DEF CON 32 - Disenshittify or die! How hackers can seize the means of computation - Cory Doctorow

One thing I find about authors; good ones, is that they can give a good talk. Doctorow's one of them. While I have gripes with his work on Chokepoint Capitalism, it'd be disrespectful to ignore the research and accessibility of the book itself. This talk opens up with a quick retelling and explaining as to how finance began taking control of then-utility-centric companies became more degraded experiences over time.

People have mentioned that he's a good orator and I see why — again, I attribute this to being a good writer. He swiftly highlights the coupling of state and corporations working to milk every ounce of value from people and manufacturing even more value by crafting more value from commodifying every aspect of our lives. As someone, for a very brief moment, who played into the idea of the quantitative self, this was something I bought into. It wasn't an explicitly selling of myself but it was a public validation of the mass quantification of behavior that we see companies now sell as a new flagship feature, as opposed to making things like replaceable batteries or alternative application distribution channels.

Cory's video from the year prior is also good and it's clear that he picked up exactly where he left off.