Enshittification, word of 2024, a book by Cory Doctorow 2025

11 August 2025

Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What To Do About It, by Canadian-British blogger, journalist, and author Cory Doctorow, will be published in October 2025.

Doctorow coined the word enshittification in 2022. Long story short, the neologism describes how online platforms go from being useful to useless, on account of the greed of their owners.

Facebook and Instagram are good examples of enshittification at work. Once both social networks were populated by content created by members. As time has passed though, much of what appears on these platforms is effectively advertising.

Enshittification was named the 2024 word of the year by Australia’s Macquarie Dictionary.