The Great Enshittening

The Gray Area with Sean Illing

Vox Media Podcast Network

Society & Culture, News, Politics, News Commentary, Philosophy

4.6 • 10.8K Ratings

🗓️ 20 October 2025

⏱️ 48 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Open a browser and you can feel it instantly: everything online just feels… worse. Search results that look like ads. Social feeds that you don’t control. Streaming platforms that are packed with ads. Services that used to be free, but are now behind paywalls. It’s not your imagination — it’s enshittification, the process by which good platforms turn bad… and it’s starting to happen outside the internet as well. Sean’s guest today is Cory Doctorow, author of Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It. They discuss how the web became enshittified, why monopolies are the true engine behind our digital decay, and what it would mean to build a freer, fairer, and more human internet. Host: Sean Illing (@seanilling) Guest: Cory Doctorow (https://x.com/doctorow), author of Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It. We’d love to hear from you. Tell us what you thought of this episode at [email protected] or leave a voicemail at 1-800-214-5749. Your comments and questions help us make a better show. And you can watch new episodes of The Gray Area on YouTube. Listen to The Gray Area ad-free by becoming a Vox Member: vox.com/members Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Open a browser or almost any app and you can feel it instantly.
0:08.8	The thing you liked is somehow shittier. Search results that feel like ads, social feeds, you can't
0:17.3	quite control, services that used to be free.
0:22.2	Now behind a paywall.
0:25.9	This is the life cycle of the modern platform.
0:28.2	It starts out great.
0:29.7	Then it shifts.
0:34.3	Squeezing you a little here, annoying you a little there.
0:37.6	And eventually it turns to shit.
0:41.7	And if you really think about it, it's not just apps.
0:47.1	It's also the airlines and your health care and so many other things.
0:52.7	The word for this phenomenon is in shittification.
0:57.4	And it's quickly becoming a defining feature of the modern world.
1:19.9	I'm Sean Elling, and this is Corey Doctoro.
1:26.9	He's been chronicling the politics of tech for decades as a journalist, an activist, and a science fiction writer.
1:28.3	His new book is appropriately titled In Shidification, Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and
1:33.6	What to Do About It.
1:35.5	I loved this conversation.
1:38.7	Corey is whipsmart and really knows this world as well as anyone.
1:44.0	I learned a ton, and I think you will too.
1:54.7	Corey, Dr.o, welcome to the show.
1:57.5	Thank you very much.
	...

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