The internet used to make dictionary editors swoon. Back in the aughts, the lexicon mavens started to crown terms like “blog” and “hashtag,” naming them as Words of the Year. By 2013, social media reigned supreme, celebrated by the Oxford Dictionary with their selection of “selfie” as the top word.
A decade later that sense of promise and delight had soured. In 2023 the American Dialect Society’s selection was “ens***tification.” The term, originated by author and digital activist Cory Doctorow, describes the way the internet is getting, well… insert poop emoji here. In a recent episode of It’s Been a Minute, Doctorow delivers an incisive analysis of this decline and explains why his word has stuck.
“It turns out that the secret to getting people to really engage with a technical, political, and economic critique of platform capitalism is to let them swear. They just love to swear.”
Doctorow has a new book out, titled after the term he coined. In it he argues that the decline of online services — from web searches to social media feeds — is a staged progression, not unlike a progressive illness.
Phase one is the bait. Platforms like Amazon, Facebook or Google (these last two declined host Brittany Luse’s requests for comments) offer great services to get users hooked. Once they’re locked in, the switch begins as platforms prioritize advertisers or paying subscribers, making the core user experience noticeably worse. Eventually, in the final phase, all users are thrown under the bus as the relentless demand to provide value for shareholders trumps the needs of the community entirely.
But not everything is going down the toilet. According to Doctorow, a better internet is possible. He says it starts with antitrust lawsuits that have the power to break up the big internet companies. A self-described Democratic Socialist, Doctorow is also counting on an unlikely ally: good, old-fashioned greed. If a new company offers users a better deal, he reasons, we’ll all simply jump ship.
Here’s to demanding a world-class world wide web,
🌐Luis
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