Enshittification
 Enshittification  (business, model)   | |
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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, vendors create high-quality offerings to attract users, then they degrade those offerings to better serve business customers (such as advertisers), and finally degrade their services to users and business customers to maximise profits for shareholders.[1]
Canadian writer Cory Doctorow coined the neologism enshittification in November 2022, though he was not the first to describe and label the concept. Doctorow's term has been widely adopted. The American Dialect Society selected it as its 2023 Word of the Year, with Australia's Macquarie Dictionary following suit for 2024. Merriam-Webster and Dictionary.com also list enshittification as a word.[2]
Doctorow advocates for two ways to reduce enshittification: upholding the end-to-end principle, which asserts that platforms should transmit data in response to user requests rather than algorithm-driven decisions; and guaranteeing the right of exit—that is, enabling a user to leave a platform without data loss, which requires interoperability. These moves aim to uphold the standards and trustworthiness of online platforms, emphasise user satisfaction, and encourage market competition.[3]
Related Document
| Title | Type | Publication date | Author(s) | Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Document:The Enshittification of the Welfare State | Article | 13 August 2025 | Michael Gardiner | Formally, the Welfare State is still there, and the protection of the Welfare State is paramount; in practice, the Welfare State has the emptied-out feel of the enshittified platform. |
References
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