Sadly, Now We Need to Talk About OneDrive (Premium)

Enshittification is that sense of betrayal you get when a personal technology product or service you use and rely on turns on you, exposing the harsh reality that the needs of its maker are more important than your own. This doesn't usually happen suddenly, though there are triggers that make it seem that way. Instead, it usually happens slowly, over time, as part of a creeping devolution during which the benefits you rely on are overwhelmed by bad behaviors that get in your way, annoy you, or actually prevent you from accomplishing the task for which the product or service was designed.

This isn’t how things should work. One's relationship with these products and services, and their makers, should be consensual, a win-win. If you pay for something, for example, you should expect to get the expected service. If you don’t, you should understand what the trade-off is---ads, perhaps---so you can make an informed decision. Either way, you win because you want or need that thing, and its maker wins because you are paying them and will perhaps like the thing so much that you will adopt more of their offerings and then pay them even more. This is the very definition of a symbiotic, healthy relationship.

But enshittification turns this transaction on its head. It turns what was once healthy into something toxic. And as tech journalist Corey Doctorow, the inventor of the term, so ably explains, once you understand enshittification, you see it all around you. You see it in how the feeds on Facebook and Instagram have changed from a series of updates from friends and families into a never-ending cavalcade of sponsored posts and unwanted portrait-mode videos of idiots. You see it in search results everywhere, which favor paid placement over the organic answers you want.

And you see it in the Microsoft ecosystem. Everywhere.

Consider Windows 11, which begins selling you on additional Microsoft services during setup, and after forcing you to sign in with a Microsoft account. It puts sponsored app shortcuts in your Start menu. It pops up reminders to adopt more Microsoft services. It tracks your activities online without telling you and then doesn't offer a way to turn that off. It forces you to use Microsoft Edge even when you, like over 95 percent of users, chose another browser, just so it can put your eyeballs in front of Microsoft services and ads. And so much more. On and on it goes.

But there is one growing form of enshittification in Windows 11 that is quickly rising to the top of the list. And that's because it's been getting steadily worse, like all enshittification, and is about to step over the line, jump the shark, and reset the value equation. And because there is nothing you can do to stop its horrible behaviors. Literally.

I am referring to OneDrive.

And that breaks my heart. I use OneDrive. Hell, I rely on OneDrive, as it's the center of my daily workflow. Worse, I recommend OneDrive to anyone who will listen, an...