I found Cory Doctorow well after the publication of his now pretty well known book The Enshittification of Everything. As always, I'm a bit late to the party. I had heard the term, of course, it was the well deserved Word of the Year in 2023. I was vaguely aware of the book. Had no idea who the author was. And of course now I'm asking myself "what rock have I been living under"?!
I found him on Youtube this year talking about technology, the internet, and the increasingly strange relationship we have with the platforms and systems that now shape so much of everyday life. And the more I listen to him speak; in interviews, podcasts, lectures, and guest appearances, the more impressed I become not simply by what he knows, but by his ability to explain complicated things without making them complicated.
That is an amazing skill to have. Especially if you're a writer. I guess more especially if you're a speaker talking without a script. Seriously, I could listen to him talk about tech for hours. I probably have.
Cory seems to have a pretty wide range of knowledge, but particularly around technology, economics, digital culture, and the ways those things intersect with society. He can talk about an obscure technical or economic concept and somehow turn it into something that makes sense, even to a dummy like me.
And he doesn't seem interested in demonstrating how much he knows just to puff up his ego... he's humble in his demeanor, he comes across as more interested in simply making you understand it. I love that about him. I also love that he's Canadian but that's probably not relevant.
Tho two books that I am going recommend are The Enshittification of Everything and The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life. They approach different subjects, but both demonstrate a knack for looking at the systems underneath the things we take for granted and asking, “Why does this work the way it does?”
Spoiler alert: both of these books might make you mad because they lay bear exactly what is being done to us, and why, by the people in charge of all the stuff we interact with everyday. It is seriously messed up.
The Enshittification of Everything examines the gradual deterioration of products, services, and platforms that were once useful or enjoyable. His now-famous concept of “enshittification” gives a name to something most of us have experienced: the feeling that the internet, technology, and even everyday consumer services increasingly seem designed to extract more from us while giving us less in return.
This book was written a few years ago so by now I think most people do see this in their everyday lives. If you haven't, buckle up.
The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life moves into another area that I find particularly fascinating in the right now of things: artificial intelligence and the changing relationship between humans and machines. Rather than approaching AI with either breathless enthusiasm or simplistic doom, here, he is interested in how we actually use these tools, what they are good at, what they aren't good at, and what happens when humans stop exercising their own judgment.
He doesn't make the tech feel inevitable. He makes it feel worthy of critical analysis and therefore perhaps changeable. (Maybe not by just one person though, we might need to band together on that.)
I think he encourages us to look behind the interface and question the assumptions built into the systems around us, so we can better understand who really benefits from the way those systems have been designed. And, it's presented in a way that doesn't require you to be a programmer, economist, or technology specialist to follow along.
Let's face it, we are living through a period in which technology—particularly AI—is changing at an extraordinarily fast pace, all while most of us are still trying to grapple with what is actually happening.
There is no shortage of people willing to tell us that AI will save everything, destroy everything, revolutionize everything, or make everything obsolete.
What I find much more useful is someone willing to explain how these systems actually work, and give us the tools to think about it ourselves while maybe steering us to more sensible conclusions.
So this isn't quite a conventional book review. It's more of an enthusiastic recommendation of an author whose work I can't stop listening to. Read the books, certainly. But if you don't have time for that, listen to an interview with him. Find a podcast appearance. Watch one of his talks.
You may come away from it knowing considerably more about technology than you did before, but more importantly, you may find yourself thinking differently about the technology you already use every day.
I bought the books. He writes like he talks. So they're pretty easy to read. Thank you Cory.
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