EDITED TO MAKE THE TITLE MORE APPROPRIATE. The previous title of this post was “I need to tell you something unsatisfying: your personal consumption choices will not make a meaningful difference to the amount of enshittification you experience in your life” which was the slug line as it appeared in my mailing-list-to-RSS reader. Although this is the first paragraph of the linked essay, it does not do a good job of explaining the thrust of the essay, and some people (not you though) seem to be arguing with the title instead of the essay.
(Thanks to [email protected] for the heads up.)
END OF EDITED SECTION
Here’s why you’re getting enshittified: we deliberately decided to stop enforcing competition laws. As a result, companies formed monopolies and cartels. This means that they don’t have to worry about losing your business or labor to a competitor, because they don’t compete. It also means that they can handily capture their regulators, because they can easily agree on a set of policy priorities and use the billions they’ve amassed by not competing to capture their regulators. They can hold a whip hand over their formerly powerful tech workers, mass-firing them and terrorizing them out of any Tron-inspired conceits about “fighting for the user.” Finally, they can use IP law to shut down anyone who makes technology that disenshittifies their offerings.
Defeatism will get us nowhere. The power of the people dethroned kings, and it will dethrone capitalism too.
I do agree that the actions of a single person are a drop in the bucket, but we can only fill the bucket if many of us offer their single drop. We each must do our part, no matter how insignificant that part may be.
disagree.
-
i stopped using most social media, and what little social media I do use now is FOSS like lemmy.
-
I cancelled my youtubeTV subscription and now pirate all my media. Along with this I also stopped watching sports which have been greatly enshittified over my lifetime.
-
I stopped using Plex (enshittifying) and switched to Jellyfin which is FOSS.
these actions have significantly reduced enshittification in my life. Not saying it’s possible for everything, but sometimes there absolutely are non-enshittified alternatives.
That’s wonderful! It’s good to diminish the amount of enshittification you experience in your life!
Enshittification, writ large, goes on regardless. The point of the essay is that avoiding it in your personal life is good (if sometimes tiresome, depending on the specifics of your life) and you should totally do that, but the root causes of enshittification can be defeated by organized collective action.
the root causes of enshittification can be defeated by organized collective action.
This is the fly in the ointment. I (and most here) do all the things to avoid enshittified products, but as you’ve mentioned it is work. Some of the “work” is fun because I am “technologia” oriented, but many of the people I know simply cannot be bothered to consider alternatives to these shit products. They don’t know it is shit and think that’s the only choice and follow along. I can’t blame them for their choices too much. Life is full of other things they are occupied with, so I do try and help when I can.
Many that are obligated to be advocates for the common man and these issues have abandoned their obligations to the people they are supposed to serve. They have essentially been enshittified too and we haven’t yet organized to solve that issue which seems to be the most important enshittification to date. More to come later, I am sure.
-
Counterpoint: 🏴☠️
I don’t care.
I avoid the services as a protest and I also enjoy the alternatives.
I’m not going to bankrupt them, but I’m not helping them.
While this article has some good points, it really is sad, and kind of ironic, that the first paragraph of it is bullshit clickbait that completely undermines the rest of the text.
Yeah fuck doing the right thing, just consume as you are told by corporationa… DEFF don’t eat any broccoli, they are gross!
Tldr; Join physical movements like a union to focus on actual laws being created and/or enforced while shitting on people for doing anything that else that may be positive
Also tries to sell their book bragging about how early reviews are raving about it. Provocative for clicks to say obvious shit that they’re selling. "Bruh, join a union. We need to organize a popular political party. "
Also their conclusion doesn’t read to me like it actually goes against personal conscious consumption choice. Like saying join a movement as if a movement doesn’t start with a bunch of individuals making choices about how they spend their time, use their money, speak their opinion, etc and figuring out all these individuals have a lot in common and have a common point to organize around
Article is like, “ya Linux, Signal, Mastodon, etc. But they’re all niche and you as an individual make so little difference so join a movement.”
Linux is probably the most used kernel for operating systems in the world. Not a good example. Backend operating system for the Internet. Signal is far more popular than a decade ago. Don’t know about Mastodon. Regardless if people aren’t being encouraged to engage in more private and/or decentralized Internet, why the fuck would they be engaged enough to go to some political meetup about something they don’t individually engage with and develop personal interest towards. Collective action starts with developing individual interests that converge to a collective group of individuals with shared interests.
Telling people to join movements while telling people, well actually not those movements
Also shit on people’s good causes and their small actions and not realize that those little things keep people engaged and they’re potential conversation points to bring people into more direct organized action.
Then after complaining about small niche movements that apparently won’t amount to anything long term, they point out small niche organizations that for some reason will grow and amount to something long term for reasons I imagine being that they care more about those than using decentralized and open source software (services)
First, it looks like this may be a dressed up advertisement for their newly released book:
My book on Enshittification is coming out in a couple of months, and the early reviews are already coming in, and they are gratifyingly glowing.
That fact alone doesn’t discount their argument, but it should be considered.
Second, I disagree with this premise of the author:
Because this isn’t an individual problem, it’s a systemic one.
I disagree, its both.
As the author rightly identifies, there are somethings that are only addressable systemically such as healthcare of mass transport. However a whole other host of items the author references are absolutely individual problems. Example from the author:
When all your friends are going to a festival, are you really going to opt out because the event requires you to use the Ticketmaster app (because Ticketmaster has a monopoly over event ticketing)?
Yes, I opt-out of nearly every Ticketmaster event. It is an individual problem with an individual solution.
If so, you’re not gonna have a lot of friends, which is a pretty shitty way to live.
My friends largely also opt out. Perhaps we self select for like-mindedness.
This means that they don’t have to worry about losing your business or labor to a competitor, because they don’t compete.
They can still lose my business if I opt out of the entire industry, such as corporate social media. No amount of competitors changes my mind on that. This could also be done on streaming services, choosing to read instead etc.
This isn’t just a systemic problem as the author suggests.
I self-host open source software, pay for services that I don’t want to host (email, etc) and I prefer buying things to subscribing/renting things. I experience far less enshittification than most as a result.
Nah, fuck off with all this.
Would you say individual choices have slowed or reversed enshittification?
I reject your premise. Good day.
Don’t care if I end up naked in the woods siphoning Internet with a tin can, I will always try and encourage others to do so.
“Do all this! Do more! You’ll make your life somewhat better, and in some cases, much better.”
Well, I guess the prerogative is on the rest of us non-Americans to break unjust American IP laws to counteract the lack of lack of enforcement of anti-trust laws, or make laws in other countries that better enforce competition laws on American companies.
I have a glimmer of hope that Europe is getting in gear somewhat for that.
I do like Cory’s overall point about needing to think more of solidarity than individual choices, but I disagree on discounting them completely, those choices do carry a certain degree of importance as well in effecting systemic change. Saying, “well, society isn’t changing, enshittification isn’t going anywhere so I shouldn’t bother changing my habits” won’t get us anywhere. It has had real effects.
Things that start in the margins have the ability to get noticed by big players and then bring about change. A couple examples: Linux gaming is in a viable state that was unimaginable 8 years ago. The Canadian boycott of US products and travel has had a very measurable affect on US tourism and select industries, and has spread to other countries. Valve nor the Canadian government started either of those efforts, but they helped signal-boost and take concrete supportive actions when they see that even a small group of people independently have supported that change already.
Valve nor the Canadian government started either of those efforts, but they helped signal-boost and take concrete supportive actions when they see that even a small group of people independently have supported that change already.
It’s nice when that happens, when big-money players take notice of grass-roots movements and push forward their agendas. Pretty rare, though.
I’m still going to buy the French and German glass jars with rubber seals I am eyeing for food storage, instead of anything involving plastic and silicone. Suck it.
Great!
Is… is someone trying to stop you from doing that?
I might.