Enshittification isn’t things that were not shit becoming shit; they were always shit, you just didn’t feel it.
Surveillance capitalism isn’t some horrible corruption of capitalism, it’s just capitalism in the age of the ubiquitous digital network.
The problem isn’t things that were good becoming bad. The problem is things that have always been bad finally negatively affecting even those with bucketloads of privilege who are now attempting to explain away why they were ok with it all before.
Enshittification is when profit-oriented companies that were always shit (because they're profit-oriented companies) finally let their shittiness spill over into their product
@aral Mmmm nah. Enshitification is the intensification of shit in pursuits of increasing profits. Services which were shit - or even weren't shit - become more increasingly shitty to satisfy shareholder demands for returns on over-valued assets or in saturated markets.
It *might* not be inevitable under capitalism, but it certainly is under late-stage secular-stagnation capitalism where expectations for ROI>inflation persist despite >100 PE ratios.
@aral @Cirdan I think for several decades most first world countries (even including the US though less so) have operated as social democracies whereby they are fundamentally capitalist but have recognised at least some need for major public involvement in core parts of society and in providing a safety net.
But now what we're seeing is a move towards a sort of pseudo-libertarian capitalism where that is being taken away, with what is left being only for the very rich. I'm not on the libertarian right but true right libertarianism ought not to protect the elite either.
@aral This is a good take.
Enshittification does happen to products as the free money dries up, however, but that's a separate process.
@aral exactly. Capitalism relies on everything producing profit. Everything turns from being ran like a community and beneficial to being ran to produce the biggest profit.
Not only that, but most internet-based things cannot have endless growth and growth plateaus earlier than most industries. Most people who are going to use a specific service (e.g. Netflix) are already reoccurring subscribers, so Netflix aren't growing and their costs are rising. Hence why they are trying to hook more users in (Netflix Games) & squeeze more out of existing subscribers to raise their stock before eventually dumping it.
@aral Enshittification is a socioeconomic theory to describe how platforms may develop over time under current parameters (which of course includes capitalism, but might be slightly more specific than that). It's not meant to describe a single moment in time. It's also a relatively narrow theory in what it predicts, though its ramifications are wide. Given it's his own theory Doctorow explains it better than I can. He seems to be in favour of reforming capitalism which I don't think goes anywhere like far enough, but at the same time I think if what he calls for were enacted things would be slightly less terrible.
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