The idea I keep coming back to is that the big platforms, like Dickens' Marley, were dead to begin with, and are now something particularly bad, which is dead on their feet.
The Joy of Becoming Worthless…except to each other — Douglas Rushkoff
My last piece, The Intentional Collapse, seems to have agitated a few people. I know it came off a bit dark. I talked about how the Uber wealthy believe the world as we know it is ending and that there won’t be enough essential resources to go around, so they need to take control of as much money and stuff and land as possible in order to position themselves for the end of days.
The Shape of the Curve: Morbid Symptoms or Monsters?
“The crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born; in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear.” -Gramsci 1 Everyone quotes Gramsci now. …
The Mind in the Wheel – Prologue: Everybody Wants a Rock
We who have nothing to “wind string around” are lost in the wilderness. But those who deny this need are “burning our playhouse down.” If you put quotes around certain words it sounds more like a m…
We Are Starting to Sound Like the Thing We Built - Ewan’s Blog
“Stay on the road. Keep clear of the moors.“
Are we on the road to civilisation collapse?
Studying the demise of historic civilisations can tell us about the risk we face today, says collapse expert Luke Kemp. Worryingly, the signs are worsening.
Clouded skies for open networks
Last week, I finished an essay about platform design affordances and content moderation expectations and community-level context collapse on Bluesky for Tech Policy Press and set it aside to cool before a last read-through. An hour later, the Trump administration brought to Bluesky a propaganda-zombie army made
Can Anarchy Protect Us From Bad People?
Pluralistic: Tiktok’s enshittification (21 Jan 2023) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
Here is how platforms die: first, they are good to their users; then they abuse their users to make things better for their business customers; finally, they abuse those business customers to claw back all the value for themselves. Then, they die.
There's a pernicious belief, widely believed, that if a platform isn't on its way to becoming the biggest platform then it's on its way to failing. That belief is silly. So let's stop talking about Bluesky as if that belief is true.
We Needn't Have a One True Platform
www.aaronrosspowell.comDitch Platforms
Guides, stories, and reasons to leave platforms in favor of protocols
The Music Industry is Broken
Enshittification, Despotification, and the Open Internet
How to ACTUALLY Quit Spotify.
Kill Yr Substack | Jason Cosper
EFF is Leaving X
An Explanation (Which I Would Be Very Grateful If You Took The Time To Read)
