The first half of the book is great.
The second half has ads that take up more and more of the page until you reach a page that is just ads and a QR code.
When you scan the code, it takes you to a website asking you to pay a subscription for the remaining pages.
(If you rate five stars, they send a 10% discount code to your email and add you to a newsletter list without an unsubscribe button.)
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.
Whoosh
It’s a joke, mate.
Oh, woosh…
He has the first hour and a half (of 9) in his latest podcast, if you want a real preview: https://craphound.com/podcast/2025/08/28/enshittification-episode-500/
I decided to order the epub because no matter how I try, I can’t enjoy Wesley’s voice (sorry Will).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.
Wow, my brain really failed me here! I ALSO listened to Picks and Shovels recently, which was narrated by Will Wheaton, and somehow the voices got switched in my memory. You are correct, Cory recorded this himself.
Expected release date: 7 October 2025
An older book I frequently refer to:
On Bullshit | Princeton University Press https://share.google/DaiZS6wG7SiOCdRcg
“One of the most prominent features of our world is that there is so much bullshit. Yet we have no clear understanding of what bullshit is, how it’s distinct from lying, what functions it serves, and what it means.”
Dafuq is a share.google
It’s spelled “enshittification.”
He enshittified my favorite word!
He got it right (which makes sense; he coined the term); OP didn’t.
This is Frickin sick.
I must get a copy, i love this authors writing. I also very much enjoy he respects the right of ownership and anti-drm
Audiobook? Bah, I remember when books were for reading.
If you actually read the Kickstarter page, he’s selling a physical and ebook version of it as well.
Also, maybe practice reading a webpage before you act pretentious about book formats.
What? No you don’t. Oral book readings predate regular book reading as a widespread practice by literally thousands of years.
Yeah, but that was because in those days most people were actually illiterate, which in recent history we considered a bad thing and tried to avoid, but it seems to be making a comeback unfortunately.
(Nothing against audiobooks specifically, you gotta do what you gotta do, just suggesting the decline in literacy in general is worrisome)
Not true, even highly educated Roman and Greek elites would attend book readings. It was considered a leisure activity and was appreciated as the performance it was, same as today.
In fact today we have more reasons than ever to listen to audiobooks, the most significant of which is that it’s not legal nor advisable to read a physical book while driving a motor vehicle.
Somehow, I don’t think the original commenter was referring to their memories of ancient Greece or Rome…
Well yeah, because the original commenter wasn’t referring to their memories of any period of time, because the period of time they’re referring to doesn’t exist.
It existed in the 90s and early 00s when I was growing up, before streaming tech took over audio books.
Just because the concept of reading books out loud already existed, doesn’t mean that they don’t remember a time when it wasn’t more popular than just reading.
It existed in the 90s and early 00s
I was around in the 90s and early 00s and I can assure you it very much did not. The popularity of audiobooks grew significantly in the 90s. Books on tape had been a thing for awhile already and the popularity of audiobooks on CD exploded in the early to mid 90s. You could buy or even rent them from music stores, libraries, video stores, even supermarkets. They even had little listening stations where you could hear the first chapter of popular books before buying them.
In 1995 Audible was founded and brought about the advent of digital audiobooks downloaded from the internet which only accelerated their popularity. By the time the 00s started audiobooks were a multi billion dollar industry.
doesn’t mean that they don’t remember a time when it wasn’t more popular than just reading.
Well that’s also a misunderstanding of the history of Audiobooks because I believe even today audiobooks are not more popular than reading physical books. So that time you “remember” would be… the present. So what is your point here exactly, you think OP is turning his nose up at audiobooks out of a sense of superiority due to his memories of a time where listening to books being read existed but was less popular than it is now in the future, but also in the past? Like we somehow peaked during some minuscule point in time where listening to books was at a lower point than others? Oook
