You’ve probably heard the phrase “tofu dreg” floating around in Chinese media. It’s not a trendy vegan recipe; it’s a nickname for shoddy construction projects so flimsy they collapse like soggy bean curd. The metaphor is brutal but perfect: something that looks solid on the outside but is hollow, brittle, and destined to fail under pressure.
Now imagine that metaphor migrating westward, not through architecture but through the digital economy. Enter the process Cory Doctorow calls enshitification: platforms start out useful and even delightful, then slowly rot as profit‑chasing strips away user value. At first, they’re glossy towers of innovation. But over time, they become tofu dreg ecosystems; fragile shells propped up by hype, advertising, and lock‑in.
The ominous part? Collapse doesn’t happen gradually. Like tofu dreg apartments, these platforms look fine until the stress test comes. Then the whole structure buckles, leaving users wondering why they trusted bean curd capitalism in the first place.
America isn’t immune. Our tech giants are already laying tofu dreg bricks in their digital empires. Services that once empowered us are becoming brittle, profit‑driven husks. And when the collapse comes, it won’t be graceful—it’ll be spectacular. The punchline: we may wake up one day to realize our digital lives were built not on Silicon Valley, but on Soybean Valley.
Share if you’ve lived through tofu dreg platforms.
Leave a Reply