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Our cultural work for February 2026 is the Cory Doctorow book Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It.

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374619329/enshittification/

If you're an ebook or audiobook lover, please consider being a tiny part of the solution by purchasing a DRM-free copy from the author's shop. DRM-free audiobook copies are also available from Downpour. (The organizers do not receive compensation if you purchase from those shops.)

From the publisher:
Enshittification: It’s not just you—the internet sucks now. It’s been enshittified. That was no accident, and it’s not gonna fix itself. Here’s how we’ll disenshittify it so we can have a new, good internet.

We are all living through the Enshittocene—the Great Enshittening—a time in which the services that matter to us, that we rely on, are being turned into giant piles of [feces]. It’s frustrating. Demoralizing. Even terrifying.

The once-glorious internet has degenerated into “platforms” that rose to dominance because they delivered convenient and delightful services efficiently and reliably. But once we were locked in to those services, the tech bosses turned on us, relying on our dependency to keep us using the services even as they got worse and worse. The platform bosses did the same to the companies that had flocked to their services to sell stuff to us. Once we were all locked in—businesses and users—the tech companies stripped out all utility, save the bare minimum needed to stave off total collapse.

In Enshittification, Cory Doctorow shows us where it comes from: not the iron laws of economics, or the great forces of history, but specific policy choices made by powerful people who ignored every warning about the consequences of those choices. These are choices that can be undone. Enshittification is a Big Tech disassembly manual, a road map for the seizure of the means of computation. It is a diagnosis, and it is a cure.

About Culture Club:
Our fourth-Wednesday meetups are dedicated to discussion of a piece of culture – be it a book, a movie, an outside lecture, or something else – that is of interest to the group. Even if you have not read, listened, or watched this month's selected work but merely think it sounds intriguing, we hope that you will join us, since an outsider's perspective enhances every conversation.

You can browse the list of works we have already covered, and peep the queue of candidates for future meetings, here. If you would like to suggest a work for consideration, please check the link above first, and if you don't see it already listed, use this form.

Agenda:
6:30 - 7:00: Meet and greet
7:00 - 8:30: Discussion of featured work
8:30 - 9:00: General discussion and selection of next work

How to be:
Come with an open but critical mind, awareness of your own biases, and respect for your fellow humans. We're here to have a good conversation and a good time, and to that end your participation is subject to the Triangle Skeptics events code of conduct.

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