EnshitificationAbout
What is enshitification, and why a catalog?
A bit of background on the term, and the small site that grew up around it.
Origins
Where the term comes from
The word enshittification— typically spelled with two t's, though we've taken a one-t shortcut in our domain — was coined by writer and activist Cory Doctorow in late 2022 to describe a specific, predictable pattern of platform decay.
Doctorow's framing is a three-act tragedy. First, platforms are good to their users to attract them. Then, they exploit those users to make things better for their business customers. Then, they exploit the business customers too, clawing back every last drop of value for shareholders. By the end, value flows almost entirely upward, and the original product is a hollow, user-hostile version of what it used to be.
The pattern is now everywhere — and not just on platforms. Streaming services add ad tiers and crack down on shared accounts. Kitchen appliances grow subscription buttons. Software loses long-standing features behind paywalls. Physical goods shrink while their prices climb. Once you have the word, you can't stop seeing it.
The term went mainstream fast. The American Dialect Society named it the 2023 Word of the Year, and it's since become the most useful shorthand we have for a category of consumer frustration that didn't previously have a name.
The trouble is that individual examples are easy to forget, easy to dismiss, and easy for companies to gaslight away — "it was always like this," "you're remembering it wrong," "the price increase reflects added value." A catalog with sources, dates, and severity ratings is just a receipt. Receipts are useful.
The site
How this site came to be
The idea came to me like many good ideas: while I was on the toilet. I was fuming because I was staring at a roll of Angel Soft toilet paper that had been reduced in width and thickness. My wife had grabbed it and asked me over the phone if I was OK with the brand. I had gotten Angel Soft before and had always been happy with it, so I gave her the green light. And now here I am, my disappointment staring me in the face. Another enshitified product to avoid in the future (after I get through the other 17 rolls in the package, 'cause I'm not gonna throw it out, of course).
That got me thinking: how could I have avoided this? I frequent reddit.com/r/enshittification, and I didn't remember seeing it on there. But maybe I just missed it? Then it hit me. Enshitification.com (taken, and fuck people who sit on domains they aren't using to hopefully cash in on them, btw)... Enshitification.info was born! Or at least, it was ideated on, and I started building it that day.
I want this site to be a quick reference where people can come and search any product and make a judgment call on whether that is the right product or brand for them. I strive to keep the information contained here relevant and human-curated. I don't want to be a passive aggregator; I want to be a proactive curator of this information. I also want to make it easy for people to contribute to the site and help keep the information up to date and accurate. Lastly, I want to offer alternatives—good alternatives that hold up, things I do or at least would use myself in place of their enshitified competitors.
I will never accept ad money for a product that has been enshitified. You cannot pay to have your product removed from the catalog. You can fix your product and let us know, and we'll review it. If it meets our standards, we'll remove it from the catalog. I will never accept money from a company to promote their product or to remove a product from the catalog.