Last year I spoke with Cory Doctorow and Rebecca Giblin about their new book, Chokepoint Capitalism. It’s a book about artists and technology and platforms, and how different kinds of distribution and creations tools create chokepoints for different companies to capture value that might otherwise go to artists and creators.. In other words, it’s a lot of Decoder stuff.As we were prepping this episode, the Decoder team realized it previews a lot of things we’re going to talk about in 2023: antitrust law. Ticketmaster. Spotify and the future of the music industry. Amazon and the book industry. And, of course, being a creator trying to make a living on all these platforms.This episode is longer than normal, but it was a really great conversation and I'm glad we are sharing it with you.Links:What is Mixer, Ninja’s new exclusive streaming home?Ninja returns to TwitchThis was Sony Music's contract with SpotifyTranscript:https://www.theverge.com/e/23311918Credits:Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.It was produced by Creighton DeSimone and Jackie McDermott and it was edited by Callie Wright. The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Our Editorial Director is Brooke Minters and our Executive Director is Eleanor Donovan. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This week we’re talking with Cory Doctorow (this episode contains explicit language) about his newest book Chokepoint Capitalism, which he co-autored with Rebecca Giblin. Chokepoint Capitalism is about how big tech and big content have captured creative labor markets and the ways we can win them back. We talk about chokepoints creating chickenized reverse-centaurs, paying for your robot boss (think Uber, Doordash, Amazon Drivers), the chickenization that’s climbing the priviledge gradient from the most blue collar workers to the middle-class. There are chokepoints in open source, AI generative art, interoperability, music, film, and media. To quote Cory, “We’re all fighting the same fight.” Join the discussionChangelog++ members save 8 minutes on this episode because they made the ads disappear. Join today!Sponsors:DevCycle – Build better software with DevCycle. Feature flags, without the tech debt. DevCycle is a Feature Flag Management platform designed to help you build maintainable code at scale. Postman – Build APIs together — More than 20 million developers use Postman for building and using APIs. Postman simplifies each step of the API lifecycle and streamlines collaboration so you can create better APIs—faster. Square – Develop on the platform that sellers trust. There is a massive opportunity for developers to support Square sellers by building apps for today’s business needs. Learn more at developer.squareup.com to dive into the docs, APIs, SDKs and to create your Square Developer account — tell them Changelog sent you. Typesense – Lightning fast, globally distributed Search-as-a-Service that runs in memory. You literally can’t get any faster! Featuring:Cory Doctorow – Mastodon, Twitter, GitHub, WebsiteAdam Stacoviak – Mastodon, Twitter, GitHub, LinkedIn, WebsiteJerod Santo – Mastodon, Twitter, GitHub, LinkedInShow Notes: Buy Cory’s books Gig Work Is the Opposite of Steampunk TikTok’s Enshittification Rural towns and poor urban neighborhoods are being devoured by dollar stores What is Chokepoint Capitalism? Revenge of the Chickenized Reverse-Centaurs Cory on Twitter explaining “chickenization “ Red Team Blues: Another audiobook that Amazon won’t sell The Memex Method Changelog Interviews #221: How we got here with Cory Doctorow Something missing or broken? PRs welcome!

Rebecca Giblin, Melbourne Law School professor, discusses how Big Tech billionaires are choking creatives and customers in various industries. They explore examples from music, live events, and the content industry, highlighting the consequences of corporate concentration. The podcast also covers the impact of targeted ads, the need for systemic change, and the power of collective action for positive change.