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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I hate Verizon (lemmy.today)

submitted 1 day ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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So my internet went out on Friday at 6am. Trying to navigate the Verizon website and app has been a pure hellscape, with repeated requests to revalidate using a PIN which is denied arbitrarally, causing call to drop. If you do manage to get a warm body, they put you on hold or transfer the call will inevitably drops causing one to start the whole process again. Finally, they said it was a router problem, which was only 6 months old and no longer compatible with their service. Finally got bounced back to Sales at 5PM, who ordered a new router for me and waived the recurring fee (either $400 for a new router or $18/month for something paid for many times over). Anyway, I went to pick up said new router at the location indicated only to find that they don't stock equipment and I have to drive another 4 miles to a nondescript store in a strip mall. I finally get home and try to self-install which bombs out, necessitating another aventure into their website/app hellscape. About 18 hours after the initial outage, I'm back in service. I've never run into a company who is so blantant in their desire to piss off their customers. If only there were viable alternatives in my area.

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 day ago

They blacklisted the bank account I used for auto-pay, claiming the funds were not there for auto pay last month. This is the first time this has ever happened mind you, as I only use this bank account to auto-pay Verizon, and I direct deposit twice the amount necessary into the account with every paycheck. I called the bank, who assured me that the funds had been there at the time, that there had been no transaction requesting the funds, and even sent me an email to confirm this. Verizon didn't care and would no longer let me use that bank account for auto pay. Nor would they permit me to add another bank account. This prevented me from receiving my $10 auto-pay "discount." They continued to harass me to setup auto pay to get a discount, mind you. After several conversations with their customer service, I payed off my devices, cancelled my tablet data plan, and then moved my number to Mint Mobile. It's $25 a month with 20GB of Data. I tether my tablet if I need to. I was paying Verizon like $175 a month. I couldn't be happier.