Cory Doctorow
๐ค SpeakerAppearances Over Time
Podcast Appearances
Tim, how about you?
if I were having this conversation with your producer and we had some time to talk about it, I would probably walk them through a couple of the undisputed ways in which some people have found the internet get worse for them.
So Tim has talked a little about margins for small businesses.
There's also people who are performers who found that the take that's being sucked out of their pay packet every month is going up and up from the platforms.
There's people who would like
not like to be snatched by ICE snatch squads who installed ICE block on their iPhone only to have Tim Cook decide that ICE officers were a member of a protected class and remove that app.
And now you can't install that app because the iPhone only lets you install official apps.
And I'd say like, just because this hasn't hit you, I think unless you have a theory about why you are favored by these platforms, then you should at least be worried that
that this would come.
And I would follow up by saying like, let's not fall into the trap of vulgar Thatcherism.
You know, Thatcher's motto was there is no alternative.
And I think tech bosses would like you to believe that too, that if you're enjoying having a conversation on Facebook with your friends, which I stipulate lots of people do, I think that's absolutely the case and we should value and celebrate that, that you just have to accept that there is no way to have a conversation with your friends that Mark Zuckerberg isn't listening in on.
And that to ask for otherwise than that would be like asking for water that's not wet.
It's just like not possible.
And what I'm militating for is not you don't like that thing you like.
It's like I like that you like the thing you like.
I want to make it good.
And I also want to guard it against getting worse because just because it hasn't happened to you yet, it would be naive to think that it would never come for you.
I also wanted to react to something that you were sort of fainting at, Ezra, which is this idea of revealed preferences, which you often hear in these discussions, right?
That if you let Facebook spy on you, no matter what you say about how you feel about Facebook spying on you, you have a revealed preference.