With enshitification closing in on all aspects of the internet has the american tech industry ensured the internet will never evolve past where it is now?

Enshittification is a consequence of private equity investments, so no. Companies who don’t take money from private equity will actually innovate. Whether they can survive the monopolies that do take private equity investments is another question.

The real problem is the need for constant revenue growth. If a company doesn’t care about constantly growing their revenue, they can put their funds toward long term projects that may not pay out until many years down the road. Those are the companies that truly innovate.

Plus there’s always room for new companies to come in and innovate, even with private equity money. Just don’t expect that from the already established companies.