this post was submitted on 02 Jul 2023
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The Summer of enshittification continues apace.
No need to coin cute new terms like, "enshittification." It is just good old rent seeking. Nothing new. Just capitalism working as intended.
We're not coining a new cute term, it's been described in greater detail before, that applies specifically to tech: https://doctorow.medium.com/tiktoks-enshittification-bb3f5df91979
"New" relatively speaking. I have read the article and am aware where the term came from. I just wouldn't consider a term that Cory Doctorow made up back in January anything but "new".
Anyway, my point is that this isn't a new concept. Focusing solely on one super-narrow field like tech, when this is something that is happening nearly everywhere in capitalism, in nearly every market, does the problem a disservice. It betrays the reality of the situation by making it seem like something unique to tech. It seems like people are aware of this behavior happening in whatever hyper-specific market that they're familiar with, yet so many seem unable to connect that to the larger picture that this is everywhere.
The Internet seems to have latched onto the idea that enshittification = tech decline, so you're probably 'too late' to try to stop that flood. But, I'm open to having my mind changed. Can you describe any other industries where things started out great with a lot of user growth but slowly declined as competitors died out and corporations put the squeeze on their users? Are you thinking maybe Walmart as a more classic example, moving into an area and crushing small business before raising the prices, dropping the quality, etc.?
Yeah, for sure Walmart and other big box stores are a great example... It's hard to even fathom what they've taken from us. All of the money that used to be re-invested into the community by local small business owners is now being extracted by massive corporations and taken elsewhere (usually to be hoarded). Not to mention the strain they put on our already threadbare safety net by underpaying their employees and then profiting even more when their employees use their food stamps at Walmart.