EP 346 Cory Doctorow on Why the Internet Got Worse and What to Do About It

About this episode

Cory Doctorow discusses the structural forces that have degraded the internet and what citizens can do about it.

Jim talked with Cory Doctorow—prolific sci-fi and nonfiction author, journalist, activist, EFF special adviser, and author of Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It—about how structural forces degraded the internet, and what citizens (not consumers) can actually do about it. They discussed: The origin of "enshittification"—Cory's January 2023 blog post, its viral spread, and its naming as Word of the Year by the American Dialect Society Two-sided markets & the persistence of intermediaries Crad Kilodney as a self-publishing illustration, and why platform middlemen survive even when they shouldn't Monopsony vs. monopoly The real statistics of Amazon's dominance of book sales The three-stage enshittification life cycle, using Facebook as the case study The brittle equilibrium of late-stage enshittification—the thin line between "I hate this but can't leave" and mass exodus The metaverse as Facebook's terminal pivot—Zuckerberg's "legless, sexless, low-polygon" avatar world stolen from a 25-year-old cyberpunk novel, and why it still served him by forestalling investor sell-offs Zuckerberg as Rich Uncle Pennybags, not Willy Wonka Amazon's early…

People in this episode

Host: Jim Rutt

Guest: Cory Doctorow

Topics covered

• internet degradation
• enshittification
• monopoly
• consumer welfare
• self-publishing
• two-sided markets
• advertising

Keywords

• internet
• enshittification
• Cory Doctorow
• monopoly
• Amazon
• Facebook
• advertising
• consumer welfare
• self-publishing

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: EFF, Amazon, American Dialect Society, Facebook

Books & works: Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It

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