Today's threads (a thread)

[pluralistic@mamot.fr]

The web is bearable with RSS: And don't forget "Reader Mode."

Cory Doctorow (@pluralistic@mamot.fr)

Attached: 1 image Never let them tell you that enshittification was a mystery. Enshittification isn't downstream of the "iron laws of economics" or an unrealistic demand by "consumers" to get stuff for free. -- If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog: https://pluralistic.net/2026/03/07/reader-mode/#personal-disenshittification 1/

Mamot - Le Mastodon de La Quadrature du Net (mamot.fr)

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[pluralistic@mamot.fr]

Hey look at this

* The Real Litmus Test for Democratic Presidential Candidates https://www.hamiltonnolan.com/p/the-real-litmus-test-for-democratic

* Users fume over Outlook.com email 'carnage' https://www.theregister.com/2026/03/04/users_fume_at_outlookcom_email/ (if you're on Outlook or Hotmail and haven't been getting my newsletter, this is why)

* You Bought Zuck’s Ray-Bans. Now Someone in Nairobi Is Watching You Poop. https://blog.adafruit.com/2026/03/04/you-bought-zucks-ray-bans-now-someone-in-nairobi-is-watching-you-poop/

* Indefinite Book Club Hiatus https://whatever.scalzi.com/2026/03/03/indefinite-book-club-hiatus/

* Art Bits from HyperCard https://archives.somnolescent.net/web/mari_v2/junk/hypercard/

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[pluralistic@mamot.fr]

#25yrsago 200 Eyemodule photos from Disneyland https://craphound.com/030401/

#20yrsago Fourth Amendment luggage tape https://ideas.4brad.com/node/367

#15yrsago Glenn Beck’s syndicator runs a astroturf-on-demand call-in service for radio programs https://web.archive.org/web/20110216081007/http://www.tabletmag.com/life-and-religion/58759/radio-daze/

#15yrsago 20 lies from Scott Walker https://web.archive.org/web/20110308062319/https://filterednews.wordpress.com/2011/03/05/20-lies-and-counting-told-by-gov-walker/

#10yrsago The correlates of Trumpism: early mortality, lack of education, unemployment, offshored jobs https://web.archive.org/web/20160415000000*/https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/03/04/death-predicts-whether-people-vote-for-donald-trump/

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[pluralistic@mamot.fr]

#10yrsago Hacking a phone’s fingerprint sensor in 15 mins with $500 worth of inkjet printer and conductive ink https://web.archive.org/web/20160306194138/http://www.cse.msu.edu/rgroups/biometrics/Publications/Fingerprint/CaoJain_HackingMobilePhonesUsing2DPrintedFingerprint_MSU-CSE-16-2.pdf

#10yrsago Despite media consensus, Bernie Sanders is raising more money, from more people, than any candidate, ever https://web.archive.org/web/20160306110848/https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/sanders-keeps-raising-money--and-spending-it-a-potential-problem-for-clinton/2016/03/05/a8d6d43c-e2eb-11e5-8d98-4b3d9215ade1_story.html

#10yrsago Calculating US police killings using methodologies from war-crimes trials https://granta.com/violence-in-blue/

#1yrago Brother makes a demon-haunted printer https://pluralistic.net/2025/03/05/printers-devil/#show-me-the-incentives-i-will-show-you-the-outcome

5/

[pluralistic@mamot.fr]

#1yrago Two weak spots in Big Tech economics https://pluralistic.net/2025/03/06/privacy-last/#exceptionally-american

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[pluralistic@mamot.fr]

Thursday's threads: Blowtorching the frog; and more!

Cory Doctorow (@pluralistic@mamot.fr)

Attached: 1 image Today's threads (a thread) Inside: Blowtorching the frog; and more! Archived at: https://pluralistic.net/2026/03/05/executive-dysfunction/ #Pluralistic 1/

Mamot - Le Mastodon de La Quadrature du Net (mamot.fr)

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[pluralistic@mamot.fr]

My latest novel is "Picks and Shovels," a historical technothriller set in the Weird Era of the PC, about Ponzi schemes, techbros, and the dawn of enshittification:

Just a moment...

(us.macmillan.com)

--

My latest nonfiction book is the internationally bestselling "Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It," from MCD/Farrar, Straus and Giroux:

Just a moment...

(us.macmillan.com)

8/

[pluralistic@mamot.fr]

My ebooks and audiobooks (from FSGxMCD, Tor Books, Head of Zeus, McSweeneys, Beacon, Verso and others) are for sale all over the net, but I sell 'em too, and when you buy 'em from me, I earn twice as much and you get books with no DRM and no license "agreements."

https://craphound.com/shop/

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[pluralistic@mamot.fr]

Upcoming appearances:

* #SanFrancisco: Launch for Cindy Cohn's "Privacy's Defender" (City Lights), Mar 10
https://citylights.com/events/cindy-cohn-launch-party-for-privacys-defender/

* #Barcelona: Enshittification with Simona Levi/Xnet (Llibreria Finestres), Mar 20
https://www.llibreriafinestres.com/evento/cory-doctorow/

* #Berkeley: Bioneers keynote, Mar 27
https://conference.bioneers.org/

* #Montreal: Bronfman Lecture (McGill) Apr 10
https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/artificial-intelligence-the-ultimate-disrupter-tickets-1982706623885

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[pluralistic@mamot.fr]

Upcoming appearances (cont'd):

* #London: Resisting Big Tech Empires (LSBU)
https://www.tickettailor.com/events/globaljusticenow/2042691

* #Berlin: Re:publica, May 18-20
https://re-publica.com/de/news/rp26-sprecher-cory-doctorow

* #Berlin: Enshittification at Otherland Books, May 19
https://www.otherland-berlin.de/de/event-details/cory-doctorow.html

* #HayOnWye: HowTheLightGetsIn, May 22-25
https://howthelightgetsin.org/festivals/hay/big-ideas-2

12/

[pluralistic@mamot.fr]

Recent appearances:

* The Virtual Jewel Box (U Utah)
https://tanner.utah.edu/podcast/enshittification-cory-doctorow-matthew-potolsky/

* Tanner Humanities Lecture (U Utah)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i6Yf1nSyekI

* The Lost Cause
https://streets.mn/2026/03/02/book-club-the-lost-cause/

* Should Democrats Make A Nuremberg Caucus? (Make It Make Sense)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWxKrnNfrlo

* Making The Internet Suck Less (Thinking With Mitch Joel)
https://www.sixpixels.com/podcast/archives/making-the-internet-suck-less-with-cory-doctorow-twmj-1024/

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[pluralistic@mamot.fr]

You can follow these posts as a daily blog at pluralistic.net: no ads, trackers, or data-collection!

Here's today's edition: https://pluralistic.net/2026/03/07/reader-mode/

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15/

[pluralistic@mamot.fr]

I'm also on Bluesky. Read today's thread there at:

By Cory Doctorow (GPG 0xBF3D9110957E5F4C) (@doctorow.pluralistic.net)

Never let them tell you that enshittification was a mystery. Enshittification isn't downstream of the "iron laws of economics" or an unrealistic demand by "consumers" to get stuff for free. 1/

Bluesky Social (bsky.app)

eof/

[hellomiakoda@pdx.social]

@pluralistic I fucking love RSS!

[alchomik@social.vivaldi.net]

@pluralistic interesting. And the most often I read your pieces through the Inoreader app

[nocturnalnessa@infosec.exchange]

@hellomiakoda as someone who had a smartphone in middle school newsboat has been my main "social media app" since starting college because its fucking ZEN and the "normal way" is chaos

[strange_new_words@tenforward.social]

@pluralistic These are great recommendations, and I can't wait to try them!

It's interesting how, as web search fails, word of mouth has been taking its place. In that spirit, I'd like to add that I use uBlock Origin rules to block parts of specific websites that I don't like. For example, these two custom rules will banish the New York Times Opinion section:

www.nytimes.com##div.css-1w1paqe:has(section#large-opinion-label)

www.nytimes.com##li[data-testid="nav-item-Opinion"]

[dex77@chaos.social]

@pluralistic

using self-hosted selfoss for.. I dont know, whenever goole reader was killed.

#Pluralistic

[mpaluchowski@mastodon.online]

@pluralistic some RSS readers, like FreshRSS I'm using, also support feeds from parsed HTML with content selected by XPath (or other means). This way I can have feeds for websites that don't publish RSS.

[ploum@mamot.fr]

@mpaluchowski @pluralistic : this approach is automatized and crowdsourced to extract the real content from enhshitified webpages.

ftr-site-config is a communautary project to create xpath rules for websites (more than 2000 websites supported currently)

unmerdify is a python library using those rules to parse a webpage.

#Offpunk is a command-line browser using unmerdify by default when available to read a website.

Say goodbye to the enshitified Web!

Splitting the Web

Splitting the Web par Ploum - Lionel Dricot.

(ploum.net)