How Enshittification Conquered the 21st Century and How We Can Overthrow It

In this thought-provoking 32-minute keynote from CloudFest, author, activist, and journalist Cory Doctorow delivers a hard-hitting and often humorous analysis of "enshittification" - the degradation of digital services that has swept through the tech world over the past decade. Explore how this phenomenon has accelerated as various sectors including grocery stores, nursing agencies, and public schools migrated to the Cloud and became digital services. Learn why digital services are particularly vulnerable to enshittification, especially when your data resides in someone else's Cloud, enabling providers to lock you in, raise prices, and tie services together. Understand that enshittification isn't inevitable but rather the result of specific policy choices made by individuals who were warned of the consequences. Discover potential policy alternatives, pathways to implement these changes, and strategies to end what Doctorow calls the "enshittocene" to build a better internet with clouds and endpoints that are safe for human habitation.