On shoe shopping, whatsapp and enshittification
When you gaze into the abyss, the abyss advertises to you - Netzsche
I have grown to enjoy those freaky moments when you could swear Instagram was listening to your conversations, because you talked about something and the ad just pops up on your feed soon after. Logically, you know it's just a coincidence, right? Yet, somewhere a primal corner of your brain whispers, 'They're listening...’ How does Instagram know what you were talking about?
My wife and I are out for dinner and she asks me, “Why do you keep fiddling with your shoes?”
“They’re not comfortable! It’s okay when I wear them for a short time, but they start pinching if I wear them the whole
day. Maybe I should get another pair for casual use.”
She shakes her head and gives me that knowing look – the one that says, "here he goes again." A few minutes later,
during a lull in the conversation, I check my Instagram feed. Sure enough, there it is: the ad for those leather shoes I
sporadically researched a few months ago. Goodyear welted, full-grain glory, at a tempting discount. "Clearance sale!
Get them while stocks last!" I click on the ad, and now I’m furiously filtering that made-on-Shopify storefront to find
that elusive, perfect shoe.
Targeted ads don't 'bug our phones'- they predict & capitalize on behavior patterns. We seldom appreciate the amount of data collected by the apps we use every day. Every reel, every ad clicked or ignored. Try exporting your data on any of your most-used apps and go through it. This collected data is used by Instagram to build a profile of me as a customer. So and so years old, male, works in tech, lives in India, is way too interested in stupid stuff that he can’t or shouldn’t afford. A disturbingly accurate model of my consumer behavior. These models predict my responses to stimuli (read ads) better than I do – not through mind-reading, but relentless pattern analysis and data collection that far outstrips human comprehension.
This is exactly how countless purchase decisions are made on the internet, day in and day out. The nudges are often minor, and spread out over a period of time. Content platforms understand our latent purchasing desires, track how they evolve and sell them back to us, the discount often sealing the deal. I consent to give Meta my preference data every time I use their apps. That’s the implicit contract I sign. I agree to be shown ads that are served to this profile that the algorithm has created of me. It's a Faustian bargain: I know they exploit what they've learned, yet... damn, those shoes would look good. If I have to endure a few moments of “Wow, this data collection thing might be going too far”, that’s a fair price to pay for funny reels and good deals.
It's incentives all the way down
But this isn’t about the cycle of pre-purchase boredom, pre-delivery excitement and post-delivery regret. It’s about understanding incentives. User generated content platforms like Instagram, Facebook and TikTok base their profit model around advertising. Instagram, Facebook and Whatsapp get 99% of their combined revenue from advertising. How would a virtuous cycle for growth in ad revenue look like for Meta? If I want to grow ad revenue, I want to base everything around one assumption, that's borne out by the data. People are more likely to buy personalized ads, stuff that they care about.
To do this, I first need to get people. Can’t have a marketplace without people. I have to keep them in the market for long enough. This attracts businesses. If I connect customers to businesses well, the marketplace becomes better and better as a shopping experience.So more users come in, and the ones that are already there will not leave.
Having to increase eyeballs incentivises the platform to optimize for app engagement time. The more time you spend scrolling, the better it is. But that’s just one part of the equation. It’s not good enough for you to just keep scrolling. The scrolling also has to prime you for wanting to purchase stuff. The stuff you see while scrolling has to be aspirational, funny, and desirable. Seeing that long lost ex or that high-school acquaintance post highlights of their life from Santorini naturally induces FOMO. You feel poor or ugly or unstylish or unfunny. There’s a subtle creation of want that happens when we use these infinite scrolling machines. And would you believe it? That want can be satisfied easily!! Buy that shoe. It’s on sale.
This Instagram with the relentless focus on attention and engagement at all costs is a far cry from the mobile app that was beloved for its excellent photo sharing and connection roots. It's not because Instagram is somehow special or different. It's the journey a business takes, by default. Instagram was very good to its users and it grew its user count, and started needing to make money. This incentivises them to maximise engagement time, while shoving more and more ads down users' throats. This will slowly start depleting user experience until people start dropping off, or like with Facebook, a new set of demographics start taking over the app. A great example of what Cory Doctorow refers to as "enshittification." According to him, companies start by providing services that offer genuine value and attract a devoted user base. But as they acquire a dominant market position, a subtle shift occurs. Profit motive trumps user experience. Decisions around algorithms, policies, and features are increasingly centered on how to squeeze more value out of the existing user base rather than continuing to deliver on that initial promise.
They're coming for Whatsapp
Whatsapp is a powerhouse of an app. And the user experience is slowly becoming worse by the day. With TikTok eating Meta's lunch, they'd be hard pressed not to start monetizing Whatsapp in earnest. Whatsapp business is to thank for the fact that I have to block and report as spam at least 1 business a day. Half my chats are conversations with friends, and half are "Thanks for shopping with us, please fill this feedback form". It's clear that the user experience on Whatsapp is only downhill from here. While Whatsapp has for now ruled out ads on your chat screen, they're not ruling it out in the 'Status' feature. While still limited, this indicates a clear path towards further ad integration.
Enshittification's Wider Scope
Doctorow's concept captures the cyclical decline of user-beneficial platforms over time. The model applies broadly. Streaming services initially freed us from commercials and rigid broadcast schedules. Now, we may get more content choices, but also pay subscriptions and watch intrusive ads, an erosion of value as companies extract greater revenue potential from the same customer base. The promise of an unfiltered internet full of niche communities gives way to algorithmic timelines prioritizing virality and guaranteed engagement, often at the expense of quality discourse. These shifts rarely happen overnight, but incrementally, each small change conditioning us to accept diminishing expectations as the price of the 'service'.
Agency and the value of friction
At a deeper level, this isn't merely about monetization and the degradation of services. It speaks to whether we retain true agency in a world of persuasive technology. When the systems meant to entertain, inform, and connect us actively benefit from limiting our exposure to the full spectrum of possibilities, is that an erosion of individual freedom in the modern age?
Modern tech excels at removing friction between desire and immediate fulfillment. The mantra for UX designers and product managers is to distil the user experience down to its absolute essence. A song? One click. New shoes? Delivered tomorrow. With diminished attention spans, and lower tolerance for delayed gratification, our current digital life de-normalizes the randomness born out of physical browsing, serendipitous conversations… essentially, life lived slower. This change doesn't mean progress is inherently bad, but there may be consequences to how efficiently our systems satiate momentary whims. Are we losing a nuanced sense of desire itself, becoming passive consumers of prefabricated digital "fulfillment" cycles? As we spend more and more of our time online, if we only see things we "might" like, how will we react when we see someone truly different from us, the difference amplified by their own bubble of convenience?