Today's threads (a thread)
Inside: Google's AI pricing plan; and more!
Archived at: https://pluralistic.net/2026/01/21/cod-marxism/
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Discussion
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the whole deep surveillance dossier the company has assembled based on your use of all the company's products: Youtube, Maps, Photos, and, of course, Search
When considering the scope of that surveillance dossier don't forget all the data they collect about us through Google Chrome, Google Android, Google Play, Google Pay, every website that uses Google Analytics, and every site that uses Google Fonts. I'm sure it's all useful in improving your Google AI shopping experience.
I'm coming to Colorado! Catch me in #Denver on Thu (Jan 22) at The Tattered Cover:
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/cory-doctorow-live-at-tattered-cover-colfax-tickets-1976644174937
And in #ColoradoSprings this weekend (Jan 23-25), where I'm the Guest of Honor at COSine:
https://www.firstfridayfandom.org/cosine/
Then I'll be in #Ottawa on Jan 28 at Perfect Books:
https://www.instagram.com/p/DS2nGiHiNUh/
And in #Toronto with Tim Wu on Jan 30:
https://nowtoronto.com/event/cory-doctorow-and-tim-wu-enshittification-and-extraction/
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Google's AI pricing plan: From each according to their ability (to pay).
https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic/115933580305240117
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Hey look at this
* A Grassroots Victory in the Golden Age of Bullies https://asupposedlylonething.net/blog/2026/grassroots-victory-golden-age-bullies/
* AI may be everywhere, but it's nowhere in recent productivity statistics https://www.theregister.com/2026/01/15/forrester_ai_jobs_impact/
* The Long Now of the Web: Inside the Internet Archive’s Fight Against Forgetting https://hackernoon.com/the-long-now-of-the-web-inside-the-internet-archives-fight-against-forgetting (h/t DSHR)
* Mark Carney's full speech at the World Economic Forum
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=btqHDhO4h10
* The Line, a Saudi Megaproject, Is Dead
https://www.thenation.com/article/world/the-line-neom-saudi-vision-2030/
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#20yrsago Disney swaps stock for Pixar; Jobs is largest Disney stockholder https://web.archive.org/web/20060129105430/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2006/01/22/cnpixar22.xml&menuId=242&sSheet=/money/2006/01/22/ixcitytop.html
#20yrsago HOWTO anonymize your search history https://web.archive.org/web/20060220004353/https://www.wired.com/news/technology/1,70051-0.html
#15yrsago Bruce Sterling talk on “vernacular video” https://vimeo.com/18977827
#15yrsago Elaborate televised prank on Belgium’s terrible phone company https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxXlDyTD7wo
#15yrsago Portugal: 10 years of decriminalized drugs https://web.archive.org/web/20110120040831/http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2011/01/16/drug_experiment/?page=full
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#15yrsago Woman paralyzed by hickey https://web.archive.org/web/20110123072349/https://www.foxnews.com/health/2011/01/21/new-zealand-woman-partially-paralyzed-hickey/
#15yrsago EFF warns: mobile OS vendors aren’t serious about security https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2011/01/dont-sacrifice-security-mobile-devices
#10yrsago Trumpscript: a programming language based on the rhetorical tactics of Donald Trump https://www.inverse.com/article/10448-coders-assimilate-donald-trump-to-a-programming-language
#10yrsago That time the DoD paid Duke U $335K to investigate ESP in dogs. Yes, dogs. https://www.muckrock.com/news/archives/2016/jan/21/duke-universitys-deep-dive-uncanny-abilities-canin/
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#10yrsago Kathryn Cramer remembers her late husband, David Hartwell, a giant of science fiction https://web.archive.org/web/20160124050729/http://www.kathryncramer.com/kathryn_cramer/2016/01/til-death-did-us-part.html
#10yrsago What the Democratic Party did to alienate poor white Americans https://web.archive.org/web/20160123041632/https://www.alternet.org/economy/robert-reich-why-white-working-class-abandoned-democratic-party
#10yrsago Bernie Sanders/Johnny Cash tee https://web.archive.org/web/20160126070314/https://weardinner.com/products/bernie-cash
#5yrsago NYPD can't stop choking Black men https://pluralistic.net/2021/01/21/i-cant-breathe/#chokeholds
#5yrsago Rolling back the Trump rollback https://pluralistic.net/2021/01/21/i-cant-breathe/#cra
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#1yrsago Winning coalitions aren't always governing coalitions https://pluralistic.net/2025/01/06/how-the-sausage-gets-made/#governing-is-harder
#1yrago The Brave Little Toaster https://pluralistic.net/2025/01/08/sirius-cybernetics-corporation/#chatterbox
#1yrago The cod-Marxism of personalized pricing https://pluralistic.net/2025/01/11/socialism-for-the-wealthy/#rugged-individualism-for-the-poor
#1yrago They were warned https://pluralistic.net/2025/01/13/wanting-it-badly/#is-not-enough
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Yesterday's threads: AI is how bosses wage war on "professions"; and more!
https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic/115927773180408563
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My latest novel is "Picks and Shovels," a historical technothriller set in the Weird Era of the PC, about Ponzi schemes, techbros, and the dawn of enshittification:
https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865908/picksandshovels
--
My latest nonfiction book is the internationally bestselling "Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It," from MCD/Farrar, Straus and Giroux:
https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374619329/enshittification/
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My ebooks and audiobooks (from FSGxMCD, Tor Books, Head of Zeus, McSweeneys, Beacon, Verso and others) are for sale all over the net, but I sell 'em too, and when you buy 'em from me, I earn twice as much and you get books with no DRM and no license "agreements."
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