Enshittification
Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What To Do About It
Published on 14. October 2025
Book
Hardback
352 pages
978-1-83674-222-7 (ISBN)
Description
*** Longlisted for the Financial Times and Schroders Business Book of the Year 2025 ***
Misogyny, conspiratorialism, surveillance, manipulation, fraud, and AI slop are drowning the internet. For the monopolists who dominate online - X, TikTok, Amazon, Meta, Apple - this is all part of the playbook. The process is what leading tech critic Cory Doctorow has dubbed 'enshittification'. First, the platform attracts users with some bait, such as free access; then the activity is monetized, bringing in the business customers and degrading the user experience; then, once everyone is trapped and competitors eradicated, the platform wrings out all the value and transfers it to their executives and shareholders.
As a result, online public squares have become places of torment, and online retailers are hellish dumpster fires. The virtual gathering places where we once imagined the world's problems might be resolved are now a sewer of hatred and abuse - thoroughly enshittified.
Doctorow enumerates the symptoms, lays out the diagnosis, and identifies the best responses to these diseased platforms: the monopolies online must be shattered. Companies too big to fail or to jail - and much too big to care - must be cut down to size. Only an attack on corporate power will permit effective regulation and real privacy. Tech unions must protect the workers who should, in turn, defend us against their bosses' sadism and greed.
Praise for The Internet Con:
"One of the Internet's most interesting writers." -- Edward Snowden
"This book fills me with hope that a radical yet plausible alternative to computational tyranny can be developed and deployed." -- Douglas Rushkoff, author of Survival of the Fittest
"This book is the instruction manual Big Tech doesn't want you to read. It deconstructs their crummy products, undemocratic business models, rigged legal regimes, and lies. Crack this book and help build something better." -- Astra Taylor
"A brilliant barn burner of a book. Cory is one of the sharpest tech critics, and he shows with fierce clarity how our computational future could be otherwise." -- Kate Crawford, author of The Atlas of AI
Misogyny, conspiratorialism, surveillance, manipulation, fraud, and AI slop are drowning the internet. For the monopolists who dominate online - X, TikTok, Amazon, Meta, Apple - this is all part of the playbook. The process is what leading tech critic Cory Doctorow has dubbed 'enshittification'. First, the platform attracts users with some bait, such as free access; then the activity is monetized, bringing in the business customers and degrading the user experience; then, once everyone is trapped and competitors eradicated, the platform wrings out all the value and transfers it to their executives and shareholders.
As a result, online public squares have become places of torment, and online retailers are hellish dumpster fires. The virtual gathering places where we once imagined the world's problems might be resolved are now a sewer of hatred and abuse - thoroughly enshittified.
Doctorow enumerates the symptoms, lays out the diagnosis, and identifies the best responses to these diseased platforms: the monopolies online must be shattered. Companies too big to fail or to jail - and much too big to care - must be cut down to size. Only an attack on corporate power will permit effective regulation and real privacy. Tech unions must protect the workers who should, in turn, defend us against their bosses' sadism and greed.
Praise for The Internet Con:
"One of the Internet's most interesting writers." -- Edward Snowden
"This book fills me with hope that a radical yet plausible alternative to computational tyranny can be developed and deployed." -- Douglas Rushkoff, author of Survival of the Fittest
"This book is the instruction manual Big Tech doesn't want you to read. It deconstructs their crummy products, undemocratic business models, rigged legal regimes, and lies. Crack this book and help build something better." -- Astra Taylor
"A brilliant barn burner of a book. Cory is one of the sharpest tech critics, and he shows with fierce clarity how our computational future could be otherwise." -- Kate Crawford, author of The Atlas of AI
Reviews / Votes
Punchy, pungent and utterly compelling - a book that will change the way you see the world, and just might change the world itself. You simply must read it. -- Tim Harford, author of <i>The Data Detective</i> Big Tech does not just plunder your data. It does not merely rob you of your privacy. It does something far, far worse than that. You know it. You feel it. But you won't be able to put your finger on it until you have read Cory Doctorow's Enshittification. Once you do, you will know and, more importantly, you will stand a better chance of resisting -- Yanis Varoufakis, author of <i>Technofeudalism</i> Remember when the internet was young and alive, vibrant and accessible and free? Cory Doctorow does, and he knows what's gone wrong - and he sees a way forward. This is a magnificent book -- James Gleick, author of <i>Chaos and The Information</i> With his hallmark clarity and energy, Cory Doctorow lays out how tech monopolies innovated ways to disregard, abuse, and suck dry their users. We must heed Doctorow's no-bullshit account of how to fight back -- Jathan Sadowski, author of <i>The Mechanic and the Luddite</i> Enshittification explains the exploitation that changed the internet and our lives. Doctorow gave us the word to describe how these companies immiserate humanity on a planetary scale * Edward Snowden * The steady decline of the technology you use every day isn't just in your imagination-and in Enshittification, Cory Doctorow explains how we got here. Witty, incisive, and urgently relevant, this book reveals how we can reclaim our digital lives from the forces that have degraded them. -- Molly White, editor of <i>Web3 Is Going Just Great</i> and <i>Citation Needed</i> The book of the autumn. -- Janan Ganesh * The Financial Times * You could not ask for a clearer, more ambitious or better-written business book than this one. * The Financial Times * Consistently acute -- Keith Miller * Times Literary Supplement *More details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Dimensions
Height: 239 mm
Width: 163 mm
Thickness: 30 mm
Weight
510 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-83674-222-7 (9781836742227)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
E-Book
10/2025
Verso Books
€27.49
Available for download
Person
CORY DOCTOROW is a science fiction author, activist, and journalist. He is the author of many books. He writes nonfiction policy books such as The Internet Con and Chokepoint Capitalism, as well as science fiction for adults - Red Team Blues and The Lost Cause - and for young adults - Little Brother. He has been inducted into the Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame and has been honored with the Arthur C. Clarke Imagination in Service to Society Award and the Neil Postman Award for Career Achievement in Public Intellectual Activity. He was made an honorary Doctor of Laws by York University and an Honorary Doctor of Computer Science by the Open University. For a quarter century, he has been an activist for the Electronic Frontier Foundation. He co-founded the UK Open Rights Group and holds visiting appointments at the Open University, MIT, Cornell, and the University of North Carolina. Born in Toronto, Canada, he now lives in Burbank, California.