“Enshittification” is a termed coined by Cory Doctorow in 2023 to describe a pattern of decreasing quality observed in online services and products. Since Doctorow’s post, there’s been no shortage of think pieces on enshittification and its role in our society and to a large extent I agree with them all. I think it’s an inevitable problem that shows the splitting seams of Capitalism. If you will allow, I’d like to add a tangential thought – one slight embellishment – to this topic.

To me, enshittification means that a person who lacks taste was put in a position of power.

Everyone knows ads on the internet suck. But ads also pay bills and help keep the lights on in newsrooms. When a website adds one (privacy-preserving) ad to a website, I say “Okay”. Two, I permit it. Three, I say “Easy now” but still scroll through unencumbered. But when the website adds a fifth, seventh, twelfth ad… I know a person who lacks taste is at the wheel. I can feel it in my bones when an app or website has prioritized revenue over user experience. A person without taste or high emotional intelligence broke the unspoken contract we had built on mutual respect.

When you read about the development of the iPhone in books like Ken Kocienda’s Creative Selection or Tony Fadell’s Build, you understand Steve Jobs’ superpower wasn’t so much that he possessed a reality distortion field, but that he was a great editor. He could find the good ideas in a pile of prototypes and say “no” (harshly, I’ve read) to the less-than-great ideas. You need a person with taste in the decision making process. When we see giants falter, it’s a lack of taste shining through.

Going forward, I think taste and style are more valuable than ever before. In an era where we’re able to rapidly generate cheap low quality content or software at a scale we’ve never seen before, we will need people with taste in the mix. We’ll need aggregators to dive in the dumpsters for the treasure. We’ll need people who know how to zig when everyone is using the Zag-o-tron 9000. We’ll need people who can offer critique and say “no” when the “yes yes always more” machine barrels through town and begins knocking down institutions.