A Consumer-Focused Enshitification Mitigation Framework
There has been much discussion about Enshitification and its causes since Cory Doctorow coined the term in 2023. While many have proposed causes and theoretical solutions, naming the problem hasn't slowed its spread—at least not in my experience. To make matters worse, AI Pollution—the steady contamination of digital spaces by low-quality, AI-generated content—has become impossible to ignore since 2023. (I'll touch on AI Pollution briefly, but save the deep dive for another day.)
Enshitification and AI Pollution have brought me to the brink of digital hermitdom, so I've decided to create a pragmatic enshitification mitigation framework that works for me in my context right now. This framework will identify services prone to—or already in the throes of—enshitification. Enshitifiers will be mercilessly eliminated from my digital life and replaced with enshitification-resistant alternatives (which the framework also helps identify).
This deshitifying approach reflects my belief that the best solution to the seemingly inexorable erosion of quality and privacy online is market awareness. Once I'm aware of creeping enshitification on a platform I'm using, I'll vote against it with my attention and my wallet—migrating to platforms that better align their services with the needs of end users.
With the problem defined and the rant out of the way, let's examine the business practices fueling enshitification.
Part 1: Subtly Harmful Industry Trends (aka, SHI-Trends)
To understand how enshitification takes root, we must examine the user-antagonistic decisions technology companies routinely make. Sometimes, these choices are made with full awareness of their consequences, but more often, they emerge from a business culture where attracting investor dollars is the endgame for founders.
When startup capital and an IPO dream are the business plan, priorities shift—from building sustainable value for customers to engineering a capital vacuum: a system designed to extract as much money from investor pools as possible, as quickly as possible, before the music stops.
If successful after the initial “startup” phase, the capital vacuum isn't sustained by creating long-term value but by market saturation, first-mover advantage, user inertia, and margin growth through digital shrinkflation—the insidious incremental degradation of service quality.
I call the set of service-eroding decisions of capital vacuum businesses Subtly Harmful Industry Trends—or SHI-Trends for short. My theory of the mechanics behind the trends that drive platforms toward enshitification follows.
User-Alignment Problems
SHI-Trends work by violating the principles outlined by Doctorow (and for fun and due to laziness, I've added a few of my own as well). Defining terms is helpful, and defining principles is no exception. So, the principles of user-aligned platforms, as used in the remainder of this article, will now be defined.
End-to-End Principle - When a user requests information from a platform, the platform shall give the end user what they asked for. Violations occur when responses from the platform introduce lures, editorial opinion, or obfuscation to confuse the user into abandoning their original query. The same rule applies to more passive platform features such as “follows” or subscriptions (e.g., if I follow you, I want to see your posts foremost—not the trending posts that someone you follow reacted to).
Right to Exit - A user can exit a platform at will, with minimal friction, and take their data with them (see also: right to portability). Violations occur when platforms create roadblocks, hold data for ransom, guilt or shame users into keeping their accounts, etc.
Sanctity of Intention – The user has the right to have their intention honored by the platform. Violations occur when the platform gives the user what they asked for (i.e., meeting the letter of the End-to-End Principle), but the platform introduces bait or overwhelming amounts of titillating distractions in the same space or “feed” as the requested information. When intending to distract the user from their original intent becomes a business tactic for the platform, enshitification surely follows.
Admittedly, some platforms may distract in this way with the user's consent. Still, the spirit of this principle is that the user deserves a “sugar-free” experience on any platform that purports to offer utility.
Clarity of Value Exchange – The user has the right to understand how they are paying for a service and what they are paying for. If they view ads to read articles, the relationship between the payment and service should be intuitive and obvious. Violations occur when, for example, ads and content become indistinguishable or when pricing tiers are not well defined. (Related: Principle of Transparency.)
That's it! Those are the core alignment problems (for now). Now, we can examine the trends that set businesses up to violate them and start down the long road to the online metropolis known as enshitification city.
SHI-Trends List
As mentioned before, SHI-Trends harm user experience by fundamentally misaligning the objectives of the end user and the platform. Each of the trends listed below is named, and then the nature of the misalignment is called out in turn.
1. Ads-First Monetization
Description: The platform presents itself as being “Free as in Beer” with the understanding that advertising revenue will (eventually) fully fund its ongoing operations.
Principle at Risk: End-to-End Principle
Why Companies Do It
This business model is woven into the DNA of the modern web. During the Dot-Com era, the prevailing assumption was that every eyeball on a page could eventually turn into profit—if not now, then later, via a chain of links that ultimately led to someone selling something. In other words, the greater fool theory of advertising funded much of the late-'90s internet bubble.
Many of today's consumer-facing titans rose from the ashes of that “Web 1.0” culture. While the mechanics of online advertising have since grown more sophisticated, the belief in the advertising model has barely changed. Investors still reward growth-first strategies under the assumption that platforms will “monetize later,” and (deep down investors believe that) advertising is a sure fire fallback when that time comes.
How It Leads to Enshitification
Platforms optimize for time-on-site and ad exposure, leading to bloated feeds, clickbait, interruptions, and irrelevant content. Over time, the platform's function shifts from delivery to distraction.
2. Algorithmic Content Distortion (Opaque Recommenders)
Description: Content-surfacing algorithms are “too clever by half,” optimizing for what users are likely to click on rather than what aligns with their true interests and intentions.
Principle at Risk: Sanctity of Intention
Why Companies Do It
Companies see engagement as a metric that shows the “value” of their services. Unfortunately for you and me, engagement is a dubious definition of value to the user. Its use is rooted in a belief that time-on-site is a proxy for utility-to-user and that every millisecond of user engagement is another opportunity to sell advertising/services.
How It Leads to Enshitification
Clickbait becomes the strategy. Interfaces become an IV bag providing the cheap dopamine drip—scroll, click, scroll again—until the user's original purpose is forgotten. Over time, the platform stops surfacing meaningful content altogether and feeds users whatever keeps the loop alive.
3. Engagement Bounty Model (Click Bait Rewards)
Description: The platform farms low-effort, high-engagement content from creators by rewarding creators for the amount of attention instead of the substance/value of content.
Principle at Risk: Sanctity of Intention
Why Companies Do It
This model shifts the burden of content generation onto users, who do the labor of crafting engagement traps. By offering payouts based on views or interactions, platforms incentivize the creation of viral, shallow content. The result is a bottomless well of attention-optimized material, which the content surfacing algorithm is optimized to distribute.
How It Leads to Enshitification
Like Algorithmic Content Distortion, this trend encourages clickbait. However, the Engagement Bounty Model is unique because it rewards the production of least-common-denominator content. Since payouts scale with views, creators are nudged to target broad appeal and emotional immediacy over depth, accuracy, or originality. Enshitification follows as the platform becomes a finely tuned market for dopamine-driven sludge.
4. Double-Dipping Monetization
Description: The platform charges users directly while also indirectly monetizing them—usually through advertising, tracking, or data resale.
Principle at Risk: Clarity of Value Exchange
Why Companies Do It
Revenue stacking is easy. Once users are paying, layering on ad monetization or behavioral tracking rarely results in significant backlash—especially if it's rolled out quietly or framed as “personalization.” Many platforms sacrifice long-term sustainability for short-term revenue extraction, often at the direct expense of user trust.
How It Leads to Enshitification
Double-dipping, especially when gradual and opaque, feels like theft. Users pay but still become the product. The final result isn't just user dissatisfaction—it's resentment. And because platforms anticipate that resentment, they often preemptively embed Lock-In by Design to keep frustrated users from escaping.
5. Digital Shrinkflation
Description: The platform quietly degrades its service quality while the pricing remains unchanged.
Principle at Risk: Clarity of Value Exchange
Why Companies Do It
Digital services with a dominant market position find themselves unable to expand their user base (due to saturation), yet owners and investors demand profit growth. Shrinkflation allows the business to cut costs associated with infrastructure or steer users towards “upgraded” packages by quietly nerfing functionality provided at the free/lower pricing tiers.
How It Leads to Enshitification
Over time, the service becomes unrecognizable. This can lead to a death spiral—the business becomes unable to innovate because it has gotten too good at cutting, restricting, and teasing premium features. The result is a business with a dwindling customer base of holders-on who either begrudgingly remain while planning an escape or are such casual users that they are unaware of how much the service has eroded. Without supportive customers, the business becomes a prisoner of its exploitation. Unless they can pull a Domino's, they are doomed to fail.
6. Lock-In by Design
Description: The platform creates technical, procedural, or emotional barriers to exit.
Principle at Risk: Right to Exit
Why Companies Do It
It costs (much more) to acquire a customer than to keep one. Unfortunately, many businesses take this to mean making it difficult for customers to escape their billing department is good for business. Companies that ascribe to this model not only lack an understanding of customer needs, but they also lack the scruples to warrant their customers' time and money.
How It Leads to Enshitification
When a company believes users will not leave their platform because leaving is difficult under its business strategy, it is more prone to exploit user trust and work against the user's best interests. Not only is the ability to leave a platform a key feature, but the difficulty of using that feature strongly indicates how respectful the platform is of its users' time and attention.
Part 2: The SHI-Trend Matrix
Now that we have defined the SHI-Trends, let's put them into practice. While not coldly objective, the SHI-Trend matrix helps frame the relative enshitiness of online platforms. I have illustrated its use below some familiar platforms to show how it can be applied to companies I am considering (or reconsidering) a relationship with.
| Sample Platform | Ad-Centric | Algorithmic Distortion | Engagement Bounty | Double Dipping | Shrink-flation | Lock-In by Design | Capital Vacuum* | SHI-T Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Youtube | X | X | XX | X | X | 6 | ||
| X | X | X | X | 4 | ||||
| Google (search) | XX | X | X | 4 | ||||
| Amazon (shopping) | XX | X | 3 | |||||
| Medium | X | XX | 3 | |||||
| Netflix | X | X | 2 | |||||
| ChatGPT | XX | 2 | ||||||
| Substack | X | 1 | ||||||
| Audible | X | 1 | ||||||
| Kagi | 0 |
* Platform shows signs of unprofitable, investor-fueled scale but does not have a clear path to long-term viability. This is a significant risk factor for future decay.
Comments
- The SHI-Trend Matrix is not a purity test but points to signs of trouble. A score of 2 or above is entering a danger zone that requires careful consideration.
- This system can be tailored to taste by assigning a weight to the SHI-Trend items. For example, if I feel Algorithmic Distortion is particularly corrosive, I might double its weight in the SHI-T Score. The same could be done with Lock-In, Ad-Centric Design, etc., depending on your priorities.
Opportunities for Improvement
- SHI-Trends is a risk-first model for enshitification. It does not weigh the residual value of the platform. A high SHI-T Score platform with high utility (e.g., YouTube) will likely deserve a more nuanced assessment than a brain-rot platform with the same score. This consideration could be added to the framework.
- Expanding the SHI-Trends as new patterns/platforms emerge.
- Improving the precision of the SHI-Trend rubric. Use the enhanced precision to produce 6-axis radar charts to visualize trend pressure by platform across multiple dimensions.
Deshitification by the few Deshitifies for All
Thank you to those of you who are trying to consume content purposefully and deshitify your online experience. Every person who moves from worse platforms to better ones creates more competitive pressure—pressure that discourages dominant platforms from taking without giving.
Over time, these efforts will either force the larger players to create sustained value or go extinct, replaced by platforms that respect users to a higher degree. In time, we might all be better off for your efforts.
Thanks for reading!
Reach me here: hello@shorelight.blog