this post was submitted on 03 Oct 2024
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Friendly reminder: Dotorow's wife is a director of a Disney subsidiary highly likely to be involved with DRM.
EDIT: You all are reading way too far into me bringing this up. Didn't say this to invalidate his point, mostly wanted to highlight something that I find most people don't know about him. It's something I think is important considering how much he styles himself as an idealogue/icon for technological freedom. He still makes good points, but the position he's doing it from should be known is all.
I met Cory at a book signing and told him how much I loved Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom and he told me his wife works at Disney straight up.
He's an honest dude who has done more for how we think of the internet (and how it could be) than the majority of humans on this planet.
I'll remember that whenever George Conway or his wife talk about politics: apparently their diametrically-opposed views are somehow intertwined.
I don't have a stake in this argument, as this is my first time learning about Doctorow. I just want to add that a good phrase to express the situation you described is "potential conflict of interest."
Is he, or has he ever been, a communist or associated with communists! We demand an answer!
Lol, no. Also, big diff between associating with and being actively married to.
Anyway I've edited my comment and I'll repeat tye edit here: You all are reading way too far into me bringing this up. Didn't say this to invalidate his point, mostly wanted to highlight something that I find most people don't know about him. It's something I think is important considering how much he styles himself as an idealogue/icon for technological freedom. He still makes good points, but the position he's doing it from should be known is all.
You do know you can be married to someone and not agree with their politics, yes?
... yes. I'm not an idiot, thank you for the implication otherwise though. That's always nice.
Perhaps you're not familiar with just how outspoken Cory has been about all of this sort of stuff over the years. I think his wife's job is an important disclosure that has not been made, so I highlighted it. Same as a youtuber disclosing a video was a sponsorship, it could impact how their words should be interpreted, but it just as easily might not effect things in any significant way.
I've made my very minor point. I even specified in my initial comment that she is very likely involved with DRM, but not guaranteed to be.
I'd love to hear any counterpoints besides the effective equivalent of "how dare you point out a potential problem with our guy".
Only you can decide how much or how little his wife's job means. I just wanted people to be aware.
I don't get it. It's like every point you appear to be making about Doctorov's association with his wife's employer is rendered invalid but you keep restating the seemingly-identical position.
One more time, maybe? "Ha ha, just pointing out whom his wife is for no bearing on the value of his opinions but you know where his wife works, right?" is a weird point to NOT be making about his credibility.
Yes, because it was literally the only thing I was trying to bring up, as I have stated repeatedly.
I'm not the one confused here. I've been straightforward about the incredibly minor point I was making. People should know who his wife works for, as it may influence their feelings on him.
Simple as. No more, no less.
Could it matter? Maybe. Maybe not.
Almost everyone responding is jumping to all sorts of conclusions about what I really meant by bringing it up. I just thought people should know the fact, as I had never seen it ever brought up until recently. For myself, it casts some of Cory's previous rants in a different light, but I'm not actively trying to sway things in any direction here.
I am getting real tired of people responding with basic ass "gotchas" pointed at shit I didn't say or bring up though, and declaring themselves some sort of winner in an argument I was never having.
Edit: Me responding so much is that I'm attempting to make it clear to every single chucklefuck. It really doesn't have anything to do with investment, as I'm having an incredibly slow day. The investment is some stupid wish that I'm not being misunderstood, which seems inevitable at this point. More attempts at clarification that I wasn't trying to impugn his credibility seem to mean the exact opposite due the little trap of "if you don't care, why are you responding so much?". Because I'm some degree of ASD and have trauma from childhood about being misunderstood. Chill.
Your minor point was to associate him with his wife as if they agreed. Hence my response. I have no idea about your intelligence level, just about your apparent misunderstanding of relationships.
Please don't put words or intent on me. I've been very direct, and at the very least was not attempting to imply any such ideological agreement.
My minor point was to associate him with what appears to be the main source of his household income. No more, no less. Everyone can decide how much that means to them as they wish.
Her running MakieLab (which might indeed utilise DRM, idk) doesn't invalidate her husband's point.
It's no longer Makielab, as it was acquied by Disney. What they actually do now ias a subsidiary is unclear beyond the quote from her Wikipedia page, especially as her personal site linked to by Wikipedia is down.
I spent a good chunk of my teen years on 4chan, I'm normally the one pushing the idea that a good point is valid regardless of the source.
Anyway, I edited my comment and I'll copy that here: Didn't say this to invalidate his point, mostly wanted to highlight something that I find most people don't know about him. It's something I think is important considering how much he styles himself as an idealogue/icon for technological freedom. He still makes good points, but the position he's doing it from should be known is all.
MakieLab still exists, even though it is now owned by Disney. YouTube still exists and has its own CEO despite being owned by Google. Skoda still exists and is its own entity despite being bought by VW.
I don't see how his wife being the CEO of a company that got bought by Disney counts as him making points from an unsavoury position.
Firstly, people are not their spouses. Secondly, there's no proof I've seen that this company goes against the things that Cory speaks of.
Judging from the excerpt quoted in my original comment, it has at least been renamed to StudioLab.
Didn't say that it did. It's just something that I didn't know until recently, that I have only seen brought up once in the decade plus of Cory being treated as an important source of truth in this sphere.
I'm not trying to say that it somehow makes him full of shit or anything. Personally it gives me pause about some of his previous rants, and casts a minor amount shade on his position. But I also personally feel that the merits of a point made matter significantly more than the source.
I intentionally said nothing more than the fact itself in my original comment. Everyone is welcome to decide how important or not it is to them personally.
It's exactly the kind of thing that people tend to use to challenge someone's position, so I understand the confusion. Just wish people would stop coming at me like I kicked their puppy for bringing it up.
Doesn't go against anything he's ever said.
See Kelly Ann Conway and George Conway.
Does that invalidate his point regarding enshittification?
I think it might matter if Cory came out and said, I am starting an org with the resources to fix it. But I don’t see how this tidbit is relevant for a guy who coined the term about what’s happening here and has been beating the drum about the problem.
Cory has self styled and been treated as a free software icon for well over a decade. The whole enshittification thing is just the latest thing to bring him back into the public eye.
It doesn't invalidate his point whatsoever, but it's important to know that what pays his bills is all.
Yeah this feels like a “no true Scot” fallacy to me, where anything he says should be invalid because of his wife’s position, which is false
Only if you take it that way. I've said nothing about his point being questionable, and it wasn't my intent.
For me this is more about that his status as a free software/internet icon for well over a decade should be tempered, if only slightly, by knowledge of what pays his bills.
FWIW you've been level-headed throughout the thread and it does seem like a valid note to me. It's not like, damning, as you've pointed out yourself, it doesn't magically invalidate his work. But it does seem odd to me and I'm glad you pointed it out, and the response you've been getting seems weird and disproportionate.