Ezra Klein
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Everything Wrong With the Internet and How to Fix It | The Ezra Klein Show
Posted
February 6, 2026
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1,692
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February 6, 2026
1,692
65
21
5.08%
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1:28:31Now PlayingRagebait, sponcon, A.I. slop — the internet of 2026 makes a lot of us nostalgic for the internet of 10 or 15 years ago.
What exactly went wrong here? How did the early promise of the internet get so twisted? And what exactly is wrong here? What kinds of policies could actually make our digital lives meaningfully better?
Cory Doctorow and Tim Wu have two different theories of the case, which I thought would be interesting to put in conversation together. Doctorow is a science fiction writer, an activist with the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the author of “Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It.” Wu is a law professor who worked on technology policy in the Biden White House; his latest book is “The Age of Extraction: How Tech Platforms Conquered the Economy and Threaten Our Future Prosperity.”
In this conversation, we discuss their different frameworks, and how they connect to all kinds of issues that plague the modern internet: the feeling that we’re being manipulated; the deranging of our politics; the squeezing of small businesses and creators; the deluge of spam and fraud; the constant surveillance and privacy risks; the quiet rise of algorithmic pricing; and the dehumanization of work. And they lay out the policies that they think would go furthest in making all these different aspects of our digital lives better.
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Internet has declined from early promise to current state
Facebook's stated mission for algorithmic feeds
Platforms manipulate users and exploit workers for billionaire profit
Tech platforms use extraction as primary business model
Monopoly extraction creates inefficient, oppressive economy
Facebook extracts value from users through surveillance and manipulation
96% of users opt out of Facebook spying when given choice
Platform enshittification: lock-in, then extraction from users and businesses
Tech workers lost power through failure to unionize
IP law prevents competition and enables platform enshittification
Facebook promised no surveillance to attract users from MySpace
Facebook lied about surveillance to users and advertisers
Facebook degraded service to users and advertisers through fraud
Zuckerberg's metaverse is surveillance-based imprisonment
Facebook profits from scam advertisements
Instagram shows algorithmic content, not user-selected content
Algorithmic feeds are more compelling but less liked by users
Meta blocked app that let users see chronological feeds
Legal ad blockers reduced browser invasiveness; app modification is illegal
Facebook exposed group membership data; users trapped by collective action
Amazon marketplace once enabled small business success
Amazon raised fees after locking in sellers and buyers
Amazon increased seller fees to over 50% and prevents price competition
Amazon's sponsored search results generate $56-70 billion annually
Amazon's top choice is most expensive, not best quality
Search results now filled with sponsored content, destroying user trust
Sponsored search results cost consumers $70 billion for worse service
Amazon operates as unregulated monopoly requiring regulation
Breaking up monopolies like AT&T spurred innovation and entrepreneurship
Google only innovates when threatened by competitors
Google's successes come from acquisitions, not internal innovation
Aqua hires indicate sick economy lacking real product development
Most tech workers are low-wage warehouse and delivery workers
Hospitals use algorithmic wage discrimination against nurses
US has no federal privacy law since 1988
Wage discrimination harms patients and workers through policy choices
Algorithmic price discrimination achieves market efficiency
Maximum price discrimination creates exploitative, unpleasant society
Extreme efficiency is inhuman and incompatible with family and community
Junk fees and attention mining are unfair and dehumanizing
Economics ignores whose interests optimization serves
Surveillance enables optimization and discrimination across economy
Platforms exploit data without regulation or accountability
Microsoft sells employee surveillance and competitor intelligence
Harmful technology is tested on powerless groups first
Amazon surveils drivers including intimate moments and docks pay for minor infractions
Automation dehumanizes workers by eliminating human relationships
Automation can either humanize or dehumanize work
Worker surveillance should be debated as values question in democracy
Automation creates tradeoff between consumer benefit and worker dehumanization
Society should vote on technology policy instead of defaulting to innovation
Congress blocked child privacy laws despite public support
Healthy vs toxic competition in attention markets
Government failed to regulate toxic tech despite national security concerns
Apps should not track users without consent
GDPR cookie consent creates burden on consumers instead of protecting them
GDPR failed to prevent surveillance due to government cowardice
GDPR overregulation protects big tech and harms small competitors
Government must help powerless people against powerful corporations
Tech companies use Irish tax havens to avoid GDPR enforcement
Monopolies are more powerful than governments and resist regulation
Government must break up tech cartels to restore competition
Lobbying makes regulation difficult regardless of monopoly status
Netflix-Time Warner merger would eliminate competition and innovation
Internal bidding cannot replace competition between separate companies
Regulation requires values-based judgment, not neutral rules
Democrats avoid values-based regulation in favor of neutrality
Liberalism's neutrality prevents vision of good society
Society needs vision of good country to guide regulation
Interoperability rules would let users escape harassment while staying connected
Section 1201 DMCA should be repealed to allow device modification
Federal privacy law with private right of action needed
Social media should require interoperability like phone carriers
Government should ban toxic business models like child exploitation
Essential platforms should be regulated as utilities without discrimination
Utilities don't discriminate between manufacturers; platforms should follow same rules
Cap platform margins and prevent monopolies from blocking competitors
Healthy competition creates good content; toxic competition uses manipulation
Banning toxic business models would improve competition and protect children
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