Enshittification: The Hidden Decline of Digital Platforms

From social feeds to streaming apps, many of us have felt it – the subtle but unmistakable drop in quality of the services we once loved. A cheeky yet surprisingly precise term has popped up to name that phenomenon: enshittification.

Pronounced UK /ɪnˌʃɪt.ɪ.fɪˈkeɪ.ʃən/ or US /ɛnˌʃɪt.ə.fəˈkeɪ.ʃən/, the word describes a three‑stage decay most digital platforms seem to follow. First, they roll out generous, even loss‑making features to lure users. Once a critical mass is hooked, the platform starts favoring business customers – advertisers, third‑party sellers, you name it – and subtly reshapes the rules. Finally, with both users and business partners locked in, the service is squeezed for maximum shareholder profit, often at the expense of functionality, privacy, or simply user enjoyment.

The phrase was coined in 2022 by Canadian‑British writer and internet activist Cory Doctorow. He laid out the concept in a blog post, then expanded on it for a 2023 Wired article, naming the cycle “to users, to business customers, to shareholders.” Doctorow’s vivid description resonated so strongly that the American Dialect Society crowned “enshittification” its 2023 Word of the Year.

What makes the term stick is its blunt honesty. It fills a gap that cleaner jargon—like “platform decay” or “monetisation erosion”—fails to capture. Journalists now sprinkle it across columns: “The enshittification of search engines means we’re seeing paid results before genuine ones,” wrote the Financial Times in 2024. A year later, the Guardian warned readers about the enshittification of streaming services, where subscription fees rise while libraries shrink.

Even though the word is rooted in profanity, it’s slipped into respectable venues, from parliamentary debates to academic papers, because no polite synonym conveys the exact frustration of watching a beloved service turn into a monetised husk.

For those who need a less colorful alternative, Doctorow suggests “platform decay.” But many prefer the raw term; it feels honest, a little angry, and utterly relatable.

Every day we hear people swapping to open‑source tools or ad‑free alternatives, hoping to dodge the inevitable enshittification of mainstream apps. As the digital economy matures, the word may become a permanent fixture in our tech‑savvy vocabulary – a reminder that not every upgrade is actually an improvement.