this post was submitted on 05 Apr 2024

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192

Cory Doctorow on Search Engine Enshittification (pluralistic.net)

submitted 2 years ago by redcalcium@lemmy.institute to c/technology@lemmy.world

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[–] ikidd@lemmy.world 35 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (2 children)

I'll be fucked if I have my search history associated with my payment information. Not that I have any weird shit in there, just that I know at some point what I look for and buy will get cross-correlated and sold to the highest bidder. Plus, data breaches. And bittorrent searches.

[–] smileyhead@discuss.tchncs.de 5 points 2 years ago

We really need a Internet native anonymous payment protocol yesterday.

[–] shortwavesurfer@monero.town -5 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I use crypto to avoid this exact thing

[–] boatswain@infosec.pub 7 points 2 years ago (1 children)

How do you use a public ledger for privacy? Are you just using Monero or something?

[–] shortwavesurfer@monero.town 6 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I use monero. Since all kagi takes is bitcoin i use one of those instant swaps to do a conversion.

[–] boatswain@infosec.pub 2 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Gotcha, thanks! So you can just swap Monero for Bitcoin without going through KYC stuff?

[–] shortwavesurfer@monero.town 4 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Oh, quite easily. I use trocador.app

[–] boatswain@infosec.pub 2 points 2 years ago

Interesting, thanks! I've only vaguely followed crypto stuff, so not really too familiar with how it gets used day-to-day

[+] aberrate_junior_beatnik@midwest.social -33 points 2 years ago (3 children)

I completely agree with his points but enshittification is such a cringey word

[–] Boiglenoight@lemmy.world 5 points 2 years ago

I disagree. My parents, big Roku users, wondering why Roku was becoming hostile to its customers with policy updates that require a remote to agree to, ads coming through cables (HDMI patent), were able to understand the nature of the company at the moment through the explanation of enshittification.

[–] systemglitch@lemmy.world 5 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

Cringe as it may be, nearly everyone understands what it means.

[–] Feathercrown@lemmy.world 1 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

They can downvote you all they want but they can't make you wrong. It'a especially bad when people misuse it.

[+] 0x0@programming.dev -93 points 2 years ago (4 children)

Oh look, the guy who likes to enshitify people's timelines on mastodon.

[–] Wiz@midwest.social 29 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Maybe you could try not following him if you don't like it. 🤔

[–] derin@lemmy.beru.co 26 points 2 years ago (1 children)

He does what, now? Can you post some links/examples? Is it because he posts long threads?

[–] redcalcium@lemmy.institute 19 points 2 years ago (2 children)

What kind of drama did I miss?

[–] admin@lemmy.my-box.dev 17 points 2 years ago (1 children)

0x0 doesn't know how to mute people on mastodon and/or has difficulty understanding that when you choose to see all posts on a server, you'll see all posts on a server.

[+] JaymesRS@literature.cafe -16 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (3 children)

He always strikes me as the kind of person that confuses his moderately deep knowledge of a limited topic set with the type of thinking that makes him an over-confident expert on a much larger variety of topics. Like when economists start making declarations about climate change science.

[–] massive_bereavement@kbin.social 7 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

That's common on people celebrated on a very specific field and why most Cessna accident victims are doctors and lawyers.

[–] circuscritic@lemmy.ca 4 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

...also because they're the highest earning tier of the upper middle class, and Cessna's are an extremely common manufacture with a lot of relatively low cost options.

Most of their customers are probably upper middle class types, very small regional airlines, and people who run charter businesses.

I'd assume that between the professional pilots, and the hobbyists, you'll find the former has lower crash rates.

It'd be more surprising if their was a lot of garbage men, or teachers, who crash Cessna's, or any plane.

[–] borari@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 points 2 years ago (1 children)

You’re getting downvoted pretty hard, but for what it’s worth that’s broadly the impression I got when I started reading some of his books. I first read Information Doesn’t Want To Be Free and really enjoyed it. As I checked out some other stuff written by him I gradually lost interest. It reminded me of Dave Eggers stuff, starts off strong then gets really preachy and collapses under its own weight.

Doctorow seems like a pretty good sci-fi writer, and extremely knowledgeable on copyright/IP issues. He seems to be a little bit extra though, I mean he pulled a Musk and named his kid “Poesy Emmeline Fibonacci Nautilus Taylor Doctorow”. Like do you bro, but that’s a lot to saddle a kid with. They might grow up to like it, but naming a kid is by its nature something they can’t consent to, so going that eccentric with it kind of indicates a sense of hubris to me, plus it kind of reads like someone screaming “look at me and what I chose to name my child”. I get that a parent/child relationship is inherently hierarchal to an extent, especially with an infant, but like bro. There’s even and xkcd poking fun at him ffs.

Anyway I kind of read a lot of his more hot take blog posts the same way. It’s like the guy has a solidly grounded world view and personal ethics, but chooses to create intentionally polarizing content and winds up semi-alienating some people who are otherwise ideologically aligned with him. I mean I guess that’s how you hustle as a blogger though?

All that being said, it does seem like his stuff raises awareness of real societal issues for people who otherwise wouldn’t realize they existed, and are usually explained clearly and succinctly enough to make non-technical people understand the technical issues at hand, like with (ugh) “enshittification”. I can’t really hate on the guy if he’s leaving a net positive impact on the world.

[–] JaymesRS@literature.cafe 2 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

I knew I was going to get every downvote I got. He’s got an Elon Musk-like cult of personality in some tech spheres and even implying that he’s not 100% right will get dogpiled by white knights.

I had the same experience as you and there were at least a couple opportunities where I had close acquaintances that actually knew more about topics that were more outside of his wheelhouse who confirmed that he was just regurgitating things that were common misconceptions or “close, but not quite”-type inaccuracies but doing it as though he possessed absolute authority. I’ve even seen others try to correct him on those in the past when they knew more and his responses were not the way one responds when you’re actually interested in fact over the art of the diatribe.

I don’t have anything real negative against him and he’s definitely done quite a few things that end result in a positive improvement, but I’m also thinking he’d probably benefit from a bit more humility.

[–] spongeborgcubepants@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

You are right.

Imho he is and always was a pretty insufferable guy who makes some good points.

This has been the case since at least Boingboing times