Tech Won't Save Us

Paris Marx is joined by Brian Merchant to discuss Mark Zuckerberg’s big plans for the metaverse, everything that’s wrong with it, the concept’s scifi origins, and why Silicon Valley is desperate to make it happen.

Brian Merchant is the author of The One Device: The Secret History of the iPhone and Blood in the Machine, coming in 2022. Follow Brian on Twitter at @bcmerchant.

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Tech Won’t Save Us offers a critical perspective on tech, its worldview, and wider society with the goal of inspiring people to demand better tech and a better world. Follow the podcast (@techwontsaveus) and host Paris Marx (@parismarx) on Twitter, and support the show on Patreon.

Find out more about Harbinger Media Network at harbingermedianetwork.com.

Also mentioned in this episode:

• Brian wrote about the dystopian origins of the metaverse for Motherboard and why Silicon Valley wants it to succeed for The Atlantic.
• Paris wrote about how the metaverse is a way to get us to spend more time and money in digital spaces for Business Insider.
• Matthew Ball made the business case for the metaverse last year.
• Apple’s changes to iOS privacy settings cost Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and Snapchat an estimated $9.85 billion in revenue.
• Emails sent by Oculus CEO Jason Rubin in 2018 asserted that consumers want the metaverse (something that’s not at all clear).
• David Karpf wrote about how VR keeps failing and getting revived for Wired.
• Apple’s AR headset or glasses are supposedly coming in 2022.
• Microsoft is trying to get in on the metaverse with workplace applications of its own.
• Brian hosted a series for Motherboard about the themes of Dune.

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Paris Marx is joined by Grafton Tanner to discuss how social and environmental crises fuel nostalgia, how companies profit from it, and whether it can be reoriented to inspire a better future.

Grafton Tanner is the author of “The Hours Have Lost Their Clock: The Politics of Nostalgia” from Repeater Books. Follow Grafton on Twitter at @GraftonTanner.

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Tech Won’t Save Us offers a critical perspective on tech, its worldview, and wider society with the goal of inspiring people to demand better tech and a better world. Follow the podcast (@techwontsaveus) and host Paris Marx (@parismarx) on Twitter, and support the show on Patreon.

Find out more about Harbinger Media Network at harbingermedianetwork.com.

Also mentioned in this episode:

• Paris reviewed Grafton’s book in Jacobin.
• TikTok has already gone through a phase of nostalgia for the early pandemic and its lockdowns.
• Malls have been closing for years, but many people have nostalgia for their heyday.
• In 1996, Jennifer Light compared emerging digital spaces to shopping malls.
• Matthew Ball wrote one of the key essays on what the metaverse should look like (from a corporate perspective).
• A message mentioned in the opening crawl of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker was broadcast exclusively in Fortnite.
• When Amazon bought MGM, it said it wanted to redevelop much of its accumulated intellectual property.
• At the end of the 2010s, some people questioned what algorithms were doing to our sense of time.
• The internet doesn’t get properly preserved and its history is being permanently lost.
• Tim Maughan wrote about how the world is too complex.
• Nishant Shahani’s “Queer Retrosexualities: The Politics of Reparative Return” and Badia Ahad-Legardy’s “Afro-Nostalgia: Feeling Good in Contemporary Black Culture.”

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Paris Marx is joined by Noopur Raval to discuss India’s gig economy, the specific conditions of women who provide services through beauty and wellness apps, and how workers organize to improve their conditions.

Noopur Raval is a postdoctoral research fellow at the AI Now Institute at New York University. Follow Noopur on Twitter at @tetisheri.

🚨 T-shirts are now available!

Tech Won’t Save Us offers a critical perspective on tech, its worldview, and wider society with the goal of inspiring people to demand better tech and a better world. Follow the podcast (@techwontsaveus) and host Paris Marx (@parismarx) on Twitter, and support the show on Patreon.

Find out more about Harbinger Media Network at harbingermedianetwork.com.

Also mentioned in this episode:

• Noopur wrote about organizing in the gig economy and the conditions of workers in beauty and wellness.
• Julia Ticona and her colleagues wrote about tech’s impacts on domestic work.
• More than 100 women who worked through a beauty app recently went on strike outside the company’s office.
• Aditi Surie has written about platforms and informal work in India.

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Paris Marx is joined by Yaseen Aslam to discuss the UK Supreme Court ruling that Uber drivers are not self-employed, the long fight to reach that point, and the next steps in the push for gig workers’ rights in the UK.

Yaseen Aslam is the president of the App Drivers and Couriers Union and a lead claimant in the Aslam v Uber case. Follow Yaseen on Twitter at @Yaseenaslam381 and the ADCU at @ADCUnion.

🚨 T-shirts are now available!

Tech Won’t Save Us offers a critical perspective on tech, its worldview, and wider society with the goal of inspiring people to demand better tech and a better world. Follow the podcast (@techwontsaveus) and host Paris Marx (@parismarx) on Twitter, and support the show on Patreon.

Find out more about Harbinger Media Network at harbingermedianetwork.com.

Also mentioned in this episode:

• In February, the UK Supreme Court upheld a previous ruling the Uber drivers were not self-employed, but were covered by a “worker” status. The following month, Uber reclassified workers, but didn’t observe the Court’s definition of what it meant to be a worker.
• On September 28, Uber drivers in 8 UK cities went on strike, demanding better hourly rates and the full implementation of the Supreme Court ruling/
• The ADCU sued Uber in the Netherlands over automated dismissal and not providing drivers their data under the GDPR. In April, the court made Uber reinstate 5 drivers.
• In October, the ADCU announced it was suing Uber over its racially biased facial recognition algorithms.
• Find out more about the ADCU.

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Paris Marx is joined by Jennifer Scott and Brice Sopher to discuss the campaign to unionize Foodora and the fight for gig workers’ rights in Canada.

Jennifer Scott is a gig worker and president of Gig Workers United. Brice Sopher is also a gig worker and vice president of Gig Workers United. Follow Jennifer on Twitter at @PalimpsestJenn, Brice at @this_is_walmer, and Gig Workers United at @GigWorkersUnite.

🚨 T-shirts are now available!

Tech Won’t Save Us offers a critical perspective on tech, its worldview, and wider society with the goal of inspiring people to demand better tech and a better world. Follow the podcast (@techwontsaveus) and host Paris Marx (@parismarx) on Twitter, and support the show on Patreon.

Find out more about Harbinger Media Network at harbingermedianetwork.com.

Also mentioned in this episode:

• If you’re in Canada, sign the Gig Workers’ Bill of Rights.
• Paris wrote about why Uber’s Flexible Work+ would be a disaster in Canada.
• In February 2020, the Ontario Labour Board ruled that Foodora workers could unionize. The company soon after announced plans to leave Canada, but workers voted 88.8% in favor of unionization. In August, they negotiated a $3.46 million settlement with the company.
• Sara Mojtehedzadeh (episode 79) made a podcast series about the Foodora campaign called Hustled.
• Canada’s Conservative Party presented a gig work plan written by an Uber lobbyist.
• Ontario has a committee looking at the future of work that gig workers fear will pave the way for Flexible Work+.
• Find out more about Gig Workers United (CUPW) and Uber Drivers United (UFCW).

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Paris Marx is joined by Rafael Grohmann to discuss the state of app-based work in Brazil, organizing by food delivery workers to demand better conditions, and even a recent strike by click farm workers.
 
Rafael Grohmann is a professor at UNISINOS, coordinator at DigiLabour Research Lab, and principal investigator in Brazil of Fairwork Project. Follow Rafael on Twitter at @grohmann_rafael.

🚨 T-shirts are now available!

Tech Won’t Save Us offers a critical perspective on tech, its worldview, and wider society with the goal of inspiring people to demand better tech and a better world. Follow the podcast (@techwontsaveus) and host Paris Marx (@parismarx) on Twitter, and support the show on Patreon.

Find out more about Harbinger Media Network at harbingermedianetwork.com.
 
Also mentioned in this episode:

• DigiLabour is organizing a PhD symposium on October 27-28. Find out more here.
• Some of the people and work mentioned in this episode: Callum Cant, Fabian Ferrari and Mark Graham, Noopur Raval, Rosana Pinheiro Machado, Cheryll Soriano and Jason Cabañes, and Wendy Brown.
• DigiLabour is looking into worker-owned platforms in Brazil.
• Vice wrote about gig work organizing in Latin America and talked a lot about the Anti-fascist deliverers.
• Rafael and his colleagues also looked at political struggle around gig work and the importance of communication.

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Paris Marx is joined by Ben Wray to discuss the state of the gig economy in Europe, including the Spanish riders law, recent court ruling on employment status in the Netherlands, strikes in Germany and Greece, and the forthcoming platform workers directive from the European Commission.

Ben Wray is a coordinator at the Gig Economy Project and a freelance journalist. Follow Ben on Twitter at @Ben_Wray1989.

🚨 T-shirts are now available!

Tech Won’t Save Us offers a critical perspective on tech, its worldview, and wider society with the goal of inspiring people to demand better tech and a better world. Follow the podcast (@techwontsaveus) and host Paris Marx (@parismarx) on Twitter, and support the show on Patreon.

Find out more about Harbinger Media Network at harbingermedianetwork.com.

Also mentioned in this episode:

• Sign up for the Gig Economy Project’s newsletter for updates on what’s going on in Europe.
• A Dutch court ruled that Uber drivers are employees.
• Spain’s Riders Law came into effect, but the companies didn’t comply.
• Glovo dark supermarkets workers in Barcelona went on strike in August.
• E-food workers in Greece went on strike and won a huge victory.
• Gorillas fired workers for wildcat strikes.
• The European Commission will deliver platform work regulations in December. It’s been meeting a lot with gig companies.

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Paris Marx is joined by Tyler Riordan to discuss the state of the gig economy in Australia, the ongoing efforts to improve their conditions, and Tyler’s research on migrant food couriers in Brisbane.

Tyler Riordan is a PhD candidate in hospitality and anthropology at the University of Queensland. Follow Tyler on Twitter at @tyler_riordan.

🚨 T-shirts are now available!

Tech Won’t Save Us offers a critical perspective on tech, its worldview, and wider society with the goal of inspiring people to demand better tech and a better world. Follow the podcast (@techwontsaveus) and host Paris Marx (@parismarx) on Twitter, and support the show on Patreon.

Find out more about Harbinger Media Network at harbingermedianetwork.com.

Also mentioned in this episode:

• The deaths of gig economy workers have become a major focus on governments and the media over the past year
• Australia’s federal government has an ongoing Senate committee on gig work
• Uber settled a case in December 2020 to avoid a ruling on employment status, but another test case has been filed in Federal Court
• Foodora pulled out of Australia in 2018
• Menulog announced it was making some workers employees earlier this year

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Paris Marx is joined by Veena Dubal to discuss how Proposition 22 and the contract status of gig workers is reminiscent of the United States’ history of racial wage codes, which codified lower wages for Black workers.
 
Veena Dubal is a Professor of Law at UC Hastings. Follow Veena on Twitter at @veenadubal. Go back to episode 10 (May 21, 2020) for Veena’s first appearance on the podcast.

🚨 T-shirts are now available!

Tech Won’t Save Us offers a critical perspective on tech, its worldview, and wider society with the goal of inspiring people to demand better tech and a better world. Follow the podcast (@techwontsaveus) and host Paris Marx (@parismarx) on Twitter, and support the show on Patreon.

Find out more about Harbinger Media Network at harbingermedianetwork.com.
 
Also mentioned in this episode:

• If you’ve ever assigned an episode of the podcast in a college or university course, let me know by Twitter DM, email, or through this form.
• Read Veena’s essay on The New Racial Wage Code.
• Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. Du Bois had opposing philosophies for Black social and economic progress.
• Robert C. Weaver and David Roediger wrote about differential wages.
• Uber put up a billboard saying, “If you tolerate racism, delete Uber.” Drivers were not happy.
• Uber and Lyft held up workers’ unemployment claims, and Lyft charged for PPE.
• After Prop 22, gig companies raised fees despite promising not to, and workers reported earning even less money.
• In August, Prop 22 was found to be unconstitutional.
• New York City recently passed new protections for delivery couriers after organizing by Los Deliveristas Unidos.
• Find out more about Rideshare Drivers United.

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Paris Marx is joined by Sara Mojtehedzadeh to discuss the Teamsters’ organizing at Amazon warehouses in Canada and the working conditions that workers face at those facilities.

Sara Mojtehedzadeh is a labour reporter at the Toronto Star and the host of Hustled, a podcast about Foodora workers’ fight for a union. Follow Sara on Twitter at @SaraMojtehedz.

🚨 T-shirts are now available!

Tech Won’t Save Us offers a critical perspective on tech, its worldview, and wider society with the goal of inspiring people to demand better tech and a better world. Follow the podcast (@techwontsaveus) and host Paris Marx (@parismarx) on Twitter, and support the show on Patreon.

Find out more about Harbinger Media Network at harbingermedianetwork.com.

Also mentioned in this episode:

• If you’ve ever assigned an episode of the podcast in a college or university course, let me know by Twitter DM, email, or through this form.
• In June, the Teamsters voted to put resources behind unionizing Amazon.
• The Teamsters Canada applied for a union vote in Edmonton, Alberta, and said it’s organizing at nine warehouses. Amazon is hiring 15,000 workers and raising wages.
• During the pandemic, the Canadian government signed a deal with Amazon to deliver PPE. The contract fell apart.
• After an Amazon worker died in Indiana, the governor intervened to overturn the citations.
• California is regulating productivity quotas at warehouses.
• Discussions are picking up about sectoral bargaining in Canada.
• Sara wrote about the high injury rates at Amazon’s Canadian warehouses and the temporary closure of its Brampton, Ontario warehouse after a Covid outbreak.
• Find out more about Teamsters Canada’s Amazon campaign and the Warehouse Workers Centre.

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