It’s not you — it’s enshittification

You see, I have trust issues regarding pretty much everything, from the internet to clothes to movies to gadgets, because lately, it seems like all of it, as the writer Cory Doctorow so memorably put in a 2022 blog post, is “enshittified” — meaning, deteriorated in quality. Doctorow coined the term “enshittification” to describe a pattern of decline in the quality of online products and services, writing, in a longer explanation of his formulation in Wired, “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”. For almost anyone who has used Twitter/X, Facebook, Google, Amazon, AirBnB and sundry online services and platforms, there would be a visceral understanding of that definition. Which is why it’s not surprising that the Australian dictionary Macquarie chose “enshittification” as its word of the year after it won both the People’s Choice and Committee’s Choice awards. (This is by far the best word-of-2024 choice, capturing something fundamental to our lives right now, compared to such wannabe-with-Gen-Z choices like “brain rot”, “brat” and “demure”. But that is an aside best explored in a separate article).

In a year that saw record numbers of users flee X (formerly Twitter), including publications like The Guardian (The UK), Vanguardia (Spain) and Dagens Nyheter (Sweden), the most discussed instance of enshittification is that of social media platforms. But the fact is that the process has been on for a long time and has devoured a far wider range of the things that touch our lives. It’s not just online platforms: It’s practically everything. Buttons pop off shirts after just two wears, earphones start glitching after six months, zippers on bags start sticking and every experience is now tainted by the thought, “Wasn’t this much better before?”

Clothing presents the most obvious case of enshittification, mostly because there just seems to be such a lot of it everywhere. Again, scratch that. There actually is a lot more clothing everywhere — in our closets and shopping carts, in department stores and online stores and in landfills. The enshittification of clothing is an outcome of this abundance. Where once fashion followed a two- and four-season cycle, “fast fashion” — which includes brands like H&M, Zara, Shein, Forever 21 — created 52 “micro seasons”, ensuring that new styles become available every week of the year. Clothing is also considerably cheaper than it was even 15 years ago. The quick turnaround time, with clothes going from concept to customers in as little as three days, often reflects in shoddy work. And prices are kept low by relying on cheaper fabrics like polyester instead of more durable materials like cotton and wool, and plastic buttons and zippers, which catch or break off, instead of sturdier metal. The result: Clothes that last an average of 10 wears before they are discarded. About 92 million tonnes of textile waste is generated annually, including not only defective items and scrap and clothes thrown away after being used, but also clothes that are returned (around the globe, only about 8 per cent of old clothes get reused and 10 per cent are recycled). At least one of these mountains of dresses, sweaters, stockings, shirts and underclothing, located in Chile’s Atacama Desert, has become large enough that it is visible from space.

This is the other aspect of enshittification, the unprecedented amount of waste generation, not all of which has to do with thoughtless consumer behaviour. Consider how laptops and smartphones — even the wireless in-ear headphones (like the AirPods) — are now built in a way that repair and replacement of parts is all but impossible, making throwing them away the only option. And much like textile waste, most of it — about 80 per cent — ends up in landfills and incinerators, instead of being recycled, thus contributing to the overall enshittification of the planet.

There is no easy way out of this cycle because enshittification, ultimately, relies on one simple thing: The reduction of human beings, with all our complex desires, to mere consumers. From end-of-summer to Diwali and Black Friday sales to the mysterious appearance of “sponsored posts” by skincare brands on your Instagram account the day after you fret over an unexpected pimple to a friend, every moment is being presented to us as a moment in which we can and must consume. A moment to reflect on whether you can get by without clicking “buy”? Or how you can fix or make the most of the thing that you already own? Or if you can, for one moment, unplug from everything demanding your attention, money, energy and data? These are not questions for the enshittocene.

pooja.pillai@expressindia.com