Regulation is not the solution to enshittification
By Edward Willis (gopher://encw.xyz and http://encw.xyz)
Published Mar/08/2026, Last Updated Aug/10/2026

I was moved to write this post after reading "Breaking Free", a document
produced by The Norwegian Consumer Council.

It is, at least the version I have seen, written in English.

Here is a direct link:
https://storage02.forbrukerradet.no/media/2026/02/breaking-free-pathways-to-a-fair-technological-future.pdf

It is a document about, and against, enshittification. They say they were
inspired by writer Cory Doctorow. And it seems so; within the authors make the
usual noises and complaints about enshittification.

There is a bunch of silly stuff in Breaking Free.

In Breaking Free, on page 46, in a section labeled "WILLFULLY OBTUSE", the
authors attempt to blame the rise of website cookie consent banners on
companies, and absolve GDPR regulation of having caused it. Their reasoning
seems to be that the websites could have just given up their advertising
practices and would therefore not need to ask permission. I mean, yes, I
suppose they COULD have just given up their monetization and started losing
money instead. Talk about willfully obtuse.

They similarly take offense at Meta telling people who don't want their data
used to advertise to them, to pay instead with money. Is their expectation that
Meta will provide services for free?

The authors, The Norwegian Consumer Council, are unserious, silly people.

All that having been said, this post isn't about Breaking Free itself, but
about the inclination that such people have to think that regulation is the
answer to all the problems they perceive with the tech industry.

Herein I will argue against the creation of more tech regulations as a solution
to enshittification.


YOU DON'T CREATE A COMPETITIVE MARKETPLACE WITH REGULATION

Regulations are a competitive advantage for incumbents because they have the
resources to comply. Even if you exclude new, and/or small companies, from 
certain regulations you still put additional weight on companies because the
amount of law that applies to the sector is larger and therefore the legal fees
involved in compliance are larger. A would-be founder might avoid getting
involved in starting a company altogether because the expected, eventual burden
of compliance seems too great.

It isn't just the US and EU, the would-be founder must comply with regulations
globally. Who wants to risk breaking laws all over the world and dealing with
fines and trouble when they could just work for an established company and
live a much less stressful life? I wonder how many great ideas have been
forgotten or ignored because the burden of regulation dissuaded someone from
even trying.


REGULATION DESTROYS CUSTOMER CHOICE

When something is regulated into, or out of, a certain kind of product, that's
it; there is no more choice in the matter. You get what the government wants
you to have whether you agree or not.

Only government can remove your choices and destroy your freedom. Normally if
one operating system does something you don't like you can move to another, but
not when government is the cause.

Recent regulation, in Brazil, and California, with more in the pipeline from
Colorado, require operating systems to collect the user's age on account
creation and supply that information to applications. The Californian law
allows the user to simply input their age, while I believe the Brazilian law
requires some sort of confirmation, like an ID card being uploaded to a server.

I don't want any OS I use to transmit demographic information about me to
applications I am running. But soon I, and you, will likely have no choice in
the matter.


REGULATION MAKES SOFTWARE WORSE

Then there is the matter of regulations forcing technical decisions onto
software developers and companies. Interoperability, portability, and
decentralization, which are all prescriptions given in Breaking Free, do not
happen for free, not in man hours and not in the technical sense. Adding code
makes software slower, less secure, buggier, and more difficult to reason
about and maintain.

It is ironic that regulation boosters claim to want a free internet, but insist
on controlling what server operators do and how they do it.


CONCLUSION

No, more regulation is not the answer to the problem of enshittification:
Regulation is a cause of enshittification, and a competitive moat protecting
big tech companies.

For further reading, here is my article against right to repair legislation:
http://www.encw.xyz/blog/against_right_to_repair.txt