Enshittification and Creators: Why Platforms Are Getting Worse — And How to Escape

Have you noticed that your favorite platforms keep getting worse?

YouTube pushes more ads and suppresses organic reach. TikTok's algorithm feels increasingly random. Instagram barely shows your posts to your own followers. Twitter/X is... whatever Twitter/X is now.

It's not your imagination. And it's not bad luck. There's a name for what's happening: enshittification.

The term was coined by writer and activist Cory Doctorow to describe a predictable pattern of platform decay. Once you understand it, you'll see it everywhere — and more importantly, you'll understand why building your entire creator career on someone else's platform is a trap.

What Is Enshittification?

Enshittification describes the lifecycle of platforms in three stages:

Stage 1: Be good to users

When platforms launch, they need users. So they're generous. Good algorithms. Easy discovery. Features that actually help you. Low friction. Maybe even good revenue sharing.

This is when creators say "this platform is amazing" and tell all their friends to join. The platform is subsidizing your experience to build market share.

Stage 2: Abuse users to attract business customers

Once the platform has enough users, it shifts focus to monetization. This means advertisers, brands, and enterprise customers.

To serve these business customers, the platform starts degrading the user experience. Organic reach drops. Ads increase. Pay-to-play becomes necessary. The algorithm now optimizes for advertiser value, not creator value.

Creators notice things getting harder, but they're already invested. Their audience is there. Their content is there. Leaving feels impossible.

Stage 3: Abuse business customers to maximize shareholder value

Eventually, the platform squeezes everyone. Advertisers pay more for less. Creators get smaller revenue shares. Features get paywalled. Everything extractable gets extracted.

At this point, the platform is coasting on lock-in. Users stay because leaving is painful, not because the experience is good. The platform becomes a tollbooth, not a service.

The death spiral (or zombie state)

Some platforms die. Others limp along indefinitely, extracting diminishing value from trapped users. Either way, the golden era is over and it's never coming back.

How This Is Happening to Creators Right Now

If you've been creating content for more than a couple years, you've lived through enshittification. Here's what it looks like:

Organic reach is dying

Remember when posting consistently meant growth? Platforms used to show your content to your followers. Now they show your content to a fraction of your followers — and charge you to reach the rest.

YouTube's algorithm increasingly favors certain content types. TikTok's "For You" page is pay-to-play for many creators. Instagram's reach has cratered unless you're playing the Reels game exactly how they want.

This isn't a bug. It's the platform transitioning from "help creators grow" to "sell creators access to their own audience."

Monetization keeps getting worse

YouTube takes 45% of ad revenue. TikTok's Creator Fund pays fractions of a cent per thousand views. Instagram's bonus programs appear and disappear randomly.

And the thresholds keep rising. YouTube's Partner Program requirements increased. Monetization features get locked behind higher follower counts. The goalposts move whenever platforms need to cut costs.

Rules change without warning

One algorithm update can tank your channel. One policy change can demonetize your content. One terms of service revision can invalidate your entire strategy.

Creators have no seat at the table. You're a user, not a customer. And when the platform's interests diverge from yours, you lose.

Your data is trapped

Years of content. Thousands of followers. Detailed analytics. All of it locked inside the platform. You can't export your audience. You can't take your relationships with you. You can't even message your own subscribers outside the platform.

This is lock-in by design. The harder it is to leave, the more the platform can squeeze you.

Why Lock-In Is the Real Enemy

Enshittification only works because of lock-in. If creators could easily leave, platforms would have to stay good to keep them. But leaving is incredibly painful:

Your audience is there. You spent years building followers on this platform. They don't automatically follow you somewhere else.

Your content is there. Re-uploading everything is a massive undertaking. And the new platform might have different formats, lengths, or requirements.

Your relationships are there. Other creators you've connected with, collaborators, your community — all tied to this platform's messaging and networking features.

Your income is there. If you're monetized, switching means starting over with zero revenue while you rebuild.

Your skills are there. You've mastered this platform's algorithm, formats, and best practices. Starting fresh means learning everything again.

Platforms know this. That's why they invest so heavily in features that increase lock-in and so little in features that would help you leave.

The Escape Strategy: Own Your Relationships

You can't control what platforms do. But you can reduce your dependence on them.

The key insight: platforms can take away reach, but they can't take away relationships.

If you've built real relationships with other creators — collaborators, peers, mentors — those exist independent of any platform. If YouTube dies tomorrow, you still have their phone number. Their email. Their Discord.

This is what platforms don't want you to realize. They want you to think your network exists on the platform. But relationships between humans can exist anywhere.

The creators who survive enshittification are the ones who:

Build audiences on multiple platforms — not all eggs in one basket
Collaborate across platforms — relationships that aren't tied to one algorithm
Move relationships off-platform — email lists, Discord servers, direct contact info
Own their connections — not dependent on a platform's messaging system

How to Build Platform-Proof Relationships

Here's the practical playbook:

Diversify your presence

Don't just be on YouTube. Don't just be on TikTok. Build audiences in multiple places so no single platform has total control over your reach.

This doesn't mean being everywhere at once. Pick 2-3 platforms and build real presences. Cross-promote so your audience knows where to find you if one platform goes sideways.

Collaborate across platforms

When you collaborate with creators on different platforms, you build relationships that aren't dependent on any single algorithm.

A YouTuber who regularly appears on podcasts has relationships in the podcast world. A TikToker who collaborates with streamers has relationships in the Twitch world. These connections survive platform changes.

Get contact info early

When you connect with another creator, exchange real contact info. Email. Phone number. Discord handle. Something that works outside the platform.

Don't rely on platform DMs as your only way to reach people. Platforms can shut down, change their messaging features, or suspend accounts. Real contact info is permanent.

Use platform-independent tools

When you're collaborating, use tools that don't lock you in:

Google Docs for shared planning and scripts
Google Meets, Zoom, or Discord for video calls
Email for important communication
Notion or Trello for project management
Dropbox or Google Drive for file sharing

These tools work regardless of what happens to YouTube or TikTok or Instagram. Your collaboration history, your shared documents, your communication — all of it exists outside the platforms.

Build an email list

This is the oldest advice in digital marketing, and it's still true. An email list is an audience you actually own.

Platforms can suppress your reach. They can't stop you from emailing people who've given you their address. If every platform collapsed tomorrow, creators with email lists would still be able to reach their audience.

The ONUNDI Philosophy: Connect, Then Get Out of the Way

Most platforms want to maximize your time on the platform. More time means more engagement means more ad revenue. They're incentivized to keep you trapped.

We built ONUNDI with the opposite philosophy.

ONUNDI exists to help creators find each other. Once you've connected, we actively encourage you to take your collaboration to the next level using free tools — video calls, shared documents, whatever works best for you:

Use Google Meets or Zoom for your calls
Use Google Docs for planning your collab
Use Discord or email to stay in touch
Use whatever tools work for you — we don't care

We don't have a proprietary messaging system designed to lock you in. We don't try to be your everything. We're a matchmaker, not a walled garden.

Our success metric isn't "time spent on ONUNDI." It's "did you find a great collaborator?" If you find someone, plan a collab over Google Meets, execute it, and never log into ONUNDI again — that's a win. We did our job.

This might seem like bad business. It's not. Creators talk. When you have a great experience and find a collaborator who changes your trajectory, you tell other creators. Word of mouth from genuinely happy users beats lock-in extraction every time.

We're betting on doing right by creators instead of trapping them. In a world of enshittification, that's a competitive advantage.

What Platforms Don't Want You to Know

Here's the uncomfortable truth: platforms benefit when creators are isolated.

If every creator had a robust network of collaborators, friends, and peers across multiple platforms, no single platform would have leverage. Creators could shift their attention based on which platform treated them best. Competition would force platforms to stay good.

Platforms avoid this by:

Making cross-platform collaboration hard — no easy way to find creators on other platforms
Keeping relationships inside their walls — messaging systems that don't work outside
Discouraging platform mentions — suppressing content that references competitors
Creating format lock-in — content styles that don't translate (vertical vs horizontal, short vs long)

The antidote is intentional relationship-building that exists independent of platforms. Every connection you make outside a platform's control is insurance against enshittification.

The Creators Who'll Thrive in 10 Years

The creator economy is maturing. The easy growth era — when platforms subsidized creator success to build market share — is ending.

The creators who thrive in the next decade will be the ones who:

Don't depend on any single platform for their entire income or audience
Have real relationships with other creators, not just platform-mediated connections
Can adapt when algorithms change or platforms decline
Own their audience through email lists and direct relationships
Collaborate freely across platform boundaries

The creators who struggle will be the ones who are completely locked into one platform, with no relationships outside it, no backup plan, and no way to reach their audience if the algorithm turns against them.

Enshittification is coming for every platform eventually. The only question is whether you'll be ready.

Start Building Your Network Now

The best time to diversify was years ago. The second best time is now.

Don't wait until your favorite platform tanks your reach. Don't wait until monetization gets cut again. Don't wait until you're desperate.

Start building relationships with creators on other platforms. Start collecting real contact info. Start using tools that don't lock you in.

And if you're looking for collaborators who think the same way — creators who want to build real relationships, not platform-dependent ones — that's exactly what ONUNDI is for.

We connect creators across YouTube, Twitch, TikTok, podcasts, and more. We help you find your people. Then we get out of the way and let you build something that lasts.

No lock-in. No walled garden. Just creators finding other creators.

Join ONUNDI and start building relationships the platforms can't take away.