American Dialect Society 2023 Word of the Year Is “Enshittification”
canopic jug writes:
The American Dialect Society has chosen the neologism "enshittification" as its 2023 word of the year:
The term enshittification became popular in 2023 after it was used in a blog post by author Cory Doctorow, who used it to describe how digital platforms can become worse and worse. "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," Doctorow wrote on his Pluralistic blog.
Presiding at the Jan. 6 voting session were Ben Zimmer, chair of the ADS New Words Committee and language columnist for the Wall Street Journal, and Dr. Kelly Elizabeth Wright of Virginia Tech, data czar of the New Words Committee. "Enshittification is a sadly apt term for how our online lives have become gradually degraded," Zimmer said. "From the time that it first appeared in Doctorow's posts and articles, the word had all the markings of a successful neologism, being instantly memorable and adaptable to a variety of contexts."
The term was first seen over at Cory Doctorow's current blog, Pluralistic. It is a form of rent-seeking also known as platform decay.
Previously:
(2023) Enshittification Everywhere. Your Car, Your Phone, Your Tractor, Your Computer...
Read more of this story at SoylentNews.