With Great Power Came No Responsibility: How Enshittification Conquered the 21st Century and How We Can Overthrow It

29 snips

Feb 26, 2025

Dive into the fascinating exploration of 'enshittification' and how it's reshaping the tech landscape. The discussion reveals the troubling consequences of gig economy practices on workers, particularly nurses. It critiques the rise of monopolies and highlights historical shifts in antitrust laws impacting corporate power dynamics. The renewed focus on antitrust enforcement worldwide promises to challenge tech giants. Finally, the podcast emphasizes the importance of labor unions and collective action in fostering social justice amid evolving economic demands.

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ANECDOTE

Gig Economy Nurses

Nurses are increasingly hired through gig apps, creating uncertainty in wages and scheduling.
These apps use data brokers to determine a nurse's debt and lower wages for those in financial distress.

INSIGHT

Enshittification Defined

Enshittification is a three-stage process where platforms exploit users and businesses.
It involves attracting users, abusing them to attract businesses, and then extracting all value.

INSIGHT

Twiddling

Twiddling is a core mechanism of enshittification enabled by digital flexibility.
Companies manipulate pricing, costs, and rankings to shift value and exploit users.

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Last night, I traveled to Toronto to deliver the annual Ursula Franklin Lecture at the University of Toronto’s Innis College. The lecture was called “With Great Power Came No Responsibility: How Enshittification Conquered the 21st Century and How We Can Overthrow It.” It’s the latest major speech in my series of talks on the subject, which started with last year’s McLuhan Lecture in Berlin, and continued with a summer Defcon keynote.

This speech specifically addresses the unique opportunities for disenshittification created by Trump’s rapid unscheduled midair disassembly of the international free trade system. The US used trade deals to force nearly every country in the world to adopt the IP laws that make enshittification possible, and maybe even inevitable. As Trump burns these trade deals to the ground, the rest of the world has an unprecedented opportunity to retaliate against American bullying by getting rid of these laws and producing the tools, devices and services that can protect every tech user (including Americans) from being ripped off by US Big Tech companies.

I’m so grateful for the chance to give this talk. I was hosted for the day by the Centre for Culture and Technology, which was founded by Marshall McLuhan, and is housed in the coach house he used for his office. The talk itself took place in Innis College, named for Harold Innis, who is definitely the thinking person’s Marshall McLuhan. What’s more, I was mentored by Innis’s daughter, Anne Innis Dagg, a radical, brilliant feminist biologist who pretty much invented the field of giraffology.

But with all respect due to Anne and her dad, Ursula Franklin is the thinking person’s Harold Innis. A brilliant scientist, activist and communicator who dedicated her life to the idea that the most important fact about a technology wasn’t what it did, but who it did it for and who it did it to. Getting to work out of McLuhan’s office to present a talk in Innis’s theater that was named after Franklin? Swoon!

Here’s the audio from the talk.

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