Enshittification: Difference between revisions

The platform decay practice is done in three stages. Initially, the companies create high-quality products or service offerings, usually by offering users a product or service at a low price (or sometimes for free). This works as an easy way to attract users and consumers and undercut the competition. Later, the offerings and platform quality decline, often with subtle changes, worsening users' experience during a transition to prioritize business customer profits. At the end, they decline quality for both regular and business customers to prioritize shareholder profits.  

===1. Incentivizing mass adoption===

Companies begin by offering a product or service that provides a high-quality experience or usage for users, while constantly listening to user feedback. Another common practice to attract users is to offer a low or affordable price for most consumers. They basically create something "too good" to be free or low-cost. This leads to a visible, well-known product or service that makes it easy to build communities and user bases.  

===Social media===

{{Main|Facebook}}

[[Facebook]] has shifted from a network for personal connection to a platform dominated by advertising and algorithmic manipulation. User data is monetised at the expense of privacy, while the quality of organic content has steadily declined.

{{Main|Instagram}}

Instagram once centred on creativity and social sharing, Instagram now prioritises sponsored posts, shopping features, and influencer marketing. Users’ ability to control their feeds has been reduced, reflecting the platform’s focus on profit over consumer experience.

{{Main|Reddit}}

Reddit’s 2023 API changes exemplify enshitification, undermining community tools and third-party apps in favour of advertising revenue. This has eroded user autonomy and restricted consumer choice.

{{Main|X Corp}}

Following its acquisition and rebrand, Twitter/X introduced [[Pay-walling|paywalls]] for basic features, weakened its moderation and increased sponsored content. The result has ended into a degraded service and a diminished consumer experience.

{{Main|TikTok}}

TikTok’s powerful recommendation algorithm drives engagement but also funnels users into repetitive content while saturating feeds with advertising. Concerns over data exploitation further highlight the imbalance between corporate gain and consumer rights.

{{Main|YouTube}}

YouTube has expanded ad loads and aggressively promoted subscriptions, while algorithmic changes often disadvantage independent creators. Consumers face reduced choice and increased intrusion, hallmarks of enshitification.

{{Main|Discord}}

Discord's primary selling point is that it is the most-used method of online communication, especially for communities.{{Citation needed}} Because of this dominance, it has caused barriers for users intending to switch to alternative platforms such as Stoat or Matrix, as a lack of common users between platforms makes it difficult for more users to transfer over.{{Citation needed}} This fact has been abused by Discord with its infrastructure showing signs of decay,{{Citation needed}} the introduction of advertisements in the format of "quests",{{Citation needed}} and the degradation of free perks.{{Citation needed}}

===Software===

{{Main|Adobe}}

'''Users losing their perpetual licenses''': Starting in 2013 with Creative Cloud, Adobe eliminated the option to purchase perpetual licenses for core products like Photoshop, Illustrator, and Premiere. Users must now maintain an ongoing subscription to access the software at all. Cancelling payments disables applications regardless of prior investment, dramatically increasing long-term costs and removing user ownership in favor of recurring subscriptions.

'''Dark patterns in subscription cancellation:''' Adobe’s subscription plans use confusing billing structures (such as “annual plans billed monthly”) that impose early termination fees. Cancellation flows are [[Dark pattern|deliberately complex]], with obscured options and repeated retention prompts, resulting in users paying longer than intended or being penalized for leaving.

{{Main|Microsoft Windows 11}}

'''Forced Microsoft account sign-in:''' Beginning with Windows 10 and further enforced in Windows 11, Microsoft increasingly requires users to sign in with a Microsoft account during setup. This restricts offline use, obscures the option to create a local account, and facilitates expanded telemetry collection and ecosystem lock-in.

'''Degraded local search in favor of web search:''' The start menu and file search experience has progressively gotten worse, blending local results with Bing web searches. This often prioritizes online content and advertisements over fast, predictable local file and application discovery, reducing usability in order to promote Microsoft’s search and advertising ecosystem.

{{Main|Unity}}

Unity Software Inc. implemented sweeping changes to its pricing model for Unity that would affect all users of the engine, forcing users to either adopt their per-download fee or de-list their games.

{{Hatnote|Main articles: [[Apple App Store]], [[Google Play Store]]}}

A lot of mobile games have fell into enshittified experiences. [[Free to Play]] business model took off with users being bombarded with ads, [[Microtransactions|micro-transactions]], [[Battle passes|battle-passes]], energy-systems and more, to extract as much money out of the player's pocket, while making the experience less fun. The video game Angry-Birds is a good example of this. What started as a very simple game now has all of the aforementioned tactics baked into it, rendering the playing experience tedious and unpleasant.