The Enshittification Life Cycle With Cory Doctorow

Twenty years ago Cory Doctorow saw how the technology we use daily was purposely being broken, it was only when he started cursing the process that we finally started listening.

Welcome to the podcast Organized Money. You can listen to today’s episode on Apple on Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

As a holiday treat, we bring you a new conversation with author and Organized Money alum Cory Doctorow about his new book Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It. Recorded earlier this year at a live book event, David asks Cory to expand on the thesis of the book: that digital platforms are now locked in a cycle of decay, seeing our technology become less intuitive, less useful, and less private. For Cory, this cycle is a choice, driven by government policy choices favoring lax antitrust enforcement, strong digital rights management, and wholesale regulatory capture.

In this wide ranging conversation they discuss how market consolidation and DRM shifted the balance of power away from workers, who are no longer able to defend themselves with the technology they are forced to use. They also get into the history of digital rights management, why Cory isn’t on Audible, algorithmic pricing, and how coalition building and policy change might just be the way out of the enshitification cycle.

Listen via Apple or Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Another thing we’re doing this year is providing transcripts and video for every episode. Check your inbox for that soon.

Thank you so much for listening. If there’s a monopoly you’d like us to explore this year, or if you have anything else to tell us, please let us know by leaving a comment or by responding directly to this email.