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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

#11

Post by wlesieutre »

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?

Speechify is trying, though the catalog isn't nearly as wide

https://speechify.com/audiobooks/

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

#12

Post by wlesieutre »

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…

Audible reportedly only pays 25% to authors, bumping it up to 40% if they agree to exclusivity on Audible.

Which of course a lot of authors do because they need the money, and then no other audiobook marketplace can compete.

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

#15

Post by Muromec »

mikewarot wrote: post #10
CharlesW wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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

We tech people are only obsessed with routing around DRM... it's management that is obsessed with DRM .

That's why the "big" qualifier is important.

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

#16

Post by cobbzilla »

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?

try librivox.org, decent public domain coverage.

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

#17

Post by maxbond »

mikewarot wrote: post #10
CharlesW wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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

We tech people are only obsessed with routing around DRM... it's management that is obsessed with DRM .

It is vitally important not to conflate technologists with the tech industry and not to confuse a criticism of the industry as a criticism of ourselves personally.

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

#18

Post by squarefoot »

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 because some inevitably pointed to better and cheaper products. I recall thinking "ok, they went the IMDB way". IMDB once had a very active user comments sections, but when fake movie ratings, mostly by shills, became a thing, users started to expose them in comments, so what was IMDB response? Remove user comments, naturally.

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

#19

Post by CharlesW »

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

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

#20

Post by hgomersall »

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

A paywall is not DRM.
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