Examining capitalism's chokepoints

This week we’re talking with Cory Doctorow (this episode contains explicit language) about his newest book Chokepoint Capitalism, which he co-autored with Rebecca Giblin. Chokepoint Capitalism is about how big tech and big content have captured creative labor markets and the ways we can win them back. We talk about chokepoints creating chickenized reverse-centaurs, paying for your robot boss (think Uber, Doordash, Amazon Drivers), the chickenization that’s climbing the priviledge gradient from the most blue collar workers to the middle-class. There are chokepoints in open source, AI generative art, interoperability, music, film, and media. To quote Cory, “We’re all fighting the same fight.”

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Featuring:

• Cory Doctorow – Mastodon, Twitter, GitHub, Website
• Adam Stacoviak – Mastodon, Twitter, GitHub, LinkedIn, Website
• Jerod Santo – Mastodon, Twitter, GitHub, LinkedIn

Show Notes:

• Buy Cory’s books
• Gig Work Is the Opposite of Steampunk
• TikTok’s Enshittification
• Rural towns and poor urban neighborhoods are being devoured by dollar stores
• What is Chokepoint Capitalism?
• Revenge of the Chickenized Reverse-Centaurs
• Cory on Twitter explaining “chickenization “
• Red Team Blues: Another audiobook that Amazon won’t sell
• The Memex Method
• Changelog Interviews #221: How we got here with Cory Doctorow

Something missing or broken? PRs welcome!

Timestamps:

(00:00) - This week on The Changelog
(01:35) - Sponsor: DevCycle
(04:11) - Start the show!
(05:42) - How Cory is able to write so much
(13:58) - Blogging is researching a future book
(16:44) - Constantly spitting out words
(18:20) - Chickenized Reverse-Centaurs
(20:22) - Google made ONE successful product (search)
(20:59) - Three poultry packers control Chicken farmers in America
(23:03) - Chickenization of gig work
(23:56) - Chickenization is climbing the priviledge gradient
(24:19) - What's a Centaur?
(25:21) - Paying for your robot boss
(27:46) - Sponsor: Postman
(31:24) - Let's talk "Chokepoint Capitalism"
(37:43) - Chokepoints in Open Source
(39:15) - Chokepoint in AI generative art
(51:07) - It's bleak but we can change stuff (together)
(53:13) - Systems are intrinsically interoperable
(59:58) - Sponsor: Square
(1:00:50) - Federated media circumvents the chokepoint
(1:03:47) - High switching costs
(1:06:35) - Is there a perfect world?
(1:11:04) - Always have a backup
(1:11:51) - Regulation and competition
(1:15:14) - Why did we stop enforcing anti-trust law?
(1:17:45) - We're all fighting the same fight
(1:19:33) - There's only one fight
(1:21:09) - Chokepoint status on Podcasting
(1:25:44) - Up next on The Changelog