After years of pretending that Big Tech was good for "consumers," we've not only woken up to how destructive these companies are, but we're also all increasingly in accord about what to do about it. Hot damn!
Mergers temporarily strengthen labor’s bargaining chip. But in the long run, anti-monopoly experts say, corporate power crushes workers and consumers.
DIY AI, more on Musk, and the NYT strike
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Ticketmaster is destroying live music. Fees as much as 78% of a ticket. Controlling events, venues, even artists. There’s a movement pushing the Justice Department to take on their monopoly. Cory Doctorow breaks it down.
While industrial capitalism got rid of the landlord class, capitalism still had economic rent, but instead of being paid to the landlord class, it is now paid to the banks in the form of interest.
“Surveillance makes worker coordination and solidarity harder, and big data makes capital coordination easier, so the need for both pro-labor and antitrust laws is greater than ever before.”
Lax antitrust rules, cost shifting made billionaire Dutch family dominant force in New Bedford port
Musk’s desire in buying Twitter goes beyond a desire to shape public discourse. Today’s equivalent of the Gilded Age oligarchs, who are gobbling up increasing chunks of the media landscape, also have access to a trove of personal data of users.
Yes, the tech monopolies still have enormous power. But encouraging change is afoot. We just need a lot more of it.
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