Norway Launches 'Enshittification' Campaign, Urging Policymakers to Resist Deliberate Deterioration of Digital Products
Key Takeaways
- ▸Norwegian Consumer Council leads first-of-its-kind international campaign against 'enshittification,' a term describing deliberate degradation of digital products and services
- ▸Campaign unites 70+ organizations across 14 countries to pressure policymakers, arguing enshittification results from policy choices rather than market inevitability
- ▸Recommendations include strengthening right-to-repair laws, enabling service portability, enforcing consumer protection regulations, and fostering competition to counter big tech dominance
Summary
The Norwegian Consumer Council has launched a global campaign against 'enshittification'—the deliberate degradation of digital products and services—partnering with over 70 organizations across Europe and the US. The campaign, which includes an absurdist video showing a professional 'enshittificator' gradually worsening everyday items, aims to draw parallels between unacceptable product decline in the physical world and the normalized deterioration users tolerate online. Examples cited include social media feeds cluttered with ads and scams, laggy software updates, and chatbots replacing human customer service.
The Norwegian council and allied organizations have sent letters to policymakers in 14 countries urging concrete action, arguing that enshittification is not inevitable but results from deliberate policy choices by big tech companies. Their recommendations include strengthening consumer rights to repair and modify products, enabling easier switching between services, enforcing existing consumer protection laws, and fostering competition in digital markets through public procurement favoring alternatives to dominant tech firms. The campaign is backed by an 80-page report documenting how enshittification became normalized in the digital economy.
- Campaign uses absurdist video to highlight how consumers would never tolerate gradual product deterioration in the physical world, drawing attention to normalized digital decline
Editorial Opinion
The Norwegian Consumer Council's campaign strikes at a vital tension in digital markets: the gap between what consumers would tolerate in physical goods and what they passively accept online. By reframing enshittification not as an inevitable consequence of business models but as a policy choice, the campaign correctly identifies that regulation and competition are the true levers of change. However, the campaign's success will ultimately depend on whether policymakers prioritize consumer welfare over the lobbying power of entrenched tech giants—a test that will define the future of digital markets.
