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Chokepoint Capitalism: How Big Tech and Big Content Captured Creative Labor Markets and How We'll Win Them Back
A call to action for the creative class and labor movement to rally against the power of Big Tech and Big Media
Corporate concentration has breached the stratosphere, as have corporate profits. An ever-expanding constellation of industries are now monopolies (where sellers have excessive power over buyers) or monopsonies (where buyers hold the whip hand over sellers)--or both.
In Culture Heist, scholar Rebecca Giblin and writer and activist Cory Doctorow argue that thanks to "chokepoint capitalism," exploitative businesses create insurmountable barriers to competition that enable them to capture value that rightfully belongs to others. All workers are weakened by this, but the problem is especially well-illustrated by the plight of creative workers. From Amazon's role in radically changing publishing's economics, to the influence of Spotify in leveraging digital rights management, these few vicious monopsonists have lobbied for more barriers for new entrants.
By analyzing book publishing and news, live music and music streaming, screenwriting, radio and more, Giblin and Doctorow first deftly show how powerful corporations construct "anti-competitive flywheels" designed to lock in users and suppliers, make their markets hostile to new entrants, and then force workers and suppliers to accept unfairly low prices.
In the book's second half, Giblin and Doctorow explain how to batter through those chokepoints, with tools ranging from transparency rights to collective action and ownership, radical interoperability, contract terminations, job guarantees, and minimum wages for creative work.
Culture Heist is a call to workers of all sectors to unite to help smash these chokepoints and take back the power and profit that's been siphoned away--before it's too late.
Corporate concentration has breached the stratosphere, as have corporate profits. An ever-expanding constellation of industries are now monopolies (where sellers have excessive power over buyers) or monopsonies (where buyers hold the whip hand over sellers)--or both.
In Culture Heist, scholar Rebecca Giblin and writer and activist Cory Doctorow argue that thanks to "chokepoint capitalism," exploitative businesses create insurmountable barriers to competition that enable them to capture value that rightfully belongs to others. All workers are weakened by this, but the problem is especially well-illustrated by the plight of creative workers. From Amazon's role in radically changing publishing's economics, to the influence of Spotify in leveraging digital rights management, these few vicious monopsonists have lobbied for more barriers for new entrants.
By analyzing book publishing and news, live music and music streaming, screenwriting, radio and more, Giblin and Doctorow first deftly show how powerful corporations construct "anti-competitive flywheels" designed to lock in users and suppliers, make their markets hostile to new entrants, and then force workers and suppliers to accept unfairly low prices.
In the book's second half, Giblin and Doctorow explain how to batter through those chokepoints, with tools ranging from transparency rights to collective action and ownership, radical interoperability, contract terminations, job guarantees, and minimum wages for creative work.
Culture Heist is a call to workers of all sectors to unite to help smash these chokepoints and take back the power and profit that's been siphoned away--before it's too late.
312 pages, Hardcover
First published September 27, 2022
About the author
Rebecca Giblin
4 books47 followersRebecca Giblin is a professor at Melbourne Law School, where she researches at the intersection of law and culture. Her three books take new lenses to cultural challenges, using them to disentangle seemingly intractable problems.
'CHOKEPOINT CAPITALISM' (with Cory Doctorow, 2022), deconstructs the playbook used by Big Business (like Amazon!) to capture creative labor markets - and then sets out an extensive series of detailed, shovel-ready solutions for taking them back, to get artists paid.
'What if we could reimagine copyright?' (ed, with Professor Kimberlee Weatherall, 2017) poses a radical thought experiment: what if we could start with a blank slate, and write ourselves a brand new copyright system? What if we could design a law, from scratch, unconstrained by existing treaty obligations, business models and questions of political feasibility? Would we opt for radical overhaul, or would we keep our current fundamentals? Which parts of the system would we jettison? Which would we keep? In short, what might a copyright system designed to further the public interest in the current legal and sociological environment actually look like? By asking these questions, a team of experts from around the world shine new light on problems with the existing system - and highlight new possibilities for achievable reform.
'Code Wars' (2011) develops a compelling new theory to explain why a decade of ostensibly successful litigation failed to reduce the number, variety or availability of P2P file sharing applications – and highlights ways the law might need to change if it is to have any meaningful effect in future. (Please don't pay the outrageous academic publishing rate for a physical copy - it's available on most ebook platforms for a fraction of the price, and many college libraries hold the hardback.)
Rebecca (she/her) lives mostly in Melbourne, Australia, on unceded lands of the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin nations. She's passionate about promoting artists' rights and access to knowledge and culture. Outside of that you can usually find her talking, dancing, hiking, running, cooking, doing yoga, talking intensely to all kinds of people about all kinds of things, or reveling in all things ridiculous.
'CHOKEPOINT CAPITALISM' (with Cory Doctorow, 2022), deconstructs the playbook used by Big Business (like Amazon!) to capture creative labor markets - and then sets out an extensive series of detailed, shovel-ready solutions for taking them back, to get artists paid.
'What if we could reimagine copyright?' (ed, with Professor Kimberlee Weatherall, 2017) poses a radical thought experiment: what if we could start with a blank slate, and write ourselves a brand new copyright system? What if we could design a law, from scratch, unconstrained by existing treaty obligations, business models and questions of political feasibility? Would we opt for radical overhaul, or would we keep our current fundamentals? Which parts of the system would we jettison? Which would we keep? In short, what might a copyright system designed to further the public interest in the current legal and sociological environment actually look like? By asking these questions, a team of experts from around the world shine new light on problems with the existing system - and highlight new possibilities for achievable reform.
'Code Wars' (2011) develops a compelling new theory to explain why a decade of ostensibly successful litigation failed to reduce the number, variety or availability of P2P file sharing applications – and highlights ways the law might need to change if it is to have any meaningful effect in future. (Please don't pay the outrageous academic publishing rate for a physical copy - it's available on most ebook platforms for a fraction of the price, and many college libraries hold the hardback.)
Rebecca (she/her) lives mostly in Melbourne, Australia, on unceded lands of the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin nations. She's passionate about promoting artists' rights and access to knowledge and culture. Outside of that you can usually find her talking, dancing, hiking, running, cooking, doing yoga, talking intensely to all kinds of people about all kinds of things, or reveling in all things ridiculous.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 151 reviews
November 9, 2022
Super-interesting topic. And quite a good book.
Just to be clear: this book is not a general complaint about big tech and the exploitation of the masses - it's dedicated precisely to creative job markets (artists), and it's far from being generic or populistic. Quite the contrary - especially its first part is filled with very interesting details and some in-depth analysis.
Parts, yes, let's talk about parts - it's very important. So the book consists of two: a description of the problem and a description of the (potential) solution(s). The first one is nearly flawless - rational, to the point, industry after industry - 5 undisputed stars. Unfortunately, the second one is lacking: the majority of the solutions seem to be in the right direction, but they lack specificity, detail, and - in the end - they go nuts (guaranteed jobs, minimum payments, etc.). It's not really surprising, keeping in mind Doctorow's political opinions, but I still was very disappointed - I don't think these proposals (well, maybe except for the time limitations for the rights) will make things progress ... So, unfortunately, the second part is 2.5 stars tops.
The 2nd part doesn't disqualify the book - by all means, no! The problem described here is so important that everyone should take a look and make her/his own opinion. Regardless of whether he/she likes the proposed solutions or not. Solid 4 stars. Recommended.
Just to be clear: this book is not a general complaint about big tech and the exploitation of the masses - it's dedicated precisely to creative job markets (artists), and it's far from being generic or populistic. Quite the contrary - especially its first part is filled with very interesting details and some in-depth analysis.
Parts, yes, let's talk about parts - it's very important. So the book consists of two: a description of the problem and a description of the (potential) solution(s). The first one is nearly flawless - rational, to the point, industry after industry - 5 undisputed stars. Unfortunately, the second one is lacking: the majority of the solutions seem to be in the right direction, but they lack specificity, detail, and - in the end - they go nuts (guaranteed jobs, minimum payments, etc.). It's not really surprising, keeping in mind Doctorow's political opinions, but I still was very disappointed - I don't think these proposals (well, maybe except for the time limitations for the rights) will make things progress ... So, unfortunately, the second part is 2.5 stars tops.
The 2nd part doesn't disqualify the book - by all means, no! The problem described here is so important that everyone should take a look and make her/his own opinion. Regardless of whether he/she likes the proposed solutions or not. Solid 4 stars. Recommended.
May 17, 2023
In Chokepoint Capitalism, Cory Doctorow explains that thanks to draconian copyright laws, the internet is far more monopolized than most of us realize. This is the material basis for the widespread feeling that music, movies, and culture in general have gotten bland and boring. Doctorow and his co-author, a law professor specializing in intellectual property, show how just a handful of mega corporations have gained monopolies ("chokepoints"), and use these to ruthlessly exploit both creators and consumers of culture. The first half of the book is full of all kinds of infuriating detail about why musicians get so little for streaming, while a few monopolists make billions.
In the second half of the book, where we are supposed to learn about possible solutions, Doctorow sounds like a wide-eyed school boy who's just gotten his first civics lesson about George Washington and Democracy(TM). We can vote our way out of this! He kinda-sorta realizes that the dynamic of capitalism leads to monopolization. But he thinks that existing states are democratic, and can be used to create alternatives to capitalism — while the truth is that these are capitalist states that serve the interests of the bourgeoisie. Given the scope of the problem, Doctorow's ideas about minor reforms to copyright law are almost comically limited.
This book made me picture a village where a nearby dragon occasionally devours children. The villagers take up pitchforks and plan to kill the dragon in its lair. But here comes Cory Doctorow and proclaims: "What a minute! What if I told you that I had a plan to teach the dragon to eat vegan alternatives? I think that within about 30 years, we can get the dragon to eat up to 15% less children!" The villagers ask him if the plan will work, and he admits it probably won't, but he writes a book about it anyway.
There are several parts of the book where Doctorow acknowledges that we need to organize society independently of a capitalist market: a jobs guarantee would give people real opportunities to create art, for example. But he he nonetheless maintains that most of society should be under the control of capital — he keeps emphasizing that monopolistic corporations should get their "fair" share from the exploitation of artists, whatever that would be. But why? Doctorow never actually makes a positive case for why capitalist control of anything is good or useful. Despite being a science fiction writer, he seems to have never even considered the possibility that the free market might not be the end of history.
For a summary of this book, see the interview in Jacobin: "Cory Doctorow Wants You to Fight Big Tech." #bookstagram
In the second half of the book, where we are supposed to learn about possible solutions, Doctorow sounds like a wide-eyed school boy who's just gotten his first civics lesson about George Washington and Democracy(TM). We can vote our way out of this! He kinda-sorta realizes that the dynamic of capitalism leads to monopolization. But he thinks that existing states are democratic, and can be used to create alternatives to capitalism — while the truth is that these are capitalist states that serve the interests of the bourgeoisie. Given the scope of the problem, Doctorow's ideas about minor reforms to copyright law are almost comically limited.
This book made me picture a village where a nearby dragon occasionally devours children. The villagers take up pitchforks and plan to kill the dragon in its lair. But here comes Cory Doctorow and proclaims: "What a minute! What if I told you that I had a plan to teach the dragon to eat vegan alternatives? I think that within about 30 years, we can get the dragon to eat up to 15% less children!" The villagers ask him if the plan will work, and he admits it probably won't, but he writes a book about it anyway.
There are several parts of the book where Doctorow acknowledges that we need to organize society independently of a capitalist market: a jobs guarantee would give people real opportunities to create art, for example. But he he nonetheless maintains that most of society should be under the control of capital — he keeps emphasizing that monopolistic corporations should get their "fair" share from the exploitation of artists, whatever that would be. But why? Doctorow never actually makes a positive case for why capitalist control of anything is good or useful. Despite being a science fiction writer, he seems to have never even considered the possibility that the free market might not be the end of history.
For a summary of this book, see the interview in Jacobin: "Cory Doctorow Wants You to Fight Big Tech." #bookstagram
May 30, 2022
A great entryway into the subject of how big corporations have taken control of much more than just our wallets, by looking at how they've corrupted our culture, and immiserated the people who make the culture vibrant. The creative arts are the perfect lens to understand the vice grip of corporate power because it touches all of us. Giblin and Doctorow not only lay out the hurdles monopolists put in the path of the creative artist, but offer a genuine set of interesting ways to take the power back.
November 4, 2022
Necessary reading for our times. Recommended.
October 12, 2022
I’ve been creating content on YouTube as well as self-publishing books for years now, and this is a must-read book for anyone who is a creative entrepreneur. Doctorow and Giblin did such an amazing job with this book taking the reader behind the curtain to show how all of the major platforms like Amazon, Spotify, Audible, YouTube and others create a “chokepoint” that screws over creators. I knew about a lot of what the book discussed, but I had no clue about a lot of it.
This is also an important book for those who are consumers of content. If you want to support the creatives you love, whether they’re YouTubers, writers or musicians, you need to understand how they’re being taken advantage of. This world doesn’t have nearly as many creators as there could be due to the fact that these platforms are screwing them. There are also other chokepoints like DRM that make the experience terrible for consumers as well by locking them into platforms.
Giblin and Doctorow also offer a ton of great solutions in this book. If I was forced to have a criticism of this book, I think it would have done better by discussing more stories about how this affects individual creatives. For example, the story about Audible’s return policy was great, but I really don’t care about multi-billion dollar companies like Epic Games losing money from Apple. Sections like would have been better if it had stories from small app developers.
But again, in this age where there are so many middlemen between consumers and creators, this is a must-read for everyone.
This is also an important book for those who are consumers of content. If you want to support the creatives you love, whether they’re YouTubers, writers or musicians, you need to understand how they’re being taken advantage of. This world doesn’t have nearly as many creators as there could be due to the fact that these platforms are screwing them. There are also other chokepoints like DRM that make the experience terrible for consumers as well by locking them into platforms.
Giblin and Doctorow also offer a ton of great solutions in this book. If I was forced to have a criticism of this book, I think it would have done better by discussing more stories about how this affects individual creatives. For example, the story about Audible’s return policy was great, but I really don’t care about multi-billion dollar companies like Epic Games losing money from Apple. Sections like would have been better if it had stories from small app developers.
But again, in this age where there are so many middlemen between consumers and creators, this is a must-read for everyone.
October 31, 2022
I'm a big fan of Cory Doctorow and this was now the second Kickstarter of his that I have participated in to help produce an audiobook. And the money was more than worth it because Giblin and Doctorow bring an analysis of capitalism that is next level. To me, it goes where Shoshana Zuboff's Surveillance Capitalism doesn't and blends in a good deal of Naomi Klein's work about capitalism. The initial framing of the book focuses on the fact that while we have some safeguards against monopolies, we do not have real safeguards from oligopolies or monopsonies. Many industries (particularly creative industries such as books, music, film, television, comics, etc) are held up by oligopolies wherein a few large companies control most of the market and because of that, they can (albeit illegally) collective work to control pricing and services to a degree unprecedented. Coupled with this nefarious practice is monopsony, wherein companies like Amazon, Google, and LiveNation the like, become the singular buyer in a market (books, ads, ticket selling, etc), which means companies and individual sellers are beholder and cut off from their customers unless they adhere to the practices and prices dictated by the intermediary. This rent-seeking practice shows up every and does much to hurt a thriving and diverse community of ideas, artistic creations, and experiences. That's the first half of the book and boy, it's damning but also quite insightful. In the second half, Giblin and Doctorow explore examples of resistance as well as recommendations for systemic approaches to addressing the problems. That, like most books, is where it falters a bit in that they all seem pie in the sky and we are not able as an individual to plug into them as well as we might. It is a structural issue and yet, if folks don't feel they have the capacity or even the fullest understanding of how to do the small things up through the systematic things, I think it feels harder to do anything other than feel frustrated. Still--one of the best analyses on capitalism that I've read.
January 8, 2023
I have a lot to say about this, too much to include in a Goodreads review truly. What I will say is while I knew some of the general points and arguments, Giblin and Doctorow do a fantastic job at expanding and staying glued to their focus of this book. It's extremely readable and the authors readily recognize that some parts will be tricky to understand.
I believe this should be required reading (or at least parts) for anyone who's ever read a book, listened to music, watched a TV show or movie, read the news online, played video games, or otherwise engaged in creative labour markets.
I believe this should be required reading (or at least parts) for anyone who's ever read a book, listened to music, watched a TV show or movie, read the news online, played video games, or otherwise engaged in creative labour markets.
August 19, 2023
We sadly need books like this to break down the issues, but it does outline potential solutions too - would be great for people like journalists, writers, musicians et. al. to be able to make a living at their craft again.
December 27, 2022
Essential reading for content creators in all fields related to arts and entertainment. It's a dense treatise that requires applied concentration at times, especially when it goes into the minutiae of subjects like copyright law, but Giblin and Doctorow make a persuasive case for systemically reforming the extractive practices of neoliberal capitalism that are retarding the culture, degrading the planet, and eroding quality of life for all.
November 15, 2023
This was an important book to read. I definitely learned a lot. It helped me move away from Audible and embrace my public libraries. There were some sections I struggled to fully understand. But making sense of the problems with big tech and big content as both monopolies and monopsonies in a war on culture and democracy is what we need in order to demand changes as workers and consumers. That was a long sentence, but it's a lot to process. :) I would love to be able to explain this stuff well so I can spread the understanding around.
This is also the first audiobook I purchased and read from Libro.fm!
This is also the first audiobook I purchased and read from Libro.fm!
February 29, 2024
This was super informative. A lot of stats and definitions to help illustrate just how bad everything has gotten. If numbers make your head spin, proceed with caution. Though I am curious what their take is on AI and how it’s effecting everything.
This also just reinforces my thought that everyone could benefit from a double feature of Newsies and A Bug’s Life…for reasons. 👀
This also just reinforces my thought that everyone could benefit from a double feature of Newsies and A Bug’s Life…for reasons. 👀
August 21, 2023
The first half of this book felt like I was listening to the evil villain monologue about their nefarious plans coming to fruition, except it’s actually about 100 of the world’s largest companies, and it’s real life, which makes it even more horrifying. The second half of this book felt like I was listening to William Wallace’s inspiring speech to charge into battle, except it’s full of technical jargon about bureaucratic hoops meant to keep the lay person ignorant, so I ended up feeling more discouraged by the end. But I’m a lay person. People with more experience as artists in a chokepoint capitalist world might relate more, be more fired up, and understand how to band together against our corporate oligarchy. But my biggest takeaway from this book is that the biggest companies corner markets and bully competition out of being possible, see the consumer as nothing more than a means to the end of power consolidation, and bribe our politicians to legally enable the insidious exploitation of musicians, writers, and even more sectors of our world as their power amasses. There’s something that can be done, but I’m left confused as to what that is. There’s important information in this book, but I feel like it’s not the most readily accessible book. Also, petty complaint about this audiobook, but the narrator’s voice made it very difficult to understand at times. I give the book a strong 2 to a light 3.
October 24, 2022
Who should read it:
Everyone really.
In this book Cory Doctorow and Rebecca Giblin first show just how pervasive the problem of Chokepoint capitalism is, then offer specific and actionable solutions to fix it.
Cory is fond of explain it as: if there are bullies that wait at the school entrance to steal your kids lunch money, you cant fix it by giving your kid more lunch money, then the bullies will just get more money and hire students to distract the principal until they can buy him off too.
Step by step the authors review the various industries captured by chokepoint capitalists and their use of those chokepoints to become monopolists (sole seller) or monopsonists (sole-buyer).
Then they talk about ways to break up that hold, from competitive compatibility (com-com) for technology platforms to transparency rights, time limits on contracts and reversion of control of copyright to creators or the public and many others
For anyone with even a related interest in creative work, technology, the economy or political power in the wold, this book will help you see more clearly.
Five stars means I liked it a lot, will read it again and strongly recommend it to any others with interest in the topics covered.
Everyone really.
In this book Cory Doctorow and Rebecca Giblin first show just how pervasive the problem of Chokepoint capitalism is, then offer specific and actionable solutions to fix it.
Cory is fond of explain it as: if there are bullies that wait at the school entrance to steal your kids lunch money, you cant fix it by giving your kid more lunch money, then the bullies will just get more money and hire students to distract the principal until they can buy him off too.
Step by step the authors review the various industries captured by chokepoint capitalists and their use of those chokepoints to become monopolists (sole seller) or monopsonists (sole-buyer).
Then they talk about ways to break up that hold, from competitive compatibility (com-com) for technology platforms to transparency rights, time limits on contracts and reversion of control of copyright to creators or the public and many others
For anyone with even a related interest in creative work, technology, the economy or political power in the wold, this book will help you see more clearly.
Five stars means I liked it a lot, will read it again and strongly recommend it to any others with interest in the topics covered.
January 16, 2024
Intellectual property scholar Rebecca Giblin and writer/activist Cory Doctorow team up to discuss the absolute mess that capitalism has made of the culture industry. They posit the idea of “chokepoint” capitalism, where businesses exploit creators by locking them into an anticompetitive environment and squeezing them for ever more, ever cheaper content.
Wow, US intellectual property law is a LEVIATHAN, isn’t it? This book was wildly detailed, which was very informative, but, I have to admit, got a bit boring sometimes. However, unlike many informative-but-boring books, I feel like I came away with a solid understanding of what a chokepoint is and how massive corporations exploit neoliberalism (a word they should’ve said more, in my opinion) to force creators to work for very little money. I read a review that said the solutions they posit in the second half of the book are too incremental or pie-in-the-sky, and there are some points where I agree with that assessment (some of the proposals rely on good faith... I mean, come on), but I do think that many of those reforms may seem small because they’re just obvious. 3 out of 5 DRM-free ebooks.
Wow, US intellectual property law is a LEVIATHAN, isn’t it? This book was wildly detailed, which was very informative, but, I have to admit, got a bit boring sometimes. However, unlike many informative-but-boring books, I feel like I came away with a solid understanding of what a chokepoint is and how massive corporations exploit neoliberalism (a word they should’ve said more, in my opinion) to force creators to work for very little money. I read a review that said the solutions they posit in the second half of the book are too incremental or pie-in-the-sky, and there are some points where I agree with that assessment (some of the proposals rely on good faith... I mean, come on), but I do think that many of those reforms may seem small because they’re just obvious. 3 out of 5 DRM-free ebooks.
August 5, 2023
This book is divided into two parts. The first part does a really excellent job of explaining where we are and how we got here. The second part is more about solutions and what we could do to fix the problem and that part is uhh, a combination of obvious solutions (Oh wow, unionize? Why didn't I think of that), solutions I'm not entirely sure I understand, and solutions that sound great but how do you even begin to bridge the gap between where we are and where we would have to get to make them happen? Like the first half feels like it's written by people who really understand the problem and the second half you can tell there are gaps in the authors' understanding of how the world works.
I would absolutely recommend this book, but just know the solutions part is kind of a let down. I wish that part had been shorter and they'd just spend more time telling us about how even more companies managed to get a stranglehold on profits. I feel like understanding how they've done it is half the battle. You can't fight a problem you don't understand.
I would absolutely recommend this book, but just know the solutions part is kind of a let down. I wish that part had been shorter and they'd just spend more time telling us about how even more companies managed to get a stranglehold on profits. I feel like understanding how they've done it is half the battle. You can't fight a problem you don't understand.
January 5, 2024
A really excellent explanation of where we’re at (economically) and how we got here. I’d go as far as considering it to be foundational not because I agree with every word but because it’s comprehensive in it’s discussion of how chokeholds are formed and maintained, and specifically how it harms people. Appreciate the focus on solutions and specific examples, which deeply strengthens any arguments it presents.
September 2, 2022
Written to show that in many different creative endeavors, the creative laborers are being exploited by the companies that funnel the art to the end consumers. While I suspect everyone has heard of monopolies – where consumers have but one source, this book focuses on the mirror image of that state of affairs, monopsony, where the sellers have limited choice in who to sell to that isn’t an end consumer. So for instance, you want to get people to listen to your music through streaming, but there’s only a small handful of streaming companies that people use, and they require very stringent and self-serving contracts. The book talks about many such markets, including Amazon’s e-book reader market, Apple and Google’s app stores, and Spotify for streaming music. This isn’t just a recent business innovation. The authors start with many descriptions of one-sided recording contracts with the popular musicians of the 50s and 60s. Once you see how one marketplace has been turned against the creator, you start seeing it everywhere. The authors use about 2/3 of the book to identify the problem and show it in various marketplaces, and offer some possible solutions in the last third, including legislative action. I sadly kept picturing Woodie Guthrie singing songs in support of…himself.
Disclosure: I won a copy of the arc of this book in a contest, I believe. This didn't influence my review.
Disclosure: I won a copy of the arc of this book in a contest, I believe. This didn't influence my review.
February 26, 2024
Very dense and comprehensive in detailing chokepoints from varied creative sectors - books, news, music, gaming and film. It’s been an eye-opening read, I found myself reflecting on my own participation in chokepoint offerings in the past weeks - Kindle unlimited, Spotify playlist, in-app purchases etc.
The second half shares potential solutions to chokepoints, such as increasing transparency, collective ownership and interoperability rights. Albeit I found the systemic solutions dry, overly jargonized and not as well structured as its precedent chapters, the knowledge will undoubtedly change my perspective on big content consumption in small, lasting ways.
The second half shares potential solutions to chokepoints, such as increasing transparency, collective ownership and interoperability rights. Albeit I found the systemic solutions dry, overly jargonized and not as well structured as its precedent chapters, the knowledge will undoubtedly change my perspective on big content consumption in small, lasting ways.
December 22, 2022
Very interesting and accessible read. A bit dense and repetitive at times; take a shot every time the word “chokepoint” is used. While I agree with almost everything the authors had to say, I did find some of their solutions to be a bit…idealistic at times. The future archivist in me wants to believe that we could one day have free access to media and our artists are being treated fairly- but it seems so unattainable and moot at times. Anyway, a good book! Highly recommend to anyone who wants to remember how shitty capitalism is.
September 6, 2023
excellent, detailed, good balance of problem exploration and proposed solutions. while a lot of this book focuses on the music industry, many of the issues and solutions related to music industry chokepoints apply to other creative labor markets.
the writing wasn’t especially good, but it was clear and easy to follow for me as someone vaguely familiar creative markets as a consumer with an interest in labor rights.
audiobook narration was fine, the reader has a markedly deep voice, so at times it was hard to hear while in a car.
highly recommend for educational content.
the writing wasn’t especially good, but it was clear and easy to follow for me as someone vaguely familiar creative markets as a consumer with an interest in labor rights.
audiobook narration was fine, the reader has a markedly deep voice, so at times it was hard to hear while in a car.
highly recommend for educational content.
September 27, 2023
I'm impressed and appreciative as it is with the way that Giblin and Doctorow, through the lens of creative industry, demonstrated one of the core ways in which the currently broken, and immediately followed up with a wide range of feasible strategies to take on the monopsonies that have wedged themselves in so many artificial bottlenecks. But beyond that, I'm also frankly quite awed with how they managed to package the aforementioned into such an accessible and engrossing read, speaking as someone whose brain tends to feel overwhelmed whenever subjects like DRM and copyright law enter a conversation.
March 21, 2023
This book does a great job is describing not only what is wrong with our current political and economic systems, but also offers some potential solutions or ways of alleviating or working around the chokepoints. They go into great detail into many industries, like retail, music, book publishing, film and tv studios, and many more. The level of research that had to go into making this book is impressive, and they do a good job of distilling that into something that the average person can digest.
May 6, 2023
Good book, first half is diagnostic and very strong. Second half ventures into solutions and is worthwhile, but noticeably weaker and less structured
July 23, 2023
If a corporation is a “person,” it’s an immortal colony organism that treats human beings as inconvenient gut flora.
It doesn’t have a personality and it doesn’t have ethics. Its sole imperative is to do whatever it can get away with to extract maximum economic value from humans and the planet.
—Ch 19
Businessmen and investors know competition is bad for business. They know there is no money to be made in a competitive market. Capitalists have incentive not merely to keep competition down, but to keep consumers captive so they have no choice but to buy from (or sell to) one place. That’s guaranteed profit, which is something that makes investors salivate.
That is how capitalism operates in reality. Hell, The Simpsons made jokes about this in the 90s—we knew it when Microsoft was the big, bad, own-everything-crush-competition corporation. (Who’d have thought Disney would surpass it?)
The rich do not romanticize competition and hard work. Profit motive, driven by investors, pushes them to consolidate so people have no choices. Competition is risky; a consolidated market is guaranteed profit. We as a society knew this in the early 1900s, after being the victims of monopolies and trusts whose goal was to fix prices to keep people captive so the money would always flow to them. We are beginning to relearn it.
If you learned your economics from Heinlein novels or the University of Chicago, you probably think that “free market” describes an economic system that is free from government interference—where all consensual transactions between two or more parties are allowed.
But if you went to the source, Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations, you’ll have found a very different definition of a free market: Smith’s concern wasn’t freedom from governments, it was freedom from rentiers. ...
Market concentration, corporate mergers, and the corporatization of the country (and increasingly the planet) is the root cause of all our of woes. A capitalist keeps consumers captive so they have no choice but to buy from someplace controlled by the capitalist.
But it’s more than consumers. Chokepoint Capitalism also dives into the dynamics of “monopsony,” the phenomenon when small producers/creators have only one or two places to sell their wares. It has the same effect as a monopoly, but it has received far less scrutiny.
You might be an independent creator on Youtube, but if there are no other places to get an audience besides Youtube, you are captive to Google and whatever terms it levies on you, which means you are not independent.
If you built your following on Twitter, you are are the mercy of whatever terms Elon Musk pushes onto you, and there is a very real chance he will enact a policy that bans your content, so where else will you go?
The internet used to be open and free, but it is becoming more and more concentrated. This is what capitalism does, and we as a society are waking up to who really benefits from it.
Amazon went from a harmless online bookstore to an everything store, and it was not an accident. It was deliberate—it’s why investors funded it for years while Amazon operated at a loss. Its goal was to consolidate markets, punishing or buying up anyone who did not comply, and then once it became the biggest seller in town, it could squeeze individual authors who now relied on the platform, the entire second hand market for books and CDs and DVDs, and big distributors of everything else for sale.
It’s why Uber is being propped up by venture capital, and why people protest its intrusion into existing markets. Had this company been forced to operate by market rules, it would never have been able to compete in an already competitive environment. Investors support it and companies like it because they promise to consolidate an industry dominated by local businesses and guarantee funds flow to them. Funds that once flowed to individuals.
A rentier is someone who derives their income from “economic rents”: revenues derived from merely owning something. With a factory, you have workers who contribute labor, you have investors who build and maintain the physical plant, and you have the landlord, who siphons off some of the revenues derived from this activity because of his title to the dirt underneath the factory.
Every dollar the landlord extracts is a dollar that can’t go to the workers as wages, or be rolled into the factory’s upkeep and improvement, or enrich the people who build and maintain the plant. ...
This is what Rockefeller did. He did not innovate or compete, rather he manipulated prices to drive competitors under, and then bought up their assets. Market consolidation was his goal from the beginning. Independent gas stations and small businesses were the enemy. That’s how he got rich: when people have no choice but to buy from or sell to you, you can set any price you want.
Chokepoint Capitalism reminds us that the goal of business is not to compete fairly with all the other players so only the best products and services survive. Rather, is it to create an environment in which people have no choice. Absent external forces, capitalists have this incentive, and investors support whatever guarantees profit for themselves. We have seen it happen so many times in our lifetimes: Microsoft, Disney, Facebook, Google, healthcare, consumer goods. They are not competing. They are acquiring, and we are living the effects—we as a people are finally waking up to the realization that this is not the same country our parents told us about.
One of the most powerful ways to extract economic rents is to have a monopoly. A ferryman who charges high prices isn’t necessarily extracting rents because someone else can build a bridge or run a rival ferry service. But if the ferryman uses his profits to successfully lobby for a ban on bridges and competing ferry services, then he’s extracting rents, because the price his passengers pay is high merely because there’s no alternative.
Monopolies are self-reinforcing. Canny monopolists hold back some of these rents for special projects, like bribing politicians to secure favorable treatment, buying out competitors, or securing those competitors’ doom with predatory pricing and other dirty tricks. Thus, the ferryman might use his monopoly rents to poach all the rival’s key employees. Or he might lower ticket prices to below the cost of operating, subsidizing the fare out of his monopoly rent war chest until the competitor goes bust and sells out at pennies on the dollar, and then put the price back up.
The ferryman might also spend some of his excess profits on lobbying lawmakers to pass rules mandating a minimum number of boats be operating at any one time—making it hard for any new operator to start up. Where a person or corporation seeks to increase their profits through more favorable regulation, it’s called rent-seeking.
We saw how regulatory capture can harm creative producers in the context of radio: changes to ownership laws allowed Clear Channel to buy its way to a dominant position, use that position to crush rivals, and use some of the resulting profits to maintain its outrageous advantage in not having to pay recording artists or labels for their music.
A market is “free” if what’s for sale and how much it costs are set by the capabilities of producers and the desires of buyers. Every rent collected in the market whittles away that freedom, as choices about what to sell and what to buy disappear into the pockets of rentiers who own things instead of making things.
Apple, with its App Store, is a rentier.
—Ch 9 (emphasis mine)
Now that we have been reminded of what Capitalism does, how can we fight it?
Chokepoint Capitalism proposes solutions we’ve had all along: corporations should not have been allowed to get this big in the first place. Consumer price is not the only symptom of harm, and it should never have been the benchmark for antitrust enforcement. Size of a company should be the determining factor. Large companies simply shouldn’t exist—their very presence is anti-competitive. No mom and pop store can thrive when it has to compete with a giant corporation from the start.
But since these giants do exist, we can start by forcing transparency in data, and breaking different arms of conglomerates into separate entities that must compete. Unions as a counterbalance to corporate power is also something Americans once knew was essential back in the early 1900s. The USA is beginning to remember what happens when corporations become too big to fail, and none of the benefits make it to the workers. We cannot trust corporations to treat their workers right when abuse of labor is essential to the creation of such large companies.
People need options, and corporations are preventing us from getting them.
Ending NDAs and non-compete clauses for employment. Decoupling healthcare from employment. Requiring all electronics and machines can be repaired so we don’t have to rely on a corporation for every step. In short stop catering to corporations in the hopes they will take care of the people and give people more freedom to take care of themselves. When employment is an option for survival and not a hostage situation, corporations will back off.
For the past forty years, regulation has been in decline as a means of fixing problematic corporate behavior. Rather than seeing ourselves as citizens who deserve a say in how our society is structured, we’ve been urged to view ourselves as consumers, a kind of ambulatory wallet whose influence on society extends only to a series of buy/don’t buy decisions.
The story of the consumer rights movement isn’t just about neutralizing the power of the public—in its early days, when markets were more competitive, boycotts and bad press could successfully drive a company to change its ways. But the early promise of “consumer rights” became hollow once industries began to consolidate. Instead, consumerism became a way to shift the blame for harms caused by large, profiteering firms onto their customers: if you don’t like climate change, get rid of your car! (Which would be great, if the monopolized auto sector hadn’t used its excess profits to lobby against public transit.) If you’re worried about landfill, just switch to a brand that uses recyclable packaging (never mind that both brands are owned by one of three companies, which simply charges a premium for the “green” alternative while continuing to manufacture the high-waste version).
When the system is working—when firms are competing for both suppliers and customers—individual choices really can make a difference. But once the system is busted, your individual choices cease to matter to firms’ bottom lines.
—Ch 12 (emphasis mine)
“Chokepoint” Capitalism need not have created a new word to describe the abuses of corporations, but we probably do need new terms for practices that date back to the 1800s. Authors Rebecca Giblin and Cory Doctorow are only reminding their readers of what Americans as a population used to know in the 1920s:
Businessmen do not want competition. Investors do not want competition. They want guaranteed profit, and they want to create or exploit captive consumers. If people have no choice, that’s good for business. That is Capitalism, and it’s what we are fighting.
August 13, 2023
An absolute must read for any creator, or really any worker in the our current economic system. I will warn you, there is a lot of boring legal jargon. But it ultimately is a great tool to learn how you are being screwed, and what to do about it.
Read
August 20, 2023Some good information especially in the first half but occasionally a little sensationalist
February 12, 2023
Boast: I bought this book from a local indie bookstore. This detail is meaningful because Giblin and Doctorow survey all the big companies in movies, music, publishing, etc. and find them guilty of ripping off both customers and creative contributors—and still worse, guilty of controlling their choices.
This book concentrates on artistic and creative work, which is important in its own right: These activities are some of the most lucrative and highly visible of all industries. But the authors connect the issues to larger economic and social justice movements, as well as a somewhat understated philosophy of human independence and freedom.
By the end of Part 1, you will be ready to cancel all your media subscriptions and go live under a rock. Part 2 looks at current and potential measures to give us back our freedom.
Giblin and Doctorow assume some background knowledge of the reader. They never explain what DRM is or how it works, launching instead straight into some sophisticated topics associated with it. You should know the difference between vertical and horizontal integration, as another example. I expect that Giblin's and Doctorow's audience will have the necessary background, but I think they could have broadened their audience by adding a few more explanations.
This book concentrates on artistic and creative work, which is important in its own right: These activities are some of the most lucrative and highly visible of all industries. But the authors connect the issues to larger economic and social justice movements, as well as a somewhat understated philosophy of human independence and freedom.
By the end of Part 1, you will be ready to cancel all your media subscriptions and go live under a rock. Part 2 looks at current and potential measures to give us back our freedom.
Giblin and Doctorow assume some background knowledge of the reader. They never explain what DRM is or how it works, launching instead straight into some sophisticated topics associated with it. You should know the difference between vertical and horizontal integration, as another example. I expect that Giblin's and Doctorow's audience will have the necessary background, but I think they could have broadened their audience by adding a few more explanations.
October 14, 2022
Got this book via Kickstarter. It's split into identifying problems in the first half and providing solutions in the second - which actually just happens to surface even more problems. It's depressing in a way as many of those solutions are so far beyond our grasp - as those in power have no incentive to allow it to happen.
February 10, 2024
This book really opened my eyes to what goes on behind closed doors of mega corporations. I highlighted so many passages in my kindle and frequently had to pause from reading to tell George about that latest outrageous thing that I’d just learned.
This book lays out all the things that are wrong with these giant companies (Amazon, Facebook, YouTube, Google, Disney, Sony, Universal, and many more) dominating the creative tech market, and making insane profits at the expense of the artists and creators behind the content. It explains how they get away with exploiting creators and the structures in our legal systems that allow it to happen. And then it puts forwards some interesting suggestions for how we might be able to take back some of the control that these big tech companies have, and how we can more fairly compensate individual creators.
It’s extremely well written in that I think I comprehended a solid 80% of what the authors were talking about when we went into copyright contracts, transparency rights, collective action and ownership and other legal and complex concepts. This is coming from someone who has never studied business or law or anything like that. So I’m impressed with myself, but really it’s kudos to the authors taking the time to explain things clearly and using examples to help get the message across.
As someone so removed from the inner workings of these industries, there were some really satisfying light bulb moments where something made sense to me as a consumer for why that was the case. For example, I’ve always found it frustrating when an app doesn’t let you make an in-app purchase and forces you to go to their website to purchase and then it will sync to the app, but they do this to avoid paying a large percentage of the sale to Apple, a condition because the app was downloaded from the Apple App Store - the only online place apps can be downloaded for an iPhone.
This book lays out all the things that are wrong with these giant companies (Amazon, Facebook, YouTube, Google, Disney, Sony, Universal, and many more) dominating the creative tech market, and making insane profits at the expense of the artists and creators behind the content. It explains how they get away with exploiting creators and the structures in our legal systems that allow it to happen. And then it puts forwards some interesting suggestions for how we might be able to take back some of the control that these big tech companies have, and how we can more fairly compensate individual creators.
It’s extremely well written in that I think I comprehended a solid 80% of what the authors were talking about when we went into copyright contracts, transparency rights, collective action and ownership and other legal and complex concepts. This is coming from someone who has never studied business or law or anything like that. So I’m impressed with myself, but really it’s kudos to the authors taking the time to explain things clearly and using examples to help get the message across.
As someone so removed from the inner workings of these industries, there were some really satisfying light bulb moments where something made sense to me as a consumer for why that was the case. For example, I’ve always found it frustrating when an app doesn’t let you make an in-app purchase and forces you to go to their website to purchase and then it will sync to the app, but they do this to avoid paying a large percentage of the sale to Apple, a condition because the app was downloaded from the Apple App Store - the only online place apps can be downloaded for an iPhone.
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