the.com/downgrade
The polite word companies use when they're taking something away from you.
means To lower something in rank, quality, or status — a seat, a service tier, a job, a software version — from what it was before.
from Straightforward compound of 'down' and 'grade,' with 'grade' borrowed from Latin gradus, meaning 'step' — the same root behind 'gradual' and 'progress.' The word shows up in the 1800s mostly in railway and mining contexts, describing literal slopes and track inclines before it slid, step by step, into the corporate sense of quietly moving someone down the ladder.
- origin
- opposite of upgrade, coined for exactly this disappointment
- airline move
- bumps you to economy, calls it a seat change
- software version
- old app, new bugs, fewer features, same price
- psychology
- losses hurt roughly twice as much as equivalent gains