Disenshittify or die! How hackers can seize the means of computation (2024)

1 pointsposted 11 hours ago
by undeveloper

1 Comments

undeveloper

11 hours ago

From DEF CON 32. Particularly stuck out to me:

> Think about Amazon. Warehouse workers have to piss in bottles and have the highest rate of on the job injuries of any comparable company in the industry, whereas Amazon coders get to show up for work with facial piercings, green Mohawks, and black t-shirts that say things their bosses don't understand. They can piss whenever they want to. That's not because Jeff Bezos loves Tech workers, it's because they're scared you'll quit and they won't be able to replace you. Another William Gibson quote:

> The future is here, it's just not evenly distributed.

> You know who lives in the future? Amazon warehouse workers. They are living in your future. Drivers whose eyeballs are monitored by AI cameras that do phenology on their faces to figure out when went to dock their pay and warehouse workers whose bodies are ruined in a matter of months. As tech bosses beef up this Reserve Army of unemployed skilled Tech workers, those Tech workers --- you folks --- will arrive at the same future as them.

> Look, I know you spent your careers explaining in words so small your boss could understand them that you refuse to enshittify your company's products and I thank you for your service but if you want to go on fighting for the user you need power that's better than scarcity --- you need a union.

https://techworkerscoalition.org/ is suggested right after this. Maybe of interest to some. There was no chapter local to me.