Cory Doctorow's New Book On Beating Big Tech At Its Own Game (boingboing.net) 43
Cory Doctorow, author, digital rights advocate, and co-editor of the blog Boing Boing, has launched a Kickstarter campaign for his next book, called The Internet Con: How To Seize the Means of Computation. "The book presents an array of policy solutions aimed at dismantling the monopolistic power of Big Tech, making the internet a more open and user-focused space," writes Boing Boing's Mark Frauenfelder. "Key among these solutions is the concept of interoperability, which would allow users to take their apps, data, and content with them when they decide to leave a service, thus reducing the power of tech platforms." From Cory's Medium article announcing the Kickstarter: I won't sell my work with DRM, because DRM is key to the enshittification of the internet. Enshittification is why the old, good internet died and became "five giant websites filled with screenshots of the other four" (h/t Tom Eastman). When a tech company can lock in its users and suppliers, it can drain value from both sides, using DRM and other lock-in gimmicks to keep their business even as they grow ever more miserable on the platform.
Here is how platforms die: first, they 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. Then, they die.
The Internet Con isn't just an analysis of where enshittification comes from: it's a detailed, shovel-ready policy prescription for halting enshittification, throwing it into reverse and bringing back the old, good internet.
Here is how platforms die: first, they 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. Then, they die.
The Internet Con isn't just an analysis of where enshittification comes from: it's a detailed, shovel-ready policy prescription for halting enshittification, throwing it into reverse and bringing back the old, good internet.
This is an advertisement (Score:1, Informative)
Re: This is an advertisement (Score:1)
No. It's not. If you don't know. You were not there when it was written. Poop on fark if you choose. But read it first.
A guy who runs a marketing platform... (Score:1)
Corporations aren't people and marketing isn't tech.
The Internet Con: (Score:3)
How to get people to pay you to spout off with your opinions... on the Internet!
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You too can live the dream of being independently wealthy, just follow the steps in my book...
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Especially Cory who loves to propound free speech when it comes to his opinions but happily blocks opinions he doesn't want others to hear.
This is enshittification (Score:3)
So we can all agree advertisers are largely responsible for the enshittification of the internet. Tracking everything, computers are 20000% faster but sites still load slow from bloat, tracking and the rest. Then this guy has a post on slashdot about the enshittification of the internet, literally while doing something to enshittify it.
A Kickstarter for a book? (Score:4, Insightful)
Is that to pay the ghost writer to write it for him? I mean seriously, you write the book first and then you sell it. It's not as if Microsoft Word charges by the minute.
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It's not as if Microsoft Word charges by the minute.
Yet.
Re: A Kickstarter for a book? (Score:2)
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They do charge by the month.
Organic Doctorow hate (Score:4, Informative)
There sure is a lot of "organic" Doctorow hate on social media for someone who gives away their books digitally. His article, "The âEnshittificationâ(TM) of TikTok" garnered a lot of targeted hate for something I thought everyone would agree on, bashing TikTok.
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It can mostly be summed up as that he comes across like the proverbial street hobo who will talk your ear off about how the entire system is broken, man! and then proceeds to asks if you can spare a couple of bucks.
The internet has become "enshitified" because it has made the people who are doing the enshitification a lot of green. Don't need a book to tell you that.
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Re:Organic Doctorow hate (Score:5, Interesting)
Really? That's what's making the internet worse? People who make original content for free and ask for donations?
Then why the hate? Why not just scroll to the next story? Seems to me like something more than that is going on.
If what he says is so obvious and banal, I don't understand why anyone would care enough to hate. Is anyone else saying the same things? Do they have a large audience? Doctorow is pretty niche, I'd think. Even if he's an beginner entry-tier freedom advocate, he's never been particularly successful.
I think people hate him because he's the first step for unaware people to get informed on the kinds of ideas he has, and some would rather that class hierarchy was maintained.
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"I think people hate him because he's the first step for unaware people to get informed on the kinds of ideas he has, and some would rather that class hierarchy was maintained."
Because people cannot possibly hate him based entirely on merit, right? It MUST be their personal failing.
Why don't you tell us why you don't "just scroll to the next story"? It seems clear to me that its due to a personal failing of yours, just as you accuse others of.
Re:Organic Doctorow hate (Score:4, Insightful)
I tried reading Little Brother a while back. Had to stop, life is too short.
Book read like something written by an annoying egoistic Knowitall McLueless - essentially like something Elon Musk might have written.
Also, main character was an obnoxious author insert bordering on Mary Sue (maybe he turns into one later, couldn't read that far) addicted to info dumps.
Considering he wrote a sequel or two and that they were well received I'm inclined to believe that he is essentially writing for a niche of privileged like-minded individuals who are also adoring fans shouting "PREACH!" - and who are REALLY loud on the internet.
I.e. Regardless how bad his writing may be, they will eat it up and adore it - and they will promote him everywhere online, creating an illusion of quality.
And that's him edited and corrected for commercial publication, not some blog-post "article" - which is really just advertisement. Both for the book and Doctorow himself.
Did you know he swims every day, as physio for a chronic pain condition, listening to 2-3 books/month on his underwater MP3 player, disappearing into an imaginary world as he sculls back and forth in his public pool? Yes, he sculls.
Well, you do know all that now. Along with all the other revolutionary things he did over the years (I skipped that part).
All that means that there is a huge discrepancy between Doctorow as promised by the internet - and Doctorow as delivered.
His vocabulary is juvenile, elitist (just imagine someone using "interop" and "we are living through the Great Enshittification" in actual conversation - now imagine that person), his writing preachy and full of him-/itself, and he generally feels and sounds like a young white teen from the suburbs, nursing a goatee and wearing a Che shirt, fancying himself a revolutionary cause he proudly jaywalks and smokes pot.
He is 52.
People don't hate him "because he's the first step for unaware people to get informed on the kinds of ideas he has, and some would rather that class hierarchy was maintained."
People hate him cause he's obnoxious, juvenile, self-promoting knowitall with an army of loud and obnoxious fawning followers.
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Supposedly he’s going to tell us how to fix it. I’m going to guess a bunch of talk about the fediverse. He won’t be wrong but we can all stop using the shitty corporate web any time we want fediverse or not. I mostly avoid it and am a much happier troll for it.
Well whatever he has a lot of people’s attention so maybe he’ll make a difference.
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Once upon a time it was cool to have a mouthpiece loudly regurgitating our opinions but we’ve got a lot of that now and he’s not that interesting.
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and well deserved. It's not like he just burst on the scene.
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Looking at his quote in the summary, I actually don't want to read a book that is written like that. I'm not sure I'm going to learn anything either.
Re: Organic Doctorow hate (Score:3)
Meh - look at Doctorow's own site (former site?), boingboing. The most aggressively awful moderation of any site I've ever posted on. The admins post in threads, argue with people, then ban people who disagree with them. Then openly tell whoever is left what the acceptable opinions are.
So perhaps he's "beating big companies at their own game", but.... not in a good way. He took the absolutely laziest option - find some jerks and give them absolute power. I hope he has nothing to do with the future of an
Re: Organic Doctorow hate (Score:4, Informative)
I was going to say the same, he and Xeni Jardin were the most obnoxious hypocrites when it came to censorship on BoingBoing, if you didn't post/reply with something from the FAR left, it was removed and often person was banned/suspended etc. I also don't find his writing particular novel, insightful or that interesting -- lots others do it better imo.
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Exactly that. He operated the most cowardly, hyper-sensitive, snowflake site to have ever existed, aka BoingBoing. People got banned or "disemvowelled" simply for raising points against the group think. I'm not talking of people being trolls or racist or anything like that - simply making reasonable points critical of the narrative a story was trying to push. He's may pretend to be an advocate for free speech but actually he is just a colossal hypocrite.
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It's possible to hate the author and the subject of the piece too. We've seen what happens when Doctorow was in charge moderating comments & discussions on BoingBoing - conform to the group think, do not upset the groupthink, do not question the narrative or be banned - so he is in no position to comment on other platforms no matter how malignant or evil they may be in their own right.
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Probably a lot of people that do not like getting called out for their shitty choices and shitty personality. That will get you hate like nothing else. Only confirms he is right though.
Looking at you, Stack Overflow (Score:2)
I don't think that I've ever read a more succinct explanation for why that hellhole timesuck has been losing traffic for 5+ years now, with no soft landing in sight.
Re: Looking at you, Stack Overflow (Score:2)
It's also what happened to raspberry pi. You can't get one because they prioritized corporate compute module customers.
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Don't worry. Their hardware sucks compared to the alternatives. You know, alternatives designed by actual EEs and with good components, not Broadcom crap.
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Agreed. I have up on Stack Overflow a long time ago, there is just nothing worthwhile there anymore. But others use the same demented strategy. Reddit seems to be doing it aggressively at the moment. Twitter is doing it at breakneck speed. Facebook has started that process long ago, but they are slower. Google has been through it several times and they may be in the process of slowly killing YouTube that way.
article requires that you login (Score:5, Informative)
And not only that, the options are Google, Facebook, or give them your email so they can spam you.
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When Microsoft Passport appeared, everyone spoke against joining the evil empire. Then Facebook did the same thing and people decided 'look ma, look what I did' was more important than anonymity. But the whole point of Facebook was putting your name on the internet. Now, Google is creating their version of the Microsoft empire, there's little discussion of the danger. Everyone's got a gMail account (school, work, mobile phone) and Google Chrome has been offering to log people onto the 'internet' for a f
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For Medium and other sites that try to force you to log in or subscribe, try archive.is.
https://archive.is/gle5c [archive.is]
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It is more than hilarious that a story on the "enshittification" of the Internet is itself contributing to it. I feel zero desire to even look at it.
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Former co-editor (Score:1)
Former co editor of boing boing.
halfway thru the year but already fully enshittifi (Score:2)
So Much Knee-Jerk Hate For Doctorow here, (Score:2)
Sounds like he must be someone who is really worth looking into
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Not really. The hate is probably because he is mostly right and people do not like being called out on their crappy choices. He is not that interesting though, at least to smart people.
It is not the data, it is the network... (Score:2)
The reason social media companies take for ever to die (and when then do, they just disappear) is that nobody really cares about the data that is there, it is the graph of people and being able to see what they are doing. It is about current and future interaction, not the historical record.
By the time everybody jumps ship, the data is so stale that nobody really cares, because it is all out of date.
Interesting (Score:1)