Discover and read the best of Twitter Threads about #CompetitiveCompatibility
Most recents (16)
#Enshittification is platforms devouring themselves: first they tempt users with goodies. Once users are locked in, goodies are withdrawn and dangled before businesses. Once business customers are stuck, all value is claimed for platform shareholders:
pluralistic.net/2023/01/21/pot…
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pluralistic.net/2023/01/21/pot…
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If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
pluralistic.net/2023/04/12/alg…
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pluralistic.net/2023/04/12/alg…
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Enshittification isn't just another way of saying "fraud" or "price gouging" or "wage theft." Enshittification is intrinsically digital, because moving all those goodies around requires the flexibility that only comes with a *digital* businesses.
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This week on my #podcast, I read #Twiddler, a recent @Medium column in which I delve more deeply into #enshittification, and how it is a pathology of digital platforms, distinct from the rent-seeking of the analog world that preceded it:
doctorow.medium.com/twiddler-1b5c9… 1/
doctorow.medium.com/twiddler-1b5c9… 1/
If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
pluralistic.net/2023/02/27/kno… 2/
pluralistic.net/2023/02/27/kno… 2/
Enshittification, you'll recall, is the lifecycle of the online platform: first, the platform allocates #surpluses to end-users; then, once users are locked in, those surpluses are taken away and given to business-customers. 3/
#Netflix has unveiled the details of its new anti-#PasswordSharing policy, detailing a suite of complex gymnastics that customers will be expected to undergo if their living arrangements trigger @netflix's automated enforcement mechanisms:
thestreamable.com/news/confirmed… 1/
thestreamable.com/news/confirmed… 1/
If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
pluralistic.net/2023/02/02/non… 2/
pluralistic.net/2023/02/02/non… 2/
Netflix says that its new policy allows members of the same "#household" to share an account. 3/
Remember when they sneered at Geocities pages for being an unusable eyesore? True, they had some, uh, *idiosyncratic* design choices, but at least they reflected a real person's exuberant ideas about what looked and worked well. Today's web is an unusable eyesore *by design*. 1/
If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
pluralistic.net/2022/06/28/bar… 2/
pluralistic.net/2022/06/28/bar… 2/
Start with those fucking "sign up for our newsletter" interruptors. Email is the last federated protocol, publishers are desperate to get you to sign up to their newsletter, which nominally bypasses Big Tech's chokepoint on communications between creators and audiences. 3/
Back in 2019, I wrote a case-study on ad- and tracker-blocking as part of @EFF's series on #AdversarialInteroperability (AKA #CompetitiveCompatibility or #Comcom).
eff.org/deeplinks/2019… 1/
eff.org/deeplinks/2019… 1/
My point was that the ad-tech industry says that it tracks you as part of a bargain: you trade away your privacy and get media in exchange, but that this was a bizarre kind of take-it-or-leave-it form of bargaining. 2/
The ad-tech deal boils down to this: "Just by following a link to this page, you have agreed to, well, *anything* we feel like doing. We can collect your data, sell it, merge it with other data, share it, mine it, exploit it. Forever."
That's not much of a bargain. 3/
That's not much of a bargain. 3/
"Innovation" is in very bad odor these days. "Disruption" is even more disreputable. 1/
But as tech and the global south researcher @qadrida writes in @wired, "innovation" isn't limited to inventing unregulated banks and calling them "fintech" and "disruption" is more than just misclassifying employees as contractors.
wired.com/story/disrupti… 2/
wired.com/story/disrupti… 2/
Qadri studies workers who are seizing the means of computation, reverse-engineering and repurposing the apps that are meant to keep them in bondage and setting themselves free. Her research on gig drivers in Jakarta is essential reading:
pluralistic.net/2021/07/08/tuy… 3/
pluralistic.net/2021/07/08/tuy… 3/
A historical accident made Massachusetts a lab for studying how tech can serve monopolies, and the moves, countermoves and counter-countermoves show how businesses, tinkerers, governments and the public can liberate themselves from seemingly all-powerful monopolists. 1/
If you'd like an unrolled version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
pluralistic.net/2022/02/05/tim… 2/
pluralistic.net/2022/02/05/tim… 2/
It all starts with #RightToRepair. Companies love to monopolize the repair of their products. If the only place to get your broken stuff fixed is at its manufacturer's authorized depots, the manufacturer can move all kinds of value from your side of the deal to their own. 3/
The city of Stockholm commissioned Skolplattform, an omnibus app to deliver timely information to students, teachers and parents. It was a mess: a late, SEK 1B (USD 117M) "IT disaster" boondoggle with a 1.2 star rating.
play.google.com/store/apps/det… 1/
play.google.com/store/apps/det… 1/
If you'd like an unrolled version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
pluralistic.net/2021/11/09/skr… 2/
pluralistic.net/2021/11/09/skr… 2/
Among the groups that were poorly served by the app were parents, and among those parents was Christian @Landgren, a software developer. Landgren created a streamlined version of the app just for parents that he dubbed Öppna (open) Skolplattformen. 3/
Last Oct, the @RIAA launched a bizarre campaign of legal bullying against #youtubedl, a free/open library that lets people save Youtube (and other) videos for a variety of purposes, including critical analysis, offline viewing, archiving and remixing.
pluralistic.net/2020/10/24/120…
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pluralistic.net/2020/10/24/120…
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If you'd like an unrolled version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
pluralistic.net/2021/08/01/bal…
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pluralistic.net/2021/08/01/bal…
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The RIAA attacked youtube-dl under Section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (#DMCA1201) a 1998 law that indiscriminately bans helping people remove DRM, even if no copyright infringement takes place.
pluralistic.net/2020/10/28/tru…
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pluralistic.net/2020/10/28/tru…
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When we talk about the internet's problems and solutions, we tend to focus on Big Tech, the monopolizers who dominate our digital lives. That's only natural.
But there's another internet, one that deserves our attention: The Public Interest Internet.
eff.org/issues/public-…
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But there's another internet, one that deserves our attention: The Public Interest Internet.
eff.org/issues/public-…
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If you'd like an unrolled version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
pluralistic.net/2021/07/16/pid…
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pluralistic.net/2021/07/16/pid…
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The Public Interest Internet is a "wider, more diverse, more generous world. Often run by volunteers, frequently without any institutional affiliation, sometimes tiny, often local, but free for everyone online to use and contribute to, this internet preceded big tech."
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This week on my podcast, I read my latest @locusmag column, "Tech Monopolies and the Insufficient Necessity of Interoperability." It presents a theory of change to get us to a world of aggressive, trans-industry, global trustbusting.
locusmag.com/2021/07/cory-d…
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locusmag.com/2021/07/cory-d…
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Most industries are monopolized. Whether we're talking about athletic shoes or pharmacy benefit managers, the path to monopolization is the same: companies buy up small competitors, merge with major ones, and use their investors' cash to subsidize anticompetitive attacks.
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The reason they're able to get away with it is that for 40 years, the world's been in the grip of a dangerous economic delusion: that the only basis for fighting monopolies is "consumer welfare." That is, monopolies should only be considered harmful if they make prices go up.
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Gojek is a $10B Indonesian "super app" that combines "Postmates, Apple Pay, Venmo, and Uber" serviced by an army of ojol - drivers - who are subjected to all the high-handed algorithmic horrors that gig workers everywhere suffer through.
vice.com/en/article/7kv…
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vice.com/en/article/7kv…
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But Indonesian ojol aren't helpless before their apps; a legion of toolsmiths produce, share, sell and support "#tuyul apps" named for "a child-like spirit in Indonesian folklore that helps his human master earn money by stealing," which modify the Gojek app.
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As part of her MIT PhD, @qadrida studied Gojek, ojol and tuyul apps, and her account of the grey-market Gojek ecosystem for @motherboard is riveting.
vice.com/en/article/7kv…
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vice.com/en/article/7kv…
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"Tread," a $3000 "smart" treadmill from @OnePeloton, is a deathtrap. 125,000 Treads have been recalled after the devices injured 72 people and killed a child.
bbc.com/news/business-…
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bbc.com/news/business-…
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Say what you will about Peloton's safety engineering, but never fault the evil genius of its strategists. The company responded to the news by bricking the Treads in the field and demanding $40/month "subscriptions" from owners to continue using them.
bleepingcomputer.com/news/technolog…
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bleepingcomputer.com/news/technolog…
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The pretense here is that the subscription comes with safety software that means that you treadmill will not maim you or murder your children.
This raises an obvious question: why not just put that software into all the existing Tread devices for free?
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This raises an obvious question: why not just put that software into all the existing Tread devices for free?
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Today in @WiredUK, my op-ed: "Why it’s easier to move country than switch social media" - an argument that the real power of social media comes from switching costs, not network effects.
wired.co.uk/article/social…
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wired.co.uk/article/social…
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(If you'd like an unrolled version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:)
pluralistic.net/2021/04/12/tea…
(or follow along below)
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pluralistic.net/2021/04/12/tea…
(or follow along below)
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Debates over market concentration in social media lean heavily on "network effects," the idea that social media services increase in value as their user-base grows, because the more users they have, the more likely it is that the people you want to talk to have accounts.
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Facebook has SUCH a sweet racket. First, they used the Roach Motel model - data checks in, but it doesn't check out - to trap you and all your friends in a mutual hostage-taking situation, where you can't leave because they're there, and they can't leave because you're there.
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All those address books they imported, the data they gathered from publishers' websites through the Like buttons (which gather data whether or not you click them), the data they bought or snaffled up through free mobile SDKs is now permanently siloed inside of FB.
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FB is a walled garden: when you leave, you leave behind your friends and communities - you can't switch to a Diaspora instance or even Twitter and exchange messages with FB.
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After more than a year of investigations, House Dems have produced a 450-page report on market concentration in the tech industry, with a slate of findings that are obvious and long overdue, and a slate of recommendations that are simultaneously traditional and radical.
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Start with the findings: the market is concentrated and the companies preserve their monopolistic standing with anitcompetitive tactics:
* Apple's App Store stranglehold raises prices and transfers money from creators to the company
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* Apple's App Store stranglehold raises prices and transfers money from creators to the company
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* Google preferences its own services in search results
* Facebook buys companies for predatory reasons, to snuff out potential future competition threats
* Amazon rips off its sellers and engages in predatory pricing
wired.com/story/congress…
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* Facebook buys companies for predatory reasons, to snuff out potential future competition threats
* Amazon rips off its sellers and engages in predatory pricing
wired.com/story/congress…
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