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Twitch under fire for new gen AI training system that harvests streamer data for Amazon, says it's on by default because 'if it was opt-in, nobody would opt in' (www.pcgamer.com)

submitted 1 week ago by kuiskaaja@lemmy.ml to c/technology@lemmy.ml

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[–] kibiz0r@midwest.social 8 points 1 week ago (1 children)

No, "convenience" isn't the problem: Enshittification isn't caused by "lazy consumers."

Using Amazon, or Twitter, or Facebook, or Google, or Doordash, or Uber doesn't make you lazy. Platform capitalism isn't enshittifying because you made the wrong shopping choices.

…

When [we] blame corporate power on "laziness," we buy into the corporations' own story about how they came to dominate our lives: we just prefer them. This is how Google explains away its 90% market-share in search: we just chose Google. But we didn't, not really – Google spends tens of billions of dollars every single year buying up the search-box on every website, phone, and operating system:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/21/im-feeling-unlucky/#not-up-to-the-task

Blaming "laziness" for corporate dominance also buys into the monopolists' claim that the only way to have convenient, easy-to-use services is to cede power to them. Facebook claims it's literally impossible for you to carry on social relations with the people that matter to you without also letting them spy on you. When we criticize people for wanting to hang out online with the people they love, we send the message that they need to choose loneliness and isolation, or they will be complicit in monopoly.

[–] umbrella@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

what's the solution, then?

i can see a somewhat clear path in moving people not off of social media, but to fairer platforms.

[–] kibiz0r@midwest.social 3 points 1 week ago

Luckily, we're not just "consumers." We're also citizenswho can exercise political power. That's hard work – but so is organizing a co-op or a boycott. The difference is, when we dog enforcers who wield the power of the state, and line up behind them when they start to do their jobs, we can make deep structural differences that go far beyond anything we can make happen as consumers:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/18/administrative-competence/#i-know-stuff

We're not just "consumers" or "citizens" – we're also workers, and when workers come together in unions, they, too, can concentrate the diffuse, atomized power of the individual into a single, powerful entity that can hold the forces of capital in check:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/10/an-injury-to-one/#is-an-injury-to-all

And all of these things work together; when regulators do their jobs, they protect workers who are unionizing:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/06/goons-ginks-and-company-finks/#if-blood-be-the-price-of-your-cursed-wealth

And strong labor power can force cartels to abandon their plans to rig the market so that every consumer choice makes them more powerful:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/01/how-the-writers-guild-sunk-ais-ship/

And when consumers can choose better, local, more ethical businesses at competitive rates, those choices can make a difference:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/07/10/view-a-sku/

Antimonopoly policy is the foundation for all forms of people-power. The very instant corporations become too big to fail, jail or care is the instant that "voting with your wallet" becomes a waste of time.