Asklemmy

There's only one thing I would alter in your statement. You said:

...and to focus on shareholder profits over making a good product.

I would say, "and to focus on shareholder profits over ~~making a good product~~ anything else, including life itself.

It's more profitable for a health insurance company to deny someone's claim than to pay for their healthcare in the US. The insurance company won't care if that ultimately leads to the person's death - they have to answer to their shareholders.

It's more profitable for Nestlé or Google to siphon water from countries in the global South than it is to have sustainable practices that don't exacerbate climate change. So what if that means that millions of people will die in the years to come? That's their problem for being poor.

We need to bring about the kind of change that has politicians recognize that there is more to human life than a dollar amount, and that poverty is not a moral failing on the part of the individual. But until that happens, poverty is akin to a death sentence.

I wouls just add that it's all about making profits and increasing them year per year, but always focusing on the short term. To the CEOs, shareholders and other directives, it doesn't matter if the company goes bankrupt 10 years from now, as long as they suck in all the profits they can now.

Even if the company is very successful, with a very good product(s) and they could just go into easy-ride mode continuing to provide those products. They only want to make as much money as quickly as possible and once they get their hands on the company, the enshitification for the sake of quick profits ensues.

The solution, to my reckoning, is to start making things you love because you love to make them and to refuse to sell out when they come knocking.

I mean, sure, that will solve some things. Not climate change, though. I think we can aim for a little higher, but when I say that perhaps seeking infinite growth in a finite planet might lead to an environmental catastrophe that's somehow controversial.

Odwala and Naked are different companies. Odwalla was bought by Coca Cola and then closed in 2020. I think full sail bought it and is reopening it. Naked was started in my hometown and eventually bought by Tropicana, still up and running.

Ohhhh Naked is watered down Odwalla. Can't believe I never made that connection but it all makes sense now. Used to love Odwalla, kind of like Naked if I missed lunch or something

See also: craft brewing

It boils down to companies only trading on their value and not paying a dividend. Without a dividend, a company has to grow to provide value to its shareholders - with a dividend a shareholder would profit simply from the company making money.

What you describe is the basic structure in our economy that drives this, but the answer to why the enshittification has been accelerating, is technology. Advances in technology, particularly information technology, progressively enable corporations to be more efficient at all this, including more efficient at gaming the political system and manipulating users and customers.

If you look back nostalgically at some time decades ago when things were less bad, it's because things were less efficient and humanity was more likely to sometimes get in the way of the machine that we've built having it's way with us.

Thank you for the nostalgia blast.

I do remember loving odwalla, specifically the carrot juice. But this was more than a decade ago, when I was still in high school.

Never remember them rebranding as naked juice. Although I do remember picking up naked juice on two separate occasions wondering how the taste would be. Two times was enough to learn the taste wasn't worth the price.