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Verschlimmbesserung: The Word Your Software Updates Need

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Re: Verschlimmbesserung: The Word Your Software Updates Need

#71

Post by mrgoldenbrown »

ThrowawayR2 wrote: post #32
dwoldrich wrote: post #8

Value is now only _extracted_. Place the acquired good into the press and smash it until all but the faintest essence remains among the mash. The squeezings are bottled and saved to pay for future _extractions_. Companies like Valve can continue largely unshittificated because they are private. Once that is no longer the case, all our game rentals will be squozen away from us.

Gabe Newell has an $11bn net worth so he hasn't exactly been not squeezing.

I think Gabe is an example of how you can stop at absurdly rich and still make your customers happy. The enshittification is only necessary to go beyond absurdly rich.

Re: Verschlimmbesserung: The Word Your Software Updates Need

#73

Post by ThrowawayR2 »

mrgoldenbrown wrote: post #71
ThrowawayR2 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gabe Newell has an $11bn net worth so he hasn't exactly been not squeezing.

I think Gabe is an example of how you can stop at absurdly rich and still make your customers happy. The enshittification is only necessary to go beyond absurdly rich.

He's somewhere in the top 300 wealthiest people in the world; forget one-percenter, that's something like top 0.00001%. He definitely has done a lot of nice things for gaming and I hope he continues to do so for the rest of his days but let's not pretend he's not beyond absurdly rich.

Re: Verschlimmbesserung: The Word Your Software Updates Need

#74

Post by ahartmetz »

ThrowawayR2 wrote: post #32
dwoldrich wrote: post #8

Value is now only _extracted_. Place the acquired good into the press and smash it until all but the faintest essence remains among the mash. The squeezings are bottled and saved to pay for future _extractions_. Companies like Valve can continue largely unshittificated because they are private. Once that is no longer the case, all our game rentals will be squozen away from us.

Gabe Newell has an $11bn net worth so he hasn't exactly been not squeezing.

He could have gotten $5bn ten years ago (for great justic... quarterly results) and then have his lunch eaten by Epic and GOG. He clearly doesn't understand how to do current year capitalism.

Re: Verschlimmbesserung: The Word Your Software Updates Need

#75

Post by eqvinox »

ThrowawayR2 wrote: post #33
eqvinox wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a German, I might not have thought of that but would absolutely use it to translate Verschlimmbesserung. Does it sound "normal" enough to native English speakers?

The sibling post's "disimprovement" sounds more natural and has parallel form with pre-existing broadly accepted English words like "disincentive" and "disinfect".

Not sure if that's just me, but "disimprovement" sounds like *removing* an improvement that was previously there…

Re: Verschlimmbesserung: The Word Your Software Updates Need

#78

Post by jjtheblunt »

Youden wrote: post #52
OroPla wrote: post #36

German here. A "Verschlimmbesserung" is something that makes one part better and another part worse. If it only makes things worse you don't need a German word for it, you can just call it worse. For things that were intended good, but ended up bad, there's an English idiom: the path to hell is paved with good intentions.

Not a German but Duden disagrees with you [0]: "etwas in der Absicht, es zu verbessern, schlechter machen". [0]: https://www.duden.de/rechtschreibung/verschlimmbessern

that's not disagreeing at all (american partial german, partial pole)
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