#the enshittification of consumer goods and services continues | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

novadreii · 3 months ago

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i just now realized why umbrella academy s4 feels so much worse than its previous seasons. it's trying to be the boys. it's going for shock value which, if you've seen the boys, is not really that shocking. and it's juxtaposing that with a cringefuckfest of an attempt at humor to try and make it a Dark Comedy. but all we have is a show that is trying to be both scandalous and funny at the same time, while failing at both. the writing and acting is so fucking bad! is everyone ok? there are 2 actors i like on this show (those of viktor and five) and even they are kind of lackluster this season? i will have to hatewatch this whole season.

nothing can be the boys a second time. there's better tv out there but the boys really did a good job nailing down dark comedy. in so many ways. it's a hard thing to do and umbrella academy thought it would try to capitalize on the trend without actually studying what makes dark comedy so good. it just feels like a m*rvel movie but with more gore and killing. boo.

#personal #few things prompt me to hatewatch i'd rather spend my time doing thing i like lol #but when something is so artfully bad that a case study needs to be made out of it i will do just that #and blog the whole thing probably #the enshittification of consumer goods and services continues #it is fucked when the industry cheaps out on entertainment #you mean i have to work 8 hours/day for these bigwigs #and they can't even provide me with quality television to numb out on for the remaining 4 #unbelievable #the umbrella academy #this show is so confused about what it wants to be and it's painful to watch! this is what makes it entertaining in a roudabout way #i am known to makes lemonade out of lemons sometimes

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ardenasaservice · 11 months ago

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Review: The Internet Con by Cory Doctorow

Disclaimer: I was a backer for the crowd funding campaign for this book.

I recently finished listening to The Internet Con: How to Seize the Means of Computation by @mostlysignssomeportents, whose work I've followed for a long time. The kickstarter notification came as I was traveling for work, and it was a no-brainer for me-I'd divorced myself largely from Amazon, but was still sore over the "lost" credits when I finally left the audible platform. I've been slowly rebuilding a collection of DRM-free books since. The book is a short but inspiring look at how we came to be in these mutually destructive relationships with FAANG+ companies (I'll shorthand refer to this group as Big Tech, though that includes more than just FAANG).

Cory outlines how walled gardens came to be the de facto framework for how these companies want us, the consumers, to interact with their product. "Its good for you", they say, "Look how easy we've made this!" When in fact this garden's only purpose is to be a thin veneer of a wrapper to keep you, the person who purchased the product, from doing what you will with said product. Take an iPhone. Apple keeps you, the owner of the iPhone, from repairing your phone once it craps out. Apple has recently been a little better, at least providing 3rd party repair shops the opportunity to purchase official repair tools, but for many years, official Apple Care locations were the only place that could service your otherwise perfectly-fine device.

The other problems raised in the book are permutations of this same idea- companies wanting to separate their consumers from the product, and ensuring that consumption of said product happens in the most profitable manner for the company. The walled garden is one of the many tools technology platform companies use in service of maximizing profits from their users. Big Tech achieves this by baiting users into their platforms, then pulling the rug once those users have cemented their home on the platform. Yeah, Google search used to be better- but where are you going to go now? Bing? lol

What can we do about this phenomena (Cory frequently refers to this as "enshittification")? Well, this is where I myself have to admit to some pessimism. I am not confident in Government's ability to regulate technology- but as the author states, this too is part of Big Tech's plan. Standards are boring, and the players at the standards table are typically those who stand to make money from those standards. It is difficult to understand a lot of the literature surrounding the standards if you're not working with them every day, and by design, Big Tech abstracts the guts of your tech away from you. I personally am starting to look into how I could start working with IETF, the standards development org for the Internet, since I AM one of those nerds working closely to these standards every day. I wonder though how we can make tech less of a black box- I think that our school system needs to catch up with the times too. There's more to computers and systems than just apps! Every computer, from your phone, to your printer, to your smartwatch, to your laptop, etc etc etc, is a Turing Complete universal von Neumann machine. This is a fancy way of saying any computer, given sufficient time/resources, can run any program. Big Tech HATES this. They don't want you to run anything, just their stuff, in exactly the way they designed. But there is no such computer that can open a browser to youtube.com that cannot also run an ad-blocker to modify the content presented on youtube.com.

We're watching some tug of war play out now, with youtube trying to block the blockers. I think this type of struggle will continue until there is regulation around user data (which is its own can of worms). I myself have been thinking about making some guides for folks who are less tech-savvy exercise their rights: - how to look for devices/products that are interoperable - setting up and maintain ad-blockers - backing up personal data across different platforms

But we have to start somewhere. Cory's book provides that starting point and lines out the basic concepts for understanding "the internet machine," though it may be dense for some readers. Recommended to anyone who wants to understand more about the frameworks surrounding tech platforms and the roles they play in our everyday life.