A review by pandagopanda
Chokepoint Capitalism: how big tech and big content captured creative labour markets, and how we'll win them back by Cory Doctorow, Rebecca Giblin

4.0

The most useful and compelling aspect of this book is the clear explanations of current monopolist and monopsonist business models, their “anti-competitive flywheels” and the authors’ demonstration of the hourglass pinch-point metaphor across each of them. I think this book is insightful for not only creatives but all citizens (had to change that from “consumer”). It certainly helped me understand these enormous businesses, the harms done, and something of how we got here.
If I struggled a little, it was in the weeds of more granular passages explaining quite technical aspects of, say, contracts and licensing, but even that I wouldn’t count against it. Overall I appreciate the depth and detail and feel much better informed for it.