https://lwn.net/SubscriberLink/1021871/698d9012aeb99997/
'Cory Doctorow wears many hats: digital activist, science-fiction author,
journalist, and more. He has also written many books, both fiction and
non-fiction, runs the
Pluralistic blog, is a visiting professor, and is an
advisor to the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF); his
Chokepoint
Capitalism co-author, Rebecca Giblin, gave a 2023 keynote in Australia that we
covered. Doctorow gave a rousing keynote on the state of the
"enshitternet"—today's internet—to kick off the recently held PyCon US 2025 in
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
He began by noting that he is known for coining the term "enshittification"
about the decay of tech platforms, so attendees were probably expecting to hear
about that; instead, he wanted to start by talking about nursing. A recent
study described how nurses are increasingly getting work through one of three
main apps that "bill themselves out as 'Uber for nursing'". The nurses never
know what they will be paid per hour prior to accepting a shift and the three
companies act as a cartel in order to "play all kinds of games with the way
that labor is priced".
In particular, the companies purchase financial information from a data broker
before offering a nurse a shift; if the nurse is carrying a lot of credit-card
debt, especially if some of that is delinquent, the amount offered is reduced.
"Because, the more desperate you are, the less you'll accept to come into work
and do that grunt work of caring for the sick, the elderly, and the dying."
That is horrific on many levels, he said, but "it is emblematic of
'enshittification'", which is one of the reasons he highlighted it.'
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
