edit:
i hate to break character, especially months after a post, but i feel people need a little more context to read this post than assumed:
-
this is a mean post about a thing that annoys me
-
cory doctorow is the originator of the term "enshitification", and he is by any and all measures, a disney adult. that's the joke in the title. i feel like stewart lee having to spell things out here, but understanding this joke is the entry qualifications for the rest of the flippant commentary.
-
the really big take home message, for the people still following along, is this: enshitification, albeit defined in market terms, is regularly used as if it's a problem capitalism is afflicted by, rather than a problem capitalism causes.
-
the other, less important message: i find the people who use this term in this way annoying, and unfortunately many of them found this post. i did not realise how deeply upset people would take jokes at the expense of "new york times readers" but in hindsight, you can only read so many op-eds before clutching your own pearls on impulse.
-
i use "walking past a picket to complain to the manager" to talk about that "i'm politically liberal but why can't protests be quieter" mentality, the idea that any and all problems can be fixed by the regular channels. the person in question is used to being at the top of some power structure. apparently i need to explain this too. go figure.
-
wait. one more thing, if you find yourself "but i use that word, but i don't use it in the way you complain about!" if so, this post isn't about you, no matter how rude i am.
got all that? great.
here's the original inflammatory post. please enjoy posting about it in places i can't see:
look, i hate the term "enshittification" as much as anyone. it feels like one of those made up swear words that came out of a doctorwho/supernatural fanfic, and for a while i was happy to continue dismissing it on those terms
it took me a while to realise that i hate it for entirely legitimate reasons too.
when people say "enshittification", it's as if their core complaint about capitalism is the customer service, rather than the systematic exploitation of other people. people don't talk about union busting as "enshittification", or wage theft as "enshittification", let alone deeper systematic issues.
people talk about enshittification to mean "i can't watch my favourite tv show any more"
Yes, it sucks that you can only get some people to care about worker's rights when you point out that their favorite shows keep getting removed from Netflix, that their Ubers now cost more than a taxi ride, and that AirBnB fucks them over more than a hotel ever would.
But if that message works? Then you've just made an ally to your cause. And that shit matters if you want real structural change to how things are organized in society.
It has certainly been shifting in use meaning as it spread, language always does. But the complaint at the core of @tef's original post is the same thing Cory was writing about when he coined it.
I'm going to drop a bit of a hot take: they're the same thing. The fact that customer service is getting worse is the same as the fact that rent is getting higher without wages rising. The fact that Uber always set out to be "like taxis but worse so we can scavenge the margins" is the same complaint as "I can't get a cheap ride anywhere anymore." It's all knock on effects and shared causes and systems of exploitation, oppression, and dissimulation. That latter part is important, because we are stuck in the most bureaucratic timeline - and one of the primary powers of bureaucracy is diffusion of responsibility.
Like it or hate it, the thing to do with the term enshittification is connect the dots. If someone complains of it in the way that looks at the effects, ask if they've thought about the causes. Like @mrhands said, this is an opportunity to gain an ally, a comrade, to turn agitation into education and organizing.
