Semantic drift versus ethical drift - Cory Doctorow

[hunter]

2. Bluesky was doomed to enshitification at it's conception.

Enshitification is in it's (metaphorical) DNA.

Cory Doctorow still thinks it can be saved, I don't. I've already deleted it from my personal universe. I don't want to be a contributor to any "market value" it might have when it inevitably sells out. Mostly I don't want to be disappointed.

The most pernicious aspects of the existing internet economy won't be fully mitigated by government regulation, much less the further honing of Creative Commons and Open Source contracts.

Rather it will fall by the mice randomly chewing on the wires. Eventually they'll gnaw through the one that's essential to the stability of the entire edifice.

It's said that Luke Skywalker blew up the Death Star, but that only happened because some idiot carelessly left a neoprene glove in a plasma conduit during its construction. And no, it wasn't "The Force" that compelled the idiot to do it. Mundane circumstance might have caused similar fireworks, Skywalker just got there first.

It's interesting that Doctorow brings up Stephen Jay Gould's "There's no such thing as a fish" in the context of this essay, essentially comparing the complexity of the legal system and the internet to the complexity of nature and evolution. The complexities are not comparable. It's akin to the economists looking for analogous math in physics. Whenever you do this you are not describing reality you are simply creating a new set of beliefs, evermore intricate abstractions of faith. "In God we Trust." It says so on our money. Yeah, whatever.

Doctorow is looking for a name, one that's not "anti-" or "dis-". In our time of greatest necessity I'm certain we'll find one. You can't force these things.