Today’s links Kickstarting a book to end enshittification, because Amazon will not carry it: “The Internet Con: How to Seize the Means of Computation” comes out from Verso on Sept 5. Hey look at this: Delights to delectate. This day in history: 2003, 2008, 2013, 2018 Colophon: Recent publications, upcoming/recent appearances, current writing projects, current reading Kickstarting a book to end enshittification, because Amazon will not carry it (permalink) My next book is The Internet Con: How to Seize the Means of Computation: it’s a Big Tech disassembly manual that explains how to disenshittify the web and bring back the old good internet. The hardcover comes from Verso on Sept 5, but the audiobook comes from me – because Amazon refuses to sell my audio: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/doctorow/the-internet-con-how-to-seize-the-means-of-computation If you’d like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here’s a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog: https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/31/seize-the-means-of-computation/#the-internet-con Amazon owns Audible, the monopoly audiobook platform that controls >90% of the audio market. They require mandatory DRM for every book sold, locking those books forever to Amazon’s monopoly platform. If you break up with Amazon, you have to throw away your entire audiobook library. That’s a hell of a lot of leverage to hand to any company, let alone a rapacious monopoly that ran a program targeting small publishers called “Project Gazelle,” where execs were ordered to attack indie publishers “the way a cheetah would pursue a sickly gazelle”: https://www.businessinsider.com/sadistic-amazon-treated-book-sellers-the-way-a-cheetah-would-pursue-a-sickly-gazelle-2013-10 I won’t sell my work with DRM,…Pluralistic: Kickstarting a book to end enshittification, because Amazon will not carry it (31 July 2023)