Clarion West is a nonprofit literary organization that runs an acclaimed six-week residential workshop every summer, online classes and workshops, one-day and weekend workshops, a reading series every summer, and other events throughout the year. At Clarion West, you’ll be among award-winning and best-selling writers in science fiction, fantasy, games, horror, and more. Our workshops and classes are taught by world-class instructors from across the field of speculative fiction. Wherever you may be in your career, whether novice or sage, we offer a diverse listing of classes that is packed with valuable information to take your writing to the next level.

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Monologue: AI's Desperation Era Nov 07, 2025

Show notes

In this week's Better Offline monologue, Ed Zitron talks about OpenAI hinting they’d want a federal backstop for data center loans, NVIDIA’s weird, desperate post about China, and his deep suspicion about OpenAI’s leaked numbers.
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WSJ: OpenAI Made a $12 Billion Loss Last Quarter, Microsoft Results Indicate
https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/stock-market-today-dow-sp-500-nasdaq-10-31-2025/card/openai-made-a-12-billion-loss-last-quarter-microsoft-results-indicate-e71BLjJA0e2XBthQZA5X
The Register: Microsoft seemingly just revealed that OpenAI lost $11.5B last quarter
https://www.theregister.com/2025/10/29/microsoft_earnings_q1_26_openai_loss/

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Vibe Coding is BS w/ Charlie Meyer Nov 05, 2025

Show notes

Welcome to Radio Better Offline, a tech talk radio show recorded out of iHeartRadio's studio in New York City. Ed is joined in-studio by founder and writer Charlie Meyer to talk about the BS of vibe coding, why the valley went so crazy about scaling laws, and the realities of AI coding.
https://blog.charliemeyer.co/
https://csmeyer.substack.com/

Code Doesn’t Happen To You - https://csmeyer.substack.com/p/code-doesnt-happen-to-you
The Trillion Dollar Chart (scaling laws piece) - https://blog.charliemeyer.co/the-trillion-dollar-chart/
Replit’s Existential Problem - https://blog.charliemeyer.co/replits-existential-problem/

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Monologue: Dealing With The Weight Of History Oct 31, 2025

Show notes

In this week's Better Offline monologue, Ed Zitron takes a moment to discuss the current state of the bubble, and the way we’re all feeling at this time in history.

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The Register: Microsoft seemingly just revealed that OpenAI lost $11.5B last quarter
https://www.theregister.com/2025/10/29/microsoft_earnings_q1_26_openai_loss/

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https://bsky.app/profile/paris.nyc

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The Internet Is The World's Worst Pharmacy w/ Paris Martineau & Ashwin Rodrigues Oct 29, 2025

Show notes

Welcome to Radio Better Offline, a tech talk radio show recorded out of iHeartRadio's studio in New York City.

Ed is joined in-studio by Paris Martineau of Consumer Reports and freelance writer Ashwin Rodrigues to talk about the amount of lead in protein shakes, why people turn to the internet for medical advice, and how supplements are the wild west of e-commerce.

Paris Martineau
https://www.consumerreports.org/about-us/our-people/our-experts/paris-martineau/

Protein Powders story: https://www.consumerreports.org/lead/protein-powders-and-shakes-contain-high-levels-of-lead-a4206364640/

Ashwin Rodrigues
https://bsky.app/profile/ashwinrodrigues.com

Supplements Story: https://archive.ph/L6OZz/again?url=https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/07/well/doctors-supplements.html

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https://platform.openai.com/docs/guides/video-generation

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Monologue: Don't Be Scared Of Sora Oct 24, 2025

Show notes

In this week's Better Offline monologue, Ed Zitron walks you through why nobody should be afraid of generative video, and how it’s impossible, impractical and expensive to make movies with Sora.
https://www.npr.org/2025/10/20/nx-s1-5567119/sora-2-openai-hollywood

https://mediashower.com/blog/first-ai-viral-ad/

https://x.com/PJaccetturo/status/1932893269228466270

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Exclusive: Here's How Much Anthropic Spends on AWS Oct 20, 2025

Show notes

In a Better Offline exclusive, Ed Zitron reveals how much Anthropic spent on Amazon Web Services in 2024 and 2025, and how the costs of running their services are increasing linearly with their revenue, suggesting there may be no path to profitability for LLMs.
(Free) Newsletter: www.wheresyoured.at/costs/
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Monologue: ChatGPT's Growth Is Collapsing In Europe Oct 17, 2025

Show notes

In this week’s Better Offline monologue, Ed Zitron walks you through data from Deutsche Bank that shows ChatGPT’s growth is flatlining in Europe, and how advertising isn’t going to save OpenAI.
OpenAI’s ‘flatlining’ subs in Europe: The AI boom’s poster child may be struggling to recruit new subscribers, Deutsche Bank warns
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/openai-flatlining-subs-europe-ai-145343677.html
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https://www.youtube.com/gamersnexus

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The Interview: Steve Burke of GamersNexus Oct 15, 2025

Show notes

In this week’s episode of Better Offline, Ed flies out to North Carolina for a deep interview with Steve Burke of Gamersnexus about the state of PC hardware, AI, Linux gaming, their extremely scientific hardware testing, and building a channel watched by 2.5 million people.

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