Book Review: The Internet Con: How to Seize the Means of Computation by Cory Doctorow
Recently I took a bus to a bookstore in North Seattle to attend a reading of a new book by Cory Doctorow. It turned out to be not so much a reading as a discussion between Doctorow and Neal Stephenson, author of Snow Crash, The Diamond Age, Cryptonomicon, and other works, on the current state of the internet and technology. Doctorow gave a brief summary of his new novel The Bezzle, in which his recurring character Martin Hench, a forensic accountant, investigates the California prison system. He and Stephenson then launched into an intellectual discourse that was as fascinating as it was informative. It concerned details about Big Tech that, as a user along with much of the rest of the world, I recognized but had been unable to put into words, and used compelling words such as enshitification and interoperability. Enshitification is the degradation or decay of large online platforms, and interoperability is the ability of internet users to plug new technologies into existing ones. Doctorow’s novel sounded interesting enough, but after the reading what I really wanted to learn more about was Doctorow’s ideas on technology.
The Internet Con is a recent book, published in 2023. It is mainly concerned with interoperability: why Big Tech doesn’t want it, how it works, and how we can get it. As Doctorow explains in the introduction: “Make it legal for new technologies to plug into existing ones – that is, make it legal to blast holes in every walled garden – and users (that’s us) get immediate, profound relief: relief from manipulation, high-handed moderation, surveillance, price-gouging, disgusting or misleading algorithmic suggestions…the whole panoply of technology’s sins.” Doctorow explains how and why Big Tech got where it is – basically, by using expensive lawyers to circumvent existing legislation and establish monopolies in their respective areas of endeavor. Computers have universality – that means they all operate the same – and interoperability is the natural condition of the internet. However, the strategy of tech companies (and others such as auto manufacturers) is to reduce interoperability as much as possible, making consumers dependent on only one source for their needs and making switching (to another source) prohibitively expensive. Doctorow explains that “providing an excellent experience is harder work than punishing disloyal users.” For instance, in a perfect internet world, if you wanted to switch from one social platform to another, you should be able to transfer your photos and other data with you; Big Tech prohibits this, though, so that even if you hate their platforms you have to keep using them because the cost of leaving is too high.
The answer, of course, is obvious. “If we want to make tech better, we have to make it smaller.” It is insane that Big Tech has been able to monopolize its products, locking consumers into using their services and no others. As an example, Doctorow explains how the major automobile companies use VIN-locking. VIN stands for Vehicle Identification Number – a serial number that is locked into a vehicle’s computer system at the manufacturer so that only authorized technicians can repair them – and charge exorbitant prices for doing so, of course. It is a horror story of American corporate thinking. Doctorow clarifies that contrary to popular opinion, the CEOs of Big Tech are not geniuses; they are simply ruthless people who are greedier and more amoral than most, and they are willing to screw you to make massive profits.
In one of the closing chapters, Doctorow offers solutions. Unfortunately, they are long shots that leave readers (or at least this reader) with a sense of frustration and futility. Are there really politicians concerned enough, ethical enough, and with enough grit to take on Big Tech? Maybe. Even if the situation seems dire and solutions seem scant, it is still worth reading this book to get a clear and honest picture of the current state of the internet and how it got this way.
