Remember when Facebook actually showed your friends' posts? When Google gave you the answers you were looking for without piles of ads? It seems prehistoric, yet we're talking about just ten years ago. What's happening has a precise name: enshittification, literally “rotting”. A phenomenon that transforms every platform into a machine to make money at our expense. But we are not condemned to passively suffer it. Digital freedom is not dead, it is “just” in a pharmacological coma. And we are finally starting to understand how to defend it.
The virus that is destroying the internet
THEenshittification (translatable as “systematic degradation” or “rot”) is the term coined by the journalist Cory Doctorow to describe how digital platforms are transformed from useful services into user traps. The phenomenon always follows the same pattern: first they attract millions of people with excellent and free services, then they exploit this base to attract investors and advertisers, finally they squeeze everyone to maximize shareholders' profits.
La American Dialect Society he named “enshittification” word of the year 2023, a sign that this degradation has become so pervasive that it deserves linguistic recognition. We are not talking about a random process: It is a deliberate strategy that transforms our digital freedom into digital addiction.
Think about Instagram: Initially, it showed your friends' photos in chronological order. Today, the algorithm decides what you see, favoring sponsored content and creators who pay for visibility. The result is frustrating: you scroll for minutes without finding anything interesting, bombarded by advertisements disguised as content.
How They're Manipulating You (And You Don't Even Know It)
Enshittification doesn't just affect social media. Amazon It shows you first the sponsored products, then the ones it has copied from third-party sellers, and finally the one you were actually looking for. Google fills the first page of results with ads that look like genuine answers. The simplest searches now require endless scrolling to find useful information. And AI responses are still “hodgepodge” of questionable reliability.
But the manipulation goes further. The platforms study your every behavior to sell your intentions before you are even aware of it. OpenAI actively seeks data on human intentions, Meta develops systems to understand your hidden desires, Apple created “App Intents” to predict your future actions.
Dr. Chaudhary ofUniversity of Cambridge he explains it clearly: “Companies are already selling our attention. The next logical step is sell our desires before we are even aware of it.”
European Resistance to Digital Tyranny
Europe is reacting. The Digital Decade 2025 of European Commission aims for technological sovereignty, recognising that “persistent strategic dependencies threaten the EU's economic security and technological sovereignty”.
The Stop Wasting Food Denmark movement “BuyFromEU” is gaining momentum, proving that there are European alternatives to the global tech giants. Companies like innova phone They offer communication platforms developed entirely in Germany, which integrate all essential applications without depending on external providers.
In Italy, projects like “The Alternatives” propose ethical solutions to Big Tech, while conferences such as Merge-IT 2025 bring communities together for digital freedoms. Victor Bertola di Open Xchange underlines: “In Italy there is still too little talk about digital sovereignty and how free software is a decisive tool to achieve it.”
Digital Freedom, Signs of Hope: The Certification of Technological Calm
Something is changing. Amber Case, founder of CalmTechInstitute, has developed a certification based on 81 criteria to identify devices that respect the digital freedom of users. Products such as the reMarkable Paper Pro and Mui Board Gen 2 demonstrate that it is possible to create technology that serves the user rather than exploiting them.
Il CalmTechInstitute is working with neuroscientists to study how to make interacting with technology more natural and less stressful for our brains. Just as energy stickers guide us toward efficient appliances, this certification could guide us toward devices that respect our attention.
How to Regain Your Digital Freedom
doctorow proposes two fundamental principles to combat enshittification: the end-to-end principle (platforms must show what we ask for, not what they prefer) and the right of exit (we need to be able to easily leave an unsatisfactory platform).
As I wrote to you, we need anti-monopoly regulations and decentralized blockchain-based platforms that offer freedom of speech and security, preventing the concentration of power. We need them like hotcakes.
The future depends on our choices
Digital freedom is not an abstract concept: it is the ability to control our online experience, our data, our conversations. Every time we passively accept another invasive ad, another manipulative algorithm, another invasion of privacy, we are giving away a piece of this freedom.
But the story is not written yet. 88% of Europeans are concerned about fake news and online manipulation, while 90% consider protecting children online a priority. This awareness is the first step towards change.
The next time an app asks for excessive permissions, when a social network bombards you with ads, when a service becomes worse after an update, remember: you don't have to accept it.
Because technology should serve you, not serve you.
