Why Platforms Get Worse
Digital services often begin by solving real problems. They are simple, useful, and cheap. Over time, many of them become harder to use, more expensive, and more manipulative. Search gets worse, feeds fill with junk, subscriptions pile up, and devices stop working the way their owners expect.
Cory Doctorow uses the word enshittification for this pattern of decay. A service first wins users by being good to them. Then it shifts value to advertisers, sellers, and other business customers. After those businesses are dependent too, the platform starts squeezing them as well. At the end, users are frustrated, business customers are trapped, and the platform owner takes the largest share.
This decline is not a natural stage of technology. It comes from choices made by executives, investors, lawmakers, and regulators. A broken internet was built through policy, law, and corporate strategy, which means it can be changed by policy, law, and organized resistance.
The problem reaches far beyond social media. Cars, tractors, e-books, food delivery, repair services, and even household appliances now run through software-controlled systems. Once software becomes the gatekeeper, companies gain new ways to raise prices, block rivals, and limit what people can do with things they already paid for.
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