Cory Doctorow

So in behavioral economics, we have this idea called the Ulysses Pact.

So if you're familiar with the story of Ulysses, right, he wants to hear the song of the sirens and

And anyone who hears the song jumps in the sea and is drowned by them.

And his sailors have a protocol.

They fill their ears with wax.

But he's like, no, I want to hear the song.

He's a hacker, right?

He wants to eat his cake and have it too.

So he wants to hear the songs.

What he does is he ties himself to the mast so he can hear the song but not act on its compulsion.

And a Ulysses pact is anytime you take some course of action off the table now, while you're strong, in anticipation of your future weakness.

So that might mean, for example, a distribution system that's open to all players.

So not locking yourself into YouTube, having an RSS feed, not...

You know, being behind Spotify's paywall or behind one of these other services paywall, which means that you're vulnerable to Spotify applying pressure to you.

It might mean unionizing your workers, because if you're the kind of person who can rationalize your way into saying, as I've seen so many people do, right, your VC shows up and says, you've got to make things bad for the business or bad for your users.

And if you don't, I'm going to pull the plug and you're going to have to fire your workers.

And you're like, well, I convinced all these people to come work for me.

They're like betting their kid's college fund and their mortgage on it.

You know, I am a uniquely good guy.

And so I can save all those jobs and live to fight another day.