Comment by marcus_holmes

It's part of the growth paradigm - that everything must continue to grow.

Let's say your product is mature. Your market is pretty much saturated; everyone who wants to use this product is using either yours or a competitor's. You and your competitors are finely balanced, you could reduce your prices and get more market share, but that wouldn't increase your profits. You have optimised your manufacturing process to the point where further efficiency would cut into resilience and create more risk than it would be worth.

Your shareholders demand growth. Doing the same numbers as last year is not good enough. So what do you do?

Reduce costs. Cut quality. Shrinkflate. Enshittify. Your customers won't notice immediately. Your competitors are also doing the same.

You only need this strategy to work for a couple of years until you can move on to another role, and consequences are something your successor will deal with. Meanwhile your shareholders are happy and your bonus is secure.