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Big Tech and "captive audience venues" -- Cory Doctorow
https://pluralistic.net/2025/03/28/street-pricing/#sportball-analogiesEnshittification is what you get when tech companies, run by the common-or-garden mediocre sociopaths who end up at the top of most businesses, are unshackled from any consequence for indulging their worst, greediest impulses:
https://pluralistic.net/2025/01/20/capitalist-unrealism/#praxis
The reason Facebook was once a nice place to hang out and talk with your friends and isn't anymore is that Mark Zuckerberg is no longer disciplined by competitors like Instagram (which he bought) nor by regulators (whom he captured), nor by interoperable tech like ad-blockers and alternative clients (which he uses IP law to destroy) nor by his own workforce (who have become disposable thanks to workforce supply catching up with demand). It used to be that Mark Zuckerberg couldn't really move the enshittification lever in the Facebook C-suite because these disciplining forces gummed it up. He had to worry about losing users, or about users installing alternative technology, or about regulators hitting him hard enough to hurt, or about workplace revolts. Now, he doesn't have to worry about these things, so he's indulging the impulses that he's had since the earliest days in his Harvard dorm, when he was a mere larval incel cooking up an online service to help him rate the fuckability of his female classmates.
When we had defenses, Mark Zuckerberg had to respect them. Now that we're defenseless, he's shameless. He's insatiable. He will devour us to the marrow.
When I'm explaining enshittification to normies, I often make comparisons to other places where you can't escape like airports and sports stadiums: "Facebook can afford to abuse you once they have you locked for the same reason that water costs $7/bottle on the other side of the airport TSA checkpoint." It's an extremely apt comparison, as you can verify for yourself by reading "Shakedown at the Snack Counter: The Case for Street Pricing," a new report from the Groundwork Collective:
https://groundworkcollaborative.org/work/street-pricing/
. . .
https://pluralistic.net/2025/01/20/capitalist-unrealism/#praxis
The reason Facebook was once a nice place to hang out and talk with your friends and isn't anymore is that Mark Zuckerberg is no longer disciplined by competitors like Instagram (which he bought) nor by regulators (whom he captured), nor by interoperable tech like ad-blockers and alternative clients (which he uses IP law to destroy) nor by his own workforce (who have become disposable thanks to workforce supply catching up with demand). It used to be that Mark Zuckerberg couldn't really move the enshittification lever in the Facebook C-suite because these disciplining forces gummed it up. He had to worry about losing users, or about users installing alternative technology, or about regulators hitting him hard enough to hurt, or about workplace revolts. Now, he doesn't have to worry about these things, so he's indulging the impulses that he's had since the earliest days in his Harvard dorm, when he was a mere larval incel cooking up an online service to help him rate the fuckability of his female classmates.
When we had defenses, Mark Zuckerberg had to respect them. Now that we're defenseless, he's shameless. He's insatiable. He will devour us to the marrow.
When I'm explaining enshittification to normies, I often make comparisons to other places where you can't escape like airports and sports stadiums: "Facebook can afford to abuse you once they have you locked for the same reason that water costs $7/bottle on the other side of the airport TSA checkpoint." It's an extremely apt comparison, as you can verify for yourself by reading "Shakedown at the Snack Counter: The Case for Street Pricing," a new report from the Groundwork Collective:
https://groundworkcollaborative.org/work/street-pricing/
. . .