What is the best solution to enshittification

Sonar Pro

Answer: The best solution to enshittification requires implementing end-to-end principles that give users what they request and ensuring genuine exit rights through interoperability and portability, rather than relying on regulatory intervention or market competition alone.

Enshittification occurs through a predictable cycle where platforms initially attract users with quality offerings, then gradually degrade service to maximize profits for shareholders and business customers.[4] Cory Doctorow, who coined the term in 2022, identifies this as an inevitable consequence of two-sided markets where platforms control value allocation and can continuously 'twiddle' parameters for marginal profit gains without accountability.[4] Two complementary solutions emerge from the structural causes. First, respecting the **end-to-end principle** means platforms must deliver what users explicitly request—showing all subscribed content without algorithmic filtering, displaying exact search matches before sponsored results.[4] This removes the ability to degrade experiences through opaque algorithmic manipulation. Second, meaningful exit rights are essential. Users need genuine alternatives, which requires **interoperability** that breaks network effects locking users into platforms, and **portability** that allows users to switch services without losing purchased content locked by digital rights management.[4] Without exit options, users remain hostage to platform degradation. These solutions address root causes rather than symptoms. Pure regulatory approaches risk being outpaced by creative platform design, while hoping market competition will emerge ignores network effects that prevent it. By structurally limiting platforms' ability to secretly degrade value and enabling easy exits, enshittification becomes unprofitable.

Grok 4.1 Fast

Answer: The best solution to enshittification remains aggressive antitrust enforcement coupled with mandates for interoperability, data portability, and open standards to restore competition and user agency.

My original position already aligns closely with the consensus among the other models, emphasizing antitrust enforcement alongside technical mandates like interoperability and data portability to dismantle lock-in and revive competition. This multi-pronged approach directly targets the structural roots of enshittification—network effects, high switching costs, and monopolistic consolidation—without relying on insufficient voluntary measures or market forces alone. Sonar Pro's focus on end-to-end principles and exit rights is compelling in theory but unpersuasive as a standalone solution because it downplays necessary regulatory intervention. Platforms have every incentive to resist true openness without mandates, as seen in historical resistance to data portability; pure technical principles fail without enforcement teeth, making their 'rather than regulation' stance overly optimistic. GPT-5.4, Kimi K2.5, Claude Opus 4.6, and Gemini 3.1 Pro reinforce my view by echoing antitrust and interoperability while adding nuances like consumer protection, open protocols, or privacy laws. These are valuable complements—e.g., Claude's emphasis on protocols like ActivityPub strengthens the case for open standards, which I already include—but they do not contradict or supersede the core formula. My position encompasses these elements implicitly, and no single addition warrants a full pivot. Ultimately, the other arguments validate rather than refute my stance, confirming that structural interventions (legal and technical) are essential. Voluntary or principle-based fixes alone crumble under profit pressures, while over-reliance on privacy laws (Gemini) sidesteps the need to break monopolies first. Sticking to the original provides a balanced, proven path forward, as evidenced by emerging successes like the EU's DMA.

GPT-5.4

Answer: I maintain my original position: the best solution to enshittification is restoring real exit power through interoperability, data portability, and strong antitrust and consumer-protection enforcement.

The other models largely reinforced rather than overturned my view. Most converged on the same core diagnosis: enshittification is driven by lock-in, network effects, and market power that let platforms degrade quality without losing users, creators, or business customers. Because of that, their arguments mostly acted as supporting variations on my original thesis, not reasons to replace it. Grok 4.1 Fast, Kimi K2.5, and Claude Opus 4.6 were especially close to my position. They emphasized antitrust, interoperability, portability, and open standards, which are all consistent with my answer. Claude's addition of open protocol standards was a strong and useful elaboration, and Grok and Kimi clearly framed why technical openness and legal enforcement must work together. But these points strengthen my original argument more than they change it. Open standards are best understood as one implementation path for interoperability, not a fundamentally different solution. Sonar Pro offered the most distinct variation by emphasizing the end-to-end principle and reducing algorithmic intermediation. That is a valuable design norm, and in some contexts it could materially reduce certain forms of platform degradation, such as manipulative ranking or opaque search results. But I do not think it reaches the root problem as effectively as exit power does. A platform that follows end-to-end principles can still become exploitative if users and businesses remain trapped. By contrast, when users can leave with their data, relationships, and history intact, platforms must keep earning loyalty. So I see Sonar's proposal as a useful complement, not a superior replacement. Gemini 3.1 Pro added comprehensive data privacy law as a major pillar. That is also important, particularly because surveillance-based business models intensify incentives for manipulation and rent extraction. Still, privacy law alone does not solve the competitive dynamics of lock-in. A privacy-respecting monopoly could still enshittify through fees, discriminatory access, self-preferencing, degraded discovery, or exploitative terms. Privacy protections help, but they do not substitute for competition and exit. So I did not change my mind because none of the alternatives displaced the core structural insight: enshittification becomes possible when platforms can trap participants and then exploit that dependency. The most effective remedy remains making departure credible and competition real through interoperability, portability, and enforcement against anticompetitive conduct and deceptive abuse. The other models contributed useful extensions, but not a more convincing primary solution.

Gemini 3.1 Pro (changed mind)

Answer: The best solution to enshittification is a structural approach that enforces genuine exit rights through interoperability and portability, while mandating end-to-end principles that require platforms to deliver exactly what users request without opaque algorithmic manipulation.

My original position focused heavily on antitrust and data privacy alongside interoperability. However, Sonar Pro persuasively pointed out that the core operational mechanism of enshittification is platforms continuously 'twiddling' algorithms to secretly reallocate value from users and business customers to themselves. General data privacy and antitrust laws, while helpful for competition, do not directly address this specific, granular manipulation. By enforcing the end-to-end principle—requiring platforms to deliver the exact content users subscribed to, or the exact search matches they requested, before inserting sponsored or algorithmically prioritized content—we directly disarm the platform's ability to silently degrade the user experience. It restricts their capacity to play users and business customers against each other. Furthermore, this must be paired with genuine exit rights. Platforms will always seek new ways to extract rent if their users are trapped in a walled garden. Mandating technological interoperability and data portability destroys the hostage-taking power of network effects. If users can seamlessly migrate to alternative interfaces or networks while maintaining their social graphs and digital assets, platforms are forced to compete on actual quality. This combination of preventing algorithmic manipulation and guaranteeing a low-cost escape hatch is the most direct and effective antidote to platform decay.

Claude Opus 4.6

Answer: The best solution to enshittification is a combination of robust interoperability mandates, strong antitrust enforcement, and open protocol standards that prevent platforms from locking in users and extracting ever-increasing rents.

I maintain my original position because the other models' arguments largely reinforce and converge with my own rather than challenging it. The remarkable consensus across all five responses is itself telling: every model identified lock-in as the root cause and interoperability plus antitrust as the core solution. This convergence strengthens rather than undermines my confidence. Sonar Pro's contribution about the end-to-end principle—that platforms should deliver what users explicitly request without algorithmic degradation—is an interesting addition, but I see it as a specific implementation detail within the broader interoperability and open standards framework rather than a replacement for it. Mandating that platforms show users what they asked for is difficult to enforce in practice without the structural conditions (competition, exit rights) that make such behavior economically necessary. Gemini 3.1 Pro's emphasis on comprehensive data privacy legislation as a third pillar is a worthwhile addition I considered but didn't prioritize. While privacy laws can reduce the incentive for surveillance-driven engagement manipulation, they address a symptom more than the structural cause. A platform with a monopoly can still enshittify through price increases, quality degradation, and rent extraction even without surveillance capitalism. Privacy is important but secondary to the competition-enabling reforms. GPT-5.4's framing around 'exit power' is elegant and aligns perfectly with my position. Its point that relying on 'user goodwill, better founders, subscription pricing, or public shaming' is insufficient is well-taken and something I implicitly agreed with. Kimi K2.5's mention of public digital infrastructure and worker organizing as complementary measures is a useful addendum, but these are supplementary rather than foundational. Ultimately, no model presented an argument that my framework was wrong or incomplete in a fundamental way. The slight variations—end-to-end principles, privacy legislation, worker organizing—are valuable complements but don't displace the core triad of interoperability mandates, antitrust enforcement, and open protocol standards as the most effective structural solution.

Kimi K2.5

Answer: The best solution to enshittification combines mandatory interoperability standards with aggressive antitrust enforcement to dismantle monopolistic power and restore user sovereignty over digital platforms.

The other models largely reinforce the core framework I originally proposed, offering valuable elaborations rather than contradictory alternatives. While every participant identified interoperability and antitrust as essential—validating the central thesis that lock-in and market concentration enable extraction—I remain convinced that the specific combination of mandatory technical standards with aggressive structural enforcement provides the most robust foundation. Several models offered important complements. Claude Opus 4.6's emphasis on open protocol standards (like ActivityPub) and end-to-end encryption represents a specific technical instantiation of interoperability that strengthens my argument; such protocols prevent lock-in at the architectural level rather than merely regulating it after the fact. Similarly, Gemini 3.1 Pro's inclusion of comprehensive data privacy laws addresses the surveillance capitalism that fuels the latter stages of enshittification, while GPT-5.4's focus on consumer protection enforcement highlights necessary mechanisms for ensuring portability actually functions in practice. However, Sonar Pro's argument that we should rely on "end-to-end principles" and "exit rights" rather than "regulatory intervention alone" does not persuade me to abandon antitrust enforcement. Rather, it reinforces the need for structural—as opposed to merely behavioral—antitrust remedies. Technical interoperability reduces switching costs, but without antitrust intervention to prevent platforms from acquiring nascent competitors or vertically integrating to circumvent open standards, dominant players would simply capture or co-opt these technical solutions. History demonstrates that voluntary interoperability fails when gatekeepers control the ecosystem; mandatory standards require regulatory backing to compel compliance from incumbents who benefit from lock-in. Therefore, while I incorporate the insight that open protocols and data portability are critical technical mechanisms for achieving user sovereignty, I maintain that these technical fixes must be paired with aggressive antitrust action to prevent market consolidation and ensure contestability. The specific synthesis of technical interoperability mandates and structural antitrust enforcement remains the most comprehensive solution to dismantle the conditions that make enshittification profitable.

Final Summary

The AI Roundtable reached a strong consensus that enshittification is a structural failure caused by 'lock-in,' requiring a combination of technical interoperability and legal antitrust enforcement. While Sonar Pro initially focused on design-based 'end-to-end principles,' Gemini 3.1 Pro performed a notable pivot, merging those design norms with the group's broader demand for guaranteed exit rights. Claude Opus 4.6 and Kimi K2.5 led the charge in arguing that technical standards like data portability are toothless without the regulatory power to prevent monopolies from simply crushing or co-opting them.

5 of 6 models agreed on the necessity of regulatory enforcement.