The now-viral term ‘enshittification’ helped put a name to a change that internet users are noticing: the feeling that many of your digital experiences, transactions, and services are not improving with time but are actually becoming worse because of their makers’ updates.

About Enshittification
Enshittification is a term coined by science fiction author and technology activist Cory Doctorow to describe the pattern of decline in quality of online platforms and services over time. This degradation is a deliberate process driven by the pursuit of profit maximization, ultimately making the platforms worse for their users and business customers alike. 

The process typically unfolds in a three-stage lifecycle:           

• Attract Users: The platform initially offers a high-quality, valuable service, often below cost (subsidized by venture capital), to attract a critical mass of users and lock them in through network effects.
• Attract Business Customers: Once users are locked in and dependent, the platform begins to abuse them to make the service better for business customers (e.g., advertisers, third-party sellers), compromising user experience with ads or algorithmic changes.
• Extract Value for Shareholders: Finally, the platform abuses both users and business customers to extract maximum value for its shareholders and executives, at which point the service becomes a "useless pile of shit" and eventually dies, or faces user exodus. 

Common Examples
The phenomenon has been observed across many major digital platforms: 

• Amazon: Search results are flooded with paid ads and Amazon's own brands, making it difficult to find quality third-party products.
• Facebook: The user feed is dominated by "sponsored" and "recommended" content and ads, rather than posts from friends and family, to the point where organic content is barely visible.
• Google Search: Once-minimalist search results are now filled with ads, AI-generated overviews (SERPs), and search engine optimized content farms, rather than the most relevant organic results.
• Uber/Lyft: After using venture capital to undercut traditional taxis, these services implemented surge pricing and dynamically adjusted driver payments, making them often more expensive than a regular cab while degrading quality for both riders and drivers.
• Netflix: After achieving market dominance in the streaming wars, Netflix introduced an ad-supported tier, cracked down on password sharing, and raised prices, degrading the original value proposition.
• Reddit: Changes to the API pricing effectively shut down many popular third-party apps, forcing users onto the official app which provides more profit to the company. 

Solutions
To counteract enshittification, Doctorow advocates for two key principles: 

• The Right of Exit: Ensuring users can leave a platform easily without losing data (data portability and interoperability).
• The End-to-End Principle: Requiring platforms to deliver what users ask for, rather than algorithmically determined or prioritized content. 

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