LoL I thought you were serious for a second

Isn't that the point though? The book enshittifies

Or am I missing the ironic tone?

Do you have any screenshots? And is it the retail version or is it some early version? Retail's supposed to only come out in October.

FWIW Cory narrates this book. And he has a YouTube video embedded that has the first hour if you want to hear how it sounds.

I agree with you about Wesley (🤮), but that's not really relevant to this book?

Cory recorded the audio himself to my understanding (listened to his appearance on the QAA podcast), and it sounds like his voice reading it on the linked podcast.

His ideas are fantastic. Execution and characterization are spotty. Been a while since I read anything of his, but IIRC, he has a tendency to dip into surrealism or absurdity that feels cringey instead of his artistic target.

In some ways, it's similar to a lot of Golden Era SF. You read it for the ideas, not the story.

I do have a favorable opinion of him and his work. I'd really enjoy Doctorow being paired with a traditional fiction author and both being rode herd by a hardass SF editor.

I find the non-fiction stuff he writes good (e.g. The Internet Con, Chokepoint Capitalism). I believe this book is like that?

I found his fiction, based on the one book (The Lost Cause) I read, to be a bit juvenile in style (as in feels like a young adults kind of book) to the point I didn't quite enjoy it, although the topics are interesting enough.

For non-fiction I've read Chokepoint Capitalism and The Internet Con. The Internet Con was a lot like his online essays, to the point where it felt redundant, but he does good essays so if you haven't read them it's a good way to get around his work. Chokepoint Capitalism was a little more novel (probably in part because he coauthoured). Neither were very dry, which is significant for the genre.

Fiction, I've read Walkaway and Unauthorised Bread. Walkaway is good worldbuilding with both fascinating and bizarre ideas, but I don't think it's good fiction. Unauthorised Bread is a short story available online and is excellent.

I highly recommend the recent episode of the QAA podcast with Doctrow, it's an amazing listen!

He enshittified my favorite word!

https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691122946/on-bullshit

actual link

Dafuq is a share.google

Why do you think everyone is using the term is wrong? Plenty of words get overused until they become meaningless but I have mainly seen enshittification used to refer to large companies significantly degrading their product in a bid to increase profits which is what I understand it to mean. If it's used a lot, it's because it's happening a lot (often by companies who built their products in the zero interest rate, infinite money era and now have to face the new reality).

It's authored by the guy who coined the term originally; so however he's using it, that's the way it's used.