We’re living in the #enshittocene, in which the forces of enshittification are turning everything from our cars to our streaming services to our dishwashers into thoroughly enshittifified piles of shit. Call it the Great Enshittening:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/09/lead-me-not-into-temptation/#chamberlain

If you’d like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here’s a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/13/solidarity-forever/#tech-unions

1/

  • Cory Doctorow@mamot.frOP
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    1
    ·
    10 months ago

    But the less competition there is in a sector, the easier it is for the remaining companies to capture their regulators. Say goodbye to that second constraint.

    But there’s another constraint - another one that’s unique to technology, and genuinely exceptional. That’s #SelfHelp. Digital technology is infinitely flexible, which is why managers can twiddle the business logic and change the rules on a dime.

    25/

    • Cory Doctorow@mamot.frOP
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      10 months ago

      But it’s a double-edged sword. Users can twiddle back. The universal nature of digital products means it’s always technically possible to disenshittify the enshittified products in your world. Mercedes wants to charge you rent on your accelerator pedal via a monthly subscription? Just mod the car by toggling the “subscription paid” bit and get the accelerator for free:

      https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/24/rent-to-pwn/#kitt-is-a-demon

      26/

      • Cory Doctorow@mamot.frOP
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        10 months ago

        HP tricks you into installing a “security update” that sneakily disables your printer’s ability to recognize and use third-party ink? Just roll back the operating system and you won’t be forced to spend $10,000/gallon to print out your boarding passes and shopping lists:

        https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/11/ink-stained-wretches-battle-soul-digital-freedom-taking-place-inside-your-printer

        Self-help - AKA #AdversarialInteroperability - isn’t just a way to override the greedy choices of corporate sadists. It’s a way to hold those sadists in check. It’s a constraint.

        27/

        • Cory Doctorow@mamot.frOP
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          10 months ago

          Imagine a boardroom where someone says, “I calculate that if we make our ads 25% more invasive and obnoxious, we can eke out 2% more in ad-revenue.” If you think of a business as a transhuman colony organism that exists to maximize shareholder value, this is a no-brainer.

          28/

          • Cory Doctorow@mamot.frOP
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            1
            ·
            10 months ago

            But now consider the rejoinder: “If we make our ads 25% more obnoxious, then 50% of our users will be motivated to type, ‘how do I block ads?’ into a search engine. When that happens, we don’t merely lose out on the expected 2% of additional revenue - our income from those users falls to zero, forever.”

            29/

            • Cory Doctorow@mamot.frOP
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              1
              ·
              10 months ago

              Self-help is the third constraint on enshittification. But when competition fails, and regulatory capture ensues, companies don’t just gain the ability to flout the law - they get to wield the law, too.

              30/

              • Cory Doctorow@mamot.frOP
                link
                fedilink
                arrow-up
                1
                ·
                10 months ago

                Tech firms have cultivated a thicket of laws, rules and regulations that make self-help measures very illegal. This thicket is better known as “IP,” a term that is best understood as meaning “any policy that lets me control the conduct of my competitors, my customers and my critics”:

                https://locusmag.com/2020/09/cory-doctorow-ip/

                31/

                • Cory Doctorow@mamot.frOP
                  link
                  fedilink
                  arrow-up
                  1
                  ·
                  10 months ago

                  To put an ad-blocker in an app, you have to reverse-engineer it. To do that, you’ll have to decrypt and decompile it. That step is a felony under #Section1201 of the #DMCA, carrying a five-year prison sentence and a $500,000 fine. Beyond that, ad-blocking an app would give rise to liability under the #ComputerFraudAndAbuseAct (a law inspired by the movie Wargames!), under “tortious interference” claims, under trademark, copyright and patent.

                  32/