In tech, we have four of these constraints, anti-enshittificatory sources of discipline that make products and services better, pay workers more, and keep executives’ and shareholders' wealth from growing at the expense of customers, suppliers and labor.
1) markets 2) regulation 3) interoperability 4) labor
And I think there's good news there, because if enshittification isn't the result of a new kind of evil person, or the great forces of history bearing down on the moment to turn everything to shit, but rather the result of specific policy choices, then we can reverse those policies, make better ones and emerge from the enshittocene, consigning the enshitternet to the scrapheap of history, a mere transitional state between the old, good internet, and a new, good internet.
enshittocene enshitternet bit too cute I think. Valid point: if it's policy that results in it, we can roll things back. Also w the current Trump chaos-admin there's opportunity as US is dismantling international agreements, making room for other nations / EU regs to disalign too.
I think we created a crimogenic environment, a perfect breeding pool for the most pathogenic practices in our society, that have therefore multiplied, dominating decision-making in our firms and states
'crimogenic', indeed, I think e.g. all current adtech is illegal in the EU, except it hasn't been tried in court much yet.
I believe that enshittification is caused by changes not to technology, but to the policy environment
[[Cory Doctorow]] exploring enshittification in a third talk. Says here it's enabled by changes in the policy environment rather than technology. This as tech platforms started doing it at the same time, not in the same phase of their existence.
then they abuse their users to make things better for their business customers;
Tinfoil hat theory: This is the stage Google Search is at in April 2024. Not looking good bruv.
I like having as few opportunities as possible for would-be enshittifiers to mess around with what I'm trying to do
Molly says: "If anyone enshittifies my newsletter, it's going to be me, dammit!"
Enshittification, you'll recall, is the lifecycle of the online platform: first, the platform allocates surpluses to end-users; then, once users are locked in, those surpluses are taken away and given to business-customers. Once the advertisers, publishers, sellers, creators and performers are locked in, the surplus is clawed away from them and taken by the publishers.
The post continues to explain how this happened with [[Facebook]]:
1 First, gain a huge user base with network effects and lock users into the platform. 2. Spy on users to offer precision targeted advertising. Companies added beacons to websites to improve targeting. 3. Raise ad rates and decrease use of expensive anti-fraud measures.
The enshittification of Amazon – where you search for a specific product and get six screens of ads for different, worse ones – is the natural end-state of chokepoint capitalism: https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/28/enshittification/#relentless-payola
That same enshittification is on every platform, and "freedom of speech is not freedom of reach" is just a way of saying, "Now that you're stuck here, we're going to enshittify your experience."