this post was submitted on 29 Oct 2024
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Enshittification

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What is enshittification?

The phenomenon of online platforms gradually degrading the quality of their services, often by promoting advertisements and sponsored content, in order to increase profits. (Cory Doctorow, 2022, extracted from Wikitionary) source

The lifecycle of Big Internet

We discuss how predatory big tech platforms live and die by luring people in and then decaying for profit.

Embrace, extend and extinguish

We also discuss how naturally open technologies like the Fediverse can be susceptible to corporate takeovers, rugpulls and subsequent enshittification.

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Has YouTube experienced enshittification?

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[–] RandomVideos 7 points 3 days ago

Enshittification has 3 steps:

  1. Make a good platform for users
  2. Make the platform worse for users, but better for business customers
  3. Make the platform worse for users and business customers to maximize profits

Youtube is past the first step

In the comments for this post i have seen 3 explanations:

Boosting smaller youtubers, which would not make the platform worse for the users, meaning that it couldnt be part of the process

Boosting radical youtubers, which would make the platform worse for business customers, but not increase profits, meaning that it couldnt be part of the process

Making people click on videos more often, which goes against attempts to make people watch single videos for longer

This is just a terrible change, there is no overused word to describe it