Enshittification

Definition

Enshittification is a pattern in which two-sided online platforms and services decline in quality over time. Initially, platforms create high-quality offerings to attract users, then degrade those offerings to better serve business customers, and finally degrade services to both users and business customers to maximize profits for shareholders.

Explain Like I'm 5

Imagine you find a new playground that's amazing with the best slides and swings. Everyone wants to play there! After a while, the playground owners start charging stores to sell ice cream there. Then, both you and the ice cream sellers get less and less while the playground owners take more and more, until the playground isn't fun anymore.

Visualization

(Three-stage diagram showing: 1) Happy users on a quality platform, 2) Platform prioritizing business customers over users, 3) Platform extracting maximum value from both users and businesses)

ChatGPT struggling to knock this one out. :)

Here's the final output:

Digging Deeper

Coined by writer Cory Doctorow in 2022, enshittification describes a three-phase process:

1. User Acquisition: Platforms offer excellent products/services to attract a large user base
2. Supplier Lock-in: Platforms leverage their user base to attract business customers/suppliers
3. Value Extraction: Once both users and suppliers are dependent on the platform, it degrades quality while extracting maximum profit for shareholders

This process is enabled by high switching costs and the platform's position as both a monopoly (to suppliers) and monopsony (to users). To counter enshittification, Doctorow advocates for:

• Upholding the end-to-end principle: platforms should deliver what users ask for, not what algorithms prefer
• Guaranteeing the right of exit: users should be able to leave platforms without losing their data or content

Applications

• Amazon: Started with below-cost goods and free shipping, then added sellers, and now takes 45%+ of sale prices through fees while prioritizing paid ads in search results
• Google Search: Initially offered relevant results with minimal ads, now shows more ads and SEO-manipulated content
• Social Media (Facebook/Twitter/X): Began with chronological feeds of content users chose, then prioritized engaging content to keep users active, and finally prioritized paid/promoted content
• Streaming Services: Started with comprehensive libraries at low prices to gain subscribers, now increase prices while reducing content quality
• Airbnb: Originally a cheap alternative to hotels, now often more expensive with hidden fees and fewer amenities
• Dating Apps: Design creates a perverse incentive to keep users single (and paying) rather than successfully matching them

Learn More

• Cory Doctorow's original article in Wired: "The 'Enshittification' of TikTok"
• Doctorow's talk: "An Audacious Plan to Halt the Internet's Enshittification"
• Harvard Berkman Klein Center: "Enshittification, Disenshittification and The Bezzle"

Related Terms

• "Crapification" - An earlier term for similar concept
• "Platform Decay" - Alternative name for enshittification
• "Network Effects" - How platforms lock in users
• "Walled Garden (technology)" - Closed ecosystem controlled by platform owner
• "Rent-Seeking" - Extracting value without creating new wealth
• "Planned Obsolescence" - Deliberately limiting product lifespan
• "AI Slop" - Low-quality AI-generated content