Enshittification

*** Longlist for the FT and Schroder Business Book of the Year 2025 *** ** Named word of the year in US, UK and Australia ** *'Enshittification' will be the most talked about tech book of the year.* "Enshittification" is Doctorow's word to describe the decay of online platforms. It captures the feeling of a world that is ever worsening. Enshittification is not a technical glitch. It is a technique that every platform - from X to TikTok, Amazon to Apple, has adopted. First they lure users onto their platforms, then attract businesses who might profit from this newly formed public, and then finally squeeze both for their own profit. Tech giants lure users in with convenience and then degrade their services over time, draining profit at the cost of user experience. In the meantime our public squares have turned somewhere between the mall and a dumpster fire, that is unfit to deal with the problems of our times. What is to be done? Like a surgeon, Doctorow sets out the symptoms, the diagnosis and the cure to these metastasizing platforms. We need to question the monopolies that dominate so much of our online lives, we must demand regulation and our privacy back, allow for interoperability, and win tech workers' rights.

Enshittification: It's not just you--the internet sucks now. It's been enshittified . That was no accident, and it's not gonna fix itself. Here's how we'll disenshittify it so we can have a new, good internet. We are all living through the Enshittocene--the Great Enshittening--a time in which the services that matter to us, that we rely on, are being turned into giant piles of shit. It's frustrating. Demoralizing. Even terrifying. The once-glorious internet has degenerated into "platforms" that rose to dominance because they delivered convenient and delightful services efficiently and reliably. But once we were locked in to those services, the tech bosses turned on us, relying on our dependency to keep us using the services even as they got worse and worse. The platform bosses did the same to the companies that had flocked to their services to sell stuff to us. Once we were all locked in--businesses and users--the tech companies stripped out all utility, save the bare minimum needed to stave off total collapse. In Enshittification , Cory Doctorow shows us where it comes from: not the iron laws of economics, or the great forces of history, but specific policy choices made by powerful people who ignored every warning about the consequences of those choices. These are choices that can be undone. Enshittification is a Big Tech disassembly manual, a road map for the seizure of the means of computation. It is a diagnosis, and it is a cure.

*** Longlist for the FT and Schroder Business Book of the Year 2025 *** ** Named word of the year in US, UK and Australia ** *'Enshittification' will be the most talked about tech book of the year.* "Enshittification" is Doctorow's word to describe the decay of online platforms. It captures the feeling of a world that is ever worsening. Enshittification is not a technical glitch. It is a technique that every platform - from X to TikTok, Amazon to Apple, has adopted. First they lure users onto their platforms, then attract businesses who might profit from this newly formed public, and then finally squeeze both for their own profit. Tech giants lure users in with convenience and then degrade their services over time, draining profit at the cost of user experience. In the meantime our public squares have turned somewhere between the mall and a dumpster fire, that is unfit to deal with the problems of our times. What is to be done? Like a surgeon, Doctorow sets out the symptoms, the diagnosis and the cure to these metastasizing platforms. We need to question the monopolies that dominate so much of our online lives, we must demand regulation and our privacy back, allow for interoperability, and win tech workers' rights.

*** Longlisted for the Financial Times and Schroders Business Book of the Year 2025 *** Misogyny, conspiratorialism, surveillance, manipulation, fraud, and AI slop are drowning the internet. For the monopolists who dominate online - X, TikTok, Amazon, Meta, Apple - this is all part of the playbook. The process is what leading tech critic Cory Doctorow has dubbed 'enshittification'. First, the platform attracts users with some bait, such as free access; then the activity is monetized, bringing in the business customers and degrading the user experience; then, once everyone is trapped and competitors eradicated, the platform wrings out all the value and transfers it to their executives and shareholders. As a result, online public squares have become places of torment, and online retailers are hellish dumpster fires. The virtual gathering places where we once imagined the world's problems might be resolved are now a sewer of hatred and abuse - thoroughly enshittified. Doctorow enumerates the symptoms, lays out the diagnosis, and identifies the best responses to these diseased platforms: the monopolies online must be shattered. Companies too big to fail or to jail - and much too big to care - must be cut down to size. Only an attack on corporate power will permit effective regulation and real privacy. Tech unions must protect the workers who should, in turn, defend us against their bosses' sadism and greed. Praise for The Internet Con : "One of the Internet's most interesting writers." -- Edward Snowden "This book fills me with hope that a radical yet plausible alternative to computational tyranny can be developed and deployed." -- Douglas Rushkoff, author of Survival of the Fittest "This book is the instruction manual Big Tech doesn't want you to read. It deconstructs their crummy products, undemocratic business models, rigged legal regimes, and lies. Crack this book and help build something better." -- Astra Taylor "A brilliant barn burner of a book. Cory is one of the sharpest tech critics, and he shows with fierce clarity how our computational future could be otherwise." -- Kate Crawford, author of The Atlas of AI

*** Longlisted for the Financial Times and Schroders Business Book of the Year 2025 *** Misogyny, conspiratorialism, surveillance, manipulation, fraud, and AI slop are drowning the internet. For the monopolists who dominate online - X, TikTok, Amazon, Meta, Apple - this is all part of the playbook. The process is what leading tech critic Cory Doctorow has dubbed 'enshittification'. First, the platform attracts users with some bait, such as free access; then the activity is monetized, bringing in the business customers and degrading the user experience; then, once everyone is trapped and competitors eradicated, the platform wrings out all the value and transfers it to their executives and shareholders. As a result, online public squares have become places of torment, and online retailers are hellish dumpster fires. The virtual gathering places where we once imagined the world's problems might be resolved are now a sewer of hatred and abuse - thoroughly enshittified. Doctorow enumerates the symptoms, lays out the diagnosis, and identifies the best responses to these diseased platforms: the monopolies online must be shattered. Companies too big to fail or to jail - and much too big to care - must be cut down to size. Only an attack on corporate power will permit effective regulation and real privacy. Tech unions must protect the workers who should, in turn, defend us against their bosses' sadism and greed. Praise for The Internet Con : "One of the Internet's most interesting writers." -- Edward Snowden "This book fills me with hope that a radical yet plausible alternative to computational tyranny can be developed and deployed." -- Douglas Rushkoff, author of Survival of the Fittest "This book is the instruction manual Big Tech doesn't want you to read. It deconstructs their crummy products, undemocratic business models, rigged legal regimes, and lies. Crack this book and help build something better." -- Astra Taylor "A brilliant barn burner of a book. Cory is one of the sharpest tech critics, and he shows with fierce clarity how our computational future could be otherwise." -- Kate Crawford, author of The Atlas of AI

Enshittification: It's not just you--the internet sucks now. It's been enshittified . That was no accident, and it's not gonna fix itself. Here's how we'll disenshittify it so we can have a new, good internet. We are all living through the Enshittocene--the Great Enshittening--a time in which the services that matter to us, that we rely on, are being turned into giant piles of shit. It's frustrating. Demoralizing. Even terrifying. The once-glorious internet has degenerated into "platforms" that rose to dominance because they delivered convenient and delightful services efficiently and reliably. But once we were locked in to those services, the tech bosses turned on us, relying on our dependency to keep us using the services even as they got worse and worse. The platform bosses did the same to the companies that had flocked to their services to sell stuff to us. Once we were all locked in--businesses and users--the tech companies stripped out all utility, save the bare minimum needed to stave off total collapse. In Enshittification , Cory Doctorow shows us where it comes from: not the iron laws of economics, or the great forces of history, but specific policy choices made by powerful people who ignored every warning about the consequences of those choices. These are choices that can be undone. Enshittification is a Big Tech disassembly manual, a road map for the seizure of the means of computation. It is a diagnosis, and it is a cure.