Don't use "enshittification" use "platform decay" | Hacker News Reader

Don't use "enshittification" use "platform decay"

9 pointssoniman16 comments

Cory Doctorow's attempt to brand "platform decay" as "enshittification" is polluting the english language with an ugly and coarsening word. Instead of the self-exemplifying "enshittifying" use "platform decay" which is immediately intelligible.

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Platforms decay in a lot of ways. Doctorow was describing a particular cycle, closely tied to a particular funding model. But even free platforms can decay -- look at the way individual Usenet groups would rise and fall.

Doctorow chose an arresting choice of word, and perhaps it's sad that it drags us further along the euphemism treadmill (or in this case, dysphemism treadmill). But "platform decay" really doesn't capture what he was getting at, either.

For the context, the latest article on this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41277484

Nah, enshittification is a way better word. Platform decay sounds too natural, like a tree falling in a forest.

It's like when the platform itself tries its hand at shitposting. When the software becomes shitware. Not so much a passive voice, but an active somebody-threw-it-down-the-shitter kind of vibe.

That’s great.

I’ll be consulting with Doctorow on how to get more shock value words with ‘fuck’, ‘shit’, ‘cunt’ into English dictionaries for the next generation to learn and say.

If you don't like the word, you're free to use something else.

I won't — "enshittification" is an extremely precise word that captures exactly what's going on with products, services, companies, and many other entities.

Platform decay can happen all by itself, enshittification is the result of a person or system, the enshittifier, which takes action to reduce things like quailty & value.

Enshittification does not apply to platforms only. It applies to products, services, companies alike. Even beloved foods and snacks. Quality nosedives, people abandon the product, MBAs act all surprised "how? why would consumer turn their nose to our more expensive, shittier, new "improved" taste offering"?

The wikipedia article for enshittification is only about platforms because the word applies specifically to how networks grow and are monetized. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enshittification

I agree.

I complained about this in the past.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39489594

Platform decay is a much better word and makes sense.

Even as I type this ‘enshittification’ word my device wants to autocorrect it, I don’t care if it’s purposely made for shock value, I wish ‘enshittification’ was never coined or added to any dictionary nor should be ‘word of the year’.

Again, should this word continue to permeate in the English vocabulary, people will be saying it on the radio, TV where by law swearing is not allowed to be broadcast.

All it takes is a freudian slip.

> Platform decay is a much better word and makes sense.

But it's too narrow in scope and omits the emphasis on the process being an intentional one intended to achieve specific goals.

> people will be saying it on the radio, TV where by law swearing is not allowed to be broadcast.

Depends where you live.

"British public no longer give a fig about on-air swearing, Ofcom says"

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2020/apr/03/british-public...

I'll keep using enshittification because that's what it is.

It's like Stallman calling Facebook users "useds" because they are used (https://stallman.org/facebook.html). Technically correct but doesn't help to spread the message.

Isn't the coining of bland euphemisms the enshittification of language? That's the way with euphemisms. We start with shell shock and end up with PTSD. (Thank you, George Carlin) What will we end up with after "platform decay?" Perhaps "business as usual?"

Enshittification is a perfectly cromulent word.

It's a shitty term for a shitty phenomenon. It's a good fit.

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