The art of falling upwards
Better Offline review
Production company – iHeart Radio
Rating – 
Podcasts in the Tech field are rather common nowadays. Being an area with such allure to a certain demographic means that there are no end of podcasts and blog articles being released at a dizzying rate. Most of them are trumpeting the latest developments and shiny new gadgets to “tech bros” who lap up every fancy new development with an almost religious fervour.
You should know by now that I do like to dip my toe into tech podcasts now and again. In fact, some of my favourite podcasts are about just that. So let’s have a look into this week’s show shall we?
So what’s it about?
This podcast is different. Rather than hold up the tech gurus and CEOs as modern day saviours, this show exposed the ugly truths as the heart of the tech world.
Corruption, incompetence, and ultimately the pursuit of profit over performance is why you scream at your computer every day. Why won’t Google show me what I want to know? Why is Facebook flooding my timeline with all this crap? Why is my phone full of bloatware?
Hosted by Ed Zitron, Better Offline casts an exceptionally critical eye over the tech industry in general and tech industry management in particular. Despite my description above, this isn’t a tech podcast per se. It has more in common with investigative journalism than a podcast like Darknet Diaries (or the myriad other infosec and hacking podcasts out there).
Is it any good?
Well, sort of. The topics are certainly interesting, and of increasing importance as every year passes and functionality online decreases. Ed takes an almost evangelical approach to the subjects though and tends to get a bit “ranty”.
I understand the importance of the subject matter, and his frustration, but there is only so long you can take being shouted at before you start to wonder exactly why you started the podcast in the first place.
Look past Ed’s blood pressure readings though, and you have a very interesting podcast. The subjects are all well researched, and presented in a manner that most people will be able to grasp. It is here that it comes into its own. Essentially this isn’t really a tech podcast. It’s a finance one. Let me explain.
The “rot economy” is at the heart of most of the episodes. How tech company bosses have no knowledge of the actual tech, and so deliberately break products so you have to use them more (and so generate more money for shareholders). This rather unique symbiotic relationship between avarice and UX actually makes good business sense. Unfortunately, it doesn’t make sense to literally anyone else, especially the end user.
Final thoughts
Despite my criticisms, this is a pretty good podcast. If you have more than a passing interest in the tech field then you’ll love this. Even if you don’t consider yourself super tech literate, then thanks to the lack of jargon, you’ll still be able to get the points that Ed makes here. As I said, this isn’t a tech podcast per se, but it shines an interesting, if depressing light on the crooked and single minded shenanigans in the tech world.
You can get Better Offline here:
For more great reviews, I recommend GreatPods