"Enshittification is more than just a catchy word, describing when companies turn to crap. For Doctorow, a long-time internet activist and journalist, it describes a specific process he sees in the evolution or, really, the devolution of internet platforms, like Facebook, Google, Uber, and Amazon. (Disclosure: Google and Amazon are financial supporters of NPR and Amazon pays to distribute some of our programming.)"
"They are flush with investor cash, face less pressure from shareholders to make immediate profits, and are in a race to convince people to sign up. This is when the platforms are really good to their users. For example, in its early days, Facebook told users that they wouldn't spy on them and harvest their data the way they said MySpace did. And they offered "a feed of things that users wanted to see, rather than things that businesses would pay to show them,""
Enshittification names a recurring lifecycle in digital platforms that start by prioritizing users and later shift to prioritize profit extraction. Platforms act as middlemen connecting users with businesses and advertisers. Early-stage platforms use investor cash and low shareholder pressure to offer superior user experiences to attract users. Later stages see platforms favor business partners and advertisers, degrading user experience through data harvesting, paid prominence, and worse services. Marketplaces and ad-driven platforms often reproduce this pattern, moving from user-centered utility to extracting value from both users and third-party merchants. Awareness of the lifecycle has influenced public conversations about platform regulation and consumer expectations.
Read at www.npr.org
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