The clip opens with a man crouched beneath a bed, cutting a hole in a sock. Moments later he wields a saw to trim a table leg, causing it to wobble at breakfast. “My job is to make things bad,” he says. “My official title is enshittificator. I take something that works fine and I ruin it.”
The footage, issued this week by the Norwegian Consumer Council, uses absurd humor to highlight a pressing problem; it forms part of an international drive to combat the “enshittification,” the slow decay of digital products and services.
“We wanted to demonstrate that such a decline would be unacceptable in the physical world,” explained Finn Lützow‑Holm Myrstad, the council’s head of digital policy. “Yet it occurs daily in our online tools, and it does not have to be that way.”
The word enshittification, introduced by writer Cory Doctorow, describes the intentional worsening of a service or product, especially online. Numerous instances exist, from social‑media streams that become clogged with ads and scams to software updates that slow phones and chatbots that replace human support staff.
In late February, in what is thought to be the first effort of its kind, the publicly funded Norwegian body teamed up with more than 70 organisations and individuals across Europe and the United States, including trade unions and human‑rights groups.
Together they appealed to legislators in 14 trans‑Atlantic nations to act against enshittification, arguing that it is not inevitable but the outcome of policy choices. “A different internet is possible,” said Lützow‑Holm Myrstad. “The current situation is unacceptable to anyone.”
In Norway, over 20 groups pressed officials for measures, a push echoed by consumer councils in a dozen other countries. A joint letter was also dispatched to EU bodies, while four civil‑society organisations in the United States reached out to several lawmakers.
The correspondence urged policymakers to empower consumers to control, modify, repair and repurpose the products they already own, and to make it easier for users to switch between services.
Law‑makers were asked to reinforce existing regulations that safeguard consumers and their data, and to promote stronger competition in digital markets, for instance by using public procurement to favour alternatives to the dominant platforms.
“It is not too late to reverse the trend,” Lützow‑Holm Myrstad added. “Services need not be enshittified if genuine competition exists, if consumers can choose their providers, and if the market itself curbs these practices.”
The worldwide campaign is supported by an 80‑page report from the council that examines how enshittification has become commonplace.
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