Why do apps get worse the more we use them?

Hello folks, you're tuned in to Fanchard's Daily.

In today's episode, we explain why apps and platforms feel worse over time.

But as a quick side note before we begin, this weekend we're hosting a free two day insurance

masterclass that helps you build real financial security by understanding health and life

insurance the right way.

If you'd like to save a spot, do so by heading to the description and registering for free.

Alright, now on to today's story.

For the past few days, ordering food online has noticeably become more expensive in India.

You may have observed this motto raising its platform fee from 12.5 rupees to 14.9 rupees

per order.

So we give order a few days later, taking its fees to 17.5 rupees.

A platform fee is something you pay just for using the app.

So even before the food is moving towards you, there's a cost meter running.

Factor and JST and both platforms now charge you the same amount every single time you

order.

Now, to a regular customer, this might not feel like a big change.

But once you step back, you can see a larger pattern at play because it's not this food

delivery.

Look at the payments app, whichever one you use.

There's a good chance that the last time you made a payment, you received a voucher

you didn't need or use any time soon.

Shopping apps have also introduced additional charges to run their platforms, often labeled

under different names such as Marketplace fees.

Marketcommerce platforms are managing customers towards higher minimum model values.

And while you're adding grocery steered card, you might scroll past a few ads, you definitely

didn't come for.

Suddenly, apps that were once built for convenience start to feel a little less so.

And that feeling isn't a coincidence, but a part of how these platforms are designed

to evolve.

In the early days, these apps competed aggressively to capture retention.

The interface was clean and frictionless, delivaries were cheap, discounts were everywhere.

The goal was simple, get you in and get you to stay, but once they scaled, the equation

changed.

That's because there's a tradeoff hidden inside every app, the clean of the interface,

the less they earn.

Every empty space on your screen is space that is inside and something or nudging you to

spend more.

And that's why, over time, that space starts to disappear.

There's actually a term for what's happening here.

It's called platform decay, but that's just a polite way to put it.

This is in 2022, writer named Kori Doxer coined the term end-scientification to describe

exactly this pattern.

The way platforms slowly and steadily get worse.

It's an ugly word, but that's part of the point.

It describes an ugly process.

His framework is quite simple.

First, a platform is good for its users, that's how it builds an audience, then once those

users are locked in, it starts becoming good to its business customers, that is, advertisers

and brands.

This comes at the expense of users.

And finally, when business customers are locked into, the platform begins extracting value

from everyone.

Users and businesses alike, so that it's profits and proof and its shareholders stay happy.

At each stage, it leaves just enough value to keep everyone from walking away.

Nothing more.

Think about what Zabato and Swiggy looked like when they first showed up.

It was a race to the bottom on delivery fees.

Deep discounts made ordering and feel almost irresponsible.

That was in generosity.

It was phase one.

They used VC money to get you in and keep you there.

Subsidising user behaviour to build scale, even if it meant running at a loss for years.

Now once that scale was achieved, the equation had to change, and it always does.

And here's a part that often goes unnoticed.

It's not just you who gets squeezed.

The restaurants on these platforms, the ones who spend years building their presence,

training their customers to order through the app, are locked in doom.

Commission fees have climbed.

Rankings are influenced by who pays for visibility.

This means I don't restore that, but it's custom-a-base on the back of a platform.

Now find itself dependent on that same platform to survive.

Platform Decay doesn't just post on the product.

It also degrades the broader ecosystem that the platform depends on.

And this is what makes it more than just a story about rising platform fees.

It's about how platforms quietly manufacture dependency by reorganising your habits around

there.

You go to launch order, default grocery run, and monthly bill payments.

All of it now flows through a handful of apps.

And the platforms know this.

They know how little choice you really have.

Because the moment you try to imagine doing any of this differently, you realise that switching

cost is much higher than it looks.

Besides what's most striking about platform Decay is that the inconvenience is a strategy.

Every notch, every extra charge, every voucher you'll never use, none of it is accidental.

It's the result of intentional profit driven design.

So is there anything that could change any of this?

Well, Doctoral has two answers.

Neither simple, but both are worth looking at.

The first is interoperability.

The idea is straightforward.

You should be able to freely choose your services and stick with them because you like them

not because you can't afford to leave.

Think of it like porting mobile numbers.

When that rule came in, you could switch a phone carrier and keep your number.

Identity portability would work the same way.

Letting users move from one platform to another while taking that data, history and connection

with them.

This is especially useful for something like a social media account, because the moment

leaving becomes easy, platforms have to compete again.

And competition, more than any corporate promise or design principle, is what keeps platforms

honest.

The second proposal is less glamorous, but just as important, work apart.

Tech workers are often the people best positioned to resist platform decay from within.

They're the ones who know what a product used to be, what it could be, and what's actually

driving decisions that make it worse.

And when they have leveraged through unions or visitor protections, they can push back.

Without that, the only voice left in the room belongs to the people optimising for quarterly

numbers.

But there's only so much these ideas can do in practice.

They might work for some platforms, but not all.

Take interoperability.

For shopping, payments or food delivery apps.

It only works if there are enough meaningful alternatives.

And those alternatives can only exist if the regulatory environment allows it.

And India though, most markets settle into job police, especially in consumer-facing services.

J.O. and Adder, Indigo and Air India, Amazon and Flipkart, phone pay and Google pay, Swiggy

and Zomato, Blinkhead and Insta-Mart.

The list is long.

Now, you could argue that this is just how markets evolve.

Network effects and economies of scale reward the biggest players.

The more people use the service, the more valuable it becomes, pulling in even more users.

But there's more to it.

Fans burdens like KYC and consumer protection rules are far easier for large, well-caplised

forms to handle, raising barriers to start-ups.

Then there are sector-specific regulations, such as steady-com licenses, airlines,

safety norms, front-tock rules, which incumbents can influence in ways that look neutral, but

are hard for new entrance to meet.

And by the time the regulator step in, markets are often already concentrated, which means

that new players are entering the level field that are trying to break into entrenched

job police.

So, if you really want to tackle end-shortification in India, the conversation has to go beyond

platforms and look at how markets are structured.

There's also a more immediate level, dark patterns.

These are the receptive UIUX designs that not you into buying something, signing up, or

sharing personal data without intending to, like a limited time discount that keeps resetting

itself.

Regulators should go after hidden fees, manipulative defaults, and misleading prompts

not just to protect consumers, but to slow platform decay.

And though, is that platforms keep finding new ways to do this, so there's no single

role book that can fully contain it.

Sure, there's the National Consumer Health Plan in case of last resort, but if you've

used it, you know how it plays out.

Companies can close complaints without fully resolving them, and once that happens, you

can't reopen the issue.

Your only option is consumer court, which is often a long, tiring road for most people.

Which is why even the basics of how complaints are handled and how accountability works

need fixing if any of this is going to change.

For India specifically, this matter, since we're not at the end of the story, we're somewhere

in the middle of it.

Platforms here aren't done scaling, but there's no denying that this is also a country

with a regulator that has moved quickly on payments, with a government that has strong

opinions about data and digital infrastructure, and with nearly a billion users, whose habits

are still being formed.

So, yes, the next time you pay a platform fee, you'd end notice, or scroll past and add

to find what you came for, I'll get nuts to it, a minimum order you didn't need.

Remember, that's not a glitch, that's the model working exactly as intended.

The question isn't whether you noticed it or not, it's whether enough people notice

at the same time.

All right, folks, I'll see you in the next one.

Thank you for listening to today's episode, and if you want to share your feedback or suggestions,

do drop us an email to high at FriendShots.in, until next time.