Announcing ORG's new patron, Cory Doctorow 🎉
Author, activist, journalist and co-founder of Open Rights Group, @pluralistic is joining us to fight for digital rights.
To celebrate, we're giving away a signed copy of Enshittification!
Enter by 31 May to be in with your chance to win ⬇️
https://action.openrightsgroup.org/win-copy-enshittification-signed-cory-doctorow-0
Check out the 'Resisting Big Tech Empires' conference taking place this Saturday from Global Justice Now.
Featuring Cory Doctorow and a slate of exciting speakers, it comes as concerns mount about the influence of Big Tech in the State and our private lives.
🗓️ Sat 25 April, 11am–6pm BST
đź“Ť London South Bank University, UK
🎟️ Free
https://www.globaljustice.org.uk/event/resisting-big-tech-empires/
A day in the Life of an #Enshittificator
Enshittification (the book) by Cory Doctorow
The original Enshittification essay was published in 2022, which feels a long time ago. It so perfectly captured the zeitgeist, and it quickly became part of the lexicon. So it feels odd to be picking up a book (published just last year) with this title.
The subtitle of the book is Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It, which nicely captures the reason why the coinage not only entered the lexicon but got applied to many more things than simply computer services and software.
Doctorow’s original meaning of the term referred to the ways in which technology companies make a shift from servicing their end-users (in the form of both end-users and business customers) to servicing their shareholders in order to extract profits.
In this book, he refines his analysis with many examples — so many that the original meaning gets clouded. But what he ends up with is similar to what many economists have noticed: the turn from capitalism (owning the means of production and maximising profits) to rent-seeking or (another neologism) technofeudalism. For good measure, he throws in the term reverse centaur, which is an idea he has written about more recently and extensively with regard to so-called AI.
So now we’re dealing with three new-ish terms: enshittification, reverse centaurism and technofeudalism. This explains how big companies like Amazon use their power and technology to extract value from smaller companies, their workers, contractors, and their customers, making them dependent and unable to escape the trap. Think of those Amazon delivery drivers who arrive at your door after dark, desperately trying to meet an unrealistic delivery quota. Penalised for taking a pee break.
In the next update to iOS, Apple is reportedly going to introduce advertisements in the Maps app. This, I think we can all agree, is an example of enshittification. Many of us depend on Maps (or Google Maps) for satnav purposes, and car manufacurers have helped us become dependent by including Apple CarPlay (and the Android equivalent) in their cars. Many of us now view the idea of owning a car without CarPlay as we would owning a house without WiFi—or running water.
Here’s the process. Apple introduces Maps, which is great, because it provides competition for Google Maps, keeping both companies honest and working on improving their products. More good news comes in the form of App Connect, allowing us to use the far-superior mapping apps instead of the shitty built-in SatNav that came with the car. We are happy. We get real-time traffic information because of the network effect of loads of people using these apps.
But then the rent seeking begins. BMW announced that it would start charging a subscription to enable CarPlay (and heated seats etc.). Following an outraged reaction (and because they faced competition from other manufacturers who were not yet doing this), they rowed back on that decision.
But it should have acted as a warning to us all. Once you are completely dependent on something, it can be enshittified at any point. So now Apple are introducing ads, which nobody wants, and Maps will become shittier… and it’s downhill from there.
This example is too recent to make it into Doctorow’s book, but he has many others. In the end, I think there are a lot of mixed-together concepts here, and there are grey areas. Like, when does profit-seeking become rent-seeking? He also tends to repeat himself a fair bit, though to be fair this does help the reader follow along with his argument.
In the final third, he offers some ways of fighting back. He talks about the ways that in some territories (for example) meal delivery riders club together and refuse to take the lowest-paying jobs. Personally, however, I’m appalled at the prominence of meal delivery services, Ubers, Air B&Bs: anything with an app. I never use ’em. And I think the key thing about the consumer fight back needs to be that. Sorry to all the Uber drivers, but I don’t think you should exist. I don’t think these scammy American companies with their appalling behaviours and tax- and regulation-dodging methods should be allowed to operate. A pox on all their houses. And I think people need to wake up to how shit this all is and stop fucking ordering takeaways online. Get out of your pyjamas, get dressed, comb your hair, and do your own fucking shopping.
Can you put the toothpaste back in the tube? A government with a decent majority and some balls could do more. The EU is doing some, but could do more. I think the Ubers and the Deliveroos should be told, you’re an employer, you have employees, and you must follow all employment laws. I think AirB&B operators should be regulated and taxed like traditional holiday home renters and hotels. A little bit of enforcement of existing laws would help. If only we had a government that was supposed to be on the side of ordinary people and had a big majority.
To be fair, Doctorow goes into a lot of this. The failure of regulators to regulate, etc. The gaping wound of the current US administration’s gutting of government oversight. But it’s very US-focused, and the overall impression you get is that these companies are too big to fail, too big to regulate, and too big to care. And the answer to that is, break ’em up.
It’s time. It’s time to break up Google, Amazon, Apple, time to stop the tide of mergers and acquisitions, time to make these companies smaller, poorer, and less powerful.
I HAVE SPOKEN.
#Books #coryDoctorow #enshittification #internet #technology
Je lis Little Brother de #CoryDoctorow .
Il y a dans les dernières années un courant de bandes dessinées documentaire comme par exemple Economix qui raconte l'histoire de l'économie.
Little Brother est une espèce de roman documentaire. Au fil d'une bonne histoire, il raconte comment crypter des communications, il mentionne Gimp, il explique comment on peut être tracé de telle ou telle façon.
J'en suis à la moitié. Et je vais vraiment explorer les possibilités de la cryptographie.
The latest article from Cory Doctorow gives me some hope.
The unintended consequences of Trumps stupidity are having a positive, global impact.
post-American, enshittification-resistant internet
In december 2025, the author and activist Cory Doctorow @[email protected] did a speech at the 39C3 called “post-American, enshittification-resistant internet”
He talks about AI, internet enshitification, anti-circumvention law. guilotine few technofascists…but he also talks about alliance and hope ! ✊
Here is the transcript : https://pluralistic.net/2026/01/01/39c3/#the-new-coalition
You can watch other of video from the chaos congress communication event here : https://media.ccc.de/
post-American, enshittification-resistant internet
I think this topic may belong here since he talks about issue with usa and their DMCA.
Let me know if i’m off topic :)
In december 2025, the author and activist Cory Doctorow @[email protected] did a speech at the 39C3 called “post-American, enshittification-resistant internet”
He talks about AI, internet enshitification, anti-circumvention law. guilotine few technofascists…but he also talks about alliance and hope ! ✊
Here is the transcript : https://pluralistic.net/2026/01/01/39c3/#the-new-coalition
You can watch other of video from the chaos congress communication event here : https://media.ccc.de/
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