Enshittification

Resumen del libro

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.

Biografía del autor

Novelista canadiense de ciencia ficción, periodista y activista tecnológico. Colabora con numerosas revistas, sitios web y periódicos. Es asesor especial de la Electronic Frontier Foundation (eff.org), un grupo de libertades civiles sin ánimo de lucro que defiende la libertad en la legislación, la política, las normas y los tratados sobre tecnología. Sus novelas han sido traducidas a decenas de idiomas. Es doctor honoris causa en informática por la Open University (Reino Unido). En 2020 ingresó en el Salón de la Fama de la Ciencia Ficción y la Fantasía de Canadá. Ha ganado los premios Locus, Prometheus, Copper Cylinder, White Pine y Sunburst, y ha sido nominado a los premios Hugo, Nebula y British Science Fiction.