Chokepoint Capitalism

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A call to action for the creative class and labor movement to confront the dominance of Big Tech and Big Media. Corporate concentration and profits have reached unprecedented levels, leading to monopolies and monopsonies that disrupt fair competition. In this new era of "chokepoint capitalism," Rebecca Giblin and Cory Doctorow highlight how exploitative businesses create barriers that prevent others from accessing value that rightfully belongs to them. While all workers feel the impact, creative workers face particularly harsh consequences. Examples include Amazon's digital rights management affecting book publishing, Google and Facebook diverting ad revenue from news media, and the Big Three record labels imposing lengthy contracts that diminish artists' earnings. Giblin and Doctorow analyze various industries, illustrating how corporations build "anti-competitive flywheels" that lock in users and suppliers, create hostile market conditions for newcomers, and force unfair pricing on workers. In the latter half, they propose strategies to dismantle these chokepoints, including transparency rights, collective action, radical interoperability, and minimum wages for creative work. This work urges all workers to unite and reclaim the power and profits being unjustly taken from them.