Enshittification - meaning, description and examples

A bit about Enshittification and what it means

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Enshittification is the name for a widespread phenomenon gradual decline of services, especially online platforms, due to profit-driven decisions that degrade user experience.

Enshittification first was coined by Cory Doctorow in 2022.

enshittification description from wiki

The process typically follows this pattern:

  • The platform starts by providing great value to attract users.
  • Once a critical mass is achieved, features and quality diminish as operators shift focus to maximizing value for business customers (advertisers or suppliers), sometimes at users’ expense.
  • Finally, as both users and business customers become locked in, quality erodes further to maximize profits for shareholders, leaving all other stakeholders with a degraded experience.

The term gained significant recognition, becoming Macquarie Dictionary’s Australian Word of the Year in 2024 and spreading globally as a catchall for declining trust and functionality in digital services.

Real-World Examples

  • Facebook: Initially a great social network, Facebook shifted from a platform focused on user connections to one dominated by sponsored content and algorithmic manipulation. The experience for users and publishers eroded as the company prioritized ad revenue over organic engagement.
  • Amazon: Once lauded for low prices and wide selection, Amazon now often features less organic search results, prioritizes sponsored listings, and its interface is cluttered with promotions and paid placements.
  • Google Search: Where users previously got direct, high-quality answers, now many are confronted with ads, AI-generated content, and information buried beneath paid results or algorithmic summaries.
  • Uber: Started with subsidized ride prices and driver incentives but, once a duopoly was achieved, increased prices and decreased driver earnings—deteriorating the service for both sides of the market.
  • Duolingo: Shifted from a learning-focused app to emphasizing gamified engagement features (badges, streaks, leaderboards), which can distract from genuine progress and learning.
  • Unity (Game Engine): Proposed retroactive licensing fee changes for developers, jeopardizing longtime users and leading to a mass exodus as creators sought alternatives.

Enshittification in Detail

  1. Initial Focus on User Value
  • Platforms launch by offering high-quality products or services to attract users.
  • Early features are designed to maximize user satisfaction, accessibility, and trust.
  1. Shift Toward Monetization
  • Once a critical user base is achieved, platforms begin prioritizing revenue generation.
  • Changes include:
    • Introduction of ads and sponsored content.
    • Promotion of paid features and subscriptions.
    • Algorithms are adjusted to favor revenue-generating material over organic or community-driven content.
  1. Business Customer Prioritization
  • Platforms increasingly cater to advertisers, sellers, or other business customers.
  • User experience suffers as:
    • Sponsored listings crowd out genuine search results (e.g., Amazon or Google).
    • Feeds and interfaces become cluttered with promotions and less relevant content.
  1. Lock-In and Exploitation
  • With a duopoly or monopoly in place, user and business customer lock-in is exploited.
  • Platforms introduce restrictive policies:
    • Reducing interoperability or data portability.
    • Imposing new fees or retroactive charges (e.g., Unity’s developer licensing changes).
    • Making it harder for users to leave the service or transfer their data.
  1. Degraded Core Experience
  • Over time, the original product loses its appeal and functionality:
    • Useful features are removed or placed behind paywalls.
    • Excessive ads and algorithmic manipulation obscure relevant content.
    • Customer service declines, and trust erodes.
  1. Customer Reaction
  • Users grow frustrated, disengage, or migrate to alternatives.
  • Negative press, social media complaints, and collective pushback often follow.

Customer Reactions

Customer responses to enshittification are typically negative and involve:

  • Frustration and Disengagement: Users complain about cluttered interfaces, excessive ads, and diminishing utility.
  • Attempts to Exit or Replace: Customers seek alternatives, start movements to migrate platforms, or form online coalitions to push back.
  • Loss of Trust: Users are less likely to recommend enshittified services, leading to lasting brand damage.
  • Public Outcry and Criticism: Social media is rife with posts lamenting how products ‘used to be great,’ and some platforms see collective boycotts or negative press.

Mitigation Strategies For Businesses

Experts and advocates suggest several ways to counteract enshittification:

  • Uphold User-Centric Design: Resist short-term optimization for revenue; focus on real, sustainable user value and trust.
  • End-to-End Principle: Ensure platforms respond to user input, rather than opaque algorithmic manipulation aimed at profit maximization.
  • Right of Exit & Interoperability: Allow users and businesses to leave platforms easily without losing data, reducing lock-in.
  • Breaking Up Monopolies: Counter consolidation by enforcing antitrust laws to increase competition and incentive for quality.
  • Revise Incentives and Metrics: Shift away from metrics that solely focus on conversion or ad revenue toward those that reward user retention and satisfaction.
  • Community and Coalition Building: Foster user advocacy groups to push for better standards and responsible tech policies.
  • Transparent Governance: Open decision-making and feedback channels with users can help build trust and accountability in product changes.

Mitigation Strategies for Users or Customers

Essential indicators to watch for:

  • More Interruptive Ads: A sudden or gradual surge of advertisements or sponsored placements that disrupt usability or overshadow original content.
  • Introduction of Paywalls or Fees: Features that used to be free are now locked behind subscriptions, premium tiers, or microtransactions. Small fees start to appear for basic functions, or more aggressive pushes to upgrade.
  • Feature Removal or Downgrades: Useful, popular, or community-requested features are deprecated, replaced, or made exclusive to paying users.
  • Algorithmic Manipulation: Search results, feeds, or recommendations increasingly prioritize paid/promotional material, or become less transparent and unpredictable.
  • Interface Clutter and Aggressive Monetization: The UI becomes more confusing, cluttered, or filled with pop-ups promoting upgrades and premium options.
  • Lower Service Quality: Slower performance, less reliable operation, less responsive customer service, and more frequent technical issues or bugs.
  • Shift in Company Communication: Messaging around changes becomes less transparent, emphasizing “new opportunities” or “enhancements” that mainly serve monetization rather than user improvement.
  • Erosion of Privacy or Data Rights: The platform pushes for more data collection, weakens privacy controls, or starts selling more user data, often with vague consent mechanisms.

Users can avoid or escape enshittified platforms by adopting several key strategies that reduce dependence, increase user autonomy, and encourage healthier digital habits.

Main strategies include:

  • Exercising the right of exit: Switch to alternative platforms or services when a product’s experience declines, even if it’s initially inconvenient. This reduces user lock-in and sends market signals about unacceptable practices.

  • Choosing interoperable or open platforms: Prefer services that support data portability, interoperability, or make it easy to export data (contacts, files, posts) for migration. This limits vendor lock-in and enables smoother transitions if a platform degrades.

  • Supporting community-driven and decentralized alternatives: Use or contribute to platforms governed by transparent communities, cooperatives, or open-source projects. These are often more responsive to user needs and less prone to profit-maximization at user expense.

  • Reducing reliance and engagement: Limit time spent on attention-maximizing platforms (e.g., social media) and diversify digital habits—open a book, go for a walk, or engage in offline interactions to avoid algorithmic manipulation and advertising overload.

  • Collective user action: Coordinate with other users—through online coalitions, public backlash, or mass exodus—to advocate for change or push platforms to reverse damaging decisions. Notably, substantial pushback has led some platforms to improve policies (e.g., Universal Audio’s DRM rollback after user uproar).

  • Demand transparency and data rights: Engage with platforms by requesting clearer explanations of algorithmic changes, more control over privacy/data settings, and advocating for user-centric regulations (such as data portability, interoperability, and consumer protection laws).

Early signs that a platform is starting to enshittify include a noticeable increase in ads, new paywalls for previously free features, declining quality or reliability, and shifts in algorithms or interface that prioritize monetization over user experience.