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

Post by indigochill » Thu, Jul 06, 2023, 12:45 PM UTC

sanderjd wrote: post #168

bsenftner wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have an evil cabal of enshitification enforcers in the form of the entire advertising and marketing industry. They enforce the group think impressed on society, and will not put any energy into anything not following the current zeitgeist of shitty exploitation and only the legally required (reluctant) fair treatment of their consumer and their employees. Our society voices, both journalism and advertising/marketi…

I think you've missed the point of the parent comment. The point is that the entire model only exists in symbiosis with what you call "enshitification enforcers". There is no mass market social media without the "evil cabal... of the advertising and marketing industry". There is no other model that can pay the bills for a site with hundreds of millions of active users posting their own content with mostly no restrain…

Post by dynamorando » Thu, Jul 06, 2023, 12:48 PM UTC

DrScientist wrote: post #179

pmoriarty wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"There is no other model that can pay the bills for a site with hundreds of millions of active users posting their own content with mostly no restraint." The government can. These companies could be nationalized, or the government could make their own competing sites if they were interested in doing so. But they're just not. It takes more than just the means. It takes a will to do it.

Sure that's an option. In essence that's a user ( indirectly through taxes ) supported model. In the UK, the BBC follows that model ( the license fee is in effect a tax in all but name ) - and it's model is constantly under attack from certain quarters. Indeed the BBC has being doing pilots in the social space - with SOLID and data pods. See https://www.bbc.co.uk/taster/pilots/together-pod The key question here is an…

Post by smoldesu » Thu, Jul 06, 2023, 12:55 PM UTC

throw0101c wrote: post #181

passwordoops wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>advertising and marketing industry Which today is primarily Google, Amazon, Meta, and yes, even Apple (0) (0) https://gizmodo.com/apple-iphone-privacy-analytics-class-act...

> […] and yes, even Apple I was under the impression that Apple makes most of its money from margins on hardware sales, with services a growing percentage (Apple TV, App Store). The "advertising and marketing" that is involved with Apple is them spending money on it so people know about what they sell, and not so much Apple taking in advertising and marketing money (which Google and Meta do).

Post by andrekandre » Thu, Jul 06, 2023, 12:56 PM UTC

lmm wrote: post #82

_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…

IMO: Consumers will adapt to the reality, as humans always do. Once people adjust to the fact that popular brands are generally strip-mined for profit, brand loyalty will drop and keep dropping, consumers will become warier of lock-in, and the enshittification playbook will be less and less effective.

  > consumers will become warier of lock-in

Post by zeroonetwothree » Thu, Jul 06, 2023, 1:01 PM UTC

pjc50 wrote: post #105

sharperguy wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 effecti…