Enshittification is only possible because a vast majority of users will tolerate the abuse with a smile and continue to feed from the hand that slaps them acros

Enshittification is only possible because a vast majority of users will tolerate the abuse with a smile and continue to feed from the hand that slaps them across the face. They will do that because they are genuinely, in the truest sense of the word, addicts. The withdrawal symptoms may be nothing like those of alcohol, nicotine, opiates, or benzodiazepines, but they are no less addicts because of that fact. It's an old joke that the only group besides Tech Companies to call their customers 'users' are drug dealers, but there is great truth in that. When tech companies performs enshittification, it's not terribly different from a heroin dealer doubling the profits he extracts from a customer by cutting with other substances (mixing with cheaper substances to dilute the concentration of the most expensive component, for those unfamiliar with the lingo) when he knows that customer is experiencing withdrawal - he knows the customer is hopelessly hooked, addicted, and desperate for more, and he knows he can manipulatively extract even more value from the customer in such a vulnerable state. For this reason, I propose it may just as well be called something more like "Addict Abuse", or "Heartless exploitation of the vulnerable", because that's exactly what it is. That society continues to cherish and prize companies like Google, Amazon, Facebook, Microsoft, Reddit, Apple, Twitter, and others rather than regarding them with the extreme prejudice and utter contempt commonly reserved for manipulative dealers of addictive drugs is nothing short of baffling to me. P.S. Before any corporate shills accost me for using the previous names of technology companies - I know I'm using the old name. I'm using the old name for the same reason I still call Blackwater "Blackwater", even though they call themselves "Academi" now - rebranding to cover up old sins is itself a manipulative tactic to memoryhole the sins. I will be no more complicit in covering up the rampant psychological, privacy, and government-directed first amendment abuses of Facebook or Twitter than I am in covering up the war crimes of Blackwater.