Enshittification - BookWyrm

digital audio

Published Oct. 7, 2025 by Macmillan Audio.

ISBN:: 978-1-250-41760-2

(2 reviews)

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 …

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.

2 editions

andbenn reviewed Enshittification by Cory Doctorow

A look at how the new business model is to make you pay more

4 stars

A very entertaining and scary read. While it focuses on tech, it applies to physical products and even services. Essentially, companies try to extract more and more from us, often by throwing features and capabilities, or shrinking the product.

I have a hunch the book contains some of his longer blog posts from the past. Maybe with some new material. It's organized well and reads well. I had not read his previous books, but do recognize his name and know he's worked with the Electronic Freedom Foundation.

Probably could be a stronger book with summarized interviews of various sources who can back up some of the claims and biases. Still, an enjoyable read.

Apollo reviewed Enshittification by Cory Doctorow

The Definitive Look at Rotten Tech

5 stars

Enshittification has become an easy way to describe how tech goes bad, but Doctorow has done the work of backing up that wonderful new word he added to our lexicon with a framework and survey of tech's history to flesh it out. He provides a path forward to reverse Enshittification and his focus on coalition building is a key part of that. This book is for both veterans in the fight against Enshittification and those just now recognizing how bad things have gotten.