Cory Doctorow: Platform Capitalism and the Curse of “Enshittification” [audio] • Hacker News Board

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

#271

Post by GoldsmithPlant » Fri, Jul 07, 2023, 8:55 AM UTC

FullstakBlogger wrote: post #159

rsynnott wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm still amazed they went with the $8-for-attention model. Everyone _already knows_ this doesn't work well; the dating site industry has been trying to make it work for literally decades. It's also kind of a Pandora's box; even if they removed the attention boost, the taint is already there, and people will be suspicious of bluetick replies forever.

The smart thing to do isn't to remove it; They should charge for adversarial features. Pay your fee, you get not only an attention boost, but the ability to un-boost blues. If the net result is 0, the Nash Equilibrium is that everybody pays. Look how many people "#BlockTheBlue" on twitter right now. Just charge them to make it easy. The real value in someone who's willing to pay to be seen isn't in their 8$ subscript…

So the I Hate Elvis method?

https://www.cbc.ca/radio/undertheinfluence/the-ingenious-way...

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

#272

Post by AndrewOMartin » Fri, Jul 07, 2023, 9:46 AM UTC

nottorp wrote: post #139

fsckboy wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

> a couple of coffees is $10 and that's a day. Please cut that. Everyone wants 'a couple of coffees' and it adds up even for SV techbros.

I'm convinced Starbucks is paid off by SV to increase their prices so more things can be described as "just the price of a coffee".

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

#273

Post by jlokier » Fri, Jul 07, 2023, 1:04 PM UTC

rsynnott wrote: post #119

fsckboy wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

It's not just the cost; most people would, I think, be _embarrassed_ to be seen to be paying for attention. I used to pay for a Twitter client, I now pay for a Mastodon client, I contribute to the upkeep of my local friendly Mastodon instance. In all it's in the ballpark of 8EUR/month. There's no world where I would _pay for attention on Twitter_, though. I am somewhat surprised they didn't just charge for client API…

> It's not just the cost; most people would, I think, be _embarrassed_ to be seen to be paying for attention.

I agree.

The Twitter tick had some cool when it was a mark of authenticity. Now it's a bit cringe.

The embarrassment factor might work better for Twitter if they offer an option similar to what LinkedIn does for paying users: Give the user the option to disable the blue tick on their account so other people don't know they are paying, while still having access to useful paid account features.

Like you I'd be more willing to pay a small amount for API access and useful features if I can do so quietly, without broadcasting the fact.

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

#274

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Jul 07, 2023, 2:16 PM UTC

Dalewyn wrote: post #158

drzaiusx11 wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact that a basic security feature is behind a paywall boggles the mind.

It's only for SMS 2FA, which was phased out because of valid security concerns. Other forms of 2FA are still available to everyone.

[deleted]

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

#275

Post by rsynnott » Fri, Jul 07, 2023, 2:48 PM UTC

jlokier wrote: post #273

rsynnott wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not just the cost; most people would, I think, be _embarrassed_ to be seen to be paying for attention. I used to pay for a Twitter client, I now pay for a Mastodon client, I contribute to the upkeep of my local friendly Mastodon instance. In all it's in the ballpark of 8EUR/month. There's no world where I would _pay for attention on Twitter_, though. I am somewhat surprised they didn't just charge for client API…

> It's not just the cost; most people would, I think, be _embarrassed_ to be seen to be paying for attention. I agree. The Twitter tick had some cool when it was a mark of authenticity. Now it's a bit cringe. The embarrassment factor might work better for Twitter if they offer an option similar to what LinkedIn does for paying users: Give the user the option to disable the blue tick on their account so other people d…

I think you actually can hide it now. However, at least speaking for myself, I would be embarrassed to be paying to have my posts artificially boosted, even if this fact was hidden. There's a reason that pay-to-win, particularly in multiplayer games, has always been a slightly difficult sell.

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

#276

Post by karmakaze » Fri, Jul 07, 2023, 5:34 PM UTC

I like the term as it's very specific and relatable, especially when applied to two-sided markets facilitated on a centralized platform.

None of this should come as a surprise though and we can merely see it as one mode of capitalism working as intended. The problem wouldn't be nearly as bad if the companies were family owned rather than by venture capitalists and investors.

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

#277

Post by sharperguy » Fri, Jul 07, 2023, 5:56 PM UTC

beepbooptheory wrote: post #138

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…

Just don't understand how one could be convinced these days of the fundamental conceit that even a properly profitable company is necessarily going to provide good things for people downstream, or for society in general. What is the argument for that in general again? Because to me, if your not Twitter, your Wal Mart or Raytheon or BoA. If your not shittifying a platform you are pushing out small businesses from ever…

I don't think I can do justice to the entire topic on here so I will just point to this small part of your reply:

> pushing out small businesses from every town

Those small businesses are also run on a for profit basis and are market driven. If there is something causing them to fail despite providing a better quality of service then perhaps we are still looking at market distortions rather than a fundamental failing of capitalism.

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

#278

Post by astrange » Sat, Jul 08, 2023, 8:51 AM UTC

omnicognate wrote: post #19

astrange wrote: post #3

[flagged]

If you turn that judgemental eye on your own post I'm sure you'll be able to see which internet stereotypes you're conforming to and why it's being downvoted into oblivion.

No, that means I'm right. It's almost always the case that when I post real valuable information that I get paid to know in real life, or else unreported but true things about the insides of major tech companies, it gets voted to -2-ish or people argue with me and tell me it's impossible. This is called job security.

What gets you upvoted is common knowledge you were already ready to hear.

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

#279

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Jul 09, 2023, 4:32 PM UTC

astrange wrote: post #278

omnicognate wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you turn that judgemental eye on your own post I'm sure you'll be able to see which internet stereotypes you're conforming to and why it's being downvoted into oblivion.

No, that means I'm right. It's almost always the case that when I post real valuable information that I get paid to know in real life, or else unreported but true things about the insides of major tech companies, it gets voted to -2-ish or people argue with me and tell me it's impossible. This is called job security. What gets you upvoted is common knowledge you were already ready to hear.

[deleted]

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

#280

Post by indigochill » Tue, Jul 11, 2023, 12:55 PM UTC

dynamorando wrote: post #226

indigochill wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the questions I don't see answered here (and is, IMO, the greatest obstacle, and the reason I've backed out of discussions to set up a similar geographically-oriented node) is who moderates, say, your city's ActivityPub node? If a corporation, we're right back to corporations moderating public speech. But even having governments moderating speech in a public forum feels weird to me since it provides an easy le…

Does there exist a medium between host moderators and user moderation the makes this work? Wikipedia is self moderated and there are well moderated Reddits. The host of the ActivityPub site doesn’t have to do all the moderation, and there doesn’t seem to be a reason that users themselves couldn’t “mute” troublesome posters from their own feeds, right?

> The host of the ActivityPub site doesn’t have to do all the moderation

The person who set up the server doesn't, no, they can appoint moderators that lack administrative privileges. I don't recall at the moment if moderators have the ability to federate/defederate with peers, and that might be an implementation detail anyway. This is probably the way a large well-run node should work - developing a team of moderators from within the community.

> there doesn’t seem to be a reason that users themselves couldn’t “mute” troublesome posters from their own feeds, right?

This is true as far as it goes, but if a node federates with peers that dump a high volume of content onto the network the user doesn't want to see, then the user will find it a headache to manually filter just what they want to see (approximately the feeling of manually filtering out email spam). So some filtering should be done by the host.