Trevor’s review of Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It > Likes and Comments
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Love your reviews. This been on my TBR for a while but waiting for a moment when I’m prepared to be angry haha feel similarly to you on all that you say here… what a weird world we are in eh?
I actually like Goodreads because of its enshittification. It's clearly too incompetent to surveil me.
Hee hee. Love reading about the poopification of social media!
Thank you all. I wouldn’t bank on it, Wick. I would bet that’s the only aspect of the site they’ve kept up to date
There are very few platforms that play fair even after reaching monopoly status. Steam is one such platform, if I’m not wrong. Gabe Newell has kept gamers as well as publishers and studios happy for the most part, despite Steam’s monopoly on online games purchasing. Did the author mention any such examples in the book?
They most certainly already use reviews to train LLM to replace or push out human critics, so I’d also be wary of its apparently very shitty cover, to reuse Trevor’s metaphor. // I’m glad you liked it because it appeals to me and I’d read mixed reviews (but you I trust).
Ashutosh, he doesn’t mention Steam. Bit Tyrants discusses Unity and how it sought rents from game developers. I don’t know anything about Steam.
I had to stop watching Black Mirror because it felt too real…but I will definitely add this book to my list. And probably watch the episode you mention. Do you realize how hard it is to stop reading/watching to keep one’s sanity & at the same time be aware? It’s a lose lose world we live in.
I have many friends who refuse to read the news. I totally understand. Sometimes I wish I could join them. But I find it impossible to look away. What you say is true. For one of my friends, I give her a weekly update on the news. I can’t say it encourages her to find out more
I wished so many times I could delete Instagram but most of the updates I have of my friends’ lives are through that account. I agree with you, social media is making ourselves feel inferior and compare our reality to staged lives. If you think too much about interactions nowadays you will feel totally controlled and like your life and time is being taken away from you. Loved this review, will add this book to my tbr for sure.
I keep wanting to get off FaceBook, but there are people there that I have virtually no other contact with. The manipulation is real
Ed, I quit Instagram and never looked back. When you quit, you’re essentially removing useless information that’s unnecessarily occupying mindspace. And you’re left with only the people that matter in your life. You take more efforts to meet them IRL. Instagram makes you feel like you’re socializing, but it’s fake. It just tricks you by making you feel like it’s fulfilling your need to be around people, by “chatting” with them or sharing memes, but it isn’t real.
Trevor, I’ll be checking out Bit Tyrants. Thanks
on the subject of Steam, its per-employee one of the most profitable firms on the planet, basically charging a rent on all PC gaming (30% cut of the sale price of a game, I believe). Where is that 30% going? to make betters games? No, its just a function of monopoly. Yes, I enjoy using Steam, but I wouldnt say it plays fairly with game studios.
Thank you for this review. Im still young and a bit on naive side, but also noticing the same trends around - everything is on subscription and it seems like you cannot exist without paying some big tech company for goods that will never become yours anyway. There is also an interesting short documentary movie on YouTube channel @BusinessInsider that speak about the same issue. Anyways, thank you for your review and homework, will look into it! And I do hope you will stay on Goodreads as your reviews are very intuitive. Greetings from Netherlands.
The author mentions how Amazon deleted books from people's Kindles after they had purchased them. As he says, it would be a bit like your local bookshop breaking into your house and stealing a book you had purchased from them. And yet, no one seems to think twice about these things. Thanks Lassie.
I echo Lassie's sentiment Trevor- I hope you will continue to feel trapped on goodreads, a hilariously low utility website (and I'm using the iPhone app, god it is even worse) because I enjoy your reviews so much. You are my New York Review Of Books. I too shall do my homework.
Too kind, Yvette. I enjoy writing the reviews too much to leave - but that's the point of the book. They make a world that you don't want to leave and then make it so bad you would be insane to not think about it.
Basically, any commentary on the Internet from Cory Doctorow or Ed Zitron, you can take to the bank.
Thank you all for the discussion! And Trevor, sir, you've done it again. But this book is not going on my TBR because my son and I are already stressed over how bad things really are getting.
(Btw, he's a fan of Steam, and pretty much trusts it.)
I don’t know Ed Zitron. And I totally understand, Cheryl. I think I must be a sucker for punishment
Great review! Enshittification has hit a load of fans! :-)
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Stephanie
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May 18, 2026 02:44AM
Love your reviews. This been on my TBR for a while but waiting for a moment when I’m prepared to be angry haha feel similarly to you on all that you say here… what a weird world we are in eh?
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I actually like Goodreads because of its enshittification. It's clearly too incompetent to surveil me.
Hee hee. Love reading about the poopification of social media!
Thank you all. I wouldn’t bank on it, Wick. I would bet that’s the only aspect of the site they’ve kept up to date
There are very few platforms that play fair even after reaching monopoly status. Steam is one such platform, if I’m not wrong. Gabe Newell has kept gamers as well as publishers and studios happy for the most part, despite Steam’s monopoly on online games purchasing. Did the author mention any such examples in the book?
They most certainly already use reviews to train LLM to replace or push out human critics, so I’d also be wary of its apparently very shitty cover, to reuse Trevor’s metaphor. // I’m glad you liked it because it appeals to me and I’d read mixed reviews (but you I trust).
Ashutosh, he doesn’t mention Steam. Bit Tyrants discusses Unity and how it sought rents from game developers. I don’t know anything about Steam.
I had to stop watching Black Mirror because it felt too real…but I will definitely add this book to my list. And probably watch the episode you mention. Do you realize how hard it is to stop reading/watching to keep one’s sanity & at the same time be aware? It’s a lose lose world we live in.
I have many friends who refuse to read the news. I totally understand. Sometimes I wish I could join them. But I find it impossible to look away. What you say is true. For one of my friends, I give her a weekly update on the news. I can’t say it encourages her to find out more
I wished so many times I could delete Instagram but most of the updates I have of my friends’ lives are through that account. I agree with you, social media is making ourselves feel inferior and compare our reality to staged lives. If you think too much about interactions nowadays you will feel totally controlled and like your life and time is being taken away from you. Loved this review, will add this book to my tbr for sure.
I keep wanting to get off FaceBook, but there are people there that I have virtually no other contact with. The manipulation is real
Ed, I quit Instagram and never looked back. When you quit, you’re essentially removing useless information that’s unnecessarily occupying mindspace. And you’re left with only the people that matter in your life. You take more efforts to meet them IRL. Instagram makes you feel like you’re socializing, but it’s fake. It just tricks you by making you feel like it’s fulfilling your need to be around people, by “chatting” with them or sharing memes, but it isn’t real.
Trevor, I’ll be checking out Bit Tyrants. Thanks
on the subject of Steam, its per-employee one of the most profitable firms on the planet, basically charging a rent on all PC gaming (30% cut of the sale price of a game, I believe). Where is that 30% going? to make betters games? No, its just a function of monopoly. Yes, I enjoy using Steam, but I wouldnt say it plays fairly with game studios.
Thank you for this review. Im still young and a bit on naive side, but also noticing the same trends around - everything is on subscription and it seems like you cannot exist without paying some big tech company for goods that will never become yours anyway. There is also an interesting short documentary movie on YouTube channel @BusinessInsider that speak about the same issue. Anyways, thank you for your review and homework, will look into it! And I do hope you will stay on Goodreads as your reviews are very intuitive. Greetings from Netherlands.
The author mentions how Amazon deleted books from people's Kindles after they had purchased them. As he says, it would be a bit like your local bookshop breaking into your house and stealing a book you had purchased from them. And yet, no one seems to think twice about these things. Thanks Lassie.
I echo Lassie's sentiment Trevor- I hope you will continue to feel trapped on goodreads, a hilariously low utility website (and I'm using the iPhone app, god it is even worse) because I enjoy your reviews so much. You are my New York Review Of Books. I too shall do my homework.
Too kind, Yvette. I enjoy writing the reviews too much to leave - but that's the point of the book. They make a world that you don't want to leave and then make it so bad you would be insane to not think about it.
Basically, any commentary on the Internet from Cory Doctorow or Ed Zitron, you can take to the bank.
Thank you all for the discussion! And Trevor, sir, you've done it again. But this book is not going on my TBR because my son and I are already stressed over how bad things really are getting.(Btw, he's a fan of Steam, and pretty much trusts it.)
I don’t know Ed Zitron. And I totally understand, Cheryl. I think I must be a sucker for punishment
Great review! Enshittification has hit a load of fans! :-)
