Enshittification became popular in 2023 after it was used in a blog post by author of The Internet Con, Cory Doctorow, who used it to describe how digital platforms can become worse and worse:
“Here is how platforms die: first, they are good to their users; then they abuse their users to make things better for their business customers; finally, they abuse those business customers to claw back all the value for themselves. Then, they die. I call this enshittification.”
“Enshittification,” Cory Doctorow’s coinage describing the process by which internet media platforms become increasingly unusable and un-quittable, has been named 2023’s “Digital Word of the Year.” Here, we break down what the term means and Doctorow’s solution to the internet’s relentless enshittification.
No, im saying that if you want to say what exactly is shittified, you say whats shittified. Theres no way to make a single word contain a full definition without relying on some common knowledge. In this case saying enshittification, then both you and I have both read that blogpost and knows what the full meaning is. While someone who hasn’t can at least know its about stuff getting shittier, and guess the rest from context. You can’t really find a better single word than that.
Also I’ve rarely heard “shit” used for its actual meaning. It is common knowledge that shitty doesn’t literally mean “covered in poo”. Its pretty clear what it means. And it has never been a shocking word in the 40 years I’ve lived. Probably back in the 50s or something they could use it for shock value.
Which, as I’ve said (repeatedly), they don’t. Nobody does. That’s the problem with it.
My guy, this is literally the problem I was describing in the root comment - they don’t guess the rest from context, they just continue using it incorrectly and subvert the point of having the word entirely. if you want to call something shit you can say something like this: “this product is getting shittier”.
Its still a perfectly good word even if not everyone is a 100% on the same page with what it means. There isnt any better word that could be used. If we stopped making up words just because a few uncultured wordsmiths might mistake part of its meaning, we wouldnt have new words at all. Enshittification has the important part down; things are getting done shittier with intention.