Enshittification

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What is enshittification?

The phenomenon of online platforms gradually degrading the quality of their services, often by promoting advertisements and sponsored content, in order to increase profits. (Cory Doctorow, 2022, extracted from Wikitionary) source

The lifecycle of Big Internet

We discuss how predatory big tech platforms live and die by luring people in and then decaying for profit.

Embrace, extend and extinguish

We also discuss how naturally open technologies like the Fediverse can be susceptible to corporate takeovers, rugpulls and subsequent enshittification.

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So Long OfferUp, It Was Fun While It Lasted (imgur.com)

submitted 1 day ago* (last edited 23 hours ago) by AnotherMadHatter@lemmy.world to c/enshittification@lemmy.world

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I usually spend some time on OfferUp looking at things I might be interested in buying used because why not. I am interested in seeing if I can get some Milwaukee Packout cases slightly used for a deal.

Did a search for "Milwaukee" and got more than 14 pages of posts from a single pawn shop. Most of the ads aren't even selling anything they are just the same text on all of them.

WE ARE LOOKING TO BUY TOOLS DEWALT, MILWAUKEE, MAKITA, SNAP ONE, MAC TOOLS, ALL HIGH END BRANDS - USED IN GOOD CONDITION! MESSAGE WHAT U HAVE OR CALL TO DISCUSS XXX-XXX-XXXX

One of the posts was the same item for sale, but posted like 25 times.

Apparently, caps-lock is where it's at. Anyway, if this is not cleaned up by the OfferUp spam patrol, is there another Craigslist / OfferUp that doesn't have this quantity of spam?

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[–] schizo@forum.uncomfortable.business 2 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

Like everything else on the internet, absolute shit I'm sorry to say.

The spam problem exists there, and if it's not spam, it's more than likely a complete scam.

I've quit trying to buy used stuff online outside of ebay (because, if nothing else, the level of interaction is much lower and if it's a scam then you've got actual protections) and totally given up selling anything online anymore and just throw everything I don't want away becasue I don't want to deal with the headache of selling shit on these platforms.

The last try was a computer on Facebook marketplace which did, eventaully, sell: after something like 60 people asked questions and 4 or 5 people flaked out. It was very much not worth the $150 or whatever.

[–] AnotherMadHatter@lemmy.world 1 points 1 hour ago

Yeah. It's not like I buy a lot, it's just another place to do some mindless scrolling. But it's irritating nonetheless. I have sold stuff before, and it went pretty much how you described it - almost not worth it in the end.