A Big Bad App: Welcome to Corporatocracy (WHY2025)

We all live in a fair democracy 🎶 ... or do we? No, we live in a world where the major corporations decide how we interact with digital systems and digital systems govern the world. That's corporatocracy - a system in which corporations, rather than elected officials, have major influence over decision-making, laws, and societal direction. And they are not on our side. This talk is about what happens when the system isn't built for you — because it never was. - If something goes wrong and you're not the 1,000th person to report it, it's your problem. Customer service? That's just a chatbot pretending to care. - A mobile operator refused to sign a contract with me because they couldn't remove “I agree to receive ads.” - My orders get randomly cancelled because I refuse to have a phone number. - My industry certifications? Gone. Because I stood up for my privacy rights. We'll go through these experiences and dissect why things are this way. Why must we adapt to their systems, but they won't adapt to ours? Why does a company's "official support channel" usually mean "no support at all"? Why do startups optimize for growth at the cost of basic usability? This isn't just a rant (though there will be rants). It's a call to stop playing by their rules. We'll discuss examples of where people have pushed back and won, and where we've completely failed. If you've building an app or website, and intend to respect your users, this talk is for you. Licensed to the public under https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ about this event: https://program.why2025.org/why2025/talk/993NXA/