Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It – Cory Doctorow

When discussing the ills of our modern world, I am reminded of that old quip misattributed to Mark Twain

Everyone talks about the weather, but no one ever does anything about it.

In my life time, we lived in a better world than the one we live in now. Things were still generally fucked, but we had a couple of good things going on. I do feel like there was a time in my life when google, facebook, twitter and the like were worth using. At its genesis all of these systems were proving themselves to be a boon to the world we were all living in.

Well, that was a fraud. There were just waiting to pull back on these services and fleece us for all that we are worth. Whomp whomp.

We watch these things happen moment at a time and then look back only a number of years later, perplexed at what happened and not even knowing how to put it into words.

The word, apparently, is Enshitification, the process to render something more shitty. And it really does encapsulate exactly what actually happened and details how short term profit gouging ruined the tech world. It is a great little word, and really does capture the spirit of the moment.

Speaking of turns of phrase, I do love how Doctorow keeps playing the linguistic adventures with his term; he uses enshitification, enshitificatory, enshitifiers, etc. The word gets a lot of millage, also because Doctorow encourages us to use it in our everyday speech. Good show.

Anyway, with non-fiction of this nature I always felt like going through the arguments sort of spoils the book, and thus I won’t here. Do read it yourself, especially if you feel as I do. The morale uplift of a book like this is incredible for me, as by having someone else comment on the issues that I see gives me a feeling of being a little less alone in this horrible world. And to make matters even better, Doctorow even outlines some reasons why there might be some reasons to think positively about what is going on in the world, and that there might be some ways we as a society can fight against the monopolistic tendencies of governments and corporations.