Why "Enshittification" Is Macquarie Dictionary's Word of the Year

theguardian.com

2 pointsmetadat4 comments

I think there is a parallel way the user base evolves: at the beginning, users are selected for by their ability to recognize value, meaning only a small amount of knowledgeable, early adopers signs up; then (business) customers who are willing to spend real money dominate; finally, people who heard about it from friends dominate. The critical thing is that last group sometimes entirely fails to understand the value of a product, is entirely uninterested in being a "power user," etc, and is happy to keep paying a small fee for fairly low quality.

Ugh. I've only ever seen this word in HN headlines, and I groan each time I do.

Enshittification is also known as Platform Decay:

https://www.npr.org/2024/01/04/1222040458/amazon-google-face...

It's interesting from the perspective of capalistic economic systems theory, because the system exerts pressure and forces this unfortunate product development cycle.

Thank you -- "platform decay" is so much more intuitive. In much the same way, I've always preferred the term "enabling behavior" to "co-dependency" (though, of course, there is nothing crass about "co-dependency").

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