"I was halfway through doing the dishes while listening to a podcast when an ad cut through and interrupted one of the most interesting bits. My phone was a few meters away in the living room and I rushed over like I had forgotten a burning turkey in the oven to make sure that I got to the phone before the second ad started playing."
"Try YouTube premium and you'll be ad free... something that only a few years ago was standard had become a premium and I asked myself why? The term I happened to be learning about that day from Cory Doctorow was enshittification, which can be loosely defined as the process by which platforms decay as they shift value away from users and toward themselves and their business customers."
An ad interrupted podcast listening during chores, prompting a hurried skip to restore focus and continue the episode about decaying apps. A popup offering YouTube Premium framed ad-free listening as a paid upgrade and raised questions about why ad removal became premium. Enshittification describes platforms decaying as they shift value away from users toward themselves and business customers. Decay unfolds through deliberate, incremental ad rollouts implemented through product design choices. Four major companies—Google, Meta (Facebook and Instagram), TikTok, and YouTube—are identified as key players in this process. YouTube receives particular attention because of heavy personal use.
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