The phenomenon of online platforms gradually degrading the quality of their services, often by promoting advertisements and sponsored content, in order to increase profits. (Cory Doctorow, 2022, extracted from Wikitionary) source
We discuss how predatory big tech platforms live and die by luring people in and then decaying for profit.
We also discuss how naturally open technologies like the Fediverse can be susceptible to corporate takeovers, rugpulls and subsequent enshittification.
Yep and our buddy Louis Rossmann has put up a $5,000 bounty (if I remember correctly) for anyone who reverse engineers the firmware and allows people to use the product they already paid for.
It seems like a simple concept that everyone should be able to agree to: if I buy a product from you that does x, y, and z, you don’t get to remove x, y, or z remotely after I’ve made that purchase. How we’ve gotten to a place where companies can simply remove, or paywall, product features without recourse for the customer they essentially bait and switched is beyond me.
We have all the legal and governmental tools required to enable that recourse. We just chose not to any longer at the turn of the century.
The other day, I spent - no exaggeration - 3.5 hours trying to cancel my waste collection service. Calls would go to phone numbers that automatically disconnected after a 20 minute hold, humans would transfer/drop calls after a 40 minute wait.
The previous administration instituted a very basic "one click cancel" rule, but we voted for people that killed that. Last century, companies as powerful as AT&T and Oracle lost bruising fights with government agencies. The same are now toothless.
Too many people just accept degradation of their service and are unwilling to challenge bad behavior. Too many companies have taken advantage of this.
Echelon. Enshittifcation.
We nees laws against this asap
Ha ha ha, good one.
Ah, the ol Samsung switcharo
My toaster refuses to work unless I 'subscribe'. How dare you capitalism!