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The internet didn’t enshittify because the honorable UUCP Monks who served as the internet’s patrician guardians were replaced by venal tech bros out to make a quick buck. The moneygrubbers were always there (as were those selfless guardians). The internet enshittified because we dismantled the anti-enshittification systems that kept the internet good: the antitrust laws that ensured that big, ossified companies couldn’t maintain their dominance by spending their way to glory. We ended the cycle of renewal. Once, when a company grew so big thatit became a threat to our future, it collapsed under its own weight. Once, honorable hackers wielded interoperability, that elegant weapon from a more civilized age, to fell the giants who claimed dominion over our digital lives — only to be felled themselves, when they forgot their humble origins and took up the wicked practices of the giants they had helped to slay. The internet didn’t enshittify because we got the wrong people. The old, good internet had lots of companies founded by mediocre cowards who would have bought out their competitors or dirty-tricked them out of existence in a heartbeat. The internet didn’t enshittify because we got the wrong technology. The old, good internet had plenty of sticky traps and walled gardens. The internet enshittified because we got the wrong rules.