Podcast appearances and mentions of Cory Doctorow

Welcome to the new episode of the Learn Polish Podcast! Have you noticed that your favorite apps and online platforms are getting worse over time? In this episode, I discuss the concept of “enshittification,” a term coined by Cory Doctorow. I explain in simple words why big tech companies change their strategies at the expense of users and how this cycle works. I speak clearly and slowly to help you improve your listening skills while understanding the modern digital world. Premium members can access the full Polish transcript word-for-word at realpolish.pl.The post ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠RP514: Zeszmacenie⁠⁠ appeared first on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠realpolish.pl

Becky, Holly, Jakob, and Austin talk about books of the 2020s, trends in reading and publishing, our hopes for the future, and a couple of predictions for the next big thing. This reading data: https://www.arts.gov/stories/blog/2024/federal-data-reading-pleasure-all-signs-show-slump Books mentioned include: Spillover by David Quammen, The Great Influenza by John M. Barry, The Plague by Albert Camus, The Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio, Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez,  These Precious Days and Tom Lake by Ann Patchett, The Vulnerables by Sigrid Nunez, The Sentence by Louise Erdrich, There is a Door in This Darkness by Kristin Cash ore, All Fours by Miranda July, Book Lovers by Emily Henry, Caste by Isabel Wilkerson, What Were We Thinking by Carlos Lozada, Surviving Autocracy by Masha Gessen, Just Us by Claudia Rankine, The Trees by Percival Everett, Agatha of Little Neon by Claire Luchette, Intimacies and A Separation by Katie Kitamura, Empire of Pain by Patrick Radden Keefe, Ducks by Kate Beaton, The Rabbit Hutch by Tess Gunty, The Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson, Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver, The Most by Jessica Anthony, The God of the Woods by Liz Moore, Autocracy Inc by Anne Applebaum, Eastbound by Maylis de Kerangal, Doppleganger by Naomi Klein, Detransition, Baby by Torry Peters, Woodworking by Emily St. James, Disappoint Me by Nicola Dinan, Diary of a Misfit by Casey Parks, Jesus Wept by Philip Shenon, Romney by McKay Coppins, Motherland by Julia Ioffe, The Gales of November by John U. Bacon, Murderland by Caroline Fraser, King of Kings by Scott Anderson, All the Way to the River by Elizabeth Gilberty, Challenger by Adam Higginbotham, More Everything Forever by Adam Becker, Red White and Whole by Rajani LaRocca, The Midnight Children by Dan Gemeinhart, The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V.E. Schwab, Wanderhome by Jay Dragon, Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin, Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros, The House in the Cerulean sea by TJ Klune, Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt, The Women by Kristin Hannah, Dog Man series by Dav Pilkey,  The Let Them Theory by Mel Robbins, Alchemised by SenLinYu, Convent Wisdom by Ana Garriga and Carment Urbita, The Familiar by Leigh Bardugo, We Are Water Protectors by Carole Lindstrom, Berry Song by Michaela Goade, Legendary Frybread Drive-In edited by Cynthia Leitich Smith, Firekeeper's Daughter by Angeline Boulley, The Tragedy of True Crime by John J. Lennon, The Friday Afternoon Club by Griffin Dunne,  We Tell Ourselves Stories by Alissa Wilkinson, Didion and Babitz by Lili Anolik, Enshittification by Cory Doctorow, The Correspondent by Virginia Evans, Back After This by Linda Holmes, The Caretaker by Ron Rash And authors Patricia Lockwood,  Claire Keegan, Rachel Kushner, Timothy Snyder, Helen Garner, Casey Plett, Mr Beast/James Patterson, Stephen Graham Jones, Silvia Moreno Garcia, and more!

And it is dying. At least for us, humans. Our chatter and connection online is being overrun by bots — more than half of online activity is non-human. The internet is on it's way to feeling haunted, like a deserted mall where the fountain is still gurgling, the canned music is still playing, but the people are nowhere to be found. IDEAS explores the dying internet and what we will do when it's dead?If you like this episode, you may want to listen to: We're not machines. Why should our online world define life?Guests in this episode:Cory Doctorow is an activist with a non-profit called the Electronic Frontier Foundation. He's a writer and journalist. His most recent book is called Enshitification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse And What To Do About ItMatt Hussey is a UK-based therapist and tech journalist.

Welcome to episode #1024 of Thinking With Mitch Joel (formerly Six Pixels of Separation). At a time when the digital infrastructure that underpins modern life feels increasingly hostile, few voices have been as prescient... or as relentless... as Cory Doctorow. A science fiction novelist, journalist and technology activist, Cory serves as Special Advisor to the Electronic Frontier Foundation and has long stood at the intersection of storytelling, policy and power. Over the course of a prolific career (one that includes bestselling fiction, influential tech policy books like Chokepoint Capitalism and The Internet Con, and his widely read Pluralistic blog) Cory has chronicled how digital markets consolidate, calcify and ultimately betray their users. His latest nonfiction work, Enshittification - Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse And What To Do About It, gives a name to the slow degradation of online platforms: the predictable cycle in which services begin by delighting users, then exploit them, then squeeze the businesses that depend on them, until only monopoly power remains. Cory situates this decline not as technological inevitability but as the result of specific policy choices that empowered monopolies and weakened enforcement. At the same time, Cory challenges the fatalism that often surrounds technological decline. Anti-circumvention laws, regulatory capture and collective action problems may constrain consumers, but they are not immovable forces. Cultural norms can shift. Policy can be rewritten. Markets can be redesigned. Grounded in economic literacy and moral urgency, Cory's work calls for ethical leadership, regulatory courage and a reclamation of agency in the systems that shape our digital lives. Enjoy the conversation… Running time: 1:00:43. Hello from beautiful Montreal. Listen and subscribe over at Apple Podcasts. Listen and subscribe over at Spotify. Please visit and leave comments on the blog - Thinking With Mitch Joel. Feel free to connect to me directly on LinkedIn. Check out ThinkersOne. Here is my conversation with Cory Doctorow. Enshittification - Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse And What To Do About It. Pluralistic. Chokepoint Capitalism. The Internet Con. Cory's books. Cory's newsletter. Follow Cory on X. Chapters: (00:00) - Introduction to Cory Doctorow. (03:07) - The AI Bubble: Understanding the Economics. (06:08) - The Future of AI and Labor. (08:56) - Open Source Models and Their Potential. (11:50) - AI as a Tool: The Multiplier Effect. (14:50) - The Reality of AI's Impact on Society. (17:57) - Billionaire Perspectives and UBI. (20:56) - The Disconnect Between Wealth and Labor. (23:49) - The Future of Work in an AI-Driven World. (30:15) - The Illusion of Value in Economic Activity. (33:34) - The Crisis of Ethical Leadership. (36:56) - The Role of Policymakers in Corporate Behavior. (38:45) - Understanding Lock-In: Users and Businesses. (40:40) - The Impact of Monopolies and Monopsonies. (49:22) - The Need for Anti-Circumvention Law Repeal. (54:24) - Cultural Norms vs. Regulation in Consumer Behavior.

Hai mai la sensazione che i servizi digitali che usi ogni giorno stiano diventando più costosi, più complicati e pieni di pubblicità inutile? Non è una tua impressione: si chiama ENSHITTIFICATION.In questa puntata, Edoardo Ridolfi e Marco Matarazzi esplorano questo termine (coniato da Cory Doctorow) per analizzare il declino qualitativo delle grandi piattaforme come Amazon, Google e Facebook. Ma cosa c'entra questo con il mondo dell'ospitalità? Scoprilo ascoltando la puntata 359 del podcast Ospitalità 4.0

In this episode, I'm joined by Rebecca Hinds — organizational behavior expert and founder of the Work AI Institute at Glean — for a practical conversation about why meetings deteriorate over time and how to redesign them. Rebecca argues that bad meetings aren't a people problem — they're a systems problem. Without intentional design, meetings default to ego, status signaling, conflict avoidance, and performative participation. Over time, low-value meetings become normalized instead of fixed. Drawing on her research at Stanford University and her leadership of the Work Innovation Lab at Asana, she shares frameworks from her new book, Your Best Meeting Ever, including: The four legitimate purposes of a meeting: decide, discuss, debate, or develop The CEO test for when synchronous time is truly required How to codify shared meeting standards Why leaders must explicitly give permission to leave low-value meetings We also explore leadership, motivation, and the myth that kindness and high standards are opposites. Rebecca explains why effective leaders diagnose what drives each individual — encouragement for some, direct challenge for others — and design environments that support both performance and belonging. Finally, we talk about AI and the future of work. Tools amplify existing culture: strong systems improve, broken systems break faster. Organizations that redesign how work happens — not just what tools they use — will have the advantage. If you want to run better meetings, lead with more clarity, and rethink how collaboration actually happens, this episode is for you. You can find Your Best Meeting Ever at major bookstores and learn more at rebeccahinds.com.  00:00 Start 00:27 Why Meetings Get Worse Over Time Robin references Good Omens and the character Crowley, who designs the M25 freeway to intentionally create frustration and misery. They use this metaphor to illustrate how systems can be designed in ways that amplify dysfunction, whether intentionally or accidentally. The idea is that once dysfunctional systems become normalized, people stop questioning them. They also discuss Cory Doctorow's concept of enshittification, where platforms and systems gradually decline as organizational priorities override user experience. Rebecca connects this pattern directly to meetings, arguing that without intentional design, meetings default to chaos and energy drain. Over time, poorly designed meetings become accepted as inevitable rather than treated as solvable design problems. Rebecca references the Simple Sabotage Field Manual created by the Office of Strategic Services during World War II. The manual advised citizens in occupied territories on how to subtly undermine organizations from within. Many of the suggested tactics involved meetings, including encouraging long speeches, focusing on irrelevant details, and sending decisions to unnecessary committees. The irony is that these sabotage techniques closely resemble common behaviors in modern corporate meetings. Rebecca argues that if meetings were designed from scratch today, without legacy habits and inherited norms, they would likely look radically different. She explains that meetings persist in their dysfunctional form because they amplify deeply human tendencies like ego, status signaling, and conflict avoidance. Rebecca traces her interest in teamwork back to her experience as a competitive swimmer in Toronto. Although swimming appears to be an individual sport, she explains that success is heavily dependent on team structure and shared preparation. Being recruited to swim at Stanford exposed her to an elite, team-first environment that reshaped how she thought about performance. She became fascinated by how a group can become greater than the sum of its parts when the right cultural conditions are present. This experience sparked her long-term curiosity about why organizations struggle to replicate the kind of cohesion often seen in sports. At Stanford, Coach Lee Mauer emphasized that emotional wellbeing and performance were deeply connected. The team included world record holders and Olympians, and the performance standards were extremely high. Despite the intensity, the culture prioritized connection and belonging. Rituals like informal story time around the hot tub helped teammates build relationships beyond performance metrics. Rebecca internalized the lesson that elite performance and strong culture are not opposing forces. She saw firsthand that intensity and warmth can coexist, and that psychological safety can actually reinforce high standards rather than weaken them. Later in her career at Asana, Rebecca encountered the company value of rejecting false trade-offs. This reinforced a lesson she had first learned in swimming, which is that many perceived either-or tensions are not actually unavoidable. She argues that organizations often assume they must choose between performance and happiness, or between kindness and accountability. In her experience, these are false binaries that can be resolved through better design and clearer expectations. She emphasizes that motivated and engaged employees tend to produce higher quality work, making culture a strategic advantage rather than a distraction. Kindness versus ruthlessness in leadership Robin raises the contrast between harsh, fear-based leadership styles and more relational, positive leadership approaches. Both styles have produced winning teams, which raises the question of whether success comes because of the leadership style or despite it. Rebecca argues that resilience and accountability are essential, regardless of tone. She stresses that kindness alone is not sufficient for high performance, but neither is harshness inherently superior. Effective leadership requires understanding what motivates each individual, since some people thrive on encouragement while others crave direct challenge. Rebecca personally identifies with wanting to be pushed and appreciates clarity when her work falls short of expectations. She concludes that the most effective leaders diagnose motivation carefully and design environments that maximize both growth and performance. 08:51 Building the Book-Launch Team: Mentors, Agents, and Choosing the Right Publisher Robin asks Rebecca about the size and structure of the team she assembled to execute the launch successfully. He is especially curious about what the team actually looked like in practice and how coordinated the effort needed to be. He also asks about the meeting cadence and work cadence required to bring a book launch to life at that level. The framing highlights that writing the book is only one phase, while launching it is an entirely different operational challenge. Rebecca explains that the process felt much more organic than it might appear from the outside. She admits that at the beginning, she underestimated the full scope of what a book launch entails. Her original motivation was simple: she believed she had a valuable perspective, wanted to help people, and loved writing. As she progressed deeper into the publishing process, she realized that writing the manuscript was only one piece of a much larger system. The operational and promotional dimensions gradually revealed themselves as a second job layered on top of authorship. Robin emphasizes that writing a book and publishing a book are fundamentally different jobs. Rebecca agrees and acknowledges that the publishing side requires a completely different skill set and infrastructure. The conversation underscores that authorship is creative work, while publishing and launching require strategy, coordination, and business acumen. Rebecca credits her Stanford mentor, Bob Sutton, as a life changing influence throughout the process. He guided her step by step, including decisions around selecting a publisher and choosing an agent. She initially did not plan to work with an agent, but through guidance and reflection, she shifted her perspective. His mentorship helped her ask better questions and approach the process more strategically rather than reactively. Rebecca reflects on an important mindset shift in her career. Earlier in life, she was comfortable being the big fish in a small pond. Over time, she came to believe that she performs better when surrounded by people who are smarter and more experienced than she is. She describes her superpower as working extremely hard and having confidence in that effort. Because of that, she prefers environments where others elevate her thinking and push her further. This philosophy became central to how she built her book launch team. As Rebecca learned more about the moving pieces required for a successful campaign, she became more intentional about who she wanted involved. She sought the best not in terms of prestige alone, but in terms of belief and commitment. She wanted people who would go to bat for her and advocate for the book with genuine enthusiasm. She noticed that some organizations that looked impressive on paper were not necessarily the right fit for her specific campaign. This led her to have extensive conversations with potential editors and publicists before making decisions. Rebecca developed a personal benchmark for evaluating partners. She paid attention to whether they were willing to apply the book's ideas within their own organizations. For her, that signaled authentic belief rather than surface level marketing support. When Simon and Schuster demonstrated early interest in implementing the book's learnings internally, it stood out as meaningful alignment. That commitment suggested they cared about the substance of the work, not just the promotional campaign. As the process unfolded, Rebecca realized that part of her job was learning what questions to ask. Each conversation with potential partners refined her understanding of what she needed. She became more deliberate about building the right bench of people around her. The team was not assembled all at once, but rather shaped through iterative learning and discernment. The launch ultimately reflected both her evolving standards and her commitment to surrounding herself with people who elevated the work. 12:12 Asking Better Questions & Going Asynchronous Robin highlights the tension between the voice of the book and the posture of a first time author entering a major publishing house. He notes that Best Meeting Ever encourages people to assert authority in meetings by asking about agendas, ownership, and structure. At the same time, Rebecca was entering conversations with an established publisher as a new author seeking partnership. The question becomes how to balance clarity and conviction with humility and openness. Robin frames it as showing up with operational authority while still saying you publish books and I want to work with you. Rebecca calls the question insightful and explains that tactically she relied heavily on asking questions. She describes herself as intentionally curious and even nosy because she did not yet know what she did not know. Rather than pretending to have answers, she used inquiry as a way to build authority through understanding. She asked questions asynchronously almost daily, emailing her agent and editor with anything that came to mind. This allowed her to learn the system while also signaling engagement and seriousness. Rebecca explains that most of the heavy lifting happened outside of meetings. By asking questions over email, she clarified information before stepping into synchronous time. Meetings were then reserved for ambiguity, decision making, and issues that required real time collaboration. As a result, the campaign involved very few meetings overall. She had a biweekly meeting with her core team and roughly monthly conversations with her editor. The rest of the coordination happened asynchronously, which aligned with her philosophy about effective meeting design. Rebecca jokes that one hidden benefit of writing a book on meetings is that everyone shows up more prepared and on time. She also felt internal pressure to model the behaviors she was advocating. The campaign therefore became a real world test of her ideas. She emphasizes that she is glad the launch was not meeting heavy and that it reflected the principles in the book. Robin shares a story about their initial connection through David Shackleford. During a short introductory call, he casually offered to spend time discussing book marketing strategies. Rebecca followed up, scheduled time, and took extensive notes during their conversation. After thanking him, she did not continue unnecessary follow up or prolonged discussion. Instead, she quietly implemented many of the practical strategies discussed. Robin later observed bulk sales, bundled speaking engagements, and structured purchase incentives that reflected disciplined execution. Robin emphasizes that generating ideas is relatively easy compared to implementing them. He connects this to Seth Godin's praise that the book is for people willing to do the work. The real difficulty lies not in brainstorming strategies but in consistently executing them. He describes watching Rebecca implement the plan as evidence that she practices what she preaches. Her hard work and disciplined follow through reinforced his confidence in the book before even reading it. Rebecca responds with gratitude and acknowledges that she took his advice seriously. She affirms that several actions she implemented were directly inspired by their conversation. At the same time, the tone remains grounded and collaborative rather than performative. The exchange illustrates her pattern of seeking input, synthesizing it, and then executing independently. Robin transitions toward the theme of self knowledge and its role in leadership and meetings. He connects Rebecca's disciplined execution to her awareness of her own strengths. The earlier theme resurfaces that she sees hard work and follow through as her superpower. The implication is that effective meetings and effective leadership both begin with understanding how you operate best. 17:48 Self-Knowledge at Work Robin shares that he knows he is motivated by carrots rather than sticks. He explains that praise energizes him and improves his performance more than criticism ever could. As a performer and athlete, he appreciates detailed notes and feedback, but encouragement is what unlocks his best work. He contrasts that with experiences like old school ballet training, where harsh discipline did not bring out his strengths. His point is that understanding how you are wired takes experience and reflection. Rebecca agrees that self knowledge is essential and ties it directly to motivation. She argues that the better you understand yourself, the more clearly you can articulate what drives you. Many people, especially early in their careers, do not pause to examine what truly motivates them. She notes that motivation is often intangible and not primarily monetary. For some people it is praise, for others criticism, learning, mastery, collaboration, or autonomy. She also emphasizes that motivation changes over time and shifts depending on organizational context. One of Rebecca's biggest lessons as a manager and contributor is the importance of codifying self knowledge. Writing down what motivates you and how you work best makes it easier to communicate those needs to others. She believes this explicitness is especially critical during times of change. When work is evolving quickly, assumptions about motivation can lead to disengagement. Making preferences visible reduces friction and prevents misalignment. Rebecca references a recent presentation she gave on the dangers of automating the soul of work. She and her mentor Bob Sutton have discussed how organizations risk stripping meaning from roles if they automate without discernment. She points to research showing that many AI startups are automating tasks people would prefer to keep human. The warning is that just because something can be automated does not mean it should be. Without understanding what makes work meaningful for employees, leaders can unintentionally remove the very elements that motivate people. Rebecca believes managers should create explicit user manuals for their team members. These documents outline how individuals prefer to communicate, what motivates them, and what their career aspirations are. She sees this as a practical leadership tool rather than a symbolic exercise. Referring back to these documents helps leaders guide their teams through uncertainty and change. When asked directly, she confirms that she has implemented this practice in previous roles and intends to do so again. When asked about the future of AI, Rebecca avoids making long term predictions. She observes that the most confident forecasters are often those with something to sell. Her shorter term view is that AI amplifies whatever already exists inside an organization. Strong workflows and cultures may improve, while broken systems may become more efficiently broken. She sees organizations over investing in technology while under investing in people and change management. As a result, productivity gains are appearing at the individual level but not consistently at the team or organizational level. Rebecca acknowledges that there is a possible future where AI creates abundance and healthier work life balance. However, she does not believe current evidence strongly supports that outcome in the near term. She does see promising examples of organizations using AI to amplify collaboration and cross functional work. These examples remain rare but signal that a more human centered future is possible. She is cautiously hopeful but not convinced that the most optimistic scenario will unfold automatically. Robin notes that time horizons for prediction have shortened dramatically. Rebecca agrees and says that six months feels like a reasonable forecasting window in the current environment. She observes that the best leaders are setting thresholds for experimentation and failure. Pilots and proofs of concept should fail at a meaningful rate if organizations are truly exploring. Shorter feedback loops allow organizations to learn quickly rather than over commit to fragile long term assumptions. Robin shares a formative story from growing up in his father's small engineering firm, where he was exposed early to office systems and processes. Later, studying in a Quaker community in Costa Rica, he experienced full consensus decision making. He recalls sitting through extended debates, including one about single versus double ply toilet paper. As a fourteen year old who would rather have been climbing trees in the rainforest, the meeting felt painfully misaligned with his energy. That experience contributed to his lifelong desire to make work and collaboration feel less draining and more intentional. The story reinforces the broader theme that poorly designed meetings can disconnect people from purpose and engagement. 28:31 Leadership vs. Tribal Instincts Rebecca explains that much of dysfunctional meeting behavior is rooted in tribal human instincts. People feel loyalty to the group and show up to meetings simply to signal belonging, even when the meeting is not meaningful. This instinct to attend regardless of value reinforces bloated calendars and performative participation. She argues that effective meeting design must actively counteract these deeply human tendencies. Without intentional structure, meetings default to social signaling rather than productive collaboration. Rebecca emphasizes that leadership plays a critical role in changing meeting culture Leaders must explicitly give employees permission to leave meetings when they are not contributing. They must also normalize asynchronous work as a legitimate and often superior alternative. Without that top down permission, employees will continue attending out of fear or habit. Meeting reform requires visible endorsement from those with authority. Power dynamics and pushing back without positional authority Robin reflects on the power of writing a book on meetings while still operating within a hierarchy. He asks how individuals without formal authority can challenge broken systems. Rebecca responds that there is no universal solution because outcomes depend heavily on psychological safety. In organizations with high trust, there is often broad recognition that meetings are ineffective and a desire to fix them. In lower trust environments, change must be approached more strategically and indirectly. Rebecca advises employees to lead with curiosity rather than confrontation. Instead of calling out a bad meeting, one might ask whether their presence is truly necessary. Framing the question around contribution rather than judgment reduces defensiveness. This approach lowers the emotional temperature and keeps the conversation constructive. Curiosity shifts the tone from personal critique to shared problem solving. In psychologically unsafe environments, Rebecca suggests shifting enforcement to systems rather than individuals. Automated rules such as canceling meetings without agendas or without sufficient confirmations can reduce personal friction. When technology enforces standards, it feels less like a personal attack. Codified rules provide employees with shared language and objective criteria. This reduces the perception that opting out is a rejection of the person rather than a rejection of the structure. Rebecca argues that every organization should have a clear and shared definition of what deserves to be a meeting. If five employees are asked what qualifies as a meeting, they should give the same answer. Without explicit criteria, decisions default to habit and hierarchy. Clear rules give employees confidence to push back constructively. Shared standards transform meeting participation from a personal negotiation into a procedural one. Rebecca outlines a two part test to determine whether a meeting should exist. First, the meeting must serve one of four purposes which are to decide, discuss, debate, or develop people. If it does not satisfy one of those four categories, it likely should not be a meeting. Even if it passes that test, it must also satisfy one of the CEO criteria. C refers to complexity and whether the issue contains enough ambiguity to require synchronous dialogue. E refers to emotional intensity and whether reading emotions or managing reactions is important. O refers to one way door decisions, meaning choices that are difficult or costly to reverse. Many organizational decisions are reversible and therefore do not justify synchronous time. Robin asks how small teams without advanced tech stacks can automate meeting discipline. Rebecca explains that many safeguards can be implemented with existing tools such as Google Calendar or simple scripts. Basic rules like requiring an agenda or minimum confirmations can be enforced through standard workflows. Not all solutions require advanced AI tools. The key is introducing friction intentionally to prevent low value meetings from forming. Rebecca notes that more advanced AI tools can measure engagement, multitasking, or participation. Some platforms now provide indicators of attention or involvement during meetings. While these tools are promising, they are not required to implement foundational meeting discipline. She cautions against over investing in shiny tools without first clarifying principles. Metrics are useful when they reinforce intentional design rather than replace it. Rebecca highlights a subtle risk of automation, particularly in scheduling. Tools can be optimized for the sender while increasing friction for recipients. Leaders should consider the system level impact rather than only individual efficiency. Productivity gains at the individual level can create hidden coordination costs for the team. Meeting automation should be evaluated through a collective lens. Rebecca distinguishes between intrusive AI bots that join meetings and simple transcription tools. She is cautious about bots that visibly attend meetings and distract participants. However, she supports consensual transcription when it enhances asynchronous follow up. Effective transcription can reduce cognitive load and free participants to engage more deeply. Used thoughtfully, these tools can strengthen collaboration rather than dilute it. 41:35 Maker vs. Manager: Balancing a Day Job with a Book Launch Robin shares an example from a webinar where attendees were asked for feedback via a short Bitly link before the session closed. He contrasts this with the ineffectiveness of "smiley face/frowny face" buttons in hotel bathrooms—easy to ignore and lacking context. The key is embedding feedback into the process in a way that's natural, timely, and comfortable for participants. Feedback mechanisms should be integrated, low-friction, and provide enough context for meaningful responses. Rebecca recommends a method inspired by Elise Keith called Roti—rating meetings on a zero-to-five scale based on whether they were worth attendees' time. She suggests asking this for roughly 10% of meetings to gather actionable insight. Follow-up question: "What could the organizer do to increase the rating by one point?" This approach removes bias, focuses on attendee experience, and identifies meetings that need restructuring. Splits in ratings reveal misaligned agendas or attendee lists and guide optimization. Robin imagines automating feedback requests via email or tools like Superhuman for convenience. Rebecca agrees and adds that simple forms (Google Forms, paper, or other methods) are effective, especially when anonymous. The goal is simplicity and consistency—given how costly meetings are, there's no excuse to skip feedback. Robin references Paul Graham's essay on maker vs. manager schedules and asks about Rebecca's approach to balancing writing, team coordination, and book marketing. Rebecca shares that 95% of her effort on the book launch was "making"—writing and outreach—thanks to a strong team handling management. She devoted time to writing, scrappy outreach, and building relationships, emphasizing giving without expecting reciprocation. The main coordination challenge was balancing her book work with her full-time job at Asana, requiring careful prioritization. Rebecca created a strict writing schedule inspired by her swimming discipline: early mornings, evenings, and weekends dedicated to writing. She prioritized her book and full-time work while maintaining family commitments. Discipline and clear prioritization were essential to manage competing but synergistic priorities. Robin asks about written vs. spoken communication, referencing Amazon's six-page memos and Zandr Media's phone-friendly quick syncs. Rebecca emphasizes that the answer depends on context but a strong written communication culture is essential in all organizations. Written communication supports clarity, asynchronous work, and complements verbal communication. It's especially important for distributed teams or virtual work. With AI, clear documentation allows better insights, reduces unnecessary content generation, and reinforces disciplined communication. 48:29 AI and the Craft of Writing Rebecca highlights that employees have varying learning preferences—introverted vs. extroverted, verbal vs. written. Effective communication systems should support both verbal and written channels to accommodate these differences. Rebecca's philosophy: writing is a deeply human craft. AI was not used for drafting or creative writing. AI supported research, coordination, tracking trends, and other auxiliary tasks—areas where efficiency is key. Human-led drafting, revising, and word choice remained central to the book. Robin praises Rebecca's use of language, noting it feels human and vivid—something AI cannot replicate in nuance or delight. Rebecca emphasizes that crafting every word, experimenting with phrasing, and tinkering with language is uniquely human. This joy and precision in writing is not replicable by AI and is part of what makes written communication stand out. Rebecca hopes human creativity in writing and oral communication remains valued despite AI advances. Strong written communication is increasingly differentiating for executive communicators and storytellers in organizations. AI can polish or mass-produce text, but human insight, nuance, and storytelling remain essential and career-relevant. Robin emphasizes the importance of reading, writing, and physical activities (like swimming) to reclaim attention from screens. These practices support deep human thinking and creativity, which are harder to replace with AI. Rebecca uses standard tools strategically: email (chunked and batched), Google Docs, Asana, Doodle, and Zoom. Writing is enhanced by switching platforms, fonts, colors, and physical locations—stimulating creativity and perspective. Physical context (plane, café, city) is strongly linked to breakthroughs and memory during writing. Emphasis is on how tools are enacted rather than which tools are used—behavior and discipline matter more than tech. Rebecca primarily recommends business books with personal relevance: Adam Grant's Give and Take – for relational insights beyond work. Bob Sutton's books – for broader lessons on organizational and personal effectiveness. Robert Cialdini's Influence – for understanding human behavior in both professional and personal contexts. Her selections highlight that business literature often offers universal lessons applicable beyond work. 59:48 Where to Find Rebecca The book is available at all major bookstores. Website: rebeccahinds.com LinkedIn: Rebecca Hinds  

Keep up with everything Operation: Puppet does at https://www.operationpuppet.com!IntroIntro and a story about frogsCoping mechanism: All Laws Are Local by Cory Doctorow; Joseph Ricketts Snorkelin'26:59The Puppet PitRecent builds: A blue dog and legally distinct celebrity amphibianBuild streams continueNo I haven't watched The Muppet Show special yet. Maybe one day. And also AI slop because nothing is sacredAll links on https://www.operationpuppet.com. Join the Discord! https://discord.gg/3zPqDcGJAC43:44PixeltownNookpocalypse? As of Feb 2026, all versions of the Steam Deck are out of stockWould you like to spend $4K on a handheld?Ring: Flock? Never heard of itHighguard studio layoffs, a succinct breakdown, but Arc Raiders sold 14 milPeople are mad at Discord and will do nothing about itCapcom slaps DRM on Steam version of Dino Crisis, despite GOG not having itOnce again they've done it again. No Man's Junkyard.Diablo IV huh?Warframe check-in: Kevin did a build videoMusic Credits:Opening Music/Stinger: Funk Babe by emiliomerone. Audiojungle Broadcast License.Pixeltown: kiddpark, Freesound.org (Creative Commons 0 License). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Cory's back and in studio! We talk about the financial and legal shenanigans plaguing Elon Musk's latest wheeze, reconfirm data centres in space are utterly moronic (part of said wheeze), and check in on the latest round of mawkish sentimentality being used to extend the surveillance state. Also we learn about a dot com bubble era startup called Cab Candy, which does exactly what you think it does. Get more TF episodes each week by subscribing to our Patreon here! TF Merch is still available here! *MILO ALERT* Check out Milo's tour dates here: https://www.miloedwards.co.uk/liveshows Trashfuture are: Riley (@raaleh), Milo (@Milo_Edwards), Hussein (@HKesvani), Nate (@inthesedeserts), and November (@postoctobrist)

Doctorow ofrece al lector cuatro novelas cortas de ciencia ficción sobre el presente y el futuro estadounidense en un solo libro. Contadas por una de las voces del género más en boga de nuestra generación, Radicalizado es una oportuna colección de relatos conectados por visiones sociales, tecnológicas y económicas de la actualidad y de lo que podría ser Estados Unidos en un futuro cercano.

Ragebait, sponcon, A.I. slop — the internet of 2026 makes a lot of us nostalgic for the internet of 10 or 15 years ago.What exactly went wrong here? How did the early promise of the internet get so twisted? And what exactly is wrong here? What kinds of policies could actually make our digital lives meaningfully better?Cory Doctorow and Tim Wu have two different theories of the case, which I thought would be interesting to put in conversation together. Doctorow is a science fiction writer, an activist with the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the author of “Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It.” Wu is a law professor who worked on technology policy in the Biden White House; his latest book is “The Age of Extraction: How Tech Platforms Conquered the Economy and Threaten Our Future Prosperity.”In this conversation, we discuss their different frameworks, and how they connect to all kinds of issues that plague the modern internet: the feeling that we're being manipulated; the deranging of our politics; the squeezing of small businesses and creators; the deluge of spam and fraud; the constant surveillance and privacy risks; the quiet rise of algorithmic pricing; and the dehumanization of work. And they lay out the policies that they think would go furthest in making all these different aspects of our digital lives better.Mentioned:Enshittification by Cory DoctorowThe Age of Extraction by Tim Wu“Fighting Enshittification” by Josh RichmanBook Recommendations:Small Is Beautiful by E. F. SchumacherManipulation by Cass R. SunsteinThe Rise and Fall of the Great Powers by Paul KennedyCareless People by Sarah Wynn-WilliamsLittle Bosses Everywhere by Bridget ReadJules, Penny & the Rooster by Daniel PinkwaterThoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com.You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast, and you can find Ezra on Twitter @ezraklein. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.This episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Annie Galvin. Fact-checking by Will Peischel. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing by Isaac Jones and Aman Sahota. Our executive producer is Claire Gordon. The show's production team also includes Marie Cascione, Rollin Hu, Kristin Lin, Emma Kehlbeck, Jack McCordick, Michelle Harris, Marina King and Jan Kobal. Original music by Pat McCusker. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. The director of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser. And special thanks to Natasha Scott. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Jordan Harbinger Show: Read the notes at at podcastnotes.org. Don't forget to subscribe for free to our newsletter, the top 10 ideas of the week, every Monday --------- Remember when Facebook was fun and Google actually worked? Cory Doctorow coined a term for what went wrong, and he's here to explain how we fight back.Full show notes and resources can be found here: jordanharbinger.com/1280What We Discuss with Cory Doctorow:"Enshittification" is Cory Doctorow's term for how platforms decay. First they're good to users, then they abuse users to serve business customers, then they abuse everyone to claw back value for themselves. Facebook, Amazon, and Google all followed this playbook — and policy makers let it happen."Switching costs" are a deliberate policy choice, not an inevitability. Companies jack up the friction of leaving their platforms through design and lobbying, but regulations like phone number portability prove we can legislate friction down when we choose to.The Digital Millennium Copyright Act criminalizes fixing things you own. Security researchers who expose corporate sabotage — like the Polish train company bricking locomotives to extort customers — face harsher legal consequences than actual pirates."Algorithmic wage discrimination" is surveillance capitalism's newest trick. Apps like Uber track how desperate workers are and pay them less accordingly — the more rides you accept, the lower your future offers, turning desperation into a permanent wage ceiling.You can fight back by supporting interoperability and making strategic choices. Use alternative services (like Kagi for search), follow advocates like the Electronic Frontier Foundation (eff.org), and remember: every time you demand the right to own what you buy, you're pushing back against enshittification.And much more...And if you're still game to support us, please leave a review here — even one sentence helps! Sign up for Six-Minute Networking — our free networking and relationship development mini course — at jordanharbinger.com/course!Subscribe to our once-a-week Wee Bit Wiser newsletter today and start filling your Wednesdays with wisdom!Do you even Reddit, bro? Join us at r/JordanHarbinger!This Episode Is Brought To You By Our Fine Sponsors: Article: Visit article.com/jordan for $50 off your first purchase of $100 or moreBetterHelp: 10% off first month: betterhelp.com/jordanBombas: Go to bombas.com/jordan to get 20% off your first orderButcherBox: Free protein for a year + $20 off first box: butcherbox.com/jordanHomes.com: Find your home: homes.comSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Remember when Facebook was fun and Google actually worked? Cory Doctorow coined a term for what went wrong, and he's here to explain how we fight back.Full show notes and resources can be found here: jordanharbinger.com/1280What We Discuss with Cory Doctorow:"Enshittification" is Cory Doctorow's term for how platforms decay. First they're good to users, then they abuse users to serve business customers, then they abuse everyone to claw back value for themselves. Facebook, Amazon, and Google all followed this playbook — and policy makers let it happen."Switching costs" are a deliberate policy choice, not an inevitability. Companies jack up the friction of leaving their platforms through design and lobbying, but regulations like phone number portability prove we can legislate friction down when we choose to.The Digital Millennium Copyright Act criminalizes fixing things you own. Security researchers who expose corporate sabotage — like the Polish train company bricking locomotives to extort customers — face harsher legal consequences than actual pirates."Algorithmic wage discrimination" is surveillance capitalism's newest trick. Apps like Uber track how desperate workers are and pay them less accordingly — the more rides you accept, the lower your future offers, turning desperation into a permanent wage ceiling.You can fight back by supporting interoperability and making strategic choices. Use alternative services (like Kagi for search), follow advocates like the Electronic Frontier Foundation (eff.org), and remember: every time you demand the right to own what you buy, you're pushing back against enshittification.And much more...And if you're still game to support us, please leave a review here — even one sentence helps! Sign up for Six-Minute Networking — our free networking and relationship development mini course — at jordanharbinger.com/course!Subscribe to our once-a-week Wee Bit Wiser newsletter today and start filling your Wednesdays with wisdom!Do you even Reddit, bro? Join us at r/JordanHarbinger!This Episode Is Brought To You By Our Fine Sponsors: Article: Visit article.com/jordan for $50 off your first purchase of $100 or moreBetterHelp: 10% off first month: betterhelp.com/jordanBombas: Go to bombas.com/jordan to get 20% off your first orderButcherBox: Free protein for a year + $20 off first box: butcherbox.com/jordanHomes.com: Find your home: homes.comSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Author Garth Jones kicks off 2026 with his new segment The Stack. In today's episode Hammo and Garth discuss the books Enshittification by Cory Doctorow, The Royal We by Roddy Bottum, Flesh by David Szalay, Coffin Moon by Keith Rosson, This Ain't Rock 'n Roll by Daniel Rachel, and the graphic novel Absolute Martian Manhunter by Deniz Camp and Javier Rodriguez. At the end Garth and Hammo share some of their writing from the latest manuscripts they're currently writing. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode, I sit down with science fiction author, activist, and journalist Cory Doctorow to unpack his viral concept of Enshitification, the three-act tragedy of platform decay: 1. be good to users 2. lock them in 3. extract value from users to feed advertisers and shareholdersWe also dive into:- The AI bubble: Cory's case that parts of the sector are propped up by aggressive accounting and incentives, not durable value.- The “Reverse Centaur”: How workers (from Amazon drivers to radiologists) are being reorganized to serve machine workflows, rather than machines serving humans.- Software engineering vs. “vibe coding”: Why autocomplete isn't engineering, and why AI can't replace process knowledge and domain context.- The Post-American Internet: What happens when the U.S. weaponizes platforms, and the rest of the world builds alternatives.About Cory Doctorow: Cory is a multi-time international bestselling author, special advisor to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and creator of the blog/newsletter Pluralistic.If you got value from this conversation, hit Follow and share it with one person who cares about the future of tech.

Journalist, blogger, and science fiction writer Cory Doctorow stops by the studio to talk to Jon about “enshittification,” his theory that explains how, sometime over the last decade, everything online became substantially worse. The two discuss how tech companies lure in, trap, and then extract as much capital as possible from users; how that process played out at Facebook and Amazon; and what it would take — from a Democratic-led FTC and Congress — to reverse the trend before it's supercharged by AI. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

This past week, Iranian protesters were labelled “terrorists” and “saboteurs” by the state. That rhetoric was accompanied by an internet blackout and a surge in violence, with the death toll still unclear. Simultaneously, tensions between the United States and Iran escalated, raising the stakes in what has become one of the most serious political upheavals in the country in years. Contributors: Tohid Asadi – Correspondent, Al Jazeera English Narges Bajoghli – Assistant Professor, Johns Hopkins University Roxane Farmanfarmaian – Lecturer, University Of Cambridge Farzan Sabet – Managing Researcher, Global Governance Centre On our radar In the US, the shooting - in public - of a woman two weeks ago by immigration officers has spiralled into a case of outright lying that is remarkable even by the standards of the Trump administration. Ryan Kohls reports on how official accounts, allied media and even AI-generated spokespeople were deployed to defend the shooting. Cory Doctorow: The AI hype machine Artificial intelligence is routinely framed as unstoppable - a technology the world must adapt to, not question. But as companies invest hundreds of billions and the hype accelerates, scrutiny has fallen away. Cory Doctorow on who controls the story around AI and why past tech “revolutions” offer a warning. Featuring: Cory Doctorow – Author and activist

Hands up who's had enough hot-off-the-headlines politics for 2026 already? No problem! In a change of pace we go politics-adjacent and welcome Jason Williamson – voice of Nottingham's satirical noise-beat mob orators Sleaford Mods – to talk class politics, the power of a good rant, the real reasons for the flags-and-roundabouts mania of 2025… and why one member of the extended OGWN family gets a surprising mention on Sleaford Mods' new album The Demise Of Planet X . • The Demise Of Planet X is released on Friday 16 Jan.  • See Jason Williamson in Geoff Barrow's movie Game – new screenings updated here. ESCAPE ROUTES • Jason Williamson recommends The Walker Brothers' 1975 classic album No Regrets. • Jason Hazeley recommends Enshittification by Cory Doctorow, Into The Woods at the Bridge Theatre, London, and Suspect streaming from C4. • Andrew Harrison recommends Edge Of Darkness on iPlayer. www.patreon.com/ohgodwhatnow Presented by Andrew Harrison with Jason Hazeley. Produced by Chris Jones. Audio and video Production by Chris Jones. Art direction: James Parrett. Theme tune by Cornershop. Managing Editor: Jacob Jarvis. Group Editor: Andrew Harrison. OH GOD, WHAT NOW? is a Podmasters production. www.podmasters.co.uk  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This might be the best sci-fi book out there about nanotechnology. But Stephenson has so many good ones that this one isn't his best book - some of the characters lose their way, and it drags in the middle. Oh, and one more good recommendation we forgot while we were recording - check out Blood Music by Greg Bear if you want a biological twist on nanotech!Join the Hugonauts book club on discordOr you can watch our episodes on YouTube if you prefer videoAs always, no spoilers until the end when we get into the full plot explanation and discussion.Similar books we recommend: Snow Crash by Neal StephensonNeuromancer by William GibsonCory DoctorowPrey by Michael CrichtonThis episode is sponsored by Har Megiddon by Ron Bennett.If you want to jump around, here are the timestamps for the episode:   00:00 Intro00:47 Book setup1:49 Sponsor - Har Megiddon2:22 Our review 3.25/53:53 Great sections - and stinkers4:47 Incredible technology7:33 Hard to visualize?9:38 Dances with Wolves10:17 Labor saving devices13:59 Neal's infodumps19:25 Book structure25:47 Sponsor - Har Megiddon26:08 Similar books we recommend28:40 Spoilers section - book summary31:30 Spoilers section - discussion

There's a bizarre thing happening online right now where everything is getting worse.Your Google results have become so bad that you've likely typed what you're looking for, plus the word “Reddit,” so you can find discussion from actual humans. If you didn't take this route, you might get served AI results from Google Gemini, which once recommended that every person should eat “at least one small rock per day.” Your Amazon results are a slog, filled with products that have surreptitiously paid reviews. Your Facebook feed could be entirely irrelevant because the company decided years ago that you didn't want to see what your friends posted, you wanted to see what brands posted, because brands pay Facebook, and you don't, so brands are more important than your friends.But, according to digital rights activist and award-winning author Cory Doctorow, this wave of online deterioration isn't an accident—it's a business strategy, and it can be summed up in a word he coined a couple of years ago: Enshittification.Enshittification is the process by which an online platform—like Facebook, Google, or Amazon—harms its own services and products for short-term gain while managing to avoid any meaningful consequences, like the loss of customers or the impact of meaningful government regulation. It begins with an online platform treating new users with care, offering services, products, or connectivity that they may not find elsewhere. Then, the platform invites businesses on board that want to sell things to those users. This means businesses become the priority and the everyday user experience is hindered. But then, in the final stage, the platform also makes things worse for its business customers, making things better only for itself.This is how a company like Amazon went from helping you find nearly anything you wanted to buy online to helping businesses sell you anything you wanted to buy online to making those businesses pay increasingly high fees to even be discovered online. Everyone, from buyers to sellers, is pretty much entrenched in the platform, so Amazon gets to dictate the terms.Today, on the Lock and Code podcast with host David Ruiz, we speak with Doctorow about enshittification's fast damage across the internet, how to fight back, and where we can lay blame for where it all started.”Once these laws were established, the tech companies were able to take advantage of them. And today we have a bunch of companies that aren't tech companies that are nevertheless using technology to rig the game in ways that the tech companies pioneered.”Tune in today.

"Practically speaking, mostly what I'm doing is I'm writing in a hotel room and then writing in the taxi, and then if the TSA queue is long, I might whip my laptop out and balance it on the stanchion and do some more writing, and then get on the other side and write in the lounge and then write on the plane, and whether that means that the laptop's nearly vertical because I'm on a discount airline with with terrible seat pitch, just writing. And so that's it, right? What my real practice is ... I just goddamn write," says Cory Doctorow, author of Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It.This is exciting. We've got Cory Doctorow on the podcast today for Ep. 507. Cory is the author of more than 30 books of nonfiction and fiction, his latest being Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About it. It's published by MCD, an imprint of Farrar, Straus, and Giroux.Ever wonder why Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Amazon, and Apple suck ass? This book will explain why they do and how they got there and maybe, just maybe, how we can get out of this mess. Did you know that Apple factories in China installed suicide nets so workers couldn't kill themselves? Think about that the next time you upgrade your phone. I'm ready for a new computer and it will likely be a Mac, even though they've gotten shitty over the years. Point is we all have blood on our hands.Cory is prolific, his blog posts epic, his books prescient and important. You can learn more about him at craphound.com or read his blog at pluralistic.net. He is a science fiction author, activist, and journalist. In 2020 he was inducted into the Candadian Science Fiction Hall of Fame and he is a special advisor to the Electronic Frontier Foudnation (eff.org), a nonprofit group that defnds freedom in tech law, policy, standards and treaties. You could spend a year or two reading nothing but Cory Doctorow books and, I might add, you'd be better for it.He's one of the good guys, man, and he's out to help us understand the internet. So in this episode we talk about: Internet literacy His ongoing relationship with his audience Getting a book done in six weeks Platform decay What exactly enshittification is and how Substack is slouching toward it And the influence of the writer Judith MerrilOrder The Front RunnerNewsletter: Rage Against the AlgorithmWelcome to Pitch ClubShow notes: brendanomeara.com

In this episode, Tony sits down with award‑winning author, activist, and digital rights advocate Cory Doctorow to explore his acclaimed story collection Radicalized — four near‑future novellas that channel our deepest cultural anxieties into sharp, human‑centered speculative fiction. Doctorow's work has always lived at the crossroads of technology, power, and personal agency, and Radicalized distills those themes into four unforgettable narratives: “Unauthorized Bread” — a tale of immigrant resilience in a world where even your toaster is locked behind DRM. “Model Minority” — a superhero story that interrogates complicity, policing, and the myth of the “good immigrant.” “Radicalized” — a darkly empathetic look at healthcare injustice and the online communities that form around desperation. “The Masque of the Red Death” — a survivalist fantasy turned moral reckoning. #corydoctorow

You've been listening to the Prospect Podcast, Media Confidential's sister podcast. To subscribe on Spotify, click HERE. For Apple podcasts, click HERE. In the final podcast of the year, Ellen and Alona look back at their favourite episodes from 2025. During a dark year, Prospect has been collecting glimmers of hope. They asked some of the most interesting thinkers today—from politics, to environment to tech—for their perspectives on hope and optimism. What keeps them fighting for a more just world?Philosopher Slavoj Zizek and broadcaster Mehdi Hasan talk about the merits of pessimism. Human rights lawyer Philippe Sands discusses justice in the age of international impunity, while authoritarianism expert Ruth Ben-Ghiat considers the situation in the US.Poet and writer Robert Macfarlane reflects on preserving nature in a time of destruction. Cory Doctorow and Laura Bates weigh in on transformations in technology and artificial intelligence. Yassmin Abdel-Magied discusses the humanitarianism crisis in Sudan, while Nicola Kelly explores the untold immigration story.Plus, veteran journalist and outgoing Prospect editor Alan Rusbridger joins the podcast to reflect on his journey, his mistakes, and how he feels about the future—including the contentious thing that unexpectedly makes him feel hopeful.You can revisit all our episodes from the past year here. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this excerpt from the Plutopia News Network, Cory Doctorow discusses his book Enshittification and the broader forces behind why digital platforms (and other industries) have “suddenly gotten worse.” He… The post Cory Doctorow: Enshittification first appeared on Plutopia News Network.

We discuss two very sad yet important contemporary ideas about how enormous companies like Apple, Google, Meta, and Amazon rule over us today. The first is Technofeudalism, a word coined by Yanis Varifoukas, which argues that capitalism has been replaced by a landscape of digital fiefdoms. The second is Enshittification, a word coined by Cory Doctorow, which explains why the apps we can never get enough of (Instagram, X, Amazon, and Facebook) continue to deteriorate while their parent companies make more and more money. Sagi insists throughout that whether or not we have transitioned from capitalism to a digital fiefdom, a Protestant ideology, one of labor and manifest destiny, continues to function and serve the hearts of all our beloved CEOs. Jack offers us an important history of the creation of Silicon Valley, tying a certain entrepreneurial optimism to a strange conflation of academia and the industrial military complex.Andy reads technofeudalism as a kind of vampiric disease, where everyone is either becoming their own Dracula, holed up in their castle, or the rats and peons that will soon be devoured.Jake gives as many examples as he can from Doctorow's book Enshittification, which he highly recommends.

Episode 742: Neal and Toby chat with Cory Doctorow, author of “Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It,” about the current state of tech companies' reign over society and why “enshittification” is a specific term that is applied to the tech industry. Then, a conversation about the 4 ways to discipline tech companies as they continue to grow larger and grab more market share.  Check out https://www.public.com/morningbrew for more Subscribe to Morning Brew Daily for more of the news you need to start your day. Share the show with a friend, and leave us a review on your favorite podcast app. Listen to Morning Brew Daily Here:⁠ ⁠⁠https://www.swap.fm/l/mbd-note⁠⁠⁠  Watch Morning Brew Daily Here:⁠ ⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/@MorningBrewDailyShow⁠ Paid endorsement. Brokerage services provided by Open to the Public Investing Inc, member FINRA & SIPC. Investing involves risk. Not investment advice. Generated Assets is an interactive analysis tool by Public Advisors. Output is for informational purposes only and is not an investment recommendation or advice. See disclosures at public.com/disclosures/ga. Past performance does not guarantee future results, and investment values may rise or fall. See terms of match program at https://public.com/disclosures/matchprogram. Matched funds must remain in your account for at least 5 years. Match rate and other terms are subject to change at any time. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You've been listening to the Prospect Podcast, Media Confidential's sister podcast. To subscribe on Spotify, click HERE. For Apple podcasts, click HERE. Why does every platform seem to get worse over time? Ellen Halliday and Alona Ferber are joined by journalist, tech activist and sci-fi writer Cory Doctorow, who coined the term “enshittification” to describe the decay of digital services into exploitative, user-hostile platforms.As constraints that once kept platforms in check have broken down, Cory shares how tech giants polluted the digital landscape, why AI-generated “slop” has sped it up, and why we should all care. What's in it for tech CEOs? What is this is doing to us as humans? And what would real de-enshittification look like?Cory discusses how to grab people's attention, and how to fight back against tech giants.Cory's book ‘Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What To Do About It' is published by Verso Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It's the holidays, and the Working Code crew has a gift for you: a peek behind the velvet rope. In the spirit of Captain Crunch's "Oops! All Berries," this week's episode ditches the usual format entirely. No triumphs, no fails, no structured topic—just pure, unfiltered aftershow energy.Tim unpacks Cory Doctorow's concept of "reverse centaurs"—what happens when you're not assisted by AI, but reduced to its peripheral? Meanwhile, Adam drops a perspective on humanity's place in the universe that reframes everything you thought you knew about time. That, plus Carol humbling an AI chatbot, the death of the golden age of television, and whether the books you loved as a kid were actually any good.Follow the show and be sure to join the discussion on Discord! Our website is workingcode.dev and we're @workingcode.dev on Bluesky. New episodes drop weekly on Wednesday.And, if you're feeling the love, support us on Patreon.With audio editing and engineering by ZCross Media.Full show notes and transcript here.

There's a word that's gained a lot of popularity in the last year: “ensh*ttification”. It refers to a trajectory many see with digital platforms: they initially offer immense value to users, only to systematically degrade that quality over time in order to extract maximum surplus for shareholders. We invited the coiner of this term, science fiction author and activist Cory Doctorow, on the podcast to discuss whether he thinks this decline is an inevitable feature of digital markets or a consequence of specific policy failures. And, most importantly, how he thinks it could be reversed.For Doctorow, "ensh*ttification" is not simply a result of "revealed preferences", where users tolerate worse service because they value the platform, but rather the outcome of a regulatory environment that has permitted the creation of high switching costs and the elimination of competitors. Doctorow also argues that historically, interoperability acted as an engine of dynamism, allowing new entrants to lower the barriers to entry. But current IP frameworks, such as anti-circumvention laws, have been "weaponized" to prevent this, effectively allowing firms to enforce cartels and engage in rent-seeking behavior.Finally, Doctorow offers a critical assessment of the current AI boom, arguing that the sector is creating "reverse centaurs", where human labor is conscripted to correct algorithmic errors, and warns of a potential asset bubble driven by inflated revenue attribution. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

The early internet was built on big hopes—access, openness, connection, and the belief that technology could make the world fairer. In this episode of The Radical Candor Podcast, Kim & Jason are in conversation with Steven Levy. His recent article, “I thought I knew Silicon Valley. I was wrong.”, becomes the lens through which they revisit tech's early promise and its reality today. They take an honest look at the optimism that shaped Silicon Valley's early culture and how those ideals unraveled. Kim & Steven candidly share their unique perspective of  how it feels to recognize the gap between what they believed and what actually happened as two people who had a front row seat.  If you're looking for a thoughtful, grounded, and honest conversation about how tech's story was written—and rewritten—in real time, and what today's leaders can learn from examining both intention and impact, this episode offers clarity and perspective you can apply right now. Get all of the show notes at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠RadicalCandor.com/podcast⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Episode Links:⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠"I Thought I Knew Silicon Valley, I was Wrong" ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠About Steven Levy⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Steven Levy's Newsletter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Steven Levy's Books⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠"Virtual Love" by Kim Scott ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠"Enshittification" by Cory Doctorow⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠"The Age of Extraction" by Tim Wu⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Connect: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Website⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠TikTok⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠LinkedIn⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Bluesky⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Chapters: (00:00) Introduction Kim, Jason, and Steven set the stage for a reflective look at Silicon Valley's promise and reality. (01:39) “I Thought I Knew Silicon Valley. I Was Wrong.” Steven shares what led him to write the article and how his perspective shifted. (03:38) From Idealism to Influence: When Tech's Culture Shifted Exploring the moment Silicon Valley's playful, rebellious spirit hardened into something more powerful—and less accountable. (06:30) Recalling the Internet We Hoped For Revisiting the early optimism that shaped the web and the disillusionment that followed. (12:27) The Claims of AI Examining the bold promises tech leaders make about AI—and why skepticism matters. (15:01) The Long Tail Early optimism about the internet's potential to democratize opportunity. (16:56) Enshittification & The Age of Extraction Cory Doctorow's framework, antitrust debates, and how market consolidation reshaped the online ecosystem. (20:05) Do a CEO's Values Matter? A look at how leaders like Mark Zuckerberg and Jeff Bezos have evolved—and what that means for their companies. (24:37) What to Do When You Don't Align With Your Company Reflecting on how to stay true to your values when the culture around you shifts. (29:36) Looking Back with Clearer Eyes Kim reckons with past choices, blind spots, and what accountability looks like now. (32:29) What Corrupted Silicon Valley When too much money and power are concentrated in too few hands. (33:56) Conclusion Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week, Paul and Goldy look back at the most notable economics books of the year. They discuss Ezra Klein and David Thompson's Abundance, Cory Doctorow's blistering Enshittification, Thomas Piketty's new works on inequality, Diane Coyle's fresh take on GDP, and the overlooked history behind the Garland Fund. Whether you're hunting for a holiday gift for the wonk in the family or looking to understand the ideas driving today's political economy, this episode is full of must-reads.  Must-Read Economics Books 2025 Abundance by Ezra Klein and David Thompson Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It by Cory Doctorow Equality Is a Struggle by Thomas Piketty Nature, Culture, and Inequality by Thomas Piketty Equality: What It Means and Why It Matters by Thomas Piketty and Michael J. Sandel The Measure of Progress: Counting What Really Matters by Diane Coyle The Radical Fund: How a Band of Visionaries and a Million Dollars Upended America by John Fabian Witt Honorable Mention Ricardo's Dream: How Economists Forgot the Real World and Led Us Astray By Nat Dyer  Why Information Grows: The Evolution of Order, from Atoms to Economies by Cesar Hidalgo  Coming Up Short: A Memoir of My America by Robert Reisch  Mood Machine: The Rise of Spotify and the Costs of the Perfect Playlist Liz Pelly  Other Books Mentioned in Episode Homelessness is a Housing Problem by Greg Colburn & Clayton Page Aldern Why Nothing Works: Who Killed Progress--And How to Bring It Back by Marc Dunkelman Capital in the 21st Century by Thomas Piketty The Gardens of Democracy: A New American Story of Citizenship, the Economy, and the Role of Government by Nick Hanauer & Eric Liu  Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx  Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com Facebook: Pitchfork Economics Podcast Bluesky: @pitchforkeconomics.bsky.social Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Threads: pitchforkeconomics TikTok: @pitchfork_econ YouTube: @pitchforkeconomics LinkedIn: Pitchfork Economics Twitter: @PitchforkEcon, @NickHanauer Substack: ⁠The Pitch⁠

Did you know that the standard of Google searches has actually gotten worse over recent years? Once you think about it, it makes sense. Highly effective search means fewer searches overall. And fewer searches means less ad revenue. The financial basis of Alphabet, which is Google's parent company, is, of course, digital advertising. Which means […]

Cory Doctorow has spent decades helping to shape the way we think about the modern internet. He is a campaigner against monopolies, surveillance and digital rights. His new book Enshitification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It analyses how the internet giants have captured us and become not quite as good as we had thought they were. On this episode of Ways to Change the World, Krishnan Guru-Murthy speaks to Cory about the broken systems we are living in and what we can do to try and make things better.Strong language warning.

This week's episode takes Cory Doctorow's term “enshittification” and uses it as a diagnostic for late-capitalist life, not just for tech platforms but for democracy, higher education, and work more broadly. Our co-hosts unpack Doctorow's three-stage model—platforms start out good to users, then pivot to serving business customers, and finally squeeze both users and customers to extract maximum value for shareholders—and argue about whether this is really a new “platform logic” or just old-school Marxist exploitation and alienation under a punchier name.We connect this logic to the attention economy and datafication (“we are the product”), then extend it to U.S. democracy, where voters are treated as performers in a hollowed-out system, and to universities, where administrative bloat, metrics, and “students as customers” have produced an enshittified version of higher education, while students are locked-in by massive student debt. What is left for us in terms of  resistance?We look at some real options: exiting platforms, Labor organizing and union drives, “quiet quitting” and malicious compliance (“Bartleby”-esque moves), creative sabotage, and maybe even  “enshittification from below.”Our co-hosts ultimately advocate for insisting on higher standards, rather than accepting the slow boil of lowered expectations. Join us for the shit-show! Full episode notes available at this link:https://hotelbarpodcast.com/podcast/the-enshittification-of-everything/---------------------SUBSCRIBE to the podcast now to automatically download new episodes!SUPPORT Hotel Bar Sessions podcast on Patreon here! (Or by contributing one-time donations here!)BOOKMARK the Hotel Bar Sessions website here for detailed show notes and reading lists, and contact any of our co-hosts here.Hotel Bar Sessions is also on Facebook, YouTube, BlueSky, and TikTok. Like, follow, share, duet, whatever... just make sure your friends know about us! ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

David Gooblar shares how better teaching can make college more equitable on episode 599 of the Teaching in Higher Ed podcast. Quotes from the episode Most of our scars are hidden. I think most of the time people don’t see the scars that we carry. -David Gooblar We get such a small window into our students lives. -David Gooblar The imaginary idea of the college student in America is of a privileged student. And that’s just not the case when we talk about American college students today. -David Gooblar We need to work to earn their trust, to convince our students that we’re working for them, that our job is to help them develop, learn, and grow. -David Gooblar Resources One Classroom at a Time: How Better Teaching Can Make College More Equitable, by David Gooblar Pedagogy Unbound: Weekly Thoughts on College Teaching from David Gooblar Stereotype Threat Tuckman's Stages of Team Formation Episode 585: Toward Socially Just Teaching with Bryan Dewsbury The Mentor’s Dilemma: Providing Critical Feedback Across the Racial Divide, by Geoffrey L. Cohen, Claude M. Steele, & Lee D. Ross Kagi Search Clip from Decoder Episode with Cory Doctorow on Mastodon The Verge: How Silicon Valley Enshittified the Internet with Cory Doctorow Adrienne Salinger: Teenagers in Their Bedrooms

From flying to online shopping to using social media, everything seems to be getting worse. It's all — pardon our language here — shittier. According to today's Lever Time guest, that's no accident. Cory Doctorow is the author of Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It. In this episode, Doctorow explains how enshittification works, how it's infected our online spaces, and what we can do to stop it. Plus, as an exclusive bonus to our paid subscribers, click here for the rest of David's conversation with Cory Doctorow. They talk about why Americans are trapped on Facebook or Microsoft Office and how Donald Trump is using tech companies as weapons in his trade war. Doctorow also offers a few simple solutions to stop our world from going to shit. Not yet a paid subscriber? Click here for a special membership offer exclusive to Lever Time listeners. To leave a tip for The Lever, ⁠click here⁠. It helps us do this kind of independent journalism. ⁠Click here⁠⁠ for a transcript of this episode. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It's the word of the moment. “Enshittification” is the reason Google is all ads and no useful results, Amazon serves you crappy overpriced products, your phone spies on you and you can't find your friends on social media – but you WILL be persecuted by bots, brands and Nazis all day long. So how are we going to fix it? Leading tech critic Cory Doctorow joins Andrew Harrison and Rafael Behr to talk about whether digital platform rot is inevitable, his book Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What To Do About It …  and the many, many ways to conjugate the verb “to enshittify”.  NB Trust us, this is NOT an edition you want to listen to at 1.5x speed.  • Buy Enshittification through our affiliate bookshop and you'll help fund Oh God, What Now? by earning us a small commission for every sale. Bookshop.org's fees help support independent bookshops too. ESCAPE ROUTES • Cory recommends the podcast No Gods No Mayors. • Raf went to see the touring production of Fiddler on the Roof which you can still just about catch in Sunderland and Birmingham. • Andrew recommends child abduction drama All Her Fault on Now TV plus colossal CD box sets from Frankie Goes To Hollywood and Propaganda. • Head to nakedwines.co.uk/ohgodwhatnow to get a £30 voucher and 6 top-rated wines from our sponsor Naked Wines for £39.99, delivery included. • Get our exclusive NordVPN deal at nordvpn.com/ohgodwhatnow. It's risk-free with Nord's 30-day money back guarantee!  www.patreon.com/ohgodwhatnow Presented by Andrew Harrison with Rafael Behr. Audio and Video Production by: Chris Jones. Art direction: James Parrett. Theme tune by Cornershop. Managing Editor: Jacob Jarvis. Group Editor: Andrew Harrison. OH GOD, WHAT NOW? is a Podmasters production. www.podmasters.co.uk  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Tech critic Cory Doctorow explains why for so many the internet – from Amazon to Google to Instagram – seems to be getting worse. Help support our independent journalism at theguardian.com/infocus

Enshittification. It's fun to say, hard to spell, and a useful descriptor of exactly how the internet has gone wrong. Cory Doctorow, the author and activist who coined the term a few years ago, recently published a book on the subject, called Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It. He was on Decoder a few weeks ago to explain what happened, and joins The Vergecast this week to help us figure out what to do about it. Can we, as regular people on the internet, help to de-enshittify the place? What responsibility do we have, and what kinds of choices should we be making? Cory has lots of thoughts on whether you can shop your way out of a monopoly, and what it really takes to enact structural change online. Further reading: Cory Doctorow on Decoder Read Cory's book, Enshittification Cory's last Vergecast appearance From Pluralistic: How monopoly enshittified Amazon AI is killing the old web, and the new web struggles to be born FTC files a massive antitrust lawsuit against Amazon Subscribe to The Verge for unlimited access to theverge.com, subscriber-exclusive newsletters, and our ad-free podcast feed.We love hearing from you! Email your questions and thoughts to vergecast@theverge.com or call us at 866-VERGE11. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

How can we reclaim the internet? Tom Sutcliffe and guests discuss the digital age - its supporters and discontents. Tech critic Cory Doctorow introduces his new book Enshittification, a blistering diagnosis of how online platforms have decayed — from innovation to exploitation — and what we can do to make it better for ordinary users. Novelist and broadcaster Naomi Alderman draws on history in Don't Burn Anyone at the Stake Today, arguing that we've lived through information crises before, and that lessons from the invention of writing and the printing press can help us navigate today's digital turbulence. Journalist Oliver Moody, the author of Baltic: The Future of Europe, discusses Estonia's radical embrace of digital governance, and what it reveals about the possibilities — and limits — of a truly connected state.Producer: Katy Hickman Assistant Producer: Natalia Fernandez

Can radical optimism about AI truly shape our future, or are we stuck in a cycle of doom-and-hype? This episode features an unfiltered debate with Wired co-founder Kevin Kelly on why most fears about artificial intelligence might be missing the bigger picture. Vibe Coding' Named Word of the Year By Collins Dictionary OpenAI CFO Says Company Isn't Seeking Government Backstop, Clarifying Prior Comment Montana Becomes First State to Enshrine 'Right to Compute' Into Law - Montana Newsroom Sam Altman's Worldcoin Project Struggles Toward Billion-User Ambition With 17.5 Million Sign-Ups Meta's chief AI scientist Yann LeCun reportedly plans to leave to build his own startup Exclusive: US Army to buy 1 million drones, in major acquisition ramp-up Facebook Dating Is a Surprise Hit For the Social Network - Slashdot 12 Things I've Heard Boomers Say That I Agree With 100% The FBI has subpoenaed the domain registrar of archive.today, demanding information about the owner of the archiving site as part of a criminal investigation How Similar Are Grokipedia and Wikipedia? What We Can Learn From Brain Organoids If the US Has to Build Data Centers, Here's Where They Should Go LLM-Based Multi-Agent System for Simulating and Analyzing Marketing and Consumer Behavior No. 10's synthetic voters Tim Wu and Cory Doctorow's NPCs: Non-Player Consumers Eric Schmidt: This Is No Way to Rule a Country My torture for you Ohio State to hire 100 new faculty with AI expertise 'A frightening development': How AI-Articles are flooding the internet with fake news Internet Archive's legal fights are over, but its founder mourns what was lost YouTube TV deal reportedly hung up on ESPN pricing as Disney loses $30 million a week How people really use ChatGPT, according to 47,000 conversations shared online Tort Law museum visit Bread and Puppet Museum We're famous in Germany Brand new bridge Hosts: Leo Laporte, Jeff Jarvis, and Paris Martineau Guest: Kevin Kelly Download or subscribe to Intelligent Machines at https://twit.tv/shows/intelligent-machines. Join Club TWiT for Ad-Free Podcasts! Support what you love and get ad-free shows, a members-only Discord, and behind-the-scenes access. Join today: https://twit.tv/clubtwit Sponsors: zapier.com/machines ventionteams.com/twit Melissa.com/twit agntcy.org

Can radical optimism about AI truly shape our future, or are we stuck in a cycle of doom-and-hype? This episode features an unfiltered debate with Wired co-founder Kevin Kelly on why most fears about artificial intelligence might be missing the bigger picture. Vibe Coding' Named Word of the Year By Collins Dictionary OpenAI CFO Says Company Isn't Seeking Government Backstop, Clarifying Prior Comment Montana Becomes First State to Enshrine 'Right to Compute' Into Law - Montana Newsroom Sam Altman's Worldcoin Project Struggles Toward Billion-User Ambition With 17.5 Million Sign-Ups Meta's chief AI scientist Yann LeCun reportedly plans to leave to build his own startup Exclusive: US Army to buy 1 million drones, in major acquisition ramp-up Facebook Dating Is a Surprise Hit For the Social Network - Slashdot 12 Things I've Heard Boomers Say That I Agree With 100% The FBI has subpoenaed the domain registrar of archive.today, demanding information about the owner of the archiving site as part of a criminal investigation How Similar Are Grokipedia and Wikipedia? What We Can Learn From Brain Organoids If the US Has to Build Data Centers, Here's Where They Should Go LLM-Based Multi-Agent System for Simulating and Analyzing Marketing and Consumer Behavior No. 10's synthetic voters Tim Wu and Cory Doctorow's NPCs: Non-Player Consumers Eric Schmidt: This Is No Way to Rule a Country My torture for you Ohio State to hire 100 new faculty with AI expertise 'A frightening development': How AI-Articles are flooding the internet with fake news Internet Archive's legal fights are over, but its founder mourns what was lost YouTube TV deal reportedly hung up on ESPN pricing as Disney loses $30 million a week How people really use ChatGPT, according to 47,000 conversations shared online Tort Law museum visit Bread and Puppet Museum We're famous in Germany Brand new bridge Hosts: Leo Laporte, Jeff Jarvis, and Paris Martineau Guest: Kevin Kelly Download or subscribe to Intelligent Machines at https://twit.tv/shows/intelligent-machines. Join Club TWiT for Ad-Free Podcasts! Support what you love and get ad-free shows, a members-only Discord, and behind-the-scenes access. Join today: https://twit.tv/clubtwit Sponsors: zapier.com/machines ventionteams.com/twit Melissa.com/twit agntcy.org

A federal judge orders the administration to continue paying SNAP benefits during the government shutdown. Also, concern is growing about the fate of Head Start as the shutdown heads into its second month. Then, as Trump refuses to restart trade talks with Canada, that nation is making overtures to America's biggest trade rival, China. Plus, if you think the quality of digital platforms is getting worse -- you may not be imagining things. Catherine Rampell hosts as Evan McMorris-Santoro, Mychael Schnell, Philip Bump, Ron Insana, Brendan Greeley, Kristin Rowe-Finkbeiner and Cory Doctorow join The 11th Hour. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

This is Sarah Jeong, features editor at The Verge. I'm standing in for Nilay for one final Thursday episode here as he settles back into full-time hosting duties. Today, we've got a fun one. I'm talking to Cory Doctorow, prolific author, internet activist, and arguably one of the fiercest tech critics writing today. He has a new book out called Enshittifcation: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It. So I sat down with Cory to discuss what enshittification is, why it's happening, and how we might fight it.  Links:  Enshittification | Macmillan Why every website you used to love is getting worse | Vox The age of Enshittification | The New Yorker Yes, everything online sucks now — but it doesn't have to | Ars Technica The enshittification of garage-door openers reveals vast, deadly rot | Cory Doctorow Mark Zuckerberg emails outline plan to neutralize competitors | The Verge Google gets to keep Chrome, judge rules in antitrust case | The Verge How Amazon wins: by steamrolling rivals and partners | WSJ A new web DRM standard has security researchers worried | The Verge Netflix, Microsoft & Google just changed how the web works | The Outline Subscribe to The Verge⁠ to access the ad-free version of Decoder! Credits: Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Our producers are Kate Cox and Nick Statt. Our editor is Ursa Wright.  The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

“Sometimes a term is so apt, its meaning so clear and so relevant to our circumstances, that it becomes more than just a useful buzzword and grows to define an entire moment,” the columnist Kyle Chayka writes, in a review of Cory Doctorow's book “Enshittification.” Doctorow, a prolific tech writer, is a co-founder of the tech blog Boing Boing, and an activist for online civil liberties with the Electronic Frontier Foundation—so he knows whereof he speaks. He argues that the phenomenon of tech platforms seemingly getting worse for users is not a matter of perception but a business strategy. For example, “the Google-D.O.J. antitrust trial last year surfaced all these memos about a fight about making Google Search worse,” Doctorow explains, in a conversation with Chayka. A Google executive had suggested that, instead of displaying perfectly prioritized results on the first search attempt, “what if we make it so that you got to search two or three times, and then, every time, we got to show you ads?” But, Doctorow argues, there is hope for a better future, if we can resist complacency; big internet platforms all depend on forms of “surveillance” of their users. “The coalition [against this] is so big, and it crosses so many political lines,” Doctorow says, “that if we could just make it illegal to spy on people, we could solve so many problems.”New episodes of The New Yorker Radio Hour drop every Tuesday and Friday. Join host David Remnick as he discusses the latest in politics, news, and current events in conversation with political leaders, newsmakers, innovators, New Yorker staff writers, authors, actors, and musicians.

Open a browser and you can feel it instantly: everything online just feels… worse. Search results that look like ads. Social feeds that you don't control. Streaming platforms that are packed with ads. Services that used to be free, but are now behind paywalls. It's not your imagination — it's enshittification, the process by which good platforms turn bad… and it's starting to happen outside the internet as well. Sean's guest today is Cory Doctorow, author of Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It. They discuss how the web became enshittified, why monopolies are the true engine behind our digital decay, and what it would mean to build a freer, fairer, and more human internet. Host: Sean Illing (@seanilling) Guest: Cory Doctorow (https://x.com/doctorow), author of Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It. We'd love to hear from you. Tell us what you thought of this episode at tga@voxmail.com or leave a voicemail at 1-800-214-5749. Your comments and questions help us make a better show. And you can watch new episodes of The Gray Area on YouTube. Listen to The Gray Area ad-free by becoming a Vox Member: vox.com/members Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Do you ever feel like the internet just doesn't work as well as it used to?  Or maybe you wish you could go back to the old internet?  Where your search queries actually served you what you wanted, and your feeds weren't overrun by ads?  Well, it's not just you - the internet IS getting worse, and platforms are getting harder to leave. But how did we get here? Journalist and tech activist Cory Doctorow joins Brittany to lay out why in his new book, Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It.Follow Brittany Luse on Instagram: @bmluseFor handpicked podcast recommendations every week, subscribe to NPR's Pod Club newsletter at npr.org/podclub.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Doctorow lays out his "enshittification" playbook—how tech platforms lure users, trap businesses, then extract value from both—tying it to interoperability, right-to-repair, and DMCA lock-ins, with Facebook as Exhibit A. He explains why incremental state laws can break Big Tech's coalitions better than sweeping federal reforms. Meanwhile, Venezuela's Nicolás Maduro warns, "If the gringos threaten, we work harder; if they attack, we respond," after Trump-ordered strikes sink another Caribbean vessel, this time with proof the public can't see. Also: the Spiel contends that hostages were freed not by moral suasion but by sustained force—and that human-rights maximalism, however sincere, often misunderstands how wars actually end. Produced by Corey Wara Production Coordinator Ashley Khan Email us at ⁠⁠⁠⁠thegist@mikepesca.com⁠⁠⁠⁠ To advertise on the show, contact ⁠⁠⁠⁠ad-sales@libsyn.com⁠⁠⁠⁠ or visit ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://advertising.libsyn.com/TheGist⁠⁠⁠⁠ Subscribe to The Gist: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://subscribe.mikepesca.com/⁠⁠⁠⁠ Subscribe to The Gist Youtube Page: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4_bh0wHgk2YfpKf4rg40_g⁠⁠⁠⁠ Subscribe to The Gist Instagram Page: ⁠⁠⁠⁠GIST INSTAGRAM⁠⁠⁠⁠ Follow The Gist List at: ⁠⁠⁠⁠Pesca⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠Profundities | Mike Pesca | Substack

The Dutch courts finally did something useful: they told Meta to quit force-feeding algorithmic slop to everyone, so Facebook and Instagram users might actually see posts from friends again—if they can remember who those are. Meanwhile, OpenAI's Sora 2 rollout is the kind of chaos that makes you wonder if the company replaced QA with a TikTok filter, as outrage videos flood the internet faster than you can say “deepfake meltdown.” Apple banned ICEBlock for being too effective while ICE now wants its own social media surveillance tool—one that OpenAI shut down when Chinese accounts tried to build it. California's hammering Tesla for its abysmal insurance claims handling, OpenAI is gobbling up chunks of AMD, and consultants got caught using ChatGPT to fake reports before proudly partnering with Anthropic, who just landed Deloitte as its latest “enterprise AI” victim. Elsewhere in this circus: a Florida teen asked ChatGPT how to kill his friend, Taylor Swift fans are furious her new promo video used AI slop (“too rich to be this cheap”), and Apple's “Find My” led cops to a mountain of smuggled iPhones.In Media Candy, Brian's stunned The Diplomat scored a third season, The Long Walk is being pitched as Stand By Me meets Squid Game, California finally bans loud streaming commercials, and Amazon censored Bond posters to remove guns because apparently irony is dead. AI “musicians” are signing record deals while Zelda Williams begs people to stop resurrecting her dad with deepfake garbage. In Apps & Doodads, Jony Ive's OpenAI gadget is delayed (good), Rivian insists we'll “appreciate” not having CarPlay (we won't), Spotify and ChatGPT are teaming up to read your soul through playlists, and Jason warns everyone that the Echo Show is basically an ad-spewing parasite. Apple's now facing a cybercrime probe in France for Siri's wiretapping habits, and if you're nostalgic for simpler times, ioquake3 will let you relive Quake III Arena glory on a modern rig. At the Library, Peter Cawdron's Dark Beauty: First Contact belly-flops as a Slaughterhouse-Five tribute, while Cory Doctorow's Enshittification nails exactly why everything sucks—even if his fixes are pure science fiction.Sponsors:CleanMyMac - clnmy.com/GrumpyOldGeeks - Use code OLDGEEKS for 20% off.Private Internet Access - Go to GOG.Show/vpn and sign up today. For a limited time only, you can get OUR favorite VPN for as little as $2.03 a month.SetApp - With a single monthly subscription you get 240+ apps for your Mac. Go to SetApp and get started today!!!1Password - Get a great deal on the only password manager recommended by Grumpy Old Geeks! gog.show/1passwordShow notes at https://gog.show/717FOLLOW UPDutch court orders Meta to change its Facebook and Instagram timelinesOpenAI's Sora 2 Already Melting Down Into Outrageous DramaIN THE NEWSApple removes ICEBlock from the App Store after Trump administration's demandICE is planning to create a surveillance team that hunts for leads on social mediaOpenAI has disrupted (more) Chinese accounts using ChatGPT to create social media surveillance toolsCalifornia regulators threaten to revoke Tesla's insurance license for mishandling claimsOpenAI Gobbles Up a Stake in AMD as Its Spending Spree Shows No Sign of StoppingConsultants Forced to Pay Money Back After Getting Caught Using AI for Expensive “Report”Anthropic lands its biggest enterprise deployment ever with Deloitte dealTeen Arrested After Asking ChatGPT How to Kill His Friend, Police SayTaylor Swift Fans Furious as She's Caught Using Sloppy AI in Video for New AlbumApple's ‘Find My' Leads Cops to Cache of Thousands of Smuggled iPhonesMEDIA CANDYThe DiplomatThe Long WalkCalifornia bans loud commercials on streaming platformsAmazon Pulls Censored Bond Posters After Pulling the Guns From ThemMore AI artists are starting to get record dealsRobin Williams' daughter pleads for people to stop sending AI videos of her dadAPPS & DOODADSOpenAI's first device with Jony Ive could be delayed due to 'technical issues'Rivian says ‘customers will appreciate' lack of CarPlay eventuallySpotify and ChatGPT Team Up for Personalized Music and Podcast RecommendationsDon't buy an Echo Show (you can have mine)Apple faces cybercrime investigation in France after Siri complaintioquake3AT THE LIBRARYDark Beauty: First Contact by Peter CawdronEnshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It by Cory DoctorowSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Watch Part 2 of our interview with Cory Doctorow, writer and tech activist, whose new book, Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It, is out this week.

Headlines for October 10, 2025; After Gaza Ceasefire, “Massive Political Pressure” Needed to Prevent Israel from Restarting the War; 2025 Nobel Peace Prize for Anti-Maduro Leader María Corina Machado “Opposite of Peace”: Greg Grandin; “Enshittification”: Cory Doctorow on Why Big Tech Sucks, Keeps Getting Worse & What to Do About It