Fearing enshittification is one reason I want to keep my company private. If I have to answer to stockholders, then I’m not answering to customers, and that’s shitty.
Avoid private equity as well. PE is equally shitty.
Fearing enshittification is one reason I want to keep my company private. If I have to answer to stockholders, then I’m not answering to customers, and that’s shitty.
I get it. His most recent post talks about how enshittification isn’t just limited to digital platforms, it’s inevitable whenever monopolies are allowed to form.
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I’ve always worked for smaller private companies because my partner always got screwed working at bigger corporations.
100%. I never wanna work for public company again. I left a huge one after constant thrashing of canceling projects and trips so the accountants could move money around for the quarterly earnings reports only to revive after. Went to a couple small private ones then yr ago employer went public. Been so downhill so fast. Company isn’t recognizable to the one I accepted offer from. I’m leaving when I find a private fit.
I would consult a lawyer, basically iirc you can add to the bylaws that you are not just about making money and then you are only obligated to share dividends if you keep the majority of the voting rights.
The World Wide Wipe
The Big Data Bidet
An Ethernet Enema
Bidets are the best thing ever though. Installing a bidet changed my life.
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The real cost of enshittification is that they make it impossible for others to run honest business.
Who will pay a subscription for privacy respecting services when there are a dozen free alternatives. True cost of running online business has been completely hidden from users and for so long that they will never accept those that want to cover the costs upfront.
e.g. how many of you remain on Lemmy if instance owners asked for a monthly fee to cover their server costs?
That’s the neoliberal secret – you have to play the game, no matter how immoral the rules.
Well, not entirely. We can move out to the wilderness and live off the land with very minimal interaction with civilization. We don’t because iPhones and medicine are too good to give up.
No, we can’t.
There’s eight billion of us which is way higher then the earth’s natural carrying capacity.
In maybe a hundred years we’ll have a frontier again.
I’d do it.
The last two words of my username will official disappear by that point. And it’s not like someone other than me is already referring to themself as “Resol” without a suffix anyway.
If they are 100% transparent in regard to where the money goes, I’m in. The problem with something like youtube premium is not that it’s unaffordable to the majority of users. It’s that at this point you have to assume that they don’t need the subscription fee to cover their costs, but to shove that money up some CEOs or shareholders asses. Yeah that’s not gonna happen unless they force me to and even then I’d think twice about if I really need that service.
I’d pay if the price was reasonable.
Would you pay $10/m for a search engine?
$10 per month? Probably not.
$5 maybe as long as the search results are good and accurate.
Depends honestly but there’s a fee I’d be willing to pay to support if there was ongoing development and efforts for things user privacy and responsible moderation.
We should hear about these costs more often, see emcouragement posts towards donating and stuff. I’ve seen some admins did these.
I run my own Lemmy instance, I already pay $23.00 a month just to be here.
I used to donate to BBSes, and my BBS ran on donations, so that’s how I’d approach the issue.
A few but nowhere near enough. I do pay a few “optional” subscriptions to support good services but not many
Kind of surprised (and a bit disappointed) you didn’t get more replies saying “I already pay”. Which does admittedly support your point!
p.s. I already pay.
Thank God you censored the word SHIT so we didn’t all need a group hug meeting .
What’s that about shit? Fuck, I love me some shit!
It’s the original title of the video. I assume the uploaded voluntarily censored it to avoid getting demonetized
let the internet enshit itself, that why we are here, profit focused companies are going to fuck themselfs, it’s just a matter of time
That may have been true in the past, but in the last 30 years I’ve watched a lot of companies that should have outright failed because they were terribly managed get a few dumptruck loads of taxpayer money to keep them afloat.
We’re well past the stage of “if they fuck themselves, let them fail” and deep into “If you’re not going to buy their shit, we’ll just take them money straight out of your paycheck”it’s USA problem them, not a problem on other democratics
Let the normies use enshittified services.
My prediction is that those with know how will make their own web … like back in the days of usenet.
Let the normies use enshittified services.
This is how we end up with prolific disinformation leading to fascism.
We need everyone’s help to stop this. Don’t label with the intent of separation.
I watched the video yesterday and I couldn’t really understand what the plan is. What I got was something like “the corps are too big for the consumers to do anything and laws are very slow to made”.
Did I miss something about the “audacious(?)” plan?
The plan is US basically … decentralization. The federated web
I sure wouldn’t because at that point I rather pay for my own instance and invite others to join.
Not all heroes wear capes.
Can we all take a moment to appreciate how stupid that word sounds. I feel like we can come up with something better.
I just wanted to say, definitely watch the video if you have the time. Cory Doctorow is absolutely right and an incredibly smart guy.
It doesn’t necessarily roll off the tongue, but that’s a good thing. It seems to be catching on, and frankly those large companies and orgs that are enshittifying and get labeled thusly might actually not love being called out with it, and hopefully slow their roll.
Doubtful, but a man can dream.
I used to work at S***ify… which is currently enshittifying at top-speed. It fits.
Funny that it could either Shopify or Spotify, you refer to, as both are arguably enshityifying.
See my other comment 😂
In what ways does it enshittify?
Welp… how long-winded do you want me to get on this one? You could look up literally hundreds of examples in mainstream news about how Shopify came up as a lean scrappy underdog circa 2012 alongside many of the second wave of budding platforms. In those days they were just a snowboard company who hated the pre-rolled ecomm solutions (especially Amazon) and came up with their own way.
Turns out a few other people liked their way as well… so they pivoted to SaaS and took off running. Their mantra at that time (and they still pull it out on the regular now… for laughs) was “Arming the rebels” (against Amazon…)
They built their SaaS platform on world-class customer/merchant support. Built things users asked for. Hired talented people who were inspired by the environment of doing good in the world… etc etc. They believed in what they were doing… i.e. “Make Commerce Better.”
Around the time I joined (2021) they got absolutely fucking hammered by new clients/merchants over lockdown. They were primed for “easy dropshipping” this and “low-cost barrier to entry” that for tens of millions of broke people sitting at home for lockdowns across 18+ months, looking for (pre-rolled) ways to earn an income. Their own marketing to small and emergin businesses (easy money over here!) ended up fucking them in the end.
They did an over-hiring wave like any other tech compan at the time. Very shortly after their email and chat support queues were overrun (weeks-long wait times) they reduces phone support hours for normal merchants before killing them completely shortly thereafter (workers can only field one call at a time, vs 3 chats and multiple emails per hour)… Obv they kept phones open for Plus merchants (enterprise, of course). That’s Enshittification - Stage 1. They built their business, name, and reputation helping the little guy (the “rebels”)… and now they were pulling up the ladder behind them to help the Plus/enterprize clients get and remain profitable, instead.
I could keep going. If you look far enough into it they started aggressively courting Enterprize clients last year after their shares tanked, and after they laid off 30% of staff… and while they do that they need to pull finances and resources further away from their “rebels” to keep the Nikes and the Chapters of the world happy. Established mega-corps don’t love it if you’re giving “the little guy” stellar support while you give them (Nike) the same level. They want “better”, at all times.
They’ve been at multi-billion dollar valuation for years prior to Covid. It was the pressure through lockdowns and out the other side tha pressured them to keep growing profitability, sent them over the edge of enshittification. They’ve clearly taken a lot of advice from Wall Street and Silicon Valley about how to stay on the money train (from same)… during tough financial times. They’re already pulling top-notch support from their enterprize clients, and third-party app devs (ask me how I know that). The next (obvious) phase is to claw back those margins that keep enterprize clients happy, once they have enough of them locked in that a few leaving won’t hurt them. That’s phase 3, if you haven’t been keeping track.
Do you need more of a primer, or did I answer your question?
Thank you, it’s clear 😊
Thanks for the detailed analysis!
I read halfway through this comment fully under the impression it was about Spotify and was profoundly confused until I scrolled up and realized my mistake.
Honestly when I told people where I worked, half of them heard Spotify in their mind and rarely bothered to correct them 😂
It’s perfect. It enshittifies itself. It’s like the shitty rule of capitalist economics in the 21st century.
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Reminds me of Idiocracy lol https://youtu.be/eYb22BLBqGw?si=JDx8KyrgmWqk8AQm
Not only that, but they’re acting like they’re the first to figure this shit out.
This is just rent-seeking. It’s as old as capitalism itself. No need for dumb new terms.
Well, what do you suggest?
Rent seeking. It’s called rent seeking, and there is nothing new about it.
But rent seeking sounds too… clean. It’s almost an euphemism. Because in the end, the result is that for a whole lot of people, the experience of using the services goes to shit.
Edit: I just googled it and yeah, you’re exactly right. Interesting!
I just like pointing out that it’s nothing new.
It may not be a flashy term, but it has a lot of historical context and it’s basically a defining feature of modern capitalism at this point.
Absolutely. I read a whole lot about it after I posted my previous comment. Rent seeking is definitely the right term.
Glad to hear it. Spread the word, it’s a great term imo, and something more people need to be aware of.
So stupid I saw it used a lot of times and I used it myself before I even knew the guy… it conveys the meaning so well
Very interesting talk! Thanks for the share!
Lets kill off the damned cookie popups. Nobody cares, its literally the most useless 5 seconds of every persons life to have to dismiss and never read what it says
