A Big Tech Disassembly Manual
Here is how platforms die: first, they are good to their users; then they abuse their users to make things better for their business customers; finally, they abuse those business customers to claw back all the value for themselves. Then, they die.
We're in the final stages of enshittification. Every platform is turning into a pile of shit. It's time to stop trying to figure out how to save the platforms. It's time to start evacuating them.
How? With interoperability. We plug new services - better ones, run by co-ops, nonprofits, startups, communities, individual tinkerers - into the silos. We blast exits in the walled gardens. We make it possible to leave the platform without losing the things they use to hold you prisoners. We give you back the technical self-determination that is your birthright, which the platforms stole from you.
You get to leave …
A Big Tech Disassembly Manual
Here is how platforms die: first, they are good to their users; then they abuse their users to make things better for their business customers; finally, they abuse those business customers to claw back all the value for themselves. Then, they die.
We're in the final stages of enshittification. Every platform is turning into a pile of shit. It's time to stop trying to figure out how to save the platforms. It's time to start evacuating them.
How? With interoperability. We plug new services - better ones, run by co-ops, nonprofits, startups, communities, individual tinkerers - into the silos. We blast exits in the walled gardens. We make it possible to leave the platform without losing the things they use to hold you prisoners. We give you back the technical self-determination that is your birthright, which the platforms stole from you.
You get to leave the social media platform - but continue to exchange messages with the family, friends, communities, and customers who stay behind. You get to leave your mobile platform, but keep the media, apps, and contacts that shackled you to it. You get to leave Audible - but keep your books.
As the platforms burn, policymakers are scrambling for an answer. Some of them are still trying to get the platforms to clean up their act. They're wrong. The problem with Mark Zuckerberg isn't that he's the wrong guy to be in charge of four billion peoples' online lives - it's that no one should have that job. We don't need to fix Zuck.
We need to abolish Zuck.
This is a book that delivers a detailed policy prescription for building evacuation routes for the platforms, using interoperability. It's a book that explains what those policies should be, what how to get them, and how to administer them so that the tech companies can't wriggle off the hook or cheat their way to glory (again).
It's a book that explains how we can stem the tide of enshittification and seize the means of computation!
I consider myself pretty well versed in the shortcomings of capitalism, but this book still managed to shock me time and time again with tales of the brazen greed of tech companies over time. It was an easy read, which I appreciated, and I greatly enjoyed the conversational and sometimes colorful tone of writing.
Yet even though the author said multiple times that he would explain how we go about fixing the problems of Big Tech, he never really did. That is, unless I somehow figure out how to suddenly make Congress listen to me instead of a huge corporation, or learn how to reverse-engineer my own social media company. Nevertheless, it’s a great read, and one that more people probably should.
I guess expecting the Anarchist's Cookbook of Adversarial Interoperability would be a bit much, but I did feel like it was lacking any real practical solutions to Big Tech's rampant monopolization.
Not really a very actionable for the person on the street. Kinda needs "Chokepoint Capitalism" to make sense. Well written, timely given gestures to twitter, facebook, reddit, tiktok, youtube, etc
While being a very concise walk though of the systemic nature of the problems of big tech, I found the title: "How to seize the means of computation" and the blurb: "A Shovel-Ready Plan to Fight Enshittification" to lead me to expect some activist-first analysis. Instead it's "solutions" are very much recommendation to congress or government level policy-types. There is nothing in it that tells me what to do. I have nothing against this - the title and the blurb is just misleading. The analysis is very good though. So if you don't already know Doctorows analysis, it's great. Just don't expect any shovels to grab.
Cory Doctorows Buch über die zerstörerischen Monopole in der Technologie ist fundamental wichtig, um den aktuellen Zustand des Internets zu verstehen. Auch seine Forderung nach Interoperabilität und der Legalisierung "konpetitiver" Interoperabilität ist richtig und wichtig. Das Buch wirkt aber teilweise lediglich wir ein Anhang zu seinem letzten Buch "Chokepoint Capitalism" und wiederholt dessen Argumente im Kern "nur". Auch finden sich leider - entgegen den Versprechungen - keine wirklich praktischen Tipps, wie Einzelne zumindest etwas dazu beitragen können, das Problem zu lösen. (Ich war da vorab aber ohnehin schon skeptisch bzgl. dieser Versprechungen, weil das Problem eben nicht individuell zu lösen ist.)
