A theory why the internet is going down the toilet

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A few years ago, Cory Doctorow coined a word that took the internet by storm. It appeared everywhere, including in our newsletter that analyzed why dating apps are breaking the hearts of their users. The American Dialect Society named it its word of the year in 2023. Merriam-Webster even added it to its dictionary — despite it having a swear word in it.

The word Doctorow coined is "enshittification." And, naturally, that's also the title of his new book.

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.)

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The Stages Of Enshittification

In his new book, Doctorow argues there's a pattern in how these platforms operate. The companies behind these platforms are basically middlemen, connecting their users with businesses that want to make money from these users. So, for example, Facebook and Google connect their users with advertisers. Amazon connects its users with third-party merchants on its marketplace.

Stage 1 is when these platforms are new and want to entice users onto their platforms. 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 th