The Invisible War

23:37I need you to stop making excuses for the powerful and consider the sheer scale of the societal rat fucking happening on almost every single device in the world, and consider the ramifications of the difficulty that a human being using the internet has trying to live an honest, dignified, and reasonable life. And maybe you're in the middle ground, maybe you didn't judge them, maybe it just wasn't you. Either way, I think it's important to put this down. To exist in modern society requires you to use these devices, or otherwise sacrifice large parts of how you'd interact with other people. You need a laptop or smartphone for work, probably both, for school or for anything really.

24:13You need messaging apps, otherwise you kind of don't exist. And as a result, there's this societal monopoly of sorts, or maybe it's more of a cartel, in the sense that for the most part, every tech company has accepted these aggressive anti-user positions, all in pursuit of growth. The stakes are so much higher than I think anyone realizes, especially in the tech media. And I don't know why they're not more willing to discuss the scale. They can pick the issues. They can say this is bad and this is bad. And then they can run glossy coverage for Zuckerberg or Musk. But it's bad. It's worse. It's worse than a lot of things.

24:49And just it's undiscussed. And they feel almost like I'm saying something obvious, but I've looked. This isn't being put down like this. No one's just pointing at the everything, the bad, the And look, the extent of the damage, the pain, the frustration, the terror, it's so constant. And we're all in some level just kind of numb to it. Because discussing it requires accepting that a vast majority of people live poisoned lives thanks to their phones and their laptops. And this isn't even an anti-technology position. I want it to be better. And as you'll hear soon, I do love the computer. But we really need to get into this.

25:26And we need to realize we all live in the ruins created by the rot economy, where the only thing that matters is growth. Growth of revenue, growth of business, growth of metrics related to said business, growth of engagement, of clicks, of time on the app, of purchases of microtransactions, of impressions of ads, of things done that make executives feel happy and make the growth team see the number go up. It's goddamn sickening. however if you want to feel better i'm pretty sure that after i stop speaking here there's going to be an ad and i am 100 confident that this ad follows it will align with everything i've been saying it won't be for something that has a kind of an ironic context considering my work you're gonna chuckle and chortle because of how right i am here not because the thing that follows is completely discordant

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29:57And we're back. So, as you know as a listener, I'm a dickhead. And if you haven't been listening, you probably work that out by now. You're 20 minutes or so in and you've heard me get pissed off. But I was trying to work out as I wrote this script, how would I frame this? How would I really show you the scale? So I went on Amazon.com, the everything store, and I bought the best-selling laptop, a$238 Acer Aspire 1 with a four-year-old Celeron N4500 processor, which I'd consider fairly representative of how millions of people interact with the internet. I also believe it's a powerful illustration of the damage caused by the rot economy and this abusive, poisonous, and exploitative way in which the tech industry treats people in a very practical sense.

30:44So I opened this piece of shit up, and you're going to hear as I discuss this the anger that I experienced. So I hit on on it, and it took one minute and 50 seconds from touching that power button for the laptop to get to a setup screen. It then took another minute and a half to connect and begin downloading updates, which then took several more minutes. After that, I was faced with a licensing agreement where I agreed to binding arbitration to use Windows, another 24 second pause, and then I got shown a screen of different, and I quote, ways I could unlock my Microsoft experience with animations that shuddered and jerked violently.

31:17It really didn't feel good, It was just immediately you could tell this thing was cheap. Now, throughout using this thing, this cheap trackpad on this laptop, it would just miss the occasional click. And at this point, I was forced to create a Microsoft account and hand over my cell phone or another email address to receive a code, or I'd not be able to use the laptop at all. Each menu screen takes three to five seconds to load, and I'm asked to customize my experience with things like personalized ads, tips, and recommendations, with every option turned on by default, by the way. And then I had to sign up for another account, this time with Acer.

31:50At one point, I'm simply shown an ad for Microsoft OneDrive and their cloud storage product with a QR code to download it on my phone. And then I'm told that Windows has to download a few updates, which I assume are different to the updates I did before. Now, I'm not just complaining. I'm trying to explain how much stuff happens when a regular person who cannot afford a MacBook, who cannot afford a nice Dell laptop, just buys the first one off of Amazon, as we all do with different products. So, by the way, at this point, around 20 minutes have passed just to get to this screen. It then took another 33 minutes for the updates to finish, and then another minute and 57 seconds to log in, at which point a screen popped up telling me to set up a browser and discover the best of Windows, including finding the apps I love from the Microsoft Store and the option to create an AI-generated theme of my browser, or for my browser even.

32:43The laptop, by the way, between each screen felt like it was just shaking visually, like the animations juttered viciously. You just get this constant sense that this thing sucks from the moment you use it. And so I finally, at this point, got to my new laptop, my beautiful new Acer laptop that stunk. And then I opened the start bar, which is ostensibly a place where you'd have apps, right? Apps that you'd use on the computer. And I saw some of the things like Outlook, an email client that's not actually installed and requires you to download it. You click it and it then downloads again. And an option for a travel website called Booking.com.

33:22Just an ad, along with a link to LinkedIn, another ad for a Microsoft property. One app, ClipChamp, was installed but immediately needed to be updated, which did not work when I hit update, which then forced me to go find the updates page, which then showed me at least 40 different apps called things like Sweet Labs Inc. I do not know what any of this stuff was. It's just so strange. I typed Sweet Labs into the search bar, and it took a little shaky juddery, like the animations hitched a bit, and then it opened this giant menu, with half of it dedicated to Mark Twain's birthday, which had two different Mark Twain-related links, a quiz of the day, and four different games available to download.

34:01At this point, by the way, I've been able to do nothing on this computer. I could have loaded Edge, but I'll get to that in a minute. I also should be clear that the computer was pausing slightly every time I typed a letter. Every animation felt so clunky and juddery. Even moving the windows around didn't feel smooth. It was just slow. It felt cheap. And the operating system, previously something I'd considered to be the thing that operates the computer, it's actively rotten. It's full of ads, sponsored content, suggested ads, and intrusive design choices that make the system slower and actively upset the user.

34:33Now, at this point, it's important to add what operating system it is. I'll get to that shortly. And the reason I'm explaining all of this in such agonizing detail is that this is the experience that I believe is more indicative of the average person's use of the computer than anybody else's. It's this. It's Windows, the crappiest, shittiest Windows. And though it's tough to gauge how many of these things, these crappy laptops are sold to make it a bestseller on Amazon, laptops in this price point, which use a specific version of Windows called 11 Home in S Mode, dominate Amazon's bestseller list, along with Apple's significantly more expensive MacBook Air and Pro series.

35:12It's reasonable to believe that a large amount of laptops sold in America match this price point and spec. There are two similar ones on Best Buy's bestsellers, or at least they were at the time I wrote this script. And as of writing this sentence down, which would have been very beginning of December, multiple different laptops of this very specific specification are on the front of Target's laptop page. and if I haven't made it completely clear this means that millions of people are likely using a laptop that's burdensomely slow full of targeted advertising and content baked into an operating system in a way that's either impossible or difficult to remove for millions of people and it really could be tens of millions of people considering the ubiquity of these laptops the experience of using the computer is both actively exploitative and incredibly incredibly slow.

35:56Even loading up MSN.com, the very first page you see when you open a web browser in Windows Home S, immediately hits you with ads for eBay, QVC, and QuickBooks, with icons that sometimes don't load. By the way, about Windows 11 Home in S mode, you might not have heard of this. It's a special version of Windows where you can only use apps from the Windows Store. And on top of that, it's supposedly more efficient. I've used quite a few of these laptops now, and they're the slowest, wonkiest pieces of shit ever, but they're cheap. And it's not just the crappy hardware, either. It's every part of the operating system which feels like it's built to hound you to use some sort of Microsoft product, or some sort of product that Microsoft or the laptop manufacturer has been paid to make you see.

36:45While one can hope that people buying these laptops have an awareness of anything. The reality is they're being dumped into a kind of TJ Maxx version of computing, except TJ Maxx clothes don't sometimes scream at you to download TJ Maxx Plus or stop functioning because you use them too fast. Now, I say this, I haven't shopped there in a while, but I assume this is still the case. Again, this is how most people are experiencing modern computing, and it isn't because this is a big business. It's because laptop sales have begun to fall, and they've been falling for over a decade, and manufacturers and Microsoft need as many ways to grow revenue as possible, even if the choices they make are actively harmful to the consumer.

37:21Also, I swear to God, if your answer here is get a MacBook Air, there are only$600, I beg you, I plead with you to speak with people outside of your income bracket at a time when an entire election was decided in part because everything's more expensive. At this point, said person using this laptop can now log onto the internet, by the way, and begin using websites like Facebook and Instagram and YouTube, all of which that have algorithms we don't really understand, but they have been regularly proven to be actively and deliberately manipulative and harmful. And I know I'm angry. I mean, whatever.

37:54You've listened to this show and this is the finale of this year. You know how pissed off I am. But the picture I'm trying to paint is one of terror and abuse. The average person's experience of using a computer starts with aggressive interference delivered in a shoddy sludge-like frame and the wider internet opens up to said user, which has already been battered by a horrible user experience, by the way. They're immediately thrown into this heavily algorithmic feed of some sort, each different feed built to con them in a unique way, feeding whatever holds their attention and chucking ads in there as best they can.

38:24As they browse the web, websites like The Verge and NBC News feature stories from companies like worldtrending.com, with advertisements for bizarre toys written in the style of a blog, so intentional in their deceit that the page in question has a huge disclaimer at the bottom saying it's an ad. As their clunky, shuddering, shitty laptop hitches between every scroll, They go to ESPN.com when the laptop slows to a crawl. Everything slows to a crawl. Why? Why, goddammit, is everything so fucking slow, these people say. I'll just stay on Facebook or Instagram or YouTube. At least that place doesn't crash half the time or trick me.

38:59Sadly not. The biggest trick that these platforms played wasn't the algorithm, but the convenience. In an internet so horribly poisoned by growth capitalism, these platforms show a degree of peace and consistency, even if they're specifically engineered to manipulate you. Using the computer in the modern age is so inherently hostile that it pushes us towards corporate authoritarians like Apple, Microsoft, Google and Meta. And now that every website is so desperate for our email to show us ads and to push stuff on us, it's either harmful or difficult for the average person to exist online. So of course they're going to go to the big box websites.

39:35They feel comparatively safe even if they're not. when every single website needs to make as much money as possible because their private equity or hedge fund or massive corporate owners need to make more money every year without fail the incentives of building the internet veer away from providing a service or information and towards putting you the listener in silent service of a corporation if you're technologically savvy in reading this by the way sit down and think think for a second about the amount of effort you've put into mitigating the problems with the internet and modern computing.

40:06Fresh installs of windows on new machines. Avoiding certain websites because you've learned what the bad ones look like. Not interacting with random people in your DMs because you know that's what a spam bot looks like. And so on and so forth. Think about it. I know a lot of you are very technologically savvy, but you're instinctually ducking and weaving around an internet and digital ecosystem that continually tries to interrupt you. You're batting away pop-ups and silencing notifications, knowing that they all want something from you. And I need you to realize that most people are not like you.

40:36And you too are actively victimized by the tech ecosystem. As a result, and like I said a few weeks ago, I believe that most people are actively concussed by their daily lives because most people's daily lives are on the computer or their smartphones. And those lives have been stripped of dignity. When they look at the media, the best they'll get is a degree of, algorithm bad? Is bad? Is computer, is Facebook not good? Actually, I take it back. You don't, you don't really get that either. You don't really get, you know how bad Facebook and Instagram are. You don't even get the media really covering it.

41:11It drives me insane. Yet it's so much more than just the algorithm. It's almost the entirety of the digital ecosystem, from websites to apps to the devices we use every day. The fact that so many people likely use a laptop that's equal parts unfit for the task and stuffed full of growth-hacked poison is utterly goddamn disgraceful, because it means that the only way to escape the poison is to simply have more money. Those who can't afford a$300 at least phone or a$600 laptop are left to use this offensively bad technology, and we have, at societal scale, simply accepted that this is how things go.

41:48The result is that everything's a chaotic mess. And by everything, I mean almost every digital experience, like I've been saying. And if you still believe the digital world has no bearing on the physical world, you're a dumbass. Everything you do, for the most part, goes through apps and websites. It's impossible to avoid, and it gets harder to wade through if you aren't wealthy enough or lucky enough to have someone teach you, or own a powerful enough device. Which is not something that really happens in school in any case. They're not really loading you up with the most powerful stuff, nor do I believe that schools are sitting there and telling people not just how to use the computer to make sure the computer doesn't use you.

42:26Yet even on the expensive devices, you're still a victim of algorithmic and growth hack manipulation, even if you're aware of it. Knowing allows you to fight back, even if it's just to stop yourself being overwhelmed by the mess and means that you can read things that can tell you what new horrors we can avoid next. But you're still the target, and you're still receiving hundreds of marketing emails a week. you still receive spam calls and you're still unable to use Facebook or Instagram without being bombarded by ads and algorithmically charged content. And I realize in this episode I've kind of brought the hammer down.

42:59I've called imaginary or real people dumbasses. Attack people listening. I'm not really angry at you. I'm not. I know it might sound like that and it really isn't. The conditions of society have adjusted so that we've just accepted how bad things are. that we've just said, it sucks, but you know, it's everywhere. So what are you going to do about it? And I'm angry about it because I feel like my peers in the tech media don't take it seriously either. They've just become numb to it. Like we all have. And it sucks. We shouldn't become numb to this. If we just had toxic dump in the streets and who knows with the upcoming EPA, whether we will, we'd say something, right?

43:40If we were getting burned by random things, we would be upset. We'd be like, oh, ouch. But because these little attacks, these little indignities are so subtle and so common, they're everywhere. It's kind of hard to talk about. It's kind of hard to have language about. And in the next episode, I'm going to talk about why that language is so important, about how fighting back is discussing and raising these problems. And I don't mean with your congressman. I don't mean with elected officials, though that might work, that might help. It's about having a continual societal conversation. It's about the next time that you or your friend says, I just don't get out of the computer works, stopping yourself and saying, no, probably not.

44:27It's that they keep changing how the computer works to make it work against us. It's why I've been so annoyed the last year. And in this two-part finale, I want you to remember that you're the victim. You're the victim of a con. and I can't wait for you to hear the next episode coming in a few days

44:52thank you for listening to better offline the editor and composer of the better offline theme song is Matt Ossowski you can check out more of his music and audio projects at mattosowski.com M-A-T-T-O-S-O-W-S-K-I.com You can email me at ez at betteroffline.com or visit betteroffline.com to find more podcast links and, of course, my newsletter. I also really recommend you go to chat.wheresyoured.at to visit the Discord and go to r slash betteroffline 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, coolzonemedia.com or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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46:35More choices, less compromise. Visit buyatoyota.com for a great deal on an efficient Toyota today. Toyota, let's go places. Residents at Brightview Senior Living Communities enjoy enhanced possibilities, independence, and choice. Brightview, Dulles, and Great Falls offer vibrant senior independent living, assisted living, and memory care services through various daily programs. chef-prepared meals, safety and security, transportation, resort-style amenities, and high-quality care. Take financial possession of your apartment by December 31, 2025 and save. Discover more at brightviewseniorliving.com.

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