Enshittification
Enshittification, also known as crapification and platform decay, is the term used to describe the pattern in which online products and services decline in quality over time.
These moves aim to uphold the standards and trustworthiness of online platforms, emphasize user satisfaction, and encourage market competition.
[7] Doctorow has described the process of enshittification as happening through "twiddling": the continual adjustment of the parameters of the system in search of marginal improvements of profits, without regard to any other goal.
Discussions about enshittification have appeared in numerous media outlets, including analyses of how tech giants like Facebook, Google, and Amazon have shifted their business models to prioritize profits at the expense of user experience.
[12] This phenomenon has sparked debates about the need for regulatory interventions and alternative models to ensure the integrity and quality of digital platforms.
[8][14] The Macquarie Dictionary named enshittification as its 2024 word of the year, selected by both the committee's and people's choice votes for only the third time since the inaugural event in 2006.
The online retailer began by wooing users with goods sold below cost and (with an Amazon Prime subscription) free shipping.
[7] Doctorow has also criticised Amazon's Audible service, which controls over 90% of the audiobook market and applies mandatory digital rights management (DRM) to all audio books.
Doctorow decided in 2014 to not sell his audiobooks via Audible anymore but produce them himself even though that meant earning a lot less than he would have by letting Amazon "slap DRM" on his books.
[17][18] According to Doctorow, Facebook offered a good service until it had reached a "critical mass" of users, and it became difficult for people to leave because they would need to convince their friends to go with them.
Other changes included temporary rate limits for the number of tweets that could be viewed per day, the introduction of paid subscriptions to the service in the form of Twitter Blue (later renamed to X Premium),[32] and the reduction of moderation.
[36] According to internal documents seen by The New York Times in late 2023, the losses from advertisers were projected to cost the company $75 million by the end of the year.
[40] App-based ridesharing company Uber gained market share by ignoring local licensing systems such as taxi medallions while also keeping consumer costs artificially low by subsidizing rides via venture capital funding.
[41] Once they achieved a duopoly with competitor Lyft, the company implemented surge pricing to increase the cost of travel to riders and dynamically adjust the payments made to drivers.
