• In the ever-evolving landscape of digital platforms, there is a recurring pattern, a cycle that plays out until it leads to their eventual demise. It’s a phenomenon I’ve coined “enshittification,” and it’s an inexorable transformation that befalls platforms as they shift their priorities.
• This cycle begins with a platform’s benevolence toward its users. It strives to create value and offers an exceptional experience, drawing in a growing user base. Take Amazon, for instance. In its early years, the e-commerce giant operated at a loss, prioritizing customers by selling products below cost and ensuring an efficient search experience. This, in turn, attracted hordes of shoppers.
• But as the platform swells and its user base solidifies, a shift occurs. The platform pivots its focus toward business customers, seeking to lure in sellers and advertisers. This shift triggers a cascade of changes, a chain reaction in the pursuit of maximizing profits.
• Amazon, once a haven for customers, becomes a marketplace dominated by businesses. Sellers flock to the platform for its vast customer base, driving the shift in the balance of power. Fees begin to pile up, with sellers surrendering a significant chunk of their revenue to Amazon. The platform introduces advertising schemes that pit sellers against each other, further fueling its bottom line. The consumer-centric principles of the past erode as the quest for profit intensifies.
  This phenomenon mirrors a broader trend across digital platforms, from mobile app stores to social media giants like Facebook and Twitter. The enshittification cycle is relentless, with platforms becoming progressively more user-unfriendly and profit-driven.
• Facebook, in its infancy, connected people and fostered genuine social interactions. But as it grew, it began to manipulate users’ feeds, favoring posts from unfamiliar accounts and flooding the platform with ads. It even pushed publishers to host their content directly on the site, making them reliant on Facebook for their audience. The result: a toxic environment where user experiences took a back seat to monetization.
• Twitter, too, succumbed to enshittification, burying users’ posts and pushing for a subscription model, holding content hostage until users paid a fee. The pursuit of profit overshadowed the essence of the platform – connecting people and sharing thoughts freely.
  This shift, akin to the “heating” strategy employed by TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, exemplifies the platform’s strategy to attract and trap creators and media companies. By inflating view counts and elevating certain content, TikTok lures in influencers and brands into partnerships. But this favoritism comes at the expense of other creators who aren’t part of these relationships.
• TikTok’s success stemmed from its uncanny ability to recommend content that resonated with users. Yet, even TikTok couldn’t resist the allure of enshittification. Instead of delivering content tailored to users’ preferences, it began inserting videos into feeds without user consent, emphasizing profit over user experience.
  This trend of enshittification permeates across the digital realm, corroding once-great platforms. Google Search, despite its foundational commitment to users, started favoring its products and ads, crowding out relevant results. Amazon Smile, initially a charitable endeavor, became a tool to lure users into using Amazon’s search over Google’s.
• The enshittification spiral holds immense power, enticing users to stick around even as their experiences deteriorate. The absence of viable alternatives and a lack of platform interoperability further exacerbate this cycle.
  So, what can we learn from this inexorable descent into enshittification? The focus should shift from preserving these aging platforms to safeguarding users’ rights. End-to-end principles should be enshrined, ensuring that users have control over their online experiences. And above all, the freedom to exit a platform while retaining access to the communities, media, and data they’ve amassed should be protected.

The digital realm is ever-changing, and the reign of platform monarchs is not meant to be eternal. It’s time for policymakers and users alike to embrace a new era, one that prioritizes technological self-determination over the profit-driven whims of platforms. Let the lessons of enshittification guide us toward a more user-centric digital future.