Enshittification
Enshittification is Cory Doctorow's term for the degradation of an online platform as it changes whom it serves. In the model, a platform first gives surplus to users, then reallocates value toward business customers, and finally extracts from both groups for its own benefit. It is an incentive-cycle hypothesis, not simply a synonym for a bad interface.
Origin and context
Doctorow documented the term in a November 2022 analysis of Amazon and monopoly, then developed the three-stage formulation in a January 2023 essay about social platforms, switching costs, and the loss of user surplus. The later analysis connected platform deterioration to lock-in and the ability to alter how value is distributed among users, advertisers, sellers, creators, and the platform itself. In January 2024, the American Dialect Society selected enshittification as its 2023 Word of the Year, documenting adoption well beyond the original essays.
Why it matters
The term gives product teams and policy analysts a way to ask who gains and loses when ranking, pricing, access, moderation, or interoperability rules change. It shifts attention from isolated design complaints to the structure of a multi-sided market and the leverage created by lock-in. That framing can help distinguish a temporary quality problem from a sequence in which a platform repeatedly worsens terms for participants who cannot easily leave.
Sources: s1
Example
A marketplace might initially subsidize buyers and give sellers generous reach. Once both groups depend on it, the platform can require sellers to pay for visibility, increase fees, and fill buyer results with sponsored placements. Calling that sequence enshittification asserts a change in value allocation and bargaining power; merely observing a redesign or outage would not support the label.
Sources: s1
How it differs
AI slop
Enshittification describes a proposed platform lifecycle driven by incentives and lock-in. AI slop describes low-quality, often high-volume AI-generated content. A platform may distribute slop while degrading, but slop is an output category and does not by itself establish the three-stage platform process.
Maturity and evidence
The concept has a stable named origin, sustained public use, and independent linguistic recognition, supporting maturity 4 as a cultural and analytical term. It is not a formal economic standard, and the proposed stages are not universally observed. The rating reflects durable adoption rather than proof that the model explains every platform's trajectory.
Limits and open questions
Enshittification is intentionally rhetorical and can compress different causes—market power, governance choices, cost pressure, competition, or technical debt—into one story. It does not supply a quantitative test, establish intent, or prove that decline is inevitable. Comparative claims should specify the affected group, change, period, and evidence rather than rely on the label alone.
Sources: s1
Related terms
References
- Social QuittingPluralistic · 2023-01-09 · class A
- 2023 Word of the Year Is EnshittificationAmerican Dialect Society · 2024-01-05 · class A
- How monopoly enshittified AmazonPluralistic · 2022-11-28 · class A
- Slop is the new name for unwanted AI-generated contentSimon Willison's Weblog · 2024-05-08 · class B
Last updated: 2026-08-27
This term is also covered in the Skills Atlas as ai ethics skill.
This term is also covered in the Skills Atlas as ai product management skill.