If you’ve spent any time online lately, you’ve probably encountered the word “enshittification.” It’s not exactly subtle, is it? The term, coined by author and digital rights advocate Cory Doctorow, has quickly become the go-to way to describe the steady decline of once-beloved digital platforms—think social networks, search engines, or even online shopping sites—as they transform from user-friendly spaces into frustrating, ad-choked, scam-ridden messes. But Doctorow’s critique doesn’t stop there. In his latest book, Enshttification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It, Doctorow expands the concept beyond the internet, arguing that this decay is infecting much more than just our online lives.
On October 16, 2025, Doctorow will bring his ideas to a live audience at Diesel, A Bookstore in Brentwood, Los Angeles. The event, presented in partnership with The American Prospect magazine, promises a lively discussion between Doctorow and journalist David Dayen, executive editor of The American Prospect and a leading voice on economics and corporate accountability. According to the bookstore’s announcement, the event is free and open to the public—though if you want to snag a guaranteed seat, you’ll need to pre-order the book through Diesel’s website. It’s a hot ticket in the literary world, and with good reason.
So what, exactly, is “enshittification”? Doctorow first introduced the term a few years ago to describe a pattern he saw play out across the digital landscape. As reported by Today in Books, the word “doesn’t hide what it means.” Doctorow observed that many digital platforms start off serving their users well, offering value, convenience, and sometimes even delight. But over time, these platforms begin to shift their focus—first to advertisers, then to corporate stakeholders. The result? A system that gradually becomes less useful, less trustworthy, and ultimately, less enjoyable for the very people who made it successful in the first place. Doctorow’s new book argues that this isn’t just a tech problem; it’s a symptom of a broader cultural and political malaise.
“Enshittification” has clearly struck a nerve. The American Dialect Society named it their 2023 Word of the Year, and its resonance is such that it even inspired themes in the 2025 season of Black Mirror, the acclaimed dystopian TV series. As Today in Books points out, the term is “extraordinarily useful to describe our political and cultural moment as well.” It’s become a kind of shorthand for the sense that things—especially things we used to love—are just getting worse, and not by accident.
Doctorow’s new book, as described in The American Prospect, digs deep into the business models and policy decisions that have led us here. He traces how tech companies built systems that, at first, genuinely served their communities. But as these companies grew, the drive for profit and market dominance led them to prioritize advertisers and investors over users. The result, Doctorow argues, is what he calls “the Enshttocene”—a digital era defined by exploitation and decline. It’s a bleak diagnosis, but Doctorow doesn’t stop at criticism. He also outlines potential reforms, advocating for transparency, public interest, and a reimagining of digital ecosystems that put people first.
If anyone’s qualified to take on Big Tech, it’s Doctorow. He’s spent more than two decades fighting for digital rights, most notably with the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), a leading nonprofit defending civil liberties in the digital world. He’s also a prolific writer, with over 30 books to his name—including novels, short stories, and nonfiction works—and has earned honors like the Arthur C. Clarke Award for Imagination in Service to Society and a spot in the Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame. His newsletter, Pluralistic.net, is required reading for anyone interested in the intersection of technology, policy, and culture. And, as a former coeditor of the influential blog Boing Boing, Doctorow’s fingerprints are all over the modern internet.
Joining Doctorow for the Brentwood event is David Dayen, whose own work has helped expose the dark underbelly of American finance and corporate power. Dayen’s books, Chain of Title: How Three Ordinary Americans Uncovered Wall Street’s Great Foreclosure Fraud and Monopolized: Life in the Age of Corporate Power, have made him a leading voice on the dangers of unchecked corporate influence. He’s also a past recipient of the Hillman Prize for Magazine Journalism. The conversation between Doctorow and Dayen is expected to tackle not just the problems, but the possible solutions—how technology, corporate power, and public policy intersect, and what it might take to “disenshittify” the systems that shape our daily lives.
The idea of enshittification isn’t just an abstract theory; it’s something users experience every day. From pay-to-play games and scammy apps to websites that seem to care more about mining your data than serving your needs, the signs are everywhere. As Today in Books puts it, “pay to play games, scammy apps and websites” are all part of the phenomenon. And it’s not limited to the digital world. Doctorow’s latest work argues that this pattern is seeping into the material world as well, affecting everything from politics to culture. “If I may be so bold,” the article’s author writes, “it is a term that is extraordinarily useful to describe our political and cultural moment as well.”
Not everything in the literary world is doom and gloom, though. Today in Books also highlights some bright spots, like Megan Majumdar’s A Guardian and a Thief, which has quickly become one of the most talked-about novels of the fall. The book is an Oprah pick and a finalist for both the National Book Award and the Kirkus Prizes—no small feat in a crowded literary landscape. Meanwhile, Lit Hub, an independent media company that recently celebrated its 10th anniversary, marked the occasion by soliciting 58 book recommendations from literary figures, ranging from classics like Anna Karenina to contemporary works by authors such as Lazlo Krasznahorkai. In a digital era so often defined by decline, moments of genuine celebration and community still shine through.
Even LibraryThing, a website beloved by book lovers for its user-generated reviews, is fighting back against digital decay in its own way. As Today in Books reports, LibraryThing recently developed a custom human authentication pop-up to thwart AI bots from scraping its site and ingesting user reviews. In a world where so much online feels automated and impersonal, a “delightful” little bit of humanity can go a long way.
For those eager to learn more about “enshittification”—and what can be done about it—Doctorow’s upcoming event at Diesel, A Bookstore offers a rare chance to hear from one of the most insightful critics of our digital age. With the conversation set to explore not just the causes but the possible cures for our enshittified world, it’s a timely reminder that while things may be getting worse, they don’t have to stay that way. Sometimes, the first step to fixing a problem is giving it a name—and then, as Doctorow would surely argue, rolling up our sleeves and getting to work.
