Welcome to the age of enshittification — the slow, sleazy death of every platform we once loved.
They baited us with freedom, lured us with reach, and now they’re gutting us for ad revenue and corporate obedience. If you feel like the internet’s turned against you, you’re not crazy — it has.
Let me break it down, raw and honest, because sugarcoating ain’t my thing.
Phase 1: The Seduction
Every major platform starts the same way. They roll out the red carpet for users and creators:
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Instagram used to be about photography and connection.
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Reddit was a place for deep discussion and niche communities.
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YouTube actually rewarded originality, not clickbait.
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Substack said, “Own your list. Write freely.”
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Pinterest? A goldmine for creators and bloggers. Until it wasn’t.
And you know what we all did? We built. We created. We poured our souls into their platforms. And they fed us the dopamine in return — reach, likes, shares, affiliate income, community.
Phase 2: The Shift
Once the user base was hooked, the screws began to turn.
The algorithm changed.
The ads ramped up.
Your content? Shadowbanned.
Your audience? Gated unless you pay to play.
Pinterest is the most recent offender in my world. They nuked my account for no reason, reinstated it a day later, and guess what? My traffic dropped from 45,000 daily views to zero. ZERO. But they claim I’m getting hundreds of outbound clicks per day. Lies. Straight-up fabricated numbers to look good to advertisers while creators starve.
Google Analytics told me the truth: 16 visitors one day. Two the next.
And Pinterest? They’re sitting there grinning with their fake stats like we’re too dumb to cross-check.
Phase 3: The Exploitation
This is where we are now: total enshittification.
Every platform eventually stops caring about users or creators. They optimize for:
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Ad dollars
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Shareholder satisfaction
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Data extraction
They slap a coat of glossy UI over a rotting, corporate core. And suddenly:
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Creators don’t own their audience.
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Users are bombarded with junk.
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Organic reach is throttled unless you buy it back.
Let’s Be Brutally Clear
If you're using a centralized, investor-owned platform that claims to be “free,” then you are the product. And you’re being sold off in little pieces to advertisers, AI trainers, and data brokers.
They took our creativity and community, and in return gave us algorithms, ads, and addiction.
Animal Farm
The story of Animal Farm is the perfect allegory for what’s happening to our digital lives through enshittification. Just like the animals who overthrew their masters for freedom, we joined platforms like Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram because they promised a voice, connection, and creativity. But slowly, the pigs took over — only this time, they’re called algorithms, CEOs, and venture capital.
The rules changed without us noticing. Our reach was throttled, timelines were paywalled, and the tools we built our followings with were sold back to us. “All users are equal,” they told us — until some became “more equal” by buying ads or selling out. Enshittification isn’t a bug. It’s the plan. Just like Orwell warned, the revolution eats itself unless we burn down the barn and start over with a new blueprint.
Corporate Greed: The Engine Behind Platform Decay
Corporate greed is the rot at the core of digital platforms. What once started as spaces to connect, create, and collaborate have become profit extraction machines. The model is simple: lure users in with value, then lock that value behind paywalls. Growth is no longer about building better services — it's about tightening the vice on users and squeezing until they pay up. These companies aren’t evolving for the user’s benefit. They’re evolving to convert our attention, creativity, and relationships into quarterly returns. The platforms don’t serve communities anymore — they serve shareholders, and everything else is collateral damage.
Artificial Scarcity: Fraud Dressed Up as Strategy
Artificial scarcity is digital fraud, plain and simple. When platforms limit the reach of your posts, throttle visibility, or hide features behind arbitrary walls — and then offer to “unlock” them for a fee — they’re not managing resources. They’re fabricating limitations to force you into spending. There’s no natural cap on how many people can see a post or open a message. These are infinite goods deliberately obstructed to create the illusion of scarcity. That’s not innovation — that’s extortion. If any other industry pulled this kind of bait-and-switch, regulators would be knocking. In the digital world, it's just called a business model. But let’s be clear: it’s a con.
So Where the Hell Do We Go?
Not all is lost. Not yet.
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Mastodon, Lemmy, Pixelfed — they’re part of the Fediverse, where you control your data and feed.
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Host your own blog, your own newsletter, your own shop.
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Use platforms. Don’t let them use you.
And most of all: Stop measuring your worth in reach and clicks. The numbers are fake. The game is rigged. Do it because you own it, not because some algorithm smiled at you today.
Final Thought: Don’t Fuck With Daddy
I’m done playing polite. I’ve watched too many creators get buried under algorithmic sandstorms while billion-dollar platforms gaslight us about engagement.
So if you feel like the internet turned into a trap, you’re right.
And here at DontFuckWithDaddy.com, we say what needs to be said:
Fuck their fake stats. Fuck their algorithms. And fuck every smiling exec selling creativity like it’s a commodity.
We build our own shit now.
Stay loud.
Stay sharp.
Stay dangerous.
– Daddy