enshittification

Developer and activist Aral Balkan posted a sarcastic remark suggesting it is obvious why journalism and the internet have deteriorated, tagging it with 'enshittification', 'adtech' and 'journalism'. The post implies the cause of declining online media quality is the advertising-technology business model, though no specific example is named.

A Mastodon user is calling out what she describes as a surprising amount of 'reply guys' and mansplainers on the decentralized social network, tying the behavior to broader concerns about the platform's decline in culture. The post, tagged with terms including misogyny and 'enshittification', is drawing attention to harassment and condescending replies that women say they face even on Mastodon, which many joined hoping for a friendlier alternative to mainstream platforms.

Reddit is facing criticism after announcing a round of updates for moderators and developers that commentators say makes life harder for users and community volunteers. Critics describe the changes as another step in the platform's 'enshittification' — the pattern of a service degrading its user experience to extract more value — and argue the company is deliberately prioritising commercial interests over its communities.

A comment circulating online argues that the degradation of internet platforms, often called 'enshittification', is only the final stage of a longer process. The claim is that culture was already commodified and degraded well before the internet, culminating in today's global monoculture and the treatment of nature as an exploitable object. The argument is framed as a short poem, suggesting a philosophical critique rather than a response to a specific news event.