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.

  • essell@lemmy.world
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    4 days ago

    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.