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enshittification

/ɪnˌʃɪtəfəˈkeɪʃən/

Deliberate worsening of a product for profit

From Latinate prefix in English en- (put into) + English shit (excrement).

noun
en-
Latinate prefix in English
en-
A prefix meaning “put into,” “make,” or “cause to become”; compare encyst.
Modern English
en-
Productive prefix used to form verbs describing a change of state.
shit
Modern English
shit
Vulgar noun for excrement; also an adjective meaning poor-quality, unpleasant, or worthless.
Modern English, adjectival use
shitty
The quality adjective meaning bad, inferior, or contemptible.
Modern English, 2009
shittification
An intensified formation meaning the process of making something worse.
-ification
English learned suffix
-ification
A noun-forming ending meaning “the process of making or becoming”; compare nullification.
Modern English
-ify + -ation
Built from a change-forming verb ending in -ify plus an action-noun ending in -ation.
Combined
en- + shittification → enshittification
The prefix en- turns shittification into a process of causing something to become bad; the suffixal noun structure presents that process as a phenomenon.
Modern English, 2022
enshittification
Cory Doctorow coined the term for the deliberate degradation of digital services, initially in discussions of app telemetry and platform incentives.
Modern English
enshittification
“

In 2022, Cory Doctorow needed a word for a familiar digital betrayal: a platform welcomes users with a lovely free service, courts advertisers, and eventually makes life worse for everyone while extracting more money. He reached for the bluntest possible material—shit—already an adjective in phrases such as “that’s a bit shit,” meaning not merely excremental but distinctly poor. The Latinate en- prefix gives the insult a bureaucratic coat, while -ification makes it sound like a process you might find in a government report. That collision is the joke: ancient-looking machinery attached to the least diplomatic word in English. Doctorow’s term therefore turns “the service got worse” into a memorable theory of platform decay—enshittification is what happens when a polished product is slowly converted into a steaming business model.

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