Enshittification (alternately, crapification and platform decay) is a pattern in which online products and services decline in quality. Initially, vendors create high-quality offerings to attract users, then they degrade those offerings to better serve business customers, and finally degrade their services to users and business customers to maximize profits for shareholders.

[–] MossyFeathers@pawb.social 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I was reading your definition as being too specific. Imo enshittification is any time the relative average quality of a class of products or services decreases, either due to increased prices or decreased quality at the same price. This can be applied to a specific product or service, but can also describe a decline in quality across an industry.

[–] Ashtear@lemm.ee 2 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

The term is more specific than that, referring to runaway capitalism being the cause. Otherwise you'd just use something simpler like "worsening."

The original context comes from a 2022 blog post.