Partially, this general decline springs from s misalignment of incentives. To bring up the old saw again, all of these products and services relying on advertising for revenue means that you become the product. But it’s more than that, too. It’s what I call the “scam economy” taking shape. This goes well beyond Cory Doctorow’s1 “enshittification.”
The “scam economy” is the result of transition of the entire sociocultural basis of trade behavior from community-minded mutual service with some profit stacked on top to an attempt to grift everyone else at any opportunity. This is what our economy has slowly but nearly-fully moved to since the 1980s. Ads as the primary revenue model just reinforced this pre-existing trend, but did not create it. “Enshittification” is just a natural outcome of this larger movement.
I’ve been thinking about what the larger animus driving this transition to a scam-based economy might be, but I haven’t reached any solid conclusions yet. When I do I’m sure you’ll be the first to know.