The first half of the book is great.
The second half has ads that take up more and more of the page until you reach a page that is just ads and a QR code.
When you scan the code, it takes you to a website asking you to pay a subscription for the remaining pages.
(If you rate five stars, they send a 10% discount code to your email and add you to a newsletter list without an unsubscribe button.)
LoL I thought you were serious for a second
Just a touch too close to reality. That was a beyond-awesome comment.
Isn’t that the point though? The book enshittifies
Or am I missing the ironic tone?
Do you have any screenshots? And is it the retail version or is it some early version? Retail’s supposed to only come out in October.
It’s a joke, mate.
Honestly believable though. What better way to be subversive.
Oh, woosh…
Whoosh
An older book I frequently refer to:
On Bullshit | Princeton University Press https://share.google/DaiZS6wG7SiOCdRcg
“One of the most prominent features of our world is that there is so much bullshit. Yet we have no clear understanding of what bullshit is, how it’s distinct from lying, what functions it serves, and what it means.”
Dafuq is a share.google
Google has its own tdl now. Kinda fucked.
The yogurt company Fage has .fage.
Even wilder to me is that they own the *.new TLD. So they have shortcuts like sheets.new and doc.new, which take you to those respective documents in Google Focs. And that’s neat for people using them, and unfortunate for literally everyone else in the world who might want to make a fun *.new domain.
More importantly, why the fuck would anyone actively choose to help Google track their social circle/link usage?
They also own .here which I want a domain with so bad…
He has the first hour and a half (of 9) in his latest podcast, if you want a real preview: https://craphound.com/podcast/2025/08/28/enshittification-episode-500/
I decided to order the epub because no matter how I try, I can’t enjoy Wesley’s voice (sorry Will).FWIW Cory narrates this book. And he has a YouTube video embedded that has the first hour if you want to hear how it sounds.
I agree with you about Wesley (🤮), but that’s not really relevant to this book?
Cory recorded the audio himself to my understanding (listened to his appearance on the QAA podcast), and it sounds like his voice reading it on the linked podcast.
Wow, my brain really failed me here! I ALSO listened to Picks and Shovels recently, which was narrated by Will Wheaton, and somehow the voices got switched in my memory. You are correct, Cory recorded this himself.
Expected release date: 7 October 2025
Anyone read other books of his and if so, do you recommend them?
His ideas are fantastic. Execution and characterization are spotty. Been a while since I read anything of his, but IIRC, he has a tendency to dip into surrealism or absurdity that feels cringey instead of his artistic target.
In some ways, it’s similar to a lot of Golden Era SF. You read it for the ideas, not the story.
I do have a favorable opinion of him and his work. I’d really enjoy Doctorow being paired with a traditional fiction author and both being rode herd by a hardass SF editor.
I assume this is specific to his fiction?
Very much my experience with Walkaway. Unauthorized bread (short story) was a little better executed imo.
Correct, specific to his fiction. I don’t know if I’ve read a non-fiction book of his. However, I’ve never read a bad article or essay by him. He has great insight.
For non-fiction I’ve read Chokepoint Capitalism and The Internet Con. The Internet Con was a lot like his online essays, to the point where it felt redundant, but he does good essays so if you haven’t read them it’s a good way to get around his work. Chokepoint Capitalism was a little more novel (probably in part because he coauthoured). Neither were very dry, which is significant for the genre.
Fiction, I’ve read Walkaway and Unauthorised Bread. Walkaway is good worldbuilding with both fascinating and bizarre ideas, but I don’t think it’s good fiction. Unauthorised Bread is a short story available online and is excellent.
I find the non-fiction stuff he writes good (e.g. The Internet Con, Chokepoint Capitalism). I believe this book is like that?
I found his fiction, based on the one book (The Lost Cause) I read, to be a bit juvenile in style (as in feels like a young adults kind of book) to the point I didn’t quite enjoy it, although the topics are interesting enough.
personally i read “Down and Out in the magic Kingdom” as well as the german translation “Backup”, which - while not masterpieces - were quite enjoyable.
I highly recommend the recent episode of the QAA podcast with Doctrow, it’s an amazing listen!
This is Frickin sick.
I must get a copy, i love this authors writing. I also very much enjoy he respects the right of ownership and anti-drm
It’s spelled “enshittification.”
He enshittified my favorite word!
He got it right (which makes sense; he coined the term); OP didn’t.
Ordered.
Is it about how everyone is using the term wrong and it doesn’t mean anything anymore?
Why do you think everyone is using the term is wrong? Plenty of words get overused until they become meaningless but I have mainly seen enshittification used to refer to large companies significantly degrading their product in a bid to increase profits which is what I understand it to mean. If it’s used a lot, it’s because it’s happening a lot (often by companies who built their products in the zero interest rate, infinite money era and now have to face the new reality).
I see it used as “things got worse” a lot but I did a quick search and looks like you’re right, on lemmy it’s used correctly most of the times.
It’s happening to governments too, but they call it austerity.
It’s authored by the guy who coined the term originally; so however he’s using it, that’s the way it’s used.
Not necessarily… Death of the author and all that. Once it’s in the public, it’s out of his hands
Audiobook? Bah, I remember when books were for reading.
If you actually read the Kickstarter page, he’s selling a physical and ebook version of it as well.
Also, maybe practice reading a webpage before you act pretentious about book formats.
Nothing is stopping you from doing that: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374619329/enshittification/
I’m glad to hear that. It’s unfortunate that the blurb only described it as an audio book, so I went by without looking into it further.
Doctorow doesn’t allow DRM on his works (both print and audio) so he can;t distribute through sites lilke Amazon that require it. Instead he runs a kickstarter to pay actual talent to do the audio and distributes through smaller channels.
“old man yells at cloud”
Him being an “old man” would be predicated on his incorrect assumption that the act of having a book read to you is somehow new and is not as old as books themselves.
He’s just a moron lmao
What? No you don’t. Oral book readings predate regular book reading as a widespread practice by literally thousands of years.
Yeah, but that was because in those days most people were actually illiterate, which in recent history we considered a bad thing and tried to avoid, but it seems to be making a comeback unfortunately.
(Nothing against audiobooks specifically, you gotta do what you gotta do, just suggesting the decline in literacy in general is worrisome)
Not true, even highly educated Roman and Greek elites would attend book readings. It was considered a leisure activity and was appreciated as the performance it was, same as today.
In fact today we have more reasons than ever to listen to audiobooks, the most significant of which is that it’s not legal nor advisable to read a physical book while driving a motor vehicle.
Somehow, I don’t think the original commenter was referring to their memories of ancient Greece or Rome…
Well yeah, because the original commenter wasn’t referring to their memories of any period of time, because the period of time they’re referring to doesn’t exist.
It existed in the 90s and early 00s when I was growing up, before streaming tech took over audio books.
Just because the concept of reading books out loud already existed, doesn’t mean that they don’t remember a time when it wasn’t more popular than just reading.
It existed in the 90s and early 00s
I was around in the 90s and early 00s and I can assure you it very much did not. The popularity of audiobooks grew significantly in the 90s. Books on tape had been a thing for awhile already and the popularity of audiobooks on CD exploded in the early to mid 90s. You could buy or even rent them from music stores, libraries, video stores, even supermarkets. They even had little listening stations where you could hear the first chapter of popular books before buying them.
In 1995 Audible was founded and brought about the advent of digital audiobooks downloaded from the internet which only accelerated their popularity. By the time the 00s started audiobooks were a multi billion dollar industry.
doesn’t mean that they don’t remember a time when it wasn’t more popular than just reading.
Well that’s also a misunderstanding of the history of Audiobooks because I believe even today audiobooks are not more popular than reading physical books. So that time you “remember” would be… the present. So what is your point here exactly, you think OP is turning his nose up at audiobooks out of a sense of superiority due to his memories of a time where listening to books being read existed but was less popular than it is now in the future, but also in the past? Like we somehow peaked during some minuscule point in time where listening to books was at a lower point than others? Oook
