ENSHITTIFICATION

#enshittification #economics #consumerism #subscription

You can feel the descent long before the lift stops working.

“The ads used to say hot girls in my area, now they say desperate girls” he said

“The internet is different now” she said “they use targeted advertising“

I used to like Amazon, it was dependable – broken something? Fixed. Needed something? There. Like a butler with prime logistics and no desire for conversation. But gradually, quietly, it changed. I’d search for the exact thing, using the exact product name, and still end up wading through neck-deep in an orgy of “Sponsored” tiles.

The item I need will still be there, just now its somewhere on page three behind a Bluetooth-enabled salad spinner and a bikini for a dog.

Amazon was no longer selling me products, it was selling me to the products. It had turned from shopfront to strip club, if you want attention, you better start throwing notes.

Cory Doctorow calls this “enshittification,” which sounds like a joke until you realise, you’re the punchline. Enshittification is the slow, inevitable rot that sets in when a platform starts out by being great at a financial loss – offering generous features, low prices, and a smooth experience to win over users. Once it dominates the market and competitors fade, it begins shifting its priorities, squeezing users with fees and degrading quality to serve advertisers or business partners. Eventually, it turns inward, clawing back every ounce of value for itself, cutting corners, raising prices, and offering terrible service, all while knowing users have nowhere else to go.

U.S. Federal Trade Commission’s 2023 complaint spoke of “interlocking” tactics that raise prices and degrade quality, and of rules that punish sellers for discounting elsewhere. The European Commission’s earlier cases pressed on self-preferencing and the way Prime eligibility and the Buy Box intertwine with Amazon’s own logistics.

As a seller, the platform becomes a pay-to-exist hotel where even the minifridge is paying rent. You don’t have to advertise, in theory. In practice, not doing so is akin to whispering your existence from inside a vacuum cleaner. You don’t have to use their warehouse either but doing so raises your visibility from six feet under the ground to peeking from under a disappointing hat.

On my side of the screen, the results are predictably dire, – higher prices, lower discovery, and an experience that now feels like rubbing a balloon for static then trying to untangle your own hair. Each “recommended” item drips with suspicion, and every extra scroll feels like cognitive taxation.

And now Google has joined the parade. Once the gatekeeper of the world’s knowledge, now feels like a digital pyramid scheme wearing Meta glasses. Ads flood the page, like searching for truth in a hall of mirrors held together by AdSense and RedBull.

This is why “enshittification” caught on, it’s not just a slogan, it’s a pattern you can trace. Duolingo, Uber, Unity, and don’t get me started on Facebook.

It’s not decline, it’s a deliberate reallocation of value away from users and toward shareholders, and it’s not just the screens we scroll or the sites we sift through.

TVs are sold at a loss, not because companies are generous, but because they plan to monetize you later through ads and tracking. Brands like LG, Samsung, Roku, and Vizio now prioritize recurring revenue from ads shown on home screens, screensavers, and free ad-supported streaming channels. They also use Automatic Content Recognition (ACR) to track what you watch, even across HDMI inputs, and sell that data to advertisers.

Even when you’re not “consuming content”, Jeep recently added full-screen ads to their car dashboard touchscreens. Samsung’s “Family Hub” smart refrigerators now display ads during idle time, not suggestions, not reminders, but ads.

I don’t want to come across as the crazy guy in the street preaching about how the end is nigh, but this is only going to get worse. Because soon your house will no longer be a home, but a commercial break with a roof. And whilst adverts cause no harm, when you can’t get into your own fridge until the Jet2Holidays advert has finished, or you’re waiting for the skip-ad button to appear so you can start your car, you’ll no longer have the luxury to boycott, for like how cows can’t boycott McDonalds, you are the product.

…

I’m pretty sure that works… It’ll do.

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