Cory Doctorow on how we lost the internet • Hacker News Board

Re: Cory Doctorow on how we lost the internet

#61

Post by lupusreal » Wed, May 28, 2025, 10:23 AM UTC

aredox wrote: post #24

whinvik wrote: post #8

> In particular, the companies purchase financial information from a data broker before offering a nurse a shift; if the nurse is carrying a lot of credit-card debt, especially if some of that is delinquent, the amount offered is reduced. "Because, the more desperate you are, the less you'll accept to come into work and do that grunt work of caring for the sick, the elderly, and the dying." I think this should be mad…

Well, you wanted a "free enterprise" society, why do you complain now? Isn't that freedom? Of expression, of commerce, of association... ...Oh, you are worried about power asymmetry? What are you, a communist ?

In communist countries, labor unions are controlled by the party and serve the interests of the state, not the workers. Strikes are illegal and any pretense of collective bargaining is a farce.

Worker rights only exist in free societies.

Re: Cory Doctorow on how we lost the internet

#62

Post by keiferski » Wed, May 28, 2025, 10:23 AM UTC

card_zero wrote: post #53

keiferski wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it’s just basic communication skills. Which seems to be a tough ask these days.

Cory Doctorow suggests using "platform decay" if the term enshittification bothers you. https://pluralistic.net/2024/10/14/pearl-clutching/ "just use one of the dozens of words that failed to gain public attention over the past 25 years".

I've already written about 5 comments in this thread explaining why it's a poor choice of a word from a pragmatic point of view.

I'm also not super interested in his rant about people criticizing his approach are just "pearl clutchers."

Re: Cory Doctorow on how we lost the internet

#63

Post by isodev » Wed, May 28, 2025, 10:23 AM UTC

tgv wrote: post #44

bambax wrote: post #27

The article is very long; that part is fascinating and a fantastic suggestion: > Europe and Canada have passed strong right-to-repair legislation, but those efforts ""have been hamstrung by the anti-circumvention laws"" (like the DMCA). (...) That raises the question of why these countries don't repeal their versions of the DMCA. > The answer is tariffs, it seems. The US trade representative has long threatened count…

There already are alternative app stores for iOS and Android. They don't seem to do well. There's no "flocking."

I believe F-Droid is doing quite ok. So is the Galaxy Store. On iOS, Apple created a very complicated process which is region and even country-specific. Hopefully this will change once the EU, the US, Japan and everyone else currently suing Apple is done with them. But I do share the sentiment from the article - I wish it wasn't necessary to escalate such matters to the level of regulation

Re: Cory Doctorow on how we lost the internet

#64

Post by kubb » Wed, May 28, 2025, 10:24 AM UTC

cebert wrote: post #55

For the “Uber of Nursing” example, if employers want to play games like this, the best way to combat it is with symmetrical information. Employees should share their salary offers on a website, which would empower them to get a better sense of whether they are being paid fairly.

But you understand why one of these things is legal and the other is not?

Because the employer has power and the employee doesn’t.

Of course they should, but they have much more influence on the law so they don’t.

Re: Cory Doctorow on how we lost the internet

#65

Post by biorach » Wed, May 28, 2025, 10:24 AM UTC

keiferski wrote: post #20

piva00 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Academics are completely free to rebrand the naming if they need to sound more pompous and serious, the semantics are the same.

It has nothing to do with being pompous, and this attitude is precisely why none of these solutions will ever go anywhere. If you want laws to be passed, you need senators and judges and legal scholars to engage with your ideas. None of those people are going to take the idea of “enshittification” seriously with a name like that, nor are they going to put their name on a bill referencing it. There are plenty of examp…

They can use a different name. If someone in a position to push this really felt that advancing the cause really needed a rename they could come up with a name today, get consensus tomorrow and move on with life.

This is a non issue

Re: Cory Doctorow on how we lost the internet

#66

Post by Mindwipe » Wed, May 28, 2025, 10:24 AM UTC

actionfromafar wrote: post #43

octo888 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The same could come to Europe (lowballing broke people), because you can just make employees give their consent by baking it into all employment contracts. Just like the working time directive opt-out (HR say "take it or leave it" to 99.9% of people). It probably already happens where it's already acceptable to request financial checks such as the finance industry.

You could try, but that would most likely be illegal and also fought tooth and nail by unions, which aren't as neutered as American unions. In Europe, sympathy strikes aren't Verboten like in the US.

It depends on the territory, there's no pan-Europe regulation on it.

Even when the UK was in the EU sympathy strikes were illegal (to a much greater extent than the US).

Re: Cory Doctorow on how we lost the internet

#67

Post by Voultapher » Wed, May 28, 2025, 10:25 AM UTC

tgv wrote: post #44

bambax wrote: post #27

The article is very long; that part is fascinating and a fantastic suggestion: > Europe and Canada have passed strong right-to-repair legislation, but those efforts ""have been hamstrung by the anti-circumvention laws"" (like the DMCA). (...) That raises the question of why these countries don't repeal their versions of the DMCA. > The answer is tariffs, it seems. The US trade representative has long threatened count…

There already are alternative app stores for iOS and Android. They don't seem to do well. There's no "flocking."

At least on iOS Apple has just been fined 500 million - as a start - because the way they implemented third-party app stores was so blatantly against the DMA. I think we simply don't yet know how users and corporations will react to it.

Re: Cory Doctorow on how we lost the internet

#68

Post by Mindwipe » Wed, May 28, 2025, 10:26 AM UTC

krzyk wrote: post #49

palata wrote: post #2

> What would be better is for the countries to break the monopolies of the US tech giants by making it legal to reverse-engineer, jailbreak, and modify American products and services. Let companies jailbreak Teslas and deliver all of the features that ship in the cars, but are disabled by software, for one price; that is a much better way to hurt Elon Musk, rather than by expressing outrage at his Nazi salutes, since…

> making it legal to reverse-engineer, jailbreak, and modify American products and services Is anywhere in EU reverse-engineering, jailbreaking, and modifying any products illegal?

Every country has an anti-circumvention law in the EU. It is a condition of membership.

Not that that makes Doctorow's argument any better or make any more sense.

Re: Cory Doctorow on how we lost the internet

#69

Post by kubb » Wed, May 28, 2025, 10:26 AM UTC

AvAn12 wrote: post #12

jocoda wrote: post #9

> "He believes that changes to the policy environment is what has led to enshittification, not changes in technology." This is the root cause, and as it looks, there is no cure.

Agreee. Also money. Once we go from making things because they are cool / helpful / useful / amusing to making things to personally get rich, is enshitofication inevitable?

It’s evitable, we need to make it impossible to get excessively rich from it (by capping capital accumulation through redistribution).

Re: Cory Doctorow on how we lost the internet

#70

Post by ajb » Wed, May 28, 2025, 10:27 AM UTC

ikr678 wrote: post #33

keiferski wrote: post #11

It’s unfortunate that he is continuing to use the term enshittification, because that pretty much guarantees that no serious academic, legal scholar, or politician is going to engage with these ideas publicly. Which is a shame, as many of the solutions here are explicitly legal ones. Words and names matter, especially when it comes to political actions.

I think that's a bit of projection on your part, not everyone is scared of naughty words. It was the Australian word of the year in 2024 and appears in our senate hearing transcripts.

Being derogatory is absolutely a valid political tactic. But making it your only possible tactic is bad strategy. Sure, "not everyone is scared of naughty words", but politics is about appealing to as many people as possible, not just sounding cool to your in-group.