The Invisible War Criminals

I want to talk about how we fight back. Ideas are powerful and things change as silly as it sounds from the regular repetition, and the names of those responsible and clear descriptions of the things they've done to us. Now, you know, I've written and spoken a lot about the rot economy, how the growth at all cost mindset fucks things up, and it's what directly leads tech companies to

make their products worse. But what I've tried to do in these episodes is quantify the scale, both the damage it's caused and the billions of people it affects every day.

Everything I've discussed around the chaos and the pain of the Internet is a result of corporations and private equity firms buying media properties and immediately trying to make them grow, each in wildly different ways, all clamoring to be the next New York Times of Variety or other legacy media brand, despite the fact that those brands already exist and the ideas for competing with them usually are built on these unsustainably large staffs and expensive consultants telling you to hire

more people. Almost every single store you visit on the Internet has this massive data layer on the background that feeds them data about what's popular or where people are spending time on the sites, and will turn and change things about their designed to subtly encourage you to buy more staff, trapping you there also that more money comes out no matter what the cost, even if it's harder to find the things you actually want, even if the

data isn't personalized, it's still quite powerful, and it turns so many experiences inside and outside shopping and social media and the news into these subtle, horrible manipulations. Every single weird thing that you've experienced with an app or service online is the dreadhand of the rot economy, the gravitational pull of growth that demands upon you the user to do something something for the company. And when everybody is

trying to chase growth, nobody is thinking stability. And because everybody is trying to grow, everybody sort of copies everybody else's ideas, which is why we see micro transactions and invasive ads and annoying tricks that all kind of feel the same way in everything, though they're all subtly different and customized just for that one app. It's exhausting. Now for a while I've had the rot economy compared to

Corey doctor O's excellent incitification theory. I think it's a great time to compare and separate the two because I think they can live together quite well. And also Corey is exceedingly smart, and I put a great deal of value in his thoughts. To quote Corey in the Financial Times, and certification is his theory explaining how the end that was colonized by platforms, why all of those platforms are degrading so quickly and thoroughly, why it matters, and what

we can do about it. And I'll link to these in the show notes. He describes the first three stages of the climb. First, platforms are good to their users, then they abuse their users to make things better for their business customers. Finally, they abuse those business customers to

claw back all the value for themselves. Now I agree with Corey in some levels, but I believe he gives far more credit to the platforms in question than they deserve and sees far more intentional strategy than really exist. I fundamentally disagree about the business customers even being some

elevated class in the equation. As we've seen in the Google Ads trial, Google didn't really give a shit about his business customers to begin with, and they've always sawt a monopoly and made things worse for whoever it needed to as a means of increasing growth. Maybe I'm just playing semantics though. However, Corey's theory lacks a real perpetrator beyond corporations that naturally say, all right, time for some initification.

Watch this again. I don't think it's that intentional. Maybe it's an effect, Maybe it's a movement, maybe it's a naturally occurring thing. Where the rot economy separates is that growth is in and of itself the force that drives companies to in shitify, while in hitification really fits across companies and fits there neatly like Spotify and Meta in

their add focus business models. It doesn't really make sense when it comes to things where there isn't a clear split between business and consumers, like Microsoft or Salesforce, because in citification is ultimately one part of the larger rot economy, where everything must grow forever, whether it's intech or not, and I believe the phenomenon that captures both is a direct result of the work of men like Jack Welch and Milton Friedman. Go back and listen to the shareholder

of supremacy if you hadn't. The rot economy is selfish and potently neoliberal corporations are bowed down to like God's the powerful only seek more at all times, at all costs, even if said cost is that the company might eventually die because we burned out any value it actually has, or people are harmed constantly whenever they pick up their phone.

The rot economy is neoliberalism's true innovation, a kind of economic cancer that we've he has few reasons to exist beyond more and a few justifications beyond If we don't let it keep growing, then everybody's pensions might blow up. To be clear, corey is for the most part, Right in Certification successfully encapsulates how the modern web was destroyed in a way that nobody really has I'm exceedingly grateful for Corey's work, and I think having him around is

so good for society. I was so happy to have him on an episode a few months ago, and I look forward to having him again. He's also a lovely fella, and I really think that in Certification applies in a wide ranging way to a wide amount of tech companies and effects. There's also a great thing in the Vaults newsletter that old link about in Certification within climate, for example, Corey's brilliant. However, I believe the wider problem is bigger

and the costs are far greater. It isn't that everything is in shitified. It's that everybody's pursuit of growth has changed the incentive behind how we generate value in the world, and software enables a specific kind of growth lust by

creating virtual nation states with their own digital deaths. While laws may stop Meta from tearing up people's houses surrounding its offices in one hack away, it can happily reroute traffic and engagement on Facebook and Instagram to make things in iota more profitable, and there's no government institution that's sitting around thinking, huh is this bad? Is this bad for people? Now? The rot economy isn't just growth or

cost thinking. It's a kind of secular religion, something to believe in that isn't really connected to anything other than more, And it's that everything and anything can be more, should be more, must be more. That we're only defined by our pursuit of more growth, and that something that isn't

growing isn't alive, and as a result inferior. I'm not saying this is how everybody thinks, but I'm convinced that everybody is burdened by the rot economy, and that digital ecosystems allow the poison of growth to find new and more destructive ways to dilute a human being to a series of numbers that can be made to grow or

contract in the pursuit of capital. Almost every corner of our lives has been turned into some sort of number, and increasing that number is important to us bank account balance is sure, but also engagement numbers follow us number of emails sent and received, open rates on newsletters, how many times something has been viewed, all numbers set by other people that we live our lives by while barely understanding what they mean or how they alter our behavior.

Human beings thrive on ways to define themselves, but metrics often rob us of our individuality. Products that boil us down to metrics are likely to fail to account for the true depth of anything we are actually doing, or anything they're actually capturing. The change in incentives towards driving more growth actively pushes out those with long term thinking.

It encourages hiring people who see growth as the driver of a company's success, and in turn investment research and development into mechanisms of growth, which may sometimes be things that help you, but that isn't necessarily the reason they're doing it. Organizational culture and hiring stops prioritizing people that fixed customer problems or even understand them, because that's not really the priority, nor how one may of business continue to grow. And I think the rot economies a social

thing as well. We're all pushed towards growth, personal growth, professional growth, growth in our network and our societal status, and the terms of this growth they're often set by platforms and media outlets that are in turn pursuing their own growth. And as I've discussed, the way the terms of our growth is framed is almost entirely through a digital ecosystem of warring intents and different ways of pursuing

and promoting growth, some ethical, but many not. Societal and cultural pressure is nothing new, but the ways we experience

it are now elaborate and chaotic. Our relationships professional, personal, and romantic a process through the fun house mirror of the platforms changing in ways both subtle and evert based on the signals are received and the people we care about, each one twisted and processed the lens of a product manager and a growth hacker who may not really care about what we're doing other than that we're doing it.

Changes to these platforms, even subtle ones, actively change the lives of billions of people, and it feels that we talk about it like being online is some hobbyist peersuit rather than something that many people do more than seeing real people in the real world. I believe that we exist in a continual tension with the rot economy and

the growth of all costs mindset. I believe that the friction we feel on platforms and apps between what we want to do and what the app wants us to do is one of the most underdiscussed and significant culture of phenomena where we, despite being customers, are continually berated

and conned and swindled and fucked. I believe billions of people are in active combat with their devices every day, swiping away notifications, dodging intrusive apps, agreeing to privacy policies that they don't understand, desperately trying to find an option they used that has been moved because the product manager has decided it needed to be somewhere else. I realize it's tough to conceptualize because it's so ubiquitous, But how much do you fight with your computer and smartphone every day?

How many times does something break? How many times have you downloaded an app and found that it didn't really do the thing you wanted it to. How many times have you wanted to do something simple and found that it's actually really annoying. How much of your life is dodging digital debris, avoiding scams, ads, apps that demand permissions, and endless goddamn menu options that bury the simple things that you want to do. It's like I said, you're

the victim of a scam. You've spent years of your life explaining to yourself and others that this is just how things are, accepting conditions that are inherently exploitive and abusive. You are more than likely not deficient, stupid, or behind the times, and even if you are, there shouldn't be a multi trillion dollar ecosystem built to monetize your ignorance,

and it's time to start holding those responsible accountable. I'm fairly regularly asked why all of this matters to me so much, so as I wrap up the year, I'm going to try and answer that question, explain why it is I do what I do, all right, I spend a lot time as own as a kid. I wasn't popular. Actually that isn't really accurate, because that would suggest I had friends. I didn't really had friends. I had some people I knew, like similar people who were existed to

be bullied. I'm not trying to be modeling here, I'm just describing the terms. I was insular. I was scared of the world. I felt ostracized, unnoticed that many teenagers do, and I felt like I was out of place in humanity, and it really like weighed on my soul and the only place I found any kind of community or any place I could build an identity was being online. My life was an ear is defined by technology, and I'm

not ashamed of that. A lot of people talk about, oh, people are online too much, not even necessarily talking about me, or how the internet hurts you and it's this, and it hurts you because of the platforms. But I believe at scale, the internet is actually quite beautiful. Had social networking not come along, I'm not confident I'd have made many, if any, of the friendships I have today, or really

any friendships of any kind. For the first twenty two two years of my life, I really struggled to make friends in the real world for a number of reasons, many of them my fault, by the way. But I made so many online and that became a bridge to making real friendships. I kept and I nurtured friendships, indeed with people thousands of miles away, and my shyness that I had as a person became less of an issue when I could avoid the trouble saying hey, I'm a

part that really got in my way. Without the Internet, I'd probably be like a resentful hermit. I'd be disconnected from humanity. That'd be just these layers of scar tissue over whatever neurodivergent or unfortunate habits had gained from a child, and I mostly spent alone. I don't want you to feel sorry for me. By the way, none of that was about me being sad. It's actually really trying to explain something joyous, and that's a big part of who I am. Technology is a big part of who I am. So,

like I said, don't feel sorry for me. Tech allowed me to thrive. I have a business, I have an upcoming book, the newsletter, I have this podcast. I had these wonderful, beautiful friends I deeply love, and if you're wondering if it's you, it is you. I love you. And these people have come pretty much exclusively through technology of some sort, like a social network or a result of a digital connection of some kind. And I'm immensely grateful for everything I have, and I'm grateful that technology

allowed me to live this full and happy life. And I imagine many of you feel the same way. Your frustrations aren't just about the apps being bad, but the internet has a goodness to it. It has a value. Otherwise we wouldn't stick our hands in the box that the bene jesiit gives us every morning. And Techer's found so many ways to make our lives better, perhaps more in some cases than others. But I'm not gonna lie and pretend, and I don't love technology. I think that

that wouldn't serve you or serve anyone. And I think this kind of noxious earth or texts bad. It isn't all bad, but the people running it are. The rotten

economy has fucked up tex so badly. But in the process of doing this podcast, of writing my newsletter, it's just maybe intimately aware of thetuitous, avaricious and intentional harm that these people are causing, that the people running the tech industry have caused to their customers, and this horrifying and selfish world they've made, and the ruinous consequences that followed, the things that I've watched happen this year alone, which have at times been in enumeration of about a decade

of rot. They've turned my god damn stomach. You know what's also done that the outright cowardice of some people that claim to inform the public but choose instead to reinforce the structures of the powerful And a little side note to my good friend Casey Newton right now, you should all go and look up his thing about the phony comforts of AI Skeptics where he bags on Gary Marcus. Why are you bagging on Gary Marcus, Casey, you fucking coward.

This piece attacked AI's skeptics with the flimsiest stuff. Casey Newton has an audience above one hundred thousand people that he's ostensibly informing. This stuff hurts people. Having popular journalists that won't enumerate the damage being done, that don't won't give the honest truth about things. It's disgusting. It turns my stomach. And as these two part episodes have shown you the scale of damage done by people like Facebook,

like Mark Zuckerberg, Casey's good friend, it's disgusting. Okay, wheeling that back. By the way, I don't know if they're good friends, but I know they text. Anyway, back to the show. I'll put my bitch first aside. Look, I'm a user. I'm a guy with a podcast and a newsletter. But behind the mic and the keyboard, I'm a person that uses the same services as you do, and I see the shit done to us and I just feel

poison in my veins. I'm not holding back, as you've kind of worked out by now we're like sixty episodes in. I don't think you should either. What's being done to us isn't just unfair, it's last and us. It's cruel, it's exploitative, it's morally wrong. Some may try and dismiss what I'm saying as just social media. It's just how apps work, and if that's what you truly think, you're either a beaten dog or a willing or unwilling operative for people running a con. I will never forgive these

people for what they've done to the computer. And the more I learn about both their intentions and the actions they've taken, the more certain I become that these people are unrepentant, and then their greed will never be sated. I've watched them take the things that made me human, social networking, digital communities, apps, and the other connecting fabric of our digital lives and turn them into devices of torture,

profitable mechanisms of abuse. And I find it disgusting how many reporters seem to believe it's their responsibility to thank them and explain why it's good that this is happening to their readers. And let's run down the scumbags, shall we. Sam Altman's a goddamn con artist. He's a liar and a sleazy carnival barker who would burn our planet to the ground, steal from millions of people, and burn billions

of dollars in pursuit of power. And I believe the same can be said of people like Dario Amadayo Vanthropik and Mustafasuliman of Microsoft. Tim Cook of Apple, he's a wolf in sheep's clothing. He slowly allows the rock to seep into Apple's products. Apple intelligence is goddamn awful. It sucks. It gets in the way. The summer suck, Image playground sucks. Everyone saying this doesn't suck is up their own asshole.

They need to look look at the actual products. They don't work, and they've slowly been adding these bothersome subscription options and they chip away at the user experience. The one company that I really didn't want to do this. And yet let's take a step back to the beginning of the show. Apple's app store and its repeated support of exploitative micro transaction laid mobile games built to create

gambling like addiction in adults and children alike. They make billions of dollars off of them, and because Apple's products are less shitty, they get a much easier time. Now let's talk about two of my phase my besties. Now, I hold Sundhar Peshai in a certain kind of esteem, by which I believe that Sundar Pieshai of Google is the Henry Kissinger of technology, a glossy executive that escapes

blamed despite having caused harm on a global scale. The destruction of Google Search at the hands of Sundhar Peshai and Prabagar Ragavan should be written about like a war crime, and those responsible treated as such. And by the way, Prabagar, if you're hearing this, hello baby, I love you. I love saying your name, and I'm going to be saying

it forever. Now let's get to Microsoft. Satch in Adela has aggressively expanded Microsoft's various monopolies, the most egregious of which, by the way, is the Microsoft three sixty five Suite, which is a monopoly over business software that everyone kind of hates. The Microsoft prices to undercut the competition, effectively setting conditions of most business software is either cheaper than

Microsoft or slightly better than Microsoft. Nadella has overseen layoffs of tens of thousands of people in the last three years alone, and despite his bullshit growth mindset culture, he treats employees and customers as equally disposable. And of course he's the guy that has made open AI happen, which in turn means he's responsible for generative AI at scale.

And let's end with metas Mark Zuckerberg, who is a putrid ghoul that has overseen the growth and proliferation of some of the single most abusive and manipulative software in the world. Meta has grown to a market cap of one point five trillion dollars by intentionally making the experience on Instagram and Facebook worse, intentionally frustrating and harming billions of people, actively into fearing with the fabric of society. These are the people in charge. These are the people

running the tech industry. These are the people who make the decisions that affect billions of people every minute of every day, and their decision making is so flagrantly selfish and abusive that I'm regularly astonished by how little criticism they receive. These men lace our digital lives with asbestos and get told their geniuses for doing so because money comes out. But the truth is I don't know or care whether these men know who I am or read

my work, because I only care that you do. I don't give a shit if Sam Ortman Mark Zuckerberg knows my name. I don't care about their riches or their achievements. I care that when given so many resources, such privilege, and such opportunity to change the world, they chose to make it worse. These men are tantamount to war criminals. Except in thirty years, Mark Zuckerberg may still be seen as a success, though I will spend the rest of

my life telling you the damage he's caused. I care about you, the user, the person listening to, the person that may have felt stupid or deficient or ignorant, all because the services you pay for or that monetize you have been intentionally rigged against you. You aren't the failure the services, the devices, and the executives are. If you cannot see the significance of the problems I discuss every week, the sheer scale of the rot, the sheer damage caused

by unregulated and unrepentant managerial parasites. You are living in a fantasy world, and I both envy and worry about you. You're the frog and the part, and trust me, the stoves on twenty twenty five will be the year of chaos, fear, and a deficit of hope. But I will spend every breath I have telling you what I believe in, telling you that I care and that you are not alone.

For years, I've watched the destruction of the services and the mechanisms that are responsible for allowing me to have a normal life, to thrive, to be able to speak with a voice that was truly mine. I've watched them burn or worse, turned into these abominable growth vehicles, men disconnected from society and humanity. I owe my life to an inn. I've watched turned into these abuse factories worth billions, if not trillions of dollars, and I've watched the people

responsible get glad handled and applauded. I will scream at them into my dying fucking breath. I have had a blessed life, and I'm lucky that I wasn't born even a year earlier or later. But the way I've grown up and seen things changed. Has allowed me to fully comprehend how much damage is being done today and how much worse is to come if we don't hold these people accountable. The least they deserve is a spoken or written record of their sins, and the least you deserve

is to be reminded that you are the victim. I don't think you realize how powerful it is being armed with knowledge, the clarity of what's being done to you and why, and the names of the people responsible. This is an invisible war and a series of invisible war crimes perpetuated against billions of people in a trillion different ways, every moment of every day, and it's everywhere a constant in our lives, which makes enumerating and conceptualizing it difficult.

But you can help you Talking about the truth behind generative AI or the harms of Facebook or the gratuitous destruction of Google Search will change things, because these people are unprepared for a public that knows both what they've done and they're sickening loaths some selfish and greedy intentions.

Saying prabagar Ragavan is both very fun. Try it yourself, Say prabagar Ragavan and the shower on the toilet probagar Ragavan in an NFL game, And then when someone says OHO's propagar Ragavan, you say, well, he's the guy who destroyed Google Search. No, look, I get it, it's just talking, right. But the way that people disconnect from these services and take a stand starts with the clear discussion of the problem and reframing. I don't get technology to prabagar Ragavan

destroy Google Search. It spreads through groups, organizations, and governments. It gets somewhere. Most people, believe it or not, don't know about the raw economy or about the people responsible, and assume they got older rather than technology getting worse. Really, this is a moment of solidarity. We're all harmed by the row economy. We're all victims, and it takes true opulence to escape it. And I'm guessing you don't have it.

I certainly don't. But talking about it, refusing to go quietly, refusing to slow up down the slot willingly or pleasantly is enough. The conversations are getting louder, the anger is getting too hard to ignore. These companies will be forced to change through public pressure and the knowledge of their deeds and pressure on the media. Outlets you read and listen to that choose willingly to prop them up. Holding these people to a higher standard at scale is what

brings about change. Be the wrench in the machine. Be the person that explains to a friend why Facebook sucks now and who chose to make it suck. Adam Masseri, By the way, it's Adam Massari, Mark Zuckerberg and the rest of the growth team. Naomi Glitz another great one as well, Javier Olivan, They're all in. Go listen to the episode and tell your friends. Be the person to explain who Probago Ragavan is and what his role was in making Google Search worse. Say it, say his name

with your friends. Say it to the mailman. Be the person who tells people that Sam Altman burns five billion dollars a year on unsustainable software that destroys the environment and is built upon the largest scale larceny of creative works ever to happen. Or because he's desperate for power. He is already a billionaire. He was already there. Because

every time you do this, you destabilize them. They've succeeded in a decades long marketing campaign where tech people get called geniuses for making things that are necessary to function in society, and they're making them worse. You can change that. I also want to be clear, I don't give a shit if you signed me. It's cool if you say where you found it, but I really don't care. I really don't tell people. That's what matters. Tell everybody, spread

the word. You yourself can be a little better offline. I don't mean that as a pump, but you know what I mean. Spread the blood the word. Say what they've done, Say their names, Say their names again and again and again, so it becomes a contagion. They twisted and broken and hyper monetized everything, how you make friends, how you fall in love, how you bank, how you listen to music, how you find information. Never let their names be spoken without disgust. Be the sampaper in their

veins and the graffiti on their fucking legacies. I'm sick of it. I'm sick of it, And if you're with me, just tell people. Don't even talk about me. I'm not important. What's important is that you know, and the others know too, and you'll feel a lot of dread going into the next year. But that's what the darkness wants. That's what authoritarianism craves hopelessness, emptiness, and energy deficit that anchors you to the earth. And I can't promise you that I'm

fixing anything with a podcast. I can't promise you what I'm saying is going to fix you in any way. But I hope it at least invigorates you. I hope it makes you feel less alone. I hope you know that others feel the way you do too, and that someone somewhere is outraged on your behalf because I am. Now we're going to get to the schmaltzy part, because I have to. I'm a big emotional guy. Last year in my life's being incredible. I've been very lucky to

do this show. It's allowed me to meet wonderful people that I adore, and I'm going to talk about them now. And if you don't like it, what's wrong with you? I get so angry. Let me be happy for a moment and be happy for these people. They're absolutely wonderful. A year in, I want to thank Sophie Lichtman and Robert Evans for having faith in me to do this.

I stood alone in my kitchen in February and I was like, pacing around, and I was like, I don't know what I'm going to do, but I'm not going to tell them because they contracted me and I mostly worked it out as it went along, and they were extremely supportive and I wasn't sure where I would take this, but both of them told me to go as hard

as I needed to. However, I wanted to not once have either of them said nah, or hey, Yed, I don't know about this, or head, can you change this, except in one episode's case, where it was actually the pilots and it needed a re recording. It was not good enough. But that's what they're there for. They've humored these insane five hundred word rants that like eleven PM on a Tuesday, where I'm like, I think that this should happen, and then they've taken these concepts and being like, hey,

why don't you do this? But fundamentally they have and all of cool so media has been insanely supportive, both of the ideas but also the outrage and also the true support they've given me to do this is creative expression but also a value generating podcast has been incredible and regardless of how you feel about what they do,

there really isn't anything out there like better Offline. It's a result of having the kind of an army behind me, both as part of the show and these people who just show me incredible love, who I adore so much and I'm so grateful for. And you're just gonna have to sit there and let me list them. And if you don't like it, you need to tell your friends you love them instead. Pause the show, call your mum, call your friends, tell everyone you know you love them. Well,

life is short, but let's start with the thanks. I want to thank Mattisowski, Ian Johnson and Daniel Goodman for producing the show. Mattasowski is the person who will hear this first, and he also so here's the cuts between them where I'm swearing and I mess up really obvious words. He's They're all amazing, the actual iHeartRadio producers are angels, all of them. They care so much about this. Daniel Goodman as well, has been incredible getting me in this

studios in New York. There's gonna be a lot more of that next year, as I'm going to be in New York way more say hello. I of course want to thank Matt Hughes for editing these scripts and riffing on many of the ideas and supporting me unwaveringly. Matt Hughes is the fifth Beatle. If there were five of us, I guess the second Beatle. I don't know, but I love Matt so much. He's a wonderful friend. But also he's as angry as I am about this shit. We

cook together. It's wonderful. I also want to thank Casey Kagawa right at the top, because Casey is actually the person who really worked on the rot economy with me back in February twenty twenty three. He has been someone who's been formative more work. Love you, man, I love all these people. I'm not just gonna say I love

you every time, but I've told all of you. Matt Weinberger, of course, Kylie Roberson, Christina Warren, Tajanavn Shnovik, Phil Broughton, Caleb Wilson, Hassan, They've all regularly helped me work ideas out, even when I'm just rambling to them in signal. And if you're not on this list, please reach out. I'm sorry. What I'm gaina is that. Look, I'm lucky to have so many wonderful people that I've been able to connect

with in my life. And whatever you hear or read me say is only possible as a result of these people that've given me this strength. And all of them came from the Internet. All of them came from it. All of them are a result. Every single person I've listed there is someone I've met digitally. I'm not kissing up to the platforms, but the concept of the Internet has been so important to me, and I think it has been to you too, And the anger in my heart is that I see it being stolen from us.

I see it being taken away by people who make so much money, making it worse. And the forces I criticize they don't see beauty in human beings. They don't see us as these remarkable things that generate ideas both incredibly stupid and incredible. And they don't see talent or creativity as something that's innately human. They see it as a commodity to be condensed, to monetize and replicated so

that they ultimately own whatever value we have. Something you'd only believe was possible if you were a disgusting management consultant gargoyle with no connection to real people that should be put in the carnival prism. Look, you deserve better than what they've given you. You deserve better than what I've given you, which is why I'm going to work even harder in twenty twenty five. I'm lucky to have you. I'm so grateful for this podcast. I'm it's a privilege

to do this, and I love hearing from you. Email me at e that's e z or Z at better offline dot com. I try and respond to every email. I have a big following on Blue Sky. That's a place to find me. I hear from a lot of people thanking me, and each time I want you to know it's extremely meaningful and I love it and thank you. It means a great deal to me. You take it even a second out of your time, let alone the thirty minutes for this episode, or however it much ends

up being. I'm really lucky, and I hope I'm helping, and I'll continue to try. I'll continue to do my boat my bet here look whan key as it sounds, this has been a very personal journey. The last year has been personally and professionally crazy for me, but also digging through all of the tech industry, trying to work out why Facebook's bad, Instagram's bad, Google's bad. I did this because I did not understand you. Hear on this

podcast me working things out. You hear my personal journey with technology in the fact that my life is technology. My life's kind of chaotic, but a lot of that chaos is rained in by technology by being able to digitally handle things. I don't know what I do without it. I write o nine words per minute. My hand physically hurts. I don't know how I'd get by without the digital connections I have. I don't know what I would do without this, And I don't know if you feel the same.

I don't know. And maybe I'm strange for being so online. I don't mean I'm extremely online in the performative sense, like I'm on Tumbler and I can tell you what means the popular I mean I'm online talking to my friend, I'm online, digging around on blue Sky. I'm online writing business emails or writing scripts. It's how my life has been, It's how I've done everything, it's how I've got everything,

and I'm so grateful for it. And then this last year I've just been constantly reading the people sending emails to each other, celebrating how much worse it's got, how much more profitable it is, and seeing journalists that actively see these people acting this way, these people who are either making platforms worse or making things that don't work very well that burn the environment, that burn billions of dollars of cash, and clapping and being like, oh sir,

oh miss mister Altman, you're so good. Oh mister Amadi. Please give me more broken anthropic products. I need them. And it's fucking sickening to me. Build a real internet, build something that matters, help people be stronger, be better, have deeper connections, not this rot economy bullshit. And I know I'm a dramatic person, and I'm not going to get less dramatic. I'm sorry. If anything, it's going to

get more dramatic. But the outrage and emotion you hear in me is because I've watched something that forms me as a person get destroyed or poisoned, toxins dumped on top of it. Its user's forced to slurp it down, and it pisses me off. It pisses me off because, as I've said in these two episodes, you can really see the scale at which the rot economy hurts people. But also, like I said, this is a personal journey.

Even though it's a business thing with like numbers and such economic analysis and all this, a lot of it's me trying to work out why something I love is being hurt while the tech industry that really gave me my life is run by people who don't seem to care about technology or the people it serves. It fills me full of anger because there's goodness here. There's greatness here. The people I hear from every week, even every day. Now, I'm really lucky I do so I hear from them

because of the Internet. They managed to get through the noise to me, and it's lovely and I'm so grateful. I promise you the next year is going to be wild. I'm going to put my all into it. The first week of January, you're going to get the most insane CES coverage. Me Edward and Graso Junior and David Roth of DEFECTA will be on the floor. We will have two episodes a day, an hour and a half each with a rotating cast of different people, including Robert Evans

and Gare Davis. You're going to have some really fun coverage of the show. But what CES is going to mean every year going forward is a bubble of sorts, a bubble of how everyone's feeling about technology. I don't think they're feeling good, but know this listener, you're who I care about. Don't care about the tech people. I care about the tech and how it helps you, and if it hurts you, I want to hurt it back. Thank you so much for listening to the last year.

I can't believe how far this show's gone, but work my ass off to make it even bigger and better for you. Thank you for listening to Better Offline. The editor and composer of the Better Offline theme song is Matasowski. You can check out more of his music and audio projects at Mattasowski dot com, m A T T O S O W s ki dot com. You can email me at easy at Better Offline dot com, or visit Better Offline dot com to find more podcast links and

of course, my newsletter. I also really recommend you go to chat dot Where's Youreed dot at to visit the discord, and go to our slash Better Offline to check out our Reddit. Thank you so much for listening. Better Offline is a production of cool Zone Media. For more from cool Zone Media, visit our website cool zonemedia dot com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.