It’s not just you

I first encountered Cory Doctorow through his novel Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom which is a vision of our world in the 22nd century where social media rules everything. When it first came out in 2003, it was fascinating and seemingly far-fetched, but here we are, twenty-two years later, living in a world where everyone seems helplessly enthralled with short-form content powered by profit-driven algorithms and relentless thirst for pseudo-anonymous internet validation. Since then, Doctorow has been focusing his energy and writing on the internet and information, spending years as an editor at proto-blog Boing Boing (started in 1995!) before going independent in 2020, and three years later, he wrote about a now semi-famous concept called “enshittification” which describes the process of technology services that start out amazing and then slowly (or quickly) degrade as the platform tries to profit from their viral popularity at the expense of their users.

We can all name at least one

As usual, the internet isn’t quite certain if Doctorow coined the scatalogical neologism, but he definitely nailed the smell wafting off the various services we all know, use daily and once loved unconditionally. Whether its Amazon, Netflix, Twitter, Facebook or TikTok (let’s be fair, that one started out pretty crappy to begin with), every single one of us is subject to services that started out great and have since struggled to prove their continuing worth in the face of seemingly unstoppable profit-making practices and egregious privacy violations. The real problem is many of us can see the crapification happening, but we stick around because there is literally no where else to go. Back in the days before the internet, this was called a monopoly, but now it’s because we can’t convince our softball team to organize games and practices anywhere other than Facebook, our favorite TV series is only available on HBO Max, and a certain online shopping behemoth has literally captured the majority of the industry, forcing everyone to compete in an advertising bloodsport in which the sellers to pay to compete, and we all buy ringside seats because there is no other game in town. Doctorow has been advocating a solution for this but it requires participation (either willing or enforced) by the owners who are profiting from driving their platforms into the ground and for us consumers to recognize when we are being exploited. Back when he wrote that article for EFF in 2023, it seemed like we were making good progress towards protecting users’ rights, but now in 2025, I’m not so sure he’d be as optimistic and let’s be honest, he wasn’t exactly Pollyanna then either.

As you might have guessed, I don’t have the answer either. I do think it’s important to that you know that I know how you feel when you ask me, “Why does (necessary technology service) suck so much?” and that it’s a widely recognized phenomena. It is an important first step to recognize that if something is free, you are the product, and even if you graduate to paying for that service and you are STILL the product (Amazon Prime, I’m looking at you), you can’t just set that recognition aside because it’s easier. In the glorious, early days, we thought the internet would make our lives easier, and it has, but it has also cost us dearly and now the Piper is before us, and this time he doesn’t even have a hand out because he knows we will keep paying. Hopefully, because we all know how the fable ends we are forewarned and can work our way to living our lives outside the pockets of a powerful few. We are all in this together. Keep fighting for your privacy.

Image by Alexa from Pixabay