Enshittification of social media platforms is just the tip of the iceberg

Enshittification is a term coined back in 2022 by writer Cory Doctorow, who described the inevitable, rotting trajectory of modern social media platforms following the exact same old, dirty script. First, they are good to their users; then, they abuse them to make things good for their business customers; and then they abuse everyone to grab every last drop of value 4 themselves.

Right now, we are sitting deep in that third stage. These platforms don’t just dumb people down or frustrate creators by forcing them to gamble in their rigged Casino – they strip away everyone’s craftsmanship, dignity, and freedom. So how do we cope? How do we break this cycle? Let’s dive straight into this rabbit hole.

Rule no. 1: When something is free, YOU are the product

My story: 12 years of playing the flute to the Cobra

I didn’t pull this out of thin air. I spent 12 solid years deep inside the Digital Cobra ecosystem. I know every psychological trigger, every dirty algorithm hack, and every manipulative mechanism in the book. But here is what happened when I tried to use those exact same skills 4 something genuine, authentic, and real without paying off the middleman: the rules magically changed overnight.

The moment you stop playing their game, they label your integrity as a threat. Organic reach drops to zero. Location locks kick in to restrict where your voice can travel. Shadowbans and algorithmic throttling become your daily reality. The Casino doesn’t want craftsmen or independent thinkers – it wants mindless, paying addicts. Enshittification is a “too subtle” word for that to be honest.

The real motive of enshittification: Distract, dumb down, control & profit

Have you ever wondered why algorithms aggressively push brainless garbage,
AI-slop, rage-bait, and mindless trends while actively burying deep thoughts, genuine art, and real human wisdom? It’s completely intentional.

A distracted mind doesn’t ask ‘dangerous’ questions. A confused, unfocused population that can’t hold attention 4 more than three seconds is ridiculously easy to manipulate, control, and sell stuff to. They need us brain-dead so we don’t realize how we’re being stripped of our agency.

And to make it even dirtier: they’re actively scraping our minds to train their AI. Years of your sweat, human skill, and unique craft are stolen overnight to feed machines that churn out cheap AI-slop – using YOUR soul to make YOU obsolete, without ever paying you a single cent.

The ultimate target: the generations we raise

Let’s stop pretending this is just about us. The real, long-term target here is our children. The generations we are raising right now. They need them to be the dumbest, most brainwashed, and most controllable population to ever walk this Earth. Zero backbone, zero critical thinking, zero attention span – just digital weather vanes spinning whichever way the algorithm blows them.

And this hits me on a deeply personal level. It hurts like hell, because I’m watching this war unfold right under my own roof. My son is a genius in the making. Plays 3 different instruments, calculates 3rd-degree roots, masterminds every type of Rubik’s cube in existence, knows the cosmos inside out, and pulls off parkour moves that take my breath away.

And yet? The System’s trap is so aggressively engineered that even HE gets pulled into the black hole of Roblox and brain-dead ‘influencers’, choosing cheap dopamine over developing his own mind-blowing passions. If their algorithms are potent enough to dull a mind as sharp and talented as his, imagine what they’re doing to millions of kids out there who don’t have those foundations.

If you strip kids of real depth, craftsmanship, and human connection before they even figure out who they are, you create a whole generation of perfect, obedient cattle who will never even realize they’re sitting in a cage.

My solution: Kill the illusion of “free” and bring back real value

What if we finally stop lying to ourselves and face reality? Maintaining infrastructure, servers, and platforms costs real money. Nothing in this physical universe is truly free. When you don’t pay with actual money or time, you pay with your privacy, your mental sanity, and your personal freedom.

The only real way out of this trap is radical transparency and honest trade: acknowledging that true value requires a fair exchange. Both users and creators must be willing to pay a direct, fair price 4 actual quality content and clean infrastructure – cutting out the shady ad-driven middleman once and 4 all.

That’s how we dismantle the rigged Casino, restore our dignity, and build a space where human creativity isn’t treated like cheap content fodder. And that’s not just an idea for how to solve this problem. I designed the solution, and my goal is to build the exit door together with real people who want out.

Over at Matrix Renegade, I’m laying out the blueprint 4 an architectural shift away from their walled gardens. No rules forcing creators into a non-stop grind to pump out worthless slop. No surviving on meager ad-share crumbs. No defining your worth strictly by vanity numbers, and zero room 4 quantitative fraud or fake metrics – just pure, raw human talent, real value, and absolute integrity.