DEF CON 31 - An Audacious Plan to Halt the Internet's Enshittification - Cory Doctorow
DEF CON 31 - An Audacious Plan to Halt the Internet's Enshittification - Cory Doctorow
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/5431344
The enshittification of the internet follows a predictable trajectory: first, platforms are good to their users; then they abuse their users to make things better for their business customers; finally, they abuse those business customers to claw back all the value for themselves. Then, they die. It doesn't have to be this way. Enshittification occurs when companies gobble each other up in an orgy of mergers and acquisitions, reducing the internet to "five giant websites filled with screenshots of text from the other four" (credit to Tom Eastman!), which lets them endlessly tweak their back-ends to continue to shift value from users and business-customers to themselves. The government gets in on the act by banning tweaking by users - reverse-engineering, scraping, bots and other user-side self-help measures - leaving users helpless before the march of enshittification. We don't have to accept this! Disenshittifying the internet will require antitrust, limits on corporate tweaking - through privacy laws and other protections - and aggressive self-help measures from alternative app stores to ad blockers and beyond!
The internet will always have many niche places, but overall it can’t escape late stage capitalism.
A good search engine would be nice to have (again). How come even duck duck go or other (free?) search engines are also so bad now?
Because operating a search engine is expensive. I personally use Kagi and love it, but that's $10/month for unlimited searches.
I tried the 100 free searches from Kagi and compared the results to DDG. In almost every search the results were the same. Even the order. I think the real benefit to Kagi is the lack of ads and tracking, tha's all.
I think the real reason search sucks these days is the AI they put between you and what your looking for. It's no longer searching for what you typed, it's searching for what it thinks you want.
I am in my kagi free trial period and like what i see so far. I already added credit to my account to subscribe once i use my free 100 searches.
Just want to add, people are also not putting much content online in the way they used to. Between the want to monetise (which leads to ad-filled SEO sits or YouTube channels), or the dopamine-hit of getting likes, content is getting harder to find as well (the latter tends to be in walled gardens that search engines don't get to index).
While you are correct in that there is less real (people generated or organic) online content available to index, I think the search engines do harbor some of the blame because they push the content that is profitable. One only need to look for product recommendations to see this. If you search for 'best waffle irons' you will only get SEO generated contented as it is more profitable. You have to explicitly add reddit to your search to get something resembling a real opinion.
Perplexity AI has been awesome for me so far, I think someone will take over searches with the current state of the internet. I'm sick and tired of only finding ad filled sites with non-answers on Google.
What happened to DuckDuckGo?
Well, the thing that gets me all the time is that you can no longer "-" a word. I'm frequently looking for stuff that doesn't contain a word. That feature is completely gone now.
Kagi is great, but is $10 a month.
Its $5 for 300 searches a month.
I love Kagi, it's better than Google these days.
I initially didn't like DuckDuckGo but it feels like they improved on it. I use it as an alternative to Google with no issues whatsoever (and often it's already better).
I am look at Kagi but everyone is calling me crazy for paying for a search engine. I am using Bing at work right now because Google is fucking useless, so I might be out of options.
I tried it like some months ago and I didn't get better results. Check it out its free for a bunch of searches (or it was).
This was great, it really is something we need to be focused on. Big tech has really ruined what we all thought the internet would be, they gave us some of it but served with a heavy dose of advertising and secretly selling your data behind your back.
The ideal internet is open and free, you don't need to see constant ads, you don't need to constantly worry about your data and everyone can for the most part access the same content without censorship.
Big tech has really ruined what we all thought the internet would be
I remember when the Internet first came out in the '90s, you would occasionally read someone talking about how when radio and TV first started they were pretty cool and wide-open as well, but they gradually got taken over by large corporate interests and played/showed a lot of trash filled with advertisements.
The ideal internet was open and free if you could pay hosting and bandwidth costs - generally those who were associated with universities could
We should get paid a portion of the revenue generated by our collective data along with the ability to opt-out completely. If they our data is a commodity to them we should be able to sell it.
they can keep my 42 cents and just stop their shit
I bet they sold your info to cambridge analytica for a bit more than that.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
https://piped.video/watch?v=rimtaSgGz_4
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I'm open-source, check me out at GitHub.
If you wanna fix this, there needs to be more incentive for people to develop open source software. It doesn't have to be created by individuals either. Organizations and nonprofits can be used to make basic services for the Internet, like utilities. Or this could be a government agency. There is already talks of classifying Internet access as a utility instead of leaving it to private ISPs. This would be a step beyond that but could be done first.
Monetary donations help a ton. Even a few bucks. I always pay for FOSS projects I enjoy and use.
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If someone wants to host something, NAT won't stop them. IMO the bigger problem is that most folks have neither time, skill, nor interest to make p2p a reality. I'm a pretty savvy admin, host a lot of services for myself and family, but I don't pretend to be good enough or vigilant enough to run anything public, i.e. mail server, lemmy server, etc, without major security concerns.
It'd be stupid easy for assholes to hack or swat you if that was implemented though.
Part of it is the war between security and privacy vs open architecture. The moment you leave your car unlocked some creep will rob you.
We need more than this.
We need a way to make sure that the internet can't be owned, physically.
We need some kind of easy to use and fast and robust open source alternate internet that we can all use.
Something that somehow costs nothing to run, that has enough storage and bandwidth for everyone and everything.
Something that has interoperability built in. Every platform should confirm to openid or openauth or activitypub or something like that.
And you know what? we have the technology!
We all have spare devices lying around. Old PC's, old laptops, old phones - they could all be running some kind of node in a distributed platform of some kind of open source AWS equivalent, and let anyone host anything and post anything without getting ad-raped or data stolen.
It's a pipe dream of mine, and I'm sure others... but with a will and a movement we could just take it all back, all at once.
and let anyone host anything
That's how they'll spin the legislation to ban it:
Pedophiles and terrorists use that service!
Side note -- I wanted to use 'X' instead as a variable above, but Musk ruined that.
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Search for Locutus, it's very similar to what I've been imagining, only real (well, not yet, it's a project).
Anybody got a TLDW;? Or did all of you just comment on the title and the snippet?
Reposting from PeepinGoodArgs@reddthat.com in Technology@beehaw.org
Here’s an AI outline because this was actually a good talk:
How Platforms Die The speaker introduces the concept of platform decay or “enshittification” and how it leads to the death of internet platforms. He defines platforms as firms like Uber, Amazon, and Facebook that connect users and business customers. He outlines a 3-stage process called enshittification where platforms: Are initially good to users Abuse users to benefit business customers Eventually abuse business customers to only benefit shareholders This results in the platform becoming a “pile of shit” that dies. Facebook Case Study He uses Facebook as a case study of enshittification’s 3 stages: Initially attracted users by promising privacy protections and custom feeds Then broke promises and sold user data to advertisers and flooded feeds with publisher content Finally, reduced value to users and fees for publishers to extract all value for shareholders This led to an angry user base and brittle equilibrium Causes of Enshittification Lack of Competition Weak antitrust enforcement has allowed consolidation across industries Companies can use predatory pricing to undercut competitors Mergers eliminate competition Example: Google relying on acquisitions rather than in-house innovation Unrestricted “Backend Tweaking” Tech platforms control the algorithms and systems behind their products They can arbitrarily change these to alter user experiences e.g. Facebook reducing visibility of publisher content in feeds Done without transparency, oversight or accountability Bans on Reverse Engineering Laws like DMCA 1201 and CFAA criminalize circumventing DRM and terms of service Makes it illegal to reverse engineer platforms to enable interoperability Tech companies use IP laws to prevent modding and adversarial interoperability e.g. Apple using IP laws to prevent iOS modding Solutions Strengthen Antitrust Enforcement Block anti-competitive mergers Break up existing tech giants Pass Privacy, Labor and Consumer Protection Laws Comprehensive federal privacy laws with private right of action End worker misclassification through gig economy Apply consumer protection standards to platforms Allow Adversarial Interoperability Roll back laws criminalizing modding, reverse engineering Use government procurement to incentivize open ecosystems Appoint special masters to oversee platform legal threats Keep Interoperators in Check Bind interoperators to the same privacy, fair trading and labor laws Determined through democratic process vs corporate policy Conclusion We need to prepare and spread these policy ideas to capitalize on the next crisis Efforts are underway to enable a better internet through this approachThe steps to fix this might as well say have Jesus come to life and fix it all... It's depressing, but there is zero chance of any of that happening... Nevermind all of it.
Our best bet is for consumers to fight back with their wallets, but people are on average too stupid to even understand how they are being fleeced. We're fucked.
Thanks. Here's a slightly easier to read on mobile non-monospace paste:
How Platforms Die The speaker introduces the concept of platform decay or “enshittification” and how it leads to the death of internet platforms. He defines platforms as firms like Uber, Amazon, and Facebook that connect users and business customers. He outlines a 3-stage process called enshittification where platforms: Are initially good to users Abuse users to benefit business customers Eventually abuse business customers to only benefit shareholders This results in the platform becoming a “pile of shit” that dies.
Facebook Case Study He uses Facebook as a case study of enshittification’s 3 stages: Initially attracted users by promising privacy protections and custom feeds Then broke promises and sold user data to advertisers and flooded feeds with publisher content Finally, reduced value to users and fees for publishers to extract all value for shareholders This led to an angry user base and brittle equilibrium Causes of Enshittification Lack of Competition Weak antitrust enforcement has allowed consolidation across industries Companies can use predatory pricing to undercut competitors Mergers eliminate competition Example: Google relying on acquisitions rather than in-house innovation Unrestricted “Backend Tweaking” Tech platforms control the algorithms and systems behind their products They can arbitrarily change these to alter user experiences e.g. Facebook reducing visibility of publisher content in feeds Done without transparency, oversight or accountability Bans on Reverse Engineering Laws like DMCA 1201 and CFAA criminalize circumventing DRM and terms of service Makes it illegal to reverse engineer platforms to enable interoperability Tech companies use IP laws to prevent modding and adversarial interoperability e.g. Apple using IP laws to prevent iOS modding Solutions Strengthen Antitrust Enforcement Block anti-competitive mergers Break up existing tech giants Pass Privacy, Labor and Consumer Protection Laws Comprehensive federal privacy laws with private right of action End worker misclassification through gig economy Apply consumer protection standards to platforms Allow Adversarial Interoperability Roll back laws criminalizing modding, reverse engineering Use government procurement to incentivize open ecosystems Appoint special masters to oversee platform legal threats Keep Interoperators in Check Bind interoperators to the same privacy, fair trading and labor laws Determined through democratic process vs corporate policy Conclusion We need to prepare and spread these policy ideas to capitalize on the next crisis Efforts are underway to enable a better internet through this approach
Just listen to the video itself?
It's a 45-minute video. That's a big investment just to engage with a Lemmy post.
That was such a great video. I highly recommend everybody listen to it (there is no visual presentation so listening is enough). Great content, great delivery.
While I don't know how well it will work, nor if the implementation is even fully possible, I like the idea of Yep.
I tried to find the video on PeerTube, from the end users perspective I think we should encourage others to choose community over corporate and use platforms like PeerTube to post these videos instead of YouTube (Alphabet).
#fuckingcapitalists
To stop enshitification we have to kill all advertising and marketing of products online. Make the net as hostile as possible to people trying to capitalize on it.
What was censored at 9:50? What is he saying about pivoting? Was it a joke?
Just get people out of the equation if you want to stop this pattern.
Seriously though, this is how every industry has developed throughout history.
I have a very simple solution to enshittification: release a series of robotic bees designed to take out anyone who excessively uses memes and emojis, and hire archeologists to find out what tactics where employed to get rid of the meme / emoji scourge when writing and reading became a thing and do it now. Bring back enough intelligence into the reading space where people learn to say with words what they shit on with memes and emojis. This should help restore the signal to noise ratio of previous eras.
I realize it has nothing to do with this submission but I think it would be much more effective.
👍good👍 idea💡 bro 💪 fuck🤬 😤😤😤 emogys🫠 they ruin💩 the 😌sanctity🙏 of 🧑💻online🌍 discourse🗣️ and∧ 😩debase😈 👩👩👦👦us👥 all∀
→If➡️ I 👁️ ever see👀 another🫴 🍑emojee💯 I'm ⏰gonna🪬 💦💦💦 🍆 ⚰️ 🚾 ⚠️ ☯️🅱️ 😎😎😎
Case in point. People will smear themselves with shit while being proud of it, while also being able to raise a circlejerk cult on demand, all because of the lowered bar.
Circlejerking purely based on the emotional reactions that the worst qualities of people want to troll and brigade other people with is a toxic motivation for a lot of people, and memes and emojis act as the principal facilitators for it when truth is they have much better alternatives and have had much better alternatives in the written language and iconography in no small part due to the purging of their presence throughout human history. Modern society isn't the only one who discovered how to draw dicks or smileys onto things, but just like cryptobullshit like NFT is treated seriously now, they seem to think that because it is in a digital modern medium it must be good now.
I get the idea, but I also don't want to go back to the days when BestGore and LiveLeak were around either, you know
Illegal content will still be illegal, no one is promoting criminal activities in this talk. Privacy and safety do not have to be mutually exclusive.
Hahahaha. "Go back to"?
Just because you don't know what they are called today doesn't mean those sites stopped existing. Shock and gore sites have been part of the Internet for a long time because they fill a human desire, same as porn and gambling and anything that makes your brain think you're being naughty enough to hand out that sweet dopamine reward.
Slightly before the internet we had The Coliseum for our gore fetish.
Why? If people want to see stuff, they should be able to see stuff. Who cares if some guy wants to see some random gory video?
I sure agree. Don't know how your comment managed to become so reviled.
I appreciate aggressive banning of obviously disgusting material from the communities I'm a part of. That's why I'm part of them.