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Intelligence Squared is the home of lively debate and deep-dive discussion. Follow Intelligence Squared wherever you get your podcasts and enjoy four regular episodes per week taking you to the heart of the issues that matter in the company of the world’s great minds. We’d love to hear your feedback and what you think we should talk about next, who we should have on and what our future debates should be. Send us an email or voice note with your thoughts to podcasts@intelligencesquared.com or Tweet us @intelligence2.
And if you’d like to support our mission to foster honest debate and compelling conversations, as well as ad-free podcasts, exclusive bonus content, early access and much more, become a supporter of Intelligence Squared today. Just visit intelligencesquared.com/membership to find out more.
Why Does It Feel Like Everything is Getting Worse? With Cory Doctorow
Intelligence Squared
42 minutes
2 weeks ago
Why Does It Feel Like Everything is Getting Worse? With Cory Doctorow
How can we reverse the enshittification of digital platforms? With Cory Doctorow
Why does every online platform seem to start out great - then slowly turn to garbage? Why do our digital public squares now feel more like corporate malls... or burning trash heaps?
‘Enshittification’ has been word of the year in the UK, USA and Australia. It's been printed in the pages of the FT and declaimed from podiums at the EU. As a word, it captures the feeling of a world that is ever worsening.
Cory Doctorow, the tech and ethics writer who coined the term, argues that enshittification is not a technical glitch, but a technique that every platform - from X to TikTok, Amazon to Apple, has adopted on purpose to maximise profit at the expense of user experience.
In this episode, Doctorow joins Carl Miller to break down what this relentless downward spiral means for democracy, privacy, creativity, and trust, and what can be done to reverse it.
Doctorow offers a roadmap for reclaiming a better digital future. From breaking monopolies and restoring interoperability to empowering tech workers and enforcing real regulation, this is a conversation about what's broken, and how we can fix it.
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Intelligence Squared
Intelligence Squared is the home of lively debate and deep-dive discussion. Follow Intelligence Squared wherever you get your podcasts and enjoy four regular episodes per week taking you to the heart of the issues that matter in the company of the world’s great minds. We’d love to hear your feedback and what you think we should talk about next, who we should have on and what our future debates should be. Send us an email or voice note with your thoughts to podcasts@intelligencesquared.com or Tweet us @intelligence2.
And if you’d like to support our mission to foster honest debate and compelling conversations, as well as ad-free podcasts, exclusive bonus content, early access and much more, become a supporter of Intelligence Squared today. Just visit intelligencesquared.com/membership to find out more.
