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I haven't used Slack in a long time, but isn't this just the normal enshittification cycle that occurs with all Internet products? The founders got a nice exit

I haven't used Slack in a long time, but isn't this just the normal enshittification cycle that occurs with all Internet products? The founders got a nice exit several years back, I doubt they stuck around at Salesforce for long, so it's natural that the product would deteriorate over time. Slack IRC bridging in the 2014/2015 era was great. We had a lot of people who spent their whole workday in a terminal window and weren't interested in running a web browser in the background continuously just for a chat room.

fiddlerwoaroof 3y ago
> Isn't this just the normal enshittification cycle that occurs with all Internet products? Yeah, although one can dream that some SaaS company would do htings differently
memefrog 3y ago
>isn't this just the normal enshittification cycle that occurs with all Internet products? No! Stop diluting this word.
- fulladder 3y ago
  > No! Stop diluting this word. Yes, you're right, I'm misusing it. However, I think that there is a phenomenon that happens to a lot of tech products that is more general than what Doctorow is talking about. There is a certain type of person who is attracted to building a new thing, and there is a different type of person who is attracted to a thing that is already successful. Pioneers and Settlers, as a former colleague of mine described it. In the context of Internet services, pioneers care a lot about attracting users initially so they tend to dwell on every minor detail. Settlers care a lot about stability, so gradual degradation over time (e.g., in performance, in other measures of quality) is tolerable as long as its rate is controllable and well-understood. I think that Doctorow's thesis is a special case of this where greed is the driving factor behind the gradual erosion of quality.
- jmull 3y ago
  This is the Cory Doctorow sense of the word, is it not? (Or, now that I notice your username, maybe you’re making an ironic joke, since complaining about the misuse of the word enshitification is a meme now?)
- csomar 3y ago
  enshittification of the word enshittification?

fiddlerwoaroof 3y ago

> Isn't this just the normal enshittification cycle that occurs with all Internet products? Yeah, although one can dream that some SaaS company would do htings differently

memefrog 3y ago

>isn't this just the normal enshittification cycle that occurs with all Internet products? No! Stop diluting this word.

fulladder 3y ago
> No! Stop diluting this word. Yes, you're right, I'm misusing it. However, I think that there is a phenomenon that happens to a lot of tech products that is more general than what Doctorow is talking about. There is a certain type of person who is attracted to building a new thing, and there is a different type of person who is attracted to a thing that is already successful. Pioneers and Settlers, as a former colleague of mine described it. In the context of Internet services, pioneers care a lot about attracting users initially so they tend to dwell on every minor detail. Settlers care a lot about stability, so gradual degradation over time (e.g., in performance, in other measures of quality) is tolerable as long as its rate is controllable and well-understood. I think that Doctorow's thesis is a special case of this where greed is the driving factor behind the gradual erosion of quality.
jmull 3y ago
This is the Cory Doctorow sense of the word, is it not? (Or, now that I notice your username, maybe you’re making an ironic joke, since complaining about the misuse of the word enshitification is a meme now?)
csomar 3y ago
enshittification of the word enshittification?