The Internet with Wow If True

Summary

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This Guy Sucked – "The Internet with Wow If True"

Date: October 9, 2025
Host: Dr. Claire Aubin
Guests: Amanda Silverling (Internet culture reporter), Isabel J. Kim (Science fiction author, JD)
Podcast Network: Multitude

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Episode Overview

In this special crossover episode, Dr. Claire Aubin is joined by Amanda Silverling and Isabel J. Kim of the podcast "Wow If True." The trio dives into the phenomenon of the declining quality of the internet, dissecting the process dubbed "enshittification." Through witty banter and sharp analysis, they break down the historical and cultural forces that have transformed once-beloved online platforms into ad-heavy, user-hostile walled gardens. Drawing from Cory Doctorow’s freshly published book "Enshittification," they explore how major internet companies have systematically eroded user experience for profit, why it feels like virtually every online service now sucks, and what this means for digital culture at large.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Internet Sucks Now: Setting the Stage

• [03:44] Amanda Silverling: Introduces the topic: "We are talking about this Internet sucks or enshittification, which is the concept of why does the Internet suck more now than it did before?"
• The episode forgoes traditional history to focus on the very recent past and present—how once-beloved websites and services are being ruined by business priorities.

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2. What is "Enshittification"?

• [07:43] Claire Aubin: Asks Amanda and Isabel to explain enshittification in layman's terms, as defined by Cory Doctorow.
• [07:55] Amanda Silverling:
  • Summarizes Doctorow’s four-phase model of platform decay:
    1. The platform is good to users (attracts them with perks, like early Lyft rides being discounted or free).
    2. The platform shifts to prioritizing business customers (ads begin invading Facebook and Instagram feeds).
    3. The platform starts squeezing business customers (e.g., Facebook disabling a lawyer named Mark Zuckerberg’s business account for no good reason).
    4. Finally, the platform becomes "a giant pile of shit."
    • "They become a giant pile of shit." ([10:01], Amanda Silverling)
• [10:06] Isabel J. Kim: Explains this as a "gradual extraction of value ... until it is just at the razor's edge of usable."
• [12:03] Isabel J. Kim: Offers a metaphor likening the platform to smart glasses: platforms have become lenses (or barriers) between people and the actual internet, motivated primarily by their desire to profit and deliver ads.

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3. Why Is This Happening? (Devolution From Decentralization to Platform Capture)

• [12:21] Isabel J. Kim: Details the shift from a decentralized, peer-to-peer internet to one where all communication is mediated (and monetized) by platforms acting as middlemen.
  • “It has gone from a decentralized ... people are talking to each other to people are talking to a platform which is talking to another person, and that platform is … 'God, I would love your money. Also, I would love to show you ads.'” ([12:21])

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4. Metaphor: Enshittification as Addiction

• [12:51-14:31] Dr. Claire Aubin: Compares enshittification to substance addiction:
  • Early dealings are attractive and beneficial, but over time, the "substance" (the platform) is less satisfying yet more essential due to entanglement with daily life.
  • Cites Doctorow's examples of why people can't just quit Facebook (i.e., rare disease communities).
  • “The enjoyment you're getting ... is progressively less, but ... you need it progressively more because it has become so utterly entangled with all ... your life.” ([13:20])

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5. Case Studies in Enshittification

a. Netflix

• [14:31] Amanda Silverling & Claire Aubin: Trace Netflix’s shift from DVD service to user-friendly streaming to a locked-down, ad-heavy, password-hostile paid service.
  • Amanda recounts her experience circumventing Netflix’s password crackdown just to watch "Love Is Blind," only to eventually succumb to making her own account with ads.
  • “Now they're constantly raising the price and being like, now there are different tiers of ads. Do you want some ads? Do you want many ads?” ([15:23], Claire Aubin)

b. Facebook and Instagram

• [11:00-11:32] Amanda Silverling: Discusses Meta’s smart glasses as a symbol of platforms trying to further entrench themselves between users and their experiences—ostensibly to bring friends "closer," but really just another avenue for data and ads.

c. The Return of Piracy

• [17:13] Isabel J. Kim: Notes that enshittification has, ironically, pushed people back toward piracy, just as the pre-Netflix internet was built on file-sharing and torrents.

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6. Personal Reflections & Notable Moments

• [05:54] Isabel J. Kim: Observes on streaming: "What's interesting is they've basically reinvented cable."
• Meta Commentary: The group jokes about not wanting to get sued by living billionaires ("Let Zuckerberg allegedly, allegedly, allegedly keep doing his alleged thing." [10:32], Claire Aubin).
• [02:09] Banter: Self-deprecating humor about academic credentials and "cousin shows" in the Multitude podcast network family.
• [11:43] Claire Aubin: On the impracticality of Zuckerberg’s smart glasses: "These metaverse goggle shit-things are never going to work for me until they're large and glamorous."

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Notable Quotes

• Amanda Silverling:
  • "The way that Cory Doctorow defines enshittification is like a four step process ... and then finally they become a giant pile of shit." ([09:59-10:01])
• Isabel J. Kim:
  • "It has gone from ... people are talking to each other to people are talking to a platform ... which is like, God, I would love your money. Also, I would love to show you ads." ([12:21])
  • "What's interesting is they've basically reinvented cable." ([16:21])
• Dr. Claire Aubin:
  • "The enjoyment you're getting out of this thing is progressively less, but ... you need it progressively more because it has become so utterly entangled with all the other parts of your life." ([13:20])

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• [03:44] — Introduction of enshittification as topic
• [07:55] — Doctorow's Model: Four Stages Explained
• [09:23] — Facebook business account legal case (platforms mistreat both users and businesses)
• [10:01] — "They become a giant pile of shit." (Key quote)
• [12:03-12:51] — Metaphor of smart glasses and platforms as middlemen
• [13:20] — Drug addiction analogy for user-platform relationships
• [14:31] — Netflix as enshittification case study
• [16:21] — Streaming "reinventing cable" and the cyclical return of piracy

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Tone & Style

The episode is irreverent, clever, and conversational, deploying dark humor to tackle the serious, frustrating realities of the modern web. All hosts share a "certified hater" badge in their respective fields, bringing together history, law, journalism, and personal anecdote.

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In summary:
This episode breaks down the modern internet’s descent into "enshittification." With reference to Cory Doctorow’s new book, the hosts dissect how user-centric platforms decay into ad-driven money pits, using personal stories and pop culture examples like Netflix. They balance insightful critique with humor, helping listeners understand the structural reasons why the digital world feels so much worse—and maybe, just maybe, inspiring them to become honorary haters themselves.

Transcript

[A]

Hi there, it's Claire. If you're hearing me, that means you're.

[B]

Listening to the free preview of one of our Patreon episodes. We switch off every week between free and Patreon exclusive episodes. So if you'd like to hear the rest of this conversation, head over to patreon.com thisguysucked and join our honorary haters club. A list of sensitive themes and topics covered in this episode can be found in the episode description.

[C]

Welcome to this Guy Suck the show.

[A]

Where we prove that it's never too.

[B]

Late to have haters and you can't libel the dead.

[A]

I'm your host, Dr. Claire Aubin, and I'm a historian, writer, and most importantly, certified haters.

[D]

And also.

[E]

And I'm Amanda Silverling, an Internet culture reporter, certified hater and not a doctorate holder.

[F]

And I'm science fiction author, not your attorney. And I doctorate holder on like the. Just like a technicality. Isabel J. Kim. Well, so technically it's a J.D. it's a jurist. Doctor. But if you call yourself cool, if you're an attorney and you call yourself a doctor, everyone will beat you up with hammers.

[D]

Wow.

[F]

So you can't do that.

[E]

Am I the first person to be.

[D]

On this show whose highest degree is a bachelor of Arts?

[A]

I'm not sure. So we've had one non historian on the show. We did a collaboration with Apod Lacha, but I am not sure. Yeah, what degrees?

[C]

No, actually, I do know Chuck is a lawyer, so the answer is yes.

[D]

Let's go.

[C]

So he is a doctor too.

[D]

Amazing. Wow. I am. I am thrilled to be here with my four year undergraduate degree. But more importantly, for the context of why we are here, Isabelle and I are the hosts of wow, if True.

[E]

Which is an Internet culture podcast that is part of Multitude, which this guy.

[D]

Sucked is also part of. And we are collaborating today because we have fun.

[C]

Cousin shows, cousin shows, sibling shows, cousin shows. We're in the show. A lovely family. And you know what they say about workplaces that call themselves a family. They don't respect labor laws.

[D]

I mean, I don't respect your time because I forgot what time it was. And I was like, shit, I have food in the oven. And that. That's on me. I'm sorry.

[C]

Well, you also missed the fact I was telling Isabelle this. I accidentally set this recording to last.

[A]

For 13 hours instead of one.

[D]

Yeah.

[F]

So are you ready to begin our 13 hour recording marathoning? We're just going to keep going. Amanda, this is.

[D]

This is like one of those NPR Shows where they're like, we need to record every word you say.

[E]

We're going to record it in, like.

[D]

20 different ways, and then we're going to just have the most meticulous editing. But we don't have to do that because we're built different. We got that dog in us.

[C]

Yeah, for sure. And we're not going to subject Julia to that. To the horrible, horrible terror of npr. Although. Shout out to npr.

[F]

We love you.

[C]

Thank you. Podcasts wouldn't exist without you, probably.

[D]

Woohoo. Yeah.

[F]

Why did we begin with, like, shitting on npr? NPR was like, literally fine.

[C]

NPR is great, actually. Of all the places.

[D]

Support public radio.

[C]

Support public radio and your local podcast collective, preferably one based in Brooklyn and named Multitude. Okay, so we've got kind of a.

[A]

Weird thing going on today, which is that we are kind of talking about history, but we're kind of not talking about history. And those of you who are listening for history, I think you'll still like.

[C]

It anyway, so just buckle up and listen regardless.

[A]

What are we talking about today?

[E]

We are talking about this Internet sucks or inshittification, which is the concept of why does the Internet suck more now.

[D]

Than it does before? Which is something more so that we would talk about on wow.

[E]

If True, where we just kind of explain the Internet and also, like, verbally shitpost in a way that's, like, cool and fun.

[F]

You're really selling our show. You're really selling our show to everybody.

[D]

Sell our show is. Well, go. Right?

[F]

Okay. Yeah.

[B]

Wow.

[F]

True is a podcast about Internet culture. And we are here because basically for, like, the past. Oh, God, like five years, like four or five years, we have been basically chronicling the weird stuff happening on the Internet. And both of us kind of have backgrounds in Amanda reports on the Internet. Like, this is, like, her day job. And I spend too much time online. But also as part of my law degree, I took a bunch of, like, courses on IP law in law school, including a bunch of, like, Internet policy stuff. And basically, there's been a gradual decline in the way the Internet is used that kind of, like, culminates in, like, last couple months have not been great on the Internet. Arguably, this all culminated, like, when Elon Musk bought Twitter and everything went downhill from there.

[C]

Wow.

[F]

If True heads know we cannot go an episode without mentioning Elon Musk. But yeah, so we're here to talk about why this Internet sucks.

[E]

Because we can libel the living.

[D]

We cannot say this guy sucked Elon Musk. But no, we could. We could.

[C]

I Mean, we could.

[A]

If we were saying things specifically that he's done that sucked. Like, we could be like. And shout out to being a historian, because I could just say things and be like, well, we actually have evidence for that, so it's fine. If we were literally saying a thing that he had done and we said that sucked, like, that would be okay. If we, like, lied about a thing.

[C]

That he had done, then we'd be in murkier waters.

[E]

Elon Musk.

[D]

It is true.

[C]

I'm gonna make Julia bleep that out, and it will be like, Elon Musk.

[D]

And Mark Zuckerberg also.

[C]

That one confirmed, though, honestly, there was.

[F]

A real fun part of, like, brainstorming this episode where I think me and Amanda both realized that all of the figures that we could talk about were all, like, alive and could throw legal dollars at us if we were mean to them.

[A]

Yeah, alive and like, really, really wealthy.

[C]

But also.

[D]

And actually, this will get us back.

[A]

Towards what we're supposed to be talking about.

[C]

Part of this also why it does.

[A]

Count as us not libeling the dead is that actually the Internet is dead. And so that actually full circle. I think Insidification also combines people on who are listening to this aren't seeing me do a fun hand gesture of combining my hands. But combines with dead Internet theory and inshinification. Go hand in little AI hand together, and they walk through the world that way. A lot of where we've gotten the information that we're gonna be talking about on the show other than our own sort of journeys through the Internet and through the online world, a lot of the information will be coming from Cory Doctorow's new book, Inshinification. Obviously, he's not here. Shout out to him. But his book will come out two days before this episode is released. I highly recommend getting it. But he is the person who invented the term inshinification and has a book called Inshinification, and it's really cool and really sad and scary.

[F]

Basically, on the other hand, great for this podcast because he had essentially collated a bunch of Internet history over the last, like, two decades and a bunch of anecdotes that basically meant that we could read this book and talk about this rather than having to track down 50 million, like, 4chan posts.

[E]

Yeah, yeah, totally. That is kind of my job.

[A]

Well, yeah, that is literally your job.

[C]

Is finding stuff online and talking about me.

[D]

Handshake, meme. Claire. Having to be on 4chan for work sometimes.

[C]

Can one of or both of you.

[A]

Explain your understanding of inside ification to me, because even though I read the book, there are a lot of things that I'm still kind of a baby on because a lot of these things happen, you know, 20 to 40 years after the people I work on died.

[E]

Yeah. So the basic headline of what insurification is is like, hey, you kind of know how, like, when you go on the Internet now, it's like everything is a million ads and like algorithmic feeds. And you go on and you're like, I can't find what my friend is posting on Instagram, but I can find what, like, this random influencer slash restaurant in my neighborhood is like, trying to get me to eat their kale chicken Caesar wrap or something. And it just feels very, like, overwhelming.

[B]

Yeah.

[E]

But the way that Cory Doctorow defines and certification is like a four step process of first, platforms are good to their users. This is like, I remember when Lyft first became a thing, it was like, every ride you take is like $10 off or like the first five rides are free. And I was like, yeah, this is great. I'm gonna like download Lyft and then take five rides and never use it again. And that was like 10 years ago. And then second, they abuse their users to make things better for the business customers. And that could mean in the context of something like Facebook making the news feed, have ads so businesses pay them. And then we see the ads and it's like things are starting to like, kind of get a little like, all right, they're trying to make money. I see this. And then third is they abuse those business customers to claw back at all the value for themselves.

[D]

A really funny example of this is I wrote recently about a lawsuit where a guy named Mark Zuckerberg, who is an attorney in Indiana, sued Facebook because they kept deactivating his business account because his name is Mark Zuckerberg.

[A]

Oh, no.

[D]

So he was paying for ads, but then they were disabling his account and not running the ads he paid for. That's a very silly version of this, but yeah. So now suddenly, like, first they abuse.

[E]

The users to make things better for.

[D]

The business customers, then they abuse the.

[E]

Business customers to make things better for them themselves. Because they've been like subsidizing things for.

[D]

So long and then finally, this is.

[E]

A direct quote, they become a giant pile of shit.

[A]

Well, yeah, yeah.

[F]

Basically it's like the gradual extraction of value, first from the people who use it first, second from the people who pay for it until it is just at the razor's edge of usable. But by now, for example, if we take Facebook, for example, everyone is using some sort of Facebook service, regardless of whether you want to or not. And the network effects that keep everyone captured on there very much just like, let Zuckerberg keep doing his thing.

[C]

Let Zuckerberg allegedly, allegedly, allegedly keep doing his alleged thing.

[D]

I don't know.

[F]

He seems excited about, like, some of these things.

[C]

Like, oh, yeah, he's having a great time.

[F]

The Metaverse. He was very excited about the Metaverse. Now he's very excited about sunglasses. Very excited to see what he's excited about next.

[E]

The thing is that the glasses actually are kind of cool. I don't think they should exist, Amanda.

[D]

But they did. Okay.

[E]

I don't think they should exist. But after, like, years and years of.

[D]

Pouring billions and billions of dollars and losing billions of dollars every quarter on Reality Labs, last week, they finally released.

[E]

Hardware that I'm like, all right, I see you've done some science here. I don't think it should exist. I don't think it's good. And I think it's weird that Mark Zuckerberg, like, we're making smart glasses where you can read your texts in your glasses so that you could be closer to your friends instead of looking at your phones. Where, like, that's bullshit.

[A]

Also, like, but your phone is just in your eyes.

[E]

Yeah, yeah, your phone's just in your.

[C]

Eyes now you're still looking at the phone.

[A]

I mean, my main problem is that they're just Ray Bans and people who.

[C]

Can'T see this don't know that myself. And also Amanda and Isabelle, but Isabelle.

[A]

Has more reasonably sized glasses. Amanda and I both have gigantic glasses.

[C]

Which means that these metaverse goggle shit.

[A]

Things are never going to work for.

[C]

Me until they're large and glamorous. I will not be interested until they.

[F]

Put prescriptions in them. Wait, okay. I can tie this back to what we're talking about, though, because.

[B]

Perfect.

[F]

Basically the same way that Mark would like you to use his product as an interface between your vision and the rest of the world. Inshinification happens because these platforms have inserted themselves as middlemen between you and the rest of the Internet.

[A]

Much like lenses.

[E]

Exactly.

[F]

A lot of what we're talking about today is basically due to the fact that over the last, like, 20, 25 years, probably since the inception of the Internet becoming more commercialized, basically, it has gone from a decentralized. People are talking to each other to people are talking to a platform which is talking to another person, and that platform is the guy who is like, God, I would love your money. Also, I would love to show you ads. Can I show you ads and take your money?

[E]

Please, Please?

[F]

And that sets up the conditions for insidification.

[A]

This is also a metaphor that may or may not work at all. And you can tell me to stop when it stops working, but I think there's almost a level where it follows a similar cycle as, like, substance addiction. Not in the sense of, like, you're going to get addicted to the Internet, but, like, in the relationship one has with whoever supplies whatever their substance is, where it's first. They're really great. Like, they'll be like, I'll do you a deal. I don't know from personal experience, guys.

[C]

But they'll be like, I'll do you a deal, or whatever.

[A]

Or they're like, it's good.

[C]

It's fun.

[A]

You love this thing, right? How great. And then it starts to be like, oh, let's make the margins a little better for ourselves. Let's stop doing deals that are super useful because they're going to want to use it anyways. And then it gets progressively worse and worse. And the enjoyment you're getting out of this thing is progressively less, but. But you need it progressively more because it has become so utterly entangled with all the other parts of your life. If you're, like, heavily experiencing addiction, like, you need this thing to survive, you're not really enjoying it anymore. But, like Facebook, for example, you're like, well, this is where I buy secondhand goods.

[C]

Or the.

[A]

The thing that Doctorow talks about in inshinification is like, well, maybe my child has a really rare disease, and this is the only place where there's community that I can talk to people who have this. But it's like, you don't want to still be this thing because it has this terrible effect on your life, but you kind of still have to. And now they're pulling money out of everywhere that they possibly can and trying to be like, well, we have a better version of this thing. Why don't you try this other drug? Why don't you try this harder drug? Why don't you do this other thing? And then your life sucks. And then your life is a pile of.

[E]

Yeah, did that metaphor work? I think the drug is Love is Blind on Netflix, where at first I was watching it because my parents had a Netflix account, and then I had their password, so I was getting a lot of value. I was like, hell, yeah. My parents are paying for this thing, and I have their password, and I don't have to pay for it. And I get to watch Love is Blind. But then they made it so that you can't password share. So then my user experience was texting.

[D]

My mom, hey, can you give me the little code they texted you so I can log into Netflix and watch Love is Blind. And then they made it so that.

[E]

You can have a less expensive account. But there will be ads. And I too often use little codes to get into my parents account that I had to make my own Netflix account with advertisements so that I can get my Love is Blind fix.

[A]

And now they're constantly raising the price and being like, now there are different tiers of ads. Do you want some ads? Do you want many ads? Do you want 4k? Or are you fine with 1080 HP? Like I HP, how many HP do you have?

[C]

Are you okay with 1080?

[F]

How many hit points do you want in your. You know, like, it's.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

I think Netflix is actually a perfect example of this insidification thing because they started as an improvement on something. Right? Like they were like, let's improve things from Blockbuster. That's always out of the thing that you.

[B]

That you want.

[A]

We'll just send it to you, you send it back. It's great.

[B]

It's really easy.

[A]

What if we then make it a platform where we stream things and we don't have physical copies anymore, but you don't want physical copies anymore anyways. Why would you want it? And then it's like, what if we make things that are only specific to Netflix and you can only watch them on Netflix, so you must pay us to have them. And then what if we make it harder for you to share passwords with other people? And then if we make like it's this thing where it's like, well, what's.

[F]

Interesting is they've basically reinvented cable.

[A]

Yeah.

[F]

And like, honestly, everything that's happening with streaming is a really interesting microcosm of what happened with the Internet. Because the Internet, as it was conceived of, was an improvement on the telephone system. And basically the way that this telephone system is in the iron grip of the many bells. And in a similar way, streaming started as an alternative to cable. And streaming is also regulated, or at least, you know, at the time it was regulated differently from cable. And it was very much kind of like, this is better than cable and we don't have ads. And what's kind of interesting is we've gotten to the point where there were enough streaming services that it is becoming difficult to find things you want to watch. And also it is becoming an interesting thing that they're doing at the same time is adding ads to them. So there's no upside to actually having any of these streaming platforms anymore. And people have started pirating again. Well, yeah. Yeah. Which is kind of like the same thing that was happening before streaming existed.

[B]

Thanks for listening to this preview of a Patreon exclusive episode to subscribe and.

[A]

Listen to it in full.

[B]

Head over to patreon.com this guy sucked.