EDITED TO MAKE THE TITLE MORE APPROPRIATE. The previous title of this post was “I need to tell you something unsatisfying: your personal consumption choices will not make a meaningful difference to the amount of enshittification you experience in your life” which was the slug line as it appeared in my mailing-list-to-RSS reader. Although this is the first paragraph of the linked essay, it does not do a good job of explaining the thrust of the essay, and some people (not you though) seem to be arguing with the title instead of the essay.
(Thanks to ski11erboi@lemmy.world for the heads up.)
END OF EDITED SECTION
Here’s why you’re getting enshittified: we deliberately decided to stop enforcing competition laws. As a result, companies formed monopolies and cartels. This means that they don’t have to worry about losing your business or labor to a competitor, because they don’t compete. It also means that they can handily capture their regulators, because they can easily agree on a set of policy priorities and use the billions they’ve amassed by not competing to capture their regulators. They can hold a whip hand over their formerly powerful tech workers, mass-firing them and terrorizing them out of any Tron-inspired conceits about “fighting for the user.” Finally, they can use IP law to shut down anyone who makes technology that disenshittifies their offerings.
Capitalism can’t be reformed into something good/worthwhile. That’s why its state was allowed to pass anti-trust laws. Even if companies are “broken up”, it’s just a legal restructuring. The system still profits, controls, etc. It’s political theater, not any kind of real change.
While this article has some good points, it really is sad, and kind of ironic, that the first paragraph of it is bullshit clickbait that completely undermines the rest of the text.
Yep. The title and the intro are both clickbait designed to drag in people incensed by the suggestion that their positive individual actions won’t have impact - which are absolutely the same people that don’t need to be fucking converted into the belief that regulations and enforcing laws already on the books would be good things.
The people that do need to read the article will read the title and intro paragraph (as is often auto-copied into posts on social media pages) and they’ll chuckle to themselves that they know that already and move on with their day.
Tl;dr. This article annoys the converted, and misses the ideal demographic.
Nah, fuck off with all this.
Would you say individual choices have slowed or reversed enshittification?
I reject your premise. Good day.
I’m still going to buy the French and German glass jars with rubber seals I am eyeing for food storage, instead of anything involving plastic and silicone. Suck it.
Great!
Is… is someone trying to stop you from doing that?
I might.
Its like global warming. Is what im doing going to stop it. No. Do I want to be as little responsible for it as possible yest. If my consumption is half anothers then I have reduced my share of the responsibility by half. If my consumption further is in a way that causes half as much harm. Well now im down to a quarter share. Does it mean anything overall? Maybe not but it means something to me.
The irony of posting this on Lemmy and not Reddit. lmao
The irony
How so?
Most of us are here on Lemmy having individually made the decision to evade the enshitification of other sites.
…And it’s worked.Naaaah, it’s still in the wrong paradigm, just a taste of the better world.
Like Hanseatic league and Hussites and Cossacks were not quite the revolution you’d want, and the same with Dutchies, but at some point angry Frenchies decided it’s time to show how it’s done, and around the same general period of time some unrefined colonials decided they are tired of tea.
I love how unshitty Lemmy is 😊 . That’s why I post here so much!
But Reddit isn’t less shitty as a result. I think it’s even getting worse.
I think maybe the wording in your title is throwing people off because as a lot of people are pointing out we CAN make make choices that limit the amount of enshittification we experience in our own lives. Seems like what you’re trying to say is choosing not to support enshittification doesn’t stop companies from continuing enshittification.
Fair, thank you. There does seem to be some confusion about enshittification vis a vis personal effects, versus Enshittification that exists in the world. (Reducing the former doesn’t reduce the latter, and the latter still remains everyone’s problem.) I used a bookmarklet to grab the link and tagline. I’ll update the title to more accurately reflect the content of the essay.
@sundray Love me some Cory, every day, and he’s making good points, but… his emphasis on organising and systemic action (in addition to the individual deshitification) also speaks of his privilege (he’s the Anglo-American, 1st world, pretty renowned writer… people listen to him, or at least will give him a chance of fair hearing… we can’t all do that.)
disagree.
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i stopped using most social media, and what little social media I do use now is FOSS like lemmy.
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I cancelled my youtubeTV subscription and now pirate all my media. Along with this I also stopped watching sports which have been greatly enshittified over my lifetime.
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I stopped using Plex (enshittifying) and switched to Jellyfin which is FOSS.
these actions have significantly reduced enshittification in my life. Not saying it’s possible for everything, but sometimes there absolutely are non-enshittified alternatives.
This is not only very similar to my experience and entirely possible, but it’s also extremely healthy mentally and, date I say, physically.
Getting rid of social media will improve your mood dramatically.
I also like doing homelab stuff, and it’s even more satisfying to know I’m having a better experience than, say, someone subscribing to every streaming service but still having to watch ads.
I’m still using YouTube with smarttube or whatever it’s called now and vanced. They have adblocking and sponsor block so I don’t get shitty ads and I can still pick who I watch. I did go and download a bunch of kids videos since someone watches the same show all the time and now just use jelyfin for that.
That’s wonderful! It’s good to diminish the amount of enshittification you experience in your life!
Enshittification, writ large, goes on regardless. The point of the essay is that avoiding it in your personal life is good (if sometimes tiresome, depending on the specifics of your life) and you should totally do that, but the root causes of enshittification can be defeated by organized collective action.
the root causes of enshittification can be defeated by organized collective action.
This is the fly in the ointment. I (and most here) do all the things to avoid enshittified products, but as you’ve mentioned it is work. Some of the “work” is fun because I am “technologia” oriented, but many of the people I know simply cannot be bothered to consider alternatives to these shit products. They don’t know it is shit and think that’s the only choice and follow along. I can’t blame them for their choices too much. Life is full of other things they are occupied with, so I do try and help when I can.
Many that are obligated to be advocates for the common man and these issues have abandoned their obligations to the people they are supposed to serve. They have essentially been enshittified too and we haven’t yet organized to solve that issue which seems to be the most important enshittification to date. More to come later, I am sure.
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Don’t care if I end up naked in the woods siphoning Internet with a tin can, I will always try and encourage others to do so.
“Do all this! Do more! You’ll make your life somewhat better, and in some cases, much better.”
Well, I guess the prerogative is on the rest of us non-Americans to break unjust American IP laws to counteract the lack of lack of enforcement of anti-trust laws, or make laws in other countries that better enforce competition laws on American companies.
I have a glimmer of hope that Europe is getting in gear somewhat for that.
I do like Cory’s overall point about needing to think more of solidarity than individual choices, but I disagree on discounting them completely, those choices do carry a certain degree of importance as well in effecting systemic change. Saying, “well, society isn’t changing, enshittification isn’t going anywhere so I shouldn’t bother changing my habits” won’t get us anywhere. It has had real effects.
Things that start in the margins have the ability to get noticed by big players and then bring about change. A couple examples: Linux gaming is in a viable state that was unimaginable 8 years ago. The Canadian boycott of US products and travel has had a very measurable affect on US tourism and select industries, and has spread to other countries. Valve nor the Canadian government started either of those efforts, but they helped signal-boost and take concrete supportive actions when they see that even a small group of people independently have supported that change already.
Valve nor the Canadian government started either of those efforts, but they helped signal-boost and take concrete supportive actions when they see that even a small group of people independently have supported that change already.
It’s nice when that happens, when big-money players take notice of grass-roots movements and push forward their agendas. Pretty rare, though.
I self-host open source software, pay for services that I don’t want to host (email, etc) and I prefer buying things to subscribing/renting things. I experience far less enshittification than most as a result.
I live without adverts in my life.
I have no subscription services.
When a service stops being useful I switch.
Aside from my steam library, I own everything I own. I don’t find this difficult. I’m not missing out, I enjoy films, TV, games, friends, work and life generally.
My personal choices have made a massive difference to my experiences, if I compare them to the ones I see people talking about on Lemmy.
First, it looks like this may be a dressed up advertisement for their newly released book:
My book on Enshittification is coming out in a couple of months, and the early reviews are already coming in, and they are gratifyingly glowing.
That fact alone doesn’t discount their argument, but it should be considered.
Second, I disagree with this premise of the author:
Because this isn’t an individual problem, it’s a systemic one.
I disagree, its both.
As the author rightly identifies, there are somethings that are only addressable systemically such as healthcare of mass transport. However a whole other host of items the author references are absolutely individual problems. Example from the author:
When all your friends are going to a festival, are you really going to opt out because the event requires you to use the Ticketmaster app (because Ticketmaster has a monopoly over event ticketing)?
Yes, I opt-out of nearly every Ticketmaster event. It is an individual problem with an individual solution.
If so, you’re not gonna have a lot of friends, which is a pretty shitty way to live.
My friends largely also opt out. Perhaps we self select for like-mindedness.
This means that they don’t have to worry about losing your business or labor to a competitor, because they don’t compete.
They can still lose my business if I opt out of the entire industry, such as corporate social media. No amount of competitors changes my mind on that. This could also be done on streaming services, choosing to read instead etc.
This isn’t just a systemic problem as the author suggests.
First, it looks like this may be a dressed up advertisement for their newly released book:
To be fair, this is a web archive of Cory Doctorow’s email newsletter, normally sent to a self-selecting audience that expects to see Cory try to sell us his stuff. But also, as the coiner of “enshittification” this is a subject he’s been examining for many years.
Your assessment is spot on.
If so, you’re not gonna have a lot of friends, which is a pretty shitty way to live.
Or you choose friends who will stay your friends even if you miss a concert???
I would argue that, if that is a requisite for them being your friends, they are not your friends. Win - win.
I don’t care.
I avoid the services as a protest and I also enjoy the alternatives.
I’m not going to bankrupt them, but I’m not helping them.
I’m not going to bankrupt them, but I’m not helping them.
That’s good!
If you ever want to step up to hurting them, you’ll probably need to party up.
I disagree. Boycott works. These days, you vote with your money in a more efficient way than any election. You seem to say the problem is politic. You know politics won’t change things. So you’re just saying it’s not your problem anymore. But the problem still exists. The enshittification stays there.
Boycotts work because boycotts are collective . That’s his point. If you get enough of society together to boycott X, or to call their government out on Y, or even vote Z, then together the difference will matter. What doesn’t matter is a bunch of people buying an item, while you are making your own private ‘boycott’. Personally, I ‘boycott’ youtube. Guess what? They don’t care. They have enough eyeballs that they don’t miss me at all.
P.S. I was happy that Paramount+ asks “why?” you cancel your subscription because I got to explain it was due to the 60 minutes settlement and firing Colbert… but I doubt they care that 1 person stopped giving them money over that.
You know what else is collective ? Votes. If you think you can change the world all by yourself, aybe you’ve forgotten that being human if a profoundly collective experience.
Well, it’s Cory Doctorow doing the saying.
But in my own opinion, boycotts work for products and services that you pay for; personally refusing to use services that rely on money from other business, less so. The #DeleteFacebook movement has existed since at least 2017. Twitter loudly hemorrhaged users after the Musk buyout. “DeGoogle” has been a thing since 2006. Small business, progressives, and others have been advocating boycotting Amazon for over a decade… and yet they all still exist, they are all still bad actors, and show no signs of getting any better.
The people who have left those services are better off, and that’s good – better than good! But these corporate ogres haven’t stopped destroying society because of it. They haven’t even slowed down.
To look at it another way: ALL of these corpos fear government regulation, especially in labor and fair business practices: You know that’s true because they ALL spend billions fighting it tooth and nail.
