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John Oliver's Last Week Tonight segment on timeshares covers how people get sold into them, why they are so hard to leave, and the exit-company scams that target owners trying to get out.

Tom Scott's long explainer on YouTube's copyright system, Content ID and the DMCA. He argues the platform's system is a workaround for a broader copyright system that does not fit the modern world.

Anand Giridharadas presents his book Winners Take All at Google, arguing that the global elite's philanthropy and 'win-win' framing preserve the systems that create inequity. He challenges the audience, including Google employees, to examine their own role in that system.

Folding Ideas uses the rise and fall of the YouTube competitor VidMe to examine why platforms are not friends to creators. It argues that alternatives to big platforms tend to attract the users banned from the original and lack a core vision.

Dan Olson's roughly two-hour video essay critiques NFTs, cryptocurrency, and Web3, covering their technical, economic, and ideological flaws. It is heavily sourced and ends with the advice to ask whether a project needs crypto to work.

Bill Gurley's talk at the All-In Summit 2023, titled 2,851 Miles after the distance between Washington and San Francisco. He describes how incumbents use lobbying and regulation to entrench themselves, followed by a conversation with the hosts.

Peter Thiel's lecture from the How to Start a Startup course on business strategy and monopoly theory, arguing that competition destroys profits and that startups should aim to build monopolies. It covers the ideas of Zero to One.

Veritasium explores planned obsolescence, from the Phoebus lightbulb cartel to printers and phones. It explains how companies deliberately shortened product lifetimes and why products aren't better.

A conference presentation by Bert Hubert on how companies lose their technological edge and become outsourcing hubs. It argues the same dynamic applies to whole countries and continents, and ends with suggestions for reversing it.

Maciej Ceglowski's talk at Web Directions argues that small teams and lone programmers can build sustainable businesses without chasing Silicon Valley's grow-or-die model. He offers alternative, more achievable definitions of success.

In this 2019 GDC talk, Alex Schwartz and Ziba Scott explain how they flooded the app stores with over 1,500 auto-generated slot machine games to find the lowest bar for success. They tour the dark side of the mobile app market.

A Wendover Productions explainer arguing that major airlines make much of their profit from loyalty programs and co-branded credit cards rather than flying. It frames airlines as quasi-banks that sell points in bulk, using United's pandemic-era loan as a hook.

Cory Doctorow's DEF CON 31 talk describes how platforms decay in a pattern he calls enshittification. He lays out a plan to stop it through antitrust, interoperability and fixing the law.

Clayton Christensen explains disruptive innovation using the steel industry, showing how mini-mills beat incumbents from the low end. He argues disruption is not about stupid or bad management.

A short CNN clip of Peter Thiel telling Google chairman Eric Schmidt that Google has huge cash reserves and does not know how to invest them. Thiel argues this signals a lack of innovation.

Part one of Technology Connections' account of the VHS versus Betamax format war. It argues Sony was caught off guard by JVC's cheaper, more practical VHS system.

A five-minute TED talk by Rob Reid, who introduces Copyright Math, applying entertainment-industry piracy loss claims to produce absurd totals such as an $8 billion iPod.

A cappella parody song by The Richter Scales, set to Billy Joel's 'We Didn't Start the Fire', lampooning the Web 2.0 startup bubble. It won a Webby for viral video in 2007.

Bryan Cantrill's talk on corporate open source anti-patterns, first given at FISL 2012 and again at the Liferay Symposium. He lays out the mistakes companies make when open sourcing code, such as announcing future open sourcing, and discusses licenses.

Asianometry explains why India, a chip design powerhouse, cannot fabricate chips, tracing the 1980s government attempt to build a national semiconductor champion and how it collapsed. It includes the sabotage at the SCL fab.

Asianometry examines why Japan's software industry has lagged despite its hardware strengths. It looks at dependence on US software and the low prestige of programming.

Jaron Lanier delivers the 2018 Willy Brandt Lecture in Berlin on who civilization is for, covering data, AI, tech platforms and the economics of who benefits, followed by a Q&A with Germany's data protection commissioner Ulrich Kelber.

A short Frank Zappa interview clip on the decline of the music business, contrasting old cigar-chomping executives with younger industry people.

Tom Scott's video whose title shows its own live view count, and the story of how he made that work. It explains why open APIs were once common and why they largely disappeared.

Asianometry traces the 30-year rise and peak of Japan's semiconductor industry from the 1950s to the 1980s, covering how a postwar country gained competence in an emerging technology.

Tom Scott visits IEX, a stock exchange that slows down trading with a long coil of fiber. The coil removes the speed advantage of high-frequency traders.

A 39-minute highlights reel of Bill Gates being deposed by David Boies in the 1998 to 2001 United States v. Microsoft antitrust case.

Yaron Minsky explains how Jane Street moved from mainstream languages to developing almost entirely in OCaml. He covers trading systems, research infrastructure, tooling and hiring.

Tom Scott explains the famous Dutch flower auction clock at Royal FloraHolland in Aalsmeer, a literal Dutch auction, and how the internet changed it. It is a short look at how the system worked then and now.

A six-minute clip of the famous speech from the 1976 film Network in which the world is described as a corporation. It portrays a world run by corporate interests.

An Asianometry documentary-style video on the rise and collapse of China's dockless bike-share boom. It covers the startups, the heavy subsidies and the price wars.

A VPRO documentary in which Harvard professor Shoshana Zuboff explains her book on surveillance capitalism. It covers how Google and Facebook turn personal data into raw material for prediction and behavioral influence.

Clayton Christensen explains his theory of disruptive innovation at Oxford's Said Business School, using examples from steel, Toyota, Sony, Walmart and Godrej. He applies the theory to why some economies stagnate and others grow.

A short clip of Milton Friedman explaining his free-market view of monopoly, namely that monopolies persist mainly through government help. It is excerpted from the Milton Friedman Speaks series.

Matt Damon appears on Hot Ones, eating progressively spicier wings while discussing his film career and promoting Stillwater. He also explains how the decline of the DVD market changed which movies get made.