Enshittification

Enshittification is Cory Doctorow’s term for the slow ruining of a platform after it has made itself difficult to leave. First it is wonderful to users. Then suppliers are squeezed. Then everybody gets more adverts, worse search, stranger rules and a button that used to be visible is now hiding behind six menus and a subscription. No single update announces, “Hello, we have made this worse on purpose.” The decline arrives dressed as optimisation. Convenience keeps people there while the bargain quietly changes underneath them. The book places enshittification beside model collapse because both systems can deteriorate through their own incentives while still looking successful from the outside. One hollows out the platform; the other can flatten the model. Human judgement begins with the slightly irritating person in the room saying, “Hang on. Wasn’t this supposed to help us?”