technology

Book Review: Enshittification by Cory Doctorow

by

(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com, Steve’s Tumblr, and Pillowfort.  Find out more at my newsletter, and all my social media at my linktr.ee)

Ever read a book that was very obvious but also a must-read? Well that’s Enshittification by Cory Doctorow.

You’ve probably heard the term Enshittification before because Doctrow made it famous. It’s a term to describe how things get worse and worse as they’re exploited, usually technology companies that were Doctrow’s initial targets. Well this is the book about why everything seems to be worse in the technology world. Companies locked us and their customers in and are squeezing us for every dime.

There’s very little in here that’s a surprise. But at the same time you’ll have a much better grasp about why your phone overheats when you go to web pages, why you get spam, and why your damn dishwasher has an internet connection.

Doctrow dives right in by discussing case studies of companies and services that Enshittified. None of this is going to be news to you in general, but the specific instances he invokes are eye-opening. You probably have at least one tech company you complain about and though it’s bad, it’s actually probably worse.

After giving you some examples that you’re all-too familiar with Doctorow then explores the Pathology of Enshittification. Simply put, there are usually social, government, and financial processes that keep companies from making their products worse. If you break those then, someone is going to start messing with the system, exploiting their locked-in users as much as they can.

Doctrow is pretty much of the opinion that modern corporations would Enshittify immediately, and gotta say, he has a point. Again a lot of this is very obvious, but when you see how many guardrails and limits to keep companies from making you insane for profit are gone, it’s worse than you think. Obvious, just worse than you think.

Then Doctorow does a deep dive on the Epidemiology of Enshittification, the various pathologies and signs and methods. This section introduces a number of useful terms, research, and concepts to help you understand what’s going on – and going wrong. Again, not a lot of it is surprising, but when you see the whole picture the depth is surprising.

To give an example, let’s talk what he calls “The End of Self Help.” We’re all aware of how many companies restricted the ability to repair devices, but the legal restrictions on what you can do with devices and software are probably far more strict than you realize. Repairing, playing with, modifying, or even accessing some devices in an “inappropriate” way can be made impossible or even illegal. Throw in internet-enabled tools and devices, and companies can lock you in and go after people who try to undo said locks.

Think about how that affects business, competition, and removes the concept of ownership. Now take this bit of Enshittification and multiply it by a whole lot of others. As I’ve mentioned a few times a friend decried in 2025 that it seemed technology hadn’t done anything truly new and good for ten years or more, and I kind of agree with her.

(Yay, we have better graphics, great, that’s being used to make Slop AI just like it was used to mine Bitcoin).

Finally, Doctorow looks at solutions. Some of this is the weakest part of the book as the solutions are obvious, but also we face a lot of challenges. Doctorow needed to give people more suggested action paths, communities to get involved in, and so on. The solution are movements and I think he could have done more with that.

And all of this, all of this is familiar. It’s just actually worse and dumber than we expected.

So my recommendation is that this is a must-read book but I’m not sure it’s a must-keep book. You’ll probably “get it” in one read and move on – hopefully after looking at the section on solutions and deciding to take action. So I do recommend buying a hard copy (which can’t be enshittified like a virtual one) and then when done lending it to someone else. Or have your book club do the same.

Let’s make sure this book doesn’t become a timeless classic.

Steven Savage

Purchasing New Overhead

by

(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com, Steve’s Tumblr, and Pillowfort.  Find out more at my newsletter, and all my social media at my linktr.ee)

When you work in IT if you have a problem, someone has The Solution – for money. Ok there’s free/open source versions but a lot of times people want to pay cash. You don’t get fired for spending someone’s money in too many cases.

There’s always some new piece of software, new module, or new upgrade that’ll solve The Problem. I get this at home as a hobbyist and writer, and I get it at work. My friends who usually work in IT experience the same thing.

However there’s a problem with buying The Solution.

That new software tool or module that will solve The Problem also requires you to follow procedures, and enter data, and do things just a bit differently. Sure you can get customizations or do them yourselves, but usually The Solution to The Problem also adds The Work.

Which, you figure will pay off. Eventually. Yeah you have to track this and add that, but eventually it’ll be more efficient.


Except, then sometimes you add another Solution to another Problem and add more Work. So yeah, you just added a bit more of extra stuff to do, right? It’s worth it! You have The Solutions to the Problems!

Now zoom ahead a few years (or maybe a few months at some places) and you’ve purchased or expanded so many Solutions and added so much Work that you have a new Problem – all the extra Work added to solve the Problem in the first place. Hell, at that point you may have been better off with the Old Problem before you decided to solve things.

We’ve probably all been there when The Work to use The Solution becomes more important than actually solving whatever The Problem was. We may miss the old Problem. We understood The Problem.

Essentially companies and individuals have paid to get more overhead. I’m sure you’ve been there. You may be there now. You may be drinking because you’re there now. Stop that, it’s bad for you.

I think this is because fixing a Problem is hard and requires effort and argument. Making changes needs effort and arguments. The temptation to buy a Solution is both fast and might seem easier at the time. It’s kind of like the old “no one got fired for buying IBM,” whereas the challenges of overhauling The Problem means you have to ask how you got there.

Sometimes I think we need a new wave of minimalism in IT. How can we do more with less? What do we really need to do? How can we scale back to find what we really need to do at a reasonable price?

Because I’m finding that a lot of Solutions just create a new Problem – more Work.

Steven Savage

The Puzzle Problem

by

(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com, Steve’s Tumblr, and Pillowfort.  Find out more at my newsletter, and all my social media at my linktr.ee)

Ages ago I was working on some scheduling software used to schedule setting up computers in data centers. This is pretty complex as you’ve got a giant building and you need the space, the power, the networking hookups, and enough ventilation. Before you schedule and do any of that you have to check if it can be done – you might be facing power limits, overheating, lack of parts, and so on. If you haven’t been in a data center, it’s a balancing act just to set things up – I can get into that in another time.

Anyway I was looking at this software which I hadn’t written but was maintaining and got ideas on how to make it more efficient. I eventually worked out a way to get scheduling tracked down to tiny increments so we’d know who was doing what at all time!

“Don’t do it, people will hate you,” is a rough summary of my boss’ reaction.

Of course I realized that my cool idea that would allow for such precision would be insufferable to the people doing the job. They’d have schedules with no wiggle room that they’d either break or have to constantly update making their jobs harder and more stressful. Plus the jobs would be less efficient because of my bright idea as the tracking tool would be the centerpiece of my life.

Besides, you know, maybe I should have thought about just trusting the people doing their damn job.

If you haven’t been a software guy or an engineer, you may figure this is obvious. But when you’re an engineer of some kind, or any other “making/solving” profession, solving a problem and making a cool solution can become paramount over anything else. Including people hating you.

It’s fun to make solutions even if they’re stupid and unrealistic in reality. If youre solutions-oriented (like me) even more so. This is also why – in part – I think our Internet Age has created so much stupid and bad stuff.

Technology also lets us solve problems quickly and at scale. You can hook up a few web frameworks and transform a web page. YOu can push a solution to A/B testing or production and people are using it right away. It’s almost enough to make you forget good QA!

(I joke, people have been always forgetting QA).

Making things happen is a rush, and technology lets us deliver it faster and get that rush. Of course it may also mean we’ve just done something dumb, quickly, and at scale.

But we might not even realize how bad our latest idea is. We made the thing fast, we got the thing working, it’s just what we wanted – and only later discover it’s a terrible concept.

Worse, the marketing department or investors may tell us it’s a great idea and we never realize our latest bright idea for a Thermos with Bluetooth is insufferably stupid.

No matter how much of the strange and stupid things spewed out of technology companies may be pandering stock-jacking ideas, part of this “joy of solving” is almost certainly part of it. Someone had a great idea – even if it’s just a way to tweak the stock price with a useless release – and implemented it. Money and power can tempt people, but that rush of a solution turn off your morals as well.

So when we look at many strange, useless, and outright immoral technologies don’t just follow the money. Somewhere in the lineage is probably more than a few people who just had so much fun “making things work” they didn’t think about it.

Steven Savage