Been recovering from the flu, so this one got delayed a few days / weeks. There’s plenty of terrible shit to go around already in 2026, but I wanted to focus a bit on the Internet, tech, and how you don’t really own anything anymore and how people are fighting back.

I’ve been reading through Cory Doctorow’s book Enshittification the past week or so and it’s been giving me some good food for thought that I would like to work through here with you fine folks.

If you are unaware, enshittification is the process in which companies get worse and worse. First, the company is good for the users. Then, they abuse the users to be good for their business partners. Finally, they abuse users and business partners to be good to themselves and their shareholders. Think of the declining quality of everything: Google search, Facebook, YouTube, and so on.

He mentions the idea of Technofeudalism, which is when collecting rent is prioritized of collecting profit from making goods. Essentially, companies find ways to collect money from you while not allowing ownership of anything, simply by virtue of them having created something that you use to actually make useful things. Think of ye olden feudalism: Lord owns the land, serfs pay a rent to work the land, serfs make the crops, pay fees to process the crops, send a bit to the Lord. The serfs make everything of value, the lords make profit by virtue of owning the land and nothing else.

This can been seen in areas such as Adobe, which switched to a subscription model for their video editing software, which I used to make my YouTube channel. I don’t own any of the programs; I’m simply paying for a licensing agreement that allows me to rent the programs to run on my computer to make my videos.

It makes me also think about the return to analogue “trends” that I’ve seen online. Lots of hype in the past 5 or so years about getting into vinyl (which I have) because everyone is tired of renting music from Spotify and Apple Music. They yearn to own, to curate, to display, to develop their tastes and feel that sense of ownership over a part of themselves.

There’s also a TikTok deal going on with people younger than I (I’m avoiding generational language because it’s bullshit and I don’t like it) where they are prepping analogue bags: Bags with non-screen activities for the holder to engage with on their outings, such as physical books, knitting supplies, journals, and so on. Seeing these returns to physical media really warms my heart: I feel like we’ve lost something in the shift to all digital all the time.

Part of that loss is ownership. We don’t own anything. We rent everything. Subscriptions. Licensing fees. Monthly fees for stuff we would have bought outright before. It just keeps getting worse and worse, and I think people are sick of it. I, for one, got sick of it years ago, but seeing more people echoing what I’ve been feeling definitely makes me feel less crazy and alone. It almost feels revolutionary or counter-culture to, you know, do shit I would have done normally when I was five.

I’ve been doing on walks and bike rides more, I’m sketching somewhat irregularly, and I’m finally getting into a groove with writing in my commonplace journal. Reading and finding new books, going vinyl shopping, and just spending time drinking tea with friends and not buying anything all feels infinitely more rewarding, particularly in our crazy, fucked up present. Digital stuff is cool, and things like the Indie Web are trying to keep that crazy creativity of the “old, cool Internet” alive and well, but I think people and societies are really coming to a reckoning with what’s going to work and what’s going to literally drive them insane.

Protect your peace. Rest is a revolutionary act.

Tenori are the specific size of plush toys, and I use it specifically in relation to the Sumikko Gurashi brand. They’re just little guys (gals? Gender ambiguous) who like to sit in the corner and make a bit of a found family, as most of them are misfits and weirdos. I started getting into the habit of collecting them, and now that my wife has become obsessed, we keep an eye out for cute ones we’d like to add to our collection.

Most people collect by set, meaning they buy all the pieces in only specific sets, or by character, meaning that they buy all the goods for their favorite character. We go with the latter: I love Penguin?, because he’s trying to find himself (deep) and he likes to read. What a champ! My wife likes Neko, mainly because she likes cats, but Neko is very cute, so I can understand why she vibes with her.

There was a recent Sumikko goods drop: A collaboration between Sumikko Gurashi and our favorite breakfast chain, Komeda’s Coffee. I like Komeda’s so much that I went as their mascot, the Komeda Dandy, for Halloween.

We found a nearby shop, had breakfast at Komeda’s, and then went to the store that was selling the toys, stationery, and other collaboration goods. We got into the standby line, having missed a lottery draw for first-dibs that happened earlier that day (how anyone was supposed to know about the lottery is beyond me, but 22 people figured it out, so fair play).

Watching these people shop for the goods was maddening. Listen: I’m all for people doing their thing, I’m usually a pretty chill guy, but this particular morning I woke up and chose sass. The people went up to the display and proceeded to spend minutes looking at the goods, as if they hadn’t spent the week prior looking at the website and deciding what they would buy ahead of time. They would pick up two tenori of the same character and look at them, comparing them, and then putting both back and deciding to buy something else entirely. It all felt so fake and performative, like their minds were going “Ah, yes, I need to show others that I am shopping, that I am taking care in inspecting these goods so as not to come across as uncouth or greedy! What a good person I am!”

If anyone has more insights into Japanese shopping culture, please get in contact with me so I can feel less insane about this.

We got very lucky: We were able to get all the goods we wanted (Penguin?, Neko, Obake the ghost, and Mame Master the coffee bean with a bowtie tenori) and exited relatively unscathed. It was our first time doing a merch drop like this, so now we officially have our “Good Little Capitalist” cards stamped.

They are very cute and I do get a great deal of joy from gazing upon them lovingly, though.

I’ve been playing through Dark Souls the first on PS5. This is the game that really kicked off the popularity of FromSoftware games and the whole “so difficult it’s good, thank you sir, may I have some more?” genre. It’s been really great, like digging through history, a strong sense of familiarity with every area, enemy, boss, and item I interact with. I can’t wait to finish and move onto Dark Souls 2 and 3 to see the evolution of the series, since I wasn’t there temporally to move with its culture.

Similarly, I’ve also been simultaneously watching a streamer, Courtney2’s channel, and her first blind playthrough of Dark Souls. Her commentary and jokes are amazing; it’s been so lovely to see her play, how our styles are different, our experiences taking us in completely different directions. I love how the community in these games has developed. Yes, there are dicks who say you need to play the game a certain way and decry anyone without encyclopedic knowledge of the games, but fuck those guys. I like people like Courtney and the silly beans who help to organize mass replays of games, so you can join in and summon online weirdos to help you in jolly cooperation.

It’s the people here who make an already amazing game and series an even better, more compelling experience. I try to keep that in mind, because a lot of people are really sucking right now, and you have to find those pockets of goodness in your everyday life, you know?