Avoiding the En-****-ification of Your Product Design

Introduction: The Slow Slide into En-****-ification

If you’ve been in product design long enough, you’ve seen it: a tool that once solved real problems slowly turns into a bloated, over-monetized mess. Features pile on, pop-ups interrupt workflows, and price hikes creep in. Somewhere along the way, the product stops solving problems and starts creating them.

That’s what writer Cory Doctorow famously called enshitification—and design plays a bigger role in preventing it than most of us admit.

Why Enshitification Happens in Product Design

It rarely starts with bad intentions. Product teams want growth, leadership wants revenue, and marketing wants attention. The pressure to ship “something new” every sprint leads to feature bloat. The pressure to monetize faster leads to paywalls.

But here’s the reality: when products optimize for themselves over users, decline is inevitable.

Anchor on Real User Challenges, Not Features

The antidote starts with remembering why people came to you in the first place. What daily challenges or frustrations made them sign up? Were they trying to simplify a workflow, save time, reduce stress, or collaborate more clearly?

If a new feature doesn’t make those core challenges easier, it’s just noise. And noise is the first step toward decline.

Key Takeaway: Products stay valuable when every design decision traces back to solving a real user problem.

Should We Raise Prices—And How Do We Add Value?

Enshitification often accelerates when companies realize people need their product and then ask, “How much more can we charge?” But the better question is: just because we can charge more, should we?

Here’s how product owners can think differently:

• Increase value before increasing price. If you’ve cut a workflow in half, added accessibility features, or improved data security, those are meaningful upgrades that justify pricing.

• Check perception, not just metrics. Run interviews or lightweight surveys: do users feel the product is improving, or just getting more expensive?

• Experiment ethically. A/B test new tiers or bundles, but clearly communicate benefits. Hidden restrictions or “gotcha” pricing erode trust faster than any UI bug.

Pro Tip: Pricing is design. Every dollar shift changes the experience—and how users feel about your product.

Measure What Really Matters

Growth charts and DAUs look great in board meetings, but they don’t always tell you if you’re creating long-term value. Better signals include:

• Retention rates

• Usability testing insights

• Task completion speed

• NPS or satisfaction trends

Because if people are sticking around, recommending you, and using the product daily, you don’t need vanity metrics to prove you’re healthy.

Design with Subtraction

Sometimes the smartest product design strategy is to remove something: an unnecessary step, a cluttered widget, or a dark pattern disguised as a feature.

A product that feels lighter and simpler is often a product people will pay for, stick with, and tell others about.

Mini FAQ on Product Design Strategy & Enshitification

Q: What does “enshitification” mean in product design? It’s the decline of once-great products when they prioritize monetization and internal goals over solving user challenges.

Q: How can designers prevent enshitification? By focusing on real user challenges, ethical pricing, and subtracting friction instead of adding features for the sake of it.

Q: What role does pricing play in design strategy? Pricing is part of the user experience. Ethical, value-driven pricing strengthens trust; exploitative pricing accelerates decline.

Q: Can subtraction really add value? Yes. Removing clutter, unnecessary steps, or manipulative patterns often improves clarity and makes the product feel premium.

Q: How do I know if my product is sliding into enshitification? Look for signs like declining retention, increasing customer complaints, feature fatigue, and negative sentiment around pricing.

Q: How should product teams measure value? Focus on retention, usability outcomes, and satisfaction signals, not just growth or vanity metrics.

Q: Who’s responsible for avoiding enshitification? Everyone: designers, PMs, marketers, and leadership. It’s a culture of valuing users first, not just their wallets.

Conclusion: The Long-Term Play

In short, a strong product design strategy avoids enshitification by solving real challenges, pricing ethically, and subtracting bloat. The best products grow because people trust them—not because they squeeze a little harder each quarter.

Try it: review one feature or pricing tier this week and ask, is this creating value, or just extracting it? If it’s the latter, it might be time to rethink.

By Tony Hanyk, UX & Brand Leader