# Is it still possible to be an informed consumer? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [February 10, 2023, 10:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-still-possible-to-be-an-informed-consumer/979599 "2023-02-10T22:24:55Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 8
**Author:** ![commasense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/commasense/32/3017_2.png) [@commasense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/commasense)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2023, 4:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-still-possible-to-be-an-informed-consumer/979599/8 "2023-02-12T16:08:27Z")
This experience has been given a name: enshittification, and I first heard about here, and in the article linked in that post. > [@Now that Musk bought Twitter -- Breaking News only](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-musk-bought-twitter-breaking-news-only/975737/166): > > The establishment of a captive user pool through attractive service which is then bled for money has been labeled “enshittification” in this excellent article. It’s specifically about TikTok but the premise is eminently portable. According to the author of [that article](https://www.wired.com/story/tiktok-platforms-cory-doctorow/), Cory Doctorow: > HERE IS HOW platforms die: First, they are good to their users; then they abuse their users to make things better for their business customers; finally, they abuse those business customers to claw back all the value for themselves. Then, they die. > > I call this _enshittification_, and it is a seemingly inevitable consequence arising from the combination of the ease of changing how a platform allocates value, combined with the nature of a “two-sided market,” where a platform sits between buyers and sellers, hold each hostage to the other, raking off an ever-larger share of the value that passes between them. --- _[View the full topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-still-possible-to-be-an-informed-consumer/979599)._