Making The Internet Suck Less With Cory Doctorow - TWMJ #1024

Feb 22, 2026

Cory Doctorow, sci-fi author, journalist and digital-rights activist, explains why online platforms degrade and how policy choices empower monopolies. He dissects the AI investment bubble, harms to creatives from automation, anti-circumvention laws that lock users in, and how culture and regulation could reclaim better digital systems.

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INSIGHT

AI Growth Looks Like A Financial Bubble

The AI boom is a financial bubble driven by massive capex that far exceeds real revenue.
Doctorow cites $600–$700B spent, at most ~$50B real revenue, and risky depreciation assumptions on GPUs.

INSIGHT

Open Source Will Undercut Expensive Models

Open source models plus cheap hardware will undercut expensive foundation models once hackers optimize them.
He points to DeepSeek's $20M skunkworks that outperformed costly models by optimizing for older chips.

ADVICE

Always Verify AI Outputs

Don't treat AI outputs as definitive; always validate because models confidently fabricate facts.
Doctorow warns Grok and chatbots invent details like book dedications and misstate his positions.

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Welcome to episode #1024 of Thinking With Mitch Joel (formerly Six Pixels of Separation).

At a time when the digital infrastructure that underpins modern life feels increasingly hostile, few voices have been as prescient... or as relentless... as Cory Doctorow. A science fiction novelist, journalist and technology activist, Cory serves as Special Advisor to the Electronic Frontier Foundation and has long stood at the intersection of storytelling, policy and power. Over the course of a prolific career (one that includes bestselling fiction, influential tech policy books like Chokepoint Capitalism and The Internet Con, and his widely read Pluralistic blog) Cory has chronicled how digital markets consolidate, calcify and ultimately betray their users. His latest nonfiction work, Enshittification - Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse And What To Do About It, gives a name to the slow degradation of online platforms: the predictable cycle in which services begin by delighting users, then exploit them, then squeeze the businesses that depend on them, until only monopoly power remains. Cory situates this decline not as technological inevitability but as the result of specific policy choices that empowered monopolies and weakened enforcement. At the same time, Cory challenges the fatalism that often surrounds technological decline. Anti-circumvention laws, regulatory capture and collective action problems may constrain consumers, but they are not immovable forces. Cultural norms can shift. Policy can be rewritten. Markets can be redesigned. Grounded in economic literacy and moral urgency, Cory's work calls for ethical leadership, regulatory courage and a reclamation of agency in the systems that shape our digital lives. Enjoy the conversation…

Running time: 1:00:43.
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Here is my conversation with Cory Doctorow.
Enshittification - Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse And What To Do About It.
Pluralistic.
Chokepoint Capitalism.
The Internet Con.
Cory's books.
Cory's newsletter.
Follow Cory on X.

Chapters:

(00:00) - Introduction to Cory Doctorow. (03:07) - The AI Bubble: Understanding the Economics. (06:08) - The Future of AI and Labor. (08:56) - Open Source Models and Their Potential. (11:50) - AI as a Tool: The Multiplier Effect. (14:50) - The Reality of AI's Impact on Society. (17:57) - Billionaire Perspectives and UBI. (20:56) - The Disconnect Between Wealth and Labor. (23:49) - The Future of Work in an AI-Driven World. (30:15) - The Illusion of Value in Economic Activity. (33:34) - The Crisis of Ethical Leadership. (36:56) - The Role of Policymakers in Corporate Behavior. (38:45) - Understanding Lock-In: Users and Businesses. (40:40) - The Impact of Monopolies and Monopsonies. (49:22) - The Need for Anti-Circumvention Law Repeal. (54:24) - Cultural Norms vs. Regulation in Consumer Behavior.