67 Products And Services That Somehow Got Worse While Getting More Expensive

In theory, things should constantly be improving. Scientists are always making new discoveries, and doctors are constantly updating their practices to help patients heal faster and fight off illnesses. So why, when we live in such a technologically advanced day and age, does it feel like everything is on the decline? 

There’s actually a (somewhat crude) term for it, coined by technology critic and author Cory Doctorow in 2023. He came up with it to put a name to all of the ways that digital services have increasingly begun to dominate our lives, while simultaneously becoming worse and worse over time. For example, remember when Instagram had a chronological feed designed to help you see your friends’ posts? Now, it’s all ads and reels from influencers pushed by the algorithm, making it nearly impossible to see anything that your loved ones have shared. 

When it comes to the demise of online platforms, Doctorow writes, “first, they are good to their users; then they [take advantage of] their users to make things better for their business customers; finally, they [take advantage of] those business customers to claw back all the value for themselves. Then, they [are ruined].”

This can happen to anything from a social media platform to an app like Spotify. And often, it begins with companies hooking customers on a good deal (perhaps even a deal that’s too good to be true) while patiently eliminating all competition. Remember when Uber, Netflix, and Airbnb were considered cheap? Today, however, it’s almost impossible for anyone to compete with them, so they can set their prices as high as they want while simultaneously making their services worse. 

Of course, the reason behind this significant decline in quality can often be boiled down to greed. Investors expect 10,000% return on their investments, and they don’t care what the company has to do to make that happen. Betraying loyal customers isn’t a concern, especially if they are forced to use the service anyway when there’s no competition left in the market. 

“Big tech, perhaps more than any other industry in recent history, has made robber barons out of the same ‘idealistic’ founders who sold us on a vision of a free, open, and bountiful internet enabled by their technologies,” Glow explains.     

Unsurprisingly, many people around the world are not happy about the way that the internet has been changing for the worse. And in Norway, people are actually taking a stand. Earlier this year, The Guardian reported that the Norwegian Consumer Council launched a global campaign targeting the “gradual deterioration of digital products and services.”

“We wanted to show that you wouldn’t accept this in the analog world,” Finn Lützow-Holm Myrstad, the council’s director of digital policy, said. “But this is happening every day in our digital products and services, and we really think it doesn’t need to be that way.”

The campaign urged policymakers in 14 countries to take action against the decline of these services, noting that it is not inevitable but rather the result of policy decisions. In the letters that were sent to officials, policymakers were asked to provide more power to consumers to control, adapt, repair, and alter the items that they already own. They also demanded that consumers be allowed to move more easily between different services.

“It’s not too late to turn the tide,” Lützow-Holm Myrstad said. “Services don’t need to be [made worse] if we have real competition, if you can choose as a consumer which services you use, and if the market will better regulate all these practices.” 

Fighting back against this rapid decline of products and services online can feel futile as a consumer. But if you have to sell products at work, you can definitely make a choice to go against the grain. ProdPad recommends obsessing over real value. Don’t simply fixate on engagement or vanity metrics; consider what your product can actually do for people. It’s also important to track ethical metrics. How do users feel after using your product? How is it impacting their lives? Listen to their stories.