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:
- be good to their users
- abuse users to make things better for their business customers
- e.g. advertisers or paid publishers
- abuse business customers to claw back all the value for themselves
- 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.