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>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?