|
Chokepoint Capitalism
''Chokepoint Capitalism: How Big Tech and Big Content Captured Creative Labor Markets and How Well Win Them Back'' is a non-fiction book by Rebecca Giblin and Cory Doctorow, published in 2022 by Scribe in Australia and the UK and Beacon Press in the United States. ''Chokepoint Capitalism'' is also a term coined by Giblin and Doctorow to describe the phenomenon of powerful corporations systematically "chokepointing" their markets by locking in buyers and sellers, eliminating competition, and eventually using their market power to squeeze out more than a fair share of value. While Giblin and Doctorow argue chokepoints are a defining feature of modern economies, the book primarily focuses on chokepoints in creative markets. Synopsis In the first half of the book, Giblin and Doctorow argue that companies including Amazon, Audible, Spotify, Live Nation and Google (via control of ad markets and via YouTube), have created monopsony markets where they are functionally the only buyers i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cory Doctorow
Cory Efram Doctorow (; born 17 July 1971) is a Canadian-British blogger, journalist, and science fiction author who served as co-editor of the blog ''Boing Boing''. He is an activist in favour of liberalising copyright laws and a proponent of the Creative Commons organization, using some of its licences for his books. Some common themes of his work include digital rights management, file sharing, and post scarcity, post-scarcity economics. Life and career Cory Efram Doctorow was born in Toronto, Ontario, on 17 July 1971. He is of Ashkenazi Jewish descent. His paternal grandfather was born in what is now Poland and his paternal grandmother was from Leningrad, Russia (now St. Petersburg). Both fled Nazi Germany's advance eastward during World War II, and as a result Doctorow's father was born in a displaced persons camp near Baku, Azerbaijan. His grandparents and father emigrated to Canada from the Soviet Union. Doctorow's mother's family were Ukrainian-Russian Romanians. Doctorow ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stephen Fry
Sir Stephen John Fry (born 24 August 1957) is an English actor, broadcaster, comedian, director, narrator and writer. He came to prominence as a member of the comic act Fry and Laurie alongside Hugh Laurie, with the two starring in ''A Bit of Fry & Laurie'' (1989–1995) and ''Jeeves and Wooster'' (1990–1993). He also starred in the sketch series ''Alfresco (TV series), Alfresco'' (1983–1984) with Laurie, Emma Thompson, and Robbie Coltrane, and in ''Blackadder'' (1986–1989) alongside Rowan Atkinson. Since 2011 he has served as president of the mental health charity Mind (charity), Mind. In 2025, he was Knight Bachelor, knighted for services to mental health awareness, the environment and charity. Fry's film acting roles include playing Oscar Wilde in the film ''Wilde (film), Wilde'' (1997), for which he was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama, Golden Globe Award for Best Actor; Inspector Thompson in Robert Altman's murder mystery ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Network Effect
In economics, a network effect (also called network externality or demand-side economies of scale) is the phenomenon by which the Value (economics), value or utility a user derives from a Goods, good or Service (economics), service depends on the number of users of compatible products. Network effects are typically positive feedback systems, resulting in users deriving more and more value from a product as more users join the same network. The adoption of a product by an additional user can be broken into two effects: an increase in the value to all other users (''total effect'') and also the enhancement of other non-users' motivation for using the product (''marginal effect''). Network effects can be direct or indirect. Direct network effects arise when a given user's utility increases with the number of other users of the same product or technology, meaning that adoption of a product by different users is complementary. This effect is separate from effects related to price, suc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vendor Lock-in
In economics, vendor lock-in, also known as proprietary lock-in or customer lockin, makes a customer dependent on a vendor for products, unable to use another vendor without substantial switching costs. The use of open standards and alternative options makes systems tolerant of change, so that decisions can be postponed until more information is available or unforeseen events are addressed. Vendor lock-in does the opposite: it makes it difficult to move from one solution to another. Lock-in costs that create barriers to market entry may result in antitrust action against a monopoly. Lock-in types ; Monopolistic : Whether a single vendor controls the market for the method or technology being locked in to. Distinguishes between being locked to the mere technology, or specifically the vendor of it. This class of lock-in is potentially technologically hard to overcome if the monopoly is held up by barriers to market that are nontrivial to circumvent, such as patents, secre ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Platform Capitalism
Platform capitalism refers to the activities of companies such as Google, Facebook, Apple, Microsoft, Uber, Airbnb, Amazon and others to operate as platforms. In this business model both hardware and software are used as a foundation (platform) for other actors to conduct their own business.L. Weatherby, "Delete Your Account: On the Theory of Platform Capitalism," Los Angeles Review of Books, 2018. Platform capitalism has been both heralded as beneficialA. McAfee and E. Brynjolfsson, Machine, platform, crowd : harnessing our digital future. W. W. Norton and Company, 2017. and denounced as detrimentalJ. Lanier, Ten arguments for deleting your social media accounts right now. Henry Holt and Co., 2018. by various authors. The trends identified in platform capitalism have similarities with those described under the heading of surveillance capitalism.S. Zuboff, The age of surveillance capitalism: the fight for a human future at the new frontier of power. PublicAffairs, 2019. Technolo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Enshittification
Enshittification, also known as crapification and platform decay, is a pattern in which two-sided online products and services decline in quality over time. Initially, vendors create high-quality offerings to attract users, then they degrade those offerings to better serve business customers, and finally degrade their services to users and business customers to maximize profits for shareholders. Writer Cory Doctorow coined the neologism ''enshittification'' in November 2022, though he was not the first to describe and label the concept. Doctorow's term has been widely adopted. The American Dialect Society selected it as its 2023 Word of the Year, with Australia's ''Macquarie Dictionary'' following suit for 2024. Merriam-Webster and Dictionary.com also list ''enshittification'' as a word. Doctorow advocates for two ways to reduce enshittification: upholding the end-to-end principle, which asserts that platforms should transmit data in response to user requests rather than algo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Futurama (season 8)
The eighth season of ''Futurama'' consisted of ten episodes. It premiered on Hulu in the United States on July 24, 2023. Although the seventh season was intended to be the final season, having concluded in September 2013, Hulu greenlit the eighth season in February 2022. All of the main voice cast returned, including John DiMaggio after he spent a month in negotiations to sign a new deal with Disney. This season has alternatively been titled the eighth season (production), and the eleventh season (broadcast). This list follows the previous season box sets, which feature the episodes in the original, intended production season order, ignoring the order of broadcast. Cast and characters Regular * Billy West as Philip J. Fry, Professor Farnsworth, Zoidberg, Zapp Brannigan, Richard Nixon's Head, Smitty, Judge Ron Whitey * Katey Sagal as Turanga Leela * John DiMaggio as Bender, Elzar, Joey Mousepad, Igner, Robot Santa, Sal, Randy * Tress MacNeille as Mom, Monique, Linda, The Gr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
David A
David (; , "beloved one") was a king of ancient Israel and Judah and the third king of the United Monarchy, according to the Hebrew Bible and Old Testament. The Tel Dan stele, an Aramaic-inscribed stone erected by a king of Aram-Damascus in the late 9th/early 8th centuries BCE to commemorate a victory over two enemy kings, contains the phrase (), which is translated as " House of David" by most scholars. The Mesha Stele, erected by King Mesha of Moab in the 9th century BCE, may also refer to the "House of David", although this is disputed. According to Jewish works such as the '' Seder Olam Rabbah'', '' Seder Olam Zutta'', and '' Sefer ha-Qabbalah'' (all written over a thousand years later), David ascended the throne as the king of Judah in 885 BCE. Apart from this, all that is known of David comes from biblical literature, the historicity of which has been extensively challenged,Writing and Rewriting the Story of Solomon in Ancient Israel; by Isaac Kalimi; page 3 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Writers Guild Of America West
The Writers Guild of America West (WGAW) is a labor union representing film, television, radio, and new media writers. It was formed in 1954 from five organizations representing writers, including the Screen Writers Guild. It has around 20,000 members. The WGAW and the Writers Guild of America, East (WGAE), though independent entities, jointly brand themselves together as the Writers Guild of America (WGA), and cooperate on activities such as launching coordinated strike actions and administering the Writers Guild of America Awards. The WGAE is an affiliate of the International Affiliation of Writers Guilds. Governance The WGAW is governed by its membership. Elections for a board of directors are held annually by secret mail-in ballot. Half of the board is elected each year to a two-year term of office, and a board member may not serve more than four consecutive terms. In 2022 the officers are: * President: Meredith Stiehm * Vice President: Michele Mulroney * Secretary-Treasure ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tim Harford
Timothy Douglas Harford (born 27 September 1973) is an English economic journalist who lives in Oxford.Video (and audio) of interview of Tim Harford by Will Wilkinson on Bloggingheads.tvAn interview with Tim Harford about ''The Logic of Life'' on ''The Marketplace of Ideas'' Harford is the author of four economics books and writes his long-running '' |
Financial Times
The ''Financial Times'' (''FT'') is a British daily newspaper printed in broadsheet and also published digitally that focuses on business and economic Current affairs (news format), current affairs. Based in London, the paper is owned by a Japanese holding company, Nikkei, Inc., Nikkei, with core editorial offices across Britain, the United States and continental Europe. In July 2015, Pearson plc, Pearson sold the publication to Nikkei for Pound sterling, £844 million (US$1.32 billion) after owning it since 1957. In 2019, it reported one million paying subscriptions, three-quarters of which were digital subscriptions. In 2023, it was reported to have 1.3 million subscribers of which 1.2 million were digital. The newspaper has a prominent focus on Business journalism, financial journalism and economic analysis rather than News media, generalist reporting, drawing both criticism and acclaim. It sponsors an Financial Times and McKinsey Business Book of the Year Award, annual book ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jimmy Wales
Jimmy Donal Wales (born August 7, 1966), also known as Jimbo Wales, is an American List of Internet entrepreneurs, Internet entrepreneur and former Trader (finance), financial trader. He is a Founders of Wikipedia, co-founder of the non-profit free encyclopedia, Wikipedia, and the for-profit wiki hosting service Fandom (website), Fandom (formerly Wikia). He has worked on other online projects, including Bomis, Nupedia, WikiTribune, and WT Social. Wales was born in Huntsville, Alabama, where he attended the Randolph School. He earned Bachelor's degree, bachelor's and Master's degree, master's degrees in finance from Auburn University and the University of Alabama, respectively. In graduate school, Wales taught at two universities; he departed before completing a PhD to take a job in finance and later worked as the Chief research officer, research director of Chicago Options Associates. In 1996, Wales and two partners founded Bomis, a web portal known for featuring erotic photo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
