The Internet Con

I consider myself pretty well versed in the shortcomings of capitalism, but this book still managed to shock me time and time again with tales of the brazen greed of tech companies over time. It was an easy read, which I appreciated, and I greatly enjoyed the conversational and sometimes colorful tone of writing.

Yet even though the author said multiple times that he would explain how we go about fixing the problems of Big Tech, he never really did. That is, unless I somehow figure out how to suddenly make Congress listen to me instead of a huge corporation, or learn how to reverse-engineer my own social media company. Nevertheless, it’s a great read, and one that more people probably should. 

Un libro imprescindible para forjar una nueva revolución tecnológica. Una revolución que no llegará con descendientes de terratenientes del Apartheid o hijos de clase acomodada que, una vez multimillonarios, se dedican a perseguir a la clase obrera. No, la revolución la harán los usuarios de la mano de agencias reguladoras e instituciones gubernamentales. Como el libro demuestra, esto ya ha pasado y puede volver a pasar. Los estándares son la clave para salvarnos de los depredadores de la tecnología.

While being a very concise walk though of the systemic nature of the problems of big tech, I found the title: "How to seize the means of computation" and the blurb: "A Shovel-Ready Plan to Fight Enshittification" to lead me to expect some activist-first analysis. Instead it's "solutions" are very much recommendation to congress or government level policy-types. There is nothing in it that tells me what to do. I have nothing against this - the title and the blurb is just misleading. The analysis is very good though. So if you don't already know Doctorows analysis, it's great. Just don't expect any shovels to grab.

I was expecting a bit more of depth on this book, to be honest. Yet, is a great review of the many issues of giving away our private data to Big Tech.

Muy interesante reflexión sobre como la interoperabilidad supone la mejor opción que tenemos para romper el oligopolio de las Big Tech así como ejemplos pasados de este fenómeno para apoyar la argumentación.

Al final discute algunos temas, como luchar contra la pornografía infantil, proteger la privacidad o por qué el blockchain no arregla nada de esto, que también están muy bien argumentadas