Many thanks to @aleesteele for the engaging #Internet #infrastructure Walk today! 🙏 From telegrams to satellite internet, or from the London BT Tower "official secret" to the intentionality needed to make a call using public phones, learned much about how #tech infrastructure abstracts away the politics of how we connect. ☎️
Also wonderful seeing @da5nsy! ❤️
👍 Thumbs way up, highly recommended! Sign up for future walks here:
post.lurk.org/@aleesteele/1162…
luma.com/internet-infra-walks
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Internet Infrastructure Walks · Events Calendar
View and subscribe to events from Internet Infrastructure Walks on Luma. Learning how to see the internet in the built environment - under our feet, above our heads, and within the city.Internet Infrastructure Walks
Pen
in reply to Pen • • •📍 Besides thought-provoking stories, IMHO there is much about the walk that could be transplanted to a different location. E.g. What (hi)stories could be said about a phone booth in, say, Jakarta instead of London? OTOH, some infra is global like satellite comms (but with inequitable power dynamics...).
🗺️ Love to see documentation or a collage of how these walks could take shape in different cities and how they interweave. What project can we create together?
📸 flickr.com/photos/penyuan/albu…
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Internet Infrastructure Walk 2026-04-25
penyuan (Flickr)Pen
in reply to Pen • • •✊ Next, the Resisting #BigTech Empires event:
globaljustice.org.uk/event/res…
Many insightful speakers discussing the parallels between today's tech feudal lords and the history of #imperialism and #colonialism.
Many insightful speakers including @pluralistic in conversation with Sofia Scasserra.
#enshittification
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Pen
in reply to Pen • • •💩 #enshittification as formulated by @pluralistic feels as profound for thinking about our digital lives as the Special and General Theories of Relativity were for physics:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_o…
With that in mind, I've been mulling whether it's useful (and fun?) to think of 2 kinds of #enshittification:
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two interrelated physics theories by Albert Einstein
Contributors to Wikimedia projects (Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.)Pen
in reply to Pen • • •(1) "Special Enshittification" - The original, specific 3-stage platform decay process as described by @pluralistic
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enshitti…
(2) "General Enshittification" - Cory also stressed it's good to use the term broadly to talk about things becoming bad, hence "general".
pluralistic.net/2024/10/14/pea…
💩 By talking about Special and General #Enshittification, we benefit from specific language while popularising its use with the bonus of recognising its importance. Pros? Cons?
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systematic decline in quality of online platforms over time driven by greed
Contributors to Wikimedia projects (Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.)