Overview

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.

Full Product Details

9780374619329

Table of Contents

Reviews

""Punchy, pungent and utterly compelling - a book that will change the way you see the world, and just might change the world itself. You simply must read it."" --Tim Harford, author of The Undercover Economist ""Big Tech does not just plunder your data. It does not merely rob you of your privacy. It does something far, far worse than that. You know it. You feel it. But you won't be able to put your finger on it until you have read Cory Doctorow's Enshittification. Once you do, you will know and, more importantly, you will stand a better chance of resisting."" --Yanis Varoufakis, author of Technofeudalism ""Doctorow, a genuine tech hero, has encapsulated much of what's going wrong with the Internet as much of it serves to take advantage of the people who use it. He also suggests how the spirit of the original Internet might be bright back. Great book for those of us hoping to make things better for everyone."" --Craig Newmark, Craigslist founder ""Remember when the internet was young and alive, vibrant and accessible and free? Cory Doctorow does, and he knows what's gone wrong--and he sees a way forward. I hope everyone will read this magnificent book."" --James Gleick, author of Chaos and The Information ""With his hallmark clarity and energy, Cory Doctorow takes us on a tour of how our digital world was wrecked by the avarice of tech monopolies that innovate new ways to disregard, abuse, and suck dry their users. And as the forces of enshittification accelerate and consume everything -- hello, AI -- we must heed Cory's no bullshit account of how to fight back and take power from the shittiest people alive."" --Jathan Sadowski, author of The Mechanic and the Luddite

""Punchy, pungent and utterly compelling - a book that will change the way you see the world, and just might change the world itself. You simply must read it."" --Tim Harford, author of The Undercover Economist ""Big Tech does not just plunder your data. It does not merely rob you of your privacy. It does something far, far worse than that. You know it. You feel it. But you won't be able to put your finger on it until you have read Cory Doctorow's Enshittification. Once you do, you will know and, more importantly, you will stand a better chance of resisting."" --Yanis Varoufakis, author of Technofeudalism ""Doctorow, a genuine tech hero, has encapsulated much of what's going wrong with the Internet as much of it serves to take advantage of the people who use it. He also suggests how the spirit of the original Internet might be bright back. Great book for those of us hoping to make things better for everyone."" --Craig Newmark, founder of Craiglist ""Remember when the internet was young and alive, vibrant and accessible and free? Cory Doctorow does, and he knows what's gone wrong--and he sees a way forward. I hope everyone will read this magnificent book."" --James Gleick, author of Chaos and The Information ""With his hallmark clarity and energy, Cory Doctorow takes us on a tour of how our digital world was wrecked by the avarice of tech monopolies that innovate new ways to disregard, abuse, and suck dry their users. And as the forces of enshittification accelerate and consume everything -- hello, AI -- we must heed Cory's no bullshit account of how to fight back and take power from the shittiest people alive."" --Jathan Sadowski, author of The Mechanic and the Luddite ""I always love Cory's shit, but Enshittification is not only a smart, funny, and refreshingly furious screed on how tech has betrayed us all--but also a bracing, daringly optimistic plan for how we can free ourselves from awfulness."" --John Hodgman ""Cory Doctorow spells out why our experience online keeps getting worse -- and what we can do to turn this around. Enshittification is an essential read to understand today's digital economy."" --Rohit Chopra, Former Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau

""Punchy, pungent and utterly compelling - a book that will change the way you see the world, and just might change the world itself. You simply must read it."" --Tim Harford, author of The Data Detective ""Big Tech does not just plunder your data. It does not merely rob you of your privacy. It does something far, far worse than that. You know it. You feel it. But you won't be able to put your finger on it until you have read Cory Doctorow's Enshittification. Once you do, you will know and, more importantly, you will stand a better chance of resisting."" --Yanis Varoufakis, economist and former Minister of Finance of Greece ""Doctorow, a genuine tech hero, has encapsulated much of what's going wrong with the Internet as much of it serves to take advantage of the people who use it. He also suggests how the spirit of the original Internet might be bright back. Great book for those of us hoping to make things better for everyone."" --Craig Newmark, Craigslist founder

Author Information

Cory Doctorow is a Canadian, British, American blogger, journalist, and activist. For more than twenty-three years, he has worked with the Electronic Frontier Foundation on campaigns to further and safeguard our human rights online. He was coeditor of the weblog Boing Boing for nineteen years and now maintains a daily(ish) newsletter at Pluralistic.net. He has written more than thirty books, including nonfiction books like this one, many science fiction novels, collections of short stories and essays, young adult novels, graphic novels, and even a picture book. Born in Toronto, he now lives in Burbank, California. He was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Laws by York University and an Honorary Doctor of Computer Science from the Open University. He has been inducted into the Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame and was awarded the Arthur C. Clarke Award for Imagination in Service to Society. He holds visiting professorship and research appointments at MIT, the University of North Carolina, Cornell University, and the Open University,

Tab Content 6

Countries Available