‘Enshittification’ is coming for us all – even cameras – and this is where it starts…

If you’ve checked an online dictionary, or read respected sources like the Financial Times, you might well be familiar with the term “enshittification,” coined by Cory Doctorow.

If you’ve not heard the term, you’ve certainly experienced it. It’s Doctorow’s way of explaining how things get worse for customers, especially in the online world, thanks to the network effect and the collective action problem.

It was great. At first. In 2011 it was $7.99, and many were able to start abandoning much more expensive cable or satellite packages on the back of it. Then when Netflix’s own network was big enough that it had power it did several things; I started putting up the prices. First came premium – you had to pay for multiple devices and 4K – and more and more tiers to suck extra money out of people. Premium is now $23 and it’s only $1 less than the original price to suffer through ads.

Essentially the company used the network effect to create an appeal, then took advantage of it after a threshold to squeeze every last drop of revenue. Sure, that’s capitalism; they’re legally obliged to do so. Typically in the same cycle of a young company – perhaps a motivated startup with a desire to bring about genuine change, and run by a few enthusiastic people – gives way to the obligations to service many shareholders.