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The PROBLEM with Capitalism - Smarter Every Day 316
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this post was submitted on 10 Aug 2026
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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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I haven't watched this video yet but I heard him talking about this project on a podcast recently and it was really interesting. It's basically impossible to manufacture something simple (and increasingly often, complex things too) in the US at a competitive price. Yes, he made a "better" grill scrubber completely in the USA, but it costs $60. Yes, it's totally BIFL but the market for people willing to pay that is probably not sustainable for anyone without the "free" marketing of a popular YouTube channel.
His last few years of videos has been a deep dive on manufacturing learning everything he can. Basically he's independently come to the conclusion that chasing profit and maximizing it at the expense of product quality and treating people right.
Him having a YouTube audience already definitely helps a lot but hes also not exactly explicitly advertising it, and even talks about how he doesn't want his science communication channel to become a scrubber advertising channel.
Absolutely. The interesting thing to me was the lack of institutional knowledge remaining in the US. For example, finding a machinist based in the US was one of his biggest challenges as most of them have retired. I think he was only able to locate one still in operation that could make the parts he needed.