TFGL2021 - S3 - Ep 4 - Privacy Wars

Welcome to this episode of the Tech For Good Live podcast.

Today’s show is jam-packed with excellence, or with tedium, depending on whether you’re “cool” or whatever. We talk about how the planet is getting hotter but not in a good way. We dig into some stats about charity digital skills and we discuss web privacy and a really boring fight for the future of the internet.

Transcript

Bex: Hello to everyone with nothing better to do. Welcome back to another episode of the Tech for Good Live podcast. If you've lost a bet or have been tricked into listening to the show for the first time, it's a podcast all about using technology to have a positive impact on the world. We talk about charity, we talk about social issues and we talk about the interwebs and everything in between. Today's show is jam packed with excellence or with tedium, depending on whether you're cool or whatever. We're going to talk about how the planet is getting hotter, but not in a good way. We dig into some stats about charity digital skills. We talk about web privacy and a really boring fight for the future of the Internet. And we may even have a rant along the way. All that and more on today's podcast. Let's get podcasting.

Joining me into this nosedive into infamy, we have Jonny Rae-Evans. Jonny is back for two episodes in a row. We can only assume it's by accident. Jonny, hello. 

Jonny: Hello.

Bex: And that's it. It's just me and Jonny this week. I'm Bex and I'll be hosting this episode. My mom is super proud of everything I've accomplished. So this week's topics. We haven’t got any guests to chat to or anything. I presume this will be a really short episode. 

Jonny: 20 minutes in and out. Easily done. 

Bex: [laughs] Just get it done. Get it done. So you'll be pleased to hear that. So yeah, I mean, we don't, we normally chat to the guests here but do you have anything profound you want to talk about, that happened this week?

Jonny: I mean, I'm sat next to you and I live with you and we talk. We work together. So I don't think I have anything to add that maybe you don't already know.

Bex: Okay, we'll just move on. Stat of the week. The Amazon rainforest is now producing more CO2 than it absorbs. This is not a good start. 

Jonny: Yeah, this is really bad. 

Bex: How is this, I don't understand.

Bex: So yeah, this is from a Guardian article from this afternoon that says yeah, the Amazon rainforest, which is since forever I guess, has played a critical role in the planet. But since the 1960s, has taken up about a quarter of the global fossil fuel emissions. It's now emitting a billion tonnes of carbon dioxide a year. So it is mostly due to fires that have been mostly deliberately set to clear land for beef or soil production. And there was a quote in the article from Luciana Gatti who works for the National Institute for Space Research in Brazil. Sounds fun. Said that this is very bad news because the….

Bex: Sorry. Space research as in planets or space researcher as in like miles squared, which would make more sense with the Amazon rainforest.

Jonny: I'm hoping it is space based. 

Bex: Why is that? 

Jonny: Well, NASA do a lot of stuff around climate stuff. 

Bex: Oh ok. 

Jonny: But anyway, Luciana said that this is very bad news because the forest is burning, the forest burning produces around three times more co2 than the forest absorbs. So we're all gonna die.

Bex: Awesome. But the forest isn't producing it. I think this is a really mean way of putting it. The forest isn't producing it. The soy and beef farmers are producing it, right?

Jonny: Yeah, I guess. But the point being that the Amazon rainforest is no longer reducing the amount of CO2 in the planet. It’s now a producer of it.

Bex: Yeah. Would it still, if people stopped burning stuff, like, is there enough forest left to still to move back into being a positive thing or not?

Jonny: You mean, you would imagine so there was some weird, concerning stuff around that even the areas now that aren’t currently on fire, still have a higher CO2 emission because of the effects of the burning as they've been done previously. But you also have a Brazilian President who is all about burning more. Burn more of the forest. Let's burn more of it. So it doesn't look like it's gonna improve anytime soon. So this is dreadful news.

Bex: Yeah, I mean, most of this, a lot of this is beef, which we all know is bad for the environment anyway, but you know, some of this is soy, which we, again, if you are into vegetarian news, you will know that you know, we're all questioning which of the fake milks is the most environmentally friendly. So it's not like you can just say, I'm just not gonna eat meat and then that's the answer. I mean, it doesn't say to what percentage soy is over beef, which I would be quite interested in because I am presuming with my bias, that it’s less. There is less soy burning than beef burning. 

Jonny: Also, maybe just don't dig up a forest to plant soy. 

Bex: But that's what I'm saying. Like you can't just say oh, now I'm a vegetarian. I'm alright. Because even vegetarian food is still full of dicks. I mean, not literally. Burgers are full of dicks. Vegetarian food is not literally full of dicks but the industry is.

Jonny: Yeah, not good. So that wasn't a positive story to start, but there’s more stats in the charity news of the week and that is more positive.

Bex: there is. You've doubled up the stats this week.

Jonny: So many stats. 

Bex: Charity digital skills report. It’s that time of year again, whoop whoop. Charity digital skills report. Klaxon is happening. It's been released today, on the day of recording, so probably like last week, by the time we get this podcast out. But interesting findings, because it's been done, obviously, during the pandemic for the first time.

Jonny: Yeah, so last year's report, I think showed that there was an increase in digital skills or digital ways of working because I guess the pandemic was kind of in full flight probably, what was it? Lockdown one probably when it came out? So the report has said this year that they were trying to answer two big questions: have charities started to embed digital change for the long term or not? And if so, what does this tell us about the future of the sector? And the second thing to find out, what resources and support do charities need to better use digital to achieve their aims as we emerge from the pandemic? Hopeful that we will emerge is always nice to read. So yeah, I've pulled out some of the ke,. I mean, they pulled out some key findings, and I've reduced those just so we can get this done in 20 minutes. 

Bex: Brevity. 

Jonny: For brevity. That 60% of charities now have a digital strategy, which is an 11% increase from last year. So that's good news. 83% of the charities had started to offer online services. 

Bex: Which this is something that, I've already tweeted about this, Jonathan. But if 60-60% of charities have a strategy but 83% of charities are now new, potentially new, I'm not sure exactly what that stat means. But they are delivering online services, this should probably be 83% of charities have a digital strategy, right? 

Jonny: Yeah. Well, that's how things work. 

Bex: We're getting better. I'm glad. I'm glad there’s an 11% increase, but there's still work to be done, right?

Jonny: It's not just charities that probably have that problem. Hey, let's do this thing without thinking about doing the thing.

Bex: And of course, we had to do it that way round because of the pandemic and the speed we needed to turn things around that.

Jonny: Yeah. Yeah. And that question you had there around how many of those 60% are new online services, may be linking to that, is that charities have been using digital to reach new people during the pandemic. So it doesn't necessarily mean it's a new service but they’re reaching a new audience. Eight out of ten, so that’s 78%, have deployed digital to speak to new audiences, which is good. But then related to that is obviously those, it’s good that this is kind of coming through, around the danger of digital inclusion, exclusion and inclusion. 52% of the charities are worried about that, that this move to online or moving to online only, for example, might exclude some of their audience. So obviously, those two things need to go hand in hand. The benefits of pushing online and reaching new audiences, versus the dangers of leaving people behind.

Bex: Yeah, and I do think, you know, there's still a lot of work to be done in this digital inclusion, inclusion space. A lot of people have done some really great work, particularly over the pandemic, but I think it's dead complicated.  You know, by saying a blended approach, hybrid approach is a really, really good start. Like, not everything should be digital, not everything should be non digital because there's benefits of both. But I think it's like, really easy to say and really hard to do. And I think we're only you're starting to realise that.

Jonny: Yeah, it's a big problem. And it's good. It's been talked over, like you said, how do you move that worry about excluding people into positive action to combat it, is a real challenge. Also, it came up, that 31% of charities say their staff are burned out from the demands of intense remote working, which I thought was interesting. You know, you shouldn't be doing, you shouldn't be doing more work. Because you've done online, obviously, the danger is it brings out potential of, you're always, you're always potentially online. You know, it's this thing the digital industry has its challenges, isn't it, you have your email on your phone, and you have Slack on your phone and the dangers of, how do you switch off and especially as your work in the pandemic was forced into your home life. It's not a sense where everyone's made a decision to work remotely. You know, you might not be set up for that at all. So that blurring of when you're working and when you're not working. You know, showing that just under a third of their staff are burned out, due to the demands of intense remote working.

Bex: Yeah, I mean, I feel that and I think for me, and I am set up to work remotely, and I've always worked remotely. But now everybody's working remotely, the entirety of my job now is just on Zoom or Teams or Google Hangouts, whatever people decide to invite me to that day. But yeah, I find that really hard . Just sitting in front of a screen all day is really, really, really hard. There's no timeout to go to meetings and chatting on the train. I think it is a big deal. 

Jonny: Yeah, I mean, I have not had this issue with Teams because I refuse to work with clients that use Microsoft Teams. It’s a deal breaker. But yeah, no, it is a real thing. And hopefully, the hybrid ways of working can kind of release those things or we will find ways of working remotely, which are less damaging and harmful. And finally, 44% of charities think they are poor at user research to inform new services. What are your thoughts on that?

Bex: Yes, I think that amount of people is poor at user research across the board, generally. And again, it's the same as the strategy, right? If you're doing digital services, you absolutely should have thought about the users. But I know, I also completely understand the restrictions at the time that we had in the pandemic, but my thoughts are, you know, give me a call, you know, I can sort this out for you. This is my speciality.

Jonny: I was impressed here that 44% of charities have acknowledged that they're poor at user research. Because what is really common is, you know, we’ll be expected to leap into the design phase of a project and will be handed this great and robust user research that they've done. And you know, it’s just terrible. It's terrible or not valid and you kind of got to go start to unpick it and then suggest ways of rectifying it. So it's positive, I guess, that there's just acknowledgement that this is an aspect, which is fine, right? Charities have provided essential services across the country, and they are, you know, great at doing that. So you can't be great at everything. So I think it's fine if they're not great at user research. You can't be perfect or wonderful at everything. Acknowledging that you need some support in that area is really, really helpful to make sure that obviously, you don't make really important and expensive design decisions. Or poor discovery that is obviously going to cost charities money in the long term. So it's good that they're acknowledging it so they can try to rectify it. I worry about the percentages. It's not self declared but that is bad as a research and just doesn't know it.

Bex: That's a much more dangerous stat, but we can't collect it, annoyingly,

Jonny: The report is massive and there's loads of really interesting stuff. So that's just a few things and definitely worth getting. I think we'll probably tweet about it, won’t we? And it'll be in the podcast description. But you've read through it, what are your thoughts? 

Bex: What, the report? 

Jonny: Yeah.

Bex: I always love this report. I mean, the only annoying thing about the report is it means I have to update all of my presentations, because I always use the stats from the report. Yeah, I definitely think you should all download it. Report that skills platform.org. And we'll tweet about it as well and put a link in the thing under the podcast or to the right of the podcast, or wherever it is on your thing that you read, look at podcasts on. 

Jonny: [laughs] 

Bex: Podcasts, podcasts, podcasts [laughs] Tech news of the week, we've kind of got to things and we'll see how we get on with time. Probably fine. Inside big techs angry, geeky, often petty were for your privacy. So you thought this was fascinating and have read the entire article, right? But I've not really looked at it. So please tell me more about this.

Jonny: Yeah. And there was, I’m guessing there was a typo in the thing you just read off the agenda. That it is an often petty war for your privacy, which is more exciting. 

Bex: That makes more sense. 

Jonny: It does make more sense. 

Bex: I just read what's written in front of me. 

Jonny: I'm Ron Burgundy. 

Bex: [laughs] 

Jonny: So, yeah, this is a really really interesting read on protocol.com.  It’s really long and in some ways, I guess, maybe really boring. But I guess the key thing is, so there’s an organisation that most or if not many of our listeners will know both of them, will be familiar with, which is the W3C. 

Bex:  I have almost no idea what that is. 

Jonny: Okay, so one of the two, which is the World Wide Web Consortium. And it's like an online, I think mostly online community, and basically the people who run the internet. They get together and figure out how the web should work. So, you know, that will be companies who won the browsers, ad tech companies, privacy advocates, academics, all sorts of people. And they get together and this is where new standards are proposed and flush it all out together. There’s rules that everyone has to adhere to. So in theory, when you are using any browser to access the web, things kind of work in the same way that the core is the same. So when people talk about websites, and those sorts of things. So it's really important. They don't always get things right, obviously. And, you know, understandably, there would be concerns because obviously big players in this are like, big tech, you know? What's fascinating is it is all done by consensus and openly. So like GitHub and Zoom and those sorts of things. And you know, people have to be quite careful, you know, from someone from Facebook or Microsoft or Google, like, you know, you can't just, you know, go in, and always say exactly what you think because rightly so, you probably shouldn't do that, because what they think is probably awful. So definitely there’s a sense of, you know, things will always be through the lens. It's not like, quite this exciting fly on the wall situation, because you can imagine, everyone's been really, really careful. I think of phone calls and that video to Uber, which is the least helpful thing in the world, they just pay licences. So there's that type of stuff. But they’re going to war at the minute, which is really funny, and really boring, but also terrifying, because what they are at war about is privacy. And what should the W3Ss role be in that. And this stems really from them focusing on how do they make change? So I think Google suggested a change around not being able to track people through the browser. Obviously, there’s a huge industry of people making money from tracking how people behave on the internet and how they interact. So this focus on, how do we tackle that and you know, Apple have pushed a lot of our anti privacy, you know, pro privacy stuff. And all the other organisations are kind of trying to work out, how do they make money, how do they do this. But basically, ad tracking, folks, and the article is framed around this guy, James Boswell, who runs a company in the UK, that makes money from tracking users' behaviour. They've infiltrated the FCC. And he sounds like an absolute jackass. You know, around essentially trying to protect their business interests? Because for them, if you're not tracking people, how on earth would they, you know, make money without finding, you know, a real honest job. And there's just some things that kind of stood out to me around the way that they're framing the arguments as well, which is very much this kind of awful way you have people frame things in. Politics right now, you know, I'm trying to frame things around philosophical stuff, when actually they just mean awful stuff. But they're trying to pretend that it's a good thing for society. Someone called Pete Schneider, who is the Director of privacy at Brave, is referring to these people like James as well. And he said, they use cynical terms like, we're here to protect to use a choice as if, what if the user wants to be tracked? Or we're here to protect the open web or frankly, harsh it like that, is kind of how he framed it. And that reminded me of, you know, people who are anti using tech for social good, and the way that they rally around that is, what does good mean? And I want to talk about what good means to try and justify the fact that they're, you know, killing people with their dreadful products ideas. So, yeah, that was a lot to talk about and it's a lot to read, but I don't know what you think.

Bex: Ummm, yeah, I just think it's really rubbish. You know, especially now, I mean, forever, where it's really hard to regulate technology anyway, with laws and stuff. And I know these aren't regulators, would you say? I guess you wouldn't say they were. They're definitely not law makers anyway. But they are people that have power in how the internet works and the internet already has too much power and no one's regulating it effectively. So this feels like, this is the first line of defence, right, isn't it, in some ways. Like, and it's not good that it's been infiltrated. I mean, is, you've read the entire article, have they done enough to protect themselves from infiltration? Like, was this a good infiltration as in like, they got around loads of like, ways, loads of the ways in?

Jonny: Yeah, like, the good thing is, I guess, is around their processes are not set up for the type of damage that these folks are trying to do. So these examples, where they break up into steering groups to talk about a very specific part of tracking, right ,and folks like this James will join us groups, and we'll try and derail it by saying, I think we should vote on this thing and they'll put false motions in straight away or he's just trying to derail the whole thing. And they're able to shut it down quite quickly, because they're like, that's not how this works. That's not how our process works. You're not allowed to go off topic. We're here just to talk about this thing. We're only here to talk about this thing because they've got a lot to get done right. So I think they're stalling things more than stopping things. The danger is as more people get whipped up and caught into this, they're brought on board and it just kind of, I imagine the real danger is it just grinds to a halt and they're not actually able to get stuff done. 

Bex: Hmmm.

Jonny: I think it's probably easy to infiltrate because of the idea of it is an open community. And you know, it's why it's both an interesting read and a boring read [laughs] I think the interesting thing is around that nuance of a lot of the companies who have major roles in the W three C are awful companies. Like the idea of Google dictating the way you're having such a major role in the way that the web works or Microsoft's having that or Apple having that or Amazon having that or Facebook having that is dreadful, because they already amass so much power, right? So you and that's the danger of these arguments that these ad track companies are making. Because some of them they're really easy to be persuasive, because they'll be like, well, why should Google dictate the way that privacy works on the web, which is like a fair point. But the reason they're saying it is not fair. They want us to stop this progress on privacy.

Bex: I'm also really, I'd love to be a fly on the wall. I mean, I guess I can be because it's all open, maybe I will be next time, because like a lot of these organisations as well make money off advertising. So I wonder how easy it would be to actually convince them, like from the ad industry, convincing, you know, Google, Facebook, that they live off ads and I wonder how that's interlinked. But also as Google being told by the ad industry, what to do. Like at what point is Google like, I'm not being told what to do by the ad industry. Like, I don't know how that plays out. Egos play out in that scenario as well.

Jonny: Yeah. Because absolutely, the decisions that Google would push forward to make changes, or they'll make sure that they're not impacting on their bottom line. Like they won’t do it in an altruistic way. So yeah, there will be real concerns about not having people to kind of push and challenge. I just think that the people who are pushing and challenging in this instance, do not have, you know, older people who do use the internet, they do not have their best thoughts. They do not have their safety or care in mind, they're just kind of looking after their own self interest. But there's some other kind of transcripts are quite funny, because obviously, Facebook would not want this to happen whatsoever. It'd be quite disastrous to them. But they can kind of come in and be a dick in the way that this James guy is being. So I think it has also kind of shaken it up to where people are a bit surprised. Like, oh, you're not allowed to. People don't do this. People don't say this. I think it has been like quite a shock as well. So it is worth a read if you're interested in these types of things. Not quite sure where it will all lead to be honest. And there's a lot there are a lot of dangers, I think with a W three C. I'm not sure what the better alternative would be. But not good. It's boring but also interesting.

Bex: We've got time to talk about the second thing. It feels very relevant. So verified ID has been discussed quite a lot this week. There's been a petition, I don't think it's gone any further than a petition, so it's nothing to like, worry too much about at the minute. But essentially, it's about making a verified ID a requirement for opening a social media account. And it's been done positively. The idea is that if somebody is being a dick on the internet, you can find out who iti. So on, you know, on one side of things, it sounds like a really good thing to implement. But there's also a flip side to the story. Have you read much about this, Jonny?

Jonny: Not about these two instances that you're talking about these positions, but you know, there's been a lot of talk for a while where it feels like the you know that the first idea jumped to is always the wrong one, like, you know, when someone's been abused on the internet, if we could find out who that was. But the thing is that you regularly hear from groups who care for and protect, you know, underrepresented people or people most at harm in society, the first thing that they will say is, this stuff, it screws over people who are already at risk. Like, anonymity is a really important part of, like, a safe internet and there are challenges that come with that, obviously, but this is the knee jerk white guy reaction to stopping, you know, gender based violence or racism or all of those sorts of things. And that is not the answer. But like you said, the spirit of it might be good, but actually would cause more harm than good. But you know quite a lot of this stuff.

Bex: Yeah, I mean, I mean that’s it really. I do completely understand why this has come about because of all the dicks on the internet. And, you know, bots. A lot of abuse comes from massive amounts of bots that people create just to abuse people. In fact, a lot of you know, talking about we’re a news podcast so we have to talk about relevant stuff. You know, after the football, there was a lot of racial abuse to the players and there's actually, nicely, a load of Facebook employees saying this is not good enough. We're not doing good enough as an organisation to stop this. And they've been looking into it. And a lot of the accounts are sock puppet accounts literally just set up to abuse people on the internet, and they're anonymous and you can't track who it is. So, you know, there is like a large, a big thing about anonymous accounts being created deliberately for this. And actually, you know, if you talk about all the democracy stuff, that's bots as well. Like, the reason why all these stories being spread, you know, on the right, really scary stories is because people are able to sell hundreds and hundreds of bots, you know, and spread this information. So this would stop that and that sounds good. However, it also does completely, you know, the people that this excludes, you know, people who can't get access to IDs and can't prove who they are, which is a lot of people who don't deserve to be blocked from social media. It also, you know, non binary and trans are going to struggle with this. As soon as you need a verified ID. Yeah, it's a tough one.  And I don't think as you said, I don't know if it's the right answer to a really complicated problem.

Jonny: No. And do you think that there are many, many countries around the world where if you had this, and then you wanted to express yourself openly and honestly online, you'd be killed? 

Bex: Yeah, great, great point. 

Jonny: It's awful. And conscious that we have an extremely right wing government, which is getting increasingly right wing government. And those things sound really, really far away from where we are as a society but they're not. Like it doesn't say it's not many, many steps ahead, when you get into a situation where a certain type of thing is outlawed, which is, you know, completely outrageous to do so.  To strip away basic human rights, and then the ability to ensure that you can identify people online, like that would be dangerous. I also would have absolutely no confidence in the government’s ability to manage this. Didn't they try something around, in order to use porn, you had to verify? 

Bex: Oh, yeah, maybe. 

Jonny: That just never happened, I don't think. The technical challenges of that were just beyond.

Bex: Yeah, and I don't know if there's not a lot of information here on who actually gets the ID information. Like I don't want to give my ID documents to social media organisations particularly. And yeah, you know, the people that most need anonymity, are the people that you know, they find safe spaces on the internet, you talk about social media, we think about Twitter, Facebook, right. And, you know, there's not a lot of safe spaces there particularly, but they will find their own communities where they feel safe. And you know, as particularly, I'm thinking of things like Reddit. I don't really use it, but you know, people hide, you know, themselves sometimes on purpose to get, you know, away from what they experience in day to day and I think that should be allowed. It should be allowed.

Jonny: Yeah, yeah. Like it's completely, absolutely nobody's business, why someone might not want to disclose some part of themselves online and it’s absolutely no one's business if someone doesn't want to do that, right? And yeah, it's just like a dangerous route to go down. But, yeah, I don't think there's the technical skills to do that. Because I don't want to give that information to social media accounts. I also don't want to give my social media information to the government either. Like, remember, you're trying to get visas to go into Trump's America, and they were requiring you to put your Twitter and Facebook details on the visa applications. You were never getting back in. 

Bex: [laughs]

Jonny: Yeah. So yeah, I think like you said, I think that the spirit behind why people are trying to do this is in response, I imagine, this is a response to the awful abuse aimed at the England players after racism after the penalty miss. Yeah, just the idea, and maybe isn't the right, their heart is in the right place but this would be super dangerous.

Bex: Yeah, and I don't really, you know, we don't have the answer, either, I don't think. But there are things that can be done here. You know, big tech really needs to sort out its policies on this. There are laws that miss out digital abuse. You know if you think about policing that as well, probably needs to step up. There are other ways of attacking this, and I think we should. Yeah. But I don't have a magical answer right now. Unless you do, Johnny?

Jonny: I don't. If you make these services, which Twitter or Facebook have done, you've got to protect people on them properly, and they're not doing this and this would not be the right way to do that. But there will be other ways which, you know, they pretend that they're working on. So yeah.

Bex: We have a little rant of the week. So this is about the right to repair law, talking about laws, has finally launched. Do you launch a law? I don't know. It's been launched. It's been approved. It's been signed off, stamped. I don't know.

Jonny: Yeah, you get, they put the law in like a big, so all laws are put on big scrolls and they roll them up and they put them in like a circular…

Bex: Is it like a trumpet [make trumpet noises]

Jonny: They do that, but they put them in a cylindrical container as well and then they smash a bottle of champagne against the law. And that's like the launching of the law. Very similar to when you launch a vote. That's like a formal process, but you dress up like lawyers and wear those wigs and stuff.

Bex: Okay, so that happens around the UK right to repair law, which is very exciting, because we've all been waiting for it for a long time. The idea is that, you know, a lot of electronics are made, like think about fridges, or whatever. And they can be really difficult to repair for a variety of reasons. But this law is supposed to, you know, increase all of that sort of stuff. Increase repair, increase lifespan of products through repair. But also, you know, the thing that it really impacts is like manufacturers don't often release manuals that help people repair it or parts that allow people to repair it. So now they have to do that. Except it's left out laptops and smartphones. And this was what we were all hoping would be in it. 

Jonny: We don’t have many of those though.  We don't have any of them. 

Bex: And also, aren't they like some of the main baddies in this industry? Like I know TV’s pretty bad as well but, you know, laptops, there's a thing called planned obsolescence as well, where manufacturers deliberately create products that will die after like a year or two. So you have to buy the new one. It's like a deliberate way of making money. So, I think phone companies do that a lot. So it's weird that that's not in there. It feels like, I mean I've not really read the whole article yet but this is a new agenda item and quite a quick turnaround one. So we don't know the full facts here. Disclaimer. But it feels like they probably lobbied to not be included, right?

Jonny: You would imagine so. Yeah, because these things are notoriously hard to repair and they have no interest in doing so, you know, some of the firms that have pushed to have you return.  They've created schemes that they get the devices back so that they can probably reuse elements from them. But I imagine it's because their lifespan is so short either deliberately or otherwise that they know it wouldn't be in their best interest as a business to do that. So they want you to upgrade to get a new one, which is frustrating

Bex: And you know, Apple’s a big one isn't it? That you're not really supposed to upgrade your own Apple? I don't really know if they say it voids your warranty. A lot of things say that but they're very notorious, aren't they, for like having it all locked down. It's not like a non- Apple laptop, where you can just, you are encouraged to kind of upgrade it in a way and play around with it and add new RAM. It’s exactly the opposite with Apple. It'll lock it down.

Jonny: Like for laptops, I think probably most of that way, you know that Apple's particularly just really small ones like the Airs I think, you know, when they get pulled apart, they're all kind of like glued together so that they’re lighter and smaller. Obviously makes it impossible to. But even the desktop size stuff, unless you are buying , you know, like those Mac Pros that look like little dustbins, really difficult to. So the iMac I'm on, which is a twelve year old 27 iMac, there’s a bit you can pull out to put a bit more RAM in but that's it really. All you can touch as the consumer. The smaller ones you just couldn't, didn't have that option. So even if you had those kind of big computers, compared to PCs where you can take them apart and put new graphics cards and upgrade things and almost like build your own over time, they’ve never really had that as an option. So yeah, notoriously difficult. From a consumer to easily repair, I'm sure there's probably places you can send your iMac to where they'll cut them open and stuff but there’s definitely a barrier there and I assume, in part deliberate.

Bex: Yeah, it looks like there’s positive notes though at the end of this article. Apparently the EU is aiming to rectify this problem and is going to expand the Right to Repair act in the EU to cover laptops and smartphones. Hopefully. So fingers crossed. There might be some more positive news on that.

Jonny: Remember a while ago you found something around a guy who is in the US, because this is a big deal with Teslas, and he's like an underground Tesla, illegal Tesla repair guy right? That was quite an interesting thing but I don't know why this reminded me of maybe this idea of, you know, this kind of planned obsolescence and we’re sort of circular economy stuff. This plan isn't to try and have everything be rental, you know, so it goes back to the company and they want to repair it or, you know, reuse it in some way. And suddenly, you don't ever really own anything, but it's awesome. Kind of got caught up in like this weird dystopian Twitter thread around this idea of, you know, washing machines now go in, there’s so many of them are like smart washing machines to where you can control them from your phone. And it’s so stupid like, because you have to manually load the washing machine anyway. So what value is it for me to have to turn it on and off, and then people talking about oh, this will be to get to the stage where you have this whole connected home and everything is, you know, like a service and you then people put these dystopian messages you might get from your washing machine. Like, you know, I'm sorry, that you, you seem to be using the washing machine at a scale that is for a household when you have the bachelor plan. So you are now no longer able to, you’re only now allowed to put on a washing cycle of this size load between the hours of like, on this day. This idea of your devices shutting you out because you're not using them in the right way.

Bex: Yeah. Cory Doctorow has done a little short story about this and interestingly enough in that, which I think would be true, it's generally the poorer populations that get tied into the rental, which is true because I was poor when I grew up, and everything we had was rented, we had to put pound in a box just to turn the TV on. So I think you know, that is interesting that that would kind of ring true that it's the poorer populations, but then it ends up costing more in the long run. We all know that, righ? From rental, it's just easier to get hold of something when you rent something, you know, initially, and then yeah, then they tie you in. So in the story, I think it revolves around a toaster. It is a rental toaster and you can only put certain bread in it, that's, you know, approved by the manufacturer and that bread is quite expensive. So to get themselves out of that cycle, people will like hacking the toasters so they can put whatever bread they wanted in it. Yeah, so definitely a dystopian future in rentals, potentially. 

Jonny: Yeah, like, I think the only way because we did a safer economy podcast and we've talked about this type of stuff isn't the only way we would get to a situation where the manufacturers would push for this, hey, nobody has to own anything, would be nothing to do with the environment.  That they would sell it like that. But it would be to screw over consumers in the long run, make you pay more, which is maybe we've gone off topic slightly from this. But yeah.

Bex: Not necessarily, but from one dystopian future to another, there is the and finally is a 3D cat billboard, which we will put the link to because it is worth having a look at. When I first saw it, it looks like a giant model of a cat stood on top of a building, which looks amazing, but then you play the video and it's like, it's like the 3D shark out of Back to the Future. It's 3D rather than the actual 3D model. And it's great. It's proper futuristic stuff.

Jonny: I love it. It's like there’s a side of a building that is open and there’s a ginormous cat, which looks like one of our cats on there, which is great. I like this type of stuff. I like cats. It's always good to see a giant one, although maybe it's a terrifying size, I think. 

Bex: It is a bit. 

Jonny: But yeah, it's really like effectively I've seen a few of these where it's to make it look like there's water in the tank and it's swishing against the side and the wave is going to break free. But yeah, it definitely made me think of the jars, the 3D jars, like Back to the Future part 2. It’s a fun and finally, so if you have made it this far into the podcast, just click the link in the description and you will see a giant cat. Where is it Bex?

Bex: Tokyo I think.  

Jonny: Tokyo. 

Bex: Yeah. And it's really cool and I would like to see it in real life but I'm not going to Tokyo. I’ll just see an advert.  That will be weird. That is it. That's all we have time for today. Do you want to add anything Jonny? We have time.

Jonny: I have absolutely nothing to ever contribute to anything.

Bex: Okay, excellent. [laughs] Well, thanks for listening everybody. What do you think? We would love to hear your thoughts. Get in touch on twitter at Tech for good live or email us at Hello at tech for good dot live. Reviews are great. I know I talk about this every week. But iTunes reviews are apparently dead important in the podcast industry, so please give us an iTunes review. Tell your mates to come and listen and do reviews as well. I also want to thank the producers who produce this podcast every week. They have to listen to our voices and edit it. Paul and Christiana. Thank you. And we are all volunteers. You will be not surprised to hear and we kind of run on sponsorships and donations just to pay for things like you know, hosting, etc. So if you can give some money, that'd be great. We also have to pay for transcription of the podcasts which is a pretty good deal but we still need money. So that's a tech for good live forward slash donate. Just like three quid would be wonderful and would really help. Well that's it then. Bye. See you next week. 

Jonny: Bye.