Many recent posts of his such as Keir Starmer appoints Jeff Bezos as his “first buddy”: Regulatory capture, right there out in the open make it clear that he isn't a fan of Bezos today, but he was once... as this post Cory Doctorow is wrong about the internet just reminded me, here is the opening of Chapter 2 of his 2008 novel Little Brother:
Was there some point where he explicitly acknowledged his change of opinion about Bezos and Amazon?
Or was the shift in his public comments on the subject more gradual?
(if i tag @pluralistic@mamot.fr maybe he sees this and can answer himself? Cory, if you do see this, forgive me for linking to one of your haters... personally I am looking forward to reading Enshittification 😄)
5 Comments
PonyOfWar@pawb.social · 32 pts · 255d
I don't know about him specifically, but I'd say it's a shift in opinion that many of us went through. 2008 was a very different world. Amazon wasn't quite the evil empire it is today. It was one of the only usable online shops, leagues ahead of almost everything else available.
dontsayaword@piefed.social · 21 pts · 255d
Amazon at the beginning (as a bookstore) was pretty universally liked. That was before they became the evil empire of today.
everett@lemmy.ml · 8 pts · 255d
That's important context. Every chapter of Little Brother was dedicated to a different bookstore, which is a little different than "Hey Amazon, btw I love you."
thisisbutaname@discuss.tchncs.de · 19 pts · 255d
It probably has to do with the enshittification of Amazon, at least in part. Note how he praises the recommendation algorithm, while in a talk I recently saw he criticized how that same algorithm now pushes promoted products and Amazon knockoffs over what would be best for the customer.
GlacialTurtle@lemmy.ml · 5 pts · 255d
The quote from the TNR review is genuinely insane. Validating my intense dislike of Yasha Levine that they genuinely think a license to use the internet is some sort of reasonable response.
I wish there were better critics.