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"Enshittification": Cory Doctorow on Why Big Tech Sucks, Keeps Getting Worse & What to Do About It

2025-10-10 News & Politics
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Democracy Now!
Democracy Now!
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Corey Doctorów Explains the Cycle of Platform 'Bleepification' and Its Political Roots

Understand the three-stage pattern causing online platforms like Facebook and Google to degrade, and identify the political and regulatory failures that remove the necessary discipline keeping Big Tech accountable.

Short Summary

  • Companies systematically ruin platforms over time by prioritizing shareholder profit over user experience.
  • This decay cycle is enabled by anti-competitive mergers and the neutering of regulatory/worker power.
  • Solutions require reintroducing external discipline through policy changes like mandatory data portability.

This discussion unpacks Corey Doctorów’s viral concept describing platform atrophy, where services intentionally worsen quality after locking users in. We examine canonical examples like Facebook and Google, detailing how internal conflicts demonstrate a profit motive overriding product quality. Finally, Doctorów outlines the policy environment that rewards this unchecked behavior and suggests concrete ways consumers can fight back.

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Description

Support our work: https://democracynow.org/donate/sm-desc-yt Writer Cory Doctorow returns to Democracy Now!_to discuss his new book "Enshittification," which explores the term he coined in 2022 to describe how online platforms like Facebook degrade over time as companies seek to maximize profit at the expense of their users, and it has since become shorthand for describing a pervasive sense of dropping standards across various aspects of modern life. Democracy Now! is an independent global news hour that airs on over 1,500 TV and radio stations Monday through Friday. Watch our livestream at democracynow.org Mondays to Fridays 8-9 a.m. ET. Subscribe to our Daily Email Digest: https://democracynow.org/subscribe

Top Comments (10)

@MeliferaMelifera-e4v 2025-10-10

America doesn’t protect its citizens. It doesn’t protect them from predatory billionaires.

358 31 replies
@MichaelConstantine92 2025-10-12

We are witnessing the comsequences of limitless, unchecked public and corporate corruption. The people are living those consequences now.

333 12 replies
@cloudbullets 2025-10-10

I’ll get this book either from my library or a bookstore. Not Amazon!

281 3 replies
@niccoloflorence 2025-10-10

YouTube is no exception

157 10 replies
@namarupa3015 2025-10-10

I'm gonna have to read this. That little rant about Zuck rising out of a sarcophagus was pretty impressive lol

148 7 replies
@missAtoZ 2025-10-11

His sentences are PACKED with information and wit *Since commenting this I've read his book and can't recommend it enough! Hope it gets translated so I can gift it to family and friends who don't speak english.

117 3 replies
@individual1-floridaman491 2025-10-11

The amount of money, resources, and energy being wasted on building data centres that just 'talk' to other data centres with no tangible output is pure INSANITY.

102 3 replies
@ResistEvolve 2025-10-11

Google had a motto of "Don't be Evil" at one time. ROFL!

53
@petraroch8510 2025-10-10

Everyone should view this.

53
@bbirda1287 2025-10-10

In Australia, when social media goes down the drain, it goes counter clockwise

28 1 replies

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