Not to be outdone in the monopolistic mustache-twirling department, #Ubisoft just announced that it is going to shut down its driving simulator game The Crew, which it sold to users with a "perpetual license":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIqyvquTEVU
This is some real #DarthVaderMBA shit. "Yeah, we sold you a 'perpetual license' to this game, but we're terminating it. I have altered the deal. Pray I don't alter it further":
https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/26/hit-with-a-brick/#graceful-failure
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@fullfathomfive Exactly. They™️ keep complaining about things like adblockers by arguing that we made a deal; free stuff on the internet in return for consuming ads etc. - but they did everything they could to hide that deal, much less its terms, from us & harping on the HERE YOU GO IT'S FREE! pitch. We were not given an informed choice.
- and that's before we talk about how they then just change the terms of the "deal" as they see fit, also without telling us #DarthVaderMBA ...
"Sure, Zaslav deserves to be staked out over and anthill and slathered in high-fructose corn syrup. But save the next anthill for the Sony exec who shipped a product that would let Zaslav come into your home and rob you. That piece of shit knew what they were doing and they did it anyway. Fuck them. Sideways. With a brick." - @pluralistic
https://pluralistic.net/2023/12/08/playstationed/#tyler-james-hill
#CoryDoctorow #businessmodels #tech #businessmodels #DarthVaderMBA
Without these constraints, corporate twiddlers can engage in all kinds of ripoffs, like #WageTheft and #AlgorithmicWageDiscrimination:
https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/12/algorithmic-wage-discrimination/#fishers-of-men
Twiddling is key to the #DarthVaderMBA ("I am altering the deal. Pray I don't alter it further"), in which features are confiscated from moment to moment, without warning or recourse:
https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/26/hit-with-a-brick/#graceful-failure
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This is the proverbial gun on the mantelpiece, a moral hazard and invitation to mischief that tempts Amazon executives to run a bait-and-switch con where they sell you a gadget with five features and then remotely kill-switch two of them. This is prime directive of the #DarthVaderMBA: "I am altering the deal. Pray I don't alter it any further."
So many companies got their business-plan at the Darth Vader MBA.
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Publishers were advised to "post content in long form on this platform":
https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic/111183068362793821
Where a canny enshittifier would have gestured at a gaslighting explanation ("we're shadowbanning posts with links because they might be malicious"), Musk busts out the motto of the #DarthVaderMBA: "I am altering the deal, pray I don't alter it any further."
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Attached: 1 image This is the Facebook playbook: you lure in publishers by promising them a traffic funnel ("post excerpts and links and we'll show them to people, including people who never asked to see them"), and then the rug-pull: "Post everything here, don't link to your own site. Become a commodity supplier to our platform. Abandon all your own ways of making money. Become entirely subject to the whims of our recommendation system." 1/
Remember when Amazon promised you ad-free video if you'd lock yourself into shopping with them by pre-paying for a year's shipping with #Prime? The company has fully embraced the #DarthVaderMBA: "I am altering the deal. Pray I don't alter it further."
That FTC case can't come a moment too soon.
eof/
Google isn't likely to disappear, but Google is a graduate of the #DarthVaderMBA program ("I have altered the deal, pray I don't alter it any further") and notorious for shuttering its products, even beloved ones like Google Reader:
https://www.theverge.com/23778253/google-reader-death-2013-rss-social
And while the authors don't mention it, Google is also prone to simply kicking people off *all* its services, costing them their phone numbers, email addresses, photos, document archives and more:
https://pluralistic.net/2022/08/22/allopathic-risk/#snitches-get-stitches
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Cory Doctorow
JW prince of CPH