Enshittification

Despair! Enshittification is the inevitable evolution of online social platforms, as long as bad financial incentives persist.

The main problem with the Internet today is enshittification.

Enshittification has rendered once-useful sites useless.

Enshittification is why search results aren't relevant anymore.

Ultimately, it doesn't matter if Amazon's enshittification is because [Jeff] Bezos was a cynic or because he sold out. Once Amazon could make more money by screwing its customers, that screw-job became a fait accompli.

Here is how platforms die: First, they are good to their users; then they abuse their users to make things better for their business customers; finally, they abuse those business customers to claw back all the value for themselves. Then, they die. I call this enshittification

Both switching costs and network effects tend to lead to enshittification because platform providers see early adopters as an investment in future profits.

But it's not just users who are effectively incarcerated by enshittification. The advertisers and vendors who are the real customers of tech platforms are also prisoners.

Musk perceived instantly that he had one of the perfect conditions for enshittification. Twitter had a multi-million-strong user base, who had built up relationships and reputations among themselves over years.