"Enshittification" Isn't Real
a16z.news
a16z.news
Not worth the too-long read.
> And if you don’t like it, uninstall them, and move on. Vote with your thumbs, as they say.
I do this, but it’s not like there is actual choice. These platforms require users to function. If I quit Instagram and decide I want to use Pixelfed instead… ok, now I can’t see anything from the people I know and they can’t see any of my stuff. So people have to care enough about me to use a separate site just to deal with my idealism.
The more pragmatic approach, which I end up employing, is to just not use any of this stuff at all. So Facebook, Instagram, Reddit, etc… quit them all… and they get replaced with a bunch of empty time. When everyone is sitting around and scrolling, I’m just staring off into the distance, because nothing interesting is on my phone. Maybe this is a good thing, but with all these sites enshitifying in the same ways, and the small sites being small and uninteresting to the masses, it’s a false choice.
A person needs to be pretty hard headed to choose nothing over something, while also dealing with the jeers of family and peers for making things more difficult by avoiding these platforms.
I was the first in my family to quit using Amazon Wishlists due to their enshitification. My dad was so upset he wrote a letter to Jeff Bezos. As the enshitification got worse, they have slowly started using the new service I’m on in addition to Amazon, but only when they hit a wall. It’s taken about 5 years just to get to that point. And this is a use case where everyone having an account doesn’t matter as much (although it still does a little).
See also: The Innovator's Dilemma