I do know that Cory Doctorow used it specifically to refer to the dynamics of two sided marketplaces. I chose to use it the way it’s more commonly used, to refer to the general enshittifying pressures of late stage capitalism, to get my point across.
Choosing to use a word incorrectly isn’t any better (and it’s not even the way it’s usually misused, so even more confusing). It does exemplify why it’s such an awful word in general though, so that’s helpful in some small way, I guess.
The answers to both questions is that most everyone on the internet only use it to call something shitty, because that’s the only part of the word they recognize. But the Internet Smartman, Cory Doctorow, coined it, so they think they sound clever using it to call things shitty while instead they are just part of the problem. The leveraging of consolidated power by internet titans to squeeze society for every penny and resource they can get is too important of an issue for that to be the word for it.
If something is shitty they’ll call it shitty. Enshittification is inherently used to refer to a process of getting shittier. And 99% of the time people are referring to capitalism / corporate greed as that process.
Enshittification is inherently used to refer to a process of getting shittier.
Right, that’s the problem - that’s not what it means, but that’s what it looks like it means, and the misuse dilutes the word to be functionally useless to point out the actual and critically pressing problem is was imprudently coined for.
Again, that’s not what Cory Doctorow coined it to mean. However, the pressures that enshittify two sided marketplaces can be abstracted to general capitalist pressures that push you to squeeze profitability at every opportunity, even to the detriment of your customers.
Two sided marketplaces often have the dynamics of creating a massive sticky force that prevents competition or movement, which enables their exploitative behaviour, but non marketplace companies also find ways of creating that stickiness through other anti-competitive means, and the use that stickiness to make their products as shitty as possible to squeeze every penny they can put of people.
I think that Doctorow’s points about two sided marketplaces are extremely useful because of their specificity, they can lead directly to specific legislation, but the term of enshittification is rapidly expanding to be used more generally.
It tracks that you don’t even know what the word means.
Are you enshitting me right now?
I do know that Cory Doctorow used it specifically to refer to the dynamics of two sided marketplaces. I chose to use it the way it’s more commonly used, to refer to the general enshittifying pressures of late stage capitalism, to get my point across.
Choosing to use a word incorrectly isn’t any better (and it’s not even the way it’s usually misused, so even more confusing). It does exemplify why it’s such an awful word in general though, so that’s helpful in some small way, I guess.
How do you think it’s most commonly misused?
Why is it awful? Because people have generalized its original specific meaning? Or because of the awfulness it represents?
The answers to both questions is that most everyone on the internet only use it to call something shitty, because that’s the only part of the word they recognize. But the Internet Smartman, Cory Doctorow, coined it, so they think they sound clever using it to call things shitty while instead they are just part of the problem. The leveraging of consolidated power by internet titans to squeeze society for every penny and resource they can get is too important of an issue for that to be the word for it.
If something is shitty they’ll call it shitty. Enshittification is inherently used to refer to a process of getting shittier. And 99% of the time people are referring to capitalism / corporate greed as that process.
Right, that’s the problem - that’s not what it means, but that’s what it looks like it means, and the misuse dilutes the word to be functionally useless to point out the actual and critically pressing problem is was imprudently coined for.
Again, that’s not what Cory Doctorow coined it to mean. However, the pressures that enshittify two sided marketplaces can be abstracted to general capitalist pressures that push you to squeeze profitability at every opportunity, even to the detriment of your customers.
Two sided marketplaces often have the dynamics of creating a massive sticky force that prevents competition or movement, which enables their exploitative behaviour, but non marketplace companies also find ways of creating that stickiness through other anti-competitive means, and the use that stickiness to make their products as shitty as possible to squeeze every penny they can put of people.
I think that Doctorow’s points about two sided marketplaces are extremely useful because of their specificity, they can lead directly to specific legislation, but the term of enshittification is rapidly expanding to be used more generally.