Enshittification: How Platforms Die
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Enshittification: How Platforms Die
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Re: Enshittification: How Platforms Die
#2Costco has a fairly unique retail model: it charges a fixed markup on just about everything, and aims to basically make money only from its membership fees. That means if a supplier comes along with a hot new item that wholesales for $25, while other retailers will spend their energy trying to maximize the price they can extract from the consumer, Costco will instead work with the producer to get its price down even further, and pass along the savings.
Is there room for a similar model for internet-facing businesses? Could you have a company that focused solely on optimizing user experience, rather than short-term profit? What would Google, Amazon, Reddit look like if they acted like that?
Re: Enshittification: How Platforms Die
#3Costco has a fairly unique retail model: it charges a fixed markup on just about everything, and aims to basically make money only from its membership fees. That means if a supplier comes along with a hot new item that wholesales for $25, while other retailers will spend their energy trying to maximize the price they can extract from the consumer, Costco will instead work with the producer to get its price down even…
I'd say micropayments are the only real way to get content to the point that it can stave off enshittification as it becomes popular.
But, again, that requires the micropayments not to be enshittified as they'd have the same type of enshittification business purpose.
Re: Enshittification: How Platforms Die
#4Costco has a fairly unique retail model: it charges a fixed markup on just about everything, and aims to basically make money only from its membership fees. That means if a supplier comes along with a hot new item that wholesales for $25, while other retailers will spend their energy trying to maximize the price they can extract from the consumer, Costco will instead work with the producer to get its price down even…
This will eventually happen, right now everything online has to be about growth above all else or it won't attract investment.
The internet is slowly becoming less wild west and more Ohio. I will be sad to see it go, but it has some perks too.
Re: Enshittification: How Platforms Die
#5Costco has a fairly unique retail model: it charges a fixed markup on just about everything, and aims to basically make money only from its membership fees. That means if a supplier comes along with a hot new item that wholesales for $25, while other retailers will spend their energy trying to maximize the price they can extract from the consumer, Costco will instead work with the producer to get its price down even…
This will eventually happen, right now everything online has to be about growth above all else or it won't attract investment. The internet is slowly becoming less wild west and more Ohio. I will be sad to see it go, but it has some perks too.
Why does it need investment? Any reasonable explanation I can think of is a rephrasing of "fraud".
Re: Enshittification: How Platforms Die
#6Earlier quoted context omitted.
This will eventually happen, right now everything online has to be about growth above all else or it won't attract investment. The internet is slowly becoming less wild west and more Ohio. I will be sad to see it go, but it has some perks too.
Why does it need investment? Any reasonable explanation I can think of is a rephrasing of "fraud".
Generally because people don’t have the funds to start up and then they need to pay out those investors.
Re: Enshittification: How Platforms Die
#7Costco has a fairly unique retail model: it charges a fixed markup on just about everything, and aims to basically make money only from its membership fees. That means if a supplier comes along with a hot new item that wholesales for $25, while other retailers will spend their energy trying to maximize the price they can extract from the consumer, Costco will instead work with the producer to get its price down even…
There was, it was called woot.com
They'd buy bulk, usually final inventory and resell, but the big grabs were "woot offs" where they fire saled all remaining inventory at discounted prices until sold out and then went on to the next.
But they too turned to shit and profit maximizing
Re: Enshittification: How Platforms Die
#8Re: Enshittification: How Platforms Die
#9I see people using enshittification incorrectly. It's not just that a service is poor.
The point is that people make a free and good service to cultivate users. Then, once people are established and moving to another platform is expensive, the bean counters reap from the disgruntled users.
Re: Enshittification: How Platforms Die
#10I see people using enshittification incorrectly. It's not just that a service is poor. The point is that people make a free and good service to cultivate users. Then, once people are established and moving to another platform is expensive, the bean counters reap from the disgruntled users.
Sounds just like reddit the last few years