About this episode
Welcome to Radio Better Offline, a tech talk radio show recorded out of iHeartRadio's studio in New York City. Ed Zitron is joined in studio by Mia Sato of The Verge and Dave Lee of Bloomberg to talk how companies like TikTok and Google change the web with their incentives, the nihilism of Pop Mart's viral Labubus, and why people are more game to pay independent writers. Mia Sato, The Verge https://www.theverge.com/authors/mia-sato https://bsky.app/profile/miasato.bsky.social https://www.instagram.com/miasato.2/ Story around “dupes” https://www.theverge.com/cs/features/709635/knock-it-off Story around “Labubus” https://www.theverge.com/analysis/710047/labubu-pop-mart-blind-boxes-scarcity-marketing Dave Lee, Bloomberg https://www.bloomberg.com/authors/AWQ3soOJK0Y/dave-lee https://x.com/DaveLeeBBG https://bsky.app/profile/davelee.me Story around Google and AI https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2025-07-28/google-is-reaping-the-rewards-of-its-unfair-ai-advantage?srnd=undefined Google “Web Guide” https://blog.google/products/search/web-guide-labs/ YOU CAN NOW BUY BETTER OFFLINE MERCH! Go to https://cottonbureau.com/people/better-offline and use code FREE99 for free shipping on orders of $99 or more. --- LINKS: https://www.tinyurl.com/betterofflinelinks Newsletter: https://www.wheresyoured.at/ Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/BetterOffline/ Discord: chat.wheresyoured.at Ed's Socials: https://twitter.com/edzitron https://www.instagram.com/edzitron See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.