> [!quote] > Here is how platforms die: first, they are good to their users; then they abuse their users to make things better for their business customers; finally, ==they abuse those business customers to claw back all the value for themselves. Then, they die. I call this enshittification==, and it is a seemingly inevitable consequence arising from the combination of the ease of changing how a platform allocates value, combined with the nature of a "two sided market", where a platform sits between buyers and sellers, hold each hostage to the other, raking off an ever-larger share of the value that passes between them. ^749b55 *Enshittification* is the prime example of middleman value capture of platforms. For many [[Techno Utopia|techno utopians]] of the bygone era, it is a major source of disillusionment. Tech was fun; tech was enabling; tech was value-creating. New platform companies - even the ones that are seen as power abusers - were seen as great enablers.