Finished reading "The Internet Con: How to Seize the Means of Computation" by @pluralistic and it was a fantastic read. It distilled a very complex topic into a clear and concise thesis. Highly recommended!
With the news that Amazon/Audible is now offering an ai narrator conversion beta for books in KDP Select...but that the resulting audiobooks will be offered in an all-you-can-eat Audible Plus subscription model, means that author royalties will likely take another dive (just like musicians have experienced with streaming on Spotify). That's not even taking into account the effect on narrators. More in my blog.
Creatives: Would you like to better understand why writers & authors (+ musicians and artists) are being squeezed? The impact Amazon has had on the publishing industry, the chequered history of DRM, the dirt on copyright? How about 'how news got broken', 'why streaming doesn't pay' & what people in the creative industries can actually do about the current state of affairs? Highly recommend Choke Point Capitalism (by Rebecca Giblin & Cory Doctorow) as a read. Please ask your local library to get it in too so more people can have access.
From @pluralistic 's latest Plura-list newsletter:
💊🤑 💊🤑
> For one thing, pharma companies use their monopoly winnings to sell drugs, not invent drugs. For every dollar pharma spends on research, it spends three dollars on marketing.
Microsoft put their tax-evasion in writing and now they owe $29 billion
"If there's one thing I took away from Propublica's explosive IRS Files, it's that "tax avoidance" (which is legal) isn't a separate phenomenon from "tax evasion" (which is not), but rather a thinly veiled euphemism for it:"
watching https://libre.video/videos/watch/fb9554dc-1d02-4287-88ef-a897e488e80c and Cory #Doctorow is most definitely is right about the creeping conglomeration of powers across industries, to a small set of very powerful individuals, due to a lack of consumer rights, the elimination of competition, and the ongoing weakening of anti-trust rules and user protection entities
If you're a #privacy proponent donating to @eff, if you're celebrating the #GNU Project's 40th anniversary, if you're a user of the internet feeling helpless towards the claws that large corporations dug in the way we interact with each other as humans, and especially if you're a user of #mastodon, I urge you to take a listen to @pluralistic 's talk at #DEFCON about #enshittification:
Offenbar konnte von der Ankündigung Elon Musks, eine Bezahlschranke für alle einführen zu wollen, dieses Mal vor allem #Bluesky profitieren. Trotz "Invite Only" vergrößerte sich die User*innenschaft um etwa 5 Prozent. #Twitter#X#Mastodon#Bluesky
Das war schon immer so geplant.--Die PayPals sitzen mit Peter Thiel im gleichen Boot. Seit langem. Die zusammengeschusterte Twitter-Technik war nicht mehr zu retten. - Ein Server in einem Putzschrank, an den keiner dachte, der dann aber zu einem Totalausfall führt? - Exemplarisch.
Wie #CoryDoctorow in seinem Vortrag bei Def Con 31 im letzten Monat ausführt*: der Lock-in Effekt des Netzwerkeffekts macht eine gezielte...
I've just watched one of the best tech (strategy) talks of the past 10y.
This one was given by author and digital-rights activist, #CoryDoctorow, at the DEF CON 31:
"An Audacious Plan to Halt the Internet's #enshittification
He not only gives a highly plausible model for the development of internet platforms and their evolution, he also makes actionable suggestions to create a "new good internet.".
He has a solid grasp of IT, biz + law
@Mina @2ndStar @marquito
I've just watched one of the best tech (strategy) talks of the past 10y.
This one was given by author and digital-rights activist, #CoryDoctorow, at the DEF CON 31:
"An Audacious Plan to Halt the Internet's #enshittification
He not only gives a highly plausible model for the development of internet platforms and their evolution, he also makes actionable suggestions to create a "new good internet.".
He has a solid grasp of IT, biz and law.
"If you can't figure out how to structure a business, such that the people who keep you from dying of listeria and e-coli poisoning don't have to live in a Prius with the seats folded back, then what claim have you of being able to shape our future."
"Marty Hench is a cop on the beat, replacing a kind of cop that we've defunded, which is the IRS investigator. We've defunded a lot of police; OSHA inspectors, National Labor [Relations] Board enforcers, Federal Trade Commission enforcers, Department of Justice, consumer protection, all of those cops have been thoroughly defunded."
🆕 blog! “Book Review: The Internet Con - How to Seize the Means of Computation by Cory Doctorow”
★★★★⯪
This is beloved firebrand Cory doing what he does best. Rallying the rebellion with righteous indignation and a no-nonsense approach to fixing technology's ills. If you've read any of his fiction, or liste…
Don’t know where it came from, but I like we’re all using the term Enshittification to mention businesses/software that went from “we care about users” to “fooled ya!”
Got this in the mail on Sunday but have been too incapacitated to crack it open -- had undergone a GA procedure.
I am very excited to see @doctorow @ Another Story Bookshop for the book launch tonight. I'll be picking up another copy & one will likely go in my neighbourhoods little library.
I feel like this book is going to just @pluralistic -- the gem of my RSS feed -- but with shovel-ready guided goodies.
"The world is getting more and more unpredictable... When the heavy weather hits, you’ve got to hunker down, share your snacks and pass around your flask, take care of one another, and find a way to enjoy the thing you must do, because the thing you wanted to do was just canceled. Again.
We’re all going to have to learn some MacGyver skills. We’re all going to have to cultivate patience and solidarity."
@pluralistic
🥥 Mad props for your prolific output, #CoryDoctorow, which, let's face it, is unfailingly excellent.
Unfortunately, people like you make me just want to go back to bed in defeat.
Who are you anyway, the reincarnation of Leonardo Fucking DaVinci? 🥥
"The enshittification of the internet isn't the result of which technology we use. The important thing about a technology isn't what it does, it's who it does it for, and who it does it to."