Cory Doctorow's Blog, page 8
August 8, 2022
So You’ve Decided to Unfollow Me
This week on my podcast, I read “So You’ve Decided to Unfollow Me,” a recent column for Medium describing the joys of writing to attract the audience of people who want to read what you want to write.
(Image: Sascha Kohlmann, CC BY-SA 2.0, modified)
July 31, 2022
View a SKU: Let’s Make Amazon Into a Dumb Pipe
This week on my podcast, I read “View a SKU: Let’s Make Amazon Into a Dumb Pipe,” a recent column for Medium discussing how interoperability could flip Amazon’s monopoly power on its head and enable us all to coveniently shop locally.
July 24, 2022
Why none of my books are available on Audible
This week on my podcast, I read “Why none of my books are available on Audible,”
a short audiobook I produced to be distributed through Amazon’s ACX platform, explaining how that platform’s sloppy rights verification and mandatory DRM screws over writers.
(Image: Paris 16, CC BY-SA 4.0; Dmitry Baranovskiy, CC BY 4.0; modified)
June 27, 2022
Reasonable Agreement: On the Crapification of Literary Contracts
This week on my podcast, I read a recent Medium column, Reasonable Agreement: On the Crapification of Literary Contracts, about the growing trend of standard, non-negotiable contract terms in freelance writing contracts that are outrageous in their unfairness.
June 20, 2022
Monopolists Want to Create Human Inkjet Printers
This week on my podcast, I read a recent blog post, Monopolists Want to Create Human Inkjet Printers, exploring the way that med-tech mergers are bringing the ghastly inkjet printer business-model to artificial pancreases.
(Image: Cryteria, CC BY 3.0; Björn Heller, CC BY 2.0 (German); modified)
June 12, 2022
Regulatory Capture: Beyond Revolving Doors and Against Regulatory Nihilism
Regulatory Capture: Beyond Revolving Doors and Against Regulatory Nihilism.
This week on my podcast, I read a recent Medium column, Regulatory Capture: Beyond Revolving Doors and Against Regulatory Nihilism., about the origins of the theory of regulatory capture, and the all-important, but rarely discussed difference between right and left theories of regulatory capture.
June 5, 2022
Against Cozy Catastrophies
This week on my podcast, I read a recent Medium column, Against Cozy Catastrophies, about the how the changeover from universal, state- or employer-provided pensions to market-based pensions like the 401(k) have created an inescapable, slow motion catastrophe, where the only thing worse than being one of the lucky few with retirement savings is being part of the vast majority who do not.
(Image: Djuradj Vujcic, CC BY 2.0; Gerald England, CC BY-SA 2.0; modified)
May 30, 2022
Apple’s Cement Overshoes
This week on my podcast, I read a recent Medium column, Apple’s Cement Overshoes, about the malicious compliance in Apple’s “home repair kits.”
May 19, 2022
About Those Killswitched Ukrainian Tractors
This week on my podcast, I read a recent Medium column, About those kill-switched Ukrainian tractors, suggesting that what John Deere did to Russian looters, anyone can do to farmers, anywhere.
May 1, 2022
Revenge Of The Chickenized Reverse Centaurs
This week on my podcast, I read a recent Medium column, Revenge of the Chickenized Reverse-Centaurs, about the relationship between algorithms, interoperability and worker power.
