Enshittification is a word coined by author Cory Doctorow to describe the pattern of degrade quality of online platforms. Enshittification usually comes with four stages:

  1. be good to their users
  2. abuse users to make things better for their business customers
  • e.g. advertisers or paid publishers
  1. abuse business customers to claw back all the value for themselves
  2. die Stage four is often accompanied by panic (e.g. Facebook’s “metaverse” pivoting)

Doctorow highlighted that there are four constraints to prevent such kind of platform decay: competition, regulation, user self-help (such as using Adblockers), and workers. When the constraints get eroded gradually, the impulse of enshittification become unchecked.

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