Cory Doctorow believes major internet companies entrap users, advertisers
Date
11/3/2024 3:50:21 AM
(MENAFN) After 25 years as a blogger, digital rights advocate, and outspoken critic of major tech firms, Cory Doctorow is beginning to feel a sense of optimism.
This shift is significant for an author who coined the term "enshittification" to express the decline of current tech platforms. His insights, which have gained traction beyond his blog in the last two years, illustrate how platforms entrap users and advertisers, gradually degrading their services while prioritizing stockholder profits.
Speaking from Los Angeles, Doctorow—who is also a prolific science fiction author—informed a news agency that tech firms behave this way because they "lack discipline".
"If you don't face consequences when you suck, you don't have to try as hard," he stated. "And you can do things that are bad for other people and good for you."
This behavior explains why Facebook feeds are cluttered with irrelevant content, Google searchers are filled with ads and sponsored links, and why Amazon promotes inexpensive Chinese products regardless of what customers look for. However, regulators worldwide are starting to address the monopolists they previously permitted to thrive.
"We're seeing the European Commission and the Federal Trade Commission and many other entities really taking this seriously, in a way that they haven't for 40 years," he mentioned.
Additionally, users are beginning to leave major platforms, evidenced by the mass migration from twitter after Elon Musk’s takeover and rebranding as X.
"There's a really good chance that simply making them face consequences for being bad will make them better," he stated.
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