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Cory Doctorow

But when *we* tried to twiddle back, that was "#FelonyContemptOfBusinessModel," and the airlines sued:

cnbc.com/2014/12/30/airline-su

And sued:

nytimes.com/2018/01/06/busines

Platforms don't just hate it when end-users twiddle back - if anything they are even more aggressive when their business-users dare to twiddle.

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12 Apr 2023 at 19:17 | Open on mamot.fr
9 comments
Cory Doctorow

Take Para, an app that #Doordash drivers used to get a peek at the wages offered for jobs before they accepted them - something that Doordash hid from its workers. Doordash ruthlessly attacked Para, saying that by letting drivers know how much they'd earn before they did the work, Para was violating the law:

eff.org/deeplinks/2021/08/tech

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12 Apr 2023 at 19:17 | Open on mamot.fr
Cory Doctorow

Which law? Well, take your pick. The modern meaning of "#IP" is "any law that lets me use the law to control my competitors, competition or customers." Platforms use a mix of #anticircumvention law, #patent, #copyright, #contract, #cybersecurity and other legal systems to weave together a thicket of rules that allow them to shut down rivals for their Felony Contempt of Business Model:

locusmag.com/2020/09/cory-doct

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12 Apr 2023 at 19:17 | Open on mamot.fr
Cory Doctorow

Enshittification relies on *unlimited* twiddling (by platforms), and a general *prohibition* on countertwiddling (by platform users). Enshittification is a form of fishing, in which bait is dangled before different groups of users and then nimbly withdrawn when they lunge for it. Twiddling puts the suppleness into the enshittifier's fishing-rod, and a ban on countertwiddling weighs down platform users so they're always a bit too slow to catch the bait.

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12 Apr 2023 at 19:18 | Open on mamot.fr
Cory Doctorow replied to Cory

Nowhere do we see twiddling's impact more than the "#GigEconomy," where workers are misclassified as contractors and put to work for an app that scripts their every move to the finest degree. When an app is your boss, you work for an employer who docks your pay for violating rules that you aren't allowed to know - and where your attempts to learn those rules are constantly frustrated by the endless back-end twiddling that changes the rules faster than you can learn them.

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12 Apr 2023 at 19:18 | Open on mamot.fr
Cory Doctorow replied to Cory

As with every question of technology, the issue isn't twiddling *per se* - it's who does the twiddling and who gets twiddled. A worker armed with digital tools can play gig work employers off each other and force them to bid up the price of their labor; they can form co-ops with other workers that auto-refuse jobs that don't pay enough, and use digital tools to organize to shift power from bosses to workers:

pluralistic.net/2022/12/02/not

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12 Apr 2023 at 19:18 | Open on mamot.fr
Cory Doctorow replied to Cory

Take #ReverseCentaurs. In AI research, a #centaur is a human assisted by a machine that does more than either could do on their own. For example, a chess master and a chess program can play a better game together than either could play separately. A *reverse* centaur is a *machine assisted by a human*, where the machine is in charge and the human is a meat-puppet.

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12 Apr 2023 at 19:18 | Open on mamot.fr
Cory Doctorow replied to Cory

Think of Amazon warehouse workers wearing haptic wristbands that buzz at them continuously dictating where their hands must be; or Amazon drivers whose eye-movements are continuously tracked in order to penalize drivers who look in the "wrong" direction:

pluralistic.net/2021/02/17/rev

The difference between a centaur and a reverse centaur is the difference between a machine that makes your life better and a machine that makes your life worse so that your boss gets richer.

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Think of Amazon warehouse workers wearing haptic wristbands that buzz at them continuously dictating where their hands must be; or Amazon drivers whose eye-movements are continuously tracked in order to penalize drivers who look in the "wrong" direction:

pluralistic.net/2021/02/17/rev

12 Apr 2023 at 19:19 | Open on mamot.fr
Cory Doctorow replied to Cory

Reverse centaurism is the 21st Century's answer to #Taylorism, the pseudoscience that saw white-coated "experts" subject workers to humiliating choreography down to the smallest movement of your fingertip:

pluralistic.net/2022/08/21/gre

While reverse centaurism was born in warehouses and other company-owned facilities, gig work let it make the leap into workers' homes and cars.

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12 Apr 2023 at 19:19 | Open on mamot.fr
Cory Doctorow replied to Cory

The 21st century has seen a return to the #CottageIndustry - a form of production that once saw workers labor far from their bosses and thus beyond their control - but shriven of the autonomy and dignity that working from home once afforded:

doctorow.medium.com/gig-work-i

The rise and rise of #bossware - which allows for remote surveillance of workers in their homes and cars - has turned "#WorkFromHome" into "#LiveAtWork."

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12 Apr 2023 at 19:19 | Open on mamot.fr
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