Enshittification

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Enshittification, also known as crapification and platform decay, is a pattern in which two-sided online products and services decline in quality over time. Initially, companies create high-quality offerings to attract users and undercut competition, then they degrade those offerings to better serve business customers, and finally degrade their services to users, business customers and workers to maximize profits for shareholders.

The term was first coined by tech blogger Cory Doctorow in November 2022, popularized by Arun Maini (Mrwhosetheboss), and has since gained widespread recognition.

How it works

"It is a seemingly inevitable consequence arising from the combination of the ease of changing how a platform allocates value, combined with the nature of a "two-sided market," where a platform sits between buyers and sellers, hold each hostage to the other, raking off an ever-larger share of the value that passes between them." - Cory Doctorow, Wired, 2023

Enshittification at its core is a three-stage process.

Stage 1 - Incentivizing Mass Adoption

Companies offer their product or service to users with great incentive to try and build an established userbase. It is usually during the early stage of the company is the most focused on providing a positive user experience and listening to feedback.

For example, Uber aggressively used investor capital to fund massive subsidies, paying to acquire both drivers and passengers. It was initially well-received for offering competitive prices for transportation, leading to a large userbase adopting the platform.

Stage 2 - Catering to Business Clients

Once a stable userbase is locked in, companies begin offering access to the userbase to business customers with great incentive. This stage is usually when the user experience begins to decline as the company is now more focused on catering to partners such as suppliers and advertisers.

For example, in 2023, Reddit removed free access to their API nearing the time of its Initial public offering (IPO). Then, in 2024, Reddit struck a $60 million deal with Google to give access to its user-generated content for AI training data.

Stage 3 - Quality Degradation for Shareholders

When both users and business partners are locked in, the company shifts its surpluses to the shareholders. It no longer has any incentive to grow or maintain quality for either of its customer bases and relentlessly seeks profit at any rate for the shareholders. Companies at this stage also tend to have such a large market presence that switching barriers naturally (or intentionally) fall into place for those trying to leave for alternatives.

An ongoing example is YouTube's crackdown on users using ad-blockers. While such a crackdown might reduce ad-blocker usage and increase short-term shareholder returns, it degrades the experience for users and reduces the quality of impressions for advertisers. Over 30% of the world's population uses YouTube, with a ~98% market share in online video media.

Why it is a problem

Erosion of user experiences

It can cause frustration among customers, for example Netflix has started locking down movies behind expensive plans, so customers are frustrated into subscribing to a more expensive plan.

Enshittification can also lead to feature creep - especially when new features of a product are intended to further lock in users and increase revenue. This creep can lead to an overall reduction in performance due to bloat and increased complexity, reducing a product's usability. A prime example of feature creep caused in large part by late-stage enshittification is Microsoft Windows.

Switching barriers

Enshittified platforms that act as intermediaries can act as both a monopoly on services and a monopsony on customers, as high switching barriers prevent either from leaving even when better alternatives technically exist. These barriers can be intentionally put in place - such as restricting the user's ability to transfer data or communicate between platforms - or unintentional, such as a platform's userbase being so large that it naturally makes it near impossible for users or partners to find equivalent engagement on an alternative platform.

An example of this would be a long-time eBay seller hoping to leave the site for an alternative with lower fees (possibly Mercari or Etsy). They might first encounter issues migrating all of their listings over to the new platform; a process which could be tedious. Their feedback history will certainly not carry over to the new platform so buyers are initially less likely to view them as trustworthy, potentially impacting sales. Lastly, the alternative platform likely has a vastly smaller userbase than eBay so despite all the possible benefits - the seller is less likely to be successful on the new platform than they are on eBay.

Such switching barriers can create an adversarial relationship between platform users or business partners and the company they're dependent on. The users or partners cannot be successful without access to the wide reach of the platform - but it leaves them wholly dependent on a company that no longer has their best interests in mind.

Platform death

A potential end-scenario for enshittified platforms is death, usually caused by a large enough exodus of users and business partners, and a general loss of trust. A platform may not truly "die" per se, but it can completely lose the identity that made it successful in the first place - and might not ever regain it. An ongoing example is Twitter post Elon Musk's takeover. Under its new ownership and branding, the platform drove away swathes of its userbase and advertisers to alternative platforms (such as Bluesky) after its policy shifts proved widely unpopular.

However, the death of an enshittified platform is not an entirely positive end result. It uproots a long established userbase and can greatly disrupt their activities. There is also the chance that alternative platforms lack feature parity with the old platform or that it might not even be able to support the massive influx of new users - at least for some amount of time. At worst, data loss could be involved meaning years worth of information - if not archived beforehand - could potentially be lost if a platform shuts down in some capacity.

Possible solutions

End-to-end principal

...

Right of exit

See also: Click-to-cancel

The right of exit, or Data portability, is the right of a user to leave a platform without losing the data stored on it, and instead being able to export it and access it in various applications of the user's liking.

Examples

E-commerce

In Doctorow's original post, he discussed the practices of Amazon. The online retailer initially drew in users with products sold below cost and free shipping. Once its userbase was well established, more sellers began to sell their products through Amazon. Finally, Amazon began to add fees to increase profits. In 2023, over 45% of the sale price of items went to Amazon in the form of various fees. Amazon also allows sellers the ability to push their listing higher in search results via its paid Sponsored Products program. Doctorow described advertisement within Amazon as a payola scheme in which sellers bid against one another for search-ranking preference, and said that the first five pages of a search for "cat beds" were half advertisements

eBay is another e-commerce site that followed a similar trajectory, initially offering low fees and a robust buying/selling protection system. Once its userbase of largely secondhand buyers and sellers was solidified, eBay raised seller fees and began incentivizing large volume sellers - often actual businesses - with lower selling fees should they subscribe to eBay Store. eBay sellers are also no longer able to leave negative feedback for buyers, greatly reducing the ability of sellers to avoid bad actors. Since then, eBay has introduced promoted listings that are effectively analogous to Amazon's paid sponsored listing system. eBay has also encouraged sellers to use AI generated descriptions that often misrepresent the condition of items being sold, along with opting all of its users into in-house AI training by default as of its April 21, 2025 privacy policy revision.

Media streaming platforms

The enshittification of Netflix is similarly reflected in other competing streaming platforms such as YouTube TV and Amazon Prime Video, where prices have increased despite a decline (or at least no perceivable improvement) in overall service quality. Multiple providers have also downgraded their cheapest paid plans to now come bundled with ads.

Search engines

Google started as an ad-free search engine, but over time more paid insertions have been included on the top of the search without a clear and visible distinction between ads and actual legitimate results. In 2024, Google started rolling out AI Overview, but the roll-out was rushed. The AI Overview showed inaccurate, potentially dangerous overviews, such as encouraging eating rocks, suggesting putting glue on top of pizza as a solution to cheese sliding off, encouraging smoking during pregnancy, encouraging suicide and suggesting users to jump off the golden gate bridge. Google has responded to those issues and temporarily disabled the AI overview. While those incidents have been fixed and the AI Overview has been made available again, the AI overview still shows inaccurate results, often citing satire comments as factual sources, or making stuff up. The AI overview has also been criticized for reducing traffic towards genuine sites, where instead of visiting sites to get the information, the information is displayed on top, where people don't have to visit sites to get the information they were looking for, and is also a cause of privacy concerns.

Social media

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.

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.

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.

Twitter/X:

Following its acquisition and rebrand, Twitter/X introduced paywalls for basic features, weakened moderation, and increased promoted content. The result has been a degraded service and a diminished consumer experience.

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.

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.

Discord:

Discord's primary selling point is that it is the most-used method of communication, especially for communities, online.^{[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

Adobe:

• Forced shift from perpetual licenses to subscriptions.

Beginning 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.

• Loss of access to files after subscription ends.

Many Adobe file formats (PSD, AI, INDD, AE project files) are proprietary and poorly supported by third-party software. When a subscription ends, users become unable to open, export, or meaningfully edit their own historical work, effectively holding user-created content hostage to enforce continued payment.

• Mandatory Creative Cloud account and DRM for offline tools.

Applications that run locally require frequent online authentication through the Creative Cloud desktop app. Forced sign-ins, background services, and periodic license checks can disable software unexpectedly, undermining reliability and making professional tools dependent on Adobe’s servers.

• Dark patterns in subscription cancellation and pricing.

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

Microsoft Windows:

• 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.

• Built-in advertising in a paid operating system.

Despite being a commercial software, Windows includes advertisements and promotional content in the Start Menu, lock screen, system notifications, and settings panels, used to promote Microsoft 365, OneDrive, Edge, and other services and other proprietary software. Even when users disable these features, they are frequently re-enabled after major updates.

• Dark patterns in bundled applications.

Microsoft applications repeatedly nudge users toward Microsoft-preferred choices. Edge persistently prompts users to become the default browser and displays warnings when switching away. OneDrive frames cloud uploads as “protecting your files,” obscuring the fact that local folders are being redirected to Microsoft’s servers. Subscription prompts often lack a clear “Never ask again” option, offering only choices such as “Try for free” or “Maybe later” as in Microsoft365.

• Increased unavoidable telemetry.

Telemetry and diagnostic data collection are enabled by default, with only limited controls available to disable or reduce them—particularly in non-Enterprise editions. Some data collection is mandatory and vaguely documented, undermining informed consent.

• Loss of user control over updates.

Windows updates cannot be permanently disabled through standard settings. Users can only defer updates for a limited period (up to four weeks), after which downloads and installations are often forced, sometimes causing unexpected restarts or re-enabling previously disabled features without user consent.

• Bundled software bloat.

Windows ships with numerous preinstalled Microsoft applications that are not essential to core OS functionality. These apps are installed without explicit user consent and may reappear after major updates even if previously removed.

• 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.

Video Games

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.

Mobile Games:A lot of mobile games have fell into enshittifed experiences. A lot of mobile games were paid in the early days of the Apple App Store, but then became Free to Play with users being bombarded with ads, micro-transactions, 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.

Learning Applications

Duolingo:

...

Further reading

• https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/30/go-nuts-meine-kerle/#ich-bin-ein-bratapfel

External links

• "Digital chains and modern feudalism"