Post · bonfire.cafe

A central fact of *enshittification* is that the growth of quality-destroying, pocket-picking monopolists wasn't an accident, nor was it inevitable. Rather, named individuals, in living memory, advocated for and created pro-enshittificatory policies, ushering in the enshittocene.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2025/11/06/vertical-blinds/#invest-dont-acquire

@pluralistic

We need unshittification.

@davidtheeviloverlord Disenshittification

@pluralistic - enmerdement.

@pluralistic encoprolitification

@pluralistic

I formally declare 2025 year of the era of the Enshittocene.

@pluralistic

Just realized there is already a hashtag enshittocene - there's almost nothing that does not exist ..

@pluralistic

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enshittocene

😆🤭

love it

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Deutsch: #Enshittozän

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This will stuck.

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#enshittocene

@pluralistic

"Enshittocene", I love it!

@pluralistic

You truly are evil. I’ve developed an adoration of the prefix enshitifi

Cory Doctorow’s little dictionary of corporate America.

💩

The greatest enshittifiers of all are the neoliberal economists who advocated for the idea that monopolies are *good*, because (in their perfect economic models), the only way for a company to secure a monopoly is to be so amazing that we all voluntarily start buying its products and services, and the instant a monopoly starts to abuse its market power, new companies will enter the market and poach us all from the bloated incumbent.

This "consumer welfare" theory of antitrust is obviously wrong, and it's the best-known neoliberal monopoly delusion. But it's not the only one! Another pro-monopoly ideology we can thank the Chicago School economists for is "industrial organization" (IO), a theory that insists that *vertical* monopolies are actually *really* good. This turns out to be one of the most consequentially catastrophic mistakes in modern economic history.

What's a "vertical monopoly"? That's when a company takes over parts of the supply chain both upstream and downstream from it. Take Essilor Luxottica, the eyeglasses monopoly that owns every brand of frames you've ever heard of, from Coach and Oakley to Versace and Bausch and Lomb. That's a *horizontal* lobby - the company took over every eyewear brand under the sun.

But they also created a *vertical* monopoly by buying most of the major eyeglass retailers (Sunglass Hut, Lenscrafters, etc), and by buying up most of the optical labs in the world (Essilor makes the majority of corrective lenses, worldwide). They also own Eyemed, the world's largest eyeglasses insurer.

IO theory predicts that even if a company like Essilor Luxxotica uses its monopoly power to price gouge in one part of the eyeglass supply chain (e.g. by raising the price of frames, which Essilor Luxxotica has done, by over 1,000%), that they will use some of those extraordinary profits to keep all their other products as cheap as possible.

If Luxottica can use its market power to mark up the price of frames by a factor of ten, then IO theory predicts that they'll keep the prices of lenses and insurance as low as possible, in order to make it harder for lens or insurance companies to get into the frame business. By using monopoly frame profits to starve those rivals of profits, Essilor Luxxotica can keep them so poor that they can't afford to branch out and compete with Essilor Luxottica's high-priced frames.

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