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You're very close to describing the "enshittification" process. Things start out good quality, high effort. Useful. Then once they achieve a certain amount of
by bluefirebrand 3y ago
You're very close to describing the "enshittification" process.
Things start out good quality, high effort. Useful.
Then once they achieve a certain amount of inertia they start cutting stuff out. Adding new tiers of payment plans, or injecting advertising into existing plans. Lowering caps. Whatever else they can get away with to cut costs but keep your money.
But people have invested in them by that point. Invested enough that changing off is painful and potentially expensive. They want to barrier to leave to be high, even as they give you less reason to stay using their product.
- saltcured 3y agoNot sure you even need this product cycle to explain the parent poster's observation. What I see here is your basic Tragedy of the Commons at multiple levels. Consumers adopt the new thing to disadvantage their peers, who then have to do the same, to the detriment of all. And the vendors are doing the same thing. This whole thread reminds me how much "tech" as a meme has come to conflate technology and business. People don't even seem to recognize that "move fast and break things" expressed a business philosophy, not some fundamental truth of technology, R&D, or science.