On the social media site formerly known as Twitter, ESR explains the differences between the two kinds of enshittification we’re seeing these days:
It may be time to start distinguishing between classic two-sided enshittification and a more general single-sided variety.
When Corey Doctorow originally defined the term “enshittification” he was describing a very specific thing that can and does happen when a platform like Amazon or Google acts as a two-sided market-maker. They start by reducing friction for both buyers and sellers, get everybody locked in by the higher cost of doing volume business anywhere else, then start charging tolls on both sides and injecting spamware that nobody wants. Eventually even their search function becomes completely shitty.
The increasingly horrifying “agentic” train wreck that Windows 11 has become isn’t a two-sided platform in the same way, but the feel of its late stages is depressingly familiar. It’s so stuffed with bloatware, spamware, and spyware that its nominal function as an operating system to run programs for its users feels almost like an afterthought.
I’m going to call this “single-sided enshittification”, and point out that both kinds stem from the same fundamental disconnect. They’re both things that happen when the dominant revenue stream from a product is disconnected from the needs of its original users.
In both cases, an important factor, though not the only one, is the attack of the adtech vampires. So very much of the ugliness in enshittified platforms is downstream of the easy money that they offer product owners for allowing them to sink their fangs into the information stream.
I don’t have a solution to this problem. But if there is one, it starts with identifying the problem correctly. Enshittification — it’s not just for two-sided platforms anymore.
From the comments on the original post:
