In the golden age of digital marketing, platforms like Facebook, Google, and Instagram promised marketers a utopia: vast audiences, precise targeting, cost efficiency, and measurable ROI. These platforms transformed how businesses reached consumers. Small startups could compete with massive corporations. Creativity, data, and optimization became the currency of growth. It was a new era of opportunity.

But over the years, something changed. Slowly, then all at once, the quality of these platforms began to deteriorate—for users, for businesses, and for marketers. What was once a fertile ecosystem became a frustrating wasteland. Ads became more expensive, results diminished, attribution became murkier, and organic reach dried up. This slow but deliberate degradation is what technologist Cory Doctorow coined as “enshitification”—a process by which digital platforms, driven by profit-maximizing behavior, degrade over time until they become hostile to all but their own bottom line.

What is “Enshitification”?

“Enshitification” describes the lifecycle of a digital platform in three stages:

1. Platform serves users: To grow, platforms prioritize user experience, offering value and free access.
2. Platform serves business customers: Once they’ve attracted a critical mass of users, they monetize through businesses—advertisers, creators, merchants—offering access to that audience.
3. Platform serves itself: Finally, to maximize returns for shareholders or owners, the platform starts extracting value from both users and business customers, often at their expense.

This pattern is now deeply embedded in the evolution of digital marketing platforms.

The Rise and Stall of Facebook Advertising

Take Facebook (now Meta), for example. In the early 2010s, it was a dream for marketers. You could target audiences with incredible precision, build communities through organic reach, and test ads affordably. But over time, enshitification crept in.

First, organic reach began to dwindle. Posts that once reached 20-30% of a page’s followers now struggle to hit 1%. Facebook encouraged businesses to “boost” posts, and then gradually made it necessary. Then, ad costs rose steeply. As more businesses flooded the platform and Facebook shifted algorithms toward engagement and profit, competition intensified. Meanwhile, Apple’s App Tracking Transparency (ATT) changes in 2021 threw attribution into disarray, further lowering advertiser confidence.

Now, marketers are spending more to reach fewer people with less certainty about outcomes. The user experience is cluttered with ads, and businesses are constantly forced to adapt to a platform that prioritizes itself above all else.

Google: From Search Engine to Paywall

Google has followed a similar arc. Once the clean, trustworthy librarian of the internet, it’s now a pay-to-play environment where the first page of results is dominated by ads and SEO-gamed content.

Google Ads used to offer relatively transparent keyword targeting and manageable costs. Today, the platform has layered on complexity while reducing visibility. “Smart campaigns” obscure data from advertisers, removing control in favor of opaque automation. Meanwhile, CPCs in many industries have skyrocketed, and organic traffic is harder to come by thanks to featured snippets, ads, and AI-generated summaries.

Marketers are forced to spend more for less. The search experience for users has declined. And Google, sitting on both sides of the marketplace, continues to profit.

TikTok and the Illusion of Organic Reach

Newer platforms like TikTok seemed like an escape from the enshitified giants. For a while, TikTok gave brands the kind of organic reach that hadn’t been seen in years. A small business could go viral overnight.

But history repeats. TikTok’s algorithm has become increasingly opaque, and creators now report inconsistent reach and shadowbanning. Brands are nudged toward paid placements, influencer partnerships, and TikTok Shop integrations. The once-democratic content landscape is becoming another advertising pipeline.

The Toll on Marketers

Enshitification doesn’t just harm users and businesses—it burns out marketers.

We spend countless hours learning new algorithms, adapting to policy changes, and fighting declining performance. Every quarter seems to bring a new ad product, data restriction, or automation that removes transparency. Platforms pitch these changes as improvements, but most often, they centralize power and extract more value from advertisers while delivering diminishing returns.

Marketers become scapegoats when Customer Acquisition Costs rise. We’re expected to do more with less, in environments increasingly designed to favor the platform, not the advertiser.

Is There a Way Out?

So, what do we do in an enshitified marketing landscape?

1. Diversify Channels: Don't build your house on rented land. Email lists, SMS, and owned content give you direct relationships with customers. Community platforms (like Discord, Slack, or even newsletters) allow deeper engagement outside algorithmic whims.
2. Invest in Brand: Performance marketing may not scale like it used to. Building brand equity—through storytelling, values, and consistent customer experience—can pay dividends across all channels, especially as platforms become less reliable.
3. Push for Transparency and Standards: Industry-wide advocacy for privacy-respecting attribution and transparent reporting is essential. Supporting tools and standards that prioritize both consumer rights and marketer efficiency can slow the tide.
4. Test, but Don’t Chase Every Shiny Platform: New platforms may offer a temporary reprieve, but enshitification is often inevitable. Approach new channels with curiosity, but build sustainable strategies.

Conclusion

The enshitification of marketing platforms is not an accident—it’s a predictable outcome of profit-maximizing systems. As marketers, we must acknowledge this cycle and adapt accordingly. Platforms will continue to shift the goalposts. Our job is to protect our brands, our budgets, and our sanity by staying agile, investing in owned assets, and remembering that no platform—not even the newest one—is immune.

Marketing isn’t dead. But it is being tested. And those who thrive will be the ones who see the game for what it is—and play smarter, not harder.

John Eberhard is the President of Real Web Marketing Inc., a full service marketing agency in the Los Angeles area. He has been a marketing specialist for 35 years.