The internet is a mixed bag. While it has been an exceptional vehicle for increased communication and information access, it has also spawned a whole host of problems such as enabling the rapid spreading of misinformation and hate, and as big tech monopolies have used it grow their profits at the expense of the user experience.
Brooke Gladstone, the host of the radio program On The Media had an excellent conversation with Cory Doctorow, special advisor to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, on what happened to the internet and what can be done about it. It took place over three weeks. You can listen to the podcasts and also read transcripts of each episode by clicking on the links but be warned that the transcripts are done by machine and these tend to be fraught with poor punctuation, homophone mistakes, are other errors that require listening to the podcast to correct.
In Part 1 (20 minutes) they discuss why every platform goes bad and why going online feels evermore more repellent—or as he calls it, the “enshittification” of online platforms.
He gives the example of Amazon’a business model.
So step one, buyers or end users are lured in with a good offer, but they’re also locked in with subtle things that keep them from leaving if the offer gets worse. And then things are made worse for the buyers to make things better for the sellers and bring in lots of sellers. But they too are locked in. And once you have buyers and sellers who are locked in and can’t leave, all of the good stuff is taken away from both of them. Life is made worse for them and life s made infinitely better for the shareholders who own the platform, in this case, Jeff Bezos and his pals.
One such offer is the so-called ‘free shipping’ of Amazon Prime which really means that you have prepaid for shipping. Once you have signed on, you tend to keep buying from that same source even as it gets worse because you do not want to waste that free shipping, which was never free. As long as it does not get too infuriating, you tend to remain.
Big companies have used such tactics for ages but the internet has made this practice much easier to implement, with just a few clicks of a mouse.
Part 2 lasts 25 minutes.
This week, we bring you the second part of that conversation, which is dedicated to understanding the political attitudes and technical mechanisms that made such a decline possible and opened the door for companies to squeeze both users and business partners for big payouts. Doctorow explains Uber’s ants and pickers, how the anti-trust practices of the early 1900s went awry, and what exactly he means by twiddling.
Part 3 lasts 24 minutes:
This week, we bring you the third and final part of that conversation, dedicated to solutions for our tech platform woes. Among them: better enforcement of privacy laws, interoperability, and the ever elusive “right-to-exit.” Plus, hear about the one industry that so far has been mostly immune to the forces of “enshittification.”
I do not use Amazon, Facebook, Tik-Tok, etc. and frankly do not feel any need for them. Life goes on smoothly without them.
Enshittification? You ain’t seen nothin’ yet!
Fixed it for you.
I’m sure life goes on smoothly with the money Amazon sends you coming in. Does feel (to this outside observer at least) a bit like biting the hand that you volunteered to have feed you when you criticise them, though.
sonofrojblake @#2,
You seem to have this weird fixation that I get regular checks from Amazon. That shows a lack of understanding of how this business works so I’ll explain it to you.
I do not get any checks from Amazon. I do not have any deals with Amazon or any other retailer for that matter. I only deal with my publishers. All I get are royalties from my publishers for the books that they sell. The publishers own the copyright to my books and are the only ones who can print them. Any retailer (and that includes Amazon) has the right to purchase my books from the publishers and resell them. While I choose not to buy stuff from Amazon, that is as far as my power goes. I cannot tell them what to buy and resell or not buy and resell.
I dunno, I’d venture to say that all these actors are dead set to drown the online world in a sea of shit, just for the hope of making just one cent more.
And it’s only a hope and a forlorn one: nothing works. I can see that from the ads I get on google, amazon (which I only rarely use, the union-busting bastards) and youtube. Gawd, I’d so love to see something useful or interesting! But it’s like their vaunted algorythm are useless crap -- which they are. Supposed to “know me better than I know myself”, they say… and they keep trying with soccer videos. SOCCER.
Buncha incompetents, the lot of ’em.
“Retargeting” as it’s known in the trade does indeed have an element of the absurd to it.
A couple of years ago I had to buy a small bar fridge so I researched and purchased online and had it delivered.
For about a month afterward everywhere I went online was full of ads for bar fridges, as though I were a bar fridge enthusiast eager to add to his prized collection of bar fridges. X-D
@5:
Old email from Amazon: “We see you have recently bought a CD by Various Artists. We thought you might like to know they have a new album out…”
@3: you’ve a middleman, in the form of your publisher, so your hands (and your money) are clean. That works.
Not all publishers use amazon.
@#7,
You really are obsessed, aren’t you?
By your logic, anyone who makes anything that Amazon chooses to buy and resell must refrain from criticizing Amazon.
I am not sure what your goal is. You seem to be arguing for the silencing of Amazon’s critics, meaning that you are effectively advancing that company’s interests.
Good luck with that silencing effort. It will not work with me. I will continue to criticize it.
I’m not obsessed, it’s just noteworthy when people criticise something they’re personally profiting off of without mentioning that.
And I’m absolutely not arguing for silencing Amazon’s critics, they’re 100% worthy of criticism on all sorts of levels -- tax avoidance, union busting, monopoly-building anti-competitive practices are just the ones that spring immediately to mind.
It’s common, however, when a person comments on a particular business, to declare an interest if such exists. If you don’t, you come across as shifty or hypocritical. A reasonable declaration would be along the lines of “full disclosure, some of my income comes from books I’ve written, and some (most?) are sold through Amazon. This is not an endorsement of their business practices, it’s an acknowledgement of their success in becoming a near-monopoly in bookselling. I like money, and they’re practically the only game in town.”)
I agree with your continued criticism, to be clear.
Full disclosure: I make a tiny amount of money selling books I wrote. About 90% of that is through sales on Amazon. This is not an endorsement of their business practices, it’s an acknowledgement of their success in becoming a near-monopoly in bookselling. I like money, and they’re practically the only game in town.
(Statement: I shall demonstrate I’m not obsessed by not ever bringing up this subject again, whether or not I’ve pricked your conscience enough to get you to declare an interest in any future such posts. You do you, I’m not Jiminy Cricket.)
@#7,
So you have gone from telling me what I should or should not post about, to now giving me specific text to include in my posts!
Are you next planning to write entire posts about your pet peeves and insist that I publish them?
Note that pretty much any book that is published is bought and resold by Amazon. There are plenty of journalists who harshly criticize Amazon and also write books that appear on that site. Amazon’s reach is so vast that people assume that any book will appear on that site. It would be extraordinary if it did not appear. I have yet to see any one of those authors feel that such an indirect and ubiquitous connection requires such a statement as you have written.
“pricked your conscience” made me laugh.
Yes; Mano, you had a book published by Oxford University Press, and also said you don’t buy from Amazon.
Have you no decency, sir? At long last have you no sense of decency left?
Also, sonofrojblake’s call for a disclaimer is particularly funny given the pinned top post literally links to Amazon. X-D
Fixed it for you.
No. What a bizarre question.
Fair enough.
[well…]
“No. What a bizarre question.”
Not a question — a rhetorical question.
An expression indicating mild irritation; maybe even a touch of asperity.
(a rarity, that)
You’re misusing the word “interest”. The term you’re looking for is “conflict of interests”, and there is no conflict of interests here. Please go retake ethics 201.