Mastodawn

We keep seeing startups who want to replace something valuable (therapy, counseling, tutoring, artistic expression) with some tech bullshit under the banner of democratization. But why do we need to invest so much in bad tech that doesn't work instead of just giving people access to what they need?

This is a sign for how fucking atrophied our mental muscles are. How limited our space for thinking about how things should be.

You want to democratize "going to therapy"? Make it "free" as in paid by socialized healthcare. You want to democratize "making art"? Give people money and free time to express themselves.

None of these things are meaningfully addressed through tech. It's always about the political struggle to give people what they need and deserve.

@tante "democratise" always means "monopolise" when these guys say it

Jo - pièce de résistance Nov 1

@jcoglan @tante
And simultaneously brainwash and do another mindfuck on you.

@tante It seems like tech companies are always trying to wedge themselves in between a valuable service (something that actually creates value) and the customers. I think Joan Westenberg @Daojoan described it in one of her newsletters. Might have been this story: https://medium.com/westenberg/the-great-tech-heist-e2ac7143316f

The Great Tech Heist

How “Disruption” Became a Euphemism for Theft

Medium

flamingos can't draw Oct 29

@tante
> You want to democratize "making art"?

This has always been a weird one given how low the barrier to making art actually is (exc music, that stuff is expensive). The thousands of mostly young women on ao3 are a testament to that.

They aren't actually selling the ability to make art, but the idea of being an artist.

Itoshi no FoxyDonuts 🏳️‍⚧️Oct 29

@tante but that doesn't increase share holder value so non-starter (meant to be read sarcastically)

Patrick H. Lauke Oct 29

@tante democratize in their world: make it more affordable (and cheaper to provide) so we can tap into a wastly bigger revenue pool

Kelsey Annie Oct 29

I totally get what you’re saying tech can sometimes feel like a flashy shortcut that misses the real issues. But do you think there’s any way technology could actually support or enhance access to these things, without replacing the human element?@tante

Seán Fenian Oct 29

@tante The thing is, when these jackholes say they want to "democratize" something, they don't mean "I want everyone to have it." What they mean is, "I want to personally profit off it. Fuck everyone else."

Nicole Parsons Oct 29

https://www.wired.com/story/trump-energy-industry-ai-fossil-fuels-pittsburgh-summit/

None of these startups are funded for altruistic reasons or even for revenue potential.

They're being funded to keep a status quo; a world order ruled by the fossil fuel industry.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/27/technology/saudi-arabia-ai-exporter.html

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-11-06/saudis-plan-100-billion-ai-powerhouse-to-rival-uae-s-tech-hub

https://www.tipranks.com/news/saudi-arabia-moves-billions-from-neom-to-ai-investments-backed-by-nvidia-and-amazon

The goal is wasting fossil fuel on white elephants & price gouge.

The aim is to thwart an urgent fossil fuel phase out.

If Blackstone & #PrinceBonesaw are funding it, it's evil.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-10-28/blackstone-saudi-ai-firm-humain-ink-3-billion-data-center-deal

Trump and the Energy Industry Are Eager to Power AI With Fossil Fuels

At a Pittsburgh summit, the Trump administration, energy executives, and tech barons joined as one to promote AI as the future of fossil fuels.

WIRED

@tante @alice The amount of money being poured into data centres and the rest of AI could have actually solved so many of these issues if the money actually went to those things!

rainynight65 Oct 29

@tante They don't want to 'democratise'.

They want to make people pay them the money that they normally would pay to humans for providing a service.

Mikko Karvonen Oct 29

@tante In the end it’s about the same things it always is with these people: power, money, control.

The point of these “solutions” is that they can monetise them, and control the content. Art becomes sterilized and loses its political angle: the owning class does not get criticised. Don’t want the therapy to cover certain subjects? Control the service and censor whatever you want.

Of course, some men will also do anything instead of going to therapy, including creating much worse therapy.

Yes. A free and open service becomes a sign-up-for-access service, becomes a pay-a-subscription service, becomes a pay-more-to-access-new-content service, becomes a pay-more-to-remove-ads service, becomes a pay-more-and-get-ads-anyway service.......

@iveyline Oct 29

@tante Exactly.

Florian Idelberger Oct 29

Because then they can profit and because the founder has the idea that it’s the future…

@tante
This is the much-vaunted openness to technology....🤨

holothuroid Oct 29

@tante If they want democracy they should explain how to vote out their boss.

Cheap products isn't democracy. Free access isn't democracy either. Democracy is involving people in the decision how resources are to be used.

I democratically support more public resources being allocated to mental health.

Frank Davies Oct 29

@tante I spent years in startups and couldn't agree more: most money in the space is wasted and doesn't bring a whole load of benefits to anyone other than the founders. Consumers get some marginal value; society as a whole gets little.

It helps if you understand that startup culture (especially 2008-2022) was an product of historically low interest rates; tech is basically fueled by financial speculation. As usual it's capital playing with 'commodities' that shouldn't be commoditized.

Beldarak Oct 29

@tante And the big tech companies pay a ton of money to support politics against those things people want

@tante This is not a problem with "us". "We" don't want this techbro bullshit exploitation for ourselves.
It's a problem with "them". "They" want that.

@tante kinda see this also with some think tanks and some NGOs, non profits etc in the DC sphere. Just slimy, scuzzy, individuals taking advantage of the less cynical and less informed with tales of "coaching" or "consulting". Predatory capitalism at its finest at the end of the day.

@tante we both know that in short:

democratize == commoditize

buy a pound of therapy/expression at the counter. just like with meat, people don't care what was fed through the grinder to make their product, in fact they'd rather not be told

Talia Hussain Oct 29

@tante Amen.

Steffen Voß Oct 29

@tante If you make it free, you make it free for black people too - many people in the USA don't want that. Most of these companies come from this culture.

Torparskytt 🏴Oct 29

@tante It won't replace anything unless almost everyone wants it to, you're free to not use it and not invest in it. Unlike your central planning alternatives.

Steve Holden Oct 29

@tante as a lifetime worker in the tech industry I couldn’t agree more. Far too few techies feel any sense of ethical or moral responsibility. Neither are they interested in politics.

@holdenweb Steve, I guess there are many of us who steered into tech because it's a kind of escape from the meaty ugly "social" political world. Well, that has been my motivation to go full-time nerd in my youth, anyway.
@tante

@tante I’m sure an AI-powered therapy (well, bs CBT, anyhoo) chatbot called Pollyanna will be launched imminently and become the first stage fob off for anyone struggling with motivation in this enshittified world of ours. Premium option available, ofc…

@tante (semi-)contra: clothing for instance was democratised through technical progress / price reduction alone, basically.

“Semi” because, well, fuck the tech bros, ofc it’s not primarily what they’re about (rather monopolisation / taking advantage of winners-take-all effects in cases of low-friction). That and major doubts, to say the least, about whether therapy really could be done without humans in any meaningful sense.

Pete / Syllopsium Oct 29

@tante You already know the answer to this. Don't blame tech for something that is driven by capitalism and/or saving money.

No-one's mental muscles are atrophied here. The populace don't want to pay more tax to fix things, and private enterprise definitely doesn't want to throw money at something with no return to them.

People are expensive. Why spend hundreds or thousands on understanding the personal, social, and environmental issue why someone cannot lose weight or get it up when instead you can give them some drugs and move on. Or if that doesn't work, they can use an LLM to provide therapy instead of multiple trained professionals at a high hourly rate. Sure, 5% of people might throw themselves off a bridge when it goes wrong, but 95% are still alive and not needing to see an expensive human! (*)

Tech is another tool, like medicine. Nothing more, or less.

(*) This is sarcasm, if anyone really can't see that, although sadly other people will want to push exactly this viewpoint with no subtext at all.

Michael T Babcock Oct 29

@tante I agree with your premise and disagree with the last paragraph. Technology has so much to do with it.
As a slight side-step, imagine if local #politics were done online in delayed sessions that allowed feedback by pre-recorded message and text chat. Imagine if suddenly people who have two jobs and kids to raise could "attend" a council meeting.
Ditto for access to #healthCare from remote #doctors, mental or physical. #Technology is part of the answer.

@tante People need to start getting a whole lot more skeptical of the claims of tech companies and VCs, and recognize that there's no such thing as a neutral or apolitical technology. IMO this is crappy not because doing therapy over a video call is necessarily bad, but because of who controls the terms of those calls (some shithead who is absolutely going to exploit their users once they've gotten their monopoly).

Chris Ford Oct 29

@tante
Thank you, thank you, thank youi!

Hazel-Quercus 🟡⚪🟣⚫Oct 30

@tante rooting for our tech addiction to eventually hit bottom so we can finally start caring about other things.

AGF : poemproducer Nov 1

@tante money and corporate capture

🏳️‍⚧️PepperTheVixen🦯Nov 1

@tante I despise when companies use the term "democratizing [product category]".Buddy, you ain't democratizing shit. You're luring people in with low prices and then locking them in so you can syphon their data. Nothing democratic about that.

@tante It's always about the struggle to make people pay for something they're not currently paying for, and thereby retire to a Bellevue McMansion.

Chris Johnson Nov 1

@tante And now, Covid infections have literally made the population stupider.

Very Human Robot Nov 1

@tante the point of tech is to make the work we have to do, more effective, freeing people up to do things they want to do.
Unfortunately, when this is successful, it seems most people want to "have more stuff" and the more effective we get, the *more* we work.
(One way to think about it: the opportunity cost of not working goes up)
In other cases, the tech isn't successful, and in those cases, it generally goes away (like NFTs or metaverses)

Paco Hope Nov 2

@tante You're right. "democratize" is often code for "commoditize" and "devalue".

Adam Williamson

@tante but if I do that, andreesen horowitz won't toss me a few million dollars and I can't get shiny business cards with "Founder" on them!

Ben Rosengart Nov 25

@tante @tillshadeisgone Preach!

Many people just seem to accept "without inconvenience to capital" as a necessary precondition for every project, and, like ... no!

Union Whore Nov 25

@tante I think this has nothing to do with your mental muscles. Most people don't have the power to just make things free. Their whole energy goes into having a live that is not total shit. If we want free care we need to build the structures that can provide that and that is a slow process.