enshittification

[ en-shit-uh-fi-key-shuhn ]

noun

1. the gradual degradation of an online platform or service's functionality, as part of a cycle in which the platform or service first offers benefits to users to attract them, then pursues more and more profits at the expense of users:

   There's been a significant enshittification of the website in just this year alone.

Word History and Origins

Origin of enshittification¹

Coined in 2022 by Canadian author Cory Doctorow (born 1971); en- ¹( def ) + shit ( def ) + -i- ( def ) + -fication ( def )

Example Sentences

The problem with enshittification is that there is no exit as the systems on which we rely really begin to break down.

From Slate

And yet, behind the lurid carnival barkery of Hulk Hogan and Rudy Giuliani and BeDazzled Alina Habba and the ghoulish malevolence of Stephen Miller and Tucker Carlson and Elon Musk, perhaps the enduring message here was not the blatant “banality of evil,” or even that “the cruelty is the point,” but the ease with which the enshittification of democracy itself is the real endgame of the Trump campaign.

From Slate

The term “enshittification” was coined in 2023 by Cory Doctorow to describe the ways in which digital platforms that had once been invaluable to us slowly became worse and worse.

From Slate

The American Dialect Society chose enshittification as its word of the year in the year of its invention.

From Slate

Claims that they intend to use a law from the 18th century to detain millions of migrants in camps before deportation represents a slow-rolling enshittification of citizenship, naturalization, immigration, and the basic idea that America was ever a country of immigrants.

From Slate