If you’re trying to understand why so much of the modern internet feels worse every year, why platforms get buggier, more manipulative, more expensive, more hostile, Cory Doctorow has a word for you: enshittification. It’s a term he coined to describe the slow, deliberate decay of digital platforms, and it’s the central theme of his recent book Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It, expanding on his viral blog post from last year.
Doctorow’s insight is brutally simple: today’s tech giants aren’t becoming terrible by mistake. Their decline is baked into their business model.
What to Know…
Enshittification is intentional, not accidental – Doctorow argues that platforms worsen over time because their business models prioritize shareholder extraction over user experience once monopoly power is secured.
Lock-in and network effects enable exploitation – Big Tech traps users and creators inside ecosystems where switching is costly or impossible, allowing companies to degrade services without losing market share.
A more open and user-friendly internet is possible – Doctorow highlights the early internet’s interoperability and proposes reforms such as antitrust action, open standards, and digital rights protections to reverse the decay.
The Three Stages of Enshittification
Doctorow argues that every major platform follows a predictable arc:
Stage 1 – They’re great to users
In the beginning, platforms shower us with value to get us through the door. Free services. Clean interfaces. Minimal ads. Convenience everywhere. You feel like you’ve discovered the future.
Stage 2 – They’re great to suppliers
Once they have users, platforms start courting advertisers, sellers, and partners. Creators get organic reach. Advertisers get good ROI. The balance shifts, but the experience is still tolerable.
Stage 3 – They’re great only to shareholders
Once users and suppliers are locked in, and once competition is crushed, the platform turns inward. Every design choice exists to extract profit. Everything else becomes collateral damage.
This final phase is where platforms become unusable, and it’s where most of Big Tech now sits.
Why They Can Get Away With It: Lock-In and Network Effects
Doctorow emphasizes a truth anyone online already feels: we’re stuck.
Your photos live in iCloud.
Your chats are on WhatsApp.
Your entire social life is on Instagram.
Your work files sit inside Google Drive.
Leaving isn’t just inconvenient, it’s impossible. You’d have to persuade everyone you know to leave with you.
This is the power of network effects. The more people use a platform, the more valuable it becomes, and the harder it is to escape. Big Tech knows this, and they build products deliberately to chain you to them.
From an Open Internet to a Walled Prison
One of the most fascinating parts of Doctorow’s work is his reminder of how the early internet was built. Everything was open, interoperable, and decentralized. Email worked across providers because it was a simple, universal protocol. The web was designed so that anyone could build on top of it without permission, and hardware was modular and hackable. Companies competed on quality, not on how effectively they could trap you.
Even the old tech giants like IBM and AT&T wanted control, but they didn’t control everything.
Then came the new generation of tech companies that promised freedom and privacy. Early Facebook said it wouldn’t spy on you. Google’s motto was “Don’t be evil.” They claimed to be the antidote to the monopolies of the past.
Now they are the monopolies of the present.
Surveillance capitalism isn’t a bug; it’s an industry standard.
When the Law Makes Everything Worse
Doctorow dives deep into a disturbing trend of companies using copyright law originally created to fight early-2000s music piracy to control hardware, software, and even replacement parts.
This is why printer companies can lock you into “authorized” ink cartriges, Amazon controls every Audiobook purchased through Audible, and manufacturers can prevent repair, replacement, or modification. These copyright laws are also why cloud platforms can lock your own files behind paywalls.
Copyright has become a weapon to keep you from owning the very things you buy.
And with increasing consolidation, we’re heading toward a world where only a few companies run all social media and email, while one company dominates search.
When these platforms know you have nowhere else to go, their products can rot with impunity.
When Google Makes Search Worse On Purpose
One of the book’s most jaw-dropping examples is Google intentionally degrading its own product. Doctorow notes that Google tweaked search results so users have to perform multiple searches to get what they want, giving Google more chances to show ads, which generates more revenue. They only get away with this because they own 90% of the search market.
Competition keeps companies honest. Monopoly lets them enshittify everything.
What Enshittification Means for the Future
Doctorow warns of a world where social media and email costs money, and basic online communication is locked behind subscription fees. Devices will continue to become even less repairable and more disposable, while privacy becomes an expensive luxury good.
Not because better alternatives are impossible, but because companies profit more by making everything worse. We’re not suffering from a lack of innovation. We’re suffering because the law allows monopolies to tighten their grip.
But There’s Hope If We’re Willing to Fight
Doctorow doesn’t just diagnose the rot. He lays out potential solutions like restoring competition, rebuilding open protocols, enforcing interoperability, strengthening antitrust laws, protecting digital ownership and repair rights, and supporting creative workers in an increasingly hostile digital economy.
For digital creators, writers, musicians, and anyone who depends on online platforms, Doctorow offers a roadmap for reclaiming autonomy.
We Don’t Have to Accept This
Enshittification is not destiny.
It’s not natural evolution.
It’s not inefficiency or incompetence.
It’s a choice made by powerful corporations because the current legal and economic landscape rewards them for it.
The first step toward fixing the internet is understanding what broke it. Doctorow gives us the vocabulary and the framework we need.
And as for me?
I’m with him.
Because I am absolutely not paying for email, and I’m definitely not paying Zuck for Facebook.