Discussion no.03, Enshittification

The Viewing

Who is Cory Doctorow?

Cory Doctorow is an author both of non-fiction and (science) fiction who is known for his views and activism within the tech industry. Enshittification was a term coined by him (as he explains in the video above), It is also the title of his forthcoming book

What is DEFCON?

DEFCON is a conference for hackers and cyber security professionals. I organically came upon the talk linked here when the talks from that DEFCON started to get released to the web.

Things to think about

• What is enshittification to you, in this context, in your own words?
• How might enshittification relate to the aesthetic and interactive components of a website, app, service or game? Can you think of examples?
• Are there any platforms that you can think of, that you've experienced their "enshittifying" first hand? Which ones, and how did it play out?
• What do you think is the responsibility of platforms (websites, games, forums, etc) to their users? society? Their shareholders?
• What are pros (temporary or otherwise) might their potentially be in enshittification? Cons?
• Why might a "scrappy" startup that started in someone's bedroom be motivated to enshittify?

Homework

respond to the above in some kind of text file (.txt, .pdf, .rtf, .doc, etc) and place in the respective folder for the class by 09/22/2025