I don’t think a lot of people are necessarily using it wrong, though. Doctorow illustrated his concept in the context of online services but I think it really applies to a broader dynamic of modern markets in general.

Take films. Film studios want to maximize profits. They buy up competitors to reduce the number of players in the market, cut costs by producing more formulaic content, increase profits by upping their cut from theaters and expediting their premieres onto their individual streaming platforms, and spend more on advertising and cross promotions than they do on just making good movies. Couple that with a ceaseless focus on universes and crossover content and TV adaptations to ensure that it’s not possible to just enjoy a movie, you need to invest in a line of products. Theaters in turn make their experiences worse because they’re at the mercy of film studios throwing their weight around unchecked and are bleeding money, so they cut corners and charge more for tickets and are still closing left and right leaving only the small handful of big players. The end result for the consumer is that movies cost more, the theater experience sucks, the quality of films have gotten worse, there are fewer options with less originality, and the only way to enjoy them when they leave theaters is to subscribe to a streaming service or buy them digitally for 3x more than they used to cost physically.

Just about every major industry these days has a comparable dynamic at play. It’s the inevitable outcome of infinite growth models realizing that markets are finite.