A surreal digital landscape where a once-beautiful crystalline structure is now grotesquely overgrown with slimy, oozing organic matter and glitching, corrupted data streams, representing a platform's decay into uselessness.
Reaching Levels of Enshittification I Didn't Think Possible
The term "enshittification," coined by author and activist Cory Doctorow, has evolved from a niche concept to a mainstream reality that describes the alarming degradation of digital platforms we once relied on. What began as a gradual decline has accelerated into a full-blown crisis, reaching levels I never imagined possible.
The Anatomy of Accelerated Decline
Platforms that once served as digital town squares and essential utilities have transformed into extractive machines. The pattern is now painfully familiar: attract users with excellent service, exploit that user base for business customers, and finally squeeze both groups to maximize shareholder value. But recent developments suggest we've entered a new phase where the decline isn't gradual—it's exponential.
When the Mask Comes Off
The sheer audacity of platform degradation has reached new heights. We're no longer talking about subtle interface changes or minor feature removals. We're witnessing:
- Bold-faced extraction: Platforms openly prioritizing paid content over organic reach, making it nearly impossible for creators to reach their own audiences without paying
- Feature destruction: Removing essential tools that users depend on, then selling them back as premium features
- Algorithmic manipulation: Systems so optimized for engagement that they actively promote harmful content while suppressing legitimate voices
- Data exploitation: Collecting more data than ever while providing less value in return
- Streaming services that constantly raise prices while removing content
- Productivity tools that become slower and more bloated with each update
- E-commerce platforms that prioritize sponsored listings over relevant results
- Communication apps that sacrifice reliability for new, often unwanted features
- Small businesses struggle to reach customers without paying exorbitant fees
- Creators lose their livelihoods as platforms change algorithms without warning
- Communities fracture as moderation becomes either too heavy-handed or completely absent
- Trust in digital institutions erodes, making it harder for legitimate services to gain traction
- Stronger competition policies to prevent platform monopolies
- Interoperability requirements that allow users to take their data and networks elsewhere
- Transparency mandates for algorithmic systems
- User ownership of digital spaces and communities
The Corporate Denial
Perhaps most telling is the corporate response. When Meta argued in 2025 that "enshittification isn't real," they revealed the fundamental disconnect between platform operators and their users. This denial comes as platforms become increasingly unusable, filled with ads, algorithmic manipulation, and broken features.
Beyond Individual Platforms
The phenomenon has spread beyond social media to infect nearly every corner of the digital ecosystem:
The Human Cost
This isn't just about inconvenience. The enshittification of digital platforms has real consequences:
A Systemic Problem Demanding Systemic Solutions
As Doctorow correctly notes, you can't fight enshittification alone. This isn't about individual bad actors—it's about systems designed to extract maximum value with minimum accountability. The solutions must be equally systemic:
The Uncomfortable Truth
We've reached a point where the degradation feels intentional rather than accidental. Platforms aren't just getting worse—they're being made worse, systematically and deliberately. The levels of enshittification we're witnessing represent a fundamental betrayal of the internet's promise: that digital spaces could be better than their physical counterparts.
The recognition of this phenomenon by mainstream institutions—including the Macquarie Dictionary naming it Word of the Year—shows that we're not imagining things. The digital world is being systematically made worse, and the only surprising thing is how brazen the process has become.
The prompt for this was: Reaching levels of enshittification i didn’t think possible
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