Finally listen/reading on my long journeys around the Netherlands...
Get Rich or Lie Trying: Ambition and Deceit in the New Influencer Economy
By Symeon Brown @symeonbrown ?
@rnalexander has mentioned it many times in the #techgrumps podcast but it wasn't till I met the author Symeon at #mozhouseAms #mozfesthouse #Mozfest #amsterdam
Like what I am hearing but deeply scary, as I think about the future of social...
@cubicgarden @rnalexander It's a cracking book.
The focus on exploitation of minority groups is important. Years ago, saw a scummy US company suddenly shift to heavily target Latino communities almost certainly because people w/o secure immigration status are less likely to sue/contact authorities/make a public fuss when they realise they've been exploited. Absolutely sick shit.
(Funnily enough, the Mafia used to run lots of gay bars like the Stonewall in US before expansion of legal rights.)
@cubicgarden @rnalexander Crypto doing an endrun around consumer financial protection laws; dodgy instagram clinic referrer dudes doing an endrun around healthcare safety rules; "we're disrupting the boring old dudes who think deep sea submarines should follow safety rules".
From the essential oil MLM sellers Insta messaging people, video games selling "it's totally not gambling" lootbox shit to kids, and the VCs offloading ape JPEG derivatives on suckers, it's scams all the way down.
@tommorris @cubicgarden
Have either of you read Tracers In The Dark? https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/60462182-tracers-in-the-dark
It makes Get Rich or Lie Trying look like a Nancy Drew novel.
@rnalexander @cubicgarden Will take a look. On the same note, I listened to the Lazarus Heist a while back, the BBC podcast on North Korean state-backed cybercrime and cryptoheists, which is pretty interesting.
Compared to FTX's emoji-based accountancy practices, SBF's confessional interviews, and Razzlekhan's extensive crimes against hip-hop, it is sobering to think that the truly horrible shit crypto enables is likely being done by people with decent enough opsec to not get caught.
Ian Forrester | @cubicgarden
Ryan Alexander
Tom Morris