{"id":548944,"date":"2025-11-05T11:44:28","date_gmt":"2025-11-05T10:44:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highxtar.com\/?p=548944"},"modified":"2025-11-05T11:44:29","modified_gmt":"2025-11-05T10:44:29","slug":"enshittification-the-word-that-defines-our-digital-age","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highxtar.com\/en\/enshittification-the-word-that-defines-our-digital-age\/","title":{"rendered":"Enshittification: the word that defines our digital age"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

If there were a word capable of capturing the malaise of our times, technological fatigue, distrust of institutions and that persistent feeling that everything is falling apart, it would probably be this: enshittification. It sounds blunt, almost vulgar, but it describes with surgical precision the process by which digital platforms and, in fact, technological capitalism itself are degrading from within.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The term was coined by Canadian writer and journalist Cory Doctorow<\/a><\/strong>, a leading figure in critical thinking about the internet, to explain how online services that promised freedom, connection and access end up becoming machines for extracting data and attention. A hostile environment, saturated with advertisements, manipulated by algorithms and designed to maximise profits at the expense of the human experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From digital utopia to the collapse of online well-being<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Doctorow describes this deterioration as a predictable cycle. In its first phase, platforms are \u2018good to users\u2019: they offer a free or very cheap, intuitive service that seems to democratise access and connect the world. It is the era of technological euphoria, of \u2018don’t be evil\u2019 and the promise that the internet could make the planet a better place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But once a critical mass of users has been consolidated, the second stage begins. Platforms stop prioritising people and start being \u2018good to corporate clients\u2019: algorithms are adjusted, advertisements multiply, sponsored content floods feeds, and visibility is bought. What was once organic discovery becomes a biased showcase, a reward system where what matters is no longer relevance, but profitability.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The third and final phase is the darkest. The platform no longer acts on behalf of users or customers, but shareholders and investors. Everything is optimised to maximise financial return. The product is no longer the service: it is us. \u2018At that point,\u2019 writes Doctorow, \u2018the experience becomes one giant pile of shit.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The invisible lock-in<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Large platforms operate in two-sided markets: on the one hand, they extract data, time and creativity from their users; on the other, they sell that access to advertisers and brands. As long as there is competition, the system maintains a certain balance. But when one platform achieves hegemony, when our relationships, jobs or identities depend on it, the symmetry is broken.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Users become prisoners of their own data. Doctorow calls this lock-in, a type of captivity: we cannot leave because everything we are online\u2014our contacts, memories, reputation\u2014is locked in there. Dependence is disguised as convenience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In previous decades, there were brakes that slowed this drift: the vigilance of antitrust authorities, ethical pressure from technology workers, and media scrutiny. IBM and Microsoft experienced these limits in the 1980s and 1990s. Today, however, the rules of the game have changed. Venture capital and investment funds drive a logic of perpetual growth. Value is no longer measured in utility or innovation, but in the ability to monopolise human attention.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Passivity as fuel<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Doctorow points out an even more disturbing element: the role of the user. In the name of convenience, we have accepted being tracked, profiled and sold to. The very features that make an app \u201ceasy to use\u201d \u2013 the single click, the invisible payment, the constant personalisation \u2013 are the mechanisms that allow value to be extracted from us without resistance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We complain about the algorithm, the ads, the loss of privacy, but we stay there. Our passivity becomes the fuel for degradation. \u2018The system doesn’t need to deceive us,\u2019 writes Doctorow. \u2018It just needs us to stay put.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A regulatory and political horizon<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Some signs, however, point to a possible turning point. New European and British regulations, such as the Digital Markets Act, impose transparency rules and oblige large technology companies to allow a certain degree of interoperability between services. These are attempts to restore competition and limit abuses arising from concentration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although designed for the European sphere, these rules could have a global impact: it is easier for a multinational to apply universal standards than to develop differentiated local versions. It is a sign that politics can still alter the direction of a process that seemed inevitable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Possible resistance<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Faced with the machinery of enshittification, Doctorow proposes to stop feeding the system. Opting out, disconnecting, even if only partially. Supporting decentralised alternatives, choosing independent search engines, using open source software, or simply reducing the time we spend on toxic platforms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is not about living on the margins of technology, but about exercising a form of everyday dissent. Regaining agency over our time, our attention, the spaces we inhabit: digital or otherwise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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