The enshittification of tech jobs: Our last line of defense has fallen.

mamot.fr/@pluralistic/11441209…

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Cory Doctorow

2025-04-27 21:40:58

Tech workers are a weird choice for "princes of labor," but for decades they've enjoyed unparalleled labor power, expressed in high wages, lavish stock grants, and whimsical campuses with free laundry and dry-cleaning, gourmet cafeterias, and kombucha on tap:

youtube.com/watch?v=nhUtdgVZ7M…

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If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

pluralistic.net/2025/04/27/som…

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- YouTube

Profitez des vidéos et de la musique que vous aimez, mettez en ligne des contenus originaux, et partagez-les avec vos amis, vos proches et le monde entier.

^{www.youtube.com}

Hey look at this

* Perplexity CEO says its browser will track everything users do online to sell 'hyper personalized' ads techcrunch.com/2025/04/24/perp… (h/t Slashdot)

* Runaway Tren prospect.org/justice/2025-04-2…

* How Monopolies Could Exploit the Tariff Shock thebignewsletter.com/p/how-mon…

4/

#20yrsago Architectures of Control: DRM in hardware web.archive.org/web/2005042518…

#20yrsago Insect photos in naturalistic http://macro-focus bugdreams.com

#20yrsago BBC: DRM makes music customers mad news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology…

#20yrsago Guckert was at the White House even when there were no press briefings web.archive.org/web/2005042803…

#20yrsago FBI warnings ruin CD art & art is the reason for buying CDs yarnivore.com/francis/archives…

5/

#20yrsago US govt admits RFID passports are danger to Americans nytimes.com/2005/04/27/politic…

#15yrsago Considering cities as “dense meshes of active, communicating public objects” speedbird.wordpress.com/2010/0…

#15yrsago Peter Watts won’t go to jail memex.craphound.com/2010/04/26…

#15yrsago Canada’s Heritage Minister ready to bring back DMCA-style copyright, throwing out results of copyright consultation web.archive.org/web/2010042811…

6/

#15yrsago In praise of SFWA’s Grievance Committee memex.craphound.com/2010/04/25…

#15yrsago UK’s super-rich get even richer news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/8…

#15yrsago Protect your copyrights, boycott DRM-locked platforms publishersweekly.com/pw/by-top…

#15yrsago Why I won’t buy an iPad, the podcast edition web.archive.org/web/2011011422…

#15yrsago On Peter Watts’s sentencing hearing web.archive.org/web/2010042910…

7/

#15yrsago The “fair use economy” is enormous, growing, and endangered by the relatively tiny entertainment industry web.archive.org/web/2011012815…

#15yrsago UK election: ask your candidates if they’ll repeal the Digital Economy Act web.archive.org/web/2010043009…

#10yrsago Town will cut off power to families of kids who commit vandalism web.archive.org/web/2015041905…

#10yrsago Portraits of e-waste pickers in Ghana wired.com/2015/04/kevin-mcelva…

8/

#10yrsago In the 21st century, only corporations get to own property and we’re their tenants web.archive.org/web/2015042817…

#10yrsago Obituary for an amazing history teacher web.archive.org/web/2015042623…

#10yrsago What the UK Greens actually believe about copyright tomchance.org/2015/04/24/makin…

#10yrsago School bus driver bans little girl from reading cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/qu…

#10yrsago Variations on the Trolley Problem mcsweeneys.net/articles/lesser…

9/

#10yrsago Senators announce “Aaron Swartz Should Have Faced More Jail Time” bill techdirt.com/2015/04/23/senato…

#10yrsago Kansas kid corrects anti-drug teacher, cops raid his house web.archive.org/web/2015042317…

#5yrsago Makers in a time of pandemic pluralistic.net/2020/04/25/sen…

#5yrsago A deflationary pandemic pluralistic.net/2020/04/25/sen…

#5yrsago The vernacular signage of the pandemic pluralistic.net/2020/04/25/sen…

10/

#5yrsago California Adventure, Minecraft edition pluralistic.net/2020/04/24/sli…

#5yrsago Security expert conned out of $10,000 pluralistic.net/2020/04/24/sli…

#5yrsago Facebook let advertisers target "pseudoscience" and "conspiracy" pluralistic.net/2020/04/24/sli…

#5yrsago Amazon uses its sellers' data to figure out which products to clone pluralistic.net/2020/04/24/sli…

#5yrsago US telcoms sector isn't doing better than Europe's pluralistic.net/2020/04/24/sli…

#5yrsago Masks work pluralistic.net/2020/04/24/sli…

11/

#5yrsago US healthcare fails insured people too pluralistic.net/2020/04/24/sli…

#5yrsago "Inject disinfectant" vs both sides-ism pluralistic.net/2020/04/24/sli…

#5yrsago A labradoodle breeder is in charge of America's vaccines pluralistic.net/2020/04/24/sli…

#5yrsago Which guillotine is right for you pluralistic.net/2020/04/24/sli…

#5yrsago Hospital cuts healthcare workers' pay, pays six-figure exec bonuses pluralistic.net/2020/04/27/in-…

12/

#5yrsago Pandemic proves ISP data-caps were always a pretense pluralistic.net/2020/04/27/in-…

#5yrsago Billionaires thriving on our pandemic losses pluralistic.net/2020/04/27/in-…

#5yrsago Podcasting Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town pluralistic.net/2020/04/27/in-…

#5yrsago Indie booksellers during the pandemic pluralistic.net/2020/04/27/in-…

#1yrago The tax sharks are back and they're coming for your home pluralistic.net/2024/04/27/for…

13/

#1yrago The specific process by which Google enshittified its search pluralistic.net/2024/04/24/nam…

#1yrago Antitrust is a labor issue pluralistic.net/2024/04/25/cap…

14/

Thursday's threads: Every complex ecosystem has parasites; and more!

mamot.fr/@pluralistic/11439292…

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Cory Doctorow

2025-04-24 12:25:08

Today's threads (a thread)

Inside: Every complex ecosystem has parasites; and more!

Archived at: pluralistic.net/2025/04/24/her…

#Pluralistic

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Pluralistic: Every complex ecosystem has parasites (24 Apr 2025) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow

^{pluralistic.net}

My last nationally bestselling novel was "The Bezzle," an ice-cold revenge story of high-tech finance crime starring the forensic accountant Martin Hench.

us.macmillan.com/books/9781250…

Signed copies from Chevalier's Books:

chevaliersbooks.com/product-pa…

--

My latest nonfiction book is "The Internet Con: How to Seize the Means of Computation" from Verso Books:

seizethemeansofcomputation.org

Signed copies available from Book Soup:

booksoup.com/book/978180429124…

Both are national bestsellers!

16/

Book details - Macmillan Publishers

New York Times bestseller Cory Doctorow's The Bezzle is a high stakes thriller where the lives of the hundreds of thousands of inmates in California’s pris...

^Macmillan

My ebooks and audiobooks (from Tor Books, Head of Zeus, McSweeneys, Beacon, Verso and others) are for sale all over the net, but I sell 'em too, and when you buy 'em from me, I earn twice as much and you get books with no DRM and no license "agreements."

craphound.com/shop/

17/

Upcoming appearances:

* #Auckland: Unity Books, May 2, 6PM
eventbrite.co.nz/e/an-evening-…

* #Wellington: Unity Books, May 3, 3PM
unitybooks.co.nz/news-and-even…

* #Pittsburgh: Picks and Shovels at White Whale Books, May 15
whitewhalebookstore.com/events…

* #Pittsburgh: PyCon, May 16
us.pycon.org/2025/schedule/

* Virtual: Writing to Resist (California Writers Club Berkeley):
cwc-berkeley.org/writing-to-re…

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Upcoming appearances (cont'd):

* #PDX: Teardown 2025, Jun 20-22
crowdsupply.com/teardown/portl…

* #PDX: Picks and Shovels with BUNNIE HUANG at Barnes and Noble, Jun 20
stores.barnesandnoble.com/even…

* #London: How To Academy with Riley Quinn, Jul 1
howtoacademy.com/events/cory-d…

* #Manchester: Picks and Shovels at Blackwell's Bookshop, Jul 2
eventbrite.co.uk/e/an-evening-…

* #Manchester: Co-operatives UK Co-op Congress keynote, Jul 3
uk.coop/events-and-training/ev…

19/

Upcoming appearances (cont'd):

* #NewOrleans: DeepSouthCon63, Oct 10-12, 2025
contraflowscifi.org/

20/

Recent appearances:

* Move Fast and Break Kings
flipboard.video/w/2aH2AFNTPjcd…

* Beyond the Web (Ostrom Workshop)
youtube.com/watch?v=-WfO-9G4Eg…

* Can we use the Internet for Democracy?
youtube.com/watch?v=Zh_HON6iql…

21/

Flipboard Video

2025-04-24 21:42:39

Move Fast and Break Kings, with Cory Doctorow

Blogger, journalist, author and activist Cory Doctorow can embark on a 10-minute monologue about what’s wrong with tech and still leave you hungering for more of his rapid-fire analysis and biting humor. It’s stunning to be presented with the big picture of the mess we’re in — and how to potentially get out of it.

In this episode of Dot Social, recorded live at the Fediverse House at SXSW 2025, Doctorow unpacks the concept of “enshittification.” It’s a term he coined to show how we got to this place where platforms prioritize business interests over user experience, leading to tragic declines in quality and trust. He talks about how to challenge platform monopolies and the importance of true federation.

Highlights include:

01:52 The path to enshittification
12:50 Is there a way out of this?
17:18 How Cory uses RSS
22:20 Advice for people building the social web
28:07 Take on Bluesky and Mastodon
33:44 On being a “sharecropper in Musk’s farm”
36:05 EFF’s biggest mandate this year
39:04 What bad regulations are going away?
40:16 Is enshittification inevitable?
46:27 What happened to change the way that we enforce antitrust?
53:14 “Radicalized” and take on political violence
59:27 Cory’s book, “Picks and Shovels”

🔎 You can find Cory at @pluralistic@mamot.fr

✚ You can connect with Mike McCue at @mike@flipboard.social

🌊 Catch the wave! Surf the social web and create your own custom feeds at surf.social, a new beta from the people at Flipboard. about.surf.social/

Surf – Join the Surf Beta Waitlist

^Surf

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22/

Today's top sources: Slashdot (slashdot.org).

23/

I'm on a 20+ city book tour for my new novel *Picks and Shovels*.

Catch me in #NewZealand at UNITY BOOKS in #AUCKLAND (May 2, 6PM):

eventbrite.co.nz/e/an-evening-…

and #WELLINGTON (May 3, 3PM):

unitybooks.co.nz/news-and-even…

More tour dates (PDX, Pittsburgh, London, Manchester) here:

martinhench.com

eof/