Google steers Americans looking for health care into "junk insurance" : An enshittified search monopolist meets the worst health care system imaginable.

mamot.fr/@pluralistic/11561125…

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Cory Doctorow

2025-11-25 16:22:13

Being "the enshittification guy" means people expect you to weigh in on every service or platform that;s been deliberately worsened to turn a buck. It's an impossible task (and a boring one, too). There's too much of this shit, and it's all so *mid* - a real "banality of enshittification" situation.

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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:

pluralistic.net/2025/11/25/ope…

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Pluralistic: Google steers Americans looking for health care into “junk insurance” (25 Nov 2025) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow

Pluralistic: Google steers Americans looking for health care into "junk insurance" (25 Nov 2025)

^{Cory Doctorow (Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow)}

Hey look at this

* Nvidia’s ‘I’m Not Enron’ memo has people asking a lot of questions already answered by that memo theverge.com/business/828047/n…

* How Black Friday Loyalty Programs Rip Off Shoppers economicpopulist.substack.com/…

* The Hater's Guide To NVIDIA wheresyoured.at/the-haters-gui…

* GrapheneOS migrates server infrastructure from France amid police intimidation claims privacyguides.org/news/2025/11…

* Competition Commissioner Boswell calls it quits early donotpassgo.ca/p/competition-c…

4/

#20yrsago Solar utility pole: streetlight, WiFi, CCTV and charger web.archive.org/web/2006050805…

#20yrsago Sony rootkit recall makes The Onion web.archive.org/web/2005112601…

#15yrsago Menstruating woman subjected to TSA grope because panty-liner obscured her vulva on pornoscanner blog.gladrags.com/2010/11/24/t…

#15yrsago Set to Sea: moving and beautiful graphic novel about a poet who becomes an involuntary sailor memex.craphound.com/2010/11/24…

5/

#10yrsago Cultural appropriation? Hindu nationalists used yoga as an anti-colonialist export web.archive.org/web/2015112403…

#10yrsago Leaked recording: pollution lobbyists discuss exploiting Syrian refugee crisis theintercept.com/2015/11/24/lo…

#10yrsago Dell apologizes for preinstalling bogus root-certificate on computers arstechnica.com/information-te…

#10yrsago Veronica Belmont on being overtaken by a meme youtube.com/watch?v=bTThblbbnk…

6/

#10yrsago J Edgar Hoover was angry that the Boy Scouts didn’t thank him effusively enough muckrock.com/news/archives/201…

#10yrsago WTO rules against US dolphin-safe tuna labels because they’re unfair to Mexican fisheries theintercept.com/2015/11/24/wt…

#10yrsago Shamrock shake: Pfizer’s Irish “unpatriotic loophole” ducks US taxes arstechnica.com/science/2015/1…

#5yrsago Talking interop on EFF's podcast pluralistic.net/2020/11/24/zaw…

7/

#5yrsago Cheap Chinese routers riddled with backdoors pluralistic.net/2020/11/24/zaw…

#5yrsago Emailifaction is digital carcinization pluralistic.net/2020/11/24/zaw…

#5yrsago Saudi Aramco is gushing debt pluralistic.net/2020/11/24/zaw…

#5yrsago Sci-Fi Genre pluralistic.net/2020/11/24/zaw…

#1yrago The far right grows through "disaster fantasies" pluralistic.net/2024/11/24/mal…

8/

Yesterday's threads: Cooking in Maximum Security; and more!

mamot.fr/@pluralistic/11560522…

9/

Cory Doctorow

2025-11-24 14:48:55

Today's threads (a thread)

Inside: Cooking in Maximum Security; and more!

Archived at: pluralistic.net/2025/11/24/moc…

#Pluralistic

1/

Pluralistic: Cooking in Maximum Security (24 Nov 2025) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow

Pluralistic: Cooking in Maximum Security (24 Nov 2025)

^{Cory Doctorow (Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow)}

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:

us.macmillan.com/books/9781250…

--

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:

us.macmillan.com/books/9780374…

10/

Picks and Shovels

New York Times bestselling author Cory Doctorow returns to the world of Red Team Blues to bring us the origin story of Martin Hench and the most powerful new...

^{SupaduDev (Macmillan Publishers)}

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."

craphound.com/shop/

11/

Upcoming appearances:

* #Toronto: Jailbreaking Canada (OCAD U), Nov 27
ocadu.ca/events-and-exhibition…

* #SanDiego: Enshittification at the Mission Hills Branch Library, Dec 1
libraryfoundationsd.org/events…

* #Seattle: Neuroscience, AI and Society (University of Washington), Dec 4
compneuro.washington.edu/news-…

* Virtual: Poetic Technologies with Brian Eno (David Graeber Institute), Dec 8
davidgraeber.institute/poetic-…

* #Madison, CT: Enshittification at RJ Julia, Dec 8
rjjulia.com/event/2025-12-08/c…

12/

Upcoming appearances (cont'd):

* #Hamburg: Chaos Communications Congress, Dec 27-30
events.ccc.de/congress/2025/in…

13/

Recent appearances:

* Enshittification Nation (The Lever)
levernews.com/enshittification…

* Enshittification with Oh God What Now
castbox.fm/episode/Why-Tech-Su…

* Enshittification with The Lede (New Lines Magazine)
newlinesmag.com/podcast/why-th…

* Today in Focus (The Guardian)
theguardian.com/news/audio/202…

* Enshittification with Vass Bednar (Vancouver Public Library)
crowdcast.io/c/0wzs9iu1q225

14/

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

Here's today's edition: pluralistic.net/2025/11/25/ope…

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If you prefer a newsletter, subscribe to the plura-list, which is ad-/tracker-free, and is utterly unadorned save a single daily emoji. Today's is "🩹". Suggestions solicited for future emojis!

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pluralistic.net/feed/

15/

I'm on a tour with my new book, the international bestseller *Enshittification*!

Catch me next in #Toronto (THURSDAY!), #SanDiego and #Seattle!

Full schedule with dates and links at:

pluralistic.net/tour

eof/