The Internet Con
How to Seize the Means of Computation
by Cory Doctorow · first published 2023
63% recommend38% neutral
Why HN recommends it
Analyzes how big tech platforms squeezed out competition and users, with a focus on concrete fixes like open protocols and interoperability rules. Its prescriptions for enabling competition are considered useful.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
When the tech platforms promised a future of "connection," they were lying. They said their "walled gardens" would keep us safe, but those were prison walls. The platforms locked us into their systems and made us easy pickings, ripe for extraction. Twitter, Facebook and other Big Tech platforms hard to leave by design. They hold hostage the people we love, the communities that matter to us, the audiences and customers we rely on. The impossibility of staying connected to these people after you delete your account has nothing to do with technological limitations: it's a business strateg
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…make a purchase, etc. I would love it if people more knowledgeable than I could critique my setup, make suggestions. Thanks in advance. I would like to mention Cory Doctorow’s excellent new book The Internet Con [1]. It carries on in the fine tradition of the books Surveillance Capitalism and Privacy is Power for the narrative that regular law abiding people also benefit from doubling down on privacy. [1] https://craphound.com/internetcon/
on “Tails is a portable OS that protects against surveillance and censorship” ↗This is an excerpt from an upcoming book, as noted at the bottom of the article. > Excerpt adapted from The Internet Con: How to Seize the Means of Computation, by Cory Doctorow. I also felt like the adaption wasn't perfect, but this excerpt had me hooked enough to convince me to buy the book when it comes out.
on “How Big Tech Got So Damn Big” ↗…give up is my Apple Watch. It is so great to be able to leave my phone at home and still get calls, and messages from my family. BTW, if you like this article, also read Cory Doctorow’s new book The Internet Con: How to Seize the Means of Computation. As someone who feels caught in Apple’s silk traps, I feel this book at least gives me strategies to deal with all the tech giants. It is not just Apple that is…
on “Apple fucked us on right to repair (again)” ↗If you haven't read it, I highly recommend Cory Doctorow's book "The Internet Con: How to Seize the Means of Computation." I originally had low expectations that anybody would have a reasonable answer, and mainly purchased it to support the author making it available DRM free, but…
on “EFF to Ninth Circuit: No Software Exception to Traditional Copyright Limits” ↗I urge you to read "Technofeudalism" by Yanis Varoufakis or "The Internet Con" by Cory Doctorow to appreciate why this is extremely difficult for consumers and entrepreneurs, and not just an inconvenience.
on “Dutch DPA fines Uber €290M because of transfers of drivers’ data to the US” ↗This essentially advocates for the same thing defined in Cory Doctorow's The Internet Con: How to Seize the Means of Computation. That point being, requiring open protocols from big tech will enable competition and innovation. This will return the creative inspiration to the technologists.…
on “Dawn of a new era in Search: Balancing innovation, competition, and public good” ↗Cory Doctorow's books "Chokepoint Capitalism" and "The Internet Con" discuss a good number of possible reforms, if anyone is interested
on “Copyright reform is necessary for national security” ↗…understanding the outcome for the GPT plug in store. And it does a very good analysis of user and vendor exploiting strategies on Tik Tok. Doctorow also writes a freely available book/audiobook, "The Internet Con: Seizing The Means of Comoutation", where he analyzes the issue and its contributing factors, and proposes a solution based on regulations. While his solution - heavy regulation - doesn't seem that realistic,…
on “OpenAI's chatbot store is filling up with spam” ↗…discovery feed with others. Plug DeepSeek in for now (while keeping an eye towards drivers so you can plug any other LLM in and you're off the the races and the state of the art advances). In the book "The Internet Con", Cory Doctorow explains how to seize the means of computation, by forcing Silicon Valley to do the thing it fears most: interoperate. AT Proto and Gen AI allows, to an extent, to sidestep the adversarial…
on “Blueskyfeedbot: Post RSS Feeds to Bluesky via GitHub Actions” ↗"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…
on “Cory Doctorow's new book on beating big tech at its own game” ↗it’s worth reading his book “The Internet Con” - i found it fairly prescriptive on specific issues and fixes to try and enable further competition in the industry.
on “Enshittification” ↗…we got here is pretty compelling. If you want to watch the talk (linked to from TFA): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ydVmzg_SJLw I you want to go even deeper, I also highly recommend his book, "The Internet Con: How to Seize the Means of Computation"
on “Cory Doctorow on how we lost the internet” ↗> Seize the means of computation Feels like they blatantly ripped that off the title of a Cory Doctorow book [0]. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Internet_Con
on “New Framework Desktop Option with AMD Ryzen AI Max+ Pro 495 and 192GB Memory” ↗Well, "Technofeudalism" is on Amazon, and it has DRM. Enough said. He could at least have made it DRM free, like Doctorow did with "The Internet Con".
on “Varoufakis: Capitalism is dead, long live Technofeudalism” ↗Currently "The Internet Con: How to Seize the Means of Computation" by Cory Doctorow.
on “Ask HN: What book(s) are you reading? Or have recently read?” ↗