As I wait to speak with a human being from Bank of America, enduring unwanted, hectoring BOA-centric advertisements repeated endlessly by a severe sounding, doubtless AI-generated female "voice," I am meditating on a word that entered the popular lexicon in 2022.
Coined by Cory Doctorow, that word is
Enshittification,
According to Doctorow, new platforms offer useful products and services at a loss, as a way to gain new users. Once users are locked in, the platform then offers access to the userbase to suppliers at a loss, and once suppliers are locked-in, the platform shifts surpluses to shareholders.[6] Once the platform is fundamentally focused on the shareholders, and the users and vendors are locked in, the platform no longer has any incentive to maintain quality. Enshittified platforms which act as intermediaries can functionally act as both a monopoly on services and a monopsony on customers, as high switching costs prevent either from leaving even when alternatives technically exist.[4] Doctorow has described the process of enshittification as happening through "twiddling"; the continual adjustment of the parameters of the system in search of marginal improvements of profits, without regard to any other goal. (Wiki)
Combatting enshittification, claims Monsieur Doctorow, is nonetheless possible, via two routes,
- One, respect of the end-to-end principle, a fundamental principle of the Internet in which the role of a network is to reliably deliver data from willing senders to willing receivers. When applied to platforms, this entails users being given what they asked for, not what the platform prefers to present. For example, users would see all content from users they subscribed to, allowing content creators to reach their audience without going through an opaque algorithm; and in search engines, exact matches for search queries would be shown before sponsored results, rather than afterwards.[8]
- The second is the right of exit, where users of a platform can easily go elsewhere if they are dissatisfied with it. For social media, this requires interoperability, countering the network effects that "lock in" users and prevent market competition between platforms. For digital media platforms, it means enabling users to switch platforms without losing the content they purchased that is locked by digital rights management.[8]
Alas, enshittification proliferates exponentially throughout contemporary society. (Of course it does.)
Digital platforms were the beginning, but hardly the end,
They don’t make ’em like they used to!
www.theatlantic.com
What to do?
Copilot
I am not a neo-Luddite, but I can certainly tell you about them! 
Neo-Luddism is a philosophy that opposes many forms of modern technology. The term
Luddite is often used pejoratively to describe people with technophobic leanings. The name itself is rooted in the historical legacy of the
English Luddites, who were active between 1811 and 1817.
While the original Luddites were primarily concerned with the economic implications of technological advancements during the Industrial Revolution, Neo-Luddites have a broader and more holistic distrust of technological progress. Here are some key points about Neo-Luddism:
- Technology Skepticism: Neo-Luddites resist modern technologies and advocate for a return to simpler, more primitive levels of technology. They may passively abandon certain technologies, harm those who produce environmentally harmful technology, or even sabotage technology.
- Holistic Concerns: Neo-Luddism extends beyond economic considerations. It focuses on the impact of technology on individuals, communities, and the environment. Neo-Luddites insist on applying the precautionary principle to new technologies, emphasizing the need for safety testing before widespread adoption.
- Future Vision: Neo-Luddism calls for slowing down or even stopping the development of new technologies. Instead of industrial capitalism, it envisions small-scale agricultural communities (similar to the Amish or the Chipko movement in Nepal and India) as models for the future.
- Chellis Glendinning’s Manifesto: In 1990, Chellis Glendinning published her “Notes towards a Neo-Luddite manifesto.” She described Neo-Luddites as 20th-century citizens who question the prevailing modern worldview that unbridled technology represents progress. Glendinning opposes technologies that she deems destructive to communities or driven by materialistic and rationalistic values.
So, while I’m not a Neo-Luddite, I’m here to assist you with any other questions you might have! 
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*The American Dialect Society selected "enshittification" as its 2023 Word of the Year.[9][10]
www.cnn.com
