Comment on [Cory Doctorow] With An Audacious Plan To Halt The Internet’s Enshittification And Throw It Into Reverse

wizardbeard@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

• knova@infosec.pub ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

  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.

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  • kautau@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    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

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    • wizardbeard@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

      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.

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      • Benjaben@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

        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.

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  • wizardbeard@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    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.

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• sunbeam60@lemmy.one ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

  Is he, or has he ever been, a communist or associated with communists! We demand an answer!

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  • wizardbeard@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    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.

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    • FlyingSquid@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

      You do know you can be married to someone and not agree with their politics, yes?

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      • wizardbeard@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

        … 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 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.

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• TheGrandNagus@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

  Her running MakieLab (which might indeed utilise DRM, idk) doesn’t invalidate her husband’s point.

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  • wizardbeard@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    It’s no longer Makielab, as it was acquied by Disney. What they actually do now ias a subsidiary is unclear beyond the quote from her Wikipedia page, especially as her personal site linked to by Wikipedia is down.

    I spent a good chunk of my teen years on 4chan, I’m normally the one pushing the idea that a good point is valid regardless of the source.

    Anyway, I edited my comment and I’ll copy that here: 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.

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    • TheGrandNagus@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

      MakieLab still exists, even though it is now owned by Disney. YouTube still exists and has its own CEO despite being owned by Google.

      I don’t see how his wife being the CEO of a company that got bought by Disney counts as him making points from an unsavoury position.

      Firstly, people are not their spouses. Secondly, there’s no proof I’ve seen that this company goes against the things that Cory speaks of.

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      • wizardbeard@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

        Judging from the excerpt quoted in my original comment, it has at least been renamed to StudioLab.

        counts as him making points from an unsavoury position

        Didn’t say that it did. It’s just something that I didn’t know until recently, that I have only seen brought up once in the decade plus of Cory being treated as an important source of truth in this sphere.

        I’m not trying to say that it somehow makes him full of shit or anything. Personally it gives me pause about some of his previous rants, and casts a minor amount shade on his position. But I also personally feel that the merits of a point made matter significantly more than the source.

        I intentionally said nothing more than the fact itself in my original comment. Everyone is welcome to decide how important or not it is to them personally.

        It’s exactly the kind of thing that people tend to use to challenge someone’s position, so I understand the confusion. Just wish people would stop coming at me like I kicked their puppy for bringing it up.

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• Whats_your_reasoning@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

  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.”

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• tteok@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

  I met Cory at a book signing and told him how much I loved Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom and he told her 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.

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• corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

  He still makes good points, but the position he’s doing it from should be known is all.

  I’ll remember that whenever George Conway or his wife talk about politics: apparently their diametrically-opposed views are somehow intertwined.

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• dtrain@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

  See Kelly Ann Conway and George Conway.

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