Doctorow outlines his core thesis: a three-stage process of platform decay. Platforms first attract users with a good product, then abuse those users to benefit business customers, and finally abuse the business customers to extract all value for shareholders, leaving a 'pile of shit' behind.
Doctorow argues that the primary driver of inshittification is the 40-year decline in antitrust enforcement. This allowed companies like Facebook, Google, and Amazon to acquire or crush competitors, removing the market discipline that would have prevented them from abusing users and customers.
A key proposed solution is mandating interoperability, allowing users to leave a platform like Facebook but maintain contact with friends who remain. This would lower switching costs, making platforms accountable to their users and vulnerable to competition.
Doctorow is highly skeptical of the current AI boom, framing it as an economic bubble characterized by massive capital expenditure ($700B) versus minimal gross revenue ($45B) and flawed business models based on wage displacement. He predicts a crash similar to the crypto collapse.
The decline of tech worker power is identified as a key factor enabling inshittification. Doctorow advocates for renewed labor organizing, specifically sectoral bargaining, as a crucial check on corporate power and a way to ensure technology is developed ethically.
Keep pulling the thread on Cory Doctorow.