The Age of Enshitification: How Capitalism Hollowed Out Everything We Love

In an era defined by degradation disguised as innovation, we find ourselves awash in what Cory Doctorow aptly calls "enshitification": the predictable decline of products, platforms, and institutions once they fall into the orbit of unrestrained capitalism. The pattern is as reliable as gravity: something begins as useful, even beloved; it gains popularity by offering real value; then, once the user base is locked in, the screws tighten, the fees rise, the services degrade, and the quality plummets.

Why?

Because when profitability becomes the only metric that matters, exploitation becomes the method.

This is no longer just a tech-world phenomenon. Enshitification is now systemic. It infects every industry and every facet of public and private life. Here are some of the clearest examples of this decline, each a case study in how capitalism, left unchecked, prioritizes extraction over value, and profit over people.

Enshitification occurs through a predictable, almost mechanical process driven by unchecked capitalism's incentive structures. Initially, new products, services, or platforms attract users by genuinely offering value, such as great service, convenience, quality, or affordability. This early phase often involves operating at a loss or minimal profit to build loyalty, reputation, and market share.

Once dominance or sufficient market share is achieved, the incentive structure shifts. Investors demand ever-increasing returns, and the easiest path to profits involves extracting more from the existing user base rather than innovating or improving the service. Companies shift their focus from customer satisfaction to investor satisfaction, maximizing short-term profit margins through fee increases, cost-cutting, or monetizing features previously offered for free.

Platforms become increasingly opaque and exploitative as they prioritize monetization strategies over the user experience. Algorithms begin favoring content or products that generate the most revenue rather than those that best meet user needs. Customer service deteriorates because adequate support no longer directly contributes to short-term profits. The result is a steady decline in value, authenticity, and quality, leading to widespread dissatisfaction and disillusionment among users who initially supported the growth and success of these companies.

What It Feels Like to Live Through Enshitification

How many times have you found yourself desperately trying to reach someone in order to get something done, only to be trapped in a maze of automated voice commands. "Press 1 for billing, 2 for account details, 3 to go quietly insane." You scream “representative” into the phone or dial “0” only to be disconnected. You might reach someone eventually, but that someone might be underpaid, undertrained, or reading from a script in another hemisphere with no actual authority to help you.

This is enshitification.

Every day, people now wade through a world designed not for ease, but for delay and deflection. You try to cancel a subscription and find it buried behind ten clicks, a guilt-tripping confirmation page, and an optional chat with a retention specialist. You order groceries online and pay a half-dozen fees: one for delivery, one for service, one for fuel, one for a bag, and one because the app simply can.

Your flight gets canceled, and you’re directed to an app that offers no human recourse. You want to contact customer service, but you must download a chatbot, verify your identity three times, and wait 72 hours for a canned response. You can't even speak to someone at the DMV, the power company, or your internet provider without a Herculean effort.

Meanwhile, you spend more and get less. Your Spotify playlist is interrupted by ads unless you pay. Your once-functional smart home device needs a subscription to unlock features it already had. You find yourself doing unpaid labor; bagging your own groceries, checking yourself in at the doctor’s office, managing your own travel rebookings, and you’re told this is “convenience.”

This is what living through enshitification feels like: the constant, low-grade hum of exploitation in your daily routine. It’s the psychological erosion that comes from realizing you are not a valued customer, just a data point in a profit stream. It’s the fatigue of endless workarounds, tricks, and hacks to access what used to be normal. It’s spending more time solving problems caused by bad systems than actually living your life.

Air Travel: The Southwest U-Turn and the Decline of Trust

Southwest Airlines long stood as a rare gem in a bleak airline industry. Known for two free checked bags, no change fees, and open seating, Southwest marketed itself on simplicity and customer respect. This earned it a loyal customer base and a rare sense of brand goodwill in an industry known for stress and gouging. Now, that goodwill is being sacrificed. The airline's new plans to end free checked bags and introduce assigned seating reflect not a desire to improve service, but a need to "align with industry standards." Meaning, extract more profit from the same travelers who made them successful. They are not innovating; they are devolving to the mean.

They follow the path of United, Delta, and American, who have turned flying into a tiered humiliation ritual. Want to board early? Pay more. Want a decent seat? Pay more. Want to breathe in something other than recycled disdain? That'll be extra. Enshitification here is marked by the systematic unbundling of basic services and the transformation of travel into a gamified grift.

The Gig Economy: Uber, Lyft, and the Mirage of Flexibility

Uber and Lyft entered the public consciousness as disruptors offering a win-win: riders got cheaper fares, and drivers got flexible, independent work. But those promises evaporated as soon as the companies consolidated their market share. Today, prices often exceed those of traditional taxis, and driver pay has dropped dramatically. Surge pricing is now less about demand and more about maximizing extraction. Drivers are tracked, ranked, and penalized by algorithms. Riders face an increasingly hostile and erratic experience.

DoorDash and Instacart followed suit. Initially positioned as modern convenience miracles, they now operate on razor-thin worker margins, exploitative tipping structures, and price markups hidden from users. Workers have no protections, and customers are increasingly coerced into paying for speed or reliability. Everyone loses, except the platform.

Retail Platforms: Amazon, the Counterfeit Jungle

Amazon was once a frictionless marvel of digital commerce. Fast shipping, reliable reviews, and low prices made it the default shopping site for millions. But the modern Amazon homepage is a swamp of sponsored results, fake reviews, drop-shipped garbage, and paid placement. Search results are pay-to-win; genuine products are buried under a flood of low-quality knockoffs.

Even Amazon's once-lauded "Prime" service has decayed. Delivery windows are now vague, prices have risen, and "Prime" no longer guarantees expedited service. Vendors are pushed to advertise to be seen at all, and the overall experience has become one of digital clutter and customer confusion.

Streaming and Entertainment: Netflix, Spotify, and the Content Graveyard

Netflix used to be a breath of fresh air: low prices, ad-free bingeable content, and freedom to share accounts among households. That era is over. Prices increase regularly. Account sharing is punished. Ads have crept in. And content? Algorithmic, low-risk, and disposable. Netflix no longer aims to delight but to keep you passively watching, endlessly scrolling. Their content model now resembles fast food: cheap to make, bland, and forgettable.

Spotify took a similar route. Personalized discovery once felt magical. Now, sponsored tracks infiltrate playlists, and artists are paid pennies while the company invests in tech acquisitions and gimmicks. Music isn't curated for joy; it is sorted to increase engagement minutes and justify subscription hikes.

Other platforms follow suit. Disney+, HBO Max (briefly rebranded as just "Max"), and Hulu constantly rotate content libraries to create artificial scarcity. Instead of celebrating abundance, they limit, restrict, and charge more. The promise of streaming unlimited access for a fair price has become another shakedown.

Social Media: Connection as a Commodity

Facebook was originally about connection; now it's surveillance and outrage. Instagram was a photo-sharing app, now it pushes reels of strangers over posts from your friends. TikTok has weaponized dopamine to monetize attention, feeding a constant stream of overstimulation with zero transparency.

Reddit, once the front page of the internet, has joined the parade. Its API price hikes killed beloved third-party apps. Moderators, once volunteers curating vibrant communities, are now at odds with site administrators who increasingly seek to monetize engagement rather than cultivate community.

Twitter (now X) is perhaps the most dramatic case. A once-thriving public square, it has devolved into a chaotic far-right mess of pay-to-play verification, hate amplification, and degraded functionality. The priority isn't discourse or news, but engagement, measured in monetizable conflict and confusion.

Ticketing and Events: Ticketmaster and the Price of Experience

Ticketmaster is the textbook case of monopolistic enshitification. Once a service to help fans access events, it now functions more like a tollbooth for entertainment. Dynamic pricing drives up costs unpredictably. Fees oftentimes exceed the face value of the ticket. Verified fan presales are designed to feel exclusive while exhausting buyers through digital queues and price manipulation.

Even small venues and indie artists are forced to work within this system, their fans caught in a paywall web. The experience of buying a ticket has transformed from excitement into dread.

Vacation and Housing: The Airbnb Collapse

Airbnb began as a peer-to-peer alternative to hotels. It marketed warmth, uniqueness, and affordability. What it has become is a short-term rental monopoly filled with hidden fees, inflexible cancellation policies, cleaning checklists that resemble military drills, and prices that often rival hotels. Entire neighborhoods have been destabilized by the flood of investor-owned properties.

In many cities, what was once a platform of occasional hosts has turned into a shadow housing market controlled by corporate landlords. And the user experience? Worse every year.

Food Delivery and Dining: Grubhub, Doordash, and the Fee Stack

Ordering a pizza used to be simple. Now it's a Kafkaesque ritual of app notifications, surge pricing, and four layers of fees: delivery, service, small order, and optional tip. Restaurants lose a cut, customers pay more, and drivers earn less. The platforms thrive in this asymmetry.

Ghost kitchens, barely-regulated virtual restaurants operating out of warehouses, further blur the line between convenience and deception. Customers order from what appears to be a local restaurant, only to discover it’s a generic brand from a delivery-only kitchen.

Retail Loyalty Programs: Rewards That Steal Time

Loyalty programs used to offer real perks. Now they are diluted games of diminishing returns. Airlines make it harder each year to qualify for miles or status. Grocery store discounts are hidden behind apps and email signups. Starbucks Rewards used to mean a free drink for every dozen; now it’s a convoluted point system where perks evaporate, and prices steadily climb.

These programs extract data, push upsells, and disguise inflation as gamified engagement. The brand appears generous while silently taking more.

Enshitification Is Not a Bug. It's a Business Model.

This isn’t a glitch.

It’s the design. Enshitification is the natural byproduct of capitalism with no guardrails, no counterforce, and no regard for long-term value. Every platform, once it captures its audience, begins to squeeze. Not because it must, but because it can.

Real reform will not come from better UX or viral complaints. It will come when we demand public alternatives, cooperatively owned platforms, stronger antitrust enforcement, and a redefinition of success beyond quarterly earnings. Until then, the march continues, and the things we love will keep getting worse, until we forget why we ever loved them at all.

Further Cases of Enshitification (NOT an exhaustive list by any means)

Dating Apps: Monetizing Loneliness

Dating platforms like Tinder and Bumble initially offered genuine opportunities for connection. Over time, they've introduced features that prioritize revenue over user experience. Algorithms often promote profiles that pay for boosts, and essential features are locked behind paywalls. This model incentivizes prolonged user engagement rather than facilitating meaningful connections.

Audible: DRM and Market Domination

Amazon's Audible controls a significant portion of the audiobook market. While it offers convenience, it employs Digital Rights Management (DRM) that restricts users from accessing purchased content outside its ecosystem. This approach limits consumer freedom and stifles competition.

Unity Game Engine: Retroactive Monetization

In 2023, Unity Technologies proposed changes to its licensing model, introducing fees that would apply retroactively to existing projects. This move was met with backlash from developers who felt blindsided by the sudden shift, illustrating how companies can exploit their user base once they've established dominance.

Water Privatization: Profit Over Public Good

The privatization of water services in various regions has led to increased tariffs and reduced service quality. For instance, in Berlin, the partial privatization of the water utility resulted in significant price hikes and decreased public revenue, prioritizing shareholder profits over public access to essential services.

Google Search: Advertising Over Relevance

Google's search engine, once lauded for delivering relevant results, now often prioritizes paid advertisements and sponsored content. This shift diminishes the quality of information accessible to users, favoring advertisers willing to pay for visibility.