Review: Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It

Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It by Cory Doctorow
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Cory Doctorow coined the word "enshittification" in 2022, and it is defined thusly by Wikipedia:

"Enshittification, also known as crapification and platform decay, is a process in which two-sided online products and services decline in quality over time. Initially, vendors create high-quality offerings to attract users, then they degrade those offerings to better serve business customers, and finally degrade their services to users and business customers to maximize short-term profits for shareholders."

This book expands on that, explaining exactly how this works and giving four detailed examples: Facebook, Amazon, Apple's iPhone, and Twitter. It is no coincidence that the people running these entities are four of the worst people on the planet: Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, Tim Cook and Elon Musk. If there ever was a proof that "absolute power corrupts absolutely," it's these four.

Most of this book will simply set your hair on fire, as Doctorow lays out how corporations screw over everyone else. There are far too many horrifying details to list, but I think this quote from p. 100 pretty much sums it up.

The CEOs who do this got their MBAs at Darth Vader University, where the first lesson is "I'm altering the deal. Pray I don't alter it any further." It works with surprising consistency, and tech executives are so confident in the lessons of the Darth Vader MBA that they come over all affronted and hurt when their customers balk.

The news is not quite all dire, of course--this is pointed out in Part Four, The Cure. This goes into various antitrust actions around the world, with particular emphasis on Europe (which is light-years beyond the US, both law- and regulation-wise). Still, this book is a depressing read, as it shows clearly that after four years of vigorous antitrust actions and enforcement by the Biden administration, this country has backslid terribly (which is no more to be expected, with an ignorant entitled asshole trust fund reality show manbaby taking back the office). I don't know if we'll ever be able to claw ourselves out of this mess, but this book shows the way to do it, if you can get past your initial rage over what is happening.


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