enshittification

Enshittification szn is the tongue-in-cheek declaration that a particular window of time has been collectively claimed by corporate decay — when platform after platform seems to drop quality updates, add paywalls, or slash features in the same news cycle. Borrowed from the sports-calendar 'szn' (season) shorthand, it frames product degradation as a recurring seasonal event rather than a one-off disaster, giving the online class a shared calendar for their collective despair.

When a platform, company, or person has officially switched on enshittification mode, the gloves are off and the race to the bottom is fully underway. The 'mode' modifier signals an intentional, active state rather than a slow drift — like flipping a switch from 'we care about users' to 'extract maximum value, consequences be damned.' It implies awareness: someone looked at their roadmap and consciously chose chaos over quality.

An enshittification arc is the full narrative trajectory of a platform or product as it travels from beloved to barely functional. Borrowed from storytelling's 'character arc,' it frames corporate decay as a plot with a beginning (launch hype), rising action (gradual feature removal, ad bloat), and a climax (the moment users mass-exodus). Naming the arc lets people treat a company's decline as a story they can analyze, predict, and — with some dark humor — enjoy watching unfold.

An enshittification fail is the rare moment of public schadenfreude when a company's attempt to degrade its product backfires spectacularly — users revolt, the stock drops, the CEO issues a non-apology, and the feature gets quietly rolled back. It's the universe providing a small corrective to the usual one-way flow of platform decay. Tech Twitter lives for an enshittification fail, and the documentation of each one serves as thin hope that users retain some power.

Enshittification maxxing is when a company stops pretending to care and goes absolutely full send on the decay process — cutting support teams, piling on ads, introducing paywalls for features that used to be free, all at once. The '-maxxing' suffix, borrowed from optimization culture, is used sarcastically here: these companies are 'maximizing' their strategy, just one aimed entirely at short-term extraction at the expense of literally every user. The word implies both intensity and absurdity.