Enshittification
About This Book
Cory Doctorow's Enshittification argues that the sense of the internet getting steadily worse is not imagined, and that the decline is deliberate. Misogyny, conspiracy theories, surveillance, manipulation, fraud and AI-generated junk now flood online spaces. For the monopolists that dominate the web, including X, TikTok, Amazon, Meta and Apple, this is part of the business model. Doctorow, a leading critic of the tech industry, calls the process enshittification and describes it in three stages. First a platform lures users in with something attractive, such as free access. Next it monetizes that activity, bringing in business customers and degrading the experience for users. Finally, once users are trapped and rivals have been wiped out, the platform extracts all the remaining value and hands it to its executives and shareholders. The result is that online public squares have turned into places of abuse and online stores have become wrecks. The spaces where people once hoped the world's problems could be worked out are now thick with hatred. The book lists the symptoms, sets out the diagnosis and proposes remedies. Online monopolies, in his view, must be broken up, and companies that are too big to fail or to jail, and far too big to care, must be reduced in size. He argues that only a challenge to corporate power can make effective regulation and real privacy possible. Tech unions, he says, should protect workers, who can in turn defend the public against the sadism and greed of their bosses.
ISBN: 9781836742227
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