Have you ever opened an app you used to love and thought, “when did this get so exhausting?” Maybe your search results feel less useful than they did five years ago. Maybe your social media feed is more ads than content. Maybe you’re paying more for tools that somehow do less. You’re not imagining it, and you’re definitely not alone. When I came across Enshittification by Cory Doctorow, I knew it was going to be the kind of book that puts words to a feeling so many of us have had for a long time. It absolutely delivered.

What This Book Is Actually About

Enshittification – yes, that’s the actual term – describes the predictable lifecycle of digital platforms. It goes something like this: platforms start out genuinely great for users, because that’s how they grow. Over time, priorities shift toward advertisers and business customers. And eventually, once people are locked in, the platform starts squeezing everyone for as much value as possible. The result is that the tools we rely on every day feel more frustrating, more extractive, and frankly less innovative than they used to.

Cory Doctorow is a science fiction author, tech journalist, and long-time digital rights activist – someone who has been thinking seriously about the relationship between technology and power for decades. What makes this book stand out isn’t just the diagnosis (though it’s a good one). It’s the argument underneath it: that the decline of the internet isn’t inevitable. It isn’t simply what happens when companies get greedy. It’s largely the result of specific policy decisions that allowed massive tech platforms to consolidate power and control the ecosystems around them. That reframe changed everything about how I read the rest of the book.

What Got Me Thinking

Honestly, the term “enshittification” alone is worth the price of admission. It’s funny, it’s uncomfortably accurate, and once you have the word, you can’t stop seeing the pattern everywhere.

But the section that really stayed with me was Doctorow’s discussion of solutions – because so often, books about tech dysfunction give you a thorough diagnosis and then leave you with a vague sense of dread. Doctorow doesn’t do that. He walks through concrete, realistic policy ideas that could meaningfully change the digital world we’re living in:

  • Stronger antitrust enforcement to break up monopolistic consolidation
  • Interoperability requirements so platforms can actually talk to each other
  • Right-to-repair protections that put ownership back in users’ hands
  • Limits on surveillance-based business models
  • Policies that make it easier for workers and innovators to move between companies

These might sound like dry policy debates – and I get that. But Doctorow makes them feel urgent, and as someone who works in science communication, I kept coming back to how directly these issues affect how scientific information moves through the internet. When algorithms are optimized for engagement above everything else, information ecosystems suffer. That includes science. It’s a thread I’m still sitting with.

Why I Think You Should Read This

A full 5/5 – genuinely one of the most useful things I’ve read in a while. Doctorow writes with urgency but not despair, and that combination makes this feel less like a tech critique and more like a call to pay attention. He’s angry about the right things and specific about the solutions, and that specificity matters. You come away not just understanding what went wrong, but with a clearer sense of what could actually change it.

Whether you’re in science, education, journalism, or just someone who uses the internet every day (so, everyone), the argument here is relevant to you. It’s a 5/5 from me – genuinely one of the most useful things I’ve read in a while.

My Takeaway

The biggest thing I’m carrying with me from this book: decline isn’t destiny. The frustrating digital world we navigate every day didn’t just happen to us – it was built through specific choices, and it can be rebuilt through better ones. Doctorow writes with urgency but not despair, and I think that’s exactly the energy we need when talking about big, complicated systems, whether those systems are tech platforms or the scientific enterprise itself. It reminded me that advocacy, in any space, starts with understanding how we got here, and then refusing to stop there.

Come Read Along

Have you read Enshittification? I’d love to hear what stuck with you, drop your thoughts in the comments or come find me on Instagram where we can keep this conversation going.

March’s Science Read is Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men by Caroline Criado Perez,  and I have a feeling this one is going to spark some serious conversation. See you there. 📚