Confronted with the impact of Donald Trump’s policies, Europe – like other parts of the world – has no choice but to fundamentally rethink its trade rules. To put it plainly: If Europe does not urgently give up its love of free trade, it risks an unprecedented social and industrial disaster, and the planet will also suffer.

When setting tariffs, Trump has followed a narrowly nationalist (such as focusing on the US’s bilateral trade surplus) and rather chaotic logic, often changing course on a whim. The opposite approach is needed: Tariffs should be set based on universal and predictable principles.

The first reason for implementing tariffs is that international freight generates pollution that accounts for 7% of global emissions. Economists have long underestimated this environmental cost, using a low value for the metric ton of carbon (between €100 and €200). However, the worsening of global warming has led to a reassessment. The costs stemming from emissions – natural disasters, decline in economic activity and so on – are now estimated at about €1,000 per ton, if not more, without even factoring in loss of well-being and non-economic costs. Using this value, one would need to apply average tariffs of around 15% on global trade flows to compensate for warming linked to freight, with significant variations depending on the type of goods.

The second justification for tariffs is social, fiscal and environmental dumping. Some countries apply less stringent regulations than others, allowing producers based there to undercut competitors. In practical terms, China currently accounts for 30% of global emissions, with exported emissions making up about 20% of this (or 6% of the global total). At €1,000 per ton, average tariffs of about 80% would be needed on Chinese exports to account for this environmental cost. If focusing only on net exported emissions (after subtracting imported emissions), which is about 10% of China’s emissions (3% of the global total), the necessary tariffs would be around 40%.

Now to social dumping. Wages account for 49% of gross domestic product in China, compared to 64% in Europe. This distorts competition and would require compensatory tariffs of about 15%. A similar calculation can be made for fiscal dumping, especially regarding corporate taxes and state subsidies.

As with carbon, the aim is not to penalize China per se, but to encourage it to pay better wages, at which point the compensatory tax could be lifted. China has no need to accumulate endless trade surpluses; it should first continue its plans for decarbonization (which are further along than in the US, for example) and increase its wages and domestic demand. In the long run, if the US does not change course, Europe and China will have to impose significant sanctions on it.

In any case, tariffs are not an end in themselves: They can be dispensed with if binding agreements are put in place to achieve the same objectives. They can also be replaced by targeted financial sanctions if those prove more effective. The exact amounts should be determined following thorough democratic deliberation, conducted transparently, ideally within transnational assemblies.

What is certain is that the amounts at stake are potentially very large: between 50% and 100% tariffs to account for the negative externalities associated with freight and dumping. In comparison, the modest European carbon border adjustment mechanism is projected to bring in barely €14 billion per year by 2030 – that is, 2% of Chinese imports and 0.5% of total imports from outside of Europe. Let’s be honest: This will have no tangible effect on trade flows. Claiming otherwise will lead to bitter disappointment.

Two powerful factors could prompt Europe to change course. First, the social and political pressures arising from the new wave of industrial job losses that is looming. Second, the urgent need for tax revenue to repay the 2020 European loan and finance new spending. Tariffs could help address these needs.

The main difficulty is that Europe remains deeply committed to absolute free trade. The European Union does acknowledge the importance of promoting sustainable and fair development, including in the founding articles of its treaties. But when it comes to action, it hesitates to move too far from absolute free trade, for fear of triggering an endless protectionist spiral. This Pandora’s box argument is understandable, but it is not without hypocrisy (it was used a century ago to oppose any form of progressive taxation, and fortunately has since been overcome), and above all, it is no longer suited to our current challenges.

Unilateral action will perhaps be needed to overcome these deadlocks, with certain countries adopting national measures to protect themselves from social and environmental dumping. If we use the example of the United States, it is possible that this kind of initiative comes from the right and from nationalists, which would be regrettable since the exclusionary logic of that political camp will solve none of the social challenges or the feeling of abandonment it exploits to gain power. It is time for the left, in Europe and around the world, to take up the issue of sustainable and fair trade and put forward an ambitious plan of action.

💬 Join the discussion on kottke.org →

Today's links

• Blue Bonds: State debt is generative.
• Hey look at this: Delights to delectate.
• Object permanence: Why copyright wars matter; Car accidents aren't accidents.
• Upcoming appearances: Where to find me.
• Recent appearances: Where I've been.
• Latest books: You keep readin' em, I'll keep writin' 'em.
• Upcoming books: Like I said, I'll keep writin' 'em.
• Colophon: All the rest.

Blue Bonds (permalink)

The US economy is on the brink. Trump's illegal clawbacks of federal spending (waved through by a supine Congress), combined with his illegal tariffs and his government shutdown have sucked billions out of the economy, which was already much-weakened by proliferating crypto scams and AI stock swindles.

Every day sees more irreparable harm done. People who are pushed out of the workforce stand a good chance of never rejoining it, becoming "discouraged workers" (the economist's term for a worker who can no longer find employment thanks to bosses' prejudice against hiring people who don't already have a job). The businesses those people used to patronize are next in line for the mortuary.

Farms are failing at rates not seen in generations, even as Trump sends billions to prop up the Argentinian madman Javier Milei, whose Trumpalike policies have wrecked the Argentine economy. Milei repaid the US for its bailout by sending soybeans to China to replace the US crops that China blocked in response to Trump's trade war:

https://www.farmprogress.com/commentary/china-thrives-without-u-s-soybeans

Long-running scientific experiments that might represent the cure for the cancer you'll contract next year, or a way to improve solar output and save you from the wildfires and floods that have your town's name on them, or a vaccine for the next pandemic, have had the plug pulled and may never restart. Research groups at universities are falling apart, their grants illegally canceled, the teams scattered to the four winds, never to reform.

Families, illegally deprived of food assistance, are having to choose between rent and groceries. Parents skip medication to feed their kids. Kids go hungry. All of this has permanent effects – on learning, on health, and on growth. Literally: my grandfather, a refugee who suffered from malnutrition in his boyhood, was a head shorter than his Canadian-born children.

Solar and wind projects are being shut down just as they near completion, squandering billions in public money – and a renewable future. Trump has stolen billions intended for Chicago public transit:

https://www.politico.com/news/2025/10/03/trump-targets-chicago-transit-money-shutdown-00592722

What is to be done? What can be done?

Many Americans have pinned their hopes on federalism, the devolution of power to the states. When I became a US citizen, the hardest question on the exam was untangling the tortured syntax of the 10th Amendment:

Each state retains its sovereignty, freedom, and independence, and every power, jurisdiction, and right, which is not by this Confederation expressly delegated to the United States, in Congress assembled.

In a nutshell: the states have total power over their affairs, except where the Constitution says otherwise.

Lawsuits by state attorneys general have thus far done little to stanch the bleeding. Lawsuits are slow, and they rely on judges upholding the law, a task the Supreme Court has abandoned with sadistic glee.

The people need money, not legal briefs.

The editorial collective of Money on the Left offers a way to get money into the peoples' hands, right now, to allow us the material security we need if we are to organize to overthrow fascism and rekindle American Democracy. Their solution is "Blue Bonds," billed as "A Fiscal Strategy for Overcoming Trump 2.0":

https://moneyontheleft.org/2025/05/09/blue-bonds-a-fiscal-strategy-for-overcoming-trump-2-0/

What's a Blue Bond? It's a municipal or state bond, issued to replace the funds that Trump has illegally impounded. Blue states and cities can issue these bonds and use them to fund all the research, subsidies, programs and projects that Trump is trying to murder:

Dollars for housing and rental assistance, infrastructure and construction projects, rural energy and development, public health programs, veterans’ services, K-12 schools, colleges and universities, arts and culture: all public money previously authorized by congressional procedures should be reinstated in compliance with the Constitution.

Blue Bonds wouldn't just be backed by the states and cities that issue them, either. The Fed can swap them, one-for-one, with T-bills, the federal Treasury bonds that are considered "risk-free debt."

Blue Bonds don't have to be bonds, either; states can issue lots of different kinds of debt instruments, like "Tax Anticipation Notes" (TANs) and "Revenue Anticipation Notes" (RANs). These have different maturities and interest rates, and can be combined to hedge against liquidity traps.

These are legal. As the authors write, "Section 13(3) of the Federal Reserve Act permits the Central Bank to purchase debt in any amount 'in unusual and exigent circumstances,' such as during financial crises." Trump destroying the US economy is unquestionably "a crisis." The Fed used Special Purpose Vehicles to bail out the economy during other recent crises, including the 2008 crash and covid. The difference here is that this is a people's bailout, going to fund the programs that people – not bankers or investors – rely on.

This is within the Fed's means. Thanks to those earlier bailouts, the Fed holds $7T worth of assets, and has "repeatedly emphasized [that] it can continue to do so without limit":

https://www.c-span.org/clip/house-committee/user-clip-greenspan-there-is-nothing-to-prevent-the-government-from-creating-as-much-money-as-it-wants/5028493

But – as the authors point out – this isn't just about bridging state and local financing through the Trump years. This is a fundamental restructuring of public spending, a way out of neoliberalism's violent allergy to the fiscal spending that expands the economy and lifts up the population. It's been nearly a century since the New Deal and Americans are still basking in its benefits (where they survive). It is time to renew those benefits:

https://pluralistic.net/2025/10/03/we-dont-care-we-dont-have-to/#were-the-phone-company

Austerity can't get us out of a collapsing economy. It is precisely when the private sector withers that the state must step in, providing the income that people need to do the purchasing that makes the private sector possible. After all, money ultimately comes from the government (try making your US dollars and see how far you get). It's only through government spending (and government authorized lending through banks) that money enters our economy. When governments stop spending, money – the economy's lubricant – dries up, and the economy grinds to a halt.

Public debt issuance isn't "borrowing" in the sense that you or I might borrow. Governments are not households or businesses. Governments aren't money users, they are money creators. Governments don't need to "borrow" to create money any more than Starbucks needs to "borrow" to create gift cards redeemable for future mochalattafrappacheenaspressae.

Private debt is a drag on the debtor. State debt is generative. It creates the roads, the hospitals, the schools, the educated and healthy populace, needed for the private sector.

To issue Blue Bonds, states – which cannot be forced into bankruptcy – must repeal their disastrous "balanced budget" rules and rules requiring supermajorities to raise taxes. From Money on the Left: "public deficits are healthy, so long as they support communities and take care of our planet. What is debt but a promise to bring about a desired outcome in the future?"

Trump has destroyed investor confidence in the US economy. The only paths to returns today are flushing your money into the crypto casino or backing giga-mergers that only go through if the companies involved throw sufficient bribes at the tip jar on the Resolute Desk. Blue Bonds are a safe place for institutional investors seeking a safe haven from kleptocratic chaos.

As the authors say, this is "the true Abundance agenda" – not the "diet Reaganism" of deregulation and sacrifices to the market gods being peddled by the corporate wing of the Democratic Party. A true Abundance agenda "builds robust public systems, including newly chartered public banks, that put people over profits."

Blue Bonds are the good version of Trump's beloved shitcoins. Rather than wildcat money created by and for speculators, Blue Bonds are a source of public prosperity, backed by a present or future Fed under democratic control, accountable to the people. Trump and his fascist pals are all-in on creating as many forms of "money" as there are memes on the internet. Here, at last, is a form of novel money creation that builds a human, shared future.

Hey look at this (permalink)

• FCC Reconsiders Ban on Big Four TV Networks Being Owned by One Company https://gizmodo.com/fcc-reconsiders-ban-on-big-four-tv-networks-being-owned-by-one-company-2000665921

• Open Printer https://www.crowdsupply.com/open-tools/open-printer

• Bankification Nation https://www.levernews.com/bankification-nation/

• Apple removes apps that allow anonymous reporting of ICE agent sightings https://www.startribune.com/apple-takes-down-app-that-allows-people-to-track-and-anonymously-report-sightings-of-ice-agents/601485533

• What Europe’s New Gig Work Law Means for Unions and Technology https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/10/what-europes-new-gig-work-law-means-unions-and-technology

Object permanence (permalink)

#20yrsago Ebook DRM that encourages identity theft gets a huge makeover https://web.archive.org/web/20051011041018/https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/archives/004026.php

#15yrsago Security company ad tricks people into thinking their houses were burgled https://copyranter.blogspot.com/2010/10/adt-shows-you-how-easy-it-is-to-break.html

#15yrsago Firefighters watch as house burns to the ground: owner had not paid annual firefighting fees https://web.archive.org/web/20101003021723/https://www.wpsdlocal6.com/news/local/firefighters-watch-as-home-burns-to-the-ground-104052668.html

#15yrsago Sky Marshals to lose their cushy first-class seats? https://web.archive.org/web/20160521034617/https://www.wsj.com/article_email/SB10001424052748703431604575521832473932878-lMyQjAxMTAwMDIwOTEyNDkyWj.html

#15yrsago Michael Swanwick writes a story about autumn on fallen leaves https://www.flickr.com/photos/54366973@N04/5035946705/in/photostream/

#15yrsago Why the copyright wars matter: a reply to Helienne Lindvall https://www.theguardian.com/technology/blog/2010/oct/05/free-online-content-cory-doctorow?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

#15yrsago William Gibson nails my philosophy in life https://memex.craphound.com/2010/10/04/william-gibson-nails-my-philosophy-in-life/

#10yrsago Car accidents aren’t accidents https://www.wired.com/2015/10/stop-calling-daughters-death-car-accident/

#5yrsago Why I love the Haunted Mansion https://pluralistic.net/2020/10/04/build-back-better/#grim-grinning-ghosts

#5yrsago Normal isn't enough https://pluralistic.net/2020/10/04/build-back-better/#post-pandemic

Upcoming appearances (permalink)

• Boston: Enshittification with Randall Munroe (Brattle Theater), Oct 7
  https://www.eventbrite.com/e/cory-doctorow-at-the-brattle-theatre-tickets-1591235180259?aff=oddtdtcreator

• DC: Enshittification with Rohit Chopra (Politics and Prose), Oct 8
  https://politics-prose.com/cory-doctorow-10825

• NYC: Enshittification with Lina Khan (Brooklyn Public Library), Oct 9
  https://www.bklynlibrary.org/calendar/cory-doctorow-discusses-central-library-dweck-20251009-0700pm

• New Orleans: DeepSouthCon63, Oct 10-12
  http://www.contraflowscifi.org/

• New Orleans: Enshittification at Octavia Books, Oct 12
  https://www.octaviabooks.com/event/enshittification-cory-doctorow

• Chicago: How Platforms Die with Rick Perlstein (University Club), Oct 14
  https://www.eventbrite.com/e/how-platforms-die-with-cory-doctorow-tickets-1747916117159

• Los Angeles: Enshittification with David Dayen (Diesel), Oct 16
  https://dieselbookstore.com/event/2025-10-16/cory-doctorow-enshittification

• San Francisco: Enshittification at Public Works with Jenny Odell (The Booksmith), Oct 20
  https://app.gopassage.com/events/doctorow25

• PDX: Enshittification at Powell's, Oct 21
  https://www.powells.com/events/cory-doctorow-10-21-25

• Seattle: Enshittification and the Rot Economy, with Ed Zitron (Clarion West), Oct 22
  https://www.clarionwest.org/event/2025-deep-dives-cory-doctorow/

• Vancouver: Enshittification with David Moscrop (Vancouver Writers Festival), Oct 23
  https://www.showpass.com/2025-festival-39/

• Montreal: Montreal Attention Forum keynote, Oct 24
  https://www.attentionconferences.com/conferences/2025-forum

• Montreal: Enshittification at Librarie Drawn and Quarterly, Oct 24
  https://mtl.drawnandquarterly.com/events/3757420251024

• Ottawa: Enshittification (Ottawa Writers Festival), Oct 25
  https://writersfestival.org/events/fall-2025/enshittification

• Toronto: Enshittification with Dan Werb (Type Books), Oct 27
  https://www.instagram.com/p/DO81_1VDngu/?img_index=1

• Barcelona: Conferencia EUROPEA 4D (Virtual), Oct 28
  https://4d.cat/es/conferencia/

• Miami: Enshittification at Books & Books, Nov 5
  https://www.eventbrite.com/e/an-evening-with-cory-doctorow-tickets-1504647263469

• Miami: Cloudfest, Nov 6
  https://www.cloudfest.com/usa/

• Burbank: Burbank Book Festival, Nov 8
  https://www.burbankbookfestival.com/

• Lisbon: A post-American, enshittification-resistant internet, with Rabble (Web Summit), Nov 12
  https://websummit.com/sessions/lis25/92f47bc9-ca60-4997-bef3-006735b1f9c5/a-post-american-enshittification-resistant-internet/

• Cardiff: Hay Festival After Hours, Nov 13
  https://www.hayfestival.com/c-203-hay-festival-after-hours.aspx

Recent appearances (permalink)

• Enshittification (The.Ink)
  https://the.ink/p/watch-cory-doctorow-on-why-everything

• Why Everything Is Getting Worse (Majority Report)
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQW6UxY144Q

Latest books (permalink)

• "Picks and Shovels": a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about the heroic era of the PC, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), February 2025 (https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865908/picksandshovels).

• "The Bezzle": a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about prison-tech and other grifts, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), February 2024 (the-bezzle.org).

• "The Lost Cause:" a solarpunk novel of hope in the climate emergency, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), November 2023 (http://lost-cause.org).

• "The Internet Con": A nonfiction book about interoperability and Big Tech (Verso) September 2023 (http://seizethemeansofcomputation.org). Signed copies at Book Soup (https://www.booksoup.com/book/9781804291245).

• "Red Team Blues": "A grabby, compulsive thriller that will leave you knowing more about how the world works than you did before." Tor Books http://redteamblues.com.

• "Chokepoint Capitalism: How to Beat Big Tech, Tame Big Content, and Get Artists Paid, with Rebecca Giblin", on how to unrig the markets for creative labor, Beacon Press/Scribe 2022 https://chokepointcapitalism.com

Upcoming books (permalink)

• "Canny Valley": A limited edition collection of the collages I create for Pluralistic, self-published, September 2025

• "Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It," Farrar, Straus, Giroux, October 7 2025
  https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374619329/enshittification/

• "Unauthorized Bread": a middle-grades graphic novel adapted from my novella about refugees, toasters and DRM, FirstSecond, 2026

• "Enshittification, Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It" (the graphic novel), Firstsecond, 2026

• "The Memex Method," Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 2026

• "The Reverse-Centaur's Guide to AI," a short book about being a better AI critic, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2026

Colophon (permalink)

Today's top sources:

Currently writing:

• "The Reverse Centaur's Guide to AI," a short book for Farrar, Straus and Giroux about being an effective AI critic. FIRST DRAFT COMPLETE AND SUBMITTED.

• A Little Brother short story about DIY insulin PLANNING

This work – excluding any serialized fiction – is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. That means you can use it any way you like, including commercially, provided that you attribute it to me, Cory Doctorow, and include a link to pluralistic.net.

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Quotations and images are not included in this license; they are included either under a limitation or exception to copyright, or on the basis of a separate license. Please exercise caution.

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"When life gives you SARS, you make sarsaparilla" -Joey "Accordion Guy" DeVilla

READ CAREFULLY: By reading this, you agree, on behalf of your employer, to release me from all obligations and waivers arising from any and all NON-NEGOTIATED agreements, licenses, terms-of-service, shrinkwrap, clickwrap, browsewrap, confidentiality, non-disclosure, non-compete and acceptable use policies ("BOGUS AGREEMENTS") that I have entered into with your employer, its partners, licensors, agents and assigns, in perpetuity, without prejudice to my ongoing rights and privileges. You further represent that you have the authority to release me from any BOGUS AGREEMENTS on behalf of your employer.

ISSN: 3066-764X

Go to HUD.gov,  and you’ll get this:

Go to USDA.gov, and you’ll get this:

Seems to me these violate the Hatch Act, aka “An Act to Prevent Pernicious Political Activities.” It was passed in 1939 and amended a couple of times since then. I am not a lawyer, but I know some, and I can read. One useful source is this guidance from the Office of the Special Counsel.Reading that tells me all this stuff crosses the Hatch Act line. But there are maybes in there. For example, this: “…activity directed at the success or failure of a political party, candidate for partisan political office, or partisan political group — then the expression is not permitted while the employee is on duty.”

Whatever, seems to me this will come down to what the OSC decides. How free of politics is the OSC? Its About page says,

The U.S. Office of Special Counsel (OSC) is an independent federal investigative and prosecutorial agency. OSC’s statutory authority comes from four federal laws: the Civil Service Reform Act, the Whistleblower Protection Act, the Hatch Act, and the Uniformed Services Employment & Reemployment Rights Act (USERRA)…

In addition, OSC enforces the Hatch Act, which puts certain restrictions on partisan political activity by government employees…

So, if the OSC believes the Hatch Act is being violated here, its focus will be on the government employees behind those clearly (to me) partisan website banners.

Look, I avoid politics here, because algorithms and an absent appetite for arguments that go nowhere. I’m a registered Independent and think leaders of both major parties are mostly fulla shit in what they are saying about the issues involved in the current government shutdown— and about each other. Meanwhile, the national debt is $37.64 trillion, up $2.17 trillion during the last fiscal year. Just saying.

Anyway, seems to me this is news. The AP, ABC, The Guardian, and others agree. Public Citizen has already filed nine complaints based on the Hatch Act. Government Executive is also on the case.

So I’m taking public notes about this, while shit’s going down. Here is what I have so far (as of 11:07PM on 3 October 2025). The partisan phrases are boldfaced.

US federal government websites with partisan notices:

US federal government websites without partisan notices, listed alphabetically:

https://www.army.mil/
https://www.bea.gov/
https://www.cbp.gov/
https://www.cbo.gov/
https://www.census.gov/
https://www.commerce.gov/ (though it does feature The Trump Gold Card, which seems kinda partisan to me)
https://www.consumerfinance.gov/
https://www.cpsc.gov/
https://www.doi.gov/
https://www.dol.gov/
https://www.eeoc.gov/
https://www.epa.gov/
https://www.faa.gov/
https://www.fbi.gov/
https://www.fcc.gov/
https://www.fdic.gov/
https://www.fema.gov/
https://www.federalreserve.gov/
https://www.gao.gov/
https://www.gsa.gov/
https://highways.dot.gov/
https://www.loc.gov/
https://www.marines.mil/
https://www.maritime.dot.gov/
https://www.nasa.gov/
https://www.nhtsa.gov/
https://www.nih.gov/
https://www.nist.gov/
https://www.nlrb.gov/
https://www.noaa.gov/
https://www.nps.gov/
https://www.nrc.gov/
https://www.ns f.gov/
https://www.opm.gov/
https://www.sec.gov/
https://www.ssa.gov/
https://www.transit.dot.gov/
https://www.tsa.gov/
https://www.uscg.mil/
https://www.usgs.gov/
https://www.usmarshals.gov/
https://www.ustr.gov/
https://www.usps.com/
https://www.whitehouse.gov/
https://www.whitehouse.gov/cea/
https://www.war.gov/ (formerly Department of Defense)

My purpose here is to give readers and fellow journalists some lists they can check while following this story.

Disclosure: ChatGPT made me the table and alphabetized the lists, which I compiled myself after visiting (yes) all those sites.

I invite corrections, subtractions, revisions, and other improvements.

Today's links

• When your ISP pays you: The New Deal keeps on giving.
• Hey look at this: Delights to delectate.
• Object permanence: Internet Archive scans books; Europe's Broadcast Flag; Three middle-finger salute; The enshittification of Prime.
• Upcoming appearances: Where to find me.
• Recent appearances: Where I've been.
• Latest books: You keep readin' em, I'll keep writin' 'em.
• Upcoming books: Like I said, I'll keep writin' 'em.
• Colophon: All the rest.

When your ISP pays you (permalink)

Holy shit I love my internet service provider said no one ever!

Except, some people do love their ISPs. Across America more than 400 community-owned fiber networks, serving more than 700 communities, bring joy and satisfaction to their customers:

https://communitynets.org/content/community-network-map

Many of these are in blood-red states, the kind of places where it's impossible to find a readable copy of Atlas Shrugged because every page of every copy is stuck together. Nevertheless, these publicly owned networks are wildly popular with their subscribers. What's more, there'd be a ton more of them but for the brutal ministration of ALEC, the far-right, dark money policy shop that convinced multiple state governments to ban community broadband, even in places where there was no commercial broadband service:

https://actions.eko.org/a/att-alec-lobby-community-owned-internet-networks

One of the great predictors of whether your town will get fast, affordable, future-proof fiber is its history. Many of today's municipal broadband co-ops are descended from rural telephone co-ops, and those telephone co-ops were birthed by the New Deal's rural electrification co-ops. This is the incredibly long shadow that good public spending casts – a century of successful provision of amenities that substantially improve the quality of life of whole regions.

Take Jackson and Owlsley Counties, rural Kentucky counties in Appalachia, some of America's poorest places. Starting in 2009, the local telephone company, the Peoples Rural Telephone Cooperative, started pulling fiber to every home in both counties. To get that fiber over rugged mountain passes, they pulled it on the back of a mule named "Ole Bub." Soon, every subscriber had access to symmetrical fiber broadband at speeds of up to 10gb/s, and the region found itself at the center of an economic revival:

https://web.archive.org/web/20191210051442/https://www.newyorker.com/tech/annals-of-technology/the-one-traffic-light-town-with-some-of-the-fastest-internet-in-the-us

The Peoples Rural Telephone Cooperative was founded in 1953, as an extension of the town's electrification co-op, itself founded in the 1930s after the passage of the Rural Electrification Act of 1936 (the REA was amended in 1949, allowing electrification co-ops to secure low-cost loans for telephone rollouts).

You don't need to live in rural Appalachia to reap the benefit of publicly backed broadband co-ops. In Minnesota's Beltrami County (pop 46,288; density 18.6 people/square mile, median income $33,392/household), the local co-op Paul Bunyan Communications offers symmetrical fiber at speeds up to 10gb/s. But that's just table-stakes: Paul Bunyan doesn't just offer reasonably priced, reliable, screamingly fast broadband – it also pays its members whenever too much cash builds up in its bank account. Paul Bunyan just paid out $3.6 million in refunds to its subscribers:

https://ilsr.org/article/community-broadband-networks/minnesotas-paul-bunyan-communications-shares-3-6-million-windfall-with-members/

The payouts are pro-rated based on how much you spend on broadband. Customers who were due $150 or less got a credit on their next bill, while customers owed more than $150 got a check in the mail.

Nice, huh? It gets nicer: in 2018, Paul Bunyan paid back its subscribers $2.2 million; in 2022, they paid back $6.3 million, and last year they paid back $3 million. Paul Bunyan employs 160 people in the county, at fair wages, with good benefits. Every dollar Paul Bunyan makes literally stays in the community.

99% of the county has access to fiber from the co-op. Local business growth has outperformed statewide performance. A local aerospace company owner said that the co-op fiber made the difference between running a business with $300,000 in annual revenue and a business making $3,000,000 per year.

All of this is even cooler when you learn about the kind of internet service the rest of Minnesota has had to cope with. A 2019 Minnesota Commerce Department investigation found that Frontier, the state's leading ISP, had unbelievably badly maintained infrastructure. We're talking about high-capacity long-haul wires draped over shrubs and tree-branches:

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2019/01/frontier-letting-its-phone-network-fall-apart-state-investigation-finds/

Minnesotans on Fiber's "free market" service suffered from frequent outages. They paid higher costs for their unreliable, slow DSL lines than Paul Bunyan customers in Beltrami County paid for fiber that was literally thousands of times faster than Frontier's. Unlike Paul Bunyan's cheerful, local customer service, Frontier's service numbers went to "cost-efficient" (busied-out, distant) call centers where you could wait for hours to speak to someone who would either "accidentally" drop your call or simply refuse to help you. Customers frequently lost access to 911 service, and often saw spurious, sky-high charges on their bills that no one would explain or erase.

Frontier "strongly disagreed" with the report. But when Frontier went bankrupt (a year later!), we got a look at its internal operations and discovered just how much contempt the company had for its customers:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/04/frontiers-bankruptcy-reveals-cynical-choice-deny-profitable-fiber-millions

By Frontier's own calculations, it could have made an extra $10 billion by investing in fiber rollouts, but it chose not to make that money, because the stock analysts at institutional investment funds would punish any telco that committed to capital expenditures with long-term payouts. Since Frontier's execs were mostly paid in stock, they decided not to risk a drop in their personal net worth, and so they left ten billion on the table and millions of customers stuck on 19th century copper-line infrastructure – technology that dated back to Samuel Morse and the telegraph.

Frontier was especially interested in customers who had no alternatives – no cable or fixed wireless companies that could offer competition for Frontier's own terrible service. These customers were booked as an "asset" and their connections were earmarked for substandard maintenance and slow upgrades. The old Lily Tomlin gag goes, "We don't care, we don't have to, we're the phone company." But Frontier really cared about the customers who had no alternative – they cared about royally fucking those customers.

Ladies and gentlemen, behold the marvel that is the efficient free market!

Municipal fiber is a godsend. It's fast, cheap and reliable, and it is an engine for economic development. Of course, the Trump administration is running away from municipal fiber – indeed, from all fiber – as fast as it can, because every fiber installation competes with Elon Musk's satellite based internet service, Skylink:

https://pluralistic.net/2025/07/24/geometry-hates-cars/#dogshit-unit-economics

The thing is, satellite internet makes sense in a few places – temporary encampments, ships at sea – but it is vastly more expensive than fiber to install and maintain, and it is millions of times slower than fiber. Nor is this something you can fix by filling the sky with more collision-prone, astronomer-demoralizing minisats – no matter how many satellites there are over your head, they're all in the same universe and have to share its single, fixed electromagnetic spectrum. Meanwhile, if you want more broadband in your fiber network, you just pull another bundle of fiber (principle ingredient: sand) through your conduit and you add dozens of new universes' worth of electromagnetic spectra that are each isolated from one another.

Smart politicians aren't being sucked in by Musk's claim that he can billionaire his way out of the intractable laws of physics. They're pulling fiber, and lots of it. In Utah, the aptly named UTOPIA network is serving publicly owned fiber to 21 cities, and private businesses can offer service over that public system, which means that Utahans have their choice of 18 carriers:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/16/symmetrical-10gb-for-119/#utopia

Moreover, these are symmetrical connections, meaning that they are as fast for sending data as they are for receiving it:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/07/03/beautiful-symmetry/#fibrous-growth

To put this in Information Superhighway terms from the 1990s, a symmetrical broadband connection is necessary for you to be a "netizen," while an asymmetrical connection that beams lots of data to you but isn't capable of letting you talk back is what makes you a "mouse potato."

It's grimly hilarious that the right has done so much damage to public fiber rollouts, given their oft-repeated grievances about being "shadowbanned" by dominant services. With symmetrical fiber, every crank could run their own server – a 4chan in every garage. And if that fiber is provided by the government, then your ISP will be bound by the First Amendment, and legally prohibited from discriminating against customers based on their political speech (something that commercial providers can do to their heart's content):

https://pluralistic.net/2021/01/17/turner-diaries-fanfic/#1a-fiber

The New Deal was a mere blip in the American project, but a century later, America's poorest, worst-served people are still reaping its benefits, with far faster, cheaper connections than you can get from the big telcos that have sewn up New York City and Los Angeles. And in some of those places, the public ISP doesn't just shower their subscribers with fast data – they shower them with millions of dollars.

Hey look at this (permalink)

• Evaluating the Impact of AI on the Labor Market: Current State of Affairs https://budgetlab.yale.edu/research/evaluating-impact-ai-labor-market-current-state-affairs

• Help Dick Gaughan in seeking to retrieve his music https://www.gofundme.com/f/aatux2

• LLMs Are the Ultimate Demoware https://blog.charliemeyer.co/llms-are-the-ultimate-demoware/

• Mel Lastman https://www.patreon.com/posts/mel-lastman-140195778

• Who Is The Sky? | David Byrne https://davidbyrne.bandcamp.com/album/who-is-the-sky

Object permanence (permalink)

#20yrsago Internet Archive and Yahoo announce open scanned-in-book index https://web.archive.org/web/20051007010920/https://www.opencontentalliance.org/

#20yrsago Europe’s Broadcast Flag: first look https://web.archive.org/web/20051026014633/https://www.eff.org/IP/DVB/dvb_critique.php

#15yrsago Mouseland: a parable from the father of Canada’s healthcare system https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OC1GtIhwpSk

#15yrsago ElfQuest fan-film blessed by the Pinis https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/external/gigaom/2010/10/01/01gigaom-creator-blessed-elfquest-fan-film-crowdsources-fun-7954.html

#10yrsago Pokemon demands $4000 from broke superfan who organized Pokemon party https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/10/pokemon-copyright-lawyers-demand-4000-from-party-planner/

#10yrsago Tea Party “family values” pol resigns after sending adulterous vid to entire address-book https://thefrisky.com/family-values-lawmaker-resigns-after-sexting-contact-list-with-pictures-of-affair/

#10yrsago Mayor of Stockton, CA detained by DHS at SFO, forced to give up laptop password https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Stockton-mayor-was-briefly-detained-on-return-6546419.php

#10yrsago How to flip someone off with THREE middle-fingers https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-skVOUZAoFA

#5yrsago Inequality and luck and risk and merit https://pluralistic.net/2020/10/03/the-house-always-wins/#socialized-losses

#1yrago Prime's enshittified advertising https://pluralistic.net/2024/10/03/mother-may-i/#minmax

Upcoming appearances (permalink)

• Boston: Enshittification with Randall Munroe (Brattle Theater), Oct 7
  https://www.eventbrite.com/e/cory-doctorow-at-the-brattle-theatre-tickets-1591235180259?aff=oddtdtcreator

• DC: Enshittification with Rohit Chopra (Politics and Prose), Oct 8
  https://politics-prose.com/cory-doctorow-10825

• NYC: Enshittification with Lina Khan (Brooklyn Public Library), Oct 9
  https://www.bklynlibrary.org/calendar/cory-doctorow-discusses-central-library-dweck-20251009-0700pm

• New Orleans: DeepSouthCon63, Oct 10-12
  http://www.contraflowscifi.org/

• New Orleans: Enshittification at Octavia Books, Oct 12
  https://www.octaviabooks.com/event/enshittification-cory-doctorow

• Chicago: How Platforms Die with Rick Perlstein (University Club), Oct 14
  https://www.eventbrite.com/e/how-platforms-die-with-cory-doctorow-tickets-1747916117159

• Los Angeles: Enshittification with David Dayen (Diesel), Oct 16
  https://dieselbookstore.com/event/2025-10-16/cory-doctorow-enshittification

• San Francisco: Enshittification at Public Works with Jenny Odell (The Booksmith), Oct 20
  https://app.gopassage.com/events/doctorow25

• PDX: Enshittification at Powell's, Oct 21
  https://www.powells.com/events/cory-doctorow-10-21-25

• Seattle: Enshittification and the Rot Economy, with Ed Zitron (Clarion West), Oct 22
  https://www.clarionwest.org/event/2025-deep-dives-cory-doctorow/

• Vancouver: Enshittification with David Moscrop (Vancouver Writers Festival), Oct 23
  https://www.showpass.com/2025-festival-39/

• Montreal: Montreal Attention Forum keynote, Oct 24
  https://www.attentionconferences.com/conferences/2025-forum

• Ottawa: Enshittification (Ottawa Writers Festival), Oct 25
  https://writersfestival.org/events/fall-2025/enshittification

• Toronto: Enshittification with Dan Werb (Type Books), Oct 27
  https://www.instagram.com/p/DO81_1VDngu/?img_index=1

• Barcelona: Conferencia EUROPEA 4D (Virtual), Oct 28
  https://4d.cat/es/conferencia/

• Miami: Enshittification at Books & Books, Nov 5
  https://www.eventbrite.com/e/an-evening-with-cory-doctorow-tickets-1504647263469

• Miami: Cloudfest, Nov 6
  https://www.cloudfest.com/usa/

• Burbank: Burbank Book Festival, Nov 8
  https://www.burbankbookfestival.com/

• Lisbon: A post-American, enshittification-resistant internet, with Rabble (Web Summit), Nov 12
  https://websummit.com/sessions/lis25/92f47bc9-ca60-4997-bef3-006735b1f9c5/a-post-american-enshittification-resistant-internet/

• Cardiff: Hay Festival After Hours, Nov 13
  https://www.hayfestival.com/c-203-hay-festival-after-hours.aspx

Recent appearances (permalink)

• Enshittification (The.Ink)
  https://the.ink/p/watch-cory-doctorow-on-why-everything

• Why Everything Is Getting Worse (Majority Report)
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQW6UxY144Q

Latest books (permalink)

• "Picks and Shovels": a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about the heroic era of the PC, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), February 2025 (https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865908/picksandshovels).

• "The Bezzle": a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about prison-tech and other grifts, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), February 2024 (the-bezzle.org).

• "The Lost Cause:" a solarpunk novel of hope in the climate emergency, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), November 2023 (http://lost-cause.org).

• "The Internet Con": A nonfiction book about interoperability and Big Tech (Verso) September 2023 (http://seizethemeansofcomputation.org). Signed copies at Book Soup (https://www.booksoup.com/book/9781804291245).

• "Red Team Blues": "A grabby, compulsive thriller that will leave you knowing more about how the world works than you did before." Tor Books http://redteamblues.com.

• "Chokepoint Capitalism: How to Beat Big Tech, Tame Big Content, and Get Artists Paid, with Rebecca Giblin", on how to unrig the markets for creative labor, Beacon Press/Scribe 2022 https://chokepointcapitalism.com

Upcoming books (permalink)

• "Canny Valley": A limited edition collection of the collages I create for Pluralistic, self-published, September 2025

• "Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It," Farrar, Straus, Giroux, October 7 2025
  https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374619329/enshittification/

• "Unauthorized Bread": a middle-grades graphic novel adapted from my novella about refugees, toasters and DRM, FirstSecond, 2026

• "Enshittification, Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It" (the graphic novel), Firstsecond, 2026

• "The Memex Method," Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 2026

• "The Reverse-Centaur's Guide to AI," a short book about being a better AI critic, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2026

Colophon (permalink)

Today's top sources:

Currently writing:

• "The Reverse Centaur's Guide to AI," a short book for Farrar, Straus and Giroux about being an effective AI critic. FIRST DRAFT COMPLETE AND SUBMITTED.

• A Little Brother short story about DIY insulin PLANNING

This work – excluding any serialized fiction – is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. That means you can use it any way you like, including commercially, provided that you attribute it to me, Cory Doctorow, and include a link to pluralistic.net.

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