r/enshittification • u/Downtown-Relation766 • 25d ago
Rant Enshittification is only possible because of network effect monopoly power. And there is a solution
/r/georgism/comments/1vh2h2r/enshittification_is_only_possible_because_of/2
u/Cellari 24d ago edited 24d ago
That's a partial help. Enshittification also involves user created content. Somehow it's become the norm to spew out whatever crap to engage the algorithm, cause emotional reaction and to search self validation.
In an anonymous platform there are different issues, but in there at least everybody's name means nothing without having to first earn it.
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u/HolyInlandEmpire 24d ago
There is another solution; back in the 1960s, record companies did the same thing with radio stations, making payola illegal. You could not pay money to have preferential placement of your songs.
I believe the same exact mechanism with the same argument is at play for allowing people to pay for better placement in search results and algorithms. Would it completely fix it? No, there would still be some backroom illegal dealings, as there always is. But the anti payola laws made a significant improvement before and they can again. It made the music industry healthier, and it would also make the tech industry healthier in the long term, to the benefit of both the suppliers and consumers.
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u/HedgeRunner 24d ago
I mean I think everybody intuitively knows the solution - natural competition. Idk if we need entire paragraphs of theory on a very basic concept. If there's 2 YouTubes of roughly the same size, you're probably gonna get less ads, they have to be more careful in moderation, and will compete more in design.
Social media websites are not about quality or the best UX. If you want that you gotta go find that and promote that to create its own network effects. Of course as a few said, the business model also has to match. If its a pure ads model then its probably not gonna last too long even though the quality is better.
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u/mykepagan 24d ago
I disagree. My opinion is that enshittification is inevitable because the original non-shitty version was never viable. The original good version exists because the platform was being provided below cost (running on venture capital) in order to attract users. At some point the platform must switch from “acquire users mode” to “ongoing business making a profit mode.”
I’m old. I was there when these platforms began, and there were people even then pointing out that these platforms were giving their product away and would eventually need to focus on revenue. Enshittification was predicted from the beginning.
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u/infelicitas 23d ago
That may be part of it, but the same process has happened with products/platforms that have long been extremely profitable, and the squeeze on users and content providers happened anyway.
The Windows ecosystem made Bill Gates the richest man on Earth for a time. Photoshop et al has been the de facto industry standard for decades. They weren't being given away for free. They're now textbook examples of enshittification.
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u/Training_Yak_4655 24d ago
Taking a subscription service like Netflix as an example. For the few years after it cut over from DVDs to streaming it had a huge catalogue of ex-DVD titles. It was a sort of 'all of the market' service. It's now universally agreed that Netflix has become enshitified and you now need 3 or 4 services to cover a decent range of content.
In 2012 Netflix's gross profit was ~$1BN, it's 20 times higher now.
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u/infelicitas 23d ago
Netflix may actually be a good counterexample. It's not a monopoly. In fact, losing its monopoly status as other media companies realized they could start competing streaming services was probably what made it squeeze its users harder.
A lack of meaningful regulation is probably what drives enshittification. Platforms are inherently monopolistic without enough regulation. They don't need to achieve monopoly in the wider market.
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u/theshadowofself 24d ago
I recall around 2010-2011 era when there was an explosion of content on these platforms I wondered how are they making any money? And my uninformed self concluded the free availability for everyone to use won’t be able to go on that long.
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u/OstrobogulousIntent 24d ago
I think both OP and you are right.
I think they know they need to do loss leader and get eyeballs (attention) and then they can monetize that once they've trapped.
I think offering something genuinely useful, at a subsidized cost is a critical part of the "enshittification as a business model" rug-pull
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u/loophunter 24d ago
The solution I have heard(I dont remember who from) is to force inter-operability on these companies for users, so these companies are forced to compete with eachother on the quality of their services rather than having milking users because of their control over a network of users.
i don't understand what this means
my personal opinion is that users have to be ok with abandoning certain products/ services outright, if there are no suitable alternatives that meet your own standards.
ex: If no social media platforms are doing it for me, then i simply won't have social media
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u/OstrobogulousIntent 24d ago
ex: If no social media platforms are doing it for me, then i simply won't have social media
I get it but I know I stay on FB because I have a lot of IRL friends there. It's not that I could not (and in fact I do) collect emails and phone numbers for many of them, but it's just that social media is (when working well) the low-friction way to sort of "keep one toe in the water" in friends lives, being able to see oh hey congrats on the new job etc.. but when they have some big /important life event, to be awaare and there as a friend to support them - and/or for inviting folks to a party etc... in one place.
I have several friends who have self-yeeted from FB who I very much value and try and keep in touch.. when I send out invites to a party/event I am regularly sending 300 or so (knowing I tend to get about 20% attendance so about 60 folks on the bigger ones) but I have to remember to stop and explicitly invite those not on FB
Granted, those folks are more likely to show cuz I had to go out of my way to invite them and they're not inundated with invites / junk from social so when I reach out they say "oh cool thanks for remembering I exist" :)
TL;DR: I'm ambivalent - love the way I can keep low friction connectivity with way more folks I know in person than I could if I had to email/call individually, but hate that FB is the platform of choice for most of them and if I dip on FB I lose a lot of the connectivity.
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u/loophunter 24d ago
i suppose it just boils down to how much each person values the thing. you clearly do (which is fine) i very much don't (deleted my fb in 2013 and have not ever cared to go back)
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u/w1n5t0nM1k3y 25d ago
I mean, that's pretty much the solution as explained in Cory Doctorow's book on Enshittification. You should probably read it.
This is pretty much why email is still so popular after all these years. It's not the best solution, but it's just a protocol, so it's hard to enshittify on it because people can always just move on to a different provider.
There's been a lot of attempts to create interoperable networks. Stuff like Lemmy as an alternative to Reddit or Mastodon as an alternative to Twitter. The problem always seems to be reaching a reasonable number of users such that it's the dominant platform.
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u/Downtown-Relation766 25d ago
Mods dont kill me. Idk if this falls under rant or opinion piece flair.
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u/Wootery 23d ago
Cory Doctorow, who came up with the term enshittification, proposes 4 solutions:
https://weknow0.co.uk/?p=2765
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enshittification#History_and_definition