The video explains Cory Doctorow’s idea of “enshittification”: how big online platforms start out useful, then gradually degrade for users and business partners as they chase profit and exploit their locked‑in audiences.[1]

What “enshittification” means

Doctorow defines enshittification as the process by which platforms like Facebook become worse in stages: first treating users well to attract and lock them in, then prioritizing advertisers and business customers, and finally degrading the experience for everyone once dependence is secured. He uses Facebook’s evolution—from showing friends’ posts with minimal tracking to an ad‑saturated, heavily surveilled feed—as the “canonical” example of this multi‑stage decline.[1]

Who is to blame

Doctorow rejects the idea that users are at fault for “being the product” or failing to choose better platforms, arguing instead that policymakers created a legal and economic environment that rewards monopolistic and exploitative behavior. He also notes that individual tech CEOs are interchangeable within this system; as long as policy incentives stay the same, similarly harmful behavior will continue regardless of who runs the companies.[1]

Role of policy and antitrust

The conversation emphasizes that strong antitrust enforcement and regulation once kept tech firms in check, but lax enforcement allowed giants like Google and Facebook to buy competitors and dominate markets. Doctorow compares this to abandoning “rat poison” against monopolies and then pretending the resulting monopoly problem is mysterious rather than the predictable result of policy choices.[1]

Why “just log off” isn’t enough

When asked why people do not simply leave platforms, Doctorow points out that many rely on them for crucial communities, such as support groups for rare diseases or staying in touch with distant family. He argues that because IP and interoperability rules now block tools that would let people move their social connections elsewhere, users are effectively trapped on these platforms.[1]

Proposed solutions

Doctorow outlines four levers to “rescue” the internet: restoring antitrust enforcement, regulating platforms (including at state and local levels), empowering tech workers through unions, and reinstating interoperability so users can change how their devices and services work and move their data freely. Examples include allowing people to use generic printer ink and building services that let users interact with Facebook friends from alternative networks like Mastodon or Bluesky, thereby weakening lock‑in and reducing enshittification.[1]

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• 📚 Tiktok's enshittification: The company manually allocates surplus to creators and can take it away again.
• 🌐 Enshittification: Platforms abuse their users and business customers to claw back all the value for themselves before eventually dying.
• 🛍️ Amazon's enshittification: It initially operated at a loss, subsidizing goods and providing a clean search. Eventually, it shifted to exploiting business customers and harvesting surplus from them.
• 📈 Facebook's enshittification: It started by showing users content from loved ones but then prioritized media companies and introduced more ads. It defrauded publishers and forced them into a "pivot to video."
• 💰 Monetization of attention: Attention cannot be used as a medium of exchange or store of value. Platforms like Tiktok monetize attention by exchanging fake money (attention) for real money through deception.
• 🔎 Unraveling platform algorithms: Online creators and organizations try to understand platform algorithms, but the logic may shift based on the platform's priorities, causing frustration and wage theft.
• 💡 Tiktok's recommendation system: Tiktok's success was due to its powerful recommendation system, but it now manipulates feeds with a "heating tool" to lure creators and media companies.
• 💩 Google's search results have become increasingly useless due to enshittification, with self-preferencing links, low-quality ads, and parasitic SEO junk.
• 💥 Enshittification is a harmful process that can lead to the downfall of platforms and companies. Google's layoffs and panic over AI chatbots highlight the consequences.
• 🤖 Designing a non-enshittified chatbot for search is challenging due to incentives that favor enshittifying results and the fragility of maintaining an equilibrium.
• 🌍 Instead of preserving dying platforms, policymakers should focus on minimizing user costs when these platforms expire by ensuring rights like end-to-end and freedom of exit.
• 🎮 TikTok's algorithm was once good at recommending content, but it has fallen victim to enshittification and is unlikely to recover.
• 📚 The web page also includes various other links and updates from Cory Doctorow, including his writing progress, upcoming appearances, and recent books.