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Kickstarting a book to end enshittification, because Amazon will not carry it
- bitwize 3y ago> bring back the old good internet. Wake me when September ends.
- mark_l_watson 3y agoI bought donated for this book yesterday - I am looking forward to getting the book. My comment yesterday on Mastodon: @pluralistic I just listened to the 8 minute audio teaser, signed up for libro.fm, and joined your kickstarter. I feel like I am trapped in Apple’s walled garden, but I am at least looking for a window to open!
- stblack 3y agoRelated to this, Cory Doctorow's appearance on Future Tense podcast (Australia) is truly excellent. After being introduced, he goes on an 8-minute disquisition. We should all aspire to rap tech like Cory Doctorow can. https://pca.st/yr3hd7f9 https://pca.st/yr3hd7f9
- diatribist 3y agoThe issue with most folks selling books about how to avoid the excesses of DRM and other exploitative practices is that most people are happy to pay a premium for the convenience of having a digital library managed by Amazon, Google, Facebook, &etc. Big tech companies must pay the bills for their servers in one way or another and charging people money to keep the data in their digital vaults is a tradeoff most consumers and producers are more than happy with. Consider the alternative to this. It would require every creative to manage their own payment gateway and digital delivery infrastructure and they would more than likely end up either even or in the negative as far as their own profits were concerned. Maybe Doctorow has a big enough audience to manage his own digital delivery infrastructure but most authors I'm certain don't have the same luxury.
- wffurr 3y agoThe problem isn’t running your own infrastructure. It’s the extortionate rent for the big tech infrastructure and the anticompetitive DRM lock in. If there was a competitive ecosystem of client software and hardware and also online stores and it all interoperated, we would have a lot more choice, control of our purchased media and devices, and lower prices too.
- preventionist 3y agoWhat prevents the existence of such an ecosystem? What are the main obstructions? The most obvious ones I can think of are the data centers and necessary protocols but those are easily solvable problems with enough cash. The other obstruction I can think of is that consumers don't actually want these stores and protocols because they're perfectly happy with the services that big tech delivers. Convenience seems to be the #1 factor and most consumers are happy to pay a premium to be in Google's, Amazon's, and Apple's ecosystems. Even if it would be cheaper for the consumer if there were interoperable protocols for these digital vaults I am almost certain that the average consumer would not care because whatever features the big tech currently offers is more than sufficient for their use cases. Very small subset might care but they're too small of a minority to make a difference. Google consistently kills products that HN users enjoy but HN users are clearly not the target demographic that Google actually cares about since they keep killing HN favored services and products. So if the data centers and protocols are not the problem it must be consumer preferences and going by the software quality that most consumers are willing to put up with I am certain they don't know and care enough about interoperability to actually force the big players to develop the necessary interoperability protocols.
- polygamous_bat 3y ago> What prevents the existence of such an ecosystem? What are the main obstructions? You're ignoring the elephant in the room, which is anti-trust is dead, and the tech companies running the show are too damn big. If you start a competitor to audible, it can use its leverage with both AWS and Amazon and squeeze you until you're dead, and then continue on with its monopoly.
- blueridge 3y agoThanks for posting this, great episode.
- sundarurfriend 3y agoThe kickstarter page is much more informative than this article: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/doctorow/the-internet-con-how-to-seize-the-means-of-computation https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/doctorow/the-internet-c...
- CharlesW 3y agoThat video is well worth the 3m watch, thank you!
- sundarurfriend 3y ago(Note: This comment was about the original submission link which was to a boingboing.net article. The post link has been changed since.)
- taeric 3y agoI have a hard time getting behind some of these criticisms of audible and the like. Its annoying, as I am against most DRM schemes out there. But to pretend those came from "big tech" is laughable, at best. A ridiculously large portion of "tech" is perfectly fine with sending copies everywhere. Is literally how many of us get our operating system. Music files and shareware copying were huge before the internet. Mod files and other demoscene music sharing was a ton of fun. Specifically to audible, to complain about their margins without acknowledging that they have built a large part of the market feels dishonest. I remember audio books before audible. Usually ~50 bucks for book. As such, I owned maybe 1. So, congrats, the folks on them could get more of a percent of far far fewer purchases. Getting things for lower cost is exactly why I get more of them. Such that artists have gotten more from me, even with the lower margin to them, from audible than they ever got before. Wanting the same large cut of a smaller sell is entitlement on both ends.
- pixelatedindex 3y agoI actually think Audible is pretty good. I would feel better about buying from them if it wasn’t fully owned by Amazon. Are there any good alternatives out there?
- abawany 3y agoI'm a fan of downpour.com: no-drm downloadable mp3s, no monthly subscription lock, and a good selection.
- howardabrams 3y agoGutenberg has some. Perhaps I need to help by reading the classics out loud... into a microphone... and uploading them.
- wlesieutre 3y agoSpeechify is trying, though the catalog isn't nearly as wide https://speechify.com/audiobooks/ https://speechify.com/audiobooks/
- cobbzilla 3y ago
- I_am_tiberius 3y agoI find it awesome that Cory writes you personally when you pay for the book.
- diatribist 3y agoHow would he manage to do that for thousands of people?
- xhkkffbf 3y agoMaybe his sales aren't so big? He's constantly giving away his books. One theory is that he makes much more from "consulting" and political work around Silicon Valley. So the books are just loss leaders.
- I_am_tiberius 3y agoMore reason to support his work.
- boomboomsubban 3y agoI am not sure what they're referring to with that post. The kickstarter sells a personalized signed copy of this boom at about twice the price.
- helpfulmandrill 3y agoEvery time I bought something direct from his website, I got a quick thank you email. I think that's what is meant - not that he writes to you if you buy it in the bookstore.
- golemotron 3y agoIt's like Richard Stallman passed his baton to Cory.
- CharlesW 3y agoOnly Cory seems 1,000 more pragmatic. And although he's often a hypocrite¹ and I'll roll my eyes very hard every time I read the word "enshittification", I admire that his goal was to create a "shovel-ready" book with actionable advice and look forward to reading it. ¹ https://imgur.com/a/TAltXUf https://imgur.com/a/TAltXUf
- hgomersall 3y agoA paywall is not DRM.
- maxbond 3y agoAdditionally, it's not really paywalled at all, it's just crossposted to a paywalled platform (presumably for the convenience of people who prefer Medium, for reasons I can't fathom but to each their own): https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/31/seize-the-means-of-computation/#the-internet-con https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/31/seize-the-means-of-comput...
- danem 3y agoHow is it meaningfully different? Both exist to ensure that each person consuming the media has paid for it. Sure, in practice pay-walled articles can be easily copied to non-drmed formats, but no one does this and the motivation is the same.
- freedomben 3y agoIt's meaningfully different because once the access is confirmed, it respects you. You can easily save a copy forever. You could even copy/paste from it. DRM specifically makes it impossible for you to do that. It just doesn't just verify that you paid, it blocks and interferes what you can do with the content. It doesn't become DRM just because some people choose not to make a backup copy. That would be like saying everything I can see with my eyes but choose not to photograph has DRM on it (or effectively is DRM). That's clearly not true, as I could at any time decide to photograph my surroundings and the objects I'm photographing aren't going to restrict my camera.
- squarefoot 3y agoA better link: https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/31/seize-the-means-of-computation/ https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/31/seize-the-means-of-comput... Unfortunately BoingBoing has slowly become enshittified itself; they also deleted my account for no reason while I was hospitalized for nearly 2 months, then when I came back home noticed that the ad-rticles where they sell overpriced low quality products (seriously, get better suppliers!) don't permit user comments anymore, presumably because some inevitably pointed to better and cheaper products. I recall thinking "ok, they went the IMDB way". IMDB once had a very active user comments sections, but when fake movie ratings, mostly by shills, became a thing, users started to expose them in comments, so what was IMDB response? Remove user comments, naturally.
- brookst 3y agoBoingBoing is the worst of the worst enshittification. All of the problems that the theory predicts, plus a sanctimonious tone like they're somehow above all that. They've become the annoying religious proselytizers who show up unsolicited, and are drunk to boot.
- flir 3y agoA few years back they were one of the big voices sounding the alarm about electronic voting. Now, according to them, that's an alt-right conspiracy theory. Not gonna lie, that annoyed me.
- kam 3y agoThey stopped sounding the alarm because they largely won that battle: The previous electronic voting machines everyone objected to had no paper trail and there was no way to verify that they were trustworthy. Modern electronic voting systems count paper ballots, and a recount can verify them by hand.
- mandmandam 3y agoRiiight. That's probably why we stopped doing exit polls, after many double digit discrepancies in 2016.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- omgmajk 3y agoDoctorow always has interesting stuff to read, I've been looking at most of his work for years now. The physical book will now be delivered to me when the Kickstarter ends as that's my preferred way of reading. I kinda don't get audiobooks myself, I find it hard to concentrate on the book and often have to pause and go back and re-listen because I zoned out. I guess this is semi-offtopic but I like Doctorow and he can have a slice of my money.
- ghaff 3y agoAudiobooks are basically for the (mainstream, ie not hard of hearing) case of having a long driving commute or otherwise spending a lot of time in a car. Doesn’t really work well for books with a lot of detail or figures.
- warkdarrior 3y agoLooking forward to download the book from LibGen.
- freedomben 3y agoCare to explain why you want to steal from the author? Has he offended you with his high level of consideration and respect?
- warkdarrior 3y agoThe Kickstarter page shows that the author has already received the amount of money they asked for (and more). So they should be OK with their book being distributed for free to the rest of the world. Or do you think the author should use some form of DRM to control what people do with their book?
- freedomben 3y agoWhy should the author have to force you to act ethically and follow the law? Do cops have to follow you around everywhere to ensure you don't steal stuff? Also you're missing how Kickstarter works. The fundraising goal is not a ceiling, it's a floor.
- beej71 3y agoFirst, false dichotomy. Second, I'm not sure CD is anti-copyright. Third, you're not in a position to say what he's all right with unless he's said he's specifically all right with that. I'm not trying to convince you to pay the author, but your rationale is lacking.
- jt2190 3y ago> [I]t's a Big Tech disassembly manual that explains how to disenshittify the web and bring back the old good internet. As someone who also loves to "surf" the web and who misses the good old days, I do wonder if it's really in humanity's best interests to have everyone starting at screens all day. There was a time before the web when we thought computers would do all the grunt work, but the last few decades seem like we humans are still needed to push buttons, Copy/Paste, etc. for everything.
- firebirdn99 3y agowell we're getting chatgpt to do majority of rote / grunt work soon so...
- firebirdn99 3y agoThese DRM rules are similar to ones on movies, TV shows bought in previously iTunes store, now "TV" app. Once you buy it, you can only view it on their devices/software. It's not similar to buying a physical version of your movie on a DVD, and owning it. This has huge ramifications. People spending 1000's of $ on sites cannot own them, nor even transfer them (sell) to another account. Which is why physical copies are still attractive to own. There's also issues of buying something that entirely disappears. https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnarcher/2018/09/17/apple-responds-to-disappearing-itunes-movie-purchases-issue/?sh=5e0be38872b6 https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnarcher/2018/09/17/apple-res...
- causality0 3y agobecause Amazon will not carry it This is a lie. Further, it is a lie designed to outrage the reader and drive engagement. It is enshittification. "He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster." Saying Amazon won't carry your book is like saying the App Store won't carry your app...because you refuse to participate in a walled-garden software ecosystem.
- chromoblob 3y agoWhat's wrong with blaming App Store for refusing my app for me refusing to participate in a walled garden?
- causality0 3y agoBlaming them is fine. They're bad, and Amazon is bad. That doesn't mean they won't carry your app.
- greatfilter251 3y ago[dead]
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- OO000oo 3y agoPure silliness. The problems at hand are political economic matters. Individualist virtue signaling like refusing distribution with DRM is a good way to build a brand but will have no role whatsoever in actually accomplishing said goals.
- chromoblob 3y agoThis is just author's decision to distribute his audiobook without DRM. I don't see that this decision must necessarily be tied to the actual goals. Maybe author has other goals too and doesn't want to act in conflict with them.
- OO000oo 3y agoFair enough. I don't see why he would do it otherwise but I see your point.
- xavdid 3y agoA slight quibble: > They require mandatory DRM for every book sold, locking those books forever to Amazon's monopoly platform. If you break up with Amazon, you have to throw away your entire audiobook library. While it's true that your purchases are tied to your Amazon account, they are not tied to your audible subscription (if you have one). That's a nice touch. Even better, the DRM is trivially easy to remove. Audible already allows you to download the files you bought and ffmpeg has the `-activation_bytes` flag which will pop the DRM right off. There are sites like https://github.com/audible-tools/audible-tools.github.io https://github.com/audible-tools/audible-tools.github.io to help you find your account's bytes (which you only need to do once; they don't change). Not ideal, but not as bad as it seems. All that said, support alternative audiobook sources when you can, like https://libro.fm https://libro.fm and your local library!
- freeAgent 3y agoI can only assume that Audible’s weak DRM will be replaced as soon as they deem the audiobook market sufficiently captured.
- xavdid 3y agoIt's certainly possible, but it seems pretty captured already. I'm not sure how much of a blip it is for them. Definitely a good reason to back up any audible purchases sooner rather than later (as as soon as you buy any future ones!)
- freeAgent 3y agoYeah, the first thing I do with every single Audible purchase I make is strip the DRM. In fact, the Audible app is so bad that I don't even use it. I use BookPlayer (iOS) instead. It's much better.
- aaron695 3y ago[dead]
- patmcc 3y ago
- Solvency 3y agoLet's put a moratorium on "enshittification". This cringey word needs to die.
- beej71 3y agoIt will die when the enshittification ceases and not a minute before.
- Proven 3y ago[dead]
- chris_armstrong 3y agoThe proposed solution to market monopolisation by Amazon seems to boil down to the old refrain, "design better markets", with a lament for the innovation and freedom of the old anarchistic (i.e. unregulated) web. It's a touch ironic but nevertheless predictable, an old problem wrapped us as a new one, making me wonder: why the book will be all that interesting? Large publishers have forced DRM and squeezed authors in other media markets such as music or TV and film, protecting their monopolies on distribution and consequent power to market-make. What is new?
- brightlancer 3y ago"The Internet Con describes how this came to pass, but, more importantly, it tells us how to fix it. It lays out how we can combine different kinds of interop requirements (like the EU's Digital Markets Act and Massachusetts's Right to Repair law) with protections for reverse-engineering and other guerrilla tactics to create a system that is strong without being brittle, hard to cheat on and easy to enforce. "What's more, this book explains how to get these policies: what existing legislative, regulatory and judicial powers can be invoked to make them a reality." Cory ignores that we only need Right to Repair laws because GOVERNMENTS made it a crime in the first place! So color me skeptical that governments are going to "fix" the mess they created. Most of the other problems are simply that most people value things differently than he does: most people are happy with sandboxes from Apple, Facebook, Google, etc., and are not interested in free software, interoperability, etc. We can't improve that with government intervention and we shouldn't try -- look at how they helped with DRM.
- marcus_holmes 3y agoBacked. Always willing to support authors selling DRM-free work. I haven't been on Kickstarter for years. I felt kinda odd to buy an already-written book there ("your reward may not happen" warnings when I'm clearly just buying a book rather than backing a project). But I see a lot of "projects" are basically pre-sales there. Where do people go for genuine crowd-funding of bluesky projects?
- figmert 3y agoI've been doing that through Crowdcube. You don't always get products, but you do get actual real shares.
- stilwelldotdev 3y ago[flagged]
- Somteencead 3y agoThe discussion about the current state of the Internet and the concentration of power in the hands of a few large corporations resonates deeply. The Internet was initially envisioned as a decentralized and open platform for collaboration and information sharing, but over time, it seems to have shifted towards a more controlled and centralized landscape.