Two years ago, a Canadian writer named Cory Doctorow coined the phrase “enshittification” to describe the decay of online platforms. The word immediately set the Internet ablaze, as it captured the growing malaise regarding how almost everything about the web seemed to be getting worse.
“It’s my theory explaining how the Internet was colonized by platforms, why all those platforms are degrading so quickly and thoroughly, why it matters, and what we can do about it,” Doctorow explained in a follow-up article. “We’re all living through a great enshittening, in which the services that matter to us, that we rely on, are turning into giant piles of shit. It’s frustrating. It’s demoralizing. It’s even terrifying.”
Doctorow believes there are four basic forces that might constrain companies from getting worse: competition, regulation, self-help, and tech workers. One by one, he says, these constraints have been eroded as large corporations squeeze the Internet and its denizens for dollars.
If you want a real-world, literal example of enshittification, let’s look at actual poop. When Diapers.com refused Amazon’s acquisition offer, Amazon lit $100 million on fire, selling diapers way below cost for months, until Diapers.com folded. With another competitor tossed aside, Amazon was then free to sell diapers at its price from wherever it wanted to source them.
Anyway, we at Ars have covered a lot of things that have been enshittified. Here are some of the worst examples we’ve come across. Hopefully, you’ll share some of your own experiences in the comments. We might even do a follow-up story based on those.
Table of Contents
Smart TVs
Amazon can use its smart display to track streaming habits.
Credit:
Amazon
Amazon can use its smart display to track streaming habits.
Credit:
Amazon
Smart TVs have come a long way since Samsung released the first model readily available for the masses in 2008. While there have certainly been improvements in areas like image quality, sound capabilities, usability, size, and, critically, price, much of smart TVs’ evolution could be viewed as invasive and anti-consumer.
