Day 2984783 of mentally substituting “enshittification” with “rot”
Enshittification is specifically how something inevitably gets worse and more anti-user due to pressures from capitalism/shareholders/profit incentive.
Rot, at least in my mind, is not that specific. It could mean the codebase is not well maintained and slowly failing, as an example.
Yes, that’s true, but the word sounds bad so I’m using the more fun one. I suppose we could use a qualifier, like “corporate rot”
I mean, what if “we” just stop using various social media platforms all together? I remember the days when various people never really shared their opinions and beliefs about most topics to the general public. Maybe we should get back to face to face conversations about life topics.
It’s not outside capital that leads to enshittification, it’s leverage that enshittifies a service.
A VC that understands that they can force you to wreck your users’ lives is always in danger of doing so. A VC who understands that doing this will make your service into an empty – and thus worthless – server is far less likely to do so (and if they do, at least your users can escape).
Incredibly clear article pointing out that no individuals will ever be able to resist enshittifaction pressures indefinitely.
The only way to prevent people with power from emiserating others is to structurally remove any benefit to doing so.
so, socialism?
