Anti-Enshittification

Anti-Enshittification is a proactive framework for platform design and governance that combats the lifecycle of platform decay, a term coined by writer Cory Doctorow. The core thesis is that successful platforms follow a predictable, three-stage enshittification pattern: 1) They are good to users to attract them, 2) They become good to business customers (e.g., advertisers, sellers) by leveraging the trapped user base, and 3) They aggressively extract value from both groups to maximize shareholder profit, degrading the core user experience. Anti-enshittification strategies are architectural and economic interventions intended to break this cycle by aligning long-term platform health with user and ecosystem welfare.

Key technical and economic mechanisms for anti-enshittification include interoperability, data portability, and user-aligned governance. Interoperability—enabled by open standards and protocols—allows users to easily switch between services, reducing lock-in and platform leverage. Data portability ensures users own and can move their social graphs and content. Governance models like decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs), where token-holding users vote on key platform decisions, or protocol-owned liquidity, where value accrues to a public good rather than a corporate entity, are seen as structural checks against centralized value extraction. These mechanisms shift power from a single corporate controller to a broader stakeholder set.

In blockchain and Web3, anti-enshittification is a foundational design goal. Networks like Ethereum and Solana aim to be credibly neutral platforms where the rules cannot be changed post-hoc to favor specific applications. Decentralized social media protocols such as Farcaster and Lens Protocol explicitly build for interoperability, allowing multiple competing clients (front-ends) to exist on a shared social graph, preventing any single company from controlling the user experience or monetization. This contrasts with traditional Web2 platforms where the platform owner controls all aspects and can unilaterally change algorithms, fees, and data policies to enshittify the ecosystem for short-term gain.

The concept extends beyond software to economic and legal structures. Anti-enshittification advocates for regulations that mandate interoperability (like the EU's Digital Markets Act), support for right-to-repair movements, and the promotion of open-source software and creative commons licensing. These approaches create a competitive landscape where platforms must continuously compete on service quality rather than exploiting captive audiences. The goal is to architect systems where the cost of degrading the user base outweighs the temporary financial benefit, creating sustainable, long-term value for all network participants.

The term enshittification was coined by writer and activist Cory Doctorow in a 2022 essay, describing a predictable lifecycle of digital platforms. He defined it as the process where a platform first offers value to users to attract them, then shifts value to business customers (e.g., sellers, advertisers) to monetize, and finally extracts maximum value for itself by degrading the user experience for all parties. This framework provided a precise vocabulary for a widely observed phenomenon in centralized web2 platforms like social media and marketplaces.

In the blockchain context, anti-enshittification emerged as a core philosophical and technical design goal. It describes the use of cryptoeconomic mechanisms and decentralized governance to resist the centralization and value extraction inherent in Doctorow's model. The concept argues that features like permissionless participation, credible neutrality, open-source code, and user-controlled assets (e.g., tokens in a user's self-custody wallet) create structural barriers against a single entity capturing and degrading a network's value for its own benefit.

The adoption of this term highlights a key ideological divide. While traditional platforms are governed by corporate boards seeking shareholder returns, decentralized networks are theorized to align incentives through protocol rules and tokenomics. Prominent examples cited in anti-enshittification discourse include the decentralized finance (DeFi) ethos of composable, non-custodial protocols versus centralized crypto exchanges, and the vision of decentralized social media platforms where users own their social graph and data, contrasting with ad-driven algorithmic feeds.

Anti-Enshittification is a governance and economic design principle that combats the tendency of centralized platforms to degrade user experience over time. Coined by writer Cory Doctorow, "enshittification" describes the cycle where platforms first attract users, then exploit them to benefit business customers, and finally extract value from all parties until the platform collapses. In a blockchain context, anti-enshittification mechanisms are cryptoeconomic primitives—such as token-based governance, credible neutrality, and permissionless innovation—that are baked into a protocol's core to align long-term incentives between users, builders, and the network itself.

The primary technical mechanism is decentralized ownership and governance, often facilitated by a native protocol token. Unlike a corporate board, changes to a decentralized protocol typically require broad consensus from token holders or validators. This makes it structurally difficult for any single entity to unilaterally alter fee structures, censor transactions, or extract excessive rent in a way that harms the user base. Protocols like Ethereum and Uniswap exemplify this through their governance processes, where major upgrades are proposed, debated, and voted on by a distributed community of stakeholders.

A second key mechanism is ensuring credible neutrality and permissionless access. A credibly neutral blockchain does not discriminate between users or applications, preventing a platform owner from favoring its own services or partners (a common enshittification tactic). Permissionlessness guarantees that anyone can build, interact, and innovate on the network without seeking approval. This open environment fosters competition and keeps the platform responsive to user needs, as alternative front-ends or applications can always emerge if the dominant interface becomes exploitative.

Finally, economic incentives are aligned through tokenomics and fee structures. Value accrual to the native token is often tied to the network's utility and growth, rewarding stakeholders for maintaining a healthy ecosystem. Some protocols, like Ethereum with its EIP-1559 upgrade, implement fee burning mechanisms that can make the network deflationary as usage increases, directly linking token value to user activity. Others design fee switches or treasury mechanisms that fund public goods and protocol development, ensuring the platform can sustainably improve without resorting to extractive practices.