• SSTF@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    Hold up, “enshitification” is just turning into a buzzword now.

    Enshitification has from the beginning described a service or product which is first released one way, and then over time is made worse for the users in ways designed to squeeze more profit out of them.

    Without some serious mental gymnastics, forced stealth sections tend to just be bad design choices. Not every bad thing is the same kind of bad thing.

    • Mossy Feathers (She/They)@pawb.social
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      1 month ago

      Without some serious mental gymnastics, forced stealth sections tend to just be bad design choices. Not every bad thing is the same kind of bad thing.

      While I disagree with your comment on the definition of “enshittification”, I agree that forced stealth sections are just bad design. I remember those have been a thing for a long time now, and before then it was ice levels.

      • SSTF@lemmy.world
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        1 month ago

        Wikipedia isn’t the end all, but in this case I think it provides a working definition.

        Enshittification (alternately, crapification and platform decay) is a pattern in which online products and services decline in quality. Initially, vendors create high-quality offerings to attract users, then they degrade those offerings to better serve business customers, and finally degrade their services to users and business customers to maximize profits for shareholders.

        • Mossy Feathers (She/They)@pawb.social
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          1 month ago

          I was reading your definition as being too specific. Imo enshittification is any time the relative average quality of a class of products or services decreases, either due to increased prices or decreased quality at the same price. This can be applied to a specific product or service, but can also describe a decline in quality across an industry.

          • Ashtear@lemm.ee
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            1 month ago

            The term is more specific than that, referring to runaway capitalism being the cause. Otherwise you’d just use something simpler like “worsening.”

            The original context comes from a 2022 blog post.