this post was submitted on 11 Jan 2026
82 points (90.2% liked)
Enshittification
4944 readers
4 users here now
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.
founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Ah, you mean like how some countries that were previously COMPLETELY under the thumb of the US and seemingly happy about it are finally starting to disentangle themselves a tiny bit because the fascist kakistocracy makes even the appearance of cooperation unfeasible?
That too but the article is more focused on how before the US would threaten countries with unreasonable tariffs if they didn't comply and let US tech giants rule. Well...Trump already levied unreasonable tariffs, so if they are already hit with tarrifs, why not just created their.own versions of the solutions? Why not ban X and Grok?
Obviously Cory takes an optimistic view of what could be done. The way I look at it is that more and more countries will take a Chinese approach to tech and go for a total control over what we can do online and visibility (no privacy) into everything.
I’m reminded of the XKCD toon about competing standards. Seems like we’re about to have some new ones!