[Video] Enshittification of the Media, of the Web, and of Computing in General
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Enshittification of Computing
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THE enshittification of just about anything ranges from material to immaterial - from foods to semiconductors, just to give an arbitrary pair of notable examples. It manifests itself in altered conditions and expectations. People come up with words like "shrinkflation" and "greedflation". In IRC we casually refer to many "new" gadgets as "plasticware". There's cheapening of processes, raw material, quality control, and sourcing/assembly of components. Both workers and "consumers" pay for it. The profits from the degradation ("margin") aren't distributed back to clients and they only benefit "cost-saving" executives - a true "marvel" of the 'free market' (deregulated, lacking standards or basic forms of oversight because to shun watchdogs is 'freedom', apparently).
In the case of operating systems, security seems almost hopeless and it's not even a goal anymore. States demand back doors and Microsoft gives that to them in exchange for "favours". An associate has highlighted this new example of it (risky.biz is MSFT, Winterford and other Microsofters as guests and hosts). "Bullshitters misusing the term 'bug door'," the associate has said.
risky.biz (RB) "is the official talking points," this associate has argued, "and [it is] relevant to know what lines the Wintel duopoly is trying to foist on the public."
So we still keep an eye on risky.biz... remember what Microsofters did last month and again this month. They try to define the rules and the language.
So security gets worse (by design!) because they want to snoop on users' every move, remotely. The hardware breaks down faster, it contains severe defects (that cannot be fixed/overcome without considerable performance toll), and now they tell us Windows will have ads everywhere. Is Windows suitable for work? Users be like, "oh, I wondered where someplace is located, so I went to Start, saw Vista 11 ads, then opened Edge, which then gave me ads, so I searched and got more ads, and then, eventually, got to a results page; and then I got the answer I needed..."
Is this really the best we can do? No, Windows is bad for productivity, chatbots don't get facts right, and so on. Voice interfaces are both slow and imprecise, so they cannot replace the "old" way of doing things.
And apropos search and ads, Google is now focusing on "engagement", typically at the expense of your time/productivity. As someone put it the other day: "I feel like the term “enshittification” has become an overused shorthand for “thing I don’t like”, but this is the term at its purist [sic. purest?]. A focus on Fuck Yours, Got Mine on a massive level, which trickles down across the web as a whole."
Microsoft does the same. You, the user, will waste a lot of time, but it's not their time, so why should they care? Microsoft and Google got their monies from your "journey" through menus and applications.
Your slowness is their "profit" (financial gain), partly through "screen time" (occupying the brain, harvesting 'idle' time).
The media does the same and so does social control media. A radical example of it is flaming and clickbait... urging people to click on stuff they would otherwise just pass over. They appeal to emotion.
An associate says "that much has been clear about Google for a few years". Google used to be relatively harmless and useful for search, not a vicious monster that censors critics.
The video above tackles the matter from a slightly different angle. █