Unless you’ve not been reading, you’ll have noticed that I have been a bit down on “tech” lately. And it’s true: I do feel a sense of despair when I look at the tech industry from a macro perspective, or at least from the perspective of the numerous articles, blogs, and reports discussing the latest dreadful thing tech has enabled.
Last week was no different, with no less than Apple starting to show colours that it never used to. The TLDR is that Apple has been battling with the EU about its App Store policies related to the fees Apple charges. Not the amount of the fees, although that too, is up for debate, the anti-steering fees, a “Core Technology Fee”, and most egregiously, a fee to anyone and everyone that graces their presence by using an Apple product. Apple decided that —during a period in which it has been widely criticised for its tone-deaf advert for the latest iPad in which it crushed the tools of the creative industry, irking many people in that industry to feel more than a little concerned about how Apple now treats this industry compared to its historical stance for the creative arts— it should bully Patreon into taking a cut from all its users whether they use Apple services, software and hardware or not, purely because that used an in-app purchase on the Patreon app. Of course, Patreon could not use Apple’s in-app purchasing system, but no. Apple closed that door too, even going as far as to threaten to kick the Patreon app out of the App Store if they didn’t switch payment processors to Apple’s own. Then it transpired that the rates Patreon charges its users are lower than those of Apple, which is mafia-ing out of people. To remind you, Apple takes a 30% cut in the first year, and if you can qualify for the Small Business Program (if), that is reduced to 15% for each transaction. So now, Patreon users pay Apple the biggest slice of their earnings for little to no actual service rendered, over and above the service actually rendered by Patreon. This has a name, and it is called rent-seeking. This is a feudal economy and brings us back to medieval times when lords of the manor trashed the commoner’s rights to extract more and more money to gain and sustain wealth. This will not end well for Apple.
This is by no means the only big tech company doing this, and it is precisely this that is contributing to my overall dismay of the industry. And without looking like Old Man Shouting at Clouds, I yearn for us to get back to a time when tech tried to solve real-world problems in the most upfront and honest manner it used to. I’m not naive; I know it wasn’t all like that. But things have shifted completely 180 with companies defaulting to shady business practices and rent-seeking as a strategy, which dismays me.
If this is new to you, I suggest you read Cory Doctorow’s and Ed Citron’s excellent work. You may not agree with everything they say, but you will undeniably notice that things have gotten worse on the Internet for a while and are not improving.
I just had my attendance confirmed for the upcoming 19th Internet Governance Forum. I’ll follow the sessions for anything that catches my attention and report back here when possible. Still, as I’m a remote participant and the meeting’s timezone is many hours in the future, I might have to wait for recordings and transcripts to process.
Reading
Techdirt has a good write-up on a recent report that seems to indicate that LEOs from the likes of Blue Origin and Starlink are causing/about to cause another environmental disaster. If you were around in the 80s, one environmental subject became the centre of attention: the Ozone Layer. Spray cans of various products like hair products, paint, etc., emitted chemicals that contributed to the decay of the ozone layer faster than had previously been observed, which was a significant danger to the planet. Within a few years, the world collaborated, CFCs were banned, and the ozone layer has largely recovered. It is all under threat from the daily decay of SEOs entering the atmosphere as they fall out of orbit and end their useful life. Estimates place around 29 tons of satellites will enter the atmosphere every day. Yes, day. You read that right. Move fast and break things.
Brian Merchant writes a blog called Blood in the Machine. He came to my attention as he single-handedly reframed the definition of a Luddite to what it actually meant, rather than the negative image of a technophobic imbecile that much of industry has progressed for decades. Luddite even came to be used as an insult or a word to suggest that one is not stupid. This is patently false, and Brian’s blog, Blood in the Machine, is a good site to read regularly to give a better perspective on tech. His latest article talks about AI and how there is now a concerted fightback from artists and others who are tired of having their works used, refactored and spat out for profit without so much of a request for use, attribution or, of course, payment. I’ve been looking into legislation around this issue in the Caribbean, and as far as I can tell, there is nothing to protect artists from the greed of the LLMs. Moar data.1 So it isn’t an issue over there or limited to Silicon Valley. It’s the livelihoods of hardworking-scraping to make a living in very challenging circumstances-artists in the Caribbean. Move fast and break things.
Lastly, I wanted to talk about Worldcoin, the shitcoin pyramid scam disguised as an inherently insecure and fundamentally flawed “digital ID”. Some governments are waking up to this fact, something I have highlighted here before, but so far, precious little has been discussed in the Caribbean. I wish to call on CARICOM and the member states to ban its implementation before proper due process proactively, risk assessment and financial, cybersecurity, privacy and consumer rights legislation are in place to protect people in the region adequately. It has no place here. Move fast and break things.
Not breaking things, but moving fast enough. Have a great week.
