Enshittification: How Big Tech's Monopolies Are Worsening Our Net Experience

In the once-promising world of the internet, we’ve awoken to a giant problem: “Enshittification.” This is the term Cory Doctorow, a renowned blogger and digital rights advocate, has popularized to describe the decline in internet quality, as detailed in his latest book, “Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What To Do About It.”

The Illusion of Accessibility

Doctorow paints a picture of a reality where Big Tech giants—Microsoft, Google, Apple, and others—have turned the internet into a monopolized battlefield. According to London Evening Standard, these companies no longer strive for competition or innovation, focusing instead on shareholder value, leaving user experience to deteriorate. For Doctorow, this shift belies the original internet promise of accessibility and enrichment.

Unseen Forces at Play

The book reveals how interoperability is a façade created by tech giants to ensure that their products remain insular and that alternatives struggle for a foothold. Consider how running non-native software on Apple or Windows devices often feels like navigating a maze. This control, Doctorow argues, essentially rewrites ownership laws, locking users into a system where they unwittingly pay more for their limited freedom.

Regulation as a Remedy?

Doctorow posits that individual actions are negligible in combating this entrenchment; instead, system-level interventions by governments are crucial. Despite the setbacks with Trump’s current deregulation agenda—which places the onus on other global governments—the collective sentiment against Big Tech’s manipulative practices seems to be growing. Doctorow’s insight is that unless substantial regulation is enacted, individual unhappiness will only highlight systemic inadequacies.

The Unavoidable Irony

Doctorow’s activism is not without drama. Ironically, AI-generated fakes of his book about the internet’s downfalls were circulating on Amazon, bringing his theories of internet degradation full circle. His tweet succinctly captured this irony: “Love that the slop merchants are using my book to (further) enshittify Amazon.”

Cory Doctorow’s narrative is a wake-up call, yet laced with a dash of hope that understanding and confronting the “enshittification” process might just lead us toward a revitalized, equitable digital future.