Cory Doctorow’s Enshittification takes a very critical view of tech platforms. He consciously uses mildly offensive terminology while making points about how the tech that we experience has followed a specific pattern. Sadly it is a negative pattern; the tech platforms have us trapped and give a progressively worse offering. A few years ago I probably would have thought he was exaggerating (and he obviously still likes to shock). Still, if the last two years have shown us anything it is that the owners of the tech platforms are not our friends. I believe that they will do anything for money. (Or in Musk’s case for both money and his pure love of evil, it is amazing how well he multi-tasks). Doctorow seeks to provide the answer to the crucial question. How To Stop Tech Platforms Getting Worse?
The Three Stages of Enshittification
Doctorow outlines the evolution of platforms (and a bit beyond).
- The basic idea is that they start out flush with investor cash. They want to scale quickly so they offer the user customer a really great deal. You get tech bosses saying they will never sell anyone’s data or abuse their positions.
- Then things change, the tech firms need to get advertisers/business customers in to create a financial return for the investors. The platform changes from being friendly to users to being friendly to advertisers. Businesses claim more of the value created from the users.
- But even this isn’t the end. The platform owner realizes that they have both the users and advertisers locked in. In economic theory terms there are strong network effects. The platforms decide that they would like to keep all the financial value for themselves.
Eventually this should lead to platform death when they become so bad that it can’t continue but not until after a lot of exploitation.
How To Stop Tech Platforms Getting Worse?
Platforms are in a powerful position because they create network effects — they are more useful to customers the more people who use them. So when they get bigger their appeal grows. It everyone else uses a specific platform you face massive switching costs to leaving it. After a successful lock in, the offering can get worse and worse while the customers still don’t leave..
Doctorow talks a lot about how many of the barriers to switching are artificial. The platforms could facilitate transfer of data — like you can often keep your phone number when you shift carrier — but they don’t allow such data portability. This means market forces don’t do the job you’d hope they would. You can see why firms don’t let customers leave, why regulators don’t force them to be better is the more interesting question. Doctorow isn’t impressed with regulation, except for a short period which ended with Donald Trump’s return to the White House.
There are lots of things to be done. Some are personal decisions by consumers to try and escape, but many of the needed actions are at the governmental level. Action has been taken to break up excessive power concentrations before and to Doctorow now would be an excellent time to return to active trust busting.
Electronic Store Labels
He isn’t a fan of electronic store labels — these update prices much more quickly than someone with a price gun or even just replacing the printed signs. I’d need more detail to believe this is quite the blight that he suggest. Indeed, I was surprised that electronic store labels made the cut of the world’s evils.
Legal If Done With An App?
In general, Doctorow is a man of strong opinions and an earthy way of getting to a key point. One of the clearest points he made was that we tolerate things from tech firms we would never tolerate from others. Basically, we get persuaded things are not what they appear to be if they are done with an app.
The company says it’s not price-fixing because it’s done with an app.
Doctorow, 2025, page 112
Tech firms can violate employment law because it is done with an app. They seem immune to competition law because it is done with an app. Given the joys of crypto, we aren’t too far off bribery or hiring assassins being perfectly legal soon as long as it is done with a new technology. I’m not sure Doctorow is right about everything but surely this isn’t the tech future that the firms promised us when their commitments started with ‘Don’t Be evil’.
For more on Valuing Free Customers
Read: Cory Doctorow (2025) Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It, MCD
