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A new report from the Norwegian Consumer Council (Forbrukerr\u00e5det) shows how this phenomenon \u2013 known as enshittification \u2013 affects both consumers and society at large, but that it is possible to turn the tide. (Illustrasjon av en h\u00e5nd som holder en mobiltelefon som smuldrer opp.foto) Illustration: Hanne Fossaa Eriksen/Forbrukerr\u00e5det \u2013 May I speak to a human? Your Facebook and Instagram feeds are overflowing with scams and fraudulent ads. Your Google searches are being filtered through artificial intelligence, making search results less accurate or outright wrong. You have to pay a subscription fee to remotely heat up your car. Snapchat is demanding money to keep storing your memories. And when you try to complain about your smart speaker that no longer works, you are forced to argue with a chatbot. \u2013 Many people have the feeling that digital services are simply becoming a little bit\u00a0worse, and it\u2019s not just something you\u2019re imagining. The changes are the result of deliberate choices, as a part of a process called \u201censhittification\u201d, says Finn L\u00fctzow-Holm Myrstad, director of digital policy in the Norwegian Consumer Council. He continues: \u2013 Enshittification often happens through a myriad of small changes that may, in isolation, seem trivial. Cumulatively, they ruin products and services, exploiting both consumers and third-party businesses in the pursuit of profit. Eventually consumers feel locked in because there are no real alternatives. Digital memories, data, functionality, and even connected devices are being controlled by companies that can make any changes they want, at any time. Many of us end up feeling powerless. What is enshittification? \u201cEnshittification\u201d is a term coined by the author and activist Cory Doctorow, which describes the deliberate process of degradation of digital products and services. Enshittification typically happens over several steps: First, a company offers a service that works well and serves a useful purpose, which leads many people to start using it. The service is often initially provided for free or at an artificially low price, while the company loses money or cross-subsidizes the service. As the service becomes more popular and indispensable, users become locked in, for example because \u201cit\u2019s where all my friends are\u201d. People can also be locked in through technical means, for example because the service does not allow you to move photos, memories or other information to an alternative service. After having locked in its users, the service provider starts tightening the screws, first to the advantage of its business customers. For example, they may start undermining your by selling your personal data or placing previously free functionality behind a paid subscription. You may start seeing more ads, features that gave you control over the user experience are removed, and algorithms are tweaked to increase the amount of sponsored content in your feed. This happens because the service provider knows that you are locked in and cannot easily move to another service. Finally, when business customers have become locked in because they need to be where their potential customers are, the service provider can start pressuring them as well. For example, the price of placing ads is increased, or businesses must pay to reach audiences that they used to reach organically. The service provider has thus made both consumers and business customers dependent on the service to a degree that they have no choice but to stay. The price of leaving the platform \u2013 or switching cost \u2013 is simply too high, for consumers, advertisers or other businesses that rely on the platform to live their lives, keep in touch with friends and family, conduct their business, etc. The service provider and its shareholders are left holding all the profits, at the cost of everyone else. \u00abToo big to care\u00bb In the new report Breaking Free: Pathways to a fair technological future , the Norwegian Consumer Council has delved into enshittification and how to resist it. The report also shows how and why enshittification has become the norm for Big Tech companies. Myrstad refers to Meta as an example, the owner of services such as Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp. According to Reuters, Meta estimates that ten percent of the company\u2019s annual revenue comes from fraudulent ads on its services \u2013 amounting to a dizzying 16 billion dollars. \u2013 Meta is earning billions from consumers being scammed. Even if the company gets fined \u2013 a process that takes years \u2013 the fines we have seen so far only amount to a fraction of these profits. In other words, Meta has no incentive to solve the problem. Meanwhile, the company doesn\u2019t lift a finger to help its users, whether their profiles are misused in the scam ads, or they fall victim to the scams, Myrstad says. \u2013 It\u2019s not too late! The ongoing enshittification trend is not inevitable; luckily for us, enshittification is not a natural law, Myrstad emphasises: (Finn Myrstad.foto) Finn Myrstad. Foto: Forbrukerr\u00e5det \u2013 Technology must work for people. We must take power from the large digital platforms and give it back to users, innovators, and society. It\u2019s not too late to turn the tide. Technology can be a power for innovation and societal good, but only if we make sure that it serves us, not just the largest companies. In the report, the Consumer Council suggests concrete measures to help rebalance power between consumers and digital service providers: Stronger rights for consumers to control, adapt, repair, and alter their products and services, Interoperability, data portability, and decentralisation as the norm, so the threshold for moving to different services becomes as low as possible, Deterrent and vigorous enforcement of competition law, so that Big Tech companies are not allowed to indiscriminately acquire start-ups, competitors or otherwise steer the market to their advantage, Better financing of initiatives to build, maintain or improve alternative digital services and infrastructure based on open source code and open protocols, Reduce public sector dependence on big tech, to regain control and to contribute to a functioning market for service providers that respect fundamental rights, Deterrent and consistent enforcement of other laws, including consumer and data protection law. Joint international campaign Therefore, the (https://storage02.forbrukerradet.no/media/2026/02/norske-signaturer.pdf) Norwegian Consumer Council\u00a0and 58 organisations and experts are sending a letter to the Norwegian government, asking for rebalancing of power between consumers and service providers, that the public sector prioritises services based on open source code and protocols in procurement procedures, and that sufficient resources are allocated to enforcement authorities dealing with big tech. (https://storage02.forbrukerradet.no/media/2026/02/2026-02-27-apent-brev-til-regjeringen.pdf) Read the letter to the Norwegian government here (in Norwegian) Our sister organisations are sending similar letters to their own governments in 12 countries. In addition, we are sending a letter to the European Commission, (https://storage02.forbrukerradet.no/media/2026/02/signatur-internasjonal.pdf) together with 29 civil society organisations such as the European consumer organisation BEUC, Amnesty International, European digital rights (EDRi), the Trans Atlantic Consumer Dialogue (TACD) and many more.\u00a0In this letter we call for reducing dependency on big tech and warn about the risks of deregulation. (https://storage02.forbrukerradet.no/media/2026/02/2026-02-27-final-letter-to-eu-policymakers-2.pdf) Read the letter to the European Commission here Consumer Federation of America, EPIC \u2013 Electronic Privacy Inforomation Center, National Association of Consumer Advocates and Public Citizen sent (https://storage02.forbrukerradet.no/media/2026/03/naca-cfa-pc-epic-enshittificationreport-feb27.pdf) the following letter to select US policy makers . (Andreas Framnes.Foto) Andreas Framnes Kommunikasjonsr\u00e5dgiver \u2013 mat og helse, digital (tel:+4795945778) (+47) 959 45 778 (mailto:andreas.framnes@forbrukerradet.no) andreas.framnes@forbrukerradet.no Breaking free \u2013 pathways to a fair technological future (https://storage02.forbrukerradet.no/media/2026/02/breaking-free-pathways-to-a-fair-technological-future.pdf) Read the report here. Alternatives to bigtech (PS: External links): (https://wire.com/en/blog/best-european-alternatives-to-big-tech) Wire.com (https://proton.me/blog/european-tech-alternatives) Proton.me (https://www.opensourcealternative.to) opensourcealternative.to (/nyhetsvarsling) Abonner p\u00e5 v\u00e5rt nyhetsvarsel (/podcast-life-hacks) Sjekk Forbrukerr\u00e5dets podcast Relaterte saker (https://www.forbrukerradet.no/siste-nytt/digital/seminar-og-lansering-av-rapport-om-enshittification/) () Digital (NB: Fullt) Seminar og lansering av rapport om \"enshittification\" (https://www.forbrukerradet.no/breakingfree/) (Forsiden av rapporten.foto) Digital Breaking Free (https://www.forbrukerradet.no/news-in-english/record-fine-for-amazon-following-a-report-by-the-norwegian-consumer-council/) (Finn Myrstad.foto) News in english Record fine for Amazon following a report by the Norwegian Consumer Council Om Forbrukerr\u00e5det (https://www.forbrukerradet.no/forside/om-oss/) Om oss (https://www.forbrukerradet.no/kontakt-oss/) Kontakt oss (https://www.forbrukerradet.no/forside/jobb-hos-oss/) Jobb hos oss (https://www.forbrukerradet.no/personvernerklaering-2/) Personvernerkl\u00e6ring (https://uustatus.no/nb/erklaringer/publisert/11af693d-6c7a-462e-83c6-0f697b6c279a) Tilgjengelighetserkl\u00e6ring (https://www.forbrukerradet.no/in-english/) In English Hold deg oppdatert (https://www.forbrukerradet.no/tester/) V\u00e5re tester (https://www.forbrukerradet.no/siste-nytt/) Siste nytt (https://www.forbrukerradet.no/tips-og-rettigheter/) Tips og rettigheter Finn beste tilbud (https://www.forbrukerradet.no/finansportalen/) Finansportalen (https://www.forbrukerradet.no/strompris/) Str\u00f8mpris (https://www.facebook.com/forbrukerradet/) (https://www.instagram.com/forbrukerradet/) (https://www.linkedin.com/company/forbrukerradet/) (https://www.forbrukerradet.no/podcast-life-hacks/) (https://www.forbrukerradet.no/nyhetsvarsling) (https://www.forbrukerradet.no/feed/) " ], "output": "htmltotext.txt", "pwd": "/data/archive/1772638238.955281", "schema": "ArchiveResult", "start_ts": "2026-03-04T15:31:24.133149+00:00", "status": "succeeded" } ], "media": [ { "cmd": [ "/usr/local/bin/yt-dlp", "--restrict-filenames", "--trim-filenames", "128", "--write-description", "--write-info-json", "--write-annotations", "--write-thumbnail", "--no-call-home", "--write-sub", "--write-auto-subs", "--convert-subs=srt", "--yes-playlist", "--continue", "--no-abort-on-error", "--ignore-errors", "--geo-bypass", "--add-metadata", "--format=(bv*+ba/b)[filesize<=750m][filesize_approx<=?750m]/(bv*+ba/b)", "--skip-download", "--cache-dir=/data/yt-dlp-cache/", "--cookies=/data/yt-dlp-cache/cookies.txt", "--proxy=socks5://tor-socks-proxy:9150", "--no-playlist", "https://www.forbrukerradet.no/news-in-english/digital-products-and-services-are-getting-worse-but-the-trend-can-be-reversed/" ], "cmd_version": "2024.10.7", "end_ts": "2026-03-04T15:31:31.074531+00:00", "index_texts": [], "output": "media/", "pwd": "/data/archive/1772638238.955281", "schema": "ArchiveResult", "start_ts": "2026-03-04T15:31:26.360546+00:00", "status": "succeeded" } ], "mercury": [ { "cmd": [ "/home/archivebox/.npm/bin/postlight-parser", "https://www.forbrukerradet.no/news-in-english/digital-products-and-services-are-getting-worse-but-the-trend-can-be-reversed/" ], "cmd_version": "2.2.3", "end_ts": "2026-03-04T15:31:24.098018+00:00", "index_texts": null, "output": "mercury/", "pwd": "/data/archive/1772638238.955281", "schema": "ArchiveResult", "start_ts": "2026-03-04T15:31:19.995539+00:00", "status": "succeeded" } ], "pdf": [], "readability": [ { "cmd": [ "/home/archivebox/.npm/bin/readability-extractor", "/tmp/tmpeit_9i3_", "https://www.forbrukerradet.no/news-in-english/digital-products-and-services-are-getting-worse-but-the-trend-can-be-reversed/" ], "cmd_version": "0.0.11", "end_ts": "2026-03-04T15:31:10.894482+00:00", "index_texts": [ "27. februar, 2026Digital products and services keep getting worse. A new report from the Norwegian Consumer Council (Forbrukerr\u00e5det) shows how this phenomenon \u2013 known as enshittification \u2013 affects both consumers and society at large, but that it is possible to turn the tide. \nIllustration: Hanne Fossaa Eriksen/Forbrukerr\u00e5det\n \u2013 May I speak to a human?\u00a0 Your Facebook and Instagram feeds are overflowing with scams and fraudulent ads. Your Google searches are being filtered through artificial intelligence, making search results less accurate or outright wrong. You have to pay a subscription fee to remotely heat up your car. Snapchat is demanding money to keep storing your memories. And when you try to complain about your smart speaker that no longer works, you are forced to argue with a chatbot. \u2013 Many people have the feeling that digital services are simply becoming a little bit\u00a0worse, and it\u2019s not just something you\u2019re imagining. The changes are the result of deliberate choices, as a part of a process called \u201censhittification\u201d, says Finn L\u00fctzow-Holm Myrstad, director of digital policy in the Norwegian Consumer Council. He continues: \u2013 Enshittification often happens through a myriad of small changes that may, in isolation, seem trivial. Cumulatively, they ruin products and services, exploiting both consumers and third-party businesses in the pursuit of profit. Eventually consumers feel locked in because there are no real alternatives. Digital memories, data, functionality, and even connected devices are being controlled by companies that can make any changes they want, at any time. Many of us end up feeling powerless.\u00a0\n \u201cEnshittification\u201d is a term coined by the author and activist Cory Doctorow, which describes the deliberate process of degradation of digital products and services. Enshittification typically happens over several steps: First, a company offers a service that works well and serves a useful purpose, which leads many people to start using it. The service is often initially provided for free or at an artificially low price, while the company loses money or cross-subsidizes the service. As the service becomes more popular and indispensable, users become locked in, for example because \u201cit\u2019s where all my friends are\u201d. People can also be locked in through technical means, for example because the service does not allow you to move photos, memories or other information to an alternative service.\u00a0 After having locked in its users, the service provider starts tightening the screws, first to the advantage of its business customers. For example, they may start undermining your by selling your personal data or placing previously free functionality behind a paid subscription.\u00a0 You may start seeing more ads, features that gave you control over the user experience are removed, and algorithms are tweaked to increase the amount of sponsored content in your feed. This happens because the service provider knows that you are locked in and cannot easily move to another service. Finally, when business customers have become locked in because they need to be where their potential customers are, the service provider can start pressuring them as well. For example, the price of placing ads is increased, or businesses must pay to reach audiences that they used to reach organically.\u00a0 The service provider has thus made both consumers and business customers dependent on the service to a degree that they have no choice but to stay. The price of leaving the platform \u2013 or switching cost \u2013 is simply too high, for consumers, advertisers or other businesses that rely on the platform to live their lives, keep in touch with friends and family, conduct their business, etc.\u00a0 The service provider and its shareholders are left holding all the profits, at the cost of everyone else.\u00a0\n \u00abToo big to care\u00bb In the new report\u00a0Breaking Free: Pathways to a fair technological future, the Norwegian Consumer Council has delved into enshittification and how to resist it. The report also shows how and why enshittification has become the norm for Big Tech companies. Myrstad refers to Meta as an example, the owner of services such as Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp. According to Reuters, Meta estimates that ten percent of the company\u2019s annual revenue comes from fraudulent ads on its services \u2013 amounting to a dizzying 16 billion dollars. \u2013 Meta is earning billions from consumers being scammed. Even if the company gets fined \u2013 a process that takes years \u2013 the fines we have seen so far only amount to a fraction of these profits. In other words, Meta has no incentive to solve the problem. Meanwhile, the company doesn\u2019t lift a finger to help its users, whether their profiles are misused in the scam ads, or they fall victim to the scams, Myrstad says.\u00a0 \u2013 It\u2019s not too late! The ongoing enshittification trend is not inevitable; luckily for us, enshittification is not a natural law, Myrstad emphasises:\u00a0\nFinn Myrstad. Foto: Forbrukerr\u00e5det\n \u2013 Technology must work for people. We must take power from the large digital platforms and give it back to users, innovators, and society. It\u2019s not too late to turn the tide. Technology can be a power for innovation and societal good, but only if we make sure that it serves us, not just the largest companies. In the report, the Consumer Council suggests concrete measures to help rebalance power between consumers and digital service providers: \n \n Stronger rights for consumers to control, adapt, repair, and alter their products and services,\n\n Interoperability, data portability, and decentralisation as the norm, so the threshold for moving to different services becomes as low as possible,\n\n Deterrent and vigorous enforcement of competition law, so that Big Tech companies are not allowed to indiscriminately acquire start-ups, competitors or otherwise steer the market to their advantage,\n\n Better financing of initiatives to build, maintain or improve alternative digital services and infrastructure based on open source code and open protocols,\n\n Reduce public sector dependence on big tech, to regain control and to contribute to a functioning market for service providers that respect fundamental rights,\n\n Deterrent and consistent enforcement of other laws, including consumer and data protection law.\n\n Joint international campaign Therefore, the Norwegian Consumer Council\u00a0and 58 organisations and experts are sending a letter to the Norwegian government, asking for rebalancing of power between consumers and service providers, that the public sector prioritises services based on open source code and protocols in procurement procedures, and that sufficient resources are allocated to enforcement authorities dealing with big tech.\u00a0 Our sister organisations are sending similar letters to their own governments in 12 countries. In addition, we are sending a letter to the European Commission, together with 29 civil society organisations such as the European consumer organisation BEUC, Amnesty International, European digital rights (EDRi), the Trans Atlantic Consumer Dialogue (TACD) and many more.\u00a0In this letter we call for reducing dependency on big tech and warn about the risks of deregulation.\u00a0 Consumer Federation of America, EPIC \u2013 Electronic Privacy Inforomation Center, National Association of Consumer Advocates and Public Citizen sent the following letter to select US policy makers." ], "output": "readability/", "pwd": "/data/archive/1772638238.955281", "schema": "ArchiveResult", "start_ts": "2026-03-04T15:31:08.536803+00:00", "status": "succeeded" } ], "screenshot": [], "singlefile": [], "title": [ { "cmd": [ "/usr/bin/curl", "--silent", "--location", "--compressed", "--proxy", "socks5://tor-socks-proxy:9150", "--max-time", "60", "--user-agent", "Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/128.0.0.0 Safari/537.36 ArchiveBox/{VERSION} (+https://github.com/ArchiveBox/ArchiveBox/)", "https://www.forbrukerradet.no/news-in-english/digital-products-and-services-are-getting-worse-but-the-trend-can-be-reversed/" ], "cmd_version": "8.10.1", "end_ts": "2026-03-04T15:31:07.545255+00:00", "index_texts": null, "output": "Digital products and services are getting worse \u2013 but the trend can be reversed \u2013 Forbrukerr\u00e5det", "pwd": "/data/archive/1772638238.955281", "schema": "ArchiveResult", "start_ts": "2026-03-04T15:31:07.498039+00:00", "status": "succeeded" } ], "wget": [] }, "icons": null, "is_archived": true, "is_static": false, "latest": { "archive_org": "ArchiveError: Failed to find \"content-location\" URL header in Archive.org response.", "dom": "output.html", "favicon": "favicon.ico", "git": null, "media": "media/", "pdf": null, "screenshot": null, "singlefile": null, "title": "Digital products and services are getting worse \u2013 but the trend can be reversed \u2013 Forbrukerr\u00e5det", "warc": null, "wget": null }, "link_dir": "/data/archive/1772638238.955281", "newest_archive_date": "2026-03-04T15:31:31.142507+00:00", "num_failures": 1, "num_outputs": 8, "oldest_archive_date": "2026-03-04T15:30:46.946158+00:00", "path": "/news-in-english/digital-products-and-services-are-getting-worse-but-the-trend-can-be-reversed/", "schema": "Link", "scheme": "https", "snapshot_abid": "snp_01KJWQHY93CD79F33101PYXVV1", "snapshot_id": "48c93825-267b-43c2-bdb2-48cd2deeef61", "sources": [ "/data/sources/1772638235-import.txt" ], "tags": null, "tags_str": "", "timestamp": "1772638238.955281", "title": "Digital products and services are getting worse \u2013 but the trend can be reversed \u2013 Forbrukerr\u00e5det", "url": "https://www.forbrukerradet.no/news-in-english/digital-products-and-services-are-getting-worse-but-the-trend-can-be-reversed/" }