I want you to think about something strange.
Have you noticed that almost everything around us seems to be getting a little worse?
Not dramatically worse. Not overnight.
Just enough that you notice.
A smaller package. A higher price. A subscription where there used to be a purchase. A product that doesn’t last as long. A company that used to feel like it cared about customers, now asking how much inconvenience we will tolerate before we leave.
There is a word for this.
Enshittification.
It describes a pattern where companies start by creating something people love. They treat customers well, build trust, and grow a loyal audience.
But once they become established, the incentives change.
The question stops being:
“How do we make customers happier?”
And becomes:
“How much more can we extract before customers leave?”
The interesting question is: how did we get here?
Many people point to a very influential essay written in 1970 by economist Milton Friedman called The Social Responsibility of Business is to Increase its Profits.
Friedman’s argument was that businesses should primarily focus on generating returns for their shareholders. Over time, this idea became known as shareholder value — the belief that the main measure of a company’s success was increasing the value of its stock.
Again, the problem is not that companies should not make profits. Profits are necessary.
The change was in what became the ultimate goal.
Then came another major shift.
Executive compensation began moving away from traditional salaries and toward stock options.
The idea was simple: if executives owned part of the company, they would make decisions like owners.
But there was another effect.
When an executive’s wealth depends heavily on the company’s stock price, decisions that increase that stock price can become extremely valuable personally.
Cut costs. Reduce staff. Raise prices. Delay investments. Find efficiencies.
A decision that increases the stock price today can be worth millions of dollars to the people making that decision.
And that changed the scoreboard.
At the same time, ordinary people experienced another financial shift.
There was a time when many families could put money into savings accounts and receive enough interest to see their savings grow.
Over time, with lower interest rates and rising costs, saving money became less effective at building wealth. More people were pushed toward investing in the stock market simply to keep up with inflation and protect their future.
More of society became connected to the success of the stock market.
And companies became increasingly judged by the same measurement: maximize returns.
Even the way we set prices changed.
For much of modern history, businesses often used a simple formula:
Figure out what something costs to make, then add a reasonable profit.
Today, companies can use massive amounts of data and real-time testing to ask a different question:
“What is the highest price people will pay before they stop buying?”
Digital stores and electronic shelf labels allow prices to change constantly based on demand.
The goal is no longer just making a good product at a fair price.
The goal is finding the maximum price the market will tolerate.
And then there is the famous example of the missing olive.
American Airlines became known for a story about removing one olive from each first-class salad and saving tens of thousands of dollars a year. Whether every detail of the story is perfect or not, the idea became a symbol of modern optimization.
One olive seems meaningless.
But when you multiply that thinking across millions of customers and thousands of products, you get the world we recognize today.
A slightly smaller package.
A slightly cheaper ingredient.
A slightly worse experience.
Each decision makes sense individually.
But together, they change the entire experience.
Sometimes this financial thinking goes even further.
Companies that were once successful can become targets for financial strategies designed to extract value rather than build long-term strength.
Toys “R” Us is often discussed as an example of a company with a unique market position that struggled after major financial pressures. Red Lobster has also become part of larger debates about whether financial engineering can weaken businesses that were once successful.
The larger question is this:
Are we building better companies?
Or are we simply becoming better at turning existing value into financial returns?
The problem is not profit.
The problem is when every decision is filtered through one question:
“How much can we take?”
Because a company can make more money by creating something people love.
But it can also make more money by removing one olive, adding one fee, reducing one service, and making one small compromise at a time.
And after enough of those decisions, we wake up in a world where everything costs more, works less, and feels colder.
The challenge for the future is deciding what kind of economy we actually want.
One where the best way to succeed is by making life better for people…
or one where the easiest path to success is discovering how much worse we can make things before anyone walks away.
