Feb 21

3 min read

The people’s disruption

Tech rights are workers’ rights.

A giant in a suit leans on a basketball net, holding a giant ball (which has been replaced by the menacing, glowing red eye of HAL9000); two normal sized people stand in one corner, glaring up at him. Hugh D’Andrade/EFF (modified) https://www.eff.org/about/staff/hugh-dandrade Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg CC BY 3.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/us/

“Innovation” is in very bad odor these days. “Disruption” is even more disreputable. But as tech and the global south researcher Rida Qadri writes in Wired, “innovation” isn’t limited to inventing unregulated banks and calling them “fintech” and “disruption” is more than just misclassifying employees as contractors.

--

More from Cory Doctorow

Writer, blogger, activist. Blog: https://pluralistic.net; Mailing list: https://pluralistic.net/plura-list; Twitter: https://twitter.com/doctorow

Love podcasts or audiobooks? Learn on the go with our new app.

Recommended from Medium

Karla Locke

Are we Captivated By and Dependent on Technology? Imagine RVing without it.

Content Marketing Queen

in

GhostMarket

Neoverse X GhostMarket— Contest Announcement

Hanson

Terramaster F2–422 review: This two-bay NAS box offers fast 10-gigabit ethernet streaming

Faisal Abidi

Reviewing Digital Technology Trends Driving The Fourth Industrial Revolution

The Economist

It is now practical to refuel electric vehicles through thin air

Catherine Price

You 3.0: Life and the Digital Savanna

Darkblock

NFT TiX to use Darkblock Unlockable Content at Exit Festival

Can “otoyoldireği” Özel

The Struggle Between Apple And Epic Games Getting Worse

About Help Terms Privacy

Get the Medium app

Cory Doctorow

Cory Doctorow

Writer, blogger, activist. Blog: https://pluralistic.net; Mailing list: https://pluralistic.net/plura-list; Twitter: https://twitter.com/doctorow

More from Medium

Cory Doctorow

Brazil’s “Remuneration Right” will strengthen Big Tech and Big Media

EFF’s Brazilian content regulation banner: A stylized yellow-and-green Brazilian flag with a laptop in the middle; its yellow bars turn into arms that penetrate the laptop’s screen, terminating in grasping claws. Image: EFF https://www.eff.org/files/banner_library/brazil-reach-1.png CC BY 3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/us/

Douglas Rushkoff

The Age of Apocalypto

Civic Ventures

in

Civic Skunk Works

Undercutting the Economy to Cut Inflation?

Louise Burley

The state of the world: COVID, capitalism, climate change, BREXIT and being 22

Help
Status
Writers
Blog
Careers
Privacy
Terms
About
Knowable