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Comment by keiferski | Hacker News Reader

It has nothing to do with being pompous, and this attitude is precisely why none of these solutions will ever go anywhere.

If you want laws to be passed, you need senators and judges and legal scholars to engage with your ideas. None of those people are going to take the idea of “enshittification” seriously with a name like that, nor are they going to put their name on a bill referencing it. There are plenty of examples of citizen activism that lead to a bill, and these bills often are name directly after the activist/movement name.

I’ll say it again: if you want political change, accept that you need to care about the names of concepts.

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They can use a different name. If someone in a position to push this really felt that advancing the cause really needed a rename they could come up with a name today, get consensus tomorrow and move on with life.

This is a non issue

This is tone policing. "Why are you being so impolite about your abuse?"

The terminology is irrelevant. Senators and judges won't deal with this because they're being paid not to, not because there's a rude word in the name.

Government itself has been enshittified, clearly and comprehensively.

No, it’s just basic communication skills. Which seems to be a tough ask these days.

Cory Doctorow suggests using "platform decay" if the term enshittification bothers you.

https://pluralistic.net/2024/10/14/pearl-clutching/

"just use one of the dozens of words that failed to gain public attention over the past 25 years".

I've already written about 5 comments in this thread explaining why it's a poor choice of a word from a pragmatic point of view.

I'm also not super interested in his rant about people criticizing his approach are just "pearl clutchers."

> I've already written about 5 comments in this thread explaining [my opinion].

Other people have written more comments in this thread explaining a different opinion. It doesn't really matter how many times you've explained yours. For what it's worth, I think an ancestor comment to this one poignantly addresses a particular perspective:

> The terminology is irrelevant. Senators and judges won't deal with this because they're being paid not to, not because there's a rude word in the name.

It might help to tailor your arguments to this perspective as I suspect it is the most common one. I also get the feeling that's how Doctorow figures it's "pearl clutching": it's less about the "bad word" and more about the "profits".

Of course it has to do with appearances, hence "pompous and serious", requiring a term change just so it can be taken "seriously" because the portmanteau sounds too crass or colloquial. It's all appearances, the underlying concept if it's called "enshittification" or "rot", "decay", etc. is the exact same, it's just that "enshittification" sounds too crass for a class of people to be allowed to use in their serious business.

It's not about communication, since for communication sake it's much more easily understood by a larger cohort of people if colloquial terms are used, it's simply the need for seriously-sounding jargon to be taken seriously, which is just a play in appearances.

If you want political change you need political action, the name of concepts is just one avenue for that.

...for a class of people to be allowed to use in their serious business.

Yes, and that class of people are the ones actually making the laws. The ones that could solve the problems discussed in the article (like nursing apps) legally.

Which is, I assume, actually the point.

The easiest answer to your point here is "says who?"

Seriously, can you back up this claim?

Sure - take a look at every major piece of legislation passed in the last century. Notice anything about their names? The Patriot Act. The New Deal. They are all pretty "positive" names without any sort of vulgarity or negative connotation.

Then also notice the total lack of major legislation with vulgar, offensive, or immature words in the name.

The ACE Act. Actively Curtail Enshittification.

It's all political theater and a real political will to end enshittification will end it. That is what's missing, not a positive-sounding name.

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