Computing Queer Spaces Part 3: Them Queer Ideas are Buried Here

We are singing "American Requiem" to the old order, to domination, exploitation, and stagnation. In its place, we are mapping a clearer and Queer-er future for these technologies.

Aug 28, 2024

Hi, I told you there would be a Part 3 and here it is. First, we laid out the possibilities for LGBTQs in the spatial-computing future. Then, I did the less fun post about all of the problems and pitfalls we currently or might face. Now is the time to “face the wind” and think about solutions to those problems and establish a perspective going forward.

Lost at Sea During a Sea Change

Part of taking an impromptu, depression-based hiatus from posting the things you’ve written is that the context changes. Some of those changes have serious implications on the spatial-computing frontier. In the electoral realm, Kamala Harris is now the Democratic nominee for the presidency. Her proposals around price-gouging are focused on essential items like groceries and housing but could be a roadmap for how she thinks about digital economies and power. While she is from the Bay Area and her brother-in-law and close advisor is the General Counsel for Uber, Harris herself comes from law enforcement and might be sympathetic to the recent populist anger over tech companies, their power, and their penchant for violating antitrust laws. The ambiguity there is contrasted with loud, fake populist J.D. Vance. As much as he decries the monopolists and “woke capitalism” in tech, J.D.'s political daddy is evil gay tech billionaire Peter Thiel and his running mate, Donald Trump, only cares about tech when they don’t serve him loyally. J.D. talks more assertively and decisively about Big Tech, but his political arrangements and allegiances speak much louder.

As I said before, Vice-President Harris has a background in law enforcement and is driving a narrative about her history as a prosecutor in her campaign against known-criminal Donald Trump. I would be very interested in how she sees the DOJ’s lawsuits and court wins that have been dropping this summer. Firstly, the Biden Administration’s Dept. of Justice just beat Google in the first monopolization case since the 90s and has moved to the remedy stage. Google also lost a jury trial related to app marketplaces but more on that later. The Dept. of Justice has also sued Apple for antitrust violations. The central theory is that Apple has formed an anti-competitive Walled Garden around its technology and supply chain leading to higher prices for products and lower innovation. The fall of Apple as THE American consumer products company is quite obvious to me, but the ability for the DOJ to prove that in court, and the legal scrutiny itself, will have implications for how Apple deploys its Vision Pro and allows app development on that system. Will the Vision Pro be another part of its fortress of networked technologies and planned obsolescence or will they allow a more open hardware and software market to avoid antitrust scrutiny? Either way the old order is in the midst of falling, and we all should start confidently asserting what the future should look like. That’s what I’m hoping to do here.

The Hard Stuff

That assertive future starts with changing how the hardware and software economies in spatial-computing and digital technology, generally, operate. The catalyst for this whole series was Matt Stoller’s Substack post, and it features a host of ideas on how to make the hardware’s supply chain more resilient and diversify our semiconductor production geographically. Currently, a lot of that is housed in regularly imperiled Taiwan, and that’s not a good thing. On the domestic side of things, we need to embrace Right to Repair laws wholesale. These are a collection of state laws that govern spare parts and repair information from companies, the right of consumers or repair store owners to legally repair products, and orient the economy away from our current environmentally heinous practices around e-waste and disposal. The laws are upstream from a repair market that allows local economies to thrive through ownership of repair businesses and employment of workers therein. While Apple’s Genius Stores employ locally, the wealth and revenues are extracted from the community for Apple’s shareholders. That wealth is generated by price gouging consumers for potentially low cost repairs or forcing them to buy new products outright. The Grist notes that “Apple didn’t offer any manuals or spare parts for its new VR headset, the Apple Vision Pro. Meta’s new Meta Quest 3 VR headset also lacks a repair manual, and spare parts offerings are very limited,” even as these laws are coming online.

The ability to prosecute these companies for violating Right to Repair laws would be a boon for plaintiff law firms. These laws also disrupt companies like Apple and John Deere from controlling the hardware’s supply chain as demand for spare parts increases. Local or even chain repair businesses will also drive down prices for repairs because people can go beyond the supplier, with their god-awful prices, to get their repairs done. Lastly, we have the potential to build a more resilient “Repair Economy” by demanding more modular and accessible parts for these products. Unless you love buying a new phone because of a cracked screen, Right to Repair laws are your friend. You wouldn’t accept having to buy a new car because of a busted tail light, right? Keep that same energy for all products.

Speak Software and Carry a Big Joystick

In terms of software, we’re in this funky stage where the app marketplaces have consolidated and everyone hates it. I mentioned Epic Games v Google because Epic won, they have moved to the remedy stage, and Google is constantly in trouble for being dickheads in court. If they could stop destroying evidence while under investigation, people might like them more. Alas.

This suit establishes clear case law around market place monopolization, and, hopefully, the remedies stage forces a more developer-friendly and open app ecosystem. US v Google also provides case law regarding network effects and how tech companies use their market positions, Google’s dominance in general search, to lock out competitors and lock in consumers. We’re already seeing the Federal Trade Commission apply those concerns as it looks at the AI industry and considers the network effects of Big Tech companies with big data to train LLMs. A similar regulatory scrutiny is necessary for spatial-computing. Meta clearly strategically acquired Oculus, and Apple has a Walled Garden; they will likely use those gatekeeping positions to orient software development. When they start rent-seeking in their app stores or overwhelming everyone with hyper-targeted ads, we will have failed to learn from their well-established playbook.

In an ideal world, we would be debating legislation that affirmatively designs rules for digital marketplaces and software economies, makes clear how antitrust laws relate to these markets, and provides a massive increase in funding for the DOJ Antitrust Division and FTC to match the scale of these problems. Unfortunately, we live in a world of GOP clownery, the filibuster, and ~~sharks~~ lobbyists swimming all over Congress. This kind of legislation would require electoral wins for both Democrats and Republicans that are not captured by Big Tech. A Democratic majority in the Senate could not get Sen. Klobachar’s antitrust legislation to the floor because Majority Leader Schumer was being wooed by Big Tech jobs for his staffers. It will require a broader coalition than just run of the mill Democrats. It will also require a broader conversation on privacy and free expression on the internet that most legislators, let alone American voters, are not ready to have. I think as Queer people, if we can abandon the “benevolent masters” approach of the 2010s, we can assist in this conversation. By that I mean, we have to outgrow “Logo Changes for Pride Month” politics and actually take seriously how these companies affect our lives and economies. That won’t be easy. It will mean ignoring anti-LGBTQ reactionaries like Libs of TikTok or Matt Walsh and embracing “unseemly” parts of our community like sex workers. Those are often the folks that understand these technologies and the delicate dance of free expression and privacy best. We sort of have to have a more serious politics than we do right now.

Grow Up Gays

To have that coherent politics, we have to take seriously the many questions of online safety, including for young people. I am an adult, enough, but even I feel weird about the volume of porn on Twitter and Pornhub. If that’s weird for me, maybe free access to that for young people isn’t a good thing. Imagine the “Ipad kids” or TikTok addicts merging that digital addiction to immersive VR porn, and that is their sex education.

Controversial opinion: I think that age-verification to access porn is a good thing. I recognize that the conservative politics that are often pushing these laws are bad and I recognize that there are some data security questions regarding the housing of that verification information, but those are conversations to be had, not stifled. I’m also willing to engage with debates regarding the appropriate age to consume porn just as states have differing ages of consent and legal driving ages. I believe that we as a people have a right to make rules around potential addictive products, especially as immersive technologies are further deployed. It’s the Zuckerbergs and Thiels that think that society should hurtle towards “progress” with no boundaries or rules or even democratic processes to negotiate those boundaries. This is what the innovation and “free speech” absolutists do to our world:

At a minimum, I think that we should require product labeling for pornographic content online. I’m also empathetic to social media product labels as well. We need companies and content creators to be honest with themselves and their audience about what they put online. Aylo’s collection of aggregate sites (Pornhub, Redtube, Xtube, etc) are my primary target because it’s a Google or Meta sized monopoly that encourages binge consumption of porn with limited guardrails, especially for young people. In the same way that TikTok has its “Time for a break” notices while bingeing videos, aggregate sites with autoplay functionality should provide notices regarding porn bingeing. Neither TikTok’s notices nor potential notices on aggregate sites deal with the addictive nature of the platforms themselves, but it's a start. For all of my belief in the potential for spatial-computing to create amazing immersive experiences for sex workers and pro bono sluts, I am simultaneously concerned about a future where young gay guys are glued to their Apple Vision Pro having algorithmically curated, un-labeled porn products autoplayed ad infinitum instead of...y’know going to gay bars and meeting real people. Labeling and product safety regulations aren’t going to fix the underlying problems, but I would certainly take a moment to breathe if Pornhub said “Hey friend, you’ve been gooning for a three hours.”

Part of my anxieties about these digital platforms is that I am part of a generation that learned sex or even Queerness itself from Coco Dorm, Helix Studios, and Pornhub.com/gay. I have made something out of that, but the lack of quality sex education in this country, coupled with our current, highly addictive content distribution platforms, and the incoming ~~Marktrix~~ Metaverse push me to demand boundaries.

We can create those boundaries by building Queer-inclusive sex health and education campaigns and products, specifically around digital content and extended-reality. I don’t just want to mitigate unhealthy behavior but affirmatively communicate what the world should look like. As I’ve said before, we have a lot of potential to build Queer educational spaces on these extended-reality platforms. So many Queers have stories about seeing themselves in porn or learning about sex through digital spaces, but you rarely hear us talk about what we actually needed, let alone wanted. We’ve become too comfortable with trial-by-trauma, knowledge through porn, and fiction as education. All LGBTQ people coming into their own, regardless of age, deserve resources for their flourishing, and we have the means of making them. This goes well beyond porn or sex. Imagine being able to digitally teleport into a space with a Trans or Trans-affirming endocrinologist and other Trans folks to talk about how your Estrogen medication is affecting you. Imagine having access to those resources in your teens. The Queer truth of it all is that we can’t rely on the state to take sexual health, especially for sexual and gender minorities, seriously. We can barely rely on them to take 100 year old antitrust laws seriously in the face of rampant consolidation. We can’t rely on the state and its cishet operators to seriously consider the potential for immersive drag performance or kink education. We can’t rely on them to have mature and healthy conversations about pornography either. So what do we do?

We create queerly.

We must build a metaverse, spatial-computing economy, extended reality for Queer & Trans People. While I encourage everyone to secure their bag, we need our technologists to do more than work for Oracle or Amazon. We need you all to build mixed-reality platforms now. We need our Porn Gays and TV Production Lesbians to experiment with lighting and filming for VR headsets. We need our Sasha Velours building Night Gowns for our living rooms. We need our Leiomys and Dashaun Wesleys figuring out how to monetize their Vogue 101 classes for the Apple Vision Pro. We need these products to not go the way of OnlyFans, where sex workers are throttled at the whims of opaque companies and their platforms can be snatched away with no ownership of their work. We need products and platforms that expand audiences and make Queer culture accessible across geography, age, and ability, but that expansion should not result in divorcing creators and performers from their pay. We still need to tip the gworls. We need platforms that reject racism, transphobia, and misogyny, not censor words like sex or punish a little bulge in your profile picture. Looking at you, Scruff.

I want our Queer technologists to lead in the production of a metaverse and spatial-computing economy that is by and for Queer & Trans People. Let’s be clear though, these frontiers must be developed by LGBTs that abide by the social contract. It’s great to have fantsites that finance the lives of many Queer people but not if they’re made by Austin Wolf (4myfans). We also need to avoid right-wing gays like Peter Thiel. We need NetPhlix, the Sapphic fans site with immersive content, or T-Time, the only site where you can watch the dolls from your VR headset and not touch them. Keep your hands to yourself. We have the capacity to develop all of these wondrous things if we remember who we are. We need to not be scared of the future; that’s what they do. If we wait until these markets are consolidated, we risk policing and exploitation. If we wait for Republicans to draft age-verification laws, we risk more policing and poor data management. If we don’t defend Right to Repair laws, we make all emerging technologies luxury goods for FiDi and Silicon Valley bros. We need to imbue these technologies with our culture of exploration, innovation, and communalism. The future is now and the future is Queer.

Thank you for reading along. This series took a lot of work, often in starts and stops, but I’m proud of the final product. While not losing my love of comics criticism, I am trying to write more about “policy stuff” I’m interested in. I am trying to fuse my identities and interests with my policy interests like antitrust and tech policy because they’re inherently mixed but few are engaging the Venn Diagram’s overlap. Be on the lookout for some writing on Grindr and its enshittifcation. I don’t know yet if it’s a monopoly or has anticompetitive practices but it certainly sucks despite its ubiquity.

Broadly Speaking

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