this post was submitted on 27 Nov 2024
408 points (97.9% liked)

Technology

60101 readers
1877 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.


Our Rules


  1. Follow the lemmy.world rules.
  2. Only tech related content.
  3. Be excellent to each another!
  4. Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
  5. Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
  6. Politics threads may be removed.
  7. No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
  8. Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
  9. Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed

Approved Bots


founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

Macquarie Dictionary, Australia's national dictionary, has recognized the importance of the term enshittification in today's tech by crowning it the word of the year – it also won the people's vote.

Enshittification is defined as the gradual deterioration of a service or product brought about by a reduction in the quality of service provided, especially of an online platform, and as a consequence of profit-seeking.

It's a helpful term for describing many of today's tech products, from Google search being a slush of ads, link farms, forum posts, and useless AI content, to social media platforms becoming a hate-filled nightmare. Don't forget those products that move from being one-off purchases to subscriptions before their quality starts becoming diluted, or once-great video game franchises that become little more than a way for publishers to push more microtransactions and season passes onto people. Companies are putting yearly increases in profits and share prices above absolutely everything else, including making sure the products they offer aren't, well, shit.

all 34 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] [email protected] 54 points 4 weeks ago (3 children)

Glad to hear it. I’ve been using it here and there in daily conversation and so far no one knew about it and I had to explain it everytime.

I find it to be a pretty useful term given daily life.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

textbook definition of a meme but ask any normie what a meme is and you'll likely get some variation on an image macro.

this is how the game of telephone begins. I'm excited to see what they do to this one in a few years.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 4 weeks ago

It'll be (kinda already is) a synonym of "get worse".

[–] [email protected] 10 points 4 weeks ago

I kind of like explaining it to newcomers. Feels good to enlighten the masses. It's the basically "lucky 10000" xkcd.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 weeks ago

I don't even have to explain it to the uninitiated, everybody already know what it means even without hearing it before.

Normies aint stupid, they see same shit. Propaganda just keeps them busy not thinking too much about it because once they do, they might change their consumption patterns.

Sweet baby jesus... we got to punish these corpos folks

[–] [email protected] 41 points 4 weeks ago (4 children)

How long before some big tech corpo appropriates it and advertises one of their products as "not enshittified" or whatever

[–] [email protected] 28 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

Here at bingus & bongus Co we use an anti-shitification model that ensures our clients that our products will stay the same or get better at all time.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

"Our nascent AI technology..."

"..Monthly fee to ensure no enshittification..."

"...our mobile app does require GPS permissions to maximize..."

[–] [email protected] 7 points 4 weeks ago
[–] [email protected] 11 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

Dominos said that they're not doing shrinkflation and instead are 'growflating'
Then LITERALLY the next week they raised their prices for sauces

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago) (1 children)

growflating

Still inflation... (Also not sure what "growflating" would even mean)

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago)

Increasing size and price?

I'm fine with things naturally getting more expensive with time, it's not okay to make things smaller/crappier to to hit a price target. Keep sizes the same and just inflate prices a little every year, it'll be fine...

[–] [email protected] 9 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 10 points 4 weeks ago

Or one can be proud: enshittified since 1986

[–] [email protected] 6 points 4 weeks ago

If it's true and catches on, more power to them. I don't believe anyone advertising that is being truthful and I definitely don't think it will catch on.

[–] [email protected] 33 points 4 weeks ago

Although by a different organization in a different continent, enshittification was also selected as word of the year for 2023 by the American Dialect Society.

[–] [email protected] 27 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago) (1 children)

>sees website complaining about ads
>disable ad blocker to test

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 weeks ago
[–] [email protected] 14 points 4 weeks ago (2 children)

Wasn’t this the word of last year?

[–] [email protected] 22 points 4 weeks ago

Seems like it would be the word of the first quarter of the 21st century.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 4 weeks ago

Different dictionary's word of the year, I think.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago) (3 children)

Enshittification is defined as the gradual deterioration of a service or product brought about by a reduction in the quality of service provided, especially of an online platform, and as a consequence of profit-seeking.

I think that’s overly broad in comparison to Doctorow’s original meaning (which they also cite in the article). The critical element missing from their definition is that the enshittified product/service never had a viable business model to begin with: it uses the hype cycle to sell users and investors on an unsustainable mirage before inevitably collapsing.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 4 weeks ago

That is absolutely not a critical part. One of the primary examples doctorow uses is an online marketplace like Amazon. The missing part is the specific steps the business takes of first trapping consumers, then sellers, and finally raking in that cash.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago)

You are right, but I would go one step further: enshittification is specifically a subsidized (artificial, unsustainable) capture of a free market by a middle man, followed by a squeezing of both buyers and sellers in that market using bought leverage.

It's just another variety of antitrust that happens to be legal because society has not yet outlawed that behaviour.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago)

There's plenty of products with viable business models that have undergone enshittification in recent years...

[–] [email protected] 6 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago)

Enshittification does help to explain the other reason things start to suck when it has nothing to do with Eternal September. But with modern social media, it really is a near even split of both. Enshittified for profit by the corporations that run them, stuck in Eternal September by the growing number of users that strip such a place of its identity until it's watered-down for the masses to get even more users.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 weeks ago
[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 weeks ago (2 children)
[–] [email protected] 8 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago) (1 children)

Yup, that's indeed what it says with the third word.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 weeks ago

Lol read past the title, smart ass:

Macquarie Dictionary, Australia's national dictionary, has recognized the importance of the term enshittification in today's tech by crowning it the word of the year – it also won the people's vote.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 4 weeks ago

... and therefore the world

[–] [email protected] -2 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)