Cory Doctorow's Blog, page 2
February 2, 2025
Canada shouldn’t retaliate with US tariffs
This week on my podcast, I read Canada shouldn’t retaliate with US tariffs, a recent post from my Pluralistic newsletter.
But you know what Canada could make? A Canadian App Store. That’s a store that Canadian software authors could use to sell Canadian apps to Canadian customers, charging, say, the standard payment processing fee of 5% rather than Apple’s 30%. Canada could make app stores for the Android, Playstation and Xbox, too.
There’s no reason that a Canadian app store would have to c...
January 26, 2025
The Weight of a Feather (The Weight of a Heart)
This week on my podcast, I’m reading “The Weight of a Feather (The Weight of a Heart),” my short story in Harlan Ellison’s The Last Dangerous Visions, commissioned by J. Michael Straczynski.
Margaret came into my office, breaking my unproductive clicktrance. She looked sheepish. “I got given one of those robots that follows you around,” she said. She took a step, revealing the waist-high reinforced cardboard box. “Want to help unbox?
I stood up and unkinked my spine and hips and shoulders wi...
January 20, 2025
Enshittification isn’t caused by venture capital
This week on my podcast, I’m reading “Enshittification isn’t caused by venture capital,” the latest post from my Pluralistic.net blog. It’s about the new “Free Our Feeds” project and why I think the existence of Mastodon doesn’t mean we shouldn’t pay attention to making Bluesky as free as possible.
When tech critics fail to ask why good services turn bad, that failure is just as severe as the failure to ask why people stay when the services rot.
Now, the guy who ran Facebook when it was a gr...
January 10, 2025
Picks and Shovels Chapter One
This week on my podcast, I’ve got Wil Wheaton reading the first chapter of the audiobook of Picks and Shovels, the next Martin Hench novel, which is out next month. Please consider supporting my work by pre-ordering the book as a hardcover, DRM-free ebook, or DRM-free audiobook in my Kickstarter!
The year is 1986. The city is San Francisco. Here, Martin Hench will invent the forensic accountant–what a bounty hunter is to people, he is to money–but for now he’s an MIT dropout odd-jobbing his w...
December 17, 2024
Daddy-Daughter Podcast 2024
This week on my podcast, it’s our annual Daddy-Daughter Podcast, a tradition since 2012! The kid’s sixteen now, a senior in high school and getting ready to head off to university next year, so this may well be the final installment in the series.
Here are the previous year’s installments: 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023.
December 8, 2024
Spill, part six (FINALE) (a Little Brother story)
This week on my podcast, I read the sixth and final installment of “Spill“, a new Little Brother story commissioned by Clay F Carlson and published on Reactor, the online publication of Tor Books. Also available in DRM-free ebook form as a Tor Original. Spill will be reprinted in Allen Kaster’s 2025 Year’s Best SF on Earth.
I didn’t plan to go to Oklahoma, but I went to Oklahoma.
My day job is providing phone tech support to people in offices who use my boss’s customer-relationship managemen...
December 1, 2024
Spill, part five (a Little Brother story)
This week on my podcast, I read part five of “Spill“, a new Little Brother story commissioned by Clay F Carlson and published on Reactor, the online publication of Tor Books. Also available in DRM-free ebook form as a Tor Original.
I didn’t plan to go to Oklahoma, but I went to Oklahoma.
My day job is providing phone tech support to people in offices who use my boss’s customer-relationship management software. In theory, I can do that job from anywhere I can sit quietly on a good Internet co...
October 28, 2024
Spill, part four (a Little Brother story)
This week on my podcast, I read part four of “Spill“, a new Little Brother story commissioned by Clay F Carlson and published on Reactor, the online publication of Tor Books. Also available in DRM-free ebook form as a Tor Original.
I didn’t plan to go to Oklahoma, but I went to Oklahoma.
My day job is providing phone tech support to people in offices who use my boss’s customer-relationship management software. In theory, I can do that job from anywhere I can sit quietly on a good Internet co...
October 26, 2024
Spill, part three (a Little Brother story)
This week on my podcast, I read part three of “Spill“, a new Little Brother story commissioned by Clay F Carlson and published on Reactor, the online publication of Tor Books. Also available in DRM-free ebook form as a Tor Original.
I didn’t plan to go to Oklahoma, but I went to Oklahoma.
My day job is providing phone tech support to people in offices who use my boss’s customer-relationship management software. In theory, I can do that job from anywhere I can sit quietly on a good Internet c...
Spill, part two (a Little Brother story)
This week on my podcast, I read part two of “Spill“, a new Little Brother story commissioned by Clay F Carlson and published on Reactor, the online publication of Tor Books. Also available in DRM-free ebook form as a Tor Original.
I didn’t plan to go to Oklahoma, but I went to Oklahoma.
My day job is providing phone tech support to people in offices who use my boss’s customer-relationship management software. In theory, I can do that job from anywhere I can sit quietly on a good Internet con...