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Cory Doctorow: Platform Capitalism and the Curse of “Enshittification” [audio]

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Re: Cory Doctorow: Platform Capitalism and the Curse of “Enshittification” [audio]

#101

Post by fsckboy »

wunderland wrote: post #65

A perfect example with the recent changes at Twitter: > Most Twitter users barely tweet and don't care about followers - a "heavy user" tweets on average less than three times a week. So if someone is posting regularly enough to be willing to pay $8 a month for a blue tick, but has not built up a sizeable following organically, this is a very strong signal that the posts they are producing are no good. > It is exactl…

> enough to be willing to pay $8 a month

you realize $8 a month is nothing to the majority of adults who would be in the "knowledge worker" category? a month? a couple of coffees is $10 and that's a day.

Re: Cory Doctorow: Platform Capitalism and the Curse of “Enshittification” [audio]

#102

Post by javajosh »

Enshittification is a (very good) name for when you start off with naturally non-scarce information resource, and later impose artificial scarcity on it in order to make the moneys. It's like building a theme park, and only later adding walls and a turnstyle that checks for tickets. Of course people are going to hate you for doing that.

Re: Cory Doctorow: Platform Capitalism and the Curse of “Enshittification” [audio]

#103

Post by ggm »

jmeister wrote: post #94
ggm wrote: post #36

I compare this mentally to: * autotesting music for 'hit worthy' == music blandifies to the bangers and you never get interesting voices any more. but .. it works (for profit) * kindle genres like 'in the style of' and the tendency to more and more but worse and worse in fiction because.. it works (for profit) * politics descending to the lowest grab, not the highest goal.

The problem is decline in elitism(in the arts, in politics, in the academy..) but nobody wants to hear that in these populist times. Democracy+markets are working extremely well for the masses, giving them exactly what they want. Ted Gioia the music critic has made a lot of good observations on these issues. In particular, artists, intellectuals and politicians of old used to lead, persuade, and pull their audience a…

Strong agree, but said hypocritically as a net beneficiary of the degree dilution of the 70s and 80s.

Re: Cory Doctorow: Platform Capitalism and the Curse of “Enshittification” [audio]

#104

Post by dcow »

Proven wrote: post #88
wunderland wrote: post #65

A perfect example with the recent changes at Twitter: > Most Twitter users barely tweet and don't care about followers - a "heavy user" tweets on average less than three times a week. So if someone is posting regularly enough to be willing to pay $8 a month for a blue tick, but has not built up a sizeable following organically, this is a very strong signal that the posts they are producing are no good. > It is exactl…

Garbage "analysis". Heavy users I follow tweet more than 3 times a day. > The problem wasn't a biased liberal algorithm, it was that their tweets are no good. No, it was a biased algo that's still being removed (as recently as 2-3 weeks ago they discovered another throttle which was impacting many users, including Elon). The main problem is that all centralized platforms have to deal with government-mandated censorsh…

I think the strong response is to your opening statement. Cory is a thoughtful writer. The analysis may be inaccurate in your opinion, but that doesn't make it garbage.

I happen to agree with your actual take: biased unfair algos are the result of platforms being coerced (internally and/or externally) to ultimately serve some socio-political agenda, and thus their content enshittifies. No blue checkmarks needed.

Re: Cory Doctorow: Platform Capitalism and the Curse of “Enshittification” [audio]

#105

Post by pjc50 »

sharperguy wrote: post #57
_eypq wrote: post #44

I've been thinking about how enshittification, venture capital, shareholders and the life cycle of a company are in some ways related. Any company that has external investors is bound to go through this cycle of - building a great product - taking in external funding money - growing and then either being acquired or going public (or more commonly shutting down) - then all the head scratching decision making starts It…

I think the issue could be rooted in recent monetary policy rather than an inhrenent feature of the market itself. Artificially low interest rate environments lead to a lot of money in the hands of investors, which due to inflation slowly loses purchasing power over time. However, with large reserves, they can easily afford to prop up a business model which persistantly spends more money on bringing "free" features t…

I remain infuriated that we had the confluence of:

- huge amount of very cheap money

- widespread availability of highly educated technologists

- knowledge of the climate model

.. and instead "collectively" ended up funding giveaway services to users and inflating the SF housing market rather than doing the climate Manhattan project.

(High interest rates are bad for renewables, because buying a solar panel is effectively buying 20-30 years of electricity upfront, and therefore hugely dependent on cost of capital and discount rates)

Re: Cory Doctorow: Platform Capitalism and the Curse of “Enshittification” [audio]

#106

Post by xigency »

_eypq wrote: post #44

I've been thinking about how enshittification, venture capital, shareholders and the life cycle of a company are in some ways related. Any company that has external investors is bound to go through this cycle of - building a great product - taking in external funding money - growing and then either being acquired or going public (or more commonly shutting down) - then all the head scratching decision making starts It…

I’ve also pondered over this recently. Many social media companies have incentives that are unaligned with their platform users’ best interests. For example, creating more engagement through polarizing or negative content, trying to maximize the time people are glued to screens to eke out ad money, the turning around to sell or exploit personal data.

Frustratingly, they almost have a legal fiduciary duty to behave this way as currently structured, as their only mandate is to increase value for shareholders. Negative externalities on users, employees, or society at large are not relevant to decision making at all.

The conclusion I found is that the only ethical solution would be to create a cooperative public benefit corporation. With that structure, the company has a mandate to do right by their customers, their employees, and society as a whole in measurable ways.

Re: Cory Doctorow: Platform Capitalism and the Curse of “Enshittification” [audio]

#107

Post by pjc50 »

Proven wrote: post #88
wunderland wrote: post #65

A perfect example with the recent changes at Twitter: > Most Twitter users barely tweet and don't care about followers - a "heavy user" tweets on average less than three times a week. So if someone is posting regularly enough to be willing to pay $8 a month for a blue tick, but has not built up a sizeable following organically, this is a very strong signal that the posts they are producing are no good. > It is exactl…

Garbage "analysis". Heavy users I follow tweet more than 3 times a day. > The problem wasn't a biased liberal algorithm, it was that their tweets are no good. No, it was a biased algo that's still being removed (as recently as 2-3 weeks ago they discovered another throttle which was impacting many users, including Elon). The main problem is that all centralized platforms have to deal with government-mandated censorsh…

I'm interested to know what your examples of content would be that is (a) good and (b) banned by "government-mandated censorship in large markets such as the EU".

> relatively more impacted than social networks that focus on art and have no political content

Funnily enough a lot of artists also want uncensored platforms so they can post NSFW art, but this is completely orthogonal to the political questions.

Re: Cory Doctorow: Platform Capitalism and the Curse of “Enshittification” [audio]

#108

Post by pjc50 »

fsckboy wrote: post #101
wunderland wrote: post #65

A perfect example with the recent changes at Twitter: > Most Twitter users barely tweet and don't care about followers - a "heavy user" tweets on average less than three times a week. So if someone is posting regularly enough to be willing to pay $8 a month for a blue tick, but has not built up a sizeable following organically, this is a very strong signal that the posts they are producing are no good. > It is exactl…

> enough to be willing to pay $8 a month you realize $8 a month is nothing to the majority of adults who would be in the "knowledge worker" category? a month? a couple of coffees is $10 and that's a day.

Those aren't the good content people, though.

(Long ago I suggested that Twitter should have allowed people to contribute towards premium accounts for other people, a bit like Reddit Gold. Since a large part of the value derives not from your own posting but other people's.)

Re: Cory Doctorow: Platform Capitalism and the Curse of “Enshittification” [audio]

#109

Post by prox »

andyjohnson0 wrote: post #96

I wonder what the people at the top of large corps (Pichai, Zuckerberg, Musk et al) think of this perspective and how its increasingly dominating the narrative about what they do. Are they mystified or perplexed by it? Worried? Or do they just think: hey, you figured it out in the end ?

I think the latter. These guys aren’t consumers in the same way most of the public is. They are beholden to other bounds and checks which keeps them in place. I had the pleasure to go along for a week with a bunch of CEOs, one was a former billionaire and he had stories that really emphasize how insulated they are from the rest of society.

I mean imagine that traveling is all by jet, that everyone you meet is at least a millionaire, that work can be done everywhere on the planet.

Re: Cory Doctorow: Platform Capitalism and the Curse of “Enshittification” [audio]

#110

Post by pjc50 »

high_5 wrote: post #93
_eypq wrote: post #44

I've been thinking about how enshittification, venture capital, shareholders and the life cycle of a company are in some ways related. Any company that has external investors is bound to go through this cycle of - building a great product - taking in external funding money - growing and then either being acquired or going public (or more commonly shutting down) - then all the head scratching decision making starts It…

I think Apple managed to escape this VC trap by sheer excellence.

Apple's been around for a long time, and if anything I would attribute it to the force of will of Steve Jobs. By the time he was dead, Apple had such a huge cash pile that they're no longer beholden to investors in quite the same way. They now only have to worry about ordinary market complaints from shareholders.

(don't forget the Wilderness Years, Apple came close to death)

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