Cory Doctorow laments platform decay, profit-hungry tech companies in ABA Techshow keynote
As legal tech vendors mingled and showcased their products, Cory Doctorow stood steps away, delivering a scathing critique of technology.
To be clear, Doctorow, a science fiction novelist, journalist and technology advocate who delivered the keynote address at the ABA Techshow 2025 on Thursday at the McCormick Place Convention Center in Chicago, doesn’t hate tech itself. He hates the issues that often accompany tech and warns that companies must build a new internet that resists and survives climate change, fascism and other issues rampant today.
One key example of technology’s failure is embedded within nursing job apps, he said. Nurses are typically required to book shifts in a hospital via one of three apps. The apps, Doctorow says, buy nurses’ financial data and use this data to figure out the lowest possible rates to charge. The app makers understand that the distressed nurses will accept shifts at lower rates because they need the work.
“What’s going on here is emblematic of ‘enshitification,’ the decay of platforms,” Doctorow said.
Initially, tech platforms are created to be good to their users, or else no one would use them, he said. They suck you in, Doctorow said.
Follow along with the ABA Journal’s coverage of the ABA Techshow 2025 here.
Take Google, for example. It spent an unbelievable amount of money to snag users, offering them the opportunity to use Google to receive instant answers to searches in a way they had never experienced in the past. Google was magical, Doctorow said.
“You could Ask Jeeves questions for a million years,” he adds.
As soon as the public was hooked on Google, the company began abusing the end users to attract businesses, such as advertisers and web publishers. This is when ads started popping up on Google, he said.
But by 2019, Google’s search engine had grown as much as it possibly could. So they rigged the ad market, making searches worse on purpose to reduce the system’s accuracy so users must try multiple searches to get the answers they need, he said.
“We’re all still using Google,” Doctorow pointed out.
Doctorow ended his talk by warning participants about the downfall of tech workers. Originally, tech workers had power due to scarcity; with a tight labor market, tech bosses motivated their workforce with money and prestige. The companies appealed to a sense of mission and pride for tech workers, and began asking them to work for longer hours for less pay. As the tech worker market grew, those employees didn’t have as much power, and their salaries dropped while tech layoffs began.
“We are entering a period of crisis,” Doctorow said, leaving the attendees silent before they burst into applause for the speech. “Solidarity,” he said, “is your only path out.”
Write a letter to the editor, share a story tip or update, or report an error.
