Today's threads (a thread)

Inside: Understaffing as a form of enshittification; and more!

Archived at: https://pluralistic.net/2026/03/23/nobodys-home/

#Pluralistic

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Understaffing as a form of enshittification: A way to shift value from workers, patients and shoppers to investors.

https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic/116276950502388433

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Hey look at this

* Our algorithmic future – Utopia or Armageddon? https://b2fxxx.blogspot.com/2026/03/our-algorithmic-future-utopia-or.html

* The Market Definition Trap https://lpeproject.org/blog/the-market-definition-trap/

* On Spec 2026: New Canadian Literature of the Fantastic https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/edwardwillett/on-spec-2026-new-canadian-literature-of-the-fantastic

* Day 7: Ticketmaster's "Velvet Hammer" https://www.bigtechontrial.com/p/day-7-ticketmasters-velvet-hammer

* From Race to the Bottom to Worker Power on the Road https://economicpopulist.substack.com/p/from-race-to-the-bottom-to-worker

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#15yrsago Folk models of home computer security: what we think our PCs are doing https://rickwash.com/papers/rwash-homesec-soups10-final.pdf

#15yrsago Fixers’ Collective: people learning to make broken stuff work again https://www.csmonitor.com/The-Culture/Arts/2011/0321/The-art-of-the-fix-it

#15yrsago Bug-eyed monster steampunk mask https://bob-basset.livejournal.com/158400.html

#15yrsago Scholars to stop pretending they don’t use Wikipedia; will work out best practices instead https://www.bbc.com/news/education-12809944

#15yrsago Electronic publishing Bingo card from Scalzi https://whatever.scalzi.com/2011/03/20/the-electronic-publishing-bingo-card/

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#15yrsago RIP, Mike Glicksohn, Hugo-winning science fiction fan https://file770.com/mike-glicksohn-1946-2011/

#15yrsago Anti-labor ads celebrate workers taking paycuts and CEOs getting millions https://www.cogdis.me/2011/03/is-this-what-they-really-want.html

#15yrsago Reluctant witness refuses to admit he knows what a photocopier is https://www.cleveland.com/metro/2011/03/identifying_photocopy_machine.html

#15yrsago Tim Wu in the Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2011/mar/17/the-master-switch-tim-wu-internet

#15yrsago Up Against It: smart, whiz-bang space opera pits astro-bureaucrats against rogue AIs https://memex.craphound.com/2011/03/18/up-against-it-smart-whiz-bang-space-opera-pits-astro-bureaucrats-against-rogue-ais/

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#10yrsago Howto: start a fire with a lemon https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bv2vT665bGI

#10yrsago First order of business for hard-right government: canceling Croatia’s answer to The Daily Show https://balkaninsight.com/2016/03/17/satiric-show-pulled-from-croatian-tv-for-intolerance-03-17-2016/bi/all-balkan-countries/

#10yrsago FBI issues car-hacking warning, tells drivers to keep their cars’ patch-levels current https://www.wired.com/2016/03/fbi-warns-car-hacking-real-risk/

#10yrsago BART’s twitter manager drops truth-bombs, world cheers https://gizmodo.com/i-would-like-to-buy-a-drink-for-the-poor-soul-who-ran-t-1765477706

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#10yrsago Chelsea Manning gets the US Army to cough up its “insider threat” training docs https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/mar/18/government-persecuting-whistleblowers-insider-threat-chelsea-manning

#10yrsago Apple engineers quietly discuss refusing to create the FBI’s backdoor https://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/18/technology/apple-encryption-engineers-if-ordered-to-unlock-iphone-might-resist.html

#10yrsago Russia moots ban on discussions about VPNs, reverse proxies, and other anti-censorship techniques https://torrentfreak.com/copyright-holders-want-site-block-circumvention-advice-banned-160319/

#10yrsago Medusa’s Web: Tim Powers is the Philip K Dick of our age https://memex.craphound.com/2016/03/18/medusas-web-tim-powers-is-the-philip-k-dick-of-our-age/

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Thursday's threads: Love of corporate bullshit is correlated with bad judgment; and more!

https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic/116255988626308525

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My latest novel is "Picks and Shovels," a historical technothriller set in the Weird Era of the PC, about Ponzi schemes, techbros, and the dawn of enshittification:

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865908/picksandshovels

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My latest nonfiction book is the internationally bestselling "Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It," from MCD/Farrar, Straus and Giroux:

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374619329/enshittification/

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Picks and Shovels

New York Times bestselling author Cory Doctorow returns to the world of Red Team Blues to bring us the origin story of Martin Hench and the most powerful new...

Macmillan Publishers

My ebooks and audiobooks (from FSGxMCD, Tor Books, Head of Zeus, McSweeneys, Beacon, Verso and others) are for sale all over the net, but I sell 'em too, and when you buy 'em from me, I earn twice as much and you get books with no DRM and no license "agreements."

https://craphound.com/shop/

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Upcoming appearances (cont'd):

* #Berlin: Re:publica, May 18-20
https://re-publica.com/de/news/rp26-sprecher-cory-doctorow

* #Berlin: Enshittification at Otherland Books, May 19
https://www.otherland-berlin.de/de/event-details/cory-doctorow.html

* #HayOnWye: HowTheLightGetsIn, May 22-25
https://howthelightgetsin.org/festivals/hay/big-ideas-2

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Recent appearances:

* Do you feel screwed over by big tech? (Ontario Today)
https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live-radio/1-45-ontario-today/clip/16203024-do-feel-screwed-big-tech

* Launch for Cindy's Cohn's "Privacy's Defender" (City Lights)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WuVCm2PUalU

* Chicken Mating Harnesses (This Week in Tech)
https://twit.tv/shows/this-week-in-tech/episodes/1074

* The Virtual Jewel Box (U Utah)
https://tanner.utah.edu/podcast/enshittification-cory-doctorow-matthew-potolsky/

* Tanner Humanities Lecture (U Utah)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i6Yf1nSyekI

17/

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Pluralistic: Understaffing as a form of enshittification (23 Mar 2026) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow

I'm also on Bluesky. Read today's thread there at:

https://bsky.app/profile/doctorow.pluralistic.net/post/3mhpfc5mafk2m

eof/

By Cory Doctorow (GPG 0xBF3D9110957E5F4C) (@doctorow.pluralistic.net)

Enshittification can only take place if companies can move value around. Digitization make this easier than ever, for example, by changing prices on a per-user, per-session basis, using surveillance data to predict the top price or lowest wage a user will accept: https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/19/twiddler/ 1/

Bluesky Social