Like - Enshittification

Last year, Cory Doctorow published an essay in Wired called “The Enshittification of TikTok: or how platforms die.”¹ It’s a phenomenal read. Probably one of the best and most important articles that was written last year. If you’ve ever heard some throw out a casual “neoliberalism” or “late-stage capitalism” without fully understanding what they meant (though they may not fully understand themselves either) enshittification is the word you’re probably looking for. The basic thrust is that enshittification describes the process of how corporate greed ruins things. Have you been to YouTube lately? Isn’t it annoying how there are two ads before almost every video you watch and how ads will run multiple times in between videos over ~10:00. That’s enshittification at work. If you read the article (which I highly suggest you do) you’ll learn how it’s happening at TikTok and before that Amazon, Meta, Google, and seemingly every other tech company. You’re not crazy for remembering a better internet that was less plagued with ads, at this point you’d be crazy to not remember a society plagued by advertising. Anyway, the concept isn’t limited to tech companies. Enshittification is all around you if you care to look,² not that you have to try because it gets shoved in your face. Having a powerful term to identify what’s happening is a good place to start.

1. Technically it was first published on his own personal website and Wired republished it but I saw it on Wired not his personal site because I’m only so plugged in.

2. For instance, Molly Knight used it to describe the MLB spring training jersey fiasco.