Way past its prime: How did Amazon get so rubbish? By Cory Doctorow, The Guardian, 5 Oct 2025 --- Overview The article discusses the decline of Amazon as a platform, illustrating the concept of "enshittification"—a term coined in 2022 to describe how online services deteriorate over time through a three-stage process. Amazon is used as a case study for this process, highlighting how it evolved from a customer-focused company to one that prioritizes extracting value from merchants and users alike, resulting in a degraded user experience. --- The Concept of Enshittification Definition: A framework describing how online platforms degrade in quality and trustworthiness over time. Three Stages: Good to users: Platforms start by prioritizing user experience. Abuse users to benefit businesses: Platforms then prioritize business customers, sometimes at the expense of users. Abuse business customers: Finally, platforms extract maximum value for themselves, degrading service for both users and merchants. --- Amazon’s Journey Through Enshittification Stage 1: Good to Users Amazon initially invested heavily in customer service. Raised significant capital to subsidize goods, shipping, and returns. Introduced Prime membership, creating a "soft lock-in" by charging upfront for shipping. Locked digital content (ebooks, audiobooks, movies) behind DRM, raising switching costs. Engaged in predatory pricing, undercutting competitors and consolidating dominance. Result: Consumers are locked into the platform with high switching costs. Stage 2: Abusing Users, Good to Businesses Amazon initially paid merchants full price and highlighted the best products. Developed the "flywheel" strategy: Low prices and wide selection attract customers. This attracts merchants wanting access. Amazon extracts deeper discounts from merchants benefiting from the large customer base. The cycle repeats, increasing Amazon’s power over merchants. This strategy aligns with consumer welfare standard antitrust theory which emphasizes low prices over competition quality. Antitrust enforcement weakened since the late 1970s, facilitating this approach. Stage 3: A Giant Pile of Shit Amazon exploits merchants by: Cloning best-selling items and pushing originals deep in search results. Charging high, effectively mandatory junk fees. Using "Fulfillment by Amazon," more expensive than competitors, to further control sellers. Amazon subsidizes its own shipping costs by gouging merchants. Mandatory "most-favored-nation" clauses force merchants to raise prices everywhere, impacting all retailers. Result: Consumers pay an "Amazon tax" regardless of shopping location, with top search results being more expensive and often lower quality. Merchants face pressure to cheat (fake reviews, fraud) or be invisible on the platform. Amazon profits regardless of user satisfaction or merchant health. The marketplace devolves into low-quality offerings, and the platform becomes increasingly hostile. --- Broader Implications and Solutions The author rejects fatalism about capitalism causing this decay; the internet’s decline is a specific, measurable phenomenon. The degraded "enshitternet" impedes political movements and social justice struggles, as it is the main medium for organizing. The article argues for systemic solutions rather than individual consumer activism: Ban predatory pricing. Impose structural separation: Amazon must choose to be a platform or a competitor, not both. Regulate junk fees and end most-favored-nation agreements. Unionize Amazon workers. Treat manipulated search rankings as fraud. Regulation can enforce fair treatment, even if it doesn’t change corporate attitudes. Collective action among consumers, merchants, workers, and regulators is essential. --- Additional Notes Amazon