My extended family and I have been trying to figure out why so many things seem so much worse these days. This is the best explanation of read. Thanks for having the full article open to folks who don't subscribe so I can share it with them.
One of the reasons I feel that enshittification has entrenched itself to such a degree here is that Americans are just so unaware of how much better, honestly, it is/can be in other countries. Yes all countries have problems and I do actually think that enshittifcation has expanded globally as we all influence each other. But Americans have so little exposure to what *works* in other countries, or even to the idea that other countries have been/are able to make real and significant changes on issues like the environment, work/like balance, universal healthcare, education (the list goes on). Barely half the country even has a passport, let alone a sustained awareness of how life is lived elsewhere. That combined with a relentless “USA is the best!” messaging from our politicians and the media leads to reform apathy. If things are awful, but you also believe that this is the best anyone anywhere has it, then pushing for things to be better can seem like wishcasting.
"Even with that in mind, though, doesn’t it seem like our company, our platform, our country has been . . . getting worse, on balance, for coming on a quarter of a century?" ...Thinking that alliances are for the weak, for losers, for B-listers and worse, goes back about 25 years. This imbecility started with Bush 43. "Old Europe," Freedom Fries, coalitions of "the willing." Trump is Bush 43 on eighty-three billion gallons of steroids. The willful ignorance; the proud chest-thumping chicken-hawk "patriotism"; the vilification of the mainstream press; the disdain for science: it was all there.
Trump, of course, makes Bush 43 look like a prince. But my working hypothesis is that 43 was the beginning of the end (or, of what we hope is not the end). The s**t-show that was that administration set the stage for a truly, profoundly corrupt, criminally ignorant criminal/man-child/imbecile to take the reigns. (The 2008 crisis probably hastened it, giving us the Palins and Bachmanns and such who also made 43 look like a prince.)
My fellow liberals can be deeply imperfect, self-sabotaging, self-righteous snowflake pinheads. But it's been self-described conservatism, in one form or another, that's landed us where we are now, on the precipice of annihilation.
... Just my two cents; just my working hypothesis. As a confirmed liberal, I'm open to the possibility that my hypothesis is flawed. (Really.)
"Enshitiffication" is lazy middle aged bitching for kids to get off the lawn.
Like, I get it. If you cherry pick only the best examples of the past, you can make things look great back then. However, there is always a lot of stuff out there. And if you are able to just turn up the volume, you get everything louder. Good and bad.
Charitably, as we have lowered the cost of entry for a lot of things, expect that a lot of the bad stuff that never left the playground will escape into the wild. That is, there is a case to be made that it is easier to get low quality stuff out there.
The problem is that most examples people use are dominated by vibes. And the populist chant of enshitiffication doesn't even offer a way to help us out of this.
So in this analogy, who are the shareholders extorting from the users? And what are they extorting, too - I guess some amalgam of money, privilege, power. Is it the professional politicians + the think tank-industrial complex? Some or all of the media? The people who run the special interest groups (as opposed to their rank and file members) -everything from unions to AARP to the national association of widget makers? If we know cui bono, we can start to do something about it.
Just a note: Southwest is hardly the quirky, customer-focused airline they were back in the late 1980's through the early 2000s when I flew them all over the U.S. for both business and pleasure. I was challenged by supervisors for always booking SWA flights instead of using the airline that the corporate travel HQ bosses dictated. Late CEO Herb Kelleher would be devastated to see they've deteriorated to just another airline more obsessed with the quarter's financial results than getting people to their destinations without an ordeal.
"Spoiler: It’s not. We’ve been in the same place on immigration since—at least—2006."
Since 1954. The mass deportation then was larger as a percentage of immigrants and a percentage of US population than the magats dare dream. And still nothing was done legislatively to fix the problem.
P.S. The border was never the problem. It became one cuz the f@#$%&g republicans and magats and haters needed a boogeyman.
I guess you might argue anyone "in power" needs a boogeyman……there always has to be "an other" to point fingers at. Certainly applies to race/cultural diversity issues
"Decline is a choice" seems like a statement that's never been more true. Voting for Trump was a vote for decline, and if you didn't know that, then that's also a choice you made to not care, in itself a symptom of decline.
Montana's Republican candidates keep using the phrase "keeping public lands in public hands" on their campaign material when they have not done that historically and are guaranteed to vote for more of the GOP's plan to privatize public lands. Republican voters are choosing to shut themselves out of areas they want to access for hunting and other activities because they're choosing to prioritize their idiot culture wars instead of supporting the natural environment that makes their lives better.
Federalism is supposed to be a hedge against enshittification and may still represent the best way forward. Highly gerrymandered states may be less pluralistic, but also more willing to move in directions which diverge from national norms established in less partisan times. State implementation of policies like wealth taxes, AI regulations, and abortion restrictions/protections might be considered inefficient by behemoths, but forcing them to deal witha patchwork is a step toward accountability. While people might feel disenfranchised, they will at least be able to vote with their feet.
Obviously I agree with JVL here. And if you continue the metaphor, the USA will eventually go belly-up. It might not be for twenty years. It might not be for fifty years, but it's going to happen. And do we want to take control of our (and our children's and grandchildren's) future(s) before that happens? I know I do.
The USA has hit the iceberg and the boat's filling up. It just hasn't sunk yet. We have a choice too---we can stay on board and die with our idiot friends who won't acknowledge the boat is sinking, or we can get off (not that way---and shame on you for thinking that!) onto our own boat: i.e. independence.
I like Doctorow's thesis that enshitification is taking over the world. I also see this in hedge funds take overs of everything. Stripping down businesses to their bare function and ramping up new income generation practices that do not benefit the customer and sometimes harm them.
Brilliant! I'll be thinking on this for a while.
My extended family and I have been trying to figure out why so many things seem so much worse these days. This is the best explanation of read. Thanks for having the full article open to folks who don't subscribe so I can share it with them.
One of the reasons I feel that enshittification has entrenched itself to such a degree here is that Americans are just so unaware of how much better, honestly, it is/can be in other countries. Yes all countries have problems and I do actually think that enshittifcation has expanded globally as we all influence each other. But Americans have so little exposure to what *works* in other countries, or even to the idea that other countries have been/are able to make real and significant changes on issues like the environment, work/like balance, universal healthcare, education (the list goes on). Barely half the country even has a passport, let alone a sustained awareness of how life is lived elsewhere. That combined with a relentless “USA is the best!” messaging from our politicians and the media leads to reform apathy. If things are awful, but you also believe that this is the best anyone anywhere has it, then pushing for things to be better can seem like wishcasting.
All I can say is, the truth hurts, really hurts.
"Even with that in mind, though, doesn’t it seem like our company, our platform, our country has been . . . getting worse, on balance, for coming on a quarter of a century?" ...Thinking that alliances are for the weak, for losers, for B-listers and worse, goes back about 25 years. This imbecility started with Bush 43. "Old Europe," Freedom Fries, coalitions of "the willing." Trump is Bush 43 on eighty-three billion gallons of steroids. The willful ignorance; the proud chest-thumping chicken-hawk "patriotism"; the vilification of the mainstream press; the disdain for science: it was all there.
Trump, of course, makes Bush 43 look like a prince. But my working hypothesis is that 43 was the beginning of the end (or, of what we hope is not the end). The s**t-show that was that administration set the stage for a truly, profoundly corrupt, criminally ignorant criminal/man-child/imbecile to take the reigns. (The 2008 crisis probably hastened it, giving us the Palins and Bachmanns and such who also made 43 look like a prince.)
My fellow liberals can be deeply imperfect, self-sabotaging, self-righteous snowflake pinheads. But it's been self-described conservatism, in one form or another, that's landed us where we are now, on the precipice of annihilation.
... Just my two cents; just my working hypothesis. As a confirmed liberal, I'm open to the possibility that my hypothesis is flawed. (Really.)
Bush not the start. Reagan, when he said ‘ Government is the problem’
"Enshitiffication" is lazy middle aged bitching for kids to get off the lawn.
Like, I get it. If you cherry pick only the best examples of the past, you can make things look great back then. However, there is always a lot of stuff out there. And if you are able to just turn up the volume, you get everything louder. Good and bad.
Charitably, as we have lowered the cost of entry for a lot of things, expect that a lot of the bad stuff that never left the playground will escape into the wild. That is, there is a case to be made that it is easier to get low quality stuff out there.
The problem is that most examples people use are dominated by vibes. And the populist chant of enshitiffication doesn't even offer a way to help us out of this.
You left out the "creative destruction" part of the cycle which is arguably how we get ourselves out of the ditch.
Also your observations eloquently describe why a national government can't be a for-profit business and can't be ran as one.
So in this analogy, who are the shareholders extorting from the users? And what are they extorting, too - I guess some amalgam of money, privilege, power. Is it the professional politicians + the think tank-industrial complex? Some or all of the media? The people who run the special interest groups (as opposed to their rank and file members) -everything from unions to AARP to the national association of widget makers? If we know cui bono, we can start to do something about it.
Just a note: Southwest is hardly the quirky, customer-focused airline they were back in the late 1980's through the early 2000s when I flew them all over the U.S. for both business and pleasure. I was challenged by supervisors for always booking SWA flights instead of using the airline that the corporate travel HQ bosses dictated. Late CEO Herb Kelleher would be devastated to see they've deteriorated to just another airline more obsessed with the quarter's financial results than getting people to their destinations without an ordeal.
Great article, but wouldn't it be nice if there was an alternative to the word "enshittification"?
"Spoiler: It’s not. We’ve been in the same place on immigration since—at least—2006."
Since 1954. The mass deportation then was larger as a percentage of immigrants and a percentage of US population than the magats dare dream. And still nothing was done legislatively to fix the problem.
P.S. The border was never the problem. It became one cuz the f@#$%&g republicans and magats and haters needed a boogeyman.
I guess you might argue anyone "in power" needs a boogeyman……there always has to be "an other" to point fingers at. Certainly applies to race/cultural diversity issues
"Decline is a choice" seems like a statement that's never been more true. Voting for Trump was a vote for decline, and if you didn't know that, then that's also a choice you made to not care, in itself a symptom of decline.
Montana's Republican candidates keep using the phrase "keeping public lands in public hands" on their campaign material when they have not done that historically and are guaranteed to vote for more of the GOP's plan to privatize public lands. Republican voters are choosing to shut themselves out of areas they want to access for hunting and other activities because they're choosing to prioritize their idiot culture wars instead of supporting the natural environment that makes their lives better.
Federalism is supposed to be a hedge against enshittification and may still represent the best way forward. Highly gerrymandered states may be less pluralistic, but also more willing to move in directions which diverge from national norms established in less partisan times. State implementation of policies like wealth taxes, AI regulations, and abortion restrictions/protections might be considered inefficient by behemoths, but forcing them to deal witha patchwork is a step toward accountability. While people might feel disenfranchised, they will at least be able to vote with their feet.
Obviously I agree with JVL here. And if you continue the metaphor, the USA will eventually go belly-up. It might not be for twenty years. It might not be for fifty years, but it's going to happen. And do we want to take control of our (and our children's and grandchildren's) future(s) before that happens? I know I do.
Nova Anglia secedenda est
The USA has hit the iceberg and the boat's filling up. It just hasn't sunk yet. We have a choice too---we can stay on board and die with our idiot friends who won't acknowledge the boat is sinking, or we can get off (not that way---and shame on you for thinking that!) onto our own boat: i.e. independence.
Or, gun control. Majorities are in favor. Kids keep getting killed. Will there be gun law reform? No there will not.
I like Doctorow's thesis that enshitification is taking over the world. I also see this in hedge funds take overs of everything. Stripping down businesses to their bare function and ramping up new income generation practices that do not benefit the customer and sometimes harm them.
I love this article, JVL!!! NAILED IT!!!