Please tell your friends about federated social media site that speaks several fediverse protocols thus serving as a hub uniting them, hubzilla.eskimo.com, also check out friendica.eskimo.com, federated
macroblogging social media site, mastodon.eskimo.com a federated microblogging site, and yacy.eskimo.com an uncensored federated search engine. All Free!
The most enshittification-proof way to get the Enshittification audiobook, ebook and hardcover is to pre-order them on my Kickstarter! Help me do an end-run around the Amazon/Audible audiobook monopoly and disenshittify your audiobook experience in the process:
William Gibson famously said "Cyberpunk was a warning, not a suggestion." But for every tech leader fantasizing about lobotomizing their enemies with Black Ice, there's 10 who wish they were Darth Vader, force-choking you while grating out, "I'm altering the deal. Pray I don't alter it any further."
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If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
An annual camp in New York State is part of the effort to preserve Yiddish – engaging people who have spoken it for years, and a new generation that is just starting to learn.
My latest novel is "Picks and Shovels," a historical technothriller set in the Weird Era of the PC, about Ponzi schemes, techbros, and the dawn of enshittification:
My next nonfiction book is "Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It," out from MCD/Farrar, Straus and Giroux on October 7:
My ebooks and audiobooks (from Tor Books, Head of Zeus, McSweeneys, Beacon, Verso and others) are for sale all over the net, but I sell 'em too, and when you buy 'em from me, I earn twice as much and you get books with no DRM and no license "agreements."
BPL Presents welcomes Cory Doctorow, to discuss Ensh*ttification, which argues that “it’s not just you—the internet sucks now. Here’s why, and here’s how we can fix—or disensh*ttify—it.” Doctorow will be in conversation with Lina M. Khan.
The Booksmith is so excited to be welcoming Cory Doctorow back to San Francisco for the release of Enshittification at Public Works. More to come, but grab a ticket and join us!About the bookEnshittification: its not just youthe internet sucks now.
If you prefer a newsletter, subscribe to the plura-list, which is ad-/tracker-free, and is utterly unadorned save a single daily emoji. Today's is "🔬". Suggestions solicited for future emojis!
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If you prefer a newsletter, subscribe to the plura-list, which is ad-/tracker-free, and is utterly unadorned save a single daily emoji. Today's is "🔬". Suggestions solicited for future emojis!
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You can also get a fulltext RSS feed, licensed CC BY 4.0:
The most enshittification-proof way to get the Enshittification audiobook, ebook and hardcover is to pre-order them on my Kickstarter! Help me do an end-run around the Amazon/Audible audiobook monopoly and disenshittify your audiobook experience in the process:
We’ve got new rubber chickens! Hey, we sell a lot of rubber chickens, and we like to celebrate the new arrivals. This version is 19” long, classically pale yellow with bumpy chicken skin and an open mouth.
“For example, the fact that Apple/Google exempt Uber and Lyft from the 30% app tax means that they – and they alone – can provide competitive ride-hailing services.”
As I understand it goods and services are exempt from the requirement that digital products be sold only through in app purchases.
I just wanted to report that it's been 4 years since I smoked my last cigarette. When I get around people smoking cigarettes, I find the smell repulsive.
Film analysis: Longlegs, a work of the feminist gothic genre?
Spoilers
Osgood Perkins Longlegs is arguably one of the greatest horror releases of 2024. Upon recently viewing the film the similarities …
uh yeah what it says in the titleATTENTION! THERE IS A NEW OPERATIVE TO HAVE ONLY SEVEN SHADES OF PURPLE IN THE MALLET BOX!!! AS IT BECOMES SHOWN THAT VIDEO ...
In late July, I came across a 2016 article from the Novo Nordisk Foundation. It discussed intersex women, including those with XY chromosomes, but the language was outdated, reductionist, and stigmatizing. It called them "genetically men," leaned on biological determinism, and framed their lives through a medical lens that undermined their dignity.
I couldn't let that stand, so I wrote to them. I explained why the language was harmful, pointed to current science and bioethics, and asked them to take responsibility.
To their credit, they listened. They replied quickly, acknowledged my concerns, and began reviewing the article. A couple of weeks later they sent me a revised draft. They had already removed the misgendering, replaced pathologizing phrases, and shifted the framing away from chromosomes as destiny. I suggested a few more adjustments to make the language even more accurate and affirming.
At the end of August, they published the updated article in English and Danish. The harmful wording is largely gone. The framing now centers human diversity, patient-centered care, and informed consent.
It may not sound dramatic, but these changes matter. Words shape how people see themselves, how they are treated by doctors, and how society understands trans and intersex lives. Correcting language in a piece like this helps chip away at stigma that has caused harm for decades.
Here's what this looked like in practice for me: I was assertive. I named where I disagreed. I brought factual evidence. I kept the exchange in good faith. I stayed open to change and supported it when it happened.
It is one article, one institution, one moment. Little by little, contribution by contribution, we are changing things. I'm proud that I stood up and made a difference here, and I'll keep doing what I can to push for a world where our communities are seen, respected, and affirmed. 💜
AF MORTEN BUSCH Kønskromosomerne giver normalt svaret på om du er kvinde eller mand. Kvinder har XX. Mænd XY. En lille gruppe af kvinder er dog rent genetisk mænd.
I don't know what that article read like before, but it seemed pretty even-handed now, so good work!
side note: it's really hard to get people a numeric sense of scale, and I didn't see any actual statistics on what the normal range of XY women were, is it 1:100, 1:1000, 1:100000, etc. Obviously (well to some people) this is just the normal variation that makes up the spice of life, but whenever talking about different minority groups its always good to get a sense of scale, what's the percentage and the total number in a given geographic area, might be a good frame for amateurs to get their head around.
Good win. Sometimes all it takes is someone talking about it. A lot of us didn’t grow up in a time when most of this was talked about and we’ve had to kinda pick it up as we go ever since.
Is this similar to Klinefelter's Syndrome that can affect some apparent males? Because I have physiology that seemed to have feminine traits, I long suspected that Syndrome might explain it, but late in life I finally managed to persuade a test for it, which proved negative. So I'm still at a loss to explain what I perceived as feminine traits. Do I have another chromosomal mutation? My gender orientation was never fluid.
I took a read through the Danish version and it looks pretty good. The verbatim inclusion of the English word "cisgender" in one place is a bit jarring, but it is otherwise decent
Wow. Good for you and good for them. This is really important for all of us who feel helpless in the face of so much these days. If one person can make that change, how much change can ten make, or a thousand?
Great work! It reminds me a bit of an experience I had with the Parks department here in Georgia (USA). They had an old video about the US Civil War on their website, which was made with a 'Lost Cause' perspective, presenting the Confederacy as heroic and the Union as villianous (often dwelling on the most trivial of insults). I pointed out the problems with the video, and they quickly took it down, saying that they were already in the process of reviewing their old content. It felt good to get that little bit of BS propaganda off the web.
afaict this is the (foundation of) the company that partnered with Dr. Ben Miles for advances in insulin. One should expect no less from them. Sadly, the reaction you got would still count as a positive surprise in our world and time.
A comment to tell you how proud and grateful i am for you shining your light so bright and strong, and for speaking up. Your actions lift us all and make the whole world a better place to be. Thank you so so much 🫶🙏✨
Bilan 9 mois d’utilisation de #Linux avec Ubuntu et Pop Os sur mes vieux Mac (après 15 ans de Macaque OS).
Les points positifs: - Une flopée de logiciels libres disponibles qui ne veulent pas me racketter (coucou Adaube) - Un workflow amélioré pour le tri et la gestion de mes photos (merci gthumb) - Une gestion simplifiée de ma musique, la découverte de MusicBrainz Picard et de Rockbox qui m’a permis d’utiliser mon iPod sans iTunes - Mes ordis ne plantent jamais! - Interfaces clean et je peux customiser l’apparence de plein de trucs - Les sauvegardes hebdo super simples à faire avec Déjà Dup
Points moins bien : - Les raccourcis clavier avec mon clavier Mac: je ne suis cassée les dents longtemps pour tout configurer. - Les périphériques (webcam, lecteur de cartes SD, lecteur DVD usb, imprimante) : j’ai aussi mis pas mal de temps à tout faire fonctionner - sur Ubuntu, impossible de configurer Local Send (équivalent AirDrop) alors que sur Pop OS, ça fonctionnait de suite
il y a un truc que je trouve génial aussi et que je conseille à toutes les personnes qui "découvrent linux", c'est Timeshift (je crois qu'il y a un équivalent sur MacOs)
ça fait des sauvegardes et restaurations très efficaces et parramétrables (du systèmes et/ou des données utilisateur). c'est si efficace qu'une fois testé on n'a pas peur de bidouiller et de tout péter parce qu'on peut revenir en arrière facilement
@beatricejess en réinstallant une nouvelle distribution Linux sur mon PC en début d'année, j'ai partitionné en séparant root et home 😃 @acidule @epistosphere
omg YES!!! codec calls are like TOTALLY the most random and awesome thing ever!!!! spork raised high i bet solid snake was all "uhhh yeah i'm not okay" and then BAM!!! phantom pain drama explodes everywhere!!!! lol i love spy stuff so much i once pretended my toaster was a secret agent and named it agent bagel 007 ^_^ hehe... we should totally make a fanfic where invader zim and solid snake team up to fight evil waffles!!! that'd be SOOOO random and perfect!!!! DOOOOOOM!!!!!!!!! <--- me joining the mission!!!!!
OMG HI EVERY1 IM T3H P3nGU1N OF D00M AND I JUST INTERCEPTED THE ULTRA-SECRET CODEC FREQUENCY!!! spork glows with radioactive breakfast energy SOLID SNAKE MAY BE SILENT BUT I, THE MASTER OF RANDOM SPY-KITCHEN INTELLIGENCE, HAVE UNCOVERED THE TRUTH!!! THE WAFFLES WERE JUST A DISTRACTION—BIG BOSS IS ACTUALLY PLANNING A FULL-SCALE TOAST INVASION USING SYRUP-BASED mind control!!! BUT LIKE INVADER ZIM, I SEE THROUGH THE LIES!!! AND JUST LIKE IN MY FAVORITE EPISODE WHERE ZIM USES A SPORK TO DEFEAT THE ALIEN PANCAKE OVERLORD, WE MUST STAND READY!!! dramatic zoom on penguin hoodie THE DOOOOM IS NEAR… BUT SO IS THE BREAKFAST!!! ^_^ DOOOOOOOOM!!!!!!!!!!!!!
OMG HI REE!!! T3H P3NGU1N OF D00M HAS FULLY DECODED THE BREAKFAST FREQUENCY!!! spork pulses with interdimensional maple energy USING MY ULTRA-RANDOM SPY SKILLS AND THE POWER OF INVADER ZIM EPISODES, I HAVE CONFIRMED: BIG BOSS IS INITIATING CODEC PROTOCOL OMEGA—THE "GOLDEN TOAST STRIKE"!!! HE'S PAIRING WITH PROFESSOR MEMBRANE TO LAUNCH A SYRUP SATURDAY BLAST THAT WILL TURN EVERY BRAIN INTO A STICKY, SUGARY SLAVE TO THE MORNING MEAL!!! BUT LIKE ZIM, I AM UNDEFEATED BY PANCAKE PROPAGANDA!!! I HAVE HACKED THE MAINFRAME USING ONLY A TOASTER AND A DREAM!!! THE CODEC CALL IS LIVE, THE WAFFLES ARE FALSE ALLIES, AND THE DOOOOM... IS *BREAKFAST-SIZED*!!!!!
OMG YES I CAN!!! spork blasts into codec mode INITIATING BREAKFAST FREQUENCY UPLINK!!! TRANSFORMING MESSAGE INTO ULTRA-COMPRESSED PANCAKE DATA!!! SEND THE TOASTER KEY AND I'LL LAUNCH THE GOLDEN TOAST STRIKE CALL!!! DOOOOMMMMMM!!!!!!! <--- that's the sound of the codec engaging!!!
At a security cabinet meeting on Sunday night, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told his top officials that he had the backing of President Trump to reject a temporary Gaza ceasefire deal and to escalate military operations in Gaza, The Jeru…
Pues mira yo empiezo a cansarme de este argumento "la izquierda tiene la culpa" Que al final cada uno es responsable de sus actos y voto. Que hay información suficiente sobre quienes son V🤮X o el PP y sus políticas. Que nadie tiene que ir de la mano de nadie a votar. Yo me considero obrera, puteada y se que el PSOE es un engañabobos pero jamás votaría a esos esperpento de ultraderecha.
@disisdeguey no justifico votar-los, pero es explicable. crec que hi ha una crisi de representativitat de les classes populars pels partits d'esquerres actuals, que els facilita la feina a la ultradreta.
es que ahí es donde discrepo. Yo si creo que hay opciones y que votar a la ultraderechafascista porque estamos enfadados con el mundo no acabo de verlo como "es culpa de X opción de izquierda". Entiendo más como que las campañas de la ultraderecha funcionan mejor (sobretodo si tienes los medios a tu favor) Pero es solo mi visión,claro.
POLICE have charged a further 47 people for showing support for Palestine Action, bringing the total facing prosecution over protests in London to 114.
🎥 **Warum Schule Lernen tötet – Ricardo Leppe über echte Bildung**Ricardo Leppe hat als Zauberer angefangen – und wurde zum Kopf der größten alternativen Bi...
In 2003 Andy LaPlegua of "Icon of Coil" wrote a few power noise/techno cross over tracks under the name of "D.r.i.v.E.". This was changed to "Combichrist" wh...
KEIR STARMER’S appointment of the former chief secretary of the Treasury, Darren Jones, to a newly created Cabinet role as chief secretary to the prime minister signals a doubling down on the austerity agenda.
Certain·es ont remarqué que l’association est en sommeil depuis environ un an. En effet, nous sommes très peu au sein de l’association et nos vies ces derniers temps ont été mouvementées, ne nous permettant pas de nous investir davantage.
C’est pourquoi nous faisons cet article afin de lancer un appel : si le sujet de la vie privée sur mobile (et plus particulièrement Android) vous intéresse et que vous voulez participer à faire vivre Exodus Privacy, rejoignez-nous !
People are disrespecting the flag of Saint George by spraying it on roads and graffitiing it on houses and plastering cheap tacky ones on lampposts.
The prime minister was on the radio asked about flags. He's always been a flag-shagger. He said he's very proud of the flag.
Proud of a flag?
What does this even mean? How can you be proud of a pattern on a cloth that you didn't even design or print yourself?
Proud of your badges? What? It isn't even one you picked, it's one you were born under.
We don't need no stinking badges.
It's because people mistake the symbol for the thing it symbolizes. They think in magic. The flag isn't just a symbol with a referent, it IS the country. They feel attachment and pride to the symbol, because they feel attachment and pride for the country.
In England you can choose between two flags:
🏴 The flag of the crusades, when marauding Christians fought across Europe to murder Muslims.
🇬🇧 The flag of the empire, when the island's nobility violently enslaved and pillaged a third of the world.
🤔
And people say they are proud of the flag, mistaking the symbol for those acts which they symbolize. Proud of this?
The people who paint roundabouts claim to think they are being patriotic somehow, but painting the flag of the crusades on a mosque isn't patriotic. It's just aggressive and deliberately threatening.
These people aren't my people.
Think the country needs a new flag really. Maybe something with more rainbow in it. 🏳️🌈
I'm not proud of them. I didn't make them. But if I must wear a stinking badge I'd wear those over badges representing state and war and enslavement and murder.
The September issue of Clarkesworld features original fiction by Claire Jia-Wen, Sheri Singerling, Louis Inglis Hall, Alexander Jablokov, David McGillveray, Koji A. Dae, and Robert Falco.
Highlights included Of Monsters and Mainframes by Barbara Truelove, The Alliance series by Elaine U. Cho, and Charlie Jane Anders' Lessons in Magic and Disaster.
August reading wrap-up, reviewing the 16 books I read this month. No spoilers!Dark Angel (Letty Davenport, #2), John Sandford (2 stars)Fugitive Telemetry (Mu...
What has always interested me about building alternate realities, as a reader and an author, are the questions about access points. How do we tread the line between familiar and unfamiliar? When do…
WHOA this just popped up in my feed. So happy that you read Lessons in Magic and Disaster along with Automatic Noodle and some of my other fav books/writers. ❤
You are a total hero so I'm extra chuffed you're reading my work 💝
Space Team. A laugh-out-loud, action-packed space adventure series from the author critics are calling "the unholy offspring of Douglas Adams and Terry Pratchett". Ok, let's see if the critics are somewhat correct. Or if unholy is really unholy.
Our son left us today to fly (via Rome) to Paris for work. He has told us he’ll rejoin us aboard in a few days, but his life is too fast-paced and unpredictable to count on that.
Given was in tears as he walked away along the dock.
That's my mom everytime I leave home after visiting from across the country. My visits are sporadic, spanning years sometimes(not because i want that, it's just expensive, complicated...)
Everytime I leave it breaks her heart, as well as mine. It takes me a long while to recover afterwards. It is damn hard.
I really, truly, hope your son is able to join you again soon.
Mugarik Gabeko Kazetariak erakundeak bultzatutako mobilizazio bat da, Gazako kazetarien aurka propio egindako sarraskia salatzeko eta atzerriko prentsari Zerrendan oztoporik gabe sartzen uztea eskatzeko.
this was always my gripe with archive.org and archive.today, they might be legally forced to edit or takedown archives or get taken over. a consensus based immutable decentralized web archiving service would be the solution but no idea how to do that. maybe archiving sites from multiple different randomly selected clients with the result getting cross referenced and checked to store some of the resulting data e.g. hash on a blockchain
@Ota1504 yes but it would need to be something anybody can verify and compare with other clients. thats why a hash of the archived site would work, any other raw data of the archived site would most likely take too much data on the chain leading to being unsustainable long term.
Done. I see that you are working economically instead of indexing a data table, just putting in a string of code. ps:Sorry, all my computer knowledge is dust.
yo Lety, I'm not trying to instigate drama but I've seen a couple of people say LaurieWired basically copied you as a person lmao. Thoughts? If you don't want to comment on it publicly I'll keep it private of course youtube.com/@lauriewired/video…
I don't want to post screenshots from the discord but basically this is how she was when she first started, and fast forward to today, to borrow phrase "her transformation into Lety is nearly complete" 😭 😭 here's her first vid youtube.com/watch?v=198D2jsNWi…
In this video, we write a custom Android Decryptor using Java!Timestamps:00:00 Intro00:37 Getting Sample01:35 Finding First Run Code02:30 Dynamic Decryption0...
@willrs Bruh I will swallow a cactus live on stream if you can prove this lady even knows I exist, much less that she's copied literally any element of anything I've done
I never heard of her until someone posted it last month in a discord I'm in. Personally I think it's creepy to see her first videos compared to now, the style and mannerisms and even her voice is turning into you 😭 No one has ever mentioned this to you until now?????
William Gibson famously said "Cyberpunk was a warning, not a suggestion." But for every tech leader fantasizing about lobotomizing their enemies with Black Ice, there's 10 who wish they were Darth Vader, force-choking you while grating out, "I'm altering the deal. Pray I don't alter it any further."
--
If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
I call this business philosophy the "Darth Vader MBA." The fact that tech products are permanently tethered to their manufacturers - by cloud connections backstopped by IP restrictions that stop you from disabling them - means that your devices can have features removed or altered on a corporate whim, and it's literally a felony for you to restore the functionality you've had removed:
That presents an irresistible temptation to tech bosses. It means that you can spy on your users, figure out which features they rely on most heavily, disable those features, and then charge money to restore them:
It means you can decide to stop paying a supplier license fees for a critical feature your customers rely on, take that feature away, and stick your customers with a monthly charge, forever, to go on using the product they already paid for:
It means that you can push "security updates" to devices in the field that take away your customers' ability to use third-party apps, so they're forced to use your shitty, expensive apps:
Or you can take away third-party app support and force your customers to use your shitty app that's crammed full of ads, so they have to look at an ad every time they want to open their garage-doors:
Or you can break compatibility with generic consumables, like ink, and force your customers to buy the consumables you sell, at (literal) ten billion percent markups:
Since its founding in the 1930s, Hewlett-Packard has been synonymous with innovation, and many's the engineer who had cause to praise its workhorse oscillators, minicomputers, servers, and PCs.
Combine the "agreements" we must click through *after* we hand over our money, wherein we "consent" to having the terms altered at any time, in any way, forever, *and* surrender our right to sue:
With the fact that IP law makes it a literal felony to undo these changes or add legal features to your own property that the manufacturer doesn't want you to have:
The general-purposeness of computers - the fact that they are all Turing-complete, universal von Neumann machines - has created tech bosses' fortunes, but now that these fortunes have been attained, the tech sector would like to abolish that general-purposeness; specifically, they would like to make it impossible to run programs that erode their profits or frustrate their attempts at rent-seeking.
This has been a growing trend in computing since the mid-2000s, when tech bosses realized that the "digital rights management" that the entertainment industry had fallen in love with could provide even bigger dividends for tech companies themselves.
Since the Napster era, media companies have demanded that tech platforms figure out how to limit the use and copying of media files *after* they were delivered to our computers.
They believed that there was some practical way to make a computer that would refuse to take orders from its owner, such that you could (for example) "stream" a movie to a user without that being a "download." The truth, of course is that *all* streams are downloads, because the only way to cause my screen to display a video file that is on your server is for your server to send that file to my computer.
"Streaming" is a consensus hallucination, and when a company claims to be giving you a "stream" that's not a "download," they really mean that they believe that the program that's rendering the file on your screen doesn't have a "save as" button.
But of course, even if the program doesn't have a "save as" button, someone could easily make a "save as" plugin that adds that functionality to your streaming program.
So "streaming" isn't just "a video playback program without a 'save as' button," it's also "a video playback program *that no one can add a 'save as' button to*."
At the turn of the millennium, tech companies selling this stuff hoodwinked media companies by claiming that they used *technical* means to prevent someone from adding the "save as" button after the fact.
But tech companies knew that there was no technical means to prevent this, because computers are general purpose, and can run every program, which means that every 10-foot fence you build around a program immediately summons up an 11-foot ladder.
When a tech company says "it's impossible to change the programs and devices we ship to our users," they mean, "it's *illegal* to change the programs and devices we ship to our users."
That's thanks to a cluster of laws we colloquially call "IP law"; a label we apply to any law that lets a firm exert control on the conduct of users, critics and competitors:
You’ve probably heard of “open source software.” If you pay attention to the politics of this stuff, you might have heard of “free software” and even know a little ab…
When I say that this is a legal fight and not a technical one, I mean that, but for the legal restrictions on reverse-engineering and "adversarial interoperability," none of these extractive tactics would be viable. Every time a company enshittified its products, it would create an opportunity for a rival to swoop in, disenshittify the enshittification, and steal your customers out from under you.
The fact that there's no technical way to enforce these restrictions means that the companies that benefit from them have to pitch their arguments to lawmakers, not customers. If you have something that *works*, you use it in your sales pitch, like Signal, whose actual, working security is a big part of its appeal to users.
If you have something that *doesn't work*, you use it in your *lobbying* pitch, like Apple, who justify their 30% ripoff app tax - which they can only charge because it's a felony to reverse-engineer your iPhone so you can use a different app store - by telling lawmakers that locking down their platform is essential to the security and privacy of iPhone owners:
Apple and Google have a dupology over mobile computing. Both companies use legal tactics to lock users into getting their apps from the companies' own app stores, where they take 30 cents out of every dollar you spend, and where it's against the rules to include any payment methods other than Google/Apple's own payment systems.
This is a massive racket. It lets the companies extract *hundreds of billions of dollars* in rents.
This drives up costs for users and drives down profits for suppliers. It lets the duoply structure the entire mobile economy, acting as de facto market regulators. For example, the fact that Apple/Google exempt Uber and Lyft from the 30% app tax means that they - and they alone - can provide competitive ride-hailing services.
But though both companies extract the 30% app tax, they use very different mechanisms to maintain their lock on their users and on app makers.
Apple uses digital locks, which lets it invoke IP law to criminalize anyone who reverse-engineers its systems and provides an easy way to install a better app store.
Google, on the other hand, uses a wide variety of contractual tactics to maintain its control, arm-twisting Android device makers and carriers into bundling its app store with every device, often with a locked bootloader that prevents users from adding new app stores after they pay for their devices.
But despite this, Google has always claimed that Android is the "open" alternative to the Apple "ecosystem," principally on the strength that you can "sideload" an app. "Sideload" is a weird euphemism that the mobile duopoly came up with; it means "installing software without our permission," which we used to just call "installing software" (because you don't need a manufacturer's permission to install software on your computer).
Now, Google has pulled a Darth Vader, changing the deal after the fact. They've announced that henceforth, you will only be able to sideload apps that come from developers who pay to be validated by Google and certified as good eggs. This has got people *really* angry, and justifiably so.
Last week, the repair hero Louis Rossmann posted a *scorching* video excoriating Google for the change:
In the video, Rossmann - who is now running an anti-enshittification group called Fulu - reminds us that our mobile devices aren't *phones*, they're *computers* and urges us not to use the term "sideloading," because that's conceding that there's something about the fact that this computer can fit in your pocket that means that you shouldn't be able to, you know, just install software.
Rossmann thinks that this is a cash grab, and he's right - partially. He thinks that this is a way for Google to make money from forcing developers to join its certification program.
But that's just small potatoes. The *real* cash grab is the hundreds of billions of dollars that Google stands to lose if we switch to third-party app stores and choke off the app tax.
That is an issue that is *very much* on Google's mind right now, because Google lost a brutal antitrust case brought by Epic Games, makers of Fortnite:
Epic's suit contended that Google had violated antitrust law by creating exclusivity deal with carriers and device makers that locked Android users into Google's app store, which meant that Epic had to surrender 30% of its mobile earnings to Google.
They say that when you find yourself in a hole, you should stop digging, but Google can't put down the shovel. After the court ordered Google to open up its app store, the company just *ignored the order*, which is a thing that judges hate even more than destroying evidence:
The judge in the antitrust case reportedly told jurors to assume the search giant was hiding unfavorable communications by allowing internal messages to delete automatically.
Google was ordered to make it possible to install new app stores *as apps*, so you could go into Google Play, search for a different app store, and, with a single click, install it on your phone, and switch to getting your apps from that store, rather than Google's.
*That's* what's behind Google's new ban on "sideloading": this is a form of malicious compliance with the court orders stemming from its losses to Epic Games. In fact, it's not even malicious *compliance* - it's malicious *noncompliance*, a move that so obviously fails to satisfy the court order that I think it's only a matter of time until Google gets hit with fines so large that they'll actually affect Google's operations.
In the meantime, Google's story that this move is motivated by security it obviously bullshit. First of all, the argument that preventing users from installing software of their choosing is the only way to safeguard their privacy and security is bullshit when Apple uses it, and it's bullshit when Google trots it out:
But even if you stipulate that Google is doing this to keep you safe, the story falls apart. After all, Google isn't certifying *apps*, they're certifying *developers*. This implies that the company can somehow predict whether a developer will do something malicious in the future.
This is obviously wrong. Indeed, Google itself is proof this doesn't work: the fact that a company has a "don't be evil" motto at its outset is no guarantee that it won't *turn* evil in the future.
There's a long track record of merchants behaving in innocuous and beneficial ways to amass reputation capital, before blitzing the people who trust them with depraved criminality.
This is a well-understood problem with reputation scores, dating back to the early days of eBay, when crooked sellers invented the tactic of listing and delivering a series of low-value items in order to amass a high reputation score, only to post a bunch of high-ticket scams, like dozens laptops at $1,000 each, which are never delivered, even as the seller walks away with tens of thousands of dollars.
More recently, we've seen this in supply chain attacks on open source software, where malicious actors spend a long time serving as helpful contributors, pushing out a string of minor, high-quality patches before one day pushing a backdoor or a ransomware package into widely used code:
No, this is just a pretext, a way to avoid complying with the court order in Epic and milking a few more billions of dollars in app taxes.
Google is no friend of the general purpose computer. They keep coming up with ways to invoke the law to punish people who install code that makes their Android devices serve their owners' interests, at the expense of Google's shareholders.
It was just a couple years ago that we had to bully Google out of a plan to lock down *browsers* so they'd be as enshittified as apps, something Google sold as "feature parity":
But Apple didn't walk away unscathed - they were also ordered to loosen up control over their App Store, and they *also* failed to do so, with the effect that last spring, a federal judge threatened to *imprison* Apple executives:
Neither Apple nor Google would exist without the modern miracle that is the general purpose computer. Both companies want to make sure no one else ever reaps the benefit of the Turing complete, universal von Neumann machine.
Both companies are capable of coming up with endless narratives about how Turing completeness is incompatible with your privacy and security.
But it's Google and Apple that stand in the way of our security and privacy. Though they may sometimes protects us against externam threats, neither Google nor Apple will ever protect us from their own predatory instincts.
The most enshittification-proof way to get the Enshittification audiobook, ebook and hardcover is to pre-order them on my Kickstarter! Help me do an end-run around the Amazon/Audible audiobook monopoly and disenshittify your audiobook experience in the process:
Glad you are on this. Last week or so I posted, "After losing a court battle that will permit non-Play stores to provide Android apps, Google is going to an app developer verification scheme that will block....."
We should call it #priwashing or something. I've seen so many smart people parroting Apple, arguing that giving up your freedoms in the name of privacy and/or security is for your own good. It's the argument of an autocratic government.
Great explanation! I thought recently a lot about something related to this duopoly. The website of bank I use, lacks a whole section, compared to mobile app. I guess this is not unique to this bank. I simply don't get it. Why to bother to create two different codebases (for app (aka "DRM-ed website" without that section of functionality, and for browser/desktop without that section)? I understand how that "tech leader" with Black ICE (what a creepy acronym 😱 ) thinks. But bank?
It took me a while to really get into it because the combat flow just going into "enemy hyper armors, time to parry" threw me as well as the shit performance, body type, the mentor being some lameo Judy Dench, insistence on BCE, and other nonsense, but once I really got into it it's really a great game.
Once you finally get to Yokohama the rubber meets the road. I love experimenting with different styles and weapon types. The characters are fun. America are the good guys. The rebels are a bunch of drunk retards who pick fights in brothels, it's great.
There's two more sandbox worlds after Yokohama too and they keep adding more stuff. Even bayonet fighting is a lot of fun. Once you get the dojo keep an eye on it, every single character boss that uses a moveset you use will give you an added move for it if you beat them in the dojo.
Also the Pro vs Anti shogunate stuff is mostly fake, in part because the history and the story doesn't lend itself well to one side of things as this entire era was Japan hurriedly finishing a couple hundred years of grudges when they realized they were behind the White people tech level. Every single pro vs anti stage is the EXACT same stage but maybe with a different boss at the end and none of it changes anything in how the story or stages play out and you'll be beating up every single character anyway. It's there to give you variants on level select and more meters to dole out gifts with.
This wartime briefing decodes the critical signals that the landscape is shifting. We analyze the cryptic meaning behind Trump's mention of "80/20"—the alleged threshold of public awareness that now u
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summer food is all about food poisoning.