Cory Doctorow on how we lost the internet

Reverse engineering, DRM, and IP expansion

• Strong support for legalizing reverse-engineering, jailbreaking, and modification of products as a way to weaken US tech monopolies and restore genuine ownership.
• Several commenters note EU countries already have limited rights to reverse engineer for interoperability, but all must also implement anti‑circumvention laws, which significantly blunt right‑to‑repair.
• Concerns over “ridiculous expansion” of IP: software patents (esp. in Europe via the Unified Patent Court) and DRM are seen as corporate overreach and even judicial capture.
• There is disagreement on Doctorow’s claim that US tariff threats explain DMCA‑style laws abroad: some say the real driver is international copyright treaties (e.g., WIPO) and domestic governments, not US pressure; others counter that duress can’t be ruled out and treaties can be changed.

Data, labor, and exploitative pricing (nursing apps)

• Many see using credit‑score/debt data to lowball nurses’ pay as clearly unethical and argue it should be illegal.
• Others frame it as “the market working” and say the real issue is cartelized platforms and artificially constrained hospital supply, not the data use itself.
• Several argue exploitation of indebted workers is a symptom worth banning directly, regardless of cartel structure.

GDPR, consent, and worker power

• Debate over whether employers could lawfully bake high‑intrusion data access into employment contracts under GDPR.
• One side claims consent-in-contract is effectively allowed and enforcement is weak, citing widespread opt‑outs from the Working Time Directive.
• Others respond that courts require “free” consent (no job‑or‑nothing tradeoff) and have struck down all‑or‑nothing models; they argue such clauses would be void.
• Discussion of uneven union strength across Europe and how stronger unions can resist such abuses, versus weaker labor regimes.

“Enshittification”: term, scope, and politics

• Large subthread on whether the term “enshittification” is politically self‑defeating:
  • Critics: it sounds juvenile, alienates academics and legislators, and blurs a specific platform‑decay pattern into a vague “everything got worse online”.
  • Supporters: it’s vivid, widely understood, has entered mainstream discussion, and elites can adopt a tamer synonym (e.g., “platform decay”) in formal contexts.
• Some see objections as tone‑policing or “pearl clutching,” arguing the real blocker is corporate influence over lawmaking, not vocabulary.

Competition, app stores, and right-to-repair

• Doctorow’s idea of alternative low‑fee app stores and open diagnostics is popular in principle.
• Skeptics note alternative app stores already exist and haven’t seen mass “flocking,” though others argue mobile platforms are still structurally hostile and recent EU actions against Apple may change dynamics.
• Broad support for killing anti‑circumvention/DRM locks on hardware (cars, tractors, games) without abolishing copyright itself.

Ethics, labor markets, and how bad systems ship

• One commenter asks how so many people agree to implement obviously exploitative systems; responses point to:
  • Economic pressure and willingness to trade morals for pay.
  • Collapse of tech‑worker scarcity after mass layoffs, reducing the ability of engineers to say “no”.
• Others link “enshittification” to broader capitalism dynamics, concentration, and the drive to extract more money once growth slows.

Old vs. new internet

• Some nostalgia for the “old good internet” where barriers to entry kept out walled gardens, with a provocative suggestion that not all technologies should be fully “democratized.”
• Counterpoint: limiting access only delays problems; it doesn’t solve structural issues of power and regulation.

Miscellaneous

• Notes about Google Translate sometimes failing on the article (possibly due to LWN blocking Google traffic) and suggestions to use Firefox’s offline translation.
• References to related talks and podcasts expanding on who “broke” the internet and how.