Have you noticed how once‑magical platforms slowly start to feel… worse? It’s not a coincidence. There’s a repeatable lifecycle where companies prioritise short‑term extraction over long‑term user value, a dynamic Cory Doctorow famously labelled enshittification. For product leaders this isn’t an abstract critique — it’s a threat to your product strategy, your user trust and, ultimately, your business viability.
What enshittification looks like inside product organisations
Enshittification is not a moral failing; it’s an economic pattern. Platforms begin by creating value for two sides of a market to grow usage. As they scale, incentives shift toward maximising profit per transaction: more fees, worse defaults, addictive friction for third parties and users. You see this in marketplaces, social apps and ad‑driven services where platform owners can squeeze either sellers or users — and sometimes both.
For product teams this shows up as:
- Metrics that reward extraction (ARPU, take‑rate, short‑term revenue) over outcomes (retention, user task success, trust).
- Feature decisions that prioritise monetisation knobs rather than user experience improvements.
- Layered complexity: incentives that disadvantage partners, creating brittle ecosystems.
Why product trios and autonomous teams can still enshittify
Autonomy and empowered product teams are necessary but not sufficient. A single cross‑functional team optimising a product funnel for monthly revenue can still push changes that erode the broader platform if organisational guardrails are weak. The problem is misaligned optimisation: teams optimise locally, the company optimises extraction globally. Without explicit anti‑enshittification constraints, the sum of empowered teams can equal systemic decline.
Three guardrails every leader should implement
Here are practical, leader‑level actions to prevent the slow rot.
1. Replace “extraction” KPIs with outcome‑based scorecards
Move beyond ARPU and conversion percentages as lone north stars. Pair revenue metrics with measures of long‑term trust and platform health: Net Promoter Score by cohort, neutral third‑party satisfaction (for marketplaces), churn of high‑value creators, complaint rates. Make these scorecards visible to execs and product teams so good short‑term revenue moves don’t mask long‑term decay.
2. Bake fairness into platform economics
Design economic models that avoid one‑sided value capture. This might mean tiered take‑rates that reduce as vendors scale, transparent algorithmic ranking signals, or guaranteed quality thresholds for monetised placements. The idea is to encode reciprocity — the platform grows only when both sides prosper. Cory Doctorow’s analysis of platform rot is useful background; see his piece on TikTok’s trajectory for how incentives change over time (Wired).
3. Protect nascent experiments with different rules
New product ideas need different economics and KPIs while they find product‑market fit. Create a policy that shields experiments from standard take‑rates, default placements, and the growth machinery that eats early creators. This reduces the pressure to monetise prematurely and keeps the product experience honest.
A recent industry case: the platform lifecycle in plain sight
Look no further than the public conversation around social platforms and marketplaces. The enshittification essays and coverage in outlets like Wired map the pattern: early investment in user experience, then gradual prioritisation of monetisation levers as the platform reaches monopoly‑like power. That shift explains why creators and buyers often feel like they’re paying more for less.
We’ve seen similar dynamics in eCommerce marketplaces where seller fees, discoverability changes and algorithmic favouritism create winner‑takes‑most outcomes. When platforms can change the rules unilaterally, short‑term margin wins can become long‑term liability.
Practical checklist for C‑suite and product leaders
- Audit incentives: quarterly review of where value is captured and who pays the cost.
- Introduce a health KPI: visible metric influencing compensation and investment decisions.
- Protocol design reviews: require product teams to document economic impacts for multi‑sided products before launch.
- Governance for defaults: neutral third‑party audit of ranking and monetisation defaults that affect fairness.
- Escrow for experiments: separate P&L or off‑balance incubation phase for new offerings.
Looking ahead: product leadership in the age of platform scrutiny
Regulation and public scrutiny are catching up with platform power. That’s both a risk and an opportunity. Companies that build resilient economics and prioritise user outcomes will avoid costly legal and reputational blowback — and will win sustainable customer trust. Your job as a leader is to see beyond quarterly reports and ask: what behaviour am I incentivising across the whole system?
If you want a simple next step, convene a cross‑functional review this quarter and run your roadmap through an anti‑enshittification checklist. You’ll quickly see which bets protect long‑term value and which ones trade it away for short‑term gain.
Further reading: Cory Doctorow’s writing on enshittification is a concise primer on the mechanics and remedies (see Pluralistic and the Wired essay).
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