[Cory Doctorow] With An Audacious Plan To Halt The Internet’s Enshittification And Throw It Into Reverse
[Cory Doctorow] With An Audacious Plan To Halt The Internet’s Enshittification And Throw It Into Reverse
Those of us old enough to remember BBS servers or even rainbow banners often go down the nostalgia hole about how the internet was better “back in the day” than it is now as a handful o…
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Friendly reminder: Dotorow's wife is a director of a Disney subsidiary highly likely to be involved with DRM.
Ms Taylor is now the Director, StudioLab at The Walt Disney Studios. In that role she is responsible for ensuring that Disney continues to invest in the intersection between online tech and content distribution.
EDIT: You all are reading way too far into me bringing this up. Didn't say this to invalidate his point, mostly wanted to highlight something that I find most people don't know about him. It's something I think is important considering how much he styles himself as an idealogue/icon for technological freedom. He still makes good points, but the position he's doing it from should be known is all.
Does that invalidate his point regarding enshittification?
I think it might matter if Cory came out and said, I am starting an org with the resources to fix it. But I don’t see how this tidbit is relevant for a guy who coined the term about what’s happening here and has been beating the drum about the problem.
Yeah this feels like a “no true Scot” fallacy to me, where anything he says should be invalid because of his wife’s position, which is false
Only if you take it that way. I've said nothing about his point being questionable, and it wasn't my intent.
For me this is more about that his status as a free software/internet icon for well over a decade should be tempered, if only slightly, by knowledge of what pays his bills.
FWIW you've been level-headed throughout the thread and it does seem like a valid note to me. It's not like, damning, as you've pointed out yourself, it doesn't magically invalidate his work. But it does seem odd to me and I'm glad you pointed it out, and the response you've been getting seems weird and disproportionate.
Cory has self styled and been treated as a free software icon for well over a decade. The whole enshittification thing is just the latest thing to bring him back into the public eye.
It doesn't invalidate his point whatsoever, but it's important to know that what pays his bills is all.
Is he, or has he ever been, a communist or associated with communists! We demand an answer!
Lol, no. Also, big diff between associating with and being actively married to.
Anyway I've edited my comment and I'll repeat tye edit here: You all are reading way too far into me bringing this up. Didn't say this to invalidate his point, mostly wanted to highlight something that I find most people don't know about him. It's something I think is important considering how much he styles himself as an idealogue/icon for technological freedom. He still makes good points, but the position he's doing it from should be known is all.
You do know you can be married to someone and not agree with their politics, yes?
... yes. I'm not an idiot, thank you for the implication otherwise though. That's always nice.
Perhaps you're not familiar with just how outspoken Cory has been about all of this sort of stuff over the years. I think his wife's job is an important disclosure that has not been made, so I highlighted it. Same as a youtuber disclosing a video was a sponsorship, it could impact how their words should be interpreted, but it just as easily might not effect things in any significant way.
I've made my very minor point. I even specified in my initial comment that she is very likely involved with DRM, but not guaranteed to be.
I'd love to hear any counterpoints besides the effective equivalent of "how dare you point out a potential problem with our guy".
Only you can decide how much or how little his wife's job means. I just wanted people to be aware.
Your minor point was to associate him with his wife as if they agreed. Hence my response. I have no idea about your intelligence level, just about your apparent misunderstanding of relationships.
Please don't put words or intent on me. I've been very direct, and at the very least was not attempting to imply any such ideological agreement.
My minor point was to associate him with what appears to be the main source of his household income. No more, no less. Everyone can decide how much that means to them as they wish.
I don't have a stake in this argument, as this is my first time learning about Doctorow. I just want to add that a good phrase to express the situation you described is "potential conflict of interest."
See Kelly Ann Conway and George Conway.
I met Cory at a book signing and told him how much I loved Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom and he told me his wife works at Disney straight up.
He's an honest dude who has done more for how we think of the internet (and how it could be) than the majority of humans on this planet.