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>I just think it will die because everything else that was wonderful from 2009 or before already has Assuming this is true, what are the leading hypotheses? R

>I just think it will die because everything else that was wonderful from 2009 or before already has Assuming this is true, what are the leading hypotheses? Regression to the mean? Eternal September? I know everyone likes to talk about "enshittification", but what is the actual mechanism? Since this is HN, someone's going to say "capitalism", but "capitalism" doesn't explain why Google search results get worse or Facebook is too annoying.

Whoppertime 3y ago
Oh that's easy. Dotcom Boom and Bust ended one era of the web right around 9/11, and you get a weird era between 2001 and the release of the iPhone where there's a lot of content posted on Newgrounds or flash game portals like Miniclip. An era where people still got information from Magazines and got demo discs, and people were discouraged from sharing their real name or personal information online instead of being required to provide it in order to create an account. Steve Jobs refused to put Flash support in the iPhone justifying it through security reasons but the real reason being it undermined the walled garden and iPhone app marketplace, and Android didn't think it would be worth it either, leading to even Adobe dropping support in 2011 ending that chapter of the internet entirely. When 100% of your users access a website through a desktop computer you are going to design it one way. When half your users are mobile and half are desktop it's going to be designed a different way.
- 0xDEAFBEAD 3y ago
  That's honestly a really interesting point, I never thought about it but there was something magical about the Flash era
throwitaway222 3y ago
> capitalism not dismissing other points your making or questions you're asking, but what happens with search results is a phenomenon that's more or less related to monopoly power - so as they (Google) control more, the classical theories behind capitalism no longer hold. For example, they provide worse search, but there is no close second. Even if there is a close second, that "other guy" is unable to afford the 60+ billion Google is paying to other companies to make them the default.
- dragonwriter 3y ago
  What you think of as “the classical theories about capitalism” are after-the-fact rationalizations which reflect neither the motivation for the development of capitalism (class struggle between the mercantile class and the feudal aristocracy) nor its actual operation in the real world, and which were developed defensively in response to the original (and critical) theory about capitalism-as-an-existing-system, which absolutely does not cease to hold in the presence of monopoly, or view the emergence and maintenance of such a condition as aberrant.
- 0xDEAFBEAD 3y ago
  Competition is a double edged sword. More competition means businesses are liable to go bankrupt if they don't optimize for profit above all else, ethics be damned. Less competition means lazy monopolies. If you're anti-monopoly, it's hard to think of a bigger "lazy monopoly" than the government. There isn't a simple solution here.

Whoppertime 3y ago

Oh that's easy. Dotcom Boom and Bust ended one era of the web right around 9/11, and you get a weird era between 2001 and the release of the iPhone where there's a lot of content posted on Newgrounds or flash game portals like Miniclip. An era where people still got information from Magazines and got demo discs, and people were discouraged from sharing their real name or personal information online instead of being required to provide it in order to create an account. Steve Jobs refused to put Flash support in the iPhone justifying it through security reasons but the real reason being it undermined the walled garden and iPhone app marketplace, and Android didn't think it would be worth it either, leading to even Adobe dropping support in 2011 ending that chapter of the internet entirely. When 100% of your users access a website through a desktop computer you are going to design it one way. When half your users are mobile and half are desktop it's going to be designed a different way.

0xDEAFBEAD 3y ago
That's honestly a really interesting point, I never thought about it but there was something magical about the Flash era

throwitaway222 3y ago

> capitalism not dismissing other points your making or questions you're asking, but what happens with search results is a phenomenon that's more or less related to monopoly power - so as they (Google) control more, the classical theories behind capitalism no longer hold. For example, they provide worse search, but there is no close second. Even if there is a close second, that "other guy" is unable to afford the 60+ billion Google is paying to other companies to make them the default.

dragonwriter 3y ago
What you think of as “the classical theories about capitalism” are after-the-fact rationalizations which reflect neither the motivation for the development of capitalism (class struggle between the mercantile class and the feudal aristocracy) nor its actual operation in the real world, and which were developed defensively in response to the original (and critical) theory about capitalism-as-an-existing-system, which absolutely does not cease to hold in the presence of monopoly, or view the emergence and maintenance of such a condition as aberrant.
0xDEAFBEAD 3y ago
Competition is a double edged sword. More competition means businesses are liable to go bankrupt if they don't optimize for profit above all else, ethics be damned. Less competition means lazy monopolies. If you're anti-monopoly, it's hard to think of a bigger "lazy monopoly" than the government. There isn't a simple solution here.