Session 73: Twiddling, Enshittification and the Latter-Day Robber Barons of the Web
Channel: Libraries In Response
Date: 2023-04-07

How did the internet turn into five giant websites filled with screenshots of the other four? Why does the web just suuuuuuck now?

It's down to three interlocking pathologies: first, unconstrained anticompetitive mergers; two, "IP" laws prohibiting platform users from seizing the means of computation; and three, the ease with which platform operators can "twiddle the knobs" to sink hooks in both end-users and business-users, then reel them in and harvest all the value in the system for their shareholders.
 
Speaker:
Cory Doctorow, science fiction author, activist and journalist.
 
Respondent:
Jonathan Hernandez Perez, Researcher, Library and Information Institute (IIBI) at National Autonomous University of Mexico