81–90 of 213 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Nowadays, there are a handful of compulsory services that you, the renter, must pay for on top the rent and there are no options to cancel (the federal government is currently targeting this practice). Off the top of my head: - cable TV I don't use - a trash retrieval service my friends don't use (the service is to take it from the apartment door to the dumpster) - parking space someone without a car doesn't use Go…
I really dislike the trash service we have. Its the same deal. They aren't taking it off site, just the onsite trash bin that we would have to take it to anyways, and its ~35 a month for the privilege. Can't opt out at all. They also have onerous rules: - Can't have more than one trash bag per night - Trash and recycling must be taken on different nights (I think largely as a result of the above) - they don't service…
> To make Medium work, we log user data. By using Medium, you agree to our Privacy Policy, including cookie policy. > Read the full story with a free account. Please don't link to Medium when you can link to, in this case, Pluralistic. https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/24/rent-to-pwn/#kitt-is-a-de... Medium.com has been thoroughly enshittified :)
I don't know if it's me nor if the author is aware that in order to read the article I need to enshittificate myself with a medium account to proceed. Please Mr. Doctorow de-enshittificate yourself from Medium!
It may be less ironic than it seems. If there is anyone impervious to the concept of enshittification it would have to be the paid Mediumm subscriber, they need to get this message more than anyone.
>Today, we live in a rentier's paradise. People don't aspire to create value – they aspire to capture it... don't provide a service, just figure out a way to interpose yourself between the provider and the customer I think the customer has just changed. Consumers don't have money anymore. Businesses do. Maybe said a different way, for the highest margin products you are targeting businesses. A consumer spending 100k…
That's seems like a fact-free assertion. Both (inflation adjusted) disposable income and actual consumption spending for US households have grown at a steady rate since WWII. The only substantial deviation from trend (upwards for income, downward for consumption) were 2 yeas of COVID.
More of this from the aging generations, huh? https://exhibits.library.duke.edu/exhibits/show/comic-book-c... Same with jazz, DnD, same with rock music, same with rap No one seems to have much rage for the environment, just their mind palace
Do you have a cogent argument as to why technofeudalism is either not sweeping the world, or is ultimately beneficial to its serfs?
Light from one “edge” of the universe has yet to reach the edge directly across from
Same reason we need shifts in gravity to detect planets
Diffusion, attenuation of signal given all the other stuff are physical properties of the universe, they’re properties in us
The universe prefers tribalism; a quasar far off over there, neutron star far off over there.
There are a lot of meat suits who refuse to propagate the signal.
Doesn’t mean it won’t shine bright in some local part of space.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Nowadays, there are a handful of compulsory services that you, the renter, must pay for on top the rent and there are no options to cancel (the federal government is currently targeting this practice). Off the top of my head: - cable TV I don't use - a trash retrieval service my friends don't use (the service is to take it from the apartment door to the dumpster) - parking space someone without a car doesn't use Go…
The trash service is the one thing that as homeowner (and former renter) just baffles me. I totally understand the need and value if you are disabled or if you otherwise cannot. But seriously, every apartment I rented the trash dumpster was right there. Just grab the bag on my way out, toss it in
Earlier quoted context omitted.
feudalism vs capitalism is risk-minimization vs profit-maximalisation
In its beginnings in the Dark Ages, medieval feudalism was pretty risky for everyone involved (though less risky than a complete societal collapse, but that is a low threshold for judgment). The nobility was expected to defend the land against invaders, who came in droves (Vikings, Magyars, Avars, Pechenegs etc.), and the incessant warfare came with a high risk of death. The peasants were mostly unarmed and any enemy…
So they did "cloud farming" :) The people who had access to wider markets and had enough wealth to be able to survive one bad season - provided the infrastructure and shouldered most of the risks. In exchange for the only thing available to peasants - their labor.
As any power hierarchy it quickly turned to shit, but the idea was sound.
He's arguing that capitalist systems morph over time into feudalistic systems and the argument is pretty persuasive but there's an issue: capitalism initially emerged out of feudalism. The text's theory of history requires a hidden variable that controls the feudalism->capitalism->feudalism process, but no candidate for a hidden variable is suggested by the author. Sure, any reader can think up some candidates for th…
I don't think the entire economy is reverting back to feudalism, I think it makes more sense to think of the digital economy as its own thing that's speedrunning the exact process we already went through once. Next step is then what, digital commoners and land reform maybe, proper digital currencies and citizenship, actual privacy protection? Feudalism on the internet can only exist for the same reason it existed offline, people flock to fiefdoms because they perform functions in a modern economy provided by a proper state.
> To make Medium work, we log user data. By using Medium, you agree to our Privacy Policy, including cookie policy. > Read the full story with a free account. Please don't link to Medium when you can link to, in this case, Pluralistic. https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/24/rent-to-pwn/#kitt-is-a-de... Medium.com has been thoroughly enshittified :)
For any hosted Medium blog, you can also replace `medium.com` with `scribe.rip`, in this case: https://doctorow.scribe.rip/autoenshittification-cb851c2574f...
> What’s more, drivers hate all the digital bullshit, from the janky touchscreens to the shitty, wildly insecure apps. Digital systems are drivers’ most significant point of dissatisfaction with the automakers’ products: