What do you think?
Rate this book
Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It
Goodreads Choice Award
Nominee for Readers' Favorite Nonfiction (2025)Explaining the process of the “enshittification” of digital platforms over time and what to do about it.
Cory Doctorow's Enshittification takes a witty yet incisive look at the tech landscape, where platforms like TikTok, Facebook, and Google start off great—before they inevitably turn terrible. In this contemporary moment of digital decline, Doctorow explores how tech giants lure users in with convenience and then degrade their services over time, squeezing profit at the cost of user experience. With a mix of sharp humor and deep insight, he unveils the slow creep of "enshittification," turning the online world into a worse place, one algorithm at a time.
Cory Doctorow's Enshittification takes a witty yet incisive look at the tech landscape, where platforms like TikTok, Facebook, and Google start off great—before they inevitably turn terrible. In this contemporary moment of digital decline, Doctorow explores how tech giants lure users in with convenience and then degrade their services over time, squeezing profit at the cost of user experience. With a mix of sharp humor and deep insight, he unveils the slow creep of "enshittification," turning the online world into a worse place, one algorithm at a time.
338 pages, Hardcover
First published October 7, 2025
1963 people are currently reading
36761 people want to read
About the author
Cory Doctorow
262 books6,286 followersCory Doctorow is a science fiction author, activist, journalist and blogger — the co-editor of Boing Boing and the author of the YA graphic novel In Real Life, the nonfiction business book Information Doesn’t Want To Be Free, and young adult novels like Homeland, Pirate Cinema, and
Little Brother
and novels for adults like
Rapture Of The Nerds
and Makers. He is a Fellow for the Electronic Frontier Foundation and co-founded the UK Open Rights Group. Born in Toronto, Canada, he now lives in Los Angeles.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 850 reviews
June 9, 2025
4 stars - Please don’t let the cute cover fool you - this is a very serious book about how both the internet and our world got so crappy (see what I did there?) Using well-researched examples of different big corporations, the author clearly connects the capitalistic 💩 cycle - from initial excitement, functionality and innovation, to putting corporate & shareholder profit before end users and then business customers to total dysfunction and massive profits & soaring stocks. Meta, Uber, Amazon, Apple, streaming - they’re all here and they’re all very guilty of it. Super interesting, timely and also an approachable read & glad I read it early from Net Galley - recommend it highly to those wondering why all companies are 💩 now.
January 3, 2026
*added a star 1/2/26
"Here’s the natural history of enshittification:
1. First, platforms are good to their users.
2. Then they abuse their users to make things better for their business customers.
3. Next, they abuse those business customers to claw back all the value for themselves.
4. Finally, they have become a giant pile of shit." p16
Holy sh-t I need to catch my breath.
Pre-Read Notes:
I'm not super familiar with Cory Doctorow's work, but I know this term from other people who think about the price of the digital world and how it changes the real physical world that we actually live in. When I saw this one available in NetGalley, I jumped. I'm exactly the person he wrote this for!
"Because enshittification isn’t just a way to say “Something got worse.”* It’s an analysis that explains the way an online service gets worse, how that worsening unfolds, and the contagion that’s causing everything to get worse, all at once." p12
Final Review
(thoughts & recs) I just really wanted to highlight this entire book.
Enshitification is way, way better than Careless People. It will probably get a fraction of the attention, but it shouldn't be that way. Please, if you thought Careless People was an important book, read this one soon after.
My Favorite Things:
✔️ Wow, these case studies are eye opening. Did you know when prices increase at Amazon, it drives them up everywhere else? No? Please read this book.
✔️ In a really important way, this book is extremely sad. It tells the story of how capitalists prey on humans' most basic drive--to be together. "That’s why people are still on Twitter. It’s not that they like the service— it’s that they like one another. And leaving one another is especially hard in moments when things are especially terrible— say, when Elon Musk and Donald Trump are dismantling whole swaths of the US government in a blatantly undemocratic way. Those moments of existential terror are exactly when you need your community the most." p47
✔️ "Enshittification— deliberately worsening a service— is only possible when people value that service to begin with. Enshittification is a game of seeking an equilibrium between how much people like the thing that locks them to the service (often, that’s other people) and how much they hate the management of that service." I'm sorry. But this makes me furious. So much so that M & I are now having discussions about how to stop using some of these huge digital platforms and diversify our spending.
✔️ Doctorow isn't just sharing necessary information here. He's also witty and often funny, despite the heaviness of his topic. "If you operate a cloud-based app, you can monitor your customers’ every click and keystroke to discover which features are most valuable to your deepest-pocketed users, and then you can remove that feature from the product’s basic tier and reclassify it as an upcharged add-on. The CEOs who do this got their MBAs at Darth Vader University, where the first lesson is “I’m altering the deal. Pray I don’t alter it any further.” It works with surprising consistency, and tech executives are so confident in the lessons of the Darth Vader MBA that they come over all affronted and hurt when their customers balk." p83
✔️ "The reason Biden’s Democratic administration backed a generationally significant antitrust agenda is that the people demanded it. You. Me. Us. We were pissed off enough, and loud enough, about corporate abuse that a party and a politician with a long history of doing nothing (or worse than nothing) on these issues finally did something. This is even more remarkable than it sounds, because the academic research on this is clear: the US government almost never acts on the policy preferences of working people , when those preferences conflict with the desires of the rich. Something extraordinary happened in 2020– 2024. It’s still happening. Getting rid of the agencies that turned our demands into law doesn’t make those demands go away. Not hardly." p200 This honestly gives me hope.
✔️ "[...A] rule that required social media platforms to facilitate their users’ painless departure would be extremely easy to administer, without any of the fact-intensiveness that makes anti-harassment rules so cumbersome." p220 This might be the most terrible and simultaneously most helpful info in the book. Why? Because it backlights just how unscrupulous big tech companies are for ignoring this detail, and also gives the reader hope. There are options, unlike we've been convinced to believe.
Content Notes: end stage capitalism, social media, bad business, corruption, Tr*mp, politics of privacy, violations of privacy,
Thank you to Cory Doctorow, Farrar, Strauss, and Giroux, and NetGalley for an accessible digital arc of ENSHITIFICATION. All views are mine.
"Here’s the natural history of enshittification:
1. First, platforms are good to their users.
2. Then they abuse their users to make things better for their business customers.
3. Next, they abuse those business customers to claw back all the value for themselves.
4. Finally, they have become a giant pile of shit." p16
Holy sh-t I need to catch my breath.
Pre-Read Notes:
I'm not super familiar with Cory Doctorow's work, but I know this term from other people who think about the price of the digital world and how it changes the real physical world that we actually live in. When I saw this one available in NetGalley, I jumped. I'm exactly the person he wrote this for!
"Because enshittification isn’t just a way to say “Something got worse.”* It’s an analysis that explains the way an online service gets worse, how that worsening unfolds, and the contagion that’s causing everything to get worse, all at once." p12
Final Review
(thoughts & recs) I just really wanted to highlight this entire book.
Enshitification is way, way better than Careless People. It will probably get a fraction of the attention, but it shouldn't be that way. Please, if you thought Careless People was an important book, read this one soon after.
My Favorite Things:
✔️ Wow, these case studies are eye opening. Did you know when prices increase at Amazon, it drives them up everywhere else? No? Please read this book.
✔️ In a really important way, this book is extremely sad. It tells the story of how capitalists prey on humans' most basic drive--to be together. "That’s why people are still on Twitter. It’s not that they like the service— it’s that they like one another. And leaving one another is especially hard in moments when things are especially terrible— say, when Elon Musk and Donald Trump are dismantling whole swaths of the US government in a blatantly undemocratic way. Those moments of existential terror are exactly when you need your community the most." p47
✔️ "Enshittification— deliberately worsening a service— is only possible when people value that service to begin with. Enshittification is a game of seeking an equilibrium between how much people like the thing that locks them to the service (often, that’s other people) and how much they hate the management of that service." I'm sorry. But this makes me furious. So much so that M & I are now having discussions about how to stop using some of these huge digital platforms and diversify our spending.
✔️ Doctorow isn't just sharing necessary information here. He's also witty and often funny, despite the heaviness of his topic. "If you operate a cloud-based app, you can monitor your customers’ every click and keystroke to discover which features are most valuable to your deepest-pocketed users, and then you can remove that feature from the product’s basic tier and reclassify it as an upcharged add-on. The CEOs who do this got their MBAs at Darth Vader University, where the first lesson is “I’m altering the deal. Pray I don’t alter it any further.” It works with surprising consistency, and tech executives are so confident in the lessons of the Darth Vader MBA that they come over all affronted and hurt when their customers balk." p83
✔️ "The reason Biden’s Democratic administration backed a generationally significant antitrust agenda is that the people demanded it. You. Me. Us. We were pissed off enough, and loud enough, about corporate abuse that a party and a politician with a long history of doing nothing (or worse than nothing) on these issues finally did something. This is even more remarkable than it sounds, because the academic research on this is clear: the US government almost never acts on the policy preferences of working people , when those preferences conflict with the desires of the rich. Something extraordinary happened in 2020– 2024. It’s still happening. Getting rid of the agencies that turned our demands into law doesn’t make those demands go away. Not hardly." p200 This honestly gives me hope.
✔️ "[...A] rule that required social media platforms to facilitate their users’ painless departure would be extremely easy to administer, without any of the fact-intensiveness that makes anti-harassment rules so cumbersome." p220 This might be the most terrible and simultaneously most helpful info in the book. Why? Because it backlights just how unscrupulous big tech companies are for ignoring this detail, and also gives the reader hope. There are options, unlike we've been convinced to believe.
Content Notes: end stage capitalism, social media, bad business, corruption, Tr*mp, politics of privacy, violations of privacy,
Thank you to Cory Doctorow, Farrar, Strauss, and Giroux, and NetGalley for an accessible digital arc of ENSHITIFICATION. All views are mine.
October 9, 2025
A slight spoiler, but I love that this book spends 250 pages on “here’s what enshittification means” and gives incredibly detailed and valuable lessons on the ways it functions and how to spot and analyze it. And then with 5 pages left, Doctrow throws his hands in the air and just says “fucking run with it. Bastardize the idea” because what he sees as the enshittification is a problem that’s growing and must be combatted with thousands of imperfect methods. Essential reading if you want books on 21st century business or technology histories
December 11, 2025
If you've noticed that everything has gotten worse---from basic Internet services, medical costs, automobiles, air travel, the movie industry, appliances, toys, streaming services, the intelligence level of our politicians, etc.---then you are witnessing what Cory Doctorow calls "Enshittification", which happens to be the title of his latest must-read book. It's not just a clever, humorous title. It encapsulates a frightening truth about the world we are currently living in.
Doctorow, in a nutshell, explains how lack of competition, de-regulation, and a universal trend toward valuing shareholders over both labor and consumers have created monopolies in just about every aspect of our world. It's why Google, Amazon, Apple, Uber, Facebook, and a slew of other companies that we once looked up to and revered now suck. It's because they can afford to, and because they don't care about us---the consumer---anymore. They know that we have no choice but to use their products and services because they are the only ones who can provide those products and services, and they continue to price-gouge and offer shittier services as a result.
Doctorow's book is eye-opening, at least in terms of the amount of research and knowledge he has accrued. It's not really eye-opening in the fact that the world is much shittier than it was just 10 years ago. We already knew this. Doctorow just lays out the whys and wherefores. Thankfully, he also offers solutions. But they are going to require most of us to get off our asses, get involved, and work together.
God fucking help us.
Doctorow, in a nutshell, explains how lack of competition, de-regulation, and a universal trend toward valuing shareholders over both labor and consumers have created monopolies in just about every aspect of our world. It's why Google, Amazon, Apple, Uber, Facebook, and a slew of other companies that we once looked up to and revered now suck. It's because they can afford to, and because they don't care about us---the consumer---anymore. They know that we have no choice but to use their products and services because they are the only ones who can provide those products and services, and they continue to price-gouge and offer shittier services as a result.
Doctorow's book is eye-opening, at least in terms of the amount of research and knowledge he has accrued. It's not really eye-opening in the fact that the world is much shittier than it was just 10 years ago. We already knew this. Doctorow just lays out the whys and wherefores. Thankfully, he also offers solutions. But they are going to require most of us to get off our asses, get involved, and work together.
God fucking help us.
November 1, 2025
3.5 ⭐
As a millennial who grew up on the internet, I've seen the humble, amazing beginnings of everything. From MySpace bulletins to the early days of Facebook (back so far as when we had to have a mandatory "First Name Last Name is" before every status update), I remember when the internet was this cool thing that lived in the "computer room" at your parents house where you could visit after school and enjoy such luxuries as a chronological feed and apps like Echofon keeping Twitter accessible from your desktop's taskbar.
Because of this, Enshittification is glaring. In this book, Doctorow explains how we got here (here, being the Enshittocene) and how we can get out. Through tons of examples and case studies, this book breaks down all the ways internet giants like Uber, Facebook, and Amazon have gone from incredible tools that we all loved to use, to things we all hate but are now stuck using, even though they have become shells of their former selves, hated by both their users and the advertisers paying to keep them alive.
Now, as far as the book itself goes, if you're a fan of Doctorow's already, or you're someone like me who is chronologically online and has watched all this happen to your favourite social media apps and services, a lot of what's in here is probably stuff you already know or at the very least, won't surprise you.
While this is an enjoyable read, for the most part, I found that Doctorow repeated himself and called back to things he already brought up a lot, to the point where I started to not want to pick it up anymore. I feel as though this were trimmed by ~100 pages, it would be a much more solid book and I would instead give it 4 stars.
All in all, despite the length, I would still recommend this book, especially if you feel like something is off with the tech and apps you interact with every day but can't really put your finger on why, or you want to learn more about the mechanisms behind why everything sucks now.
As a millennial who grew up on the internet, I've seen the humble, amazing beginnings of everything. From MySpace bulletins to the early days of Facebook (back so far as when we had to have a mandatory "First Name Last Name is" before every status update), I remember when the internet was this cool thing that lived in the "computer room" at your parents house where you could visit after school and enjoy such luxuries as a chronological feed and apps like Echofon keeping Twitter accessible from your desktop's taskbar.
Because of this, Enshittification is glaring. In this book, Doctorow explains how we got here (here, being the Enshittocene) and how we can get out. Through tons of examples and case studies, this book breaks down all the ways internet giants like Uber, Facebook, and Amazon have gone from incredible tools that we all loved to use, to things we all hate but are now stuck using, even though they have become shells of their former selves, hated by both their users and the advertisers paying to keep them alive.
Now, as far as the book itself goes, if you're a fan of Doctorow's already, or you're someone like me who is chronologically online and has watched all this happen to your favourite social media apps and services, a lot of what's in here is probably stuff you already know or at the very least, won't surprise you.
While this is an enjoyable read, for the most part, I found that Doctorow repeated himself and called back to things he already brought up a lot, to the point where I started to not want to pick it up anymore. I feel as though this were trimmed by ~100 pages, it would be a much more solid book and I would instead give it 4 stars.
All in all, despite the length, I would still recommend this book, especially if you feel like something is off with the tech and apps you interact with every day but can't really put your finger on why, or you want to learn more about the mechanisms behind why everything sucks now.
January 19, 2026
It was really depressing to be reading this in the midst of Goodreads taking away the direct messaging function, further enshittifying an already enshittified site that wishes its users would -- to quote another article about the current state of the internet -- "Stop Talking to Each Other and Start Buying Things."
The tech monoliths are moving toward a state of technofeudalism where they get to own everything, and we just rent anything important for our life from them.
While painting this gloomy portrait of the world today, Cory Doctorow tries to throw in some hopeful things he sees that might enable us to push back. But having just finished the book, it's hard to see anything but the walls of the hole we are in, especially since all his analysis barely touches on the ramifications AI will have on this whole affair, and I'm guessing it won't be good.
Very informative and highly recommended.
The tech monoliths are moving toward a state of technofeudalism where they get to own everything, and we just rent anything important for our life from them.
While painting this gloomy portrait of the world today, Cory Doctorow tries to throw in some hopeful things he sees that might enable us to push back. But having just finished the book, it's hard to see anything but the walls of the hole we are in, especially since all his analysis barely touches on the ramifications AI will have on this whole affair, and I'm guessing it won't be good.
Very informative and highly recommended.
December 20, 2025
5 stars ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Audio format 🎧
I don't typically read a lot of nonfiction but I'm glad I got to this one in 2025. Great information about the digital platforms we're all on, including this one.
Enshittification goes into how the tech companies have completely exploited users and the decline of their platforms.
We're f'ing cooked unless there isn't more regulation for these platforms and the predatory behaviors of the tech oligarchs!
Audio format 🎧
I don't typically read a lot of nonfiction but I'm glad I got to this one in 2025. Great information about the digital platforms we're all on, including this one.
Enshittification goes into how the tech companies have completely exploited users and the decline of their platforms.
We're f'ing cooked unless there isn't more regulation for these platforms and the predatory behaviors of the tech oligarchs!
July 22, 2025
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review!
I wasn't familiar with Cory Doctorow's work, but I had heard of the concept of "enshittification" and, as someone who is old enough to remember what the internet was like, I jumped at the chance to understand how and why things had changed, and the thesis that we users *can* do something about it (well...). My impressions are those of someone who read this book and not any previous articles that the author might have based it on - if you have, maybe the book won't have anything new to tell you, I don't know.
It presented the information in a very clear and accesible way for those of us with just a passing knowledge of tech, using concrete case studies and examples (which abound) and a writing style that felt friendly but not annoying. The structure was fun, too: the author treats enshittification as a disease, so it's divided in four parts that explore its history, its pathology, its epidemiology, and its cure.
Like Code Dependent: Living in the shadow of AI, reading this filled me with rage at the fact that a bunch of greedy millionaires with a fragile ego get to decide the worst ways to ruin our lives, our economies, our planet, and the very ways in which we take part of society in an endless pursuit of profit, aided by our own governments, which should be looking after *us*.
While the final part ("The cure") gave me some hope, it was mostly in a "this is all bound to fall apart eventually" way. And there are governments doing something, to be sure, but... there really isn't much that we, as users, can do. Not to mention that the legislation that gets passed under the argument of doing something often ends up doing something worse, like the current thing the EU is doing of asking for facial recognition in order to "protect" users (the author doesn't mention this case specifically, but does talk about this issue, particularly when it comes to the EU).
I will also say that I learned many things that made me glad to be living in the Global South, because to some extent I am able to screw over so much of this bullshit when I'm not able to pay for any of these services anyway. There were some things that made me want to ask my USAmerican friends if they're okay, because it's just... how. How. do y'all live like that. How does it get to a point where not only there are no free health care but also a company gets to rent out rooms and staff and charge you MORE? Insane, despairing.
As a final note, I did find the book quite repetitive in places, not in a reiterative way that was useful, but actually repeating the exact same thing in different places, so I hope it gets a final revision. Other than that, I'd really recommend it to anyone interested in the topic.
I wasn't familiar with Cory Doctorow's work, but I had heard of the concept of "enshittification" and, as someone who is old enough to remember what the internet was like, I jumped at the chance to understand how and why things had changed, and the thesis that we users *can* do something about it (well...). My impressions are those of someone who read this book and not any previous articles that the author might have based it on - if you have, maybe the book won't have anything new to tell you, I don't know.
It presented the information in a very clear and accesible way for those of us with just a passing knowledge of tech, using concrete case studies and examples (which abound) and a writing style that felt friendly but not annoying. The structure was fun, too: the author treats enshittification as a disease, so it's divided in four parts that explore its history, its pathology, its epidemiology, and its cure.
Like Code Dependent: Living in the shadow of AI, reading this filled me with rage at the fact that a bunch of greedy millionaires with a fragile ego get to decide the worst ways to ruin our lives, our economies, our planet, and the very ways in which we take part of society in an endless pursuit of profit, aided by our own governments, which should be looking after *us*.
While the final part ("The cure") gave me some hope, it was mostly in a "this is all bound to fall apart eventually" way. And there are governments doing something, to be sure, but... there really isn't much that we, as users, can do. Not to mention that the legislation that gets passed under the argument of doing something often ends up doing something worse, like the current thing the EU is doing of asking for facial recognition in order to "protect" users (the author doesn't mention this case specifically, but does talk about this issue, particularly when it comes to the EU).
I will also say that I learned many things that made me glad to be living in the Global South, because to some extent I am able to screw over so much of this bullshit when I'm not able to pay for any of these services anyway. There were some things that made me want to ask my USAmerican friends if they're okay, because it's just... how. How. do y'all live like that. How does it get to a point where not only there are no free health care but also a company gets to rent out rooms and staff and charge you MORE? Insane, despairing.
As a final note, I did find the book quite repetitive in places, not in a reiterative way that was useful, but actually repeating the exact same thing in different places, so I hope it gets a final revision. Other than that, I'd really recommend it to anyone interested in the topic.
November 29, 2025
Surprise surprise, Enshittification is a shit book. That's honestly too bad because the matter is extremely important and needs way more light shining on it. I really want to know what causes "enshittification" and how to battle it. But it's just too damn boring. I kept zoning out or going back to my PC or phone... I dnf at 20% because I both couldn't stand Doctorow's snarky, sassy, annoying way of writing and the extremely boring, copious filler material, droning on and on. I get it. I got it 5 pages ago! The problem is that this book in reality is just a bunch of blog posts by Doctorow combined together. The cohesion is fragile at best, non-existing at worst. It makes sense that it uses "blog" speak, that all-knowing, annoying way of writing to quickly entice readers, and that each part drags out, like stand-alone blog posts. It sucks, and I looked forward to this for months!
I guess if you love reading blogs you'll love this though.
I guess if you love reading blogs you'll love this though.
November 19, 2025
Enlightening, and depressing. I knew I needed to understand just how deeply we are being screwed by corporations, but man, it was hard to hear it all explained in a way that validated everything I suspected and noticed.
Cory Doctorow, I both love you and hate you for the brain bomb you set off in my head with Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It.
Throughout all of the examples given from all areas of the Internet, the bottom line, more or less, is that corporations are going to make things as awful for consumers as they can get away with. As an example, Audible keeps removing features that are inconsequential. It would cost them nothing to continue to offer them, and people like the convenience of certain queries or the way things are displayed. We users complain, but nothing happens. It was baffling why they would pay their programmers to take away popular features, until I read this book. Now I get it. I don't like it, but now I also understand I'm not supposed to like it. As a consumer, I'm being trained to tolerate things getting just a little worse every version, every year.
There isn't much we can do about this, as it's as entrenched in corporate (secret) missions as shinkflation. That was the most disappointing message from the book. The only way to really combat it is to shop locally and support the smaller businesses that are doing things honorably. The corporations will continue to abuse us until we show them we won't put up with it. That takes time and persistence, but we the people do have the power to push back and show them we're not going to take their enshittified nonsense without a fight.
Cory Doctorow, I both love you and hate you for the brain bomb you set off in my head with Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It.
Throughout all of the examples given from all areas of the Internet, the bottom line, more or less, is that corporations are going to make things as awful for consumers as they can get away with. As an example, Audible keeps removing features that are inconsequential. It would cost them nothing to continue to offer them, and people like the convenience of certain queries or the way things are displayed. We users complain, but nothing happens. It was baffling why they would pay their programmers to take away popular features, until I read this book. Now I get it. I don't like it, but now I also understand I'm not supposed to like it. As a consumer, I'm being trained to tolerate things getting just a little worse every version, every year.
There isn't much we can do about this, as it's as entrenched in corporate (secret) missions as shinkflation. That was the most disappointing message from the book. The only way to really combat it is to shop locally and support the smaller businesses that are doing things honorably. The corporations will continue to abuse us until we show them we won't put up with it. That takes time and persistence, but we the people do have the power to push back and show them we're not going to take their enshittified nonsense without a fight.
November 12, 2025
I’m done what I want to read of the book, it’s a dark book don’t let the cover fool you as cute… said another reviewer,
it’s an evil book
could use them," which was also good news for them, he mill owners had taken to kidnapping Napoleonic War ans from London and indenturing them to a decades ser-Xtile workers who operated the older machines.
These children were used to displace the organized guilds of Those workers were unable to get help from Parliament, so they formed guerrilla armies and propagated the half-joking myth that they were led by a giant called Ned Ludd (or sometimes King or General Ludd). They called themselves Luddites. Never let anyone tell you that the Luddites were afraid of technology or angry about "progress." That's a lie propagated by historys win-ners, whose great fortunes required oceans of blood from child laborers, murdered protesters, and enslaved Africans in the "New World" who provided the cotton for their machines.
The transition of millions of workers from peasant to proletariat was a bloody one, and it rightly attracts most ot our notice when we think about the Industrial Revolution. But just as important was the transition from a society built on rents to a society built on profits. For the capitalists of the "dark Satanic Mill" to make their fortune, their right to profit
Page 196
it’s an evil book
could use them," which was also good news for them, he mill owners had taken to kidnapping Napoleonic War ans from London and indenturing them to a decades ser-Xtile workers who operated the older machines.
These children were used to displace the organized guilds of Those workers were unable to get help from Parliament, so they formed guerrilla armies and propagated the half-joking myth that they were led by a giant called Ned Ludd (or sometimes King or General Ludd). They called themselves Luddites. Never let anyone tell you that the Luddites were afraid of technology or angry about "progress." That's a lie propagated by historys win-ners, whose great fortunes required oceans of blood from child laborers, murdered protesters, and enslaved Africans in the "New World" who provided the cotton for their machines.
The transition of millions of workers from peasant to proletariat was a bloody one, and it rightly attracts most ot our notice when we think about the Industrial Revolution. But just as important was the transition from a society built on rents to a society built on profits. For the capitalists of the "dark Satanic Mill" to make their fortune, their right to profit
Page 196
November 14, 2025
I liked the first third or so of this book that was more narrowly about enshittification, but it started to get more technical at the end and a bit repetitive. I also don't agree with all of his points, like the idea that Mastodon is the solution to social media or the romanticization of the "old, good internet". Still, I'm glad I listened to it, and there are some chilling facts and anecdotes included.
November 25, 2025
did i finish this book or did this book finish me. brutal. going to scream into the void for a while now
November 30, 2025
I'm gonna call it at 5, although it's probably more of a 4.5, but like Careless People -- ratings matter and we need people to fucking get on board with fixing this shit.
Distilled, Doctorow's argument is elegant and simple: things (the internet & digital products specifically, in this case) get worse because they're allowed to. If you want things to get better, you have to stop allowing them to get worse.
His "Cure" section (or the "What to Do About It" part of the book) can effectively be boiled down to: regulate, unionize, and strike fear into the hearts of the overlords. There's obviously more to it than that, but know that they're all excellent points and things we should do. However, if you're looking for a solution that gives you some sense of individual power, this isn't the book for that. Doctorow spares us the '3 Rs!' bullshit; any one of us recycling didn't stop the climate crisis. So it's a bit depressing, but it's also at least real, and he gives clear examples of where -- even in the new Trump administration -- positive direction is cropping up. There is hope (and it seems like a lot of it is based in Europe, quite frankly).
But reading all of this is a reminder of how far we've fallen and how easy it is to find yourself spun into the wheel of enshittification and technofeudalism (which, Doctorow argues, is the prioritization of "rent" over "profit", and baby are we ever there already). We subscribe to the rhetoric for a variety of reasons -- we like the supposed benefits we get from our shiny new gadgets, we want to keep our salaries to support ourselves and our families, we are too fucking tired to disentangle ourselves from the system. All of these are fair, and all of these are handcuffs that we're all going to need to reckon with sooner rather than later.
Doctorow doesn't say anything particularly new here, I don't think, but he organizes his thoughts brilliantly, writes compellingly, and brings the whole spiralling nightmare into the spotlight in a way that makes it just impossible to ignore. You can delude yourself, but we're in it, and we have to vote, rally, and fight for the right people and things to avoid what looks like a pretty damning future.
But humans are cockroaches, baby -- we've toppled empires before, we'll do it again. Elbows up.
Distilled, Doctorow's argument is elegant and simple: things (the internet & digital products specifically, in this case) get worse because they're allowed to. If you want things to get better, you have to stop allowing them to get worse.
His "Cure" section (or the "What to Do About It" part of the book) can effectively be boiled down to: regulate, unionize, and strike fear into the hearts of the overlords. There's obviously more to it than that, but know that they're all excellent points and things we should do. However, if you're looking for a solution that gives you some sense of individual power, this isn't the book for that. Doctorow spares us the '3 Rs!' bullshit; any one of us recycling didn't stop the climate crisis. So it's a bit depressing, but it's also at least real, and he gives clear examples of where -- even in the new Trump administration -- positive direction is cropping up. There is hope (and it seems like a lot of it is based in Europe, quite frankly).
But reading all of this is a reminder of how far we've fallen and how easy it is to find yourself spun into the wheel of enshittification and technofeudalism (which, Doctorow argues, is the prioritization of "rent" over "profit", and baby are we ever there already). We subscribe to the rhetoric for a variety of reasons -- we like the supposed benefits we get from our shiny new gadgets, we want to keep our salaries to support ourselves and our families, we are too fucking tired to disentangle ourselves from the system. All of these are fair, and all of these are handcuffs that we're all going to need to reckon with sooner rather than later.
Doctorow doesn't say anything particularly new here, I don't think, but he organizes his thoughts brilliantly, writes compellingly, and brings the whole spiralling nightmare into the spotlight in a way that makes it just impossible to ignore. You can delude yourself, but we're in it, and we have to vote, rally, and fight for the right people and things to avoid what looks like a pretty damning future.
But humans are cockroaches, baby -- we've toppled empires before, we'll do it again. Elbows up.
November 4, 2025
More like enfurification!
Does a great job at breaking down how (mainly) tech companies eventually end up taking advantage of their positions of power to screw over their employees, business customers, and the rest of us. I especially appreciated that Doctorow didn’t just come with complaints but also ideas for how to address the issue.
Does a great job at breaking down how (mainly) tech companies eventually end up taking advantage of their positions of power to screw over their employees, business customers, and the rest of us. I especially appreciated that Doctorow didn’t just come with complaints but also ideas for how to address the issue.
July 10, 2025
[ Disclaimer: This review is based on a digital galley and may not reflect changes that will be made before publication. ]
Overall, Doctorow's argument is spot on. The book expands on his initial writing on enshittification and offers plenty of examples of the process in action. Doctorow makes sense of the nagging frustration that today's tech—from social media, to artificial intelligence, to search, to commerce platforms—engenders.
He also offers fairly concrete ideas for preventing enshittification on a policy level while fighting back on the judicial level. Thinking about practical, if politically risky, solutions is one of Doctorow's strengths.
As with many books in the "books based on blog posts" subgenre of criticism, this book has a lot of filler. I have a pretty high tolerance for padding, but the wordy prose and constant references to previous pages got old.
Finally, the book concludes on an odd note. Doctorow references Audre Lorde and one of her most well-known quotes: "For the master's tools will never dismantle the master's house." While he acknowledges that "Audre Lorde is far smarter than I am about nearly everything," he goes on to say this idea is "manifestly wrong." This is such an odd and unnecessary inclusion.
First, all of Doctorow's policy proposals can be put in the Not the Master's Tools bucket.
Second, what's the point of even including this paragraph? It adds nothing to his conclusion aside from namedropping a Black lesbian feminist who would have faced brutal online harassment even on Doctorow's "old good internet," no enshittification needed.
Third, just a few paragraphs later, he quotes Martin Luther King, Jr. as a way to set up his punchy ending. This only serves to make the Lorde reference feel more tokenized than it already did. Thus, the conclusion reads as though Doctorow got to the end of the book before realizing he should check some DEI boxes.
This book offers an important framework for rethinking the tech industry and the policies we use to regulate it. It's a shame it ended in such a weird place.
Overall, Doctorow's argument is spot on. The book expands on his initial writing on enshittification and offers plenty of examples of the process in action. Doctorow makes sense of the nagging frustration that today's tech—from social media, to artificial intelligence, to search, to commerce platforms—engenders.
He also offers fairly concrete ideas for preventing enshittification on a policy level while fighting back on the judicial level. Thinking about practical, if politically risky, solutions is one of Doctorow's strengths.
As with many books in the "books based on blog posts" subgenre of criticism, this book has a lot of filler. I have a pretty high tolerance for padding, but the wordy prose and constant references to previous pages got old.
Finally, the book concludes on an odd note. Doctorow references Audre Lorde and one of her most well-known quotes: "For the master's tools will never dismantle the master's house." While he acknowledges that "Audre Lorde is far smarter than I am about nearly everything," he goes on to say this idea is "manifestly wrong." This is such an odd and unnecessary inclusion.
First, all of Doctorow's policy proposals can be put in the Not the Master's Tools bucket.
Second, what's the point of even including this paragraph? It adds nothing to his conclusion aside from namedropping a Black lesbian feminist who would have faced brutal online harassment even on Doctorow's "old good internet," no enshittification needed.
Third, just a few paragraphs later, he quotes Martin Luther King, Jr. as a way to set up his punchy ending. This only serves to make the Lorde reference feel more tokenized than it already did. Thus, the conclusion reads as though Doctorow got to the end of the book before realizing he should check some DEI boxes.
This book offers an important framework for rethinking the tech industry and the policies we use to regulate it. It's a shame it ended in such a weird place.
Read
December 9, 2025We've all noticed this strange paradox wherein the most powerful tech behemoths seem not to produce anything, yet they crushingly hold all the power. Uber doesn't do any of the driving; yet the drivers who do the actual work earn a pittance, engineered to be below statutory minimum wage, while the customers are charged exorbitantly. Amazon didn't use to do its own production of goods; yet it hoovered up a lot of profit as the intermediary between producers and one-click consumers, to the demise of actual small, local stores with physical storefronts. AirBnb doesn't construct any new homes, yet it has succeeded in changing the makeup of several international cities, as temporary AirBnbs have affected housing affordability and long-term rental stock for local residents. Just by virtue of being the middleman providing connectivity between consumer and actual provider, these tech companies have gained a lot of say over our lives and economies.
Cory Doctorow, the phenomenal scifi author and Internet expert and activist, aims to explain this bewildering phenomenon of the rise of power of the middlemen in this book. Mr. Doctorow coined the term enshittification, which has since entered common palaver as a catchphrase encapsulating the general dissatisfaction with our world as influenced by tech or tech products. He aims to go deeper, however, with the term to mean a deep-diving analysis into how tech platforms, these intermediaries of connectivity, aimed to accumulate so much might and profit unto themselves at the expense of both the customers and the providers that they serve to connect with each other. Cory goes into a few examples of these, such as Facebook being a terrible experience for end users and advertisers alike, Amazon locking in and strongarming the prices and offerings for both customers and producers alike, and Uber and Doordash being such miserable experiences with price-gouging fees for both customers and deliverers/drivers alike. In particular, he looks at things like the downfall of antitrust laws and the weakening of the might of regulators against monopolizing industries, as primary contributors to the status of industry behemoths as being too big to fail despite providing unsatisfying services to both consumers and producers. He explains a little why users stay on these platforms despite their accumulation of grievances about the way both customers and producers are treated-- things like network effects and the fact that all of one's friends, social relations, customers and professional contacts are entwined with the gigantic platform.
And the treatment received from these platforms are severe, to say the least. We are all aware of the common stories of the dehumanizing plight of warehouse workers and drivers who have to pee in bottles. We are similarly aware of ways that platforms aim to circumvent labor laws, such as deputizing their workers/ drivers as 'self-employed independent contractors' to sidestep demands for minimum wage and pledged benefits. Uber and Doordash also do more shady things, such as withholding tips (Doordash) or paying drivers the lowest amount they would take, then enticing them back with stories of other drivers earning the lottery dream(giant teddy bear win) of a much higher amount, thus keeping them always on the edge of staying on (Uber). Cory Doctorow is able to connect all these phenomena cohesively. Worse still, he shows that worse treatment is being trialed out. These include chickenisation, wherein the aspiring producer or worker/deliverer/driver is ordered to buy specific set of tools or training from the employing platform, which sets him to a pathway of debt and lock-in to the platform, which at the same time has autocratic dictatorial control over his or her wages. There's also technofeudalism, wherein services and provisions of the platform that we increasingly depend on for our way of life, can no longer be purchased according to the rules of capitalism but rented without end from the platform, as we are turned on to survival on subscription mode. If these are all things that interest or concern the reader, then I recommend this book because Cory Doctorow has a lot of brilliant things to say and synthesize in this book. If one is wary for future generations of life in subscription mode, where essentials are rented forever not owned, and people create value only for platform corporations to gobble up that value then singlehandedly decide what it's worth-- the littlest amount that could be-- then it's worth reading and sharing this book.
Cory Doctorow, the phenomenal scifi author and Internet expert and activist, aims to explain this bewildering phenomenon of the rise of power of the middlemen in this book. Mr. Doctorow coined the term enshittification, which has since entered common palaver as a catchphrase encapsulating the general dissatisfaction with our world as influenced by tech or tech products. He aims to go deeper, however, with the term to mean a deep-diving analysis into how tech platforms, these intermediaries of connectivity, aimed to accumulate so much might and profit unto themselves at the expense of both the customers and the providers that they serve to connect with each other. Cory goes into a few examples of these, such as Facebook being a terrible experience for end users and advertisers alike, Amazon locking in and strongarming the prices and offerings for both customers and producers alike, and Uber and Doordash being such miserable experiences with price-gouging fees for both customers and deliverers/drivers alike. In particular, he looks at things like the downfall of antitrust laws and the weakening of the might of regulators against monopolizing industries, as primary contributors to the status of industry behemoths as being too big to fail despite providing unsatisfying services to both consumers and producers. He explains a little why users stay on these platforms despite their accumulation of grievances about the way both customers and producers are treated-- things like network effects and the fact that all of one's friends, social relations, customers and professional contacts are entwined with the gigantic platform.
And the treatment received from these platforms are severe, to say the least. We are all aware of the common stories of the dehumanizing plight of warehouse workers and drivers who have to pee in bottles. We are similarly aware of ways that platforms aim to circumvent labor laws, such as deputizing their workers/ drivers as 'self-employed independent contractors' to sidestep demands for minimum wage and pledged benefits. Uber and Doordash also do more shady things, such as withholding tips (Doordash) or paying drivers the lowest amount they would take, then enticing them back with stories of other drivers earning the lottery dream(giant teddy bear win) of a much higher amount, thus keeping them always on the edge of staying on (Uber). Cory Doctorow is able to connect all these phenomena cohesively. Worse still, he shows that worse treatment is being trialed out. These include chickenisation, wherein the aspiring producer or worker/deliverer/driver is ordered to buy specific set of tools or training from the employing platform, which sets him to a pathway of debt and lock-in to the platform, which at the same time has autocratic dictatorial control over his or her wages. There's also technofeudalism, wherein services and provisions of the platform that we increasingly depend on for our way of life, can no longer be purchased according to the rules of capitalism but rented without end from the platform, as we are turned on to survival on subscription mode. If these are all things that interest or concern the reader, then I recommend this book because Cory Doctorow has a lot of brilliant things to say and synthesize in this book. If one is wary for future generations of life in subscription mode, where essentials are rented forever not owned, and people create value only for platform corporations to gobble up that value then singlehandedly decide what it's worth-- the littlest amount that could be-- then it's worth reading and sharing this book.
January 10, 2026
If you're wondering, why things are getting crappy by the day, Doctorow spells it out for you in Enshittification. He explains and exemplifies it in three stages with Twitter, Uber, Google, Amazon,.. and then he rinses and repeats hundred more times. In between lines he makes a point of millennia-old liberal property laws being reversed that these applications/platforms gradually own everything and the customer is cornered to consent in small modifications along the way ending up only being a forever subscriber. That is, the user can only lease out but not own books, phones, cars, appliances as those could be bricked with a new upgrade that wasn't paid for or a minor change missed in the EULA. Doctorow borrows the term Technofeudalism from Varoufakis to further explain how platform owners exploit both the users and the providers, and then eventually exploit everyone around for their profit. Doctorow's solutions against the platform cartels are systemic actions like mass grassroot movements, unions, class actions, supporting organizations like EFF that Doctorow himself has been working for a quarter century. his response may sound personal but not at all as enshittification is strictly business.
October 21, 2025
How has your experience with the internet and digital platforms been in recent years? Are you noticing:
- worse search results from Google?
- social feeds full of ‘brainrot’, ‘slop’, and ‘rage-bait’ instead of posts from people you actually follow?
- software, devices, or appliances locked behind new subscription fees for features you already paid for?
- useless “AI” features you never asked for?
- ever-increasing subscription prices?
For Cory Doctorow, much of the internet and platforms are indeed getting shittier as the result of Big Tech getting “too big to fail → too big to jail → too big to care”.
How does enshittification happen?
Platforms start off being good to their users, providing services that they actually value. For example, Facebook once promised never to spy on users and to only show content posted by their friends; while Amazon initially lured customers by selling below cost and subsidizing free shipping.
Historical context: after the 2008 financial crash, tech companies gained access to massive surpluses of cheap Wall Street money, enabling them to burn cash to attract users, kill competition, and “lock in” their users.
Afterwards, they shifted focus from pleasing users to pleasing paying customers; i.e., advertisers on Facebook, or sellers on Amazon.
Once both users and customers are locked in, the platform can exploit both groups to extract more value for shareholders. For example, Amazon now charges sellers huge fees (up to 45%), while its top search results go to those who spend more on ads -- or from whom Amazon can extract higher fees.
In each case, the platform gets worse for everyone except owners and shareholders, but by then, it is harder to leave. All your friends are on Facebook and it’s to coordinate a move to another platform; Amazon dominates online retail; ebooks and audiobooks are locked into Amazon apps via DRM; and so on. And of course, similar patterns can be observed in Google, Apple, Uber, DoorDash, Airbnb, Netflix, and many other platforms.
Why wasn’t it always this bad?
It’s not like suddenly platform owners got more greedy; or “good” CEOs were replaced by “bad” ones. In the past there were certain forces that kept tech companies from enshittification: (1) market competition, (2) effective regulation (especially anti-trust law), (3) tech workers with enough leverage to push back, and (4) adversarial interoperability.
Doctorow traces how each of these was eroded: weakened and ignored antitrust laws, massive mergers and acquisitions, new rules making interoperability and reverse engineering illegal, layoffs (and now threats of AI replacement) that undermined worker power, etc.
Doctorow also connects these factors to Yanis Varoufaki’s Technofeudalism (worth reading if you haven’t already, as well as Jodi Dean’s Capital’s Grave, for a deeper theoretical dive).
How can we fix it?
Doctorow calls for a revival of labor unions and strict enforcement of antitrust laws to break up Big Tech monopolies, or, in my view, tackling the problem at its root through the socialization of key platforms: platforms democratically controlled by workers in collaboration with municipalities; but of course, these are long-term fights.
A more immediate lever is interoperability: the ability for different systems, platforms, or devices to work together. Email is an example of interop: you can use any provider and still communicate with anyone who has an email address.
This principle could easily be applied to social platforms as well; because computers are universal by design.
Users could leave Facebook or Twitter without losing their friends, followers, posts, or conversations, and move to a platform that respects privacy and prioritizes content from people they actually follow.
Interop restores power to users by making it easier to leave a platform without losing their digital life. Doctorow also highlights ongoing movements (digital rights, privacy advocacy, the right to repair, etc.) that could form a broader coalition to fight for interop and against Big Tech monopolies.
Why does it matter?
Compared to the climate crisis, rising economic inequality, or growing authoritarianism, digital platforms may not sound like the most pressing issue. But Doctorow argues that building a better internet could also help us tackle those bigger challenges.
Big Tech -- today’s techno-feudal lords -- exercise vast control over the information we see, how we communicate and work, and even, to some extent, what we think, desire, and value.
They shape public discourse, influence elections, and dictate the terms of digital life.
Challenging their dominance isn’t just about getting better apps, platforms, or gadgets -- it’s about reclaiming autonomy, public space online, and democratic power in the digital age.
If you already follow Doctorow’s work, his blog, talks, or earlier nonfiction books (like The Internet Con), much of this will sound familiar. Even so, Enshittification is an important book: timely, engaging, and very readable, with the potential to reach and resonate with a much broader audience.
- worse search results from Google?
- social feeds full of ‘brainrot’, ‘slop’, and ‘rage-bait’ instead of posts from people you actually follow?
- software, devices, or appliances locked behind new subscription fees for features you already paid for?
- useless “AI” features you never asked for?
- ever-increasing subscription prices?
For Cory Doctorow, much of the internet and platforms are indeed getting shittier as the result of Big Tech getting “too big to fail → too big to jail → too big to care”.
How does enshittification happen?
Platforms start off being good to their users, providing services that they actually value. For example, Facebook once promised never to spy on users and to only show content posted by their friends; while Amazon initially lured customers by selling below cost and subsidizing free shipping.
Historical context: after the 2008 financial crash, tech companies gained access to massive surpluses of cheap Wall Street money, enabling them to burn cash to attract users, kill competition, and “lock in” their users.
Afterwards, they shifted focus from pleasing users to pleasing paying customers; i.e., advertisers on Facebook, or sellers on Amazon.
Once both users and customers are locked in, the platform can exploit both groups to extract more value for shareholders. For example, Amazon now charges sellers huge fees (up to 45%), while its top search results go to those who spend more on ads -- or from whom Amazon can extract higher fees.
In each case, the platform gets worse for everyone except owners and shareholders, but by then, it is harder to leave. All your friends are on Facebook and it’s to coordinate a move to another platform; Amazon dominates online retail; ebooks and audiobooks are locked into Amazon apps via DRM; and so on. And of course, similar patterns can be observed in Google, Apple, Uber, DoorDash, Airbnb, Netflix, and many other platforms.
Why wasn’t it always this bad?
It’s not like suddenly platform owners got more greedy; or “good” CEOs were replaced by “bad” ones. In the past there were certain forces that kept tech companies from enshittification: (1) market competition, (2) effective regulation (especially anti-trust law), (3) tech workers with enough leverage to push back, and (4) adversarial interoperability.
Doctorow traces how each of these was eroded: weakened and ignored antitrust laws, massive mergers and acquisitions, new rules making interoperability and reverse engineering illegal, layoffs (and now threats of AI replacement) that undermined worker power, etc.
Doctorow also connects these factors to Yanis Varoufaki’s Technofeudalism (worth reading if you haven’t already, as well as Jodi Dean’s Capital’s Grave, for a deeper theoretical dive).
How can we fix it?
Doctorow calls for a revival of labor unions and strict enforcement of antitrust laws to break up Big Tech monopolies, or, in my view, tackling the problem at its root through the socialization of key platforms: platforms democratically controlled by workers in collaboration with municipalities; but of course, these are long-term fights.
A more immediate lever is interoperability: the ability for different systems, platforms, or devices to work together. Email is an example of interop: you can use any provider and still communicate with anyone who has an email address.
This principle could easily be applied to social platforms as well; because computers are universal by design.
Users could leave Facebook or Twitter without losing their friends, followers, posts, or conversations, and move to a platform that respects privacy and prioritizes content from people they actually follow.
Interop restores power to users by making it easier to leave a platform without losing their digital life. Doctorow also highlights ongoing movements (digital rights, privacy advocacy, the right to repair, etc.) that could form a broader coalition to fight for interop and against Big Tech monopolies.
Why does it matter?
Compared to the climate crisis, rising economic inequality, or growing authoritarianism, digital platforms may not sound like the most pressing issue. But Doctorow argues that building a better internet could also help us tackle those bigger challenges.
Big Tech -- today’s techno-feudal lords -- exercise vast control over the information we see, how we communicate and work, and even, to some extent, what we think, desire, and value.
They shape public discourse, influence elections, and dictate the terms of digital life.
Challenging their dominance isn’t just about getting better apps, platforms, or gadgets -- it’s about reclaiming autonomy, public space online, and democratic power in the digital age.
If you already follow Doctorow’s work, his blog, talks, or earlier nonfiction books (like The Internet Con), much of this will sound familiar. Even so, Enshittification is an important book: timely, engaging, and very readable, with the potential to reach and resonate with a much broader audience.
November 15, 2025
How can you not like Cory and marvel at his brilliance?
November 28, 2025
The title of this book reminds me of the new recipe I tried for a Moroccan soup last night and what happened this morning.
As a critic of the techno monopolies Cory Doctorow cannot be underestimated, and the publication of this book is no exception.
Doctorow hammers Meta, amazon, Google, Apple, Microsoft, Uber, and several other monopolists for their questionable, unethical, and sometimes downright illegal business practices in his writings.
The perspective of this book is that the behaviour of the giants has made the Internet and general computing worse over the past twenty or so years.
And I believe he has a point.
But this book may not be the best exposition of his critique as it goes over a lot of old, well-told stories, has some curious sidebars, some tiresome repetition, and confusing technical discussions.
I noticed that some reviewers saw what I saw and blame it on Doctorow tacking together his blog posts.
I raced to the end.
In Chokepoint Capitalism: How Big Tech and Big Content Captured Creative Labour Markets and How We’ll Win Them Back, authored by Rebecca Giblin and Cory Doctorow we get an earlier and — I think — more cogent analysis of similar themes.
One of things I try to do in these situations is read the acknowledgements closely and "follow" (on X or threads or bluesky or mastodon) some of the authorities the author cites. Books often are about old things (sometimes only months old, but still old). If I know some reliable commentators I can follow them on current updates to some of the nagging issues.
In this sense, Doctorow has been helpful.
There is one thing I can add that’s irrefutable: this time of year, when Black Friday is on the horizon, amazon starts sending out millions of notices to customers telling them that Black Friday “specials” are on the way.
This has a stinky impact on business and it goes on for weeks.
As a retailer myself, I really wish they’d cut it out.
One further note: I never thought I’d ever hear the name “Crad Kilodney” again. The fellow used to haunt the street corners of my youth hustling his cornball short stories in Toronto. Upon researching his name I learn that he worked in publishing and once had an affair with Canadian poet Gwendolyn MacEwen.
Apparently Kilodney was one of Doctorow’s inspirations
I also learn that Columbia scholar Tim Wu and Doctorow went to the same alternative school in Toronto.
I learn something new (and strange) every day.
As a critic of the techno monopolies Cory Doctorow cannot be underestimated, and the publication of this book is no exception.
Doctorow hammers Meta, amazon, Google, Apple, Microsoft, Uber, and several other monopolists for their questionable, unethical, and sometimes downright illegal business practices in his writings.
The perspective of this book is that the behaviour of the giants has made the Internet and general computing worse over the past twenty or so years.
And I believe he has a point.
But this book may not be the best exposition of his critique as it goes over a lot of old, well-told stories, has some curious sidebars, some tiresome repetition, and confusing technical discussions.
I noticed that some reviewers saw what I saw and blame it on Doctorow tacking together his blog posts.
I raced to the end.
In Chokepoint Capitalism: How Big Tech and Big Content Captured Creative Labour Markets and How We’ll Win Them Back, authored by Rebecca Giblin and Cory Doctorow we get an earlier and — I think — more cogent analysis of similar themes.
One of things I try to do in these situations is read the acknowledgements closely and "follow" (on X or threads or bluesky or mastodon) some of the authorities the author cites. Books often are about old things (sometimes only months old, but still old). If I know some reliable commentators I can follow them on current updates to some of the nagging issues.
In this sense, Doctorow has been helpful.
There is one thing I can add that’s irrefutable: this time of year, when Black Friday is on the horizon, amazon starts sending out millions of notices to customers telling them that Black Friday “specials” are on the way.
This has a stinky impact on business and it goes on for weeks.
As a retailer myself, I really wish they’d cut it out.
One further note: I never thought I’d ever hear the name “Crad Kilodney” again. The fellow used to haunt the street corners of my youth hustling his cornball short stories in Toronto. Upon researching his name I learn that he worked in publishing and once had an affair with Canadian poet Gwendolyn MacEwen.
Apparently Kilodney was one of Doctorow’s inspirations
I also learn that Columbia scholar Tim Wu and Doctorow went to the same alternative school in Toronto.
I learn something new (and strange) every day.
December 27, 2025
Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It (2025) by Cory Doctorow is either a brilliant book that demonstrates itself what enshittification is or a poorly thought out critique of large internet companies.
Doctorow is a blogger who has worked with the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF). The EFF has worked to stop laws that would have hurt technology users.
Doctorow coined the term enshitification which is saying ‘things get worse’ with a rude word embedded in it. It’s a very memorable term. Doctorow defines this as happening to online platforms as follows:
Platforms are good to their users.
Then they abuse their users for business customers.
Then they claw value back for themselves.
Finally they become giant pile of shit.
Doctorow uses as case studies Facebook, Amazon, the iPhone and Twitter.
The central tension in Doctorow’s thesis is the definition of ‘quality.’ While he views the current state of Big Tech as a ‘pile of shit,’ the markets tell a different story. Facebook and the iPhone boast billions of users, whereas Doctorow’s preferred alternatives, like Mastodon, struggle to maintain a fraction of that engagement. This raises a fundamental question: Is a platform ‘enshittified’ if hundreds of millions of people voluntarily choose it over the alternatives every single day.
Doctorow is upset that platforms that are expensive to build have to become profitable. If they are not profitable and don’t provide value to users they die. This is what has happened to Friendster, MySpace, SixDegrees, Pets.com and many more. Doctorow would argue that this isn’t what he is saying and that he accepts they must make a ‘reasonable’ profit. But then who gets to decide what is reasonable? How is this determined?
Doctorow wants more regulation. Doctorow even thinks that the EU hasn’t regulated enough. EU regulations have already helped the EU have very few successful Internet companies. Doctorow is also in favor of lots of anti-trust regulation. He likes Lisa Khan, the activist anti-trust enforcer hired under the Biden administration. Khan’s legacy includes blocking iRobot from being taken over by Amazon. The result of this is the insolvency of iRobot and Chinese companies instead taking over the robot vacuum cleaner market. Doctorow criticises how Google has grown through take overs. YouTube is an interesting case there. When YouTube was taken over it was seen as an interesting move by Google because of the law suits that were expected to hit due to copyright violations. Google managed this very well. They also had the ability to scale YouTube as few other companies could.
It would be interesting to see what a real economist, say Tyler Cowen, had to say to Doctorow about his ideas. Cowen would probably point out the consumer surplus of the amazing devices and services that people have cheap access to.
The idea of enshitification isn’t entirely without merit. There is a delicate balance that is maintained between companies making profits and providing value to users. There are network effects that lock people into things that sometimes become worse. The big tech companies are now huge and are influential. But this has long been the case. IBM used to dominate corporate computing. Giants like Sun, SGI, Commodore, Atari and more had a lot of influence before they went insolvent.
Louis CK’s marvelous rant ‘Everything is Amazing and Nobody is Happy’ comes to mind when reading the book. Doctorow complains about the incredible devices that we have in our pockets and the remarkable internet services we have. Yet most of us have contributed very little and have benefited enormously from these technologies. There are other things in society that have become worse that people are locked into. The two major US political parties come to mind. Compared to them the technology industry is an incredible success, regardless of Elon Musk or Marc Andreesen’s politics.
Enshitification raises some worthwhile questions but Doctorow doesn’t really provide good answers. The book is, alas, probably an example of it’s own title. An idea that sounds good but that doesn’t support it’s own claims with good enough arguments.
Doctorow is a blogger who has worked with the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF). The EFF has worked to stop laws that would have hurt technology users.
Doctorow coined the term enshitification which is saying ‘things get worse’ with a rude word embedded in it. It’s a very memorable term. Doctorow defines this as happening to online platforms as follows:
Platforms are good to their users.
Then they abuse their users for business customers.
Then they claw value back for themselves.
Finally they become giant pile of shit.
Doctorow uses as case studies Facebook, Amazon, the iPhone and Twitter.
The central tension in Doctorow’s thesis is the definition of ‘quality.’ While he views the current state of Big Tech as a ‘pile of shit,’ the markets tell a different story. Facebook and the iPhone boast billions of users, whereas Doctorow’s preferred alternatives, like Mastodon, struggle to maintain a fraction of that engagement. This raises a fundamental question: Is a platform ‘enshittified’ if hundreds of millions of people voluntarily choose it over the alternatives every single day.
Doctorow is upset that platforms that are expensive to build have to become profitable. If they are not profitable and don’t provide value to users they die. This is what has happened to Friendster, MySpace, SixDegrees, Pets.com and many more. Doctorow would argue that this isn’t what he is saying and that he accepts they must make a ‘reasonable’ profit. But then who gets to decide what is reasonable? How is this determined?
Doctorow wants more regulation. Doctorow even thinks that the EU hasn’t regulated enough. EU regulations have already helped the EU have very few successful Internet companies. Doctorow is also in favor of lots of anti-trust regulation. He likes Lisa Khan, the activist anti-trust enforcer hired under the Biden administration. Khan’s legacy includes blocking iRobot from being taken over by Amazon. The result of this is the insolvency of iRobot and Chinese companies instead taking over the robot vacuum cleaner market. Doctorow criticises how Google has grown through take overs. YouTube is an interesting case there. When YouTube was taken over it was seen as an interesting move by Google because of the law suits that were expected to hit due to copyright violations. Google managed this very well. They also had the ability to scale YouTube as few other companies could.
It would be interesting to see what a real economist, say Tyler Cowen, had to say to Doctorow about his ideas. Cowen would probably point out the consumer surplus of the amazing devices and services that people have cheap access to.
The idea of enshitification isn’t entirely without merit. There is a delicate balance that is maintained between companies making profits and providing value to users. There are network effects that lock people into things that sometimes become worse. The big tech companies are now huge and are influential. But this has long been the case. IBM used to dominate corporate computing. Giants like Sun, SGI, Commodore, Atari and more had a lot of influence before they went insolvent.
Louis CK’s marvelous rant ‘Everything is Amazing and Nobody is Happy’ comes to mind when reading the book. Doctorow complains about the incredible devices that we have in our pockets and the remarkable internet services we have. Yet most of us have contributed very little and have benefited enormously from these technologies. There are other things in society that have become worse that people are locked into. The two major US political parties come to mind. Compared to them the technology industry is an incredible success, regardless of Elon Musk or Marc Andreesen’s politics.
Enshitification raises some worthwhile questions but Doctorow doesn’t really provide good answers. The book is, alas, probably an example of it’s own title. An idea that sounds good but that doesn’t support it’s own claims with good enough arguments.
January 12, 2026
Another, "I'm so incredibly vulgar and edgy talking about corporations lol" book.
Despite his self-appointed role as a truth hound, Doctorow fails to mention how mass immigration has imported low-trust practices and scamming, all which incentivize corporate centralization of power over product ownership and maintenance. He highlights the wage slavery system of gig apps, for example, but avoids noting the predominant Indian role in pushing such a scheme on modern workers.
Despite his self-appointed role as a truth hound, Doctorow fails to mention how mass immigration has imported low-trust practices and scamming, all which incentivize corporate centralization of power over product ownership and maintenance. He highlights the wage slavery system of gig apps, for example, but avoids noting the predominant Indian role in pushing such a scheme on modern workers.
July 15, 2025
I received an ARC of this from the publisher. Joke's on you, I preordered his last two books!
Doctorow was the perfect person to write this book. I mean, he did coin the term and all, but the symptoms of Enshittification have been a constant theme in his novels for years. The story Unauthorized Bread in Radicalized is informed by printer makers forcing users to use proprietary, expensive cartridges in the real world.
Doctorow makes the case that Enshittification is not just another word for capitalism, and while I'm still not entirely sure if I entirely agree or find that distinction meaningful, there's a great deal that I enjoyed about this book.
In the first part, we have a few case studies, and he comes with *receipts*. One thing that he brought up with twitter that really stuck out to me is that Twitter basically just used to be an API that anyone could build a client for before they enshittified it and completely locked it down. In the earlier days of Twitter, one of my favorite ways to look at tweets wasn't on the website at all, but a Firefox extension!
Another one of the case studies that resonated with me is Amazon. It used to be an extremely convenient way to purchase nearly anything. Now, it's an active struggle for both users and vendors - we users have an incredibly hard time finding what we want and are being steered to more expensive products, and vendors are not getting their items served to people looking for them unless they pay Amazon a bribe. It's a far cry from the place that so many people, myself included, made our first stop for shopping because of the ease and price. Amazon gets to reap the benefits of making it worse for everyone because who's going to compete?
In the second section of the book, Doctorow goes into the pathology for enshittification. The Zero Interest Rate Policy that the United States underwent is discounted somewhat quickly here. One could also kind of quibble as to whether ZIRP ended in 2022, or if it ended in 2015 and started again after the pandemic started. Personally, I'm still inclined to think that ZIRP was important to set the stage for enshitiffication to take place, whereas Doctorow thinks that may just be *accelerating* it. I do agree that it is just as much a labor, competition, and regulation issue as he makes his case about in the book. That is a big reason I enjoyed reading this - when you're in the sphere of podcasts and blogs and forums that are discussing this phenomenon, the labor and competition components are frequently overlooked.
The third part is the "epidemiology". You're likely already familiar with the consequences of enshittification - in my case, I can't use a Firefox extension or any other third party client to look at Twitter anymore. Uber gets to break labor laws and circumvented cab regulations worldwide because they did it with an app (for more on this, I'd recommend checking out Super Pumped: The Battle for Uber by Mike Isaac). You can't repair tractor because John Deere's computer said no. You can maybe get your phone fixed now because of the lobbying work of activists for right to repair laws. There are some more grisly examples that I've left out.
The last part is "The Cure" which is in part the least satisfying part of the book. It's unclear how much the FTC is going to work its antitrust powers under Trump's regime, though there are some glimmers of hope as they've kept cases against Google going. People are increasingly open to platforms that are at least somewhat decentralized (Mastodon has a decent following of users, though one might find it a lackluster replacement for Twitter. Bluesky promises to be decentralized like Mastodon but isn't in a meaningful way yet.). The EU is putting into place regulations against platforms and going after big tech - except in cases where they're easing off it to dance with Trump's tariff demands. There's kind of just a Trump-shaped problem at this end of the book, really. There was a decent amount of momentum under Biden and now it's unclear where any of this is going to go. It's a mixed bag for labor too - seems like there's never been more energy in the labor movement in recent memory, but membership is still declining.
On the whole, I recommend this book. I certainly have my nitpicks, but the case studies are great and it helps establish how we got here and what might be our way through.
Doctorow was the perfect person to write this book. I mean, he did coin the term and all, but the symptoms of Enshittification have been a constant theme in his novels for years. The story Unauthorized Bread in Radicalized is informed by printer makers forcing users to use proprietary, expensive cartridges in the real world.
Doctorow makes the case that Enshittification is not just another word for capitalism, and while I'm still not entirely sure if I entirely agree or find that distinction meaningful, there's a great deal that I enjoyed about this book.
In the first part, we have a few case studies, and he comes with *receipts*. One thing that he brought up with twitter that really stuck out to me is that Twitter basically just used to be an API that anyone could build a client for before they enshittified it and completely locked it down. In the earlier days of Twitter, one of my favorite ways to look at tweets wasn't on the website at all, but a Firefox extension!
Another one of the case studies that resonated with me is Amazon. It used to be an extremely convenient way to purchase nearly anything. Now, it's an active struggle for both users and vendors - we users have an incredibly hard time finding what we want and are being steered to more expensive products, and vendors are not getting their items served to people looking for them unless they pay Amazon a bribe. It's a far cry from the place that so many people, myself included, made our first stop for shopping because of the ease and price. Amazon gets to reap the benefits of making it worse for everyone because who's going to compete?
In the second section of the book, Doctorow goes into the pathology for enshittification. The Zero Interest Rate Policy that the United States underwent is discounted somewhat quickly here. One could also kind of quibble as to whether ZIRP ended in 2022, or if it ended in 2015 and started again after the pandemic started. Personally, I'm still inclined to think that ZIRP was important to set the stage for enshitiffication to take place, whereas Doctorow thinks that may just be *accelerating* it. I do agree that it is just as much a labor, competition, and regulation issue as he makes his case about in the book. That is a big reason I enjoyed reading this - when you're in the sphere of podcasts and blogs and forums that are discussing this phenomenon, the labor and competition components are frequently overlooked.
The third part is the "epidemiology". You're likely already familiar with the consequences of enshittification - in my case, I can't use a Firefox extension or any other third party client to look at Twitter anymore. Uber gets to break labor laws and circumvented cab regulations worldwide because they did it with an app (for more on this, I'd recommend checking out Super Pumped: The Battle for Uber by Mike Isaac). You can't repair tractor because John Deere's computer said no. You can maybe get your phone fixed now because of the lobbying work of activists for right to repair laws. There are some more grisly examples that I've left out.
The last part is "The Cure" which is in part the least satisfying part of the book. It's unclear how much the FTC is going to work its antitrust powers under Trump's regime, though there are some glimmers of hope as they've kept cases against Google going. People are increasingly open to platforms that are at least somewhat decentralized (Mastodon has a decent following of users, though one might find it a lackluster replacement for Twitter. Bluesky promises to be decentralized like Mastodon but isn't in a meaningful way yet.). The EU is putting into place regulations against platforms and going after big tech - except in cases where they're easing off it to dance with Trump's tariff demands. There's kind of just a Trump-shaped problem at this end of the book, really. There was a decent amount of momentum under Biden and now it's unclear where any of this is going to go. It's a mixed bag for labor too - seems like there's never been more energy in the labor movement in recent memory, but membership is still declining.
On the whole, I recommend this book. I certainly have my nitpicks, but the case studies are great and it helps establish how we got here and what might be our way through.
December 30, 2025
Har du også følelsen af at alt på internettet bliver en lille smule ringere hver dag? At tjenesterne bliver en smule dummere, at betalingsmodellerne bliver mere uigennemskuelige, at det bliver dyrere, sværere og mere idiotisk at bruge nettet? At der snart sagt er en Ask AI-knap overalt?
Så er du ikke alene. Og det er ikke kun noget, du oplever. Det bliver faktisk værre.
Det er i hvert fald det overbevisende argument i Cory Doctorows Enshittification. I bogen udlægger han en model, der forklarer præcis, hvorfor alt hele tiden bliver værre – og hvordan det i stedet burde have set ud. Det er ret nørdet, meget teknisk, ganske juridisk og svært inspirerende.
Vi mennesker har alle forudsætninger og evner til at gøre verden til et fantastisk sted at være – også internettet, men vi spilder ressourcerne. Det er en endnu en tragedie i den store bunke af mægtige problemer, vi bliver nødt til at fikse sammen.
Så er du ikke alene. Og det er ikke kun noget, du oplever. Det bliver faktisk værre.
Det er i hvert fald det overbevisende argument i Cory Doctorows Enshittification. I bogen udlægger han en model, der forklarer præcis, hvorfor alt hele tiden bliver værre – og hvordan det i stedet burde have set ud. Det er ret nørdet, meget teknisk, ganske juridisk og svært inspirerende.
Vi mennesker har alle forudsætninger og evner til at gøre verden til et fantastisk sted at være – også internettet, men vi spilder ressourcerne. Det er en endnu en tragedie i den store bunke af mægtige problemer, vi bliver nødt til at fikse sammen.
Read
November 8, 2025Fun read. Very American-centric but fair enough considering most tech companies are indeed American! It's basically about all the stuff you suspect - and it's true. Trash companies doing trash things. I hate them all!
November 27, 2025
I hate these tech loser CEOs. Imagine how great the world could be if people who had power acted for the good of humanity, instead of their own greed and fragile egos? I also wish policy makers would stop letting us down. It is exhausting and infuriating.
This is a timely book about how all the major tech giants roped us in and screwed us over. There are actionable items for policy makers at the end, as well as stuff "regular folk" can do by making platforms less important (which he explained how they have made it so hard to do... Mastedon servers seem to be the answer and I will look into that).
It did give me an extra push into my already existing desire to give as little as possible to these tech giants.
The case studies about Uber, Google, Facebook, and Apple are not going to be entirely new for most people who grew up with it happening in real time, such as myself. However, there are details that I was not aware of. It really upset me to know that people paying for Adobe subscriptions that were stored in the cloud then faced an additional, stupidly large monthly fee charged for use of certain colours and if not, their previous work using the colour would be black instead. We truly don't own anything anymore and are entirely at the mercy of these tech giants.
The explanation of how Amazon has resulted in ALL prices going higher really wowed me. I should have known, I guess.
I think this audiobook is still worth listening to, but just skimming through some sections that get too technical or repetitive.
This is a timely book about how all the major tech giants roped us in and screwed us over. There are actionable items for policy makers at the end, as well as stuff "regular folk" can do by making platforms less important (which he explained how they have made it so hard to do... Mastedon servers seem to be the answer and I will look into that).
It did give me an extra push into my already existing desire to give as little as possible to these tech giants.
The case studies about Uber, Google, Facebook, and Apple are not going to be entirely new for most people who grew up with it happening in real time, such as myself. However, there are details that I was not aware of. It really upset me to know that people paying for Adobe subscriptions that were stored in the cloud then faced an additional, stupidly large monthly fee charged for use of certain colours and if not, their previous work using the colour would be black instead. We truly don't own anything anymore and are entirely at the mercy of these tech giants.
The explanation of how Amazon has resulted in ALL prices going higher really wowed me. I should have known, I guess.
I think this audiobook is still worth listening to, but just skimming through some sections that get too technical or repetitive.
October 11, 2025
If you live in our time, then you are already well-aware of what this covers without it being presented to you in a condescending manner.
November 21, 2025
Listened on audio. The smug and self-righteous tone was so off-putting and really overshadowed the content.
October 25, 2025
"Here's the natural history of enshittification:
1. First, platforms are good to their users.
2. Then they abuse their users to make things better for their business customers.
3. Next, they abuse those business customers to claw back all the value for themselves.
4. Finally, they have become a giant pile of shit"
There is some power in giving a name (and maybe especially a silly name?) to something that creeps into all aspects of our lives, an issue so present that once you have a term for it you want to call it out everywhere you see it. During the week or so that I was reading this book I ran into myriad examples of enshittification, a process in which companies that have become so powerful that they are no longer subject to being checked by competition, antitrust enforcement, worker power, etc., and thus powerful enough to abuse their users and customers alike without fear of retribution. Doctorow sets out a convincing argument that tech in particular escalates this, and the most interesting parts of this book are probably the his breakdowns of Facebook, Amazon, Google, etc. as case studies in nasty work.
Admittedly I was hoping the "and What to Do About It" section would be more robust in terms of what I as a single American worker can do, but the book does have a hopeful tone that doesn't feel unrealistic. As enshittification progresses it's useful to have the knowledge of why and how it's happening and channel our anger and disgust through that knowledge to collectively pursue justice, so for that alone I'd recommend checking out this book.
1. First, platforms are good to their users.
2. Then they abuse their users to make things better for their business customers.
3. Next, they abuse those business customers to claw back all the value for themselves.
4. Finally, they have become a giant pile of shit"
There is some power in giving a name (and maybe especially a silly name?) to something that creeps into all aspects of our lives, an issue so present that once you have a term for it you want to call it out everywhere you see it. During the week or so that I was reading this book I ran into myriad examples of enshittification, a process in which companies that have become so powerful that they are no longer subject to being checked by competition, antitrust enforcement, worker power, etc., and thus powerful enough to abuse their users and customers alike without fear of retribution. Doctorow sets out a convincing argument that tech in particular escalates this, and the most interesting parts of this book are probably the his breakdowns of Facebook, Amazon, Google, etc. as case studies in nasty work.
Admittedly I was hoping the "and What to Do About It" section would be more robust in terms of what I as a single American worker can do, but the book does have a hopeful tone that doesn't feel unrealistic. As enshittification progresses it's useful to have the knowledge of why and how it's happening and channel our anger and disgust through that knowledge to collectively pursue justice, so for that alone I'd recommend checking out this book.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 850 reviews