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Melvin Seetoh  ·  February 2026

Why Your Favourite Apps
Keep Getting Worse

Spotify fills playlists with AI slop. Grab charges you double at peak hours. Netflix raises prices every year. This isn't a glitch — it's a strategy with a name.

enshittification platform economy digital literacy

Sound familiar?

You've noticed it.

Spotify
$10.98/mo
Premium subscription

AI-generated tracks quietly replacing human artists in ambient playlists

Grab
$12 → $22
Morning commute fare

3–5× surge pricing during peak hours, minimal transparency

Netflix
$17–19/mo
Standard plan (up from $10–12)

Ads, password restrictions, fragmented content

This isn't a coincidence. Every one of these platforms followed the same playbook.

The Term

Enshittification

The deliberate degradation of online platforms and services over time as companies prioritise profits over user experience.

— Cory Doctorow, 2023  ·  Australia's Word of the Year, 2024

The Playbook

Three stages. Every time.

01
Attract users with genuinely good service
Cheap prices, great features, no ads. The product is the product. Users are not yet the product.
02
Pivot to business customers
Suppliers, advertisers, and business partners become the real customers. User needs become secondary.
03
Extract maximum profit from everyone
Experience degrades. Prices rise. The locked-in user base is monetised against their own interests.

Case Study 01  /  Spotify

Paying premium for
algorithmic slop

"You're still paying the same amount, but the value you're receiving has fundamentally changed."

Case Study 02  /  Grab

When convenience becomes
exploitation

Riders Pay More
3–5×
surge multiplier at peak hours

Morning commute rose from ~$12 to $18–22 with minimal pricing transparency

Drivers Earn Less
↓
commissions & earnings clarity

Many earn less per hour despite riders paying significantly more per trip

Grab now optimises for its profit margin — not user affordability, not driver welfare.

Case Study 03  /  Netflix

The annual price
hike ritual

The Original Promise
  • ✓  One flat monthly fee
  • ✓  Unlimited content access
  • ✓  Family sharing included
  • ✓  $10–12 / month
2026 Reality
  • ↑  $17–19 standard plan
  • ⚠  Ad-supported tiers pushed
  • ✗  Password sharing restricted
  • ✗  Content fragmented across platforms

Yet we stay — because of Squid Game, because of our watchlist, because of years of personalised recommendations.

The Trap

Why can't we just leave?

SPOTIFY

Years of curated playlists, listening history, and a trained algorithm that knows your taste

GRAB

Network density — more drivers, faster pickups than any alternative can offer

NETFLIX

Original content you can't stream elsewhere, plus a watchlist you've built over years

"Platforms leverage your sunk investment — time, data, money — to degrade service with impunity."

The Singapore Context

Highly connected.
Limited alternatives.

The uncomfortable truth: even paid services treat users as resources to optimise against once market dominance is achieved.

What You Can Do

Digital literacy
as defence

01
Recognise the pattern
This is deliberate strategy, not entropy. Name it when you see it.
02
Reduce lock-in
Maintain accounts across platforms. Export your data. Don't let any single service own your digital life.
03
Vote with attention and money
Support platforms that treat users with respect. Introductory offers mask long-term plans — knowing the pattern changes how you evaluate every new service.

The Takeaway

"Every great app
starts as a gift."

Understanding enshittification changes how you evaluate every new service from day one.

Melvin Seetoh

melvinseetoh.com

enshittification platform economy digital literacy