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I think GitHub was designed for getting work done, but since Microsoft bought them, they are slowly moving into enshitification territory. For example, they hav

I think GitHub was designed for getting work done, but since Microsoft bought them, they are slowly moving into enshitification territory. For example, they have a homepage that is just a wanna be social media feed and the file contents pages have ads for Copilot and in general there are ads for VSCode and blah blah. It was pretty good, but it's going to get much worse. :-)

BaculumMeumEst 3y ago
I disagree on enshittification. The only practical change I've noticed in github usage is the improvements to code search, which has been unbelievably useful. It gives me the ability to do complex searches to find real usages of even the most obscure libraries, examples of poorly documented configuration files, and more, from any public repository hosted anywhere on github. That capability comes from both the large body of source code available to the platform, and the large amount of engineering work put into that particular feature. It is one of many usability benefits is not available anywhere else.
- earthboundkid 3y ago
  The new code search stuff is very good, yes. "Enshitification" is rapidly becoming a meaningless term of disapproval, but it had a precise definition when Doctorow coined it: > This is enshittification: surpluses are first directed to users; then, once they're locked in, surpluses go to suppliers; then once they're locked in, the surplus is handed to shareholders and the platform becomes a useless pile of shit. GitHub directed a huge surplus to developers compared to what came before it. Microsoft bought it and worked on furthering the lock in with Actions, and now the ship is slowly moving towards wringing the extra value out of us. It's not at the bottom of the hill yet, but it's definitely on the slope. They already have ads for themselves on it. The ads are just going to slowly creep outwards as necessary to produce a smooth revenue curve.
- follower 3y ago
  > improvements to code search The enshittification related to this feature includes: (1) Code search is no longer available without being logged in to GitHub--even if the search is restricted to a single repository. (2) This is compounded by GitHub "recently" started requiring additional steps in the authentication process for certain types of accounts without providing any option to opt-out (e.g. by choosing to restrict the account to being read-only/search-only/issue-only going forward). There is no dialogue, you accept whatever new restrictions/requirements are put in place or you lose access to the account which you were "convinced" to use to contribute & interact with FLOSS projects over the past N years. (What other choice do you have? Convincing every single FLOSS project to move from GitHub to...? Good luck!)
boredtofears 3y ago
I agree that there has been some enshitification (like awards, which I immediately turned off) but I like the activity feed. If I follow a developer, it's because I'm interested in what they're working on, and often I'll be exposed to something new in a different language or solving a different problem that I haven't ever tried. I actually think its one of the cooler things that is fairly unique to github.

BaculumMeumEst 3y ago

I disagree on enshittification. The only practical change I've noticed in github usage is the improvements to code search, which has been unbelievably useful. It gives me the ability to do complex searches to find real usages of even the most obscure libraries, examples of poorly documented configuration files, and more, from any public repository hosted anywhere on github. That capability comes from both the large body of source code available to the platform, and the large amount of engineering work put into that particular feature. It is one of many usability benefits is not available anywhere else.

earthboundkid 3y ago
The new code search stuff is very good, yes. "Enshitification" is rapidly becoming a meaningless term of disapproval, but it had a precise definition when Doctorow coined it: > This is enshittification: surpluses are first directed to users; then, once they're locked in, surpluses go to suppliers; then once they're locked in, the surplus is handed to shareholders and the platform becomes a useless pile of shit. GitHub directed a huge surplus to developers compared to what came before it. Microsoft bought it and worked on furthering the lock in with Actions, and now the ship is slowly moving towards wringing the extra value out of us. It's not at the bottom of the hill yet, but it's definitely on the slope. They already have ads for themselves on it. The ads are just going to slowly creep outwards as necessary to produce a smooth revenue curve.
follower 3y ago
> improvements to code search The enshittification related to this feature includes: (1) Code search is no longer available without being logged in to GitHub--even if the search is restricted to a single repository. (2) This is compounded by GitHub "recently" started requiring additional steps in the authentication process for certain types of accounts without providing any option to opt-out (e.g. by choosing to restrict the account to being read-only/search-only/issue-only going forward). There is no dialogue, you accept whatever new restrictions/requirements are put in place or you lose access to the account which you were "convinced" to use to contribute & interact with FLOSS projects over the past N years. (What other choice do you have? Convincing every single FLOSS project to move from GitHub to...? Good luck!)

boredtofears 3y ago

I agree that there has been some enshitification (like awards, which I immediately turned off) but I like the activity feed. If I follow a developer, it's because I'm interested in what they're working on, and often I'll be exposed to something new in a different language or solving a different problem that I haven't ever tried. I actually think its one of the cooler things that is fairly unique to github.