Do I Want Another Level of Commercialization When the Web Is Already So Shitty?

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Sally Kohn: Do we really need another level of commercialization when the web is already so shitty and terrible? She says tech companies have had a huge impact in transforming the film and television industries. Now there are six season 100 multi hundred million dollar mammoth series about like barbarians and Medici and Romans, she says. Kohn: It was great for people who wanted to make media but hard for people to watch. People are not able to afford every single one until the three or four major networks stand down.

Paris Marx is joined by Douglas Rushkoff to discuss why internet visions of the 1990s were wrong to ignore corporate power, how the dot-com boom was like a Ponzi scheme, and why we desperately need to stop elevating tech billionaires.

Douglas Rushkoff is an author and documentarian who studies human autonomy in a digital age. His most recent book is Survival of the Richest: Escape Fantasies of the Tech Billionaires and he’s the host of Team Human podcast. You can follow him on Twitter at @rushkoff.

Tech Won’t Save Us offers a critical perspective on tech, its worldview, and wider society with the goal of inspiring people to demand better tech and a better world. Follow the podcast (@techwontsaveus) and host Paris Marx (@parismarx) on Twitter, and support the show on Patreon.

The podcast is produced by Eric Wickham and part of the Harbinger Media Network.

Also mentioned in this episode:

An excerpt from Survival of the Richest was published in The Guardian.
Paris was recently on the Team Human podcast to discuss Road to Nowhere with Douglas.

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