Pluralistic: How a billionaire’s mediocre pump-and-dump “book” became a “bestseller” (15 Feb 2024) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow

“The complex web of human interactions that thrived on the internet’s initial technological diversity is now corralled into globe-spanning data-extraction engines making huge fortunes for a tiny few.”

Most people pay to read their own views and moral narratives echoed back at themselves in more articulate and compelling form

In the aftermath of the 2016 Presidential election, these attitudes radically shifted. For different reasons, both sides of the political spectrum began to immensely distrust the platform monopolies. The algorithmically curated streams that had once seemed so futuristic suddenly became Orwellian. Today, it’s not only acceptable to move more of your... See more

Kelly’s vision depends on an evolution of the Internet in which the vast tangle of possible one-on-one connections partition into countless small cliques—each one a fandom or a mini community revelling in the discovery of others who share their quirks. Instead, the social-media giants effectively rerouted these connections through a small number of... See more

The rise of Web 2.0 was heralded as an advancement by not just allowing people to read and write content and do transactions but to connect with each other in new ways. That gave rise, eventually, to Facebook and other social networks, along with a raft of “sharing economy” companies that peddled a fantasy of building community at the heart of busi... See more