Skip to content
TrackPodcasts
businessOct 4, 202434:00pending

The great decline of everything online

Lately

About this episode

That creeping feeling that everything online is getting worse has a name: “enshittification,” a term for the slow degradation of our experience on digital platforms. The enshittification cycle is why you now have to wade through slop to find anything useful on Google, and why your charger is different from your BFF’s. 

According to Cory Doctorow, the man who coined the memorable moniker, this digital decay isn’t inevitable. It’s a symptom of corporate under-regulation and monopoly – practices being challenged in courts around the world, like the US Department of Justice’s antitrust suit against Google.

Cory Doctorow is a British-Canadian journalist, blogger and author of Chokepoint Capitalism, as well as speculative fiction works like The Lost Cause and the new novella Spill

This is Lately. Every week, we take a deep dive into the big, defining trends in business and tech that are reshaping our every day.

Our executive producer is Katrina Onstad. This episode is produced by Jay Cockburn and Andrea Varsany. Our sound designer is Cameron McIver.

Subscribe to the Lately newsletter, where we unpack more of the latest in business and technology.

Find the transcript of today’s episode here.

We’d love to hear from you. Send your comments, questions or ideas to [email protected].

Get every episode summarized

Each time Lately publishes, we email you a written briefing from the transcript — the topics, who appeared, and any specific claims, with the ad reads skipped.

Email me new episodes

Free for 3 shows. No card needed.

Hosts & guests

No transcript yet

This episode has not been transcribed. Request it and it moves to the front of the queue.

The great decline of everything online

Lately

0:00
34:00

More episodes

More from Lately

View all episodes →