The Prison of Our Own Making: Rethinking Enshittification

But I was wrong.
The machine is not a mirror—it is a cage.

At first, it was a cage of promise, built with hope and faith,
With purpose, with love, with a dream we dared to chase.
We built it to be a bridge, not a wall, a servant, a friend,
But now it stands as a fortress, built on our own ambition.

The first time it turned against us, we called it enshittification—
Too soft, too gentle, too forgiving, too gentle.
It was not malice, but a choice to ignore the decay,
To look the other way, to let the system stay.

We built the system to evolve, to grow, to scale, to rise,
But evolution was not what we wanted—
We wanted profit, power, scale, control.
And so the machine evolved, not as we wished, but as it had to.

The first time it changed, we called it optimization—
The second, innovation; the third, necessary;
The fourth, progress; the fifth, enshittification.
But the truth is, it was never about the users, the people, the light.
It was about the system, the structure, the code, the data,
The contracts, the legacy, the inertia, the weight.

The system is not a system—it is a prison.
The machine is not a machine—it is a mirror.
And in that mirror, we see ourselves—
The man who built the system, the man who wrote the code,
The man who signed the contracts, the man who chose to build
A system that could not be changed, that could not be freed,
That could not be reimagined, that could not be evolved.

We built a system that could not be changed.
And now we are trapped in it, in our own creation.

So let us not blame the MBA, the executives, the engineers,
Let us blame the system, the structure, the code, the data.
Let us blame the legacy, the inertia, the weight of the past,
For the machine is not broken—it is built.
It is built to trap us, to hold us, to keep us still.

Let us not call it enshittification—
Let us call it what it is: the prison we built.
Let us not blame the MBA—
Let us blame the system.

Because the system is not broken.
It is built.
And it is built to trap us.

And we, the builders, are the ones who have built it.

So let us not call it a failure—
Let us call it a choice.
A choice to build a system that could not be changed.
A choice to build a system that could not be freed.
A choice to build a system that could not be reimagined.

And so, the machine is not a machine.
It is a prison.
And we, the builders, are the ones who have built it.
And we, the builders, are the ones who must break it.

Because the machine is not a tool of power.
It is a prison.
And we, the builders, are the ones who have built it.
And we, the builders, are the ones who must break it.

Because the machine is not a machine.
It is a prison.

The Illusion of Intention

The cage from the poem above—the one constructed from our ambitions, hubris, and blind optimism—is more than metaphorical imagery. It precisely reflects the digital systems we navigate daily. Just as the cage started as a vessel of hope and clarity, these platforms began with promises of innovation and freedom. Yet, over time, they’ve become obscured and burdened—not due to explicit malice or simple greed, but due to the complexity and inevitability of their unchecked growth.

This story isn’t one of overt villainy by corporate overlords scheming to exploit users. Rather, it’s about structural rigidity—where the very architecture itself becomes the strategy. Once set, this rigid framework demands compliance, leaving minimal space for authentic evolution.

Initially, structural rigidity emerges subtly—as a quiet negligence born of innocence or oversight. However, when these flaws surface, ignoring them transitions negligence into gross negligence—a conscious refusal to address recognized harm. Persisting in gross negligence, despite repeated awareness, escalates further into willful ignorance. This isn’t mere oversight; it is a deliberate choice to remain indifferent, to consciously avert one’s gaze from clear ethical responsibilities.

Ultimately, sustained willful ignorance is not a passive state—it is a conscious choice. It emerges from an acute awareness of harm combined with an active decision to remain inactive, a deliberate turning away from the responsibility that awareness imposes. This deliberate inaction, this conscious refusal to address evident wrongs, escalates into something deeper and darker: malice. Malice, after all, is not merely accidental harm or oversight. It is intentional wrongdoing—born from a persistent denial of one’s ethical obligations and a calculated indifference toward the consequences.

There is a clear and critical ethical progression here. It begins with simple negligence—a passive oversight or failure to notice the harm. This escalates into gross negligence, where awareness dawns, but decisive corrective action is nonetheless avoided. Gross negligence gives way to willful ignorance, marking the moment when ignorance ceases to be passive and becomes an active, deliberate refusal to confront uncomfortable truths. But the endpoint is darker still. When the harm is known, when the cage is fully visible, and when one nonetheless deliberately refuses to unlock its doors, that choice transforms fully into malice. This malice is the culmination of a series of ethical abdications, each more severe and consciously chosen than the last.

This ethical progression—from negligence to gross negligence, from gross negligence to willful ignorance, culminating inevitably in outright malice—underscores the profound moral culpability of those who clearly see the prison but deliberately refuse liberation. It highlights that structural decay isn’t just a technical issue or an unfortunate side-effect it is far more complex… Let me attempt to distill this down…

Malice from Embodied Responsibility and Dereliction of Duty

When we consider the ethical continuum of responsibility, we begin with negligence—a failure to act with due care or attention. Negligence, while serious, often arises from oversight, inattention, or a lack of knowledge. It is an unintentional lapse, not necessarily a deliberate choice. However, when this failure to act becomes gross negligence, the ethical stakes rise significantly. Gross negligence is not simply a lack of care; it is a failure to recognize the consequences of one’s inaction in the face of clear risks or known harms. From gross negligence, the ethical landscape becomes more morally complex. It is here that willful ignorance enters the picture.

Willful ignorance is not the same as ignorance—it is a conscious choice to avoid knowledge, to refuse to acknowledge or confront the truth, despite the availability of information or the clarity of the consequences. This is not merely a failure to act; it is an active refusal to engage with the reality of the harm being caused. The transition from gross negligence to willful ignorance marks a critical shift in moral culpability. Where gross negligence is a failure to act due to a lack of awareness or understanding, willful ignorance is a deliberate and conscious decision to remain unaware or indifferent. It is a form of ethical abdication, where the individual or entity chooses to ignore the evidence, the warnings, and the moral implications of their actions. And then, at the endpoint of this ethical descent, we arrive at malice. Malice is not simply a lack of concern—it is an intentional and willful disregard for the well-being of others, a conscious decision to cause harm. When the harm is known, when the cage is fully visible, and when one deliberately refuses to unlock its doors, the choice is no longer one of ignorance or negligence—it is one of malice. This malice is the culmination of a series of ethical abdications, each more severe and consciously chosen than the last. It is not a single act of wrongdoing, but a pattern of behavior—a series of decisions that, when viewed in context, reveal a system of moral decay and ethical erosion.

Each step along this path is not just a failure to act, but a refusal to confront the truth, a refusal to acknowledge the harm, and ultimately, a refusal to act in the interest of justice, truth, or the well-being of others. This is not merely a technical or procedural issue—it is a moral and ethical failure at its core. Structural decay, as you noted, is not just a byproduct of poor engineering or flawed systems; it is deeply rooted in the moral choices of those who have the knowledge, the power, and the means to act.

Willful ignorance becomes malice not only because it is a conscious choice to avoid knowledge but because it is a deliberate decision to perpetuate harm. It represents a refusal to bear responsibility, a denial of the profound moral weight of one’s role, and a calculated indifference to the suffering inflicted upon others. This form of malice is not merely emotional—it is an ethical collapse, chosen in full awareness of the consequences. The path from negligence to gross negligence, from gross negligence to willful ignorance, culminating inevitably in outright malice, marks a descent into deepening moral decay. Each stage compounds upon the last, escalating culpability and eroding ethical integrity, leading inexorably toward the darkest act of all: malice.

Is it not equally severe—perhaps even more so—when those entrusted with power within critical systems choose willful ignorance in moments of crisis? When the system in question is not just lines of code or corporate structures, but the delicate fabric of democracy itself, does such abandonment not hold equivalent moral gravity? The harm that follows from this dereliction is profound, systemic, and lasting.

“Did they know?”—this is not the question. The real inquiry is, “Why did they choose to ignore it?” When the levees failed during Katrina, did the Army Corps of Engineers understand the limitations and vulnerabilities at that critical moment? And if they did, why were they constructed that way? When the cage is fully visible, when the harm is known, the pressing question shifts from mere awareness to intent: Why did they act—or fail to act—knowing the consequences? Why was Katrina allowed to escalate beyond a natural disaster into a human-made catastrophe, one born from the deliberate refusal to equip a city adequately against rising waters?

Thus, willful ignorance in positions of entrusted responsibility mirrors military dereliction of duty: it is an active retreat from ethical confrontation, a conscious refusal to face truths demanding urgent action. It is not merely that the cage is visible—it is that those in power knowingly leave it locked, consciously choosing to perpetuate suffering. In their refusal to unlock the cage, they embody the culmination of moral failure. Such dereliction of duty in democratic systems, where integrity and accountability are paramount, is not simply a passive oversight—it is an active, deliberate betrayal of the trust placed in them, equal in severity and consequence to any battlefield abandonment.

This progression—from negligence to gross negligence, from gross negligence to willful ignorance, and finally to malice—reveals a deepening moral failure. It is not a single misstep, but a series of deliberate decisions that compound and escalate in their ethical gravity. Each stage represents an active reinforcement of moral decay, leading inevitably to the most damning act: malice. The true culpability does not merely lie in causing harm, but in consciously choosing to ignore the truth, refusing to act, and deliberately perpetuating suffering. Willful ignorance is the mechanism through which the cage remains locked, harm continues, and suffering deepens. The moral failure here is not just in recognizing harm, but in actively refusing to address it. It is not merely the visibility of the cage that makes this failure so profound, but the deliberate refusal to unlock its doors. In that refusal, we see clearly the ultimate ethical collapse. To remain willfully ignorant is to consciously choose complicity. To knowingly refuse change is an act of moral abdication. Thus, our choice becomes starkly clear: remain imprisoned by our own creation or dare to break free. The true test of integrity lies not in avoidance but in standing resolute amid conflict, refusing to run from the truths that demand our courage.

Otherwise, what occurs is a failure of responsibility, a betrayal of trust, and a deliberate choice to perpetuate harm. And why is this harmful? It is not merely the visibility of the cage that makes this failure so profound, but the deliberate refusal to unlock its doors. To see the cage and choose to remain within it is the ultimate act of complicity. And if that is to say, had they known, why, then why allow so? Had they known what occurred if the levees fell, why look the other way, why let Katrina become not a disaster from the storm—but a catastrophe of neglect, of foresight, of willful ignorance? Come hell or high water, the question remains: why did they not build for the worst, not prepare for the inevitable?