Kenneth Glad
Digital services can change significantly after becoming part of everyday life. Features disappear, prices rise and alternatives become harder to use.
A subscription that once promised freedom from advertising begins inserting commercials. Search pages fill with promoted material, while familiar software places ordinary tools behind an additional payment plan.
In an interview with Danish news outlet Zetland, Canadian author and digital-rights campaigner Cory Doctorow argues that these changes belong to the same commercial process. He calls it “enshittification,” a term describing how platforms gradually reduce the value offered to users and business partners.
The process often begins with generous conditions. Companies may keep prices low, absorb losses or provide unusually convenient services while building an audience. Investors fund that expansion because market dominance can produce greater returns later.
Doctorow points to Uber and Amazon. In his interpretation, both companies spent heavily while offering conditions that competitors could struggle to match.
Amazon’s early appeal rested partly on useful searches, competitive prices and rapid delivery. Prime reinforced that attraction by encouraging customers to make the platform their regular destination for online purchases.
That early generosity can alter an entire market. Smaller businesses may lose customers, reduce investment or close because they cannot sustain similarly low prices. Once the field has narrowed, the remaining platform gains greater freedom to revise fees, delivery terms or search visibility.
Users may notice each change separately rather than seeing a larger pattern. A slightly higher subscription, slower shipping or an extra advertisement can appear manageable. Together, however, those changes may reveal how much negotiating power has shifted away from the customer.
Social connections keep users trapped
Once people organize their shopping, work or communication around one company, moving elsewhere becomes more difficult. Customers may tolerate new fees or reduced benefits because replacing the service would require additional time, money and effort.
The same pressure applies to social networks. A person may dislike Facebook but still need it to participate in a neighborhood group, arrange children’s activities or communicate with relatives.
Doctorow told Zetland that continued use should not always be treated as evidence of addiction. People frequently remain because valuable relationships and practical arrangements are located inside the platform.
This creates what economists often describe as a switching cost. The price of leaving is not always financial. It can include rebuilding a professional network, persuading friends to move or transferring years of files and messages.
Control over visibility can also shift as commercial priorities change. Forbes reported in 2023 that TikTok employees could manually increase the reach of selected videos through an internal practice called “heating.”
That practice illustrated how a platform can shape attention for reasons that are not immediately visible to users. The videos appearing most prominently may reflect internal commercial decisions as well as audience interest.
For creators and businesses, dependence can become even stronger. A company that receives most of its sales or traffic from one platform may have little practical choice when commission rates rise or recommendation systems change.
Competition faces closed doors
Doctorow presents blocked compatibility as another part of the problem. He argues that copyright rules, acquisitions and limited competition enforcement have helped major technology companies restrict services that could connect with their systems or make switching easier.
Earlier technology companies often benefited from compatibility themselves. New software could open established file formats, while emerging social networks sometimes allowed users to transfer contacts or messages from older services.
Doctorow’s concern is that dominant companies can later deny similar opportunities to challengers. Technical restrictions and legal protections may prevent competitors from building tools that let users move freely between systems.
His proposed response includes stronger competition rules, portable user data and greater interoperability between platforms. These changes would allow people to leave without abandoning their contacts, purchases or documents.
He also argues that regulators should examine acquisitions more critically. When a major company buys a growing rival, the transaction may remove a future source of competition before it becomes strong enough to challenge the established market.
The central issue, in Doctorow’s view, is therefore not whether technology should be rejected. It is whether users should remain dependent on companies that can worsen a service without risking their departure.
Restoring competition would not guarantee that every digital service remains cheap or free. It could, however, give customers somewhere else to go when a platform stops meeting their needs.
Sources: Zetland, Forbes
