technology

Going Meta Into Nothingness

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(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)

In one of my recent readings of Cory Doctorow’s valuable blog, he discussed the value of “vultures” in the economic ecosystem, and reminded us of an important idea by Douglass Rushkoff explaining the weird “abstractions” we see.. To quote Doctorow:

“Douglas Rushkoff calls this “going meta”: don’t drive a taxi, rent a medallion to a taxi driver. Don’t rent a medallion, start a ride-hailing app company. Don’t start a ride-hailing company, invest in the company. Don’t invest in the company, but options on the company’s shares. Each layer of indirection takes you further from the delivery of a useful service – and insulates you further from risk.”

Going meta is something we see everywhere, to the point we are used to it. Giant companies with packages of packages of companies. Financial jobs that are, as I heard it once put “sloshing money around and scraping up what falls out.” Hell, with Kalshi and Polymarket and the various betting markets, we’ve gone meta on reality, allowing people to bet on anything, including things that are already pretty meta.

A friend recently summed up the overwhelm of modern technology by noting how much of what we do is metadata. You can fill out a paper form and have to store it and retrieve it – but if you put it on a computer it needs a name and a location – and cloud storage involves even more metadata behind the scenes. New software that lets you “easily” track information often has “new” features that require you to enter even more data to use features. At some point paper seems easier because the metadata can take more effort than the data.

(Remember, I once interviewed at software company that did Scrum with post it notes, having given up on tools.)

The ultimate meta is AI. AI takes our data, our metadata, and approximates us. It’s a world of data centers funded by this group, run by that group, and owned by another group. The power and water consumption are abstracted away. That’s if things are even being built, which seems to be a point of confusion – but boy companies want AI in everything.

It feels like our world is more and more meta all the time. Actual, hands-on, reality has layers of layers over it and we consume the reality to power the unreality.

Everything else is pretty meta too. Ever notice how these days in 2026 that our health care decisions by the federal government seem to be driven by internet conspiracy theories not based in anything? How memes and rumors can drive actions even if they have no existence in reality? Watch the news and people are trying to talk about reality with a thick layer of marketing and political opportunism. Even the propaganda seems meta, if people even know it’s propaganda, and sometimes I’m not sure the propagandists know.

So what I wonder is how much time and energy are we wasting doing meta but you know not doing stuff? I mean here in May 2026 farmers seem to be pretty impacted by whatever the hell is up with the non-ceasefire in Iran but it’s not making the news enough. Various Influencers famous for being famous are going around being famous and Influencing, but what are they about? People are betting on various important events in the world while others short markets, making us suspicious of what’s happening why. Also software seems to get exponentially harder to use as we add more stuff because of . . . I dunno, sales or something?

I mean how much time and energy are we burning here? Well time, energy and planet. Not sure much meaningful is happening, you know.

The problem with all this “metaness” is I think we won’t notice it breaking down until a lot of other stuff does. All the meta stuff, all the abstraction, the financialization, the investment vehicles, the BS media hype, that can keep going for awhile as it has money and momentum. But there comes a day when memes don’t fill your bank account, you can’t use AI as fertilizer, and you didn’t bet on very angry people being upset about unemployment. The people who think meta miss this stuff.

It’s best we don’t.

Steven Savage

The Future Isn’t What You Expected

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(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)

So as of this writing the Iran War ended. Or restarted. Or is under negotiation. I have no idea what’s going on and anything I do say may be irrelevant. Anyway it’s August 11, 2026 so you can remember how wrong or right I am.

You know I’d like to discuss what an absolute humiliating mess this was for America. But plenty of people far more qualified than me are discussing it. Actually people less qualified are discussing it too. Welcome to the modern age, and because it is the modern age, let me discuss two things that surprised me which is what I DO want to talk about it.

“War never changes,” is the quote from the Fallout games. Well, guess what, it damn well changed, and that’s a good reminder that we’re usually living in the future and don’t know it.

First, let’s talk drones.

We’re well aware of how effective drone have been for the Ukraine in their battle against Russian aggression. We know Iran has deployed both missiles and drones to definite effect, and everyone I read seems concerned about the drone part. A $10,000 drone can cost you an expensive missile and do plenty of damage if said missile misses.

Now Ukraine’s work with drones, it’s innovations, has been a diplomatic and economic boon thanks to relations with Middle Eastern states. Ukraine innovated on drones because it had to, and now that’s given it power and prestige, further giving it allies against Russia (or what’s left of it).

How much change did we miss, or not take into account, or figure was a localized issue? How much drone tech is out there we haven’t payed attention to as a society? Maybe it’s just me, but I feel that a whole lot of war changed, and a lot of people haven’t adjusted their mindsets? In turn this means Iran surprised people and Ukraine has leveraged their experience to become an even more major player.

It’s multiple world-powers getting ju-jitsued. It reminds me of a recent joke about people who played games like World of Tanks missing that their games were irrelevant.

Next, let’s talk memes.

I did not expect Iran’s social media game to be this good. From memes challenging the president to mockery using Lego aesthetic, they had a good game. I didn’t expect a repressive theocratic republic to be this good at social media, not going to lie. In a Mastodon discussion, someone noted they found the dry Iranian sense of humor was known, but not to Westerners.

As I understand it the team is probably a subcontracted group that’s not even in the country. But who knows what the story is. Anyway, whoever they are they’re playing to win.

Honestly, where was America’s meme game? What little I saw was Trump ranting, some strange propagandist stuff, and that was about it. Where was the humor? The fun? The meme potential? The Iranian social media folks seemed to be having fun, which is not something I associate with the Iranian government who are, let’s be honest, a bunch of religious a-holes.

And I saw it get mentioned all over, amplified. I have to ask how much are memes part of modern warfare. I wish I knew because I expect it’s a lot more than I would have guessed.

So here we are in iran. It’s a fluid situation as I write. I don’t know what’s happening. But what I do know is I saw two changes in warfare, and we need to pay attention. I’d like a future without warfare, but until we get there, we need to understand how they work.

And apparently it’s drones and vicious mockery. Well, that’s what I missed and some others missed – what else are we missing?

Steven Savage

Book Review: Enshittification by Cory Doctorow

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(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