Enshittification is disabling us.

Sometimes I wonder how all my "quirky," "smart," model-train-building ancestors made it look so easy, then I remember they weren't living in neoliberal capitalism on nightmare mode.

Enshittification is the decline in quality of a product or service that occurs as profit is prioritised over user experience.

Grocery stores expecting you to scan and bag your own groceries using their malfunctioning surveillance robot, or the increasingly hellish experience that is any customer service ‘help’ line are examples of enshittification.

Enshittification makes the world harder to navigate for everyone. For people who are disabled, enshittification can be the difference between being able to do something independently and with dignity or not.

My grandma told me that when she was a young woman, a ‘gentleman’ used to stand in the elevator at the Department Store and help you find where you were going. It was assumed that people would need help navigating multiple floors of shopping. For people who have a limited distance they can walk or any kind of issues with attention and cognition, this support likely made the difference between being able to shop independently or not. The fact that the service was provided to everyone, free of charge, as a universal benefit of shopping there ensured that the experience was dignified. People didn’t need to call it a disability accommodation - it was just part of life.

While this was likely beneficial for everyone, for some disabled people this would have made the department store signficantly more accessible.

This is just one example.

It used to be normal for various people to deliver staple food items like milk and bread to your door daily.

It used to be normal to be able to easily contact a real human on customer service phone lines and solve your problems.

Now, these people are out of jobs and you’re on your own.

The people who do work in enshittified customer service now face the enshittified work of dealing with people who generally are not getting their needs met, are not happy offering circular non-solutions that rarely leave them with the feeling of having helped someone. This eats away at job satisfaction.

The increase in people identifying and demanding accommodation for neurodivergence is directly related to the experience of living in a world that is less and less hospitable to the people in it and more and more devoted to the relentless extraction of profit.

People, before profits. For a world we can actually fucking tolerate.