52
submitted 2 months ago by jballs@sh.itjust.works to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] theparadox@lemmy.world 5 points 2 months ago

To be a pedantic asshole, technically enshittification is meant to refer to online services that follow an inevitable process of...

  1. Attract users/customers with high quality services/products to create a captive/dependent user base.
  2. Attract business customers (ex. advertisers or businesses that can benefit from access to the user base in some way) by offering them high value services by fucking over your captive user base create a captive/dependent busiess customer base.
  3. Fuck over your captive business customers to increase your own profit.

Admittedly, I see enshittification used colloquially meaning basically "business found a way to fuck over its customers more than usual to increase their profit". Perhaps that is what you mean by "General enshittification".

[-] Cowbee@lemmy.ml 1 points 2 months ago

Admittedly, I see enshittification used colloquially meaning basically "business found a way to fuck over its customers more than usual to increase their profit". Perhaps that is what you mean by "General enshittification".

Correct, because the "traditional" definition you outlined with the 3 points is ultimately the same process with the same mechanics and same vectors of force.

[-] theparadox@lemmy.world 1 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

the same process

It doesn't necessarily involve the middle man, who is ultimately the bigger fish that enshittifiers are looking to land. I think that's relevant. Enshittification's process involves capturing both a "retail" user base and a business user base and then squeezing both.

Edit. Enshittification is layered and more specific to industries and markets that are not inherently profitable. It starts with seed money being burned for that initial user base and fucks over everyone up and down the chain because the business is not really profitable otherwise. Skimp/shrinkflation is more about squeezing more profit than you are already making.

this post was submitted on 04 Sep 2024
52 points (100.0% liked)

Asklemmy

43866 readers
1300 users here now

A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions

Search asklemmy ๐Ÿ”

If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!

  1. Open-ended question
  2. Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
  3. Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
  4. Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
  5. An actual topic of discussion

Looking for support?

Looking for a community?

~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_A@discuss.tchncs.de~

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS