1280: Cory Doctorow | Why Everything Got Worse and What to Do About It

Podcast · Guest appearance on The Jordan Harbinger Show · Listen

• Cory Doctorow’s “enshittification” describes the three-stage decay of digital platforms: from serving users, to abusing users for business customers, then abusing everyone to extract value for themselves, driven by unchecked monopoly power and permissive policy.
• “Switching costs” are deliberately engineered through platform design and lobbying, while laws like the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) criminalize “adversarial interoperability” (e.g., fixing your own devices, creating ad blockers for apps) and security research.
• Specific examples include Google intentionally degrading search quality to increase ad views, Amazon imposing an “Amazon tax” on all consumers via “most favored nation” clauses and payola, and “algorithmic wage discrimination” exploiting gig workers and nurses based on perceived desperation.
• To fight back, support interoperability, choose alternative services (like Kagi for search), follow advocates like the Electronic Frontier Foundation (eff.org), and demand the right to truly own what you buy.