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The cover of Enshittification

Enshittification

Cory Doctorow, 2025

Learn why digital platforms steadily turn against users and business customers, how lock in sustains the damage, and which reforms can reverse it.

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6 parts, about 20 minutes to read.

Why read it

  • Names the pattern behind worsening apps: platforms serve users, then business customers, then only themselves, and finally decay
  • Lets you spot lock in, hidden price twiddling and repair restrictions as policy choices rather than a fate of technology
  • Explains decline through four lost checks, competition, regulation, interoperability and worker power, and proposes concrete rules to restore them

Who it is for

  • Frustrated users of social media, app stores and search
  • Policy makers and regulators working on digital markets
  • Tech workers questioning what their products do to users

What the summary covers

  1. A predictable way platforms decay2 min
  2. Lock in converts genuine value into extraction3 min
  3. Four disciplines keep the extraction lever stuck3 min
  4. The disciplines were dismantled together5 min
  5. A cure must restore the four disciplines5 min
  6. Convenience and self determination can coexist2 min

Recommended by

  • Tim HarfordAuthor of The Undercover Economist
    Punchy, pungent, and utterly compelling.
  • Craig NewmarkFounder of Craigslist
    Cory Doctorow is a genuine tech hero.
  • James GleickAuthor of Chaos and The Information
    Remember when the internet was young and alive, vibrant and accessible and free? Cory Doctorow does, and he knows what’s gone wrong

About the author

  • Cory DoctorowScience fiction author, activist, journalist and EFF special advisor
    • Born in Toronto, Canada
    • Former European director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation; cofounded the UK Open Rights Group
    • Inducted into the Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame in 2020
    • Received the Neil Postman Award for Career Achievement in Public Intellectual Activity in 2024
    • Won the Locus, Prometheus, Copper Cylinder, White Pine and Sunburst Awards

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