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Kickstarting a book to end enshittification, because Amazon will not carry it

pluralistic.net

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Re: Kickstarting a book to end enshittification, because Amazon will not carry it

#21

Post by taeric »

CharlesW wrote: post #8
taeric wrote: post #5

I have a hard time getting behind some of these criticisms of audible and the like. Its annoying, as I am against most DRM schemes out there. But to pretend those came from "big tech" is laughable, at best. A ridiculously large portion of "tech" is perfectly fine with sending copies everywhere. Is literally how many of us get our operating system. Music files and shareware copying were huge before the internet. Mod f…

> But to pretend those came from "big tech" is laughable, at best. I'm curious about how old you are. Tech's obsession with DRM (then called "copy protection") started in 1975¹, and IIRC as of the late 70s/early 80s basically all software of note had DRM. ¹ https://archive.is/b8rK9

I'm old enough to remember it has almost always been publishers pushing drm.

And yes, I remember serial port keys that tried to lock cad software. Some were keyed to physical sectors on hard drives.

Re: Kickstarting a book to end enshittification, because Amazon will not carry it

#22

Post by maxbond »

hgomersall wrote: post #20
CharlesW wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only Cory seems 1,000 more pragmatic. And although he's often a hypocrite¹ and I'll roll my eyes very hard every time I read the word "enshittification", I admire that his goal was to create a "shovel-ready" book with actionable advice and look forward to reading it. ¹ https://imgur.com/a/TAltXUf

A paywall is not DRM.

Additionally, it's not really paywalled at all, it's just crossposted to a paywalled platform (presumably for the convenience of people who prefer Medium, for reasons I can't fathom but to each their own):

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/31/seize-the-means-of-comput...

Re: Kickstarting a book to end enshittification, because Amazon will not carry it

#23

Post by brookst »

squarefoot wrote: post #18

A better link: https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/31/seize-the-means-of-comput... Unfortunately BoingBoing has slowly become enshittified itself; they also deleted my account for no reason while I was hospitalized for nearly 2 months, then when I came back home noticed that the ad-rticles where they sell overpriced low quality products (seriously, get better suppliers!) don't permit user comments anymore, presumably bec…

BoingBoing is the worst of the worst enshittification. All of the problems that the theory predicts, plus a sanctimonious tone like they're somehow above all that.

They've become the annoying religious proselytizers who show up unsolicited, and are drunk to boot.

Re: Kickstarting a book to end enshittification, because Amazon will not carry it

#24

Post by UtopiaPunk »

pixelatedindex wrote: post #6
taeric wrote: post #5

I have a hard time getting behind some of these criticisms of audible and the like. Its annoying, as I am against most DRM schemes out there. But to pretend those came from "big tech" is laughable, at best. A ridiculously large portion of "tech" is perfectly fine with sending copies everywhere. Is literally how many of us get our operating system. Music files and shareware copying were huge before the internet. Mod f…

I actually think Audible is pretty good. I would feel better about buying from them if it wasn’t fully owned by Amazon. Are there any good alternatives out there?

libro.fm is an option for buying books. You can purchase a subscription or buy individual books. Some of the money goes to support local bookstores, so that's kind of neat. They're also not Amazon, so that's kind of neat, too.

I'm a big fan of the Libby app, which you can acccess through your local library. If your library subscribes to the service (and it's likely they do if you live in the USA), then you just need to log in with your library card. https://libbyapp.com

There's also LibriVox, which is mostly a volunteer project. As its volunteers, the quality of the reading can vary widely, but you can sometimes find audio versions of older literature here that can't be found anywhere else. It's also free.

https://librivox.org/

Re: Kickstarting a book to end enshittification, because Amazon will not carry it

#25

Post by diatribist »

stblack wrote: post #3

Related to this, Cory Doctorow's appearance on Future Tense podcast (Australia) is truly excellent. After being introduced, he goes on an 8-minute disquisition. We should all aspire to rap tech like Cory Doctorow can. https://pca.st/yr3hd7f9

The issue with most folks selling books about how to avoid the excesses of DRM and other exploitative practices is that most people are happy to pay a premium for the convenience of having a digital library managed by Amazon, Google, Facebook, &etc.

Big tech companies must pay the bills for their servers in one way or another and charging people money to keep the data in their digital vaults is a tradeoff most consumers and producers are more than happy with. Consider the alternative to this. It would require every creative to manage their own payment gateway and digital delivery infrastructure and they would more than likely end up either even or in the negative as far as their own profits were concerned.

Maybe Doctorow has a big enough audience to manage his own digital delivery infrastructure but most authors I'm certain don't have the same luxury.

Re: Kickstarting a book to end enshittification, because Amazon will not carry it

#27

Post by entropicdrifter »

pixelatedindex wrote: post #6
taeric wrote: post #5

I have a hard time getting behind some of these criticisms of audible and the like. Its annoying, as I am against most DRM schemes out there. But to pretend those came from "big tech" is laughable, at best. A ridiculously large portion of "tech" is perfectly fine with sending copies everywhere. Is literally how many of us get our operating system. Music files and shareware copying were huge before the internet. Mod f…

I actually think Audible is pretty good. I would feel better about buying from them if it wasn’t fully owned by Amazon. Are there any good alternatives out there?

libro.fm is the website I use for audiobooks. The library is signficantly smaller but it's 100% DRM free, you can support a local bookstore with your purchases [1], and they have a subscription that gives you credits you can spend on audiobooks, very similar to Audible.

[1] https://libro.fm/indies

Re: Kickstarting a book to end enshittification, because Amazon will not carry it

#29

Post by yjftsjthsd-h »

CharlesW wrote: post #19
golemotron wrote: post #14

It's like Richard Stallman passed his baton to Cory.

Only Cory seems 1,000 more pragmatic. And although he's often a hypocrite¹ and I'll roll my eyes very hard every time I read the word "enshittification", I admire that his goal was to create a "shovel-ready" book with actionable advice and look forward to reading it. ¹ https://imgur.com/a/TAltXUf

> and I'll roll my eyes very hard every time I read the word "enshittification"

Why? It seems like a good description that accurately describes the behavior and is reasonably obvious on first reading.

Re: Kickstarting a book to end enshittification, because Amazon will not carry it

#30

Post by flir »

brookst wrote: post #23
squarefoot wrote: post #18

A better link: https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/31/seize-the-means-of-comput... Unfortunately BoingBoing has slowly become enshittified itself; they also deleted my account for no reason while I was hospitalized for nearly 2 months, then when I came back home noticed that the ad-rticles where they sell overpriced low quality products (seriously, get better suppliers!) don't permit user comments anymore, presumably bec…

BoingBoing is the worst of the worst enshittification. All of the problems that the theory predicts, plus a sanctimonious tone like they're somehow above all that. They've become the annoying religious proselytizers who show up unsolicited, and are drunk to boot.

A few years back they were one of the big voices sounding the alarm about electronic voting. Now, according to them, that's an alt-right conspiracy theory.

Not gonna lie, that annoyed me.

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