Enshittification is a business model, not a vibe

Cory Doctorow coined “enshittification” to describe a recognisable platform cycle. First, a service is generous to users to attract them. Next, it shifts value toward business customers to lock them in. Finally, once both sides depend on it, the platform claws value back for itself.

The term was selected as Macquarie Dictionary’s 2024 Word of the Year. Its definition focuses on gradual deterioration caused by reduced service quality, especially on online platforms, as a consequence of profit-seeking.

Look for the switch

The useful unit of analysis is not whether a product feels annoying. It is who gains when the product changes. More ads, worse search, compulsory accounts, locked accessories and algorithmic feeds may look unrelated. Each can be a switch in how value is allocated.

Enshittification becomes possible when exit is expensive. Your friends are on the platform. Your files use its format. Your purchased media lives in its library. Your workplace standardised on its software. Dependence gives the intermediary room to squeeze.

It can be resisted

Interoperability lowers switching costs. Right-to-repair rules limit post-purchase control. Privacy law restrains surveillance-based extraction. Antitrust policy can prevent a platform from using dominance in one market to dictate another.

The practical response is to make exit real: portable data, open formats, replaceable parts, cancellable contracts and products that continue to work when a vendor loses interest. The opposite of enshittification is not nostalgia. It is leverage.