"Enshittification" – a provocative yet timely term first coined by activist blogger and journalist Cory Doctorow – describes the gradual erosion of service quality on digital platforms. It’s a process that’s now become almost formulaic within the FANG business community. 

First, user experience is prioritised to build market share. Then, once a sufficiently sizeable mass of users has been achieved, those same users are abused as their data is sold to business customers. Finally, the business customers who have paid handsome fees for targeted advertising see the impact of their campaigns tank as the platforms reduce service quality to favour short-term profit maximisation.

This pattern reveals some foundational realities about how the world is now being shaped. Realities that every business needs to urgently understand.

Productivity software, collaboration platforms and workplace systems are becoming worse by design. The slow degradation of service quality enables both profit maximisation and mass surveillance, data extraction and control. This is terrifying, not least as we witness in realtime the use of surveillance data to enable the roundup and arrest of those deemed a threat to the current US administration.

Enshittification also impacts the quality of work available. Gig economy platforms have form for initially attracting workers with good pay and flexibility. Then, once a dependent relationship has been formed, they systematically degrade working conditions. Doctorow provides numerous examples of how Uber drivers, Instacart shoppers, and content creators have consistently seen their earnings decline and autonomy erode.

Enshittification thrives on lock-in and monopoly. It assumes that we, the people, are a captive audience. The ability to switch platforms, export our data, and use competitive tools matters enormously.

Whether we’re building professional networks, creating content, or developing skills on proprietary platforms, enshittification shows why market competition is the difference between building durable professional capital and being trapped in an inescapable, extrapolative, technofeudal system of ever-increasing inequality. 

This is essential reading. We get the future we choose.