Today's threads (a thread)
Inside: Understaffing as a form of enshittification; and more!
Archived at: https://pluralistic.net/2026/03/23/nobodys-home/
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Today's threads (a thread)
Inside: Understaffing as a form of enshittification; and more!
Archived at: https://pluralistic.net/2026/03/23/nobodys-home/
1/
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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#20yrsago Marvel Comics: stealing our language https://memex.craphound.com/2006/03/18/marvel-comics-stealing-our-language/
#20yrsago MPAA/RIAA/BSA: No breaking DRM, even if it’s killing you (literally!) https://blog.citp.princeton.edu/2006/03/08/riaa-says-future-drm-might-threaten-critical-infrastructure-and-potentially-endanger-liv/
#20yrsago Coping with plenty – stuff gets cheaper, space gets pricier https://www.theguardian.com/business/2006/feb/28/retail.shopping
#20yrsago France will let Microsoft play iTunes http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4828296.stm
#20yrsago A new discipline to describe the copyfight https://web.archive.org/web/20060422010702/https://www.nyu.edu/classes/siva/archives/002930.html
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#20yrsago Right-wing think-tank hates DRM https://www.cato.org/policy-analysis/circumventing-competition-perverse-consequences-digital-millennium-copyright-act#
#20yrsago Reasons to take math in high school https://web.archive.org/web/20060610134055/http://www.acm.org/ubiquity/views/v7i11_math.html
#20yrsago Sun ships free and open microprocessor https://web.archive.org/web/20060221112756/http://opensparc.sunsource.net/nonav/index.html
#20yrsago Octavia Butler scholarship will send people of color to Clarion https://web.archive.org/web/20060406161412/https://carlbrandon.org/butlerscholarship/
#20yrsago Online sexual material is obscene if any community in US objects https://web.archive.org/web/20060505232346/http://www.justicemag.com/daily/item/2590.html
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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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#10yrsago Meet the Commercial Energy Working Group, a lobby group that won’t say who it lobbies for https://web.archive.org/web/20160320150011/https://theintercept.com/2016/03/20/mysterious-powerful-lobbying-group-wont-even-say-who-its-lobbying-for/
#5yrsago Support Amazon workers today https://pluralistic.net/2021/03/20/against-amazon-union-busting/#what-rhymes-with-bezos
#5yrsago Department of Truth https://pluralistic.net/2021/03/20/against-amazon-union-busting/#dot
#5yrsago The political possibility of cities https://pluralistic.net/2021/03/21/ex-urbe/#arcology-politics
#5yrsago Aviation bailout cost $666k/job https://pluralistic.net/2021/03/18/news-worthy/#aa
#5yrsago Impunity for NYPD cops who brutalized BLM protesters https://pluralistic.net/2021/03/18/news-worthy/#nypd-black-and-blue
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#5yrsago Help news, not news-barons https://pluralistic.net/2021/03/18/news-worthy/#big-news
#5yrsago Announcing "The Shakedown" https://pluralistic.net/2021/03/19/the-shakedown/#monopsony
#5yrsago Chickenized reverse-centaurs https://pluralistic.net/2021/03/19/the-shakedown/#weird-flex
#1yrago You can't save an institution by betraying its mission https://pluralistic.net/2025/03/19/selling-out/#destroy-the-village-to-save-it
#1yrago AI can't do your job https://pluralistic.net/2025/03/18/asbestos-in-the-walls/#government-by-spicy-autocomplete
#1yrago Ray Nayler's "Where the Axe Is Buried" https://pluralistic.net/2025/03/20/birchpunk/#cyberspace-is-everting
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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
--
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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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."
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Upcoming appearances:
* #Berkeley: Bioneers keynote, Mar 27
https://conference.bioneers.org/
* #Montreal: Bronfman Lecture (McGill), Apr 10
https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/artificial-intelligence-the-ultimate-disrupter-tickets-1982706623885
* #Montreal: Drawn and Quarterly, Apr 10
https://mtl.drawnandquarterly.com/events/4863920260410
* #London: Resisting Big Tech Empires (LSBU), Apr 25
https://www.tickettailor.com/events/globaljusticenow/2042691
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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
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I'm also on Bluesky. Read today's thread there at:
https://bsky.app/profile/doctorow.pluralistic.net/post/3mhpfc5mafk2m
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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/