Cory Doctorow on Internet Decay, Platform Power, and 'Inshittification'

The Evolution of Digital Rights and Activism

• 💡 Cory Doctorow, a writer, activist, and digital rights advocate, discusses his multifaceted career, including his long-standing work with the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF).
• 🔑 His early involvement with the EFF stemmed from cases like Bernstein v. US Department of Justice, which established that source code is protected speech under the First Amendment, ensuring the right to secure communications.
• 🚀 Doctorow's perspective as a science fiction writer informs his focus on who technology serves and how to seize the means of computation for user benefit.

Understanding 'Inshittification' and Platform Decay

• 🎯 Inshittification describes the process where digital platforms initially attract users with good service, then lock them in, and subsequently degrade the user experience while remaining profitable.
• 📉 This decay is driven by the removal of competitive and regulatory disciplines, allowing companies to prioritize rent extraction over user satisfaction.
• ⚠️ Laws like the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), specifically its anti-circumvention provisions, prevent users from modifying or customizing products they own, thereby enabling platform lock-in and abuse.

Platform Decay Across Major Companies

• 📈 Doctorow analyzes how companies like Microsoft, Apple, Amazon, and Uber have exhibited platform decay, often by leveraging their market dominance and legal protections.
• 🍎 He contrasts Apple's early strategy of reverse-engineering Microsoft Office to reduce switching costs with current practices that make such actions illegal and punishable by severe fines and imprisonment.
• 🛒 On Amazon, decay is evident in the rise of advertising revenue over product quality and the imposition of numerous "junk fees" on merchants, increasing costs for consumers.
• 🚗 Uber is cited for predatory pricing, worker misclassification, and algorithmic wage discrimination, where drivers' wages are manipulated based on their perceived desperation.

The Role of Regulation and User Action

• 🇪🇺 Europe's regulatory approach is shifting from demanding responsible power wielding by platforms to questioning the existence of such concentrated power, focusing on interoperability and migration tools.
• 🇺🇸 In contrast, US privacy laws, like the Video Privacy Protection Act of 1988, are outdated, allowing companies to engage in extensive data collection and surveillance.
• ✊ Doctorow highlights that while companies like Apple and Google shut down independent apps like OG App (which removed ads from Instagram) at Meta's request, this demonstrates a consolidation of power and a shared interest among platforms to control market access.

Generative AI and the Future for Creators

• 🤖 The rise of generative AI presents a challenge, as companies are motivated to replace human workers with algorithms.
• ⚖️ A key remedy lies in the US Copyright Office's stance that AI-generated works are not copyrightable, and in the power of unions to advocate for sectoral bargaining rights for creative workers.
• 📚 Doctorow emphasizes that creative workers should push for laws that empower them, rather than new copyright laws that their employers might exploit.