The Enshittification Cascade: How Online Platforms Decay and What We Can Do About It

In this conversation, Cory Doctorow meticulously unpacks the pervasive decay of online platforms, a phenomenon he terms "enshittification." Beyond the surface-level frustration of declining user experiences, Doctorow reveals a deliberate, multi-stage process where platforms initially attract users with unsustainable incentives, then trap them, and finally extract value for shareholders, leaving a degraded service in their wake. This analysis is crucial for anyone navigating the digital landscape, offering a framework to understand not just why things have gotten worse, but also the systemic forces at play and potential pathways to reclaim a healthier internet. Understanding this cascade provides a strategic advantage in anticipating future platform behaviors and advocating for user-centric design.

The Unfolding Decay: From User Delight to Shareholder Extraction

The digital world, once a frontier of innovation and connection, has increasingly become a landscape of frustration. Cory Doctorow, in his conversation with Jon Favreau, offers a potent framework for understanding this decline: "enshittification." This isn't a random occurrence; it's a predictable, three-stage process that transforms user-friendly platforms into value-extracting machines. The core insight is that the very mechanisms designed to attract and retain users are systematically subverted for profit, leading to a cascading effect of degradation.

The first stage is the "lure." Platforms offer generous terms to attract users and businesses. Facebook, for instance, initially pitched itself as a privacy-conscious alternative to MySpace, owned by the reviled Rupert Murdoch. This promise, coupled with the inherent network effects of social media, created an initial user base. Similarly, ride-sharing services like Uber engaged in years of deep discounting, losing money per ride to drive out competitors and establish market dominance.

The second stage is "lock-in." Doctorow highlights that for social media, this lock-in is often a "collective action problem." Leaving a platform like Facebook becomes incredibly difficult when friends, family, or essential communities (like support groups for rare diseases) are still present. Convincing everyone to leave simultaneously is a monumental, often impossible, task. This user inertia is then leveraged. Once users are deeply embedded, platforms shift their focus to business customers, offering them specialized services -- like targeted advertising on Facebook or prime placement on Amazon search results. These business customers, too, become dependent.

The third and final stage is "value extraction." With both end-users and business customers locked in, the platform begins to systematically drain value. Advertisers on Facebook find their costs increasing and ad fraud exploding, as Procter & Gamble's $200 million cutback demonstrated. Merchants on Amazon face escalating fees and search results manipulated by "payola" schemes, where the top results are determined by who pays the most, not by relevance. This extraction benefits shareholders and executives, turning the platform into what Doctorow starkly calls "a giant pile of shit."

"So first, they're good to their end users. They find a way to lock them in. When it's hard for them to leave, they make things worse for them in order to make things better for business customers, who they also lock in. And once those business customers are locked in, they drain the value off of them too, harvest it all for the shareholders and the executives, turn into a pile of shit."

This process isn't unique to one company; it's a systemic pattern. The concentration of power in the tech sector, coupled with a decline in robust antitrust enforcement, has created an environment where platforms can grow too large to fail, and too powerful to challenge effectively. The initial promise of a decentralized, user-empowering internet has, in many cases, devolved into a landscape dominated by a few entities that control access and dictate terms.

The Monopsony Effect: When Buyers Hold All the Power

A critical concept Doctorow introduces is "monopsony," the mirror image of monopoly. While monopoly describes a single seller dominating a market, monopsony describes a single buyer dominating it. This dynamic is central to understanding how platforms like Amazon and Facebook exert control.

Consider Amazon: its "most favored nation" policy, which requires sellers to offer Amazon their best price, effectively forces sellers to raise prices across all their sales channels to absorb Amazon's fees. This creates an economy-wide tax, benefiting only Amazon. The consequences are far-reaching: merchants lose a larger share of their revenue, and consumers pay more everywhere. The search results themselves become a battleground, where paid placements, not product quality, determine visibility.

"So a 20% share as a monopsonist is basically dispositive, gives you total control. 20% share as a monopolist is just an inconvenience for your customers, right?"

This monopsonistic power allows platforms to squeeze both sides of their marketplace -- the sellers and the buyers -- simultaneously. The initial promise of providing a valuable service is replaced by a model where the platform's primary function is to extract maximum value, often at the expense of innovation and user well-being. This isn't an inevitable outcome of capitalism, Doctorow argues, but a consequence of a specific kind of capitalism, one characterized by unchecked corporate concentration and regulatory capture.

The Digital Millennium Copyright Act: A Tool for Control, Not Piracy

Doctorow’s analysis of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), particularly Section 1201, reveals a crucial mechanism enabling platform control that has little to do with piracy and everything to do with maintaining market dominance. Originally framed as a tool to prevent copyright infringement, Section 1201 criminalizes the circumvention of technological access controls. This law, passed in 1998, has been weaponized to prevent users from modifying products, repairing devices, or even accessing their own data in ways that manufacturers deem undesirable.

The implications are profound. Companies can embed access controls into everything from iPhones to tractors, effectively creating "private systems of law." If a manufacturer wants to prevent third-party app stores, or ensure only their technicians can repair a product, they can use DMCA-protected access controls. This stifles competition, limits consumer choice, and allows companies to extract rents through service fees or by forcing users to buy proprietary parts. The "right to repair" movement, for example, directly confronts the restrictive application of the DMCA.

"Playing a game without giving us 30% of the sell price, right? That's not a law Congress ever passed. It would be a very weird law for Congress to pass. But because Congress made a law that said changing the access control, opening the box is a felony, then anything you have to open the box to do becomes a felony."

This legal framework, combined with a decline in antitrust enforcement, has created an environment where platforms can dictate terms not just through market power, but through legal barriers that prevent users and competitors from challenging their control. The "enshittification" process is thus not only enabled by economic dynamics but also fortified by legal structures that protect incumbent platforms.

Reclaiming the Internet: Hope in Action

Despite the bleak picture painted by the enshittification cascade, Doctorow maintains a grounded sense of hope. This hope is not passive optimism, but an active belief that tangible improvements are possible through sustained effort and strategic action. He points to the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) as an example of an organization working to reclaim a healthier internet, shifting its mission from merely preserving what was good to actively designing what a new good internet could look like.

The path forward involves several key actions:

• Reinvigorating Antitrust Enforcement: This means actively enforcing existing laws like the Robinson-Patman Act to prevent discriminatory pricing and preferential treatment that benefits large corporations at the expense of smaller businesses and consumers.
• Challenging the DMCA: Advocating for reforms or repeals of Section 1201 of the DMCA is crucial to restore the right to repair, modify, and control the technology we use.
• Supporting Open Standards and Interoperability: Encouraging the development and adoption of open protocols and allowing for interoperable clients (like alternative social media clients) can break down platform lock-in and give users more control over their digital experience.
• Investing in Public Interest Technology: Fostering technologies that prioritize user well-being and public good over pure profit, such as open-source AI models and decentralized platforms, can provide alternatives to the enshittified status quo.
• Advocating for Stronger Privacy Laws: Updating privacy regulations, which largely remain stagnant since 1988, is essential to curb the surveillance-based advertising models that fuel much of the enshittification process.

The enshittification of the internet is not an inevitable fate, but a consequence of specific policy choices and market dynamics. By understanding the mechanisms at play and actively engaging in efforts to reform laws, support alternative technologies, and demand greater accountability from platforms, it is possible to steer towards a more equitable and user-centric digital future.

Key Action Items

• Immediate Action (Next 1-3 Months):

  • Educate Yourself: Read Cory Doctorow's book "The Enshittification of the Internet" and share its core concepts with your network.
  • Support "Right to Repair": Advocate for legislation in your region that strengthens consumer rights to repair electronics and agricultural equipment.
  • Choose Alternatives: Where feasible, experiment with and support smaller, user-focused platforms or open-source alternatives to dominant services.
  • Review Your Data Footprint: Utilize services like DeleteMe to remove personal data from data broker sites, reducing the fuel for surveillance capitalism.

• Medium-Term Investment (Next 6-18 Months):

  • Engage with Policy: Contact your elected officials to express support for stronger antitrust enforcement and privacy legislation.
  • Invest in Decentralized Technologies: Explore and support projects building decentralized social media, communication tools, or other services that are not reliant on a single corporate entity.
  • Promote Digital Literacy: Educate others about the enshittification process and the importance of user control and data privacy.

• Long-Term Strategic Play (18+ Months):

  • Fund User-Centric Development: Support organizations and companies dedicated to building and maintaining technologies that prioritize user well-being and open standards.
  • Advocate for Regulatory Reform: Push for comprehensive updates to privacy laws and antitrust frameworks that address the unique challenges of the digital age.
  • Build and Participate in Alternative Ecosystems: Actively contribute to the development and growth of a more decentralized and equitable internet, fostering communities that are not subject to platform lock-in and extraction.