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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]

#71

Post by yarg »

sneak wrote: post #61
yarg wrote: post #51

The need to have a for profit platform leads to perverse incentives. This seems to be universally true, and when it becomes apparent that advertising doesn't work and isn't profitable, dark patterns are the best that you can hope for. Short of a company having the internal need for a generally useful distributed communications platform, as well as a willingness to release it relatively freely, I struggle to see how t…

I think for-profit is fine; I think the need to profitably apply eight figures of capital is the problem. It's fine to seek profit; it's seeking triple digit millions of revenue that drives the problem. Is it possible this is simply a knock-on effect of too-low interest rates for so long? Too cheap VC money?

For profit might be fine - but for profit masquerading as free simply doesn't seem to work.

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

#72

Post by glun »

_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…

This only happens when the users are the product or its a marketplace. Most business models dont suffer from shittification. But VCs love investing in the ones that do.

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

#73

Post by gmerc »

glun wrote: post #72
_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…

This only happens when the users are the product or its a marketplace. Most business models dont suffer from shittification. But VCs love investing in the ones that do.

Nah it happens to all public companies (see hasbro with magic/d&d) even when users are not the product.

It happens when nobody wants to be the first to show flagging growth and investor expectations have not reset yet after a period of growth.

It’s just easier in tech to manufacture growth metrics you cant get checked on

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

#74

Post by yarg »

p-e-w wrote: post #63
yarg wrote: post #51

The need to have a for profit platform leads to perverse incentives. This seems to be universally true, and when it becomes apparent that advertising doesn't work and isn't profitable, dark patterns are the best that you can hope for. Short of a company having the internal need for a generally useful distributed communications platform, as well as a willingness to release it relatively freely, I struggle to see how t…

> The need to have a for profit platform leads to perverse incentives. Only because, despite their immense importance, those platforms are essentially unregulated. Imagine water suppliers were unregulated. There would also be "perverse incentives", such as doctors paying them to add poison to the water so they get more patients and can make more money. But nothing like that ever happens, because there are rules such…

Locality is one issue, and the fact that it's significantly less vital means that it's generally not a matter of life and death.

As far as doctors bribing water suppliers to get more customers, the law is seldom enough to discourage bad behaviour when you're expecting not to get caught or the fines are too low for criminality to be profitable.

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

#75

Post by gmerc »

yarg wrote: post #71
sneak wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think for-profit is fine; I think the need to profitably apply eight figures of capital is the problem. It's fine to seek profit; it's seeking triple digit millions of revenue that drives the problem. Is it possible this is simply a knock-on effect of too-low interest rates for so long? Too cheap VC money?

For profit might be fine - but for profit masquerading as free simply doesn't seem to work.

Oh it worked alright. FB could have a 6% gross margin and operate forever - but people wouldn’t bet phenomenally rich. Let’s not pretend they even had to pay anyone off at their profitability.

It only doesn’t work for outsized expectations after a decade of interest binge party.

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

#76

Post by cdf »

brezelgoring wrote: post #28

I espouse a belief that apps have two cycles, one of growth, another of exploitation. In the first, cash is burnt/used to give free goodies and provide good quality services. Rents are a byproduct and not a goal during this phase of the operation, the goal here is to build goodwill and market share through measures that the competition can't match. All in all, it is a good experience to use the service during this st…

You have rediscovered https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Growth%E2%80%93share_matrix

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

#77

Post by TulliusCicero »

amatecha wrote: post #66
TulliusCicero wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems like a weirdly trivial thing to categorize as enshittification. It's just a vanity badge, not a core component of the app experience.

The perceived significance of the reward is irrelevant and doesn't affect whether its degradation is "enshittification" or not. It's not excluded from that categorization because it's considered a "trivial" feature. In fact, I'd argue it's specifically a good example of enshittification because it's one of the very few things that's actually just "a nice thing" the developers added, that was previously a nice friendl…

> The perceived significance of the reward is irrelevant

Completely false.

A vanity badge that's based on some effort, has a value equal to the effort required. Unlike increasing requirements for core functionality where you have increased effort for the same reward, increasing requirements for an effort-based vanity item increases its value in exact proportion to the effort.

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

#78

Post by glun »

gmerc wrote: post #73
glun wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This only happens when the users are the product or its a marketplace. Most business models dont suffer from shittification. But VCs love investing in the ones that do.

Nah it happens to all public companies (see hasbro with magic/d&d) even when users are not the product. It happens when nobody wants to be the first to show flagging growth and investor expectations have not reset yet after a period of growth. It’s just easier in tech to manufacture growth metrics you cant get checked on

Sure, but in those industries the users leave, the company suffers and the executives get fired. VC are attracted to moaty business models where users cant leave.

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

#80

Post by zelphirkalt »

troupo wrote: post #60
yarg wrote: post #51

The need to have a for profit platform leads to perverse incentives. This seems to be universally true, and when it becomes apparent that advertising doesn't work and isn't profitable, dark patterns are the best that you can hope for. Short of a company having the internal need for a generally useful distributed communications platform, as well as a willingness to release it relatively freely, I struggle to see how t…

> The need to have a for profit platform leads to perverse incentives. The need to have profit is the goal of any business. The problem isn't that. The need for profit has been entirely replaced with the need for continuous unimpeded growth. Which is decidedly not the same thing, but no one cares anymore, and profit doesn't even come into equation anymore.

I think part of the problem, but also reason for existing, of the growth whatever it takes mindset is, that as long as there is growth, no matter how artificial or not, you can keep up make-belief, that the business is viable and investors are going to belive either just that, or that they can enter now and exit before the bubble bursts. It does not matter to most investors, whether the business is actually viable in the long run, or makes any sense, as long as they see or believe there to be an opportunity to extract money out of the bubble.

A bit like trying to extract energy out of vacuum, except, that due to our believe system of economics, it can actually work for them.

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