Understood: Who Broke the Internet?
Host Cory Doctorow coined the word “enshittification” to describe the state of the modern internet: a broken down, decaying place, once full of promise, now overrun with intrusive ads, hateful trolls, aggressive algorithms, zero privacy, and AI-generated slop, with every billionaire tech titan in a race to the bottom to bleed their users and their customers alike.
It can feel like it was inevitable — but it didn’t have to be this way.The modern internet is the result of decisions made by powerful people, at key moments in history, despite repeated warnings about where it would lead.
In Understood: Who Broke the Internet?, Doctorow traces the downward spiral from the heady days of '90s tech-optimism through to today’s rotten “enshitternet.” You’ll meet everyone from visionaries to villains to regular people just trying to survive in today’s online world. And you’ll discover who broke the internet — and, more importantly, a plan to fix it.
Know more, now. Understood is an anthology podcast that takes you out of the daily news cycle and inside the events, people, and cultural moments you want to know more about. Over a handful of episodes, each season unfolds as a story, hosted by a well-connected reporter, and rooted in journalism you can trust. Driven by insight and fueled by curiosity…The stories of our time: Understood.
Season 1 - The Naked Emperor: the rise and fall of bitcoin king Sam Bankman-Fried.
Season 2 - The Pornhub Empire: the story of how a Montreal-founded company came to dominate the adult industry.
Season 3 - Modi’s India: how one man rose from poverty to the peak of political power.
Season 4 - Céline: the surprising cultural, political and business alchemy that created a superstar.
Season 5 - Who Broke the Internet? The internet sucks now, and it happened on purpose.
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