A Day in the Life of an Enshittificator
A satirical piece imagines a day in the life of a tech product manager who makes decisions that degrade user experience to boost ad revenue and shareholder value, illustrating the process of enshittification.
Background
"Enshittification" is a term coined by writer Cory Doctorow to describe the pattern by which digital platforms (social media, marketplaces, search engines) first serve users well to grow, then shift to serve business customers, and finally extract maximum value for shareholders — degrading the experience for everyone. An "enshittificator" is a hypothetical or archetypal executive whose job is to execute this degradation: squeezing more revenue through tactics like increasing ads, charging for previously free features, burying organic content in favor of paid promotion, and making the product harder to leave. This piece is a satirical walkthrough of a day in the life of such a person, showing how mundane decisions (around metrics, design, policy) add up to the slow ruin of a once-loved service.