Are Digital Platforms Bound to Decay? An Economic Examination of the “Enshittification” Thesis

In this article, I critically evaluate Cory Doctorow’s “enshittification” thesis, which posits that digital platforms inevitably decline in quality as they mature, increasingly extracting value from users until they ultimately collapse. Drawing on economic theory and empirical evidence, I explore the mechanisms that may drive this potential decline. My analysis supports certain aspects of the thesis but challenges others. On the one hand, it is generally acknowledged that platforms tend to