In 2022, writer Cory Doctorow coined a term that was later chosen as the American Dialect Society’s 2023 Word of the Year. It is a term that, in my opinion, may represent the perfect encapsulation of the unique experience of living in the early 21st century.
That term is “ensh*ttification.”
Doctorow’s term was originally coined in a November 2022 blog post discussing how online services die — think Facebook, Amazon, Twitter, and so forth. Here’s what Doctorow wrote:
“First, they are good to their users; then they abuse their users to make things better for their business customers; finally, they abuse those business customers to claw back all the value for themselves. Then, they die.”
As an example, Doctorow points out that Facebook used to offer a fine service up until it reached a “critical mass” of users; at that point, it was difficult for people to leave Facebook for another social media platform because all their friends were also on Facebook. Facebook then let corporations join the platform, and once these companies became dependent on traffic from Facebook, Facebook changed their algorithm to prioritize paid or “boosted” content. The end result is a social media experience where you’re much more likely to see a series of ads instead of posts from your friends.
The closest thing I have to a criticism of Doctorow’s blog post is that it doesn’t go far enough. A very similar process is affecting virtually every aspect of our day-to-day lives.
How many food products can you think of that used to be a great value, but now have gone up in price while also getting smaller? If you’ve bought an appliance recently, you’ll be thrilled to get ten years of use out of it before it falls apart; meanwhile, 50+ year old appliances are still chugging along without issue. Products that have been sold on the basis of their reliability for decades aren’t being manufactured to the same standards anymore; it’s cheaper that way and a larger profit margin keeps the shareholders happy.
Frankly, it’s a struggle to name a corporation that is not currently offering a worse service or product than they used to for a higher price.
If you want to see the most public example of this phenomenon, look to Boeing.
Boeing is a company with a long and proud history. During World War II, Boeing manufactured about a third of the planes used in the war effort, including the mighty B-17 Flying Fortress, objectively our nation’s coolest plane. After the war, Boeing focused on manufacturing civil aircraft.
In 1997, Boeing merged with McDonnell Douglas. This was a disastrous move. Boeing was a company where the engineers called the shots, where safety and reliability were of paramount importance. The bean-counters at McDonnell Douglas, on the other hand, wanted to focus on profit and growth and cost efficiency.
As usually happens, the bean-counters won. But what’s the worst that could happen?
In 2018 and 2019, two Boeing 737 MAX planes crashed, killing 346 people and leaving no survivors. In 2021, the company ended up paying a settlement of more than $2.5 billion after being charged with fraud for failing to disclose information regarding the crashes to safety regulators.
On Jan. 5 of this year, Alaska Airlines Flight 1282 — a Boeing 737 MAX — had a door plug blow out at 16,000 feet, leaving a huge hole in the side of the plane and forcing an emergency landing. The FAA determined that the four bolts used to secure the door plug had been removed at the factory and apparently had not been replaced.
On Monday, March 11, a Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner flying out of New Zealand suddenly took a nosedive for reasons that still aren’t clear; the pilot told passengers that the instrument gauge went black for a couple of seconds and then turned back on. 50 people were treated for injuries after being thrown around the plane during the nosedive, with a couple of passengers hitting the ceiling of the plane so hard that they broke through it, revealing the plane’s wiring.
A few days earlier, John Barnett, a Boeing engineer turned whistleblower, was found dead at 62 from an apparent self-inflicted wound. He had been offering evidence in a lawsuit against Boeing literally days before his passing. Prior to his death, Barnett alleged that at the Boeing plant where he had worked as a quality manager, workers were under such pressure from management that they were knowingly fitting sub-standard parts onto production aircraft. He also discovered a serious problem with Boeing’s oxygen mask system that could result in 25% of breathing masks not working in an emergency.
Overall, Barnett painted a picture of Boeing as a company that recklessly rushed the assembly of new planes and compromised safety, all in the name of bigger profits.
Boeing has an official merchandise store online where you can buy a T-shirt with their long-time unofficial motto, “If it’s not Boeing, I’m not going.” Their website also features their official safety slogan: “Safety is our North Star.”
The days of the public associating this storied company with safety and quality engineering are fading fast, and it’s all because of toxic capitalism sucking every last dime out of their product even if it endangers peoples’ lives.
At least the next time a door plug fails and someone gets sucked from a plane, they can take comfort in the fact that a whole lot of shareholders had a really solid Q1.
