The DaSilva Download – November Edition

Everything Feels Broken… But Maybe That’s the Point?

Phew. This month has felt a little unhinged.
In the span of a few weeks, the U.S. government shut down, Canada dropped a budget with record spending, and OpenAI started flirting with government bailouts to fund its chip obsession.

Add to that a global debate over kids and social media, AI that’s somehow both saving lives and breaking privacy laws, and it’s no wonder everyone’s walking around with digital whiplash.

But underneath the noise, something interesting is happening.
It feels like the system is quietly correcting itself — a messy, uneven reset where tech, policy, and people are all saying the same thing in different ways: this isn’t working anymore.

Because in the same month we saw tech turn ugly, we also saw it do some extraordinary things:

• AI helped convert a donor organ into universal Type O.

• Robots loaded dishwashers — clumsily, but impressively.

• And new social platforms are emerging, promising to rebuild online spaces from the ground up, while new social media rules are starting to take into account what’s really happening to kids.

So this month’s theme isn’t about everything falling apart — it’s about what comes after. And weirdly enough, I’m hopeful about it.

✨ Good News

Scientists converted a donor organ into universal Type O by literally “scrubbing off” its blood-type markers. If this tech scales, it could make transplants faster and fairer - especially for Type O patients who wait the longest.

🎓 Tip of the Month: Let’s Talk About ‘Enshittification’

If you’ve ever caught yourself thinking, “Wow, everything online feels worse lately,” congratulations — you’re already seeing enshittification at work.

Coined by writer Cory Doctorow (and now the title of his new book Enshittification: How Everything Got Worse and What to Do About It), it describes the predictable decay cycle of nearly every major platform:

1. They start great to attract users.

2. They get worse to please advertisers.

3. They collapse when they exploit both to satisfy shareholders.

It’s how we ended up with social feeds we don’t control, rising subscription costs for less content, and why I can’t seem to order anything from Uber Eats for less than $30.

But here’s the interesting part: we’re starting to push back. In the next section, you’ll be able to see how little bits of news in the last month started to show the fight that we still have in us.

Small signals that remind us things aren’t okay and that we still have the power to change them…

When governments limit kids’ social media access, when users look for smaller, values-driven platforms, when we start celebrating real innovation again — that’s the correction.

As a marketer, enshittification is a reminder that our audience, revenue, and reputation all live on rented land. It’s why we are always told to own your list, build your community, invest in trust that doesn’t rely on an algorithm.

But maybe the next phase is more than that.
Maybe it’s about touching grass.
Showing up.
Going to that event.
Reconnecting with real humans.
And reminding these platforms — they don’t own us.

👀 What I’m Keeping an Eye On

🇨🇦 Gander Social - A Canadian-built social platform rethinking the feed. Community-first, algorithm-free, and a rare sign that social media might actually evolve. Learn more. (Disclosure: I’m an early investor.)

👶 AI & Kids — Some overdue guardrails were finally put in place this month, taking the effects of AI and social media on children seriously for once:

• Character.AI banned users under 18 after a tragic case involving a teen.
  Read in The Guardian

• Australia and Denmark both introduced bans for social media access under 15.
  Coverage in The Independent

🔒 AI Browsers – The shiny new “AI browsers” come with major security risks. If you handle customer data, don’t touch them yet. This excellent article explains why: Why I’m not touching those shiny new AI browsers.

🤖 Robots Doing Chores – A $20K humanoid robot loaded a dishwasher — badly, but still. It’s a glimpse of what elder care and accessibility tech could look like within a decade. Listen to Hard Fork.

⚖️ OpenAI’s Reality Check – OpenAI is spending at a scale far beyond its current profits. The company’s five-year plan is mapped around $1 trillion+ in pledged spending, leaving serious questions about returns, debt, and long-term viability.
Read Reuters.

🔍 Extended SERP visibility returns (slow-roll). Ahrefs announced on October 29, they’re restoring the ability to fetch up to 100 results per query as Google reverses / adjusts its earlier clamp-down on the &num=100 parameter. Read more

🚀 What I’m Focused on Now

I’m still deep in my Responsible Teach Reading List that I mentioned in the September newsletter, and if you can’t tell already I thought this month’s book was absolutely outstanding.

Enshittification: How Everything Got Worse and What to Do About It ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
by Cory Doctorow is one of those books that names the thing you’ve been feeling for years. Doctorow coined enshittification to describe the predictable way platforms rot: first they’re great to get you in the door, then they start squeezing you for ad dollars, and eventually they suck the life out of everyone to keep shareholders happy.

It’s weirdly empowering to read about the rot and realize it’s not inevitable. The more we understand how it happens, the more intentional we can be about what we use, build, and support next.

In the end, the decay we’re seeing in today’s platforms might be the compost for new ideas — like Gander, or the rise of smaller platforms that let us control our own feeds and allow us to make our own choices again. Imagine?!

Other updates..

• I’m wrapping up my last batch of SEO and GEO audits before the holidays — and will start taking on new audits again in March 2026.

• Continuing my mentorship work at the DMZ, helping founders untangle the weird intersection of AI, growth, and ethics.

• Still teaching SEO & AI + Marketing at Growclass and SEO + SEM at McMasterwhere conversations about how search and content are evolving keep me on my toes.

• Updating my internal tools and prompts for AI Optimization and Link Development — the next evolution of how we future-proof content for 2026.

It’s an exciting season — a little full, a little chaotic, but full of things I care about.

🔥 Vibe Check

📬 Let’s Talk!

I’m wrapping up audits for the year and already mapping out 2026 roadmaps for clients who want to start strong.

If you’ve been putting off your SEO or GEO review, consider this your friendly nudge — I’ve got one space left before I press pause for the holidays.

And if this issue made you think, send it to another marketer. I’d truly appreciate it.

Talk soon,
Tiffany