Way past its prime: how did Amazon get so rubbish?

<p>Sick of scrolling through junk results, AI-generated ads and links to lookalike products? The author and activist behind the term ‘enshittification’ explains what’s gone wrong with the internet – and what we can do about it</p><p></p><p>It’s not just you. The internet is getting worse, fast. The services we rely on, that we once loved? They’re all turning into piles of shit, all at once. Ask any Facebook user who has to scroll past 10 screens of engagement-bait, AI slop and surveillance ads just to get to one post by the people they are on the service to communicate with. This is infuriating. Frustrating. And, depending on how important those services are to you, <em>terrifying</em>.</p><p>In 2022, I coined a term to describe the sudden-onset platform collapse going on all around us: <em><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/science/2024/nov/26/enshittification-macquarie-dictionary-word-of-the-year-explained">enshittification</a></em>. To my bittersweet satisfaction, that word is doing big&nbsp;numbers. In fact, it has achieved escape velocity. It&nbsp;isn’t&nbsp;just a way to say something got worse. It’s an analysis that explains the way an online service gets worse, how that worsening unfolds, and the contagion that’s causing everything to get worse, all at once.</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/oct/05/way-past-its-prime-how-did-amazon-get-so-rubbish">Continue reading...</a>