5 ms·

I think enshitification will be the word of the year this year

by malfist 3y ago

hnreport 3y ago
What is the etymology of this term “enshitification”?
- jaggs 3y ago
  https://doctorow.medium.com/an-audacious-plan-to-halt-the-internets-enshittification-and-throw-it-into-reverse-3cc01e7e4604 https://doctorow.medium.com/an-audacious-plan-to-halt-the-in...
- pocketarc 3y ago
  There's a Wikipedia article on it! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enshittification https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enshittification
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
Buttons840 3y ago
I have mixed feelings about the word "enshitification". Like a politician shutting down thought and debate by simply labeling something "socialism", half the people using the word don't really know what it means, or at least, they don't know the original meaning. The word comes to be fake form of intellectual sophistication. A politician says the word and people think "oh, he knows the fancy word, he must be right", and thought ends, further discussion is difficult because nobody would dare speak in defense of something after it has been labeled. Just hearing the word raises certain peoples blood pressure 10 points and causes them to raise their voice. And yet, I'm happy to see the good guys play psyops for a change. Like the world "socialism", "enshitification" will originally mean a specific social phenomenon, but most people will come to use it as a catch-all word for all bad corporate behavior and it will shut down thought and just hearing the world will rile people up to fight against the evil corporations. And I'm okay with that; words have power and, again, I'm glad to see words being invented to help the common people organize.
- malfist 3y ago
  All it is is a fun sounding word for "rent-seeking"
  - Buttons840 3y ago
    It's supposed to refer to a company's priorities shifting away from the customer's, "rent seeking" is instead about profiting from owning limited resources. They are different things.
    - malfist 3y ago
      Fair point. There is more nuance than just rent seeking.
  - ajcp 3y ago
    Sounds lazy and crass to me. Instead of a word meant to accurately convey a concept it's meant to broadly convey a concept and ones feelings on it in the same breath; much like the term "woke". I'd rather use something around a historical event that can also be used to help understand a concept through allegory, like "Dutch disease", or "cargo cult". Those are fun.
    - TylerE 3y ago
      You think "rent seeking" is crass and "enshitification" isn't? I know which one I would say in polite company.
      - ajcp 3y ago
        You misunderstood me. The subject of his statement, the "fun sounding word", that I don't think is fun sounding is "enshitification".
    - malfist 3y ago
      "Fun" is subjective and we're free to disagree, neither of us is any more right than the other. I think it's crass nature gives it a sort of charm and really gets the point across.
TylerE 3y ago
Please no.
- readyplayernull 3y ago
  To cancel, please read these retroactive revenue terms and hit "I accept, thank you, and sign me up for Prime"...
raytopia 3y ago
It's honestly a great word. Describes the decay of so many platforms/tools so well.
robotnikman 3y ago
I hope so, to make more people aware of the phenomenon and the types of companies which practice it.
shmatt 3y ago
I think we need to decide on its meaning first. Most people these days use it as a death mark. Except the original op-ed often quoted used Meta, Uber, TikTok and Google - companies who make billions of clean profit per quarter, and more profits than they ever have, as examples Enshitification = more profits is unfortunately correct in my mind, but most people use it with a much different meaning. I don't think Unity is going to break all profit records soon
- dgunay 3y ago
  It's not the actual profitability of the move that's important, it's the motive. Enshittification comes from the ever-expanding _desire_ for profit. At some point the golden goose is killed to make next quarter's goals. Just so happens it was killed immediately in this case.
- ncallaway 3y ago
  Enshitification is when you make a product worse for the users with the goal of increasing profit. It may work. It may work in the short term, but cause collapse in the long term. It may fail in the short term. All are enshitification. There are two keys elements in my mind: - the product gets worse - in an attempt to increase profit
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
robocat 3y ago
Cory Doctorow coined it to mean something different from how it is now used: Here is how platforms die: First, they are good to their users; then they abuse their users to make things better for their business customers; finally, they abuse those business customers to claw back all the value for themselves. Then, they die. I call this enshittification. It now means something like "the process where products or services become worse as a vendor tries to make them more profitable". Cory's definition doesn't really apply to B2B transactions (e.g. the word makes no sense for RedHat especially given abundance of other distros).
- wilburTheDog 3y ago
  I don't see that much of a difference between those two definitions. Cory's explanation was more specific, but it still referred to a service taking steps to be more profitable and in the process making the experience shittier for users and business customers.
- 015a 3y ago
  Look at Enshitification through the lens that its basically just Inflation localized to a single company. When companies are poorly managed, they die. Except: now enters awesomely sophisticated Financial Engineering, enabling companies to metastasize far longer than the market alone would allow them. Take out debt; venture funding; unsupported valuations; high expectations; market ebbs and flows; you can fly a Cessna at 70mph just fine, but a jet going that slow crashes. Unity was running $200M in losses on $500M in revenue, per quarter. And they've never been profitable (since going public). A government can safely print money if it has the economic growth and tax base to support it; but if it doesn't have that, over enough time, you get: Inflation. The bill always comes due. Enshitification is just company-localized inflation after unsupportable financial engineering. There are really good examples in Doctorow's original piece; most of them actually cover the more-common stagflationary effect, but stagflation is just inflation through a different lens. It really doesn't have much to do with B2B versus B2C; its intimately related to attempts toward increasing profit margins, but the critical piece is the path the company walked to get there; and, in the most severe cases, the fact that they should have stopped walking and died three miles back. Or, maybe Doctorow would disagree with all of that. But that's the fun part of inventing such a meme-able, excellent term; it outgrows you!
yieldcrv 3y ago
this is the only forum I see it on so even databrokers saw that word and were like "nah"

I think enshitification will be the word of the year this year

hnreport 3y ago

What is the etymology of this term “enshitification”?

jaggs 3y ago
https://doctorow.medium.com/an-audacious-plan-to-halt-the-internets-enshittification-and-throw-it-into-reverse-3cc01e7e4604 https://doctorow.medium.com/an-audacious-plan-to-halt-the-in...
pocketarc 3y ago
There's a Wikipedia article on it! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enshittification https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enshittification
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

Buttons840 3y ago

I have mixed feelings about the word "enshitification". Like a politician shutting down thought and debate by simply labeling something "socialism", half the people using the word don't really know what it means, or at least, they don't know the original meaning. The word comes to be fake form of intellectual sophistication. A politician says the word and people think "oh, he knows the fancy word, he must be right", and thought ends, further discussion is difficult because nobody would dare speak in defense of something after it has been labeled. Just hearing the word raises certain peoples blood pressure 10 points and causes them to raise their voice. And yet, I'm happy to see the good guys play psyops for a change. Like the world "socialism", "enshitification" will originally mean a specific social phenomenon, but most people will come to use it as a catch-all word for all bad corporate behavior and it will shut down thought and just hearing the world will rile people up to fight against the evil corporations. And I'm okay with that; words have power and, again, I'm glad to see words being invented to help the common people organize.

malfist 3y ago
All it is is a fun sounding word for "rent-seeking"
- Buttons840 3y ago
  It's supposed to refer to a company's priorities shifting away from the customer's, "rent seeking" is instead about profiting from owning limited resources. They are different things.
  - malfist 3y ago
    Fair point. There is more nuance than just rent seeking.
- ajcp 3y ago
  Sounds lazy and crass to me. Instead of a word meant to accurately convey a concept it's meant to broadly convey a concept and ones feelings on it in the same breath; much like the term "woke". I'd rather use something around a historical event that can also be used to help understand a concept through allegory, like "Dutch disease", or "cargo cult". Those are fun.
  - TylerE 3y ago
    You think "rent seeking" is crass and "enshitification" isn't? I know which one I would say in polite company.
    - ajcp 3y ago
      You misunderstood me. The subject of his statement, the "fun sounding word", that I don't think is fun sounding is "enshitification".
  - malfist 3y ago
    "Fun" is subjective and we're free to disagree, neither of us is any more right than the other. I think it's crass nature gives it a sort of charm and really gets the point across.

TylerE 3y ago

Please no.

readyplayernull 3y ago
To cancel, please read these retroactive revenue terms and hit "I accept, thank you, and sign me up for Prime"...

raytopia 3y ago

It's honestly a great word. Describes the decay of so many platforms/tools so well.

robotnikman 3y ago

I hope so, to make more people aware of the phenomenon and the types of companies which practice it.

shmatt 3y ago

I think we need to decide on its meaning first. Most people these days use it as a death mark. Except the original op-ed often quoted used Meta, Uber, TikTok and Google - companies who make billions of clean profit per quarter, and more profits than they ever have, as examples Enshitification = more profits is unfortunately correct in my mind, but most people use it with a much different meaning. I don't think Unity is going to break all profit records soon

dgunay 3y ago
It's not the actual profitability of the move that's important, it's the motive. Enshittification comes from the ever-expanding _desire_ for profit. At some point the golden goose is killed to make next quarter's goals. Just so happens it was killed immediately in this case.
ncallaway 3y ago
Enshitification is when you make a product worse for the users with the goal of increasing profit. It may work. It may work in the short term, but cause collapse in the long term. It may fail in the short term. All are enshitification. There are two keys elements in my mind: - the product gets worse - in an attempt to increase profit
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]

robocat 3y ago

Cory Doctorow coined it to mean something different from how it is now used: Here is how platforms die: First, they are good to their users; then they abuse their users to make things better for their business customers; finally, they abuse those business customers to claw back all the value for themselves. Then, they die. I call this enshittification. It now means something like "the process where products or services become worse as a vendor tries to make them more profitable". Cory's definition doesn't really apply to B2B transactions (e.g. the word makes no sense for RedHat especially given abundance of other distros).

wilburTheDog 3y ago
I don't see that much of a difference between those two definitions. Cory's explanation was more specific, but it still referred to a service taking steps to be more profitable and in the process making the experience shittier for users and business customers.
015a 3y ago
Look at Enshitification through the lens that its basically just Inflation localized to a single company. When companies are poorly managed, they die. Except: now enters awesomely sophisticated Financial Engineering, enabling companies to metastasize far longer than the market alone would allow them. Take out debt; venture funding; unsupported valuations; high expectations; market ebbs and flows; you can fly a Cessna at 70mph just fine, but a jet going that slow crashes. Unity was running $200M in losses on $500M in revenue, per quarter. And they've never been profitable (since going public). A government can safely print money if it has the economic growth and tax base to support it; but if it doesn't have that, over enough time, you get: Inflation. The bill always comes due. Enshitification is just company-localized inflation after unsupportable financial engineering. There are really good examples in Doctorow's original piece; most of them actually cover the more-common stagflationary effect, but stagflation is just inflation through a different lens. It really doesn't have much to do with B2B versus B2C; its intimately related to attempts toward increasing profit margins, but the critical piece is the path the company walked to get there; and, in the most severe cases, the fact that they should have stopped walking and died three miles back. Or, maybe Doctorow would disagree with all of that. But that's the fun part of inventing such a meme-able, excellent term; it outgrows you!

yieldcrv 3y ago

this is the only forum I see it on so even databrokers saw that word and were like "nah"