Originally posted on Facebook May 31 2026
Let's talk about something other than AI
Enshittification
Do you pay for a service that's become worse over time, while increasing its cost? Netflix, YouTube Premium, Spotify, Uber, Meta Ads?
Or do you use an ad-supported service that's become worse over time, while increasing the amount and proportion of ads you're being served? Facebook, Instagram, Google Search, YouTube Free, Spotify Free?
This is something called "enshittification", and it is a deliberate monetisation strategy these companies use, to extract the maximum profit that they can.
Dependency
Their goal as a company is to provide you a service (at a loss) that you like so much that you start to consider it a necessity.
Then, over time, they slowly increase what they charge you to use that service (watching ads is part of what you pay, if you don't pay your actual money - don't forget that old phrase "if the service is free, you are the product").
Along with this they slowly reduce the quality of the service, in a way that reduces their overheads.
Boiling The User Frog
They do this slowly so that you will normalise to the new service and cost levels over time and not ever really consciously consider the value proposition. Their goal is to get you to a point that you never would have considered at the beginning: paying way too much for way too shitty a service. This is perfect for them. This means they are extracting more value from you than you are getting from them, and this means they are an effective business.
Churn Is Fine If It Makes More Profit
Every time such a company makes a price hike, there is an exodus is paying customers ("churn") BUT as long as they can hang onto enough folks who pay the new, higher rates for the service, they end up with more profit. They model this before a price hike to make sure they win. When Netflix brought in the 'ad-supported' tier they modeled how much they would make from ads, then offset this against the subscription cost, so even if you dropped down to a "cheaper" tier they would still end up making more money from you.
Subscription Hopping Is THEIR Plan
The streamers now incorporate the idea of "subscription hopping" into their pricing. They are PLANNING on you saying "Oh I will just pay for Netflix 3 or 4 months out of the year". That's part of the business model. That's why it costs so much now. If you stay subscribed? Great! What a cash cow for them you are. If you only subscribe 4 months of the year at this higher rate? Great! They make as much from you in 4 months as they used to make in a year, and only have to provide 1/3 the service!
Rate of Enshittification Recently
If you've noticed everything getting way worse, way faster over the last year or so - that is because the recession (mostly caused by the AI "boom" sorry that's the only mention I'll make of it) has made debt much more expensive to carry, so the folks in charge say "okay now is the time to get cash-positive tighten the screws!"
How Do We Oppose Enshittification?
Now, I think its pretty clear that we (end-users / consumers) want things to be better, for cheaper (not worse, for more money). How do we encourage that?
We need to increase the rate of "churn" when they enshittify their service. When they make something worse and more expensive we need to make the hard choice to cancel a service, or move to a different ecosystem permanently.
This is annoying and tedious to do (of course! this is what they are counting on!) BUT if it happens in large enough numbers then the company says "hey we are now profiting LESS than when we were providing a better service for less money!?! This price hike and service disruption was a bad idea! Let's make it better for cheaper!".
It is the goal of a business to make money. If you tell them you will accept bad service for more money they will make that deal every time. If you tell them you won't pay them to enshittify your experience? They'll make a better experience.
I used to pay for streamers but I've gone back to torrents. I want to support creators but I'm not willing to play the rigged game the way these companies want me to. I've left Google Search because they deliberately made it less accurate to serve more ads AND now have bundled their AI bullshit into it (sorry last time in this post). I cancelled my YouTube Premium because of the price hikes and worsening of their service (and I use an ad blocker on there now which I didn't do before a few months ago). I left Spotify in large part due to their pushing of AI content, but the increase in price while funneling money into autonomous murder machines while paying artists less per stream than every other platform, and amplification of right-wing voices certainly also made an impact. Apple Music has a worse UI, but it was nice to get access to a bunch of artists who took their stuff off Spotify for some or all of the above reasons.
The unfortunate reality is some of these predatory ecosystems are really entrenched so you can't leave everything all the time but some positive action is better than none.
A Very Funny Sketch That Covers This
The Norwegian Consumer Council did a really great comedy sketch about this that is worth watching (it is something governments can regulate even though they mostly don't).
This is the title I'm not linking it because FB hides off-site links (remember when they didn't do this?? Its more profitable to keep you on here being served ads)
"A Day in the Life of an Ensh*ttificator"
You can search that on Duck Duck Go (which allows you to turn AI off)