AI extracted summary for lazy
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Car companies are adding more digital systems to vehicles, which is reducing quality and reliability. Drivers dislike most of the digital features being added.
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Automakers are willing to “enshittify” their products with digital systems because it allows new ways to extract rents and make money through recurring fees, subscriptions, etc. rather than one-time sales.
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This trend is part of the rise of “technofeudalism” where powerful technology companies extract value through ownership of key infrastructure rather than by selling innovative new products.
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Companies across industries are using techniques like VIN-locking and kill switches to limit consumer control and force reliance on the manufacturer for repairs and upgrades.
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Remote attestation technologies like Google’s Web Environment Integrity aim to restrict user freedom over their own devices in order to prevent ad blocking, unauthorized software use, etc.
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Overall, car companies are at the forefront of using digital systems for rent extraction rather than improving products, at the expense of consumer agency and ownership. This is part of a broader tech industry push to lock down general purpose computing.
Critique of capitalism
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Capitalism has transitioned to a rentier model where value is extracted through ownership rather than through selling innovative products and services.
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Giant tech companies like Amazon act more like feudal landlords that extract rent from dependent merchants rather than as capitalists selling in a free market.
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Intellectual property laws have been expanded to help big companies control their competitors, critics, and customers rather than just protect innovation.
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Bailouts and economic policies since 2008 have decoupled corporate income from profits, allowing unprofitable rent-seeking practices to persist.
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The article argues we now live in a “technofeudal” system where control comes from ownership of key infrastructure that others rely on rather than from bringing new competitive products to market.
Overall, it critiques modern capitalism for transitioning from free market competition and innovation to a rentier model dominated by a few monopolistic tech giants restricting user freedom.
Good, with a caveat. Being a liberal, the writer has had to coin a novel term, “technofeudalism” (bad) to oppose it to “capitalism” (good).
We, of course, understand that all this “digital arm-breaking” is just monopoly capitalism, which is just natural evolution of the capitalist system, not an aberration.
The term technofeudalism originates with the Marxist economist Yanis Varoufakis.
He contends that capitalism is in the process of being usurped by a new system, which he calls techno feudalism
Haven’t read his book but to me it sounds exactly what Lenin wrote at the start of State and Revolution about Marxist theory being whitewashed. This technofeudalism bullshit seems like nothing more than a rebranding of imperialism.
Haven’t read it either, I was just pointing out the term wasn’t coined by the author of the article
Lol this “going meta” concept is so true. I will give that book a try (survival of the richest by doug rushkoff), it is available on Anna’s archive on epub, perfect for my e-reader.
