The era beginning in 2023 has been defined by the mainstream arrival of enshittification as both a term and a framework. Doctorow delivered the defcon-31-enshittification-talk-2023 in August 2023, bringing the concept — developed over years on pluralistic-net — to a massive technical audience and triggering widespread media coverage. The enshittification-word-of-the-year-2023 recognition by macquarie-dictionary confirmed the term's cultural saturation.
the-internet-con (2023) is the programmatic nonfiction statement of this era: a short, accessible argument that the internet's decline is not inevitable but is the product of specific policy choices, and that interoperability-mandates are the primary remedy. Where chokepoint-capitalism-book diagnosed the problem across industries, the-internet-con focused specifically on platform decay and prescribed a treatment. The book explicitly addresses lina-khan's FTC work, tim-wu's return to government, and the broader antitrust revival.
The Martin Hench series — red-team-blues, the-bezzle, picks-and-shovels — brought Doctorow's ideas to a thriller audience. Hench is a forensic accountant who untangles financial crimes, and each novel uses that premise to explore enshittification dynamics in different sectors: crypto fraud, prison telecom monopolies, gig economy exploitation. the-lost-cause is a near-future climate novel exploring how communities organize in the face of civilizational stress.
This era has seen Doctorow's influence extend well beyond tech circles: the enshittification framework is now used by politicians, regulators, journalists, and ordinary users to describe platform experiences that previously lacked a common name. matt-stoller, lina-khan, and zephyr-teachout have all cited or engaged with his work. The era represents the full flowering of the political economy turn that began in the chokepoint-and-monopoly-era-2016-2022.