Enshittification
Welcome to Enshittification
A community for everyone who misspelt it as enshitification.
"I the onceler felt sad as I watched them all go, but business is business and business must grow, regardless of crummies in tummies you know."
This is your space to document the decay, demise, and destruction of the tech world as we know it. Share stories, articles, and firsthand experiences that capture the ongoing decline of once-celebrated platforms, services, and companies in the late stage capitalist landscape.
From monopolistic corporate shifts to anti-user updates and the relentless pursuit of profit over quality—if it’s broken, bloated, or just plain bad, it belongs here. We’re here to spotlight the moves that make the tech world worse, one piece of enshittification at a time.
Guidelines
🔹 Stay on Topic: Only post content about the decline of tech products, platforms, or companies.
🔹 Quality Content: Give some context when posting links or articles to drive quality discussions.
🔹 Respectful Discussion: Critique companies, crappy tech, and capital, not community members.
🔹 Positive Monday: The first Monday of every month is reserved for positive content only that shows enshittification isn't inevitable.
Join us to expose the changes that ruin the things we once loved and to discuss what comes next in a tech world gone wrong.
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You know, if ads actually worked, I wouldn't mind them. We have AAAAALL this tech to try to find the exact thing I might want to buy, and they still can't do it. If the ads in my feed were 100% things I would buy, I wouldn't actually mind them because it's things I like and either have bought or would want to buy. Instead, I hate ads because it's all things I don't and never would buy!
When I was growing up watching Cartoon Network, obviously there were ads, and those ads actually were suited to me, because I was a child watching children's programming. When they advertised a toy, I saw it and I thought "Ooh I want that!"; I didn't always get it, but I definitely wanted it. That was in the late 90s, with 1000x less information on me personally than they have now.
The purpose of advertising isn't always to sell you something you need or want. A lot of the time, it's to build a desire for something you don't. This is why it comes off as invasive and uncanny: it's all that unsolicited, undsesired content that gets you.
Advertising exists because there's a demand for it from businesses. There's never going to be a 1:1 match of advertisements to customers. It's its own market, and, often, as a consumer, you will be served ads that don't make sense to you because someone is making money.
Ads do work. We have this whole surveillance dystopia to track how people behave online and the data shows that it is profitable to show them ads. All those eCommerce companies know how many sales they got via ads and yes, that's profitable. It is the reason why there are so many ads.
Ads do work. When I mention ad blockers people who dont use them say "The ads in my feed are things I would buy". I dont care if the ads are exactly what I want to buy, I dont think they pay the site enough to warrent wasting my time and ruining the experience of what im actually trying to interact with. 50s ad on youtube isnt even paying out a cent. Thats stupid.