Enshittification became popular in 2023 after it was used in a blog post by author of The Internet Con, Cory Doctorow, who used it to describe how digital platforms can become worse and worse:
“Here is how platforms die: first, they are good to their users; then they abuse their users to make things better for their business customers; finally, they abuse those business customers to claw back all the value for themselves. Then, they die. I call this enshittification.”
“Enshittification,” Cory Doctorow’s coinage describing the process by which internet media platforms become increasingly unusable and un-quittable, has been named 2023’s “Digital Word of the Year.” Here, we break down what the term means and Doctorow’s solution to the internet’s relentless enshittification.
Article about an article. Hey, at least the site isn’t filled with ads. Oh wait.
While 99% of the news media at this point is clickbait, this one at least adds new information: “Enshittification… has been named 2023’s Digital Word of the Year.” The original article did not say that:-).
Also, yes there are ads, but also it’s not blocked by a paywall so… checks and balances. Whereas X is basically just fully trash at this point, now that Musk has cancelled Twitter:-P.
The original “article” isn’t an article, it’s just an announcement.
https://americandialect.org/2023-word-of-the-year-is-enshittification/
As for this article, it’s a blog post attached to a book store, expanding on Doctorow and their book. There’s a lot more context being added in this blog post than in that announcement. There’s ads but they’re just ads for the books available in this store. I.e. relevant to people who are visiting a book store’s website.
Not saying shitty sites don’t lazily re-write articles all the time to harvest views, but this isn’t a good example of that.
It’s a publisher, not a book store FWIW.
I believe there is a balance between viable online businesses and bad products due to overloading of ads.