I've been skimming Cory Doctorow's daily links and rants on Pluralistic for years, so I walked into this book already fluent in most of his ideas. What surprised me was how much richer and more coherent everything became once he had an entire book to breathe. Ensh*ttfication is the definitive deep-dive into the "Ensh*ttocen" - the Great Ensh*ttening era we're all living through, laying out his core theses with far more historical context, evidence, and narrative force than any blog post could manage.
The book is long, dense, and occasionally meanders into broader territory: labour rights, liberty, social justice, and the politics of technology. I actually loved those side-quests. They served as powerful reminders of how extraordinarily lucky I am to have the freedoms and tools I do. Doctorow's sales pitch for Mastodon and the Fediverse was particularly interesting, even if reality has already moved on: walled gardens have largely won, gateways have been shut down, and most of the people I actually talk to will never install Mastodon. (The one bright exception I'm excited to try is matterbridge — https://github.com/42wim/matterbridge. The universal chat client (theoretically) lets one client bridge WhatsApp, Slack, Discord, Telegram, Teams, and more. If I ever find the time, I'll clone, build, and try it.
At its heart, this book delivers a razor-sharp diagnosis of exactly how enshittification works: a three-stage pathology that turns once-great platforms into "giant piles of shit." First, services are genuinely good for users to draw them in. Then they abuse those users to please business customers (think ad-choked feeds and algorithmic manipulation). Finally, they squeeze the business customers themselves to extract every last drop of value for executives and shareholders. Doctorow backs this up with devastating case studies—Facebook, Amazon, Google, Uber, TikTok, and more, showing how weakened antitrust rules, regulatory capture, lock-in tactics, and "twiddling" algorithms created today's techno-feudal system of rent extraction. He doesn't stop at diagnosis; he also maps out concrete cures: aggressive interoperability mandates, breaking up monopolies, stronger data rights, and rebuilding the open internet we once took for granted.
I don't always agree with Cory's values or speculations, and I occasionally have counter-evidence that undercuts some of his stronger claims. Yet I never resent the ride. His extreme points of view and the mountains of data he cites are consistently thought-provoking and valuable. The book is daunting in scope, but it's also comprehensive, well-crafted, and deeply informative. I'm genuinely glad I ploughed through every page.
The book is highly recommended if you want to understand the forces quietly degrading the internet (and society) around us.
5/5 stars.
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