3 ms·

to be boring, the term "enshittification" was invented by one individual, recently, and has a specific meaning. it does not refer to "things just get worse" but

to be boring, the term "enshittification" was invented by one individual, recently, and has a specific meaning. it does not refer to "things just get worse" but describes a specific strategy adopted by corporations using the internet for commercial purposes.

LPisGood 9mo ago
Words change meaning as they are used. Especially negative words that may start rather specific tend to get used more generally until the specificity is lost.
- PaulDavisThe1st 9mo ago
  "enshittification" was invented within the last couple of years and its inventor is still alive. I'd normally be the first to agree with and push your point about language evolving, but it's not time to apply that to a neologism this young.
  - LPisGood 9mo ago
    I think the fact that it’s primarily an Internet related term that gets used a lot on the Internet, has something to do with the acceleration in the broadening of its meaning
- anigbrowl 9mo ago
  how about we put some effort into actually picking the correct words and not just handwaving everything? Especially since the whole topic of discussion here is 'internet research is increasingly less reliable because people just wrote/publish any old BS for clicks.'
  - LPisGood 9mo ago
    I don’t think it’s necessarily handwaving. I don’t think anyone has a monopoly on the way language is used and broadening terms is a very natural thing that happens as language evolves
    - PaulDavisThe1st 9mo ago
      we already had "it's getting shittier every day". no need to lose the specific meaning of "enshittification".
pdonis 9mo ago
> a specific strategy adopted by corporations using the internet for commercial purposes. Isn't that what's driving the pollution of the Internet by LLMs?
- PaulDavisThe1st 9mo ago
  No. The specific strategy is not about using LLMs or polluting the internet. Enshittification is ... ah screw it, let's turn to wikipedia: > Enshittification, also known as crapification and platform decay, is a process in which two-sided online products and services decline in quality over time. Initially, vendors create high-quality offerings to attract users, then they degrade those offerings to better serve business customers, and finally degrade their services to both users and business customers to maximize short-term profits for shareholders.
  - ninjagoo 9mo ago
    Feels like there is a case to be made here that the decline of The Internet rather precisely fits those definitions, with the exception that it is a collective of those products and services undergoing enshittification, since high-quality internet-based products/services no longer exist in quantity. Also see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enshittification#Impact https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enshittification#Impact which talks of the broadening of the usage of that term.
    - PaulDavisThe1st 9mo ago
      > high-quality internet-based products/services no longer exist in quantity. asserted without evidence and likely false.
    - adrian_b 9mo ago
      There still are some high-quality internet-based products/services, but the most important of them are not exactly commercial, or they are even illegal, e.g. various digital libraries with old publications, archive.org, Wikipedia, Anna’s Archive, etc. Also there are many online shops that are the best option for purchasing various things. The greatest decline is in the search engines, which not only are overwhelmed by sites with fake content, but they generate fake content themselves, in the form of stupid answers that are offered instead of the real search results, whether you want them or not. If you know precisely the Web sites that you want to use, it is still OK, but when you search something unknown, it has become horrible.
krapp 9mo ago
>to be boring, the term "enshittification" was invented by one individual, recently, and has a specific meaning. it does not refer to "things just get worse" It literally started meaning that hours after it was first posted to HN and being used. Sorry, that's just how language works. Enshittification got enshittified. Deal with it and move on.
- PaulDavisThe1st 9mo ago
  that's literally meaningless. also ahistorical, both in that this is not what happened hours after it was first posted to HN (which was months after it was originated), and also in that "things become shittier" was and is still a perfectly common expression, the source of Doctorow's neologism and much closer to what the loose use of it is trying to get at.
  - krapp 9mo ago
    >that's literally meaningless. also ahistorical, both in that this is not what happened hours after it was first posted to HN (which was months after it was originated) Maybe it wasn't literally hours, but it was really fast. I remember noting how quickly people began to complain about it being used "improperly." The earliest instance I could find was this thread[0] from 2023 where user Gunax complained about it. I couldn't find an earlier reference in Algolia, it probably exists but I honestly don't care enough to put in the effort. [0]https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36297336 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36297336 >and also in that "things become shittier" was and is still a perfectly common expression ...perfectly encapsulated and described by the term "enshittification." Which is why people use it for that now. It's more descriptive in the general sense than it is as a specific term of art. You're complaining that a word that means "the process of turning to shit" is being used to describe "the process of turning to shit." What did people expect to happen? If you want to keep it as a precise and technical term of art, keep calling it "platform decay." A shit joke is not a technical, precise term of art. You can be as much of a prescriptivist crank about this as you want, it doesn't matter. "Enshittification" now refers to any process by which things "turn to shit."
    - 9mo ago
ninjagoo 9mo ago
Having thought about your note some more, perhaps this would be a better encapsulation of what I was trying to say: The consumer internet has become platformized, and the dominant platforms are going through enshittification: early user subsidy, then advertiser/seller favoritism, now rent extraction that is degrading outcomes for everyone.

LPisGood 9mo ago

Words change meaning as they are used. Especially negative words that may start rather specific tend to get used more generally until the specificity is lost.

PaulDavisThe1st 9mo ago
"enshittification" was invented within the last couple of years and its inventor is still alive. I'd normally be the first to agree with and push your point about language evolving, but it's not time to apply that to a neologism this young.
- LPisGood 9mo ago
  I think the fact that it’s primarily an Internet related term that gets used a lot on the Internet, has something to do with the acceleration in the broadening of its meaning
anigbrowl 9mo ago
how about we put some effort into actually picking the correct words and not just handwaving everything? Especially since the whole topic of discussion here is 'internet research is increasingly less reliable because people just wrote/publish any old BS for clicks.'
- LPisGood 9mo ago
  I don’t think it’s necessarily handwaving. I don’t think anyone has a monopoly on the way language is used and broadening terms is a very natural thing that happens as language evolves
  - PaulDavisThe1st 9mo ago
    we already had "it's getting shittier every day". no need to lose the specific meaning of "enshittification".

pdonis 9mo ago

> a specific strategy adopted by corporations using the internet for commercial purposes. Isn't that what's driving the pollution of the Internet by LLMs?

PaulDavisThe1st 9mo ago
No. The specific strategy is not about using LLMs or polluting the internet. Enshittification is ... ah screw it, let's turn to wikipedia: > Enshittification, also known as crapification and platform decay, is a process in which two-sided online products and services decline in quality over time. Initially, vendors create high-quality offerings to attract users, then they degrade those offerings to better serve business customers, and finally degrade their services to both users and business customers to maximize short-term profits for shareholders.
- ninjagoo 9mo ago
  Feels like there is a case to be made here that the decline of The Internet rather precisely fits those definitions, with the exception that it is a collective of those products and services undergoing enshittification, since high-quality internet-based products/services no longer exist in quantity. Also see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enshittification#Impact https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enshittification#Impact which talks of the broadening of the usage of that term.
  - PaulDavisThe1st 9mo ago
    > high-quality internet-based products/services no longer exist in quantity. asserted without evidence and likely false.
  - adrian_b 9mo ago
    There still are some high-quality internet-based products/services, but the most important of them are not exactly commercial, or they are even illegal, e.g. various digital libraries with old publications, archive.org, Wikipedia, Anna’s Archive, etc. Also there are many online shops that are the best option for purchasing various things. The greatest decline is in the search engines, which not only are overwhelmed by sites with fake content, but they generate fake content themselves, in the form of stupid answers that are offered instead of the real search results, whether you want them or not. If you know precisely the Web sites that you want to use, it is still OK, but when you search something unknown, it has become horrible.

krapp 9mo ago

>to be boring, the term "enshittification" was invented by one individual, recently, and has a specific meaning. it does not refer to "things just get worse" It literally started meaning that hours after it was first posted to HN and being used. Sorry, that's just how language works. Enshittification got enshittified. Deal with it and move on.

PaulDavisThe1st 9mo ago
that's literally meaningless. also ahistorical, both in that this is not what happened hours after it was first posted to HN (which was months after it was originated), and also in that "things become shittier" was and is still a perfectly common expression, the source of Doctorow's neologism and much closer to what the loose use of it is trying to get at.
- krapp 9mo ago
  >that's literally meaningless. also ahistorical, both in that this is not what happened hours after it was first posted to HN (which was months after it was originated) Maybe it wasn't literally hours, but it was really fast. I remember noting how quickly people began to complain about it being used "improperly." The earliest instance I could find was this thread[0] from 2023 where user Gunax complained about it. I couldn't find an earlier reference in Algolia, it probably exists but I honestly don't care enough to put in the effort. [0]https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36297336 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36297336 >and also in that "things become shittier" was and is still a perfectly common expression ...perfectly encapsulated and described by the term "enshittification." Which is why people use it for that now. It's more descriptive in the general sense than it is as a specific term of art. You're complaining that a word that means "the process of turning to shit" is being used to describe "the process of turning to shit." What did people expect to happen? If you want to keep it as a precise and technical term of art, keep calling it "platform decay." A shit joke is not a technical, precise term of art. You can be as much of a prescriptivist crank about this as you want, it doesn't matter. "Enshittification" now refers to any process by which things "turn to shit."
  - 9mo ago

ninjagoo 9mo ago

Having thought about your note some more, perhaps this would be a better encapsulation of what I was trying to say: The consumer internet has become platformized, and the dominant platforms are going through enshittification: early user subsidy, then advertiser/seller favoritism, now rent extraction that is degrading outcomes for everyone.