Notices by Cory Doctorow (pluralistic@mamot.fr)

Good news: Enshittification just went into its SIXTH printing.

Bad news: There won't be enough books for tonight's event in Toronto at OCAD U, so please get there early and buy your book right away if you're planning on getting one!

Today's threads (a thread)

Inside: Google steers Americans looking for health care into "junk insurance" ; and more!

Archived at: https://pluralistic.net/2025/11/25/open-season/

#Pluralistic

1/

I'm on a tour with my new book, the international bestseller *Enshittification*!

Catch me next in #Toronto (THURSDAY!), #SanDiego and #Seattle!

Full schedule with dates and links at:

https://pluralistic.net/tour

2/

Google steers Americans looking for health care into "junk insurance" : An enshittified search monopolist meets the worst health care system imaginable.

https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic/115611253695041383

3/

Hey look at this

* Nvidia’s ‘I’m Not Enron’ memo has people asking a lot of questions already answered by that memo https://www.theverge.com/business/828047/nvidia-enron-conspiracy-accounting

* How Black Friday Loyalty Programs Rip Off Shoppers https://economicpopulist.substack.com/p/how-black-friday-loyalty-programs

* The Hater's Guide To NVIDIA https://www.wheresyoured.at/the-haters-guide-to-nvidia/

* GrapheneOS migrates server infrastructure from France amid police intimidation claims https://www.privacyguides.org/news/2025/11/22/grapheneos-migrates-server-infrastructure-from-france-amid-police-intimidation-claims/

* Competition Commissioner Boswell calls it quits early https://www.donotpassgo.ca/p/competition-commissioner-matthew

4/

#20yrsago Solar utility pole: streetlight, WiFi, CCTV and charger https://web.archive.org/web/20060508050552/http://www.starsightproject.com/en/africa/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=12&Itemid=52

#20yrsago Sony rootkit recall makes The Onion https://web.archive.org/web/20051126015022/http://www.theonion.com/content/node/42988

#15yrsago Menstruating woman subjected to TSA grope because panty-liner obscured her vulva on pornoscanner https://blog.gladrags.com/2010/11/24/tsa-groin-searches-menstruating-woman/

#15yrsago Set to Sea: moving and beautiful graphic novel about a poet who becomes an involuntary sailor https://memex.craphound.com/2010/11/24/set-to-sea-moving-and-beautiful-graphic-novel-about-a-poet-who-becomes-an-involuntary-sailor/

5/

#10yrsago Cultural appropriation? Hindu nationalists used yoga as an anti-colonialist export https://web.archive.org/web/20151124030935/http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2015/11/university_canceled_yoga_class_no_it_s_not_cultural_appropriation_to_practice.html

#10yrsago Leaked recording: pollution lobbyists discuss exploiting Syrian refugee crisis https://theintercept.com/2015/11/24/lobbyists-refugee-crisis/

#10yrsago Dell apologizes for preinstalling bogus root-certificate on computers https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2015/11/dell-apologizes-for-https-certificate-fiasco-provides-removal-tool/

#10yrsago Veronica Belmont on being overtaken by a meme https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bTThblbbnkM

6/

#10yrsago J Edgar Hoover was angry that the Boy Scouts didn’t thank him effusively enough https://www.muckrock.com/news/archives/2015/nov/24/j-edgar-hoover-insults/

#10yrsago WTO rules against US dolphin-safe tuna labels because they’re unfair to Mexican fisheries https://theintercept.com/2015/11/24/wto-ruling-on-dolphin-safe-tuna-labeling-illustrates-supremacy-of-trade-agreements/

#10yrsago Shamrock shake: Pfizer’s Irish “unpatriotic loophole” ducks US taxes https://arstechnica.com/science/2015/11/with-160-billion-merger-pfizer-moves-to-ireland-and-dodges-taxes/

#5yrsago Talking interop on EFF's podcast https://pluralistic.net/2020/11/24/zawinskiian-carcination/#comcom

7/

#5yrsago Cheap Chinese routers riddled with backdoors https://pluralistic.net/2020/11/24/zawinskiian-carcination/#jetstream

#5yrsago Emailifaction is digital carcinization https://pluralistic.net/2020/11/24/zawinskiian-carcination/#carcinization

#5yrsago Saudi Aramco is gushing debt https://pluralistic.net/2020/11/24/zawinskiian-carcination/#gusher

#5yrsago Sci-Fi Genre https://pluralistic.net/2020/11/24/zawinskiian-carcination/#asl

#1yrago The far right grows through "disaster fantasies" https://pluralistic.net/2024/11/24/mall-ninja-prophecy/#mano-a-mano

8/

Yesterday's threads: Cooking in Maximum Security; and more!

https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic/115605224506443045

9/

My latest novel is "Picks and Shovels," a historical technothriller set in the Weird Era of the PC, about Ponzi schemes, techbros, and the dawn of enshittification:

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865908/picksandshovels

--

My latest nonfiction book is the internationally bestselling "Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It," from MCD/Farrar, Straus and Giroux:

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374619329/enshittification/

10/

My ebooks and audiobooks (from FSGxMCD, Tor Books, Head of Zeus, McSweeneys, Beacon, Verso and others) are for sale all over the net, but I sell 'em too, and when you buy 'em from me, I earn twice as much and you get books with no DRM and no license "agreements."

https://craphound.com/shop/

11/

Yes, but have you considered the possibility that AI might become self-aware and enslave the human race? Or possibly come up with the solution to the climate emergency *and* the cure for cancer?

#ai

Hey folks! I am trying to locate an #NBER paper on the productivity of Silicon Valley workers (e.g., how much each SV worker contributes to their employer's bottom line). I know it exists, I just can't locate it. Any help very appreciated.

@evan Last night in LA - if it comes to Montreal ("Who Is the Sky?") you should 100% fucking see it. Life During Wartime was insane.

Inside a wheel.

Today's threads (a thread)

Inside: Disney has lost Roger Rabbit; and more!

Archived at: https://pluralistic.net/2025/11/18/im-not-bad/

#Pluralistic

1/

I'm on a tour with my new book, the international bestseller *Enshittification*!

Catch me next in #London, #Toronto and #SanDiego!

Full schedule with dates and links at:

https://pluralistic.net/tour

2/

The most exciting thing about Biden's antitrust enforcers was how *good* they were at their jobs. They were dead-on chapter-and-verse on every authority and statute available to the administrative branch, and they set about in earnest figuring out how to use those powers to help the American people:

https://www.eff.org/de/deeplinks/2021/08/party-its-1979-og-antitrust-back-baby

1/

AI can't do your job, but an AI salesman can convince your boss to fire you and replace you with an AI that can't do your job. Nowhere is that more true than in customer service:

https://pluralistic.net/2025/08/06/unmerchantable-substitute-goods/#customer-disservice

-

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2025/11/12/sorry-to-bother-you/#we-dont-care-we-dont-have-to

1/