Enshittification became popular in 2023 after it was used in a blog post by author of The Internet Con, Cory Doctorow, who used it to describe how digital platforms can become worse and worse:
“Here is how platforms die: first, they are good to their users; then they abuse their users to make things better for their business customers; finally, they abuse those business customers to claw back all the value for themselves. Then, they die. I call this enshittification.”
“Enshittification,” Cory Doctorow’s coinage describing the process by which internet media platforms become increasingly unusable and un-quittable, has been named 2023’s “Digital Word of the Year.” Here, we break down what the term means and Doctorow’s solution to the internet’s relentless enshittification.
Its still a perfectly good word even if not everyone is a 100% on the same page with what it means. There isnt any better word that could be used. If we stopped making up words just because a few uncultured wordsmiths might mistake part of its meaning, we wouldnt have new words at all. Enshittification has the important part down; things are getting done shittier with intention.