We Didn’t Ask for This Internet
About this episode
Ezra Klein brings together Cory Doctorow and Tim Wu, two critics who argue the internet's promise was captured by corporate power. Wu's concept is 'extraction': monopoly platforms like Amazon turned from serving buyers and sellers to squeezing both — Amazon's cut of seller revenue rose as it charged for fulfillment and $56–70 billion a year in pay-to-rank advertising. Doctorow's is 'enshittification': platforms first please users to lock them in, then exploit business customers, then degrade everything for everyone, enabled by 20 years of expanded IP law that blocks interoperability and competition. They survey the damage to small business, gig workers surveilled by bossware, and the attention economy. On fixes they largely agree: repeal anti-circumvention rules, create a federal privacy right with a private right of action, mandate social-media interoperability, treat core platforms as utilities, and sustain antitrust pressure — including blocking the Netflix–Warner Bros. Discovery merger.