Uploaded August 2026 | Updated September 2026, 9 hours ago
Go to raycon.yt.link/RQGl0Rh to get 20% off the Bone Conduction Headphones! Thanks to Raycon for sponsoring!
Why does everything seem to be getting worse?
Software became subscriptions. Streaming brought commercials back. Video games became services filled with DLC and microtransactions. Phones became advertising platforms. Appliances need apps. Products get smaller, cheaper, and more expensive—all while companies report record revenues and obsess over their stock prices.
Cory Doctorow calls part of this process "enshittification." But what if corporate greed isn't enough to explain why it keeps happening?
In this video, I trace more than a century of economic history—from the creation of the Federal Reserve and Dodge v. Ford to Bretton Woods, the end of the gold standard, financialization, 401(k)s, stock buybacks, executive compensation, and modern institutional investing—to examine how we built an economy increasingly dependent on perpetual growth and rising asset prices.
The argument isn't that a secret group of executives decided to make everything worse. It's that governments, investors, corporations, executives, and even ordinary retirement savers increasingly share incentives pointing in the same direction: growth.
And what happens when a company can't grow by making something better?
It starts extracting more from what it already has.
Subscriptions. Ads. Shrinkflation. Layoffs. Microtransactions. Price increases. Cheaper materials. Financial engineering. Anything that can keep the number going up.
Enshittification may not be the plan. It may be what happens when the better plans stop working.
CHAPTERS:
00:00 Why Everything Is Getting Worse
01:10 What Is Enshittification?
03:18 Incentives and the Cobra Effect
3:48 Capitalism
5:14 Incentives
9:19 1913 — The Federal Reserve
11:49 1919 — Dodge v. Ford
14:14 1944 — Bretton Woods
16:26 1971 — The End of the Gold Standard
21:33 70s, 80s, 90s — How Stocks Took Over
25:20 The Machine Is Complete
28:16 Why Companies Enshittify
32:48 What Can You Do?
#Enshittification #Economics #CorporateGreed
======Channel Membership======
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Do you need an editor, or do you just want to tell my editor how amazing his work is? Let him know at anaximandersshadow@gmail.com
Go to raycon.yt.link/RQGl0Rh to get 20% off the Bone Conduction Headphones! Thanks to Raycon for sponsoring!
Why does everything seem to be getting worse?
Software became subscriptions. Streaming brought commercials back. Video games became services filled with DLC and microtransactions. Phones became advertising platforms. Appliances need apps. Products get smaller, cheaper, and more expensive—all while companies report record revenues and obsess over their stock prices.
Cory Doctorow calls part of this process "enshittification." But what if corporate greed isn't enough to explain why it keeps happening?
In this video, I trace more than a century of economic history—from the creation of the Federal Reserve and Dodge v. Ford to Bretton Woods, the end of the gold standard, financialization, 401(k)s, stock buybacks, executive compensation, and modern institutional investing—to examine how we built an economy increasingly dependent on perpetual growth and rising asset prices.
The argument isn't that a secret group of executives decided to make everything worse. It's that governments, investors, corporations, executives, and even ordinary retirement savers increasingly share incentives pointing in the same direction: growth.
And what happens when a company can't grow by making something better?
It starts extracting more from what it already has.
Subscriptions. Ads. Shrinkflation. Layoffs. Microtransactions. Price increases. Cheaper materials. Financial engineering. Anything that can keep the number going up.
Enshittification may not be the plan. It may be what happens when the better plans stop working.
CHAPTERS:
00:00 Why Everything Is Getting Worse
01:10 What Is Enshittification?
03:18 Incentives and the Cobra Effect
3:48 Capitalism
5:14 Incentives
9:19 1913 — The Federal Reserve
11:49 1919 — Dodge v. Ford
14:14 1944 — Bretton Woods
16:26 1971 — The End of the Gold Standard
21:33 70s, 80s, 90s — How Stocks Took Over
25:20 The Machine Is Complete
28:16 Why Companies Enshittify
32:48 What Can You Do?
#Enshittification #Economics #CorporateGreed
======Channel Membership======
You can support the channel by becoming a Gregular, or be a Share Owener to get access to a monthly private stream where YOU get to give input on a video we make together. Sign up here: youtube.com/channel/UC3SyoB0UuS2rsLWcU37eQ2w/join
Do you need an editor, or do you just want to tell my editor how amazing his work is? Let him know at anaximandersshadow@gmail.com
