Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Autoenshittification. How the computer killed capitalism. – by Cory Doctorow

doctorow.medium.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 213 posts

Re: Autoenshittification. How the computer killed capitalism. – by Cory Doctorow

#111

Post by SlackSabbath »

neovialogistics wrote: post #37

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 think feudalism is a misnomer here. Feudalism is a historiographically messy concept to begin with and many Medievalists reject the term outright. But even if we were to distill it down to some simplistic yet workable definition I still don't think whatever we come up with would be applicable to the present situation without seriously torturing the analogy. 'Rentier capitalism' would be more apt.

Re: Autoenshittification. How the computer killed capitalism. – by Cory Doctorow

#112

Post by deadbeeves »

maerF0x0 wrote: post #39

I still have a belief that capitalism and free markets are superior, but not the way we're doing it now. I'm not trying to no true scotsman here, but a man born in germany to 2 austrian parents and dressed in a kilt is no true scotsman. as i see things there are some major issues are - Removing money from gold standard, allowing power to accrue to those who can control the supply. Instead of competing for what consum…

I see assertions in favor of a conservative (in the literal sense; a return to a lost past prosperous age) viewpoint, but no attempt to justify why these assertions are accurate or why the proposed solutions would be effective.

Re: Autoenshittification. How the computer killed capitalism. – by Cory Doctorow

#113

Post by r2_pilot »

fnimick wrote: post #78
danaris wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think the customer has just changed. Consumers don't have money anymore. Businesses do. ...You...recognize that's not a sustainable state of affairs, right? Ultimately, if consumers don't have money, the economy will start to collapse. The upper echelons can feed on each other for a while, but you need an economic base to support the whole edifice. Plus, if "consumers" are unable to get what they need for surviva…

Which is why I expect a basic income to come before it gets to that point. Not enough for anyone to ever save or invest in themselves, just enough money handed out from the government to be sucked right back up into the rent-seeking money machine. > Plus, if "consumers" are unable to get what they need for survival and thriving for long enough, they're going to decide (correctly) that someone has taken it from them,…

>As soon as defense of property rights is fully automated, revolution is impossible.

All entities run out of deployable assets eventually.

Re: Autoenshittification. How the computer killed capitalism. – by Cory Doctorow

#114

Post by meheleventyone »

brewdad wrote: post #57
meheleventyone wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cars are heavily regulated.

> The car market appears to be as close to perfect competition as we can muster. Theres an enormous amount of big players that all compete and try to outdo one another > Cars are heavily regulated I love that both of these statements, while reflecting opposing ends of political philosophy, are entirely true.

There's only a handful of umbrella companies for most of the brands.

Re: Autoenshittification. How the computer killed capitalism. – by Cory Doctorow

#115

Post by alex7734 »

judge2020 wrote: post #102
spudlyo wrote: post #45

The ending section discussing Web Environment Integrity, Google's recent foray into attestation technology, with the ultimate goal of ensuring you're not running an ad-blocker or doing anything to limit their rent-seeking behavior is great: "Releasing a technology like this into a world where companies are willing to make their products less reliable, less attractive, less safe and less resilient in pursuit of rents…

> How does this affect browser modifications and extensions? Web Environment Integrity attests the legitimacy of the underlying hardware and software stack, it does not restrict the indicated application’s functionality: E.g. if the browser allows extensions, the user may use extensions; if a browser is modified, the modified browser can still request Web Environment Integrity attestation.

They can play with semantics all they want but the point of WEI is so the server can tell apart modified and unmodified browsers at which point the server can tell modified browsers to go away.

Re: Autoenshittification. How the computer killed capitalism. – by Cory Doctorow

#116

Post by vorpalhex »

judge2020 wrote: post #102
spudlyo wrote: post #45

The ending section discussing Web Environment Integrity, Google's recent foray into attestation technology, with the ultimate goal of ensuring you're not running an ad-blocker or doing anything to limit their rent-seeking behavior is great: "Releasing a technology like this into a world where companies are willing to make their products less reliable, less attractive, less safe and less resilient in pursuit of rents…

> How does this affect browser modifications and extensions? Web Environment Integrity attests the legitimacy of the underlying hardware and software stack, it does not restrict the indicated application’s functionality: E.g. if the browser allows extensions, the user may use extensions; if a browser is modified, the modified browser can still request Web Environment Integrity attestation.

You can request it!

You'll be denied.. but you can request it.

Like I _can_ install my banks app on my rooted phone. It won't run but I can install it.

Re: Autoenshittification. How the computer killed capitalism. – by Cory Doctorow

#117

Post by uoaei »

em500 wrote: post #85
carom wrote: post #17

>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…

> 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. 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,…

Cumulative measures such as these are extremely misleading. Per capita measures only slightly less so. Without looking into the distribution over the population there is no real connection between your comment and the parent's.

Re: Autoenshittification. How the computer killed capitalism. – by Cory Doctorow

#118

Post by coldpie »

e_i_pi_2 wrote: post #107
rhyme-boss wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The more power shifts to businesses the worse society gets. "Profit motive" is extractive and full of negative externalities. If lone businesses wield more power than the entire government (or capture government) then, as individuals, we're really back to taxation without representation.

I love this idea of taking "taxation without representation" and using it at a lens for companies which are often as powerful as governments in some ways. I'm not sure what a good solution would be, but something like the BBB with more power seems like it's be useful so people can report companies and have them fined proportionally to their income so it's an effective deterrent.

> I'm not sure what a good solution would be

Anti-trust enforcement. Each and every big-name company you can name needs to be broken up into at least 30 different business entities. The current FTC is taking the first steps in the right direction, but it's going to take a lot of time & effort to build that department back up after 30+ years of them being inactive.

Re: Autoenshittification. How the computer killed capitalism. – by Cory Doctorow

#119

Post by Nezteb »

rad_gruchalski wrote: post #90
Nezteb wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For any hosted Medium blog, you can also replace `medium.com` with `scribe.rip`, in this case: https://doctorow.scribe.rip/autoenshittification-cb851c2574f...

It doesn't work. The article ends with: > 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:

Damn, I recall it working with member-only stories previously.

Re: Autoenshittification. How the computer killed capitalism. – by Cory Doctorow

#120

Post by klyrs »

johntiger1 wrote: post #96

I think Cory is going a little too harsh on Uber/Amazon. People use them because they provide convenience and ease-of-use, and are willing to pay for a better customer experience. If anything, 'taxi medallions' are literally the original form of feudalism and collecting rent from doing nothing.

In the places I've lived, the real problem with taxi medallions is that municipalities failed to keep the medallion price in line with its value, which created a secondary rental market. Uber fares tend to cost more than taxis after their initial loss-leader to break into the market, and Uber drivers make less than cab drivers after costs.
Post reply on HN