It's inevitable: whenever I talk about the need to curb concentrated power in the tech sector, someone comes along to ask why I only care about tech - why not do something about concentration in telecoms or entertainment?
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That's not wrong, but it's not right either. Yes, telecoms and entertainment are grotesquely concentrated and abuse their monopoly power to the great detriment of the rest of us.
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But no, gunning for Big Tech does NOT mean that we're not gunning for Big Content and Big Telco, too.
The idea that these monopolized industries are somehow keeping each other in check - rather than colluding to screw the rest of us - is wrong. Google did an anti-Net Neutrality deal with Verizon. And all the tech and content companies illegally fixed wages between 'em.
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I fully believe that some of the money and energy for breaking up tech is coming from astroturf campaigns run by ISPs and movie studios and record labels - but they're betting that if we break up Big Tech, that'll be the end of it.
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Like trustbusting is Thanksgiving dinner, something that leaves you so satiated that you can't even think about going back for second.
That is so wrong. If history teaches us anything, it's that trustbusting is like potato chips, and once you start, you can't stop.
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"If we're gonna make it through this monopolistic era of evidence-free policy that benefits a tiny, monied minority at the expense of the rest of us, we need to demand democratic accountability for market abuses...
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"Demand a pluralistic market where dominant firms are subjected to controls and penalties, where you finally realize birthright of technological self-determination."
eof/
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In other words, the world we're living in is the best possible world, and the fact that you got contact burns from collapsing on the scorching sidewalk outside of the grocery store where you couldn't afford your weekly shopping is unfortunate, but unavoidable.
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*Corporate Bullshit: Exposing the Lies and Half-Truths That Protect Profit, Power, and Wealth in America* is @NickHanauer, @joanwalsh and @donaldrcohen12's 2023 book on the history of corporate apologetics; it's great:
I found out about this book last fall when @ddayen reviewed it for the @TheProspect; Dayen did a great job of breaking down its thesis, and I picked it up for my newsletter.
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Last weekend, I was at @Defcon 32, where I had the privilege of giving a talk: "Disenshittify or die! How hackers can seize the means of computation and build a new, good internet that is hardened against our asshole bosses' insatiable horniness for enshittification."
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If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on , my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
This was a followup to last year's talk, "An Audacious Plan to Halt the Internet's Enshittification," a talk that kicked off a lot of international interest in my analysis of platform decay ("enshittification"):
Once you learn about the "collective action problem," you see it everywhere. Democrats - including elected officials - wanted Biden to step down, but no one wanted to be the first one to take a firm stand, so for months, his campaign limped on: a collective action problem.
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If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on , my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
Patent trolls use bullshit patents to shake down small businesses, demanding "license fees" that are high, but much lower than the cost of challenging the patent and getting it revoked.
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Every performer and creator on Patreon is about to get screwed out of 30% of their gross earnings, which will be diverted to Apple, the most valuable company on Earth. Apple contributes nothing to their work, but it can steal a third of their wages:
Enshittification starts with companies being good to end users. In this case, Apple made a quality product - Iphones - and carefully tended its App Store.
Walmart didn't just *happen*. The rise of Walmart - and Amazon, its online successor - was the result of a specific policy choice, the decision by the Reagan administration not to enforce a key antitrust law.
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If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on , my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog: