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.
A bad word that, predictably, nobody uses correctly.
Language evolves. What he described refers to a specific pattern relating to specific platforms, but it also speaks to an overarching pattern that can be applied to most tech and digital markets nowadays.
User entrenchment and the rise of oversized tech companies dominating the industry on multiple fronts has brought us to a tech space where companies no longer need to fear backlash or consequences for most anti-user decisions they could make, as users will simply never leave, and competition is sparse. The “Free Market” is effectively neutered because users will complain but not change their behavior if the cost for doing so means moderately less convenience.
Enshitification, to me, is when a tech company realizes this and takes advantage of it by eroding what made the thing worthwhile, knowing full well they can disregard all criticism and complaints.
It basically speaks to a moment when tech companies shift from thinking “how do we attract users?” to “What can we get away with?”
That’s a thought-terminating cliche that people often use to dismiss legitimate criticism.
In this particular instance I think you’ve made a good case that broadening the definition is a good thing, but I really hate the implication no use of language is ever wrong, but rather just “evolution”, which is implied to be least be a neutral process if not actively beneficial.
I’ve seen people defend literal typos as “language evolution” and get massively upvoted while anyone who dares to disagree is mocked. A typo isn’t language evolution at all unless it becomes popular. Otherwise, to continue the biology metaphor, it’s just a language mutation, and like biological mutations, typos are harmful to communication far more often than they’re helpful.
Another example a bad use of language is how words and phrases are co-opted for political purposes. “Woke” is an obvious recent example. “Welfare” is an older much much more egregious example, where just the mere spelling of the word makes the original meaning clear, and that meaning is unequivocally positive, yet most people think “welfare” means government assistance to poor people. Or take “pulling yourself up by your bootstraps”, which went from an example of something that’s literally impossible to something people are unironically told they should be doing. This sort of thing is language evolution, but it’s not neutral. It’s done with an political agenda. It impoverishes our language our language and stifles honest communication.
Cory’s original usage of the word gave it a useful and specific meaning. But that has evolved extremely rapidly with popular usage into the word simply meaning “I don’t like this thing.” Which takes away the usefulness because now it’s no longer describing a specific reason for not liking it.
It’d be like if every kind of ailment started being referred to as an “infection.” Concussions, sprains, hypothermia, etc, all being passed off as “he got infected.” We already have generic terms for that like “he got hurt,” and now when someone does get literally infected we’ve lost the word that would be used to specify that.
Languages evolve, sure. But that doesn’t mean it’s always in a good direction. In this specific case evolution is enshittifying the language and that’s worth a little (admittedly futile) push-back.
Old words fade or shift and new words will keep coming. It’s not necessarily a bad direction.
Not necessarily, but in this particular case it seems bad to me. We’re losing a specialized term for something that IMO warrants having one.
But often it is a bad direction, and it feels like it’s becoming politically incorrect to point out when that’s happening.
Watching it be used incorrectly has been excruciating given how Doctorow’s definition was so magnificently on point.
“Netflix put their prices up - eNsHiTtIfIcAtIoN!”
While Netflix raised their prices, they also have been delivering less high-quality and more low-quality content. The raised prices merely indicated to people that the services they’re paying for to get away from cable TV are becoming more and more like cable TV.
People who complain about a service instead of finding an alternative are the main problem here, as they’re doing nothing to change the situation they’re currently in.
Human nature. Voting with ones wallet will never work as long as advertising, as we know it, exists. We can’t really blame the average person to do what an average person does.
That’s not what I’m saying here. Voting with your wallet implies that you expect to see some change as a result of your decision, I’m saying that you should make your decision with the expectation that a trend towards negative quality will continue.
There are suitable alternatives to both subscription based services and filmed media. If you aren’t satisfied with something you’re paying for, it doesn’t make sense to keep on paying for that.
Its not the price hike itself that’s enshittification, it’s why they did it and whether or not it’s justified that is.
While I agree with Doctorow that said practice/phenomenon deserves a word, I still think “enshittification” is a bad choice, selected more for its shock-value and popular appeal than anything linguisticly relevant about it.
As I recall, that tends to be Doctorow’s shtick.
Yeah I agree. I suspect he didn’t know the article would blow up as much as it did
Its a good and direct word. I could guess what it meant before I even heard his definition of the word: Things that are willingly made shittier.
“Un-userfriendli-fication” would never catch on.
Right, and that’s not what it means. Hence my statement that it’s a bad word.
Platforms that over time is made shittier to serve the business before the user. What definition are you using?
That definition, not “Things that are willingly made shittier.” Things get shittier for an endless amount of reasons. The reason for the shittiness is very important to the meaning of the word here. That reason is also entirely unclear when just hearing the word on it’s own. Ipso flipso, bad word.
Reminds me about that post about wishing humans had a dedicated sound for warning each other about bees.
Theres no single word that can clearly communicate the entire reason, context, and meaning. If we want to tell the reason for the shittyness, then we say that in a full sentence.
Though most people would understand from context if I just said “Bees!” instead of spending an entire sentence telling them where the bees are and why they should run.
So your point is that…people know what you mean when you shout the name of a very particular animal? That…doesn’t really have any bearing on what I’m saying.
With “enshittification”, what people mean is obvious - in the vast majority of uses I’ve seen, they just want to say “shit” but don’t because it’s not cool or something, idk. What the word means is not clear. That’s my point. It’s so rare that I see it used to mean what it’s intended to that Doctorow might as well not even be credited, and he shares most of the blame for that.
Doctorow wrote a overwrought, psuedo-intillectual blog post to describe in detail what this word means, and then gave us…that. The end result didn’t lead to a better understanding of how and why companies are abusing and draining their customer bases for every penny they can wring from them, or a way to call them out on it as they’re ramping it up faster than ever before. No. He just gave the world another way to say “shit”. Clearly that’s worthy of “Word of the Year”. 🙄
that’s literally a symptom of it though. they’re catering to businesses over consumers
Saw someone use the phrase “enshittification of AI”
I’m not sure even they knew what they meant
Yeah, I’d say that AI wasn’t ever a good enough deal to consumers to qualify for the term.