Enshittification Merch That Actually Fights Enshittification
By Cory DoctorowJune 10, 2026
Enshittification isn't just a sweary word to describe the accelerating decay of the online platforms, apps, and services that we rely on.
It's a framework for understanding the structural incentives that make tech companies enemies of their own users over time—the surveillance business model, the erosion of privacy, the monopoly power that eliminates alternatives, the regulatory capture that prevents accountability.
These are some of EFF's core fights and have been for over 35 years. EFF sues. EFF advocates. EFF codes. And EFF wins. EFF is the most profound and powerful disenshittifying force on the planet Earth, and I’ve been proud to fight alongside them for nearly 25 of those years.
One of the lessons you learn in battles with very long timelines against very powerful actors is that these battles are deeply serious, and because of that they must also be fun. “Enshittification” took off as a shorthand in part because of the minor license to vulgarity it confers. It's slightly crass for a reason: getting people to engage with the abstract issues of tech policy can be hard at the best of times. No one knows this better than my colleagues at EFF, who consistently surprise me with their ability to make complex, technical concepts concrete, memorable, and sometimes even joyful.
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2026/06/enshittification-merch-actually-fights-enshittification
