enshittification

Alternative names are crappification or platform decay.  The process is that a new service or product pops up online aiming to please and attract as many users as possible and so bending over backwards to provide high-quality offerings.  The users flock to the service or product and at some point there is a swing towards pleasing business customers such as advertisers by offering access to the users at a very low price.  Finally the service to the users is downgraded and the price to the business customers is increased as the owners try to maximise profit, and the whole thing is — enshittified.

The term was coined by Cory Doctorow, a Canadian-British blogger and journalist (and science fiction writer) and appeared in a blog that he posted in November 2023.  Doctorow argues (and others agree) that this is pretty well universal practice and will leave humanity in an enshittocene.