CZM Rewind: Cory Doctorow and Ed Zitron on Enshittification and the Rot Economy

May 6, 2026

AI Summary

5 min read

In 2019, Google’s search business hit a “code yellow”—query growth had slowed because the company already commanded 90% of the market. The internal debate that followed, surfaced in Department of Justice documents, pitted Ben Gomes, the head of search who warned that Google cared only about growth, against Prabhagar Raghavan, the head of ads who argued that making search worse would make more money. Raghavan won. He mandated changes that blurred the line between ads and organic results and allowed previously suppressed spam sites to resurface, all to keep users clicking longer and generating more ad impressions. Google deliberately degraded its own product to goose revenue. Raghavan later moved on to run Google’s AI division, Gemini, where he oversaw the launch of an image generator that produced historically absurd results—Chinese George Washingtons, Black Nazis—and was eventually pushed out. But his work was done. Google search is now reliably worse, and the mechanism that produced that outcome is the same one operating across the entire tech industry.

The Rot Economy and the Policy That Enabled It

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What you'll learn

1 (02:36) **Opening & Guest Introductions** - Ed Zitron introduces the episode: a recorded panel from the Seattle Public Library with Cory Doctorow on enshittification, the rot economy, and platform destruction.
2 (05:11) **Why Google Sucks: The Code Yellow & Prabhagar Ragavan** - Ed explains the internal Google conflict that led to search quality decline, starting with a "code yellow" over slowing query growth.
3 (10:17) **The Rot Economy vs. Enshittification: Causes, Not Just Symptoms** - Cory argues that enshittification is not caused by "shopping wrong" or by bad individuals, but by an "enshittogenic environment" created by decades of policy.
4 (13:05) **Is This Inevitable Capitalism? The Policy Failure** - The moderator asks whether this rot is an inescapable feature of capitalism or a policy failure.
5 (19:54) **What Can Individuals Actually Do? Don't Vote With Your Wallet** - The moderator asks how average people can fight back when regulators aren't regulating.
6 (28:03) **The Missed Opportunity for Tech Workers** - Cory explains how tech workers once had enormous leverage but failed to unionize because they saw themselves as "temporarily embarrassed founders."
7 (32:15) **The AI Bubble: Is It Real?** - The moderator asks about the bubble and what small investors should do.

+ Full timestamped outline available in the app

Guests on this episode

Cory Doctorow Ed Zitron

Show Notes

This week’s Better Offline is a recording of a panel held by Clarion West in Seattle earlier this year with Cory Doctorow and Ed Zitron, discussing enshittification, The Rot Economy, and the destruction of modern tech platforms, moderated by Whitney Beltrán.

Original Air Date: 11.12.25

Cory Doctorow: https://craphound.com/
Whitney Beltrán: https://brightwhitney.com/

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Clarion West is a nonprofit literary organization that runs an acclaimed six-week residential workshop every summer, online classes and workshops, one-day and weekend workshops, a reading series every summer, and other events throughout the year. At Clarion West, you’ll be among award-winning and best-selling writers in science fiction, fantasy, games, horror, and more. Our workshops and classes are taught by world-class instructors from across the field of speculative fiction. Wherever you may be in your career, whether novice or sage, we offer a diverse listing of classes that is packed with valuable information to take your writing to the next level.

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