Enshittification is one of those words the world was waiting for. The thing existed and we all knew it but nobody had given it a name. Until Cory Doctorow.
Cory is an amazingly prolific Canadian writer with a very penetrating intellect who runs a website called pluralistic.net and another called craphound.com.
As soon as Cory looked enshittification in the eye and called it by its true name, the rest of us woke up with a jolt, saw the monster clearly at last and, looking around, saw the traces of its touch everywhere. Everything turning to shit. Now we knew why and how and, to some extent, who.
Cory saw it first in the “new” digital enterprises, like Amazon, Google, Apple, Uber, Spotify and the rest. When these services and products first came into our lives they were like dreams come true. We embraced them for their convenience, their cleverness, their low cost and their elegant beauty. We gave them everything. Our money, our names, our addresses, our credit card details, our phone numbers. Then, when we were locked up safe inside their “walled gardens” (thanks again Cory) they showed their treasure (us, the willingly captive market) to sellers and advertisers and offered them deals they could not refuse. Or, knowing we had so much at stake in their product, they started smashing us with junk fees and inflated prices.
Like us, the commercial customers could not resist and fell as deeply in love as we had done, forking over billions to the tech titans get their products in front of our mesmerised eyeballs.
Treated with contempt
For us, that’s when the whole thing started to turn to shit. Now we were the product, or part of it, and these once-beautiful enterprises started treating us with contempt, like a lover no longer interested in pleasing us. Our Google searches starting filling with garbage. Our Facebook feeds stopped showing us our friends and gave us more crap. Uber got more expensive and less reliable. Amazon stopped showing us the best deals and tricked us into signing up for services from which escape was near-impossible.
As Cory points out, the platforms only treated us nicely to get us on board, then made it hard to leave. Next, they treated the sellers and advertisers nicely until they too were trapped aboard. Finally, they stopped treating anybody well and showed us what the main game had always been: monopoly rents for their shareholders.
That’s end-stage enshittification.
As an Australian of a certain age I didn’t have to be shown how it works. As soon as Cory painted the picture I recognised our country’s supermarket duopoly, our airlines, our mass media, our banking sector and even our political parties. But of all those the supermarkets stood out to me as the clearest example of enshittification. Australia’s supermarket sector has been deeply enshittified for many years, thanks to the stranglehold of Woolworths and Coles. These behemoths have incredible market power which they use to extract maximum value from shoppers and from suppliers alike.
I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve seen them caught out lying about products; misrepresenting country of origin, misnaming seafood, claiming products were being discounted when they weren’t, deliberately selling unsafe products, making false environmental claims and any number of other pieces of sleazy trickery. The problem, from a consumer’s point of view, is the size and dominance of these corporations. Which is why they have been under fire this year for their price-gouging behaviour, confirmed in this Senate inquiry report.
To be blunt, the supermarkets are bullies in the same way Amazon is a bully. Amazon is eager to show you the products from which it will profit most, but if you want the best deal you will have to try hard to find it. The supermarkets do the same, putting favoured products at eye level and hiding less profitable (and often better) products down low or up high. They cut shelf-space for non-favoured brands (which may be suppliers that have not agreed to price cuts or “promotional” spending). It has often seemed to me that they would cheerfully watch Australian farmers plough their crops back into the ground if they can buy a similar product for a cent cheaper from some foreign market.
Brutal treatment of suppliers
It is generally accepted that many supermarket buyers are devastatingly brutal in their treatment of suppliers who have no bargaining power and must “take it or leave it”, with “leave it” meaning financial hardship or ruin. Amazon and the supermarkets are also exponents of the home brand stunt. They know everything about their suppliers and, when they feel like it, they have their own copies of their products made – often at the same factories – simply in order to steal the last vestige of margin for themselves.
Meanwhile, as a shopper, I see “shrinkflation” – where products shrink in size or weight while prices rise or stay the same. I watch favourite products and brands disappear. I see obvious price gouging and misleading labelling. I see produce that is anything but fresh, sometimes trickily presented to hide its age. And of course, I see the disappearing checkout staff – just another transfer of money into the pockets of the corporations and their shareholders.
There are hopes that big overseas governments might rein in some of the worst excesses of the tech titans. The current case against Amazon is a good start, but there is a long way to go. As for Australia, our timid governments are such captives to corporate cash that it’s hard to imagine any real improvement. They will tut tut and beg their corporate mates to pull their horns in, temporarily, when the heat is on. That’s about all.
As shoppers what can we do? Number one: buy whatever we can from anybody other than the big supermarkets. Two: learn to spot their “home brands” and avoid them like the plague. Three: look down! Often the better products and deals are on the lower, less accessible shelves. Four: return faulty goods, and be noisy about it. If the food is off, take it back. If the product breaks or fails too easily, take it back. Demand a refund. Five: Insist on Australian produce, when it makes sense to do that. And if the label seems ambiguous then demand clarification. Is this product really grown in New Zealand or is it actually from China and just packed in New Zealand? Ask those questions. Six: If the supermarket stops stocking a product you love, make a noise about it. Demand they bring it back.
I’m not saying any of those things can really do much good. After all, these soulless, enshittifying corporations don’t care about anything except money. But they work hard to rip us off and the least we can do is force them to work even harder.
