When television first started, there were 3 channels and a handful of commercials. After a few decades of more channels and more ads appearing, cable showed up. Now you could pay a subscription to get premium content without ads!
But after a decade, not only were they putting ads on cable you paid a premium to watch, they were speeding up both the shows and the ads to fit more into breaks that kept getting longer.
Younger people are just starting to see the cycle is underway again with streaming services, but over the last 10ish years, I’ve noticed all the various cliques going “why is {our interest} going to shit” as if it were an isolated incident and not happening everywhere.
The first act of capitalism when it was created was the slave trade. Corporations have always been vehicles the ultra rich use to extract wealth.
Revenue is how much money a company brings in selling things. Profit is how much of that remains after paying for materials, leases, power, reinvesting into the business, and paying wages. Basically, CEOs are paid 300x more than employees to defer maintenance and suppress wages.
Economics 101- charge as much as you can, pay as little as possible. Any corporation that makes billions in profit only does so by gouging customers and stiffing workers.
Real wages are stagnant, pensions aren’t a thing, and they’re trying to get rid of social security. There’s a reason we’re told to use things like HSA, 529s, and 401ks: it enriches the already rich.
There is something called a fiduciary duty to shareholders which basically means publicly traded corporations must act in the best interest of investors. It SOUNDS like a good idea, but it’s not really well defined.
The reality of the situation is BlackRock basically owns the stock market and the Federal Reserve.
The Federal Reserve is owned and controlled by a group of banks- not the US government. Those banks are publicly traded corporations that own chunks of everything and each other. It’s a giant rich guy circle jerk that basically means the recent uniform RTO mandates were probably from Larry Fink himself due to how central commercial real estate is to collateral for things like naked shorting.
Inflation isn’t things costing more; it’s the dollar being worth less as more money exists. The reason the rich buy art, watches, and shit is because they benefit from inflation. If you hold on to $5,000 for a decade you have $5,000 that buys less after a decade of inflation. If you buy a painting, jewelry, or whatever, it appreciates overtime being worth more than $5k.
Federal minimum wage was 7.25 in 2008. Not much, but you could buy 1-3 shares of AMD or 18" of Subway. Today, M2 (a measure of money in the economy) is three times what it was in 2008 and minimum wage is still $7.25 and might get you 6" of sandwich. AMD, on the other hand, currently sits around $120 a share.
Someone that works to eat will always be falling behind while someone that’s not struggling can just load up on wealth that keeps growing. A majority of the country doesn’t have money on hand to deal with a $500 emergency while more than half the wealth of the country is owned by a handful of people that make lifetimes of wealth through passive investments alone.
Unfortunately, it’s all very complicated and basically everyone is stupid most of the time with only brief windows of subject specific competence. Reason and rationality is a best case outcome but people act like it’s the default.
Welcome to the meat grinder. None of us matter.
Mr. Doctorow has expressed before he doesn’t mind enshittification being used casually as it helps proliferate it. But strictly speaking by his original definition, there are three stages:
- Offer something extremely good to your customers, to expand reach even at a loss.
- Once enough of the market is captured, offer something very good or unique to your business clients, at the expense of customers.
- Once enough of business is captured, extract value from the platform at the expense of business clients and customers in favour of shareholders and owners.
Now, yes, this type of thing has long been common, in terms of oligarchic, monopolistic capitalism, cartels, mafia, colonial market exploitation, etc. But the original context of the word, to clarify, has to do with the kind of changes enabled by technology (twiddling), where digital firms can A/B test, degrade the experience in minor increments or for algorithmically based sectors, pretending certain failures are accidental glitches, so that it is hard to notice and the justice system can’t keep up. With traditional rackets, a court with enough of an anti-trust mindset can effectively identify the affected class, identify and effectively deal with the scheme. The modern “enshittification” is much more elusive, and we’re only beginning to think about how to tackle this form of subtle yet widespread manipulation enabled by digital technology.
This is exactly how drug dealers operate; the first bump is free to get you hooked and dependent so they can raise prices and cut product because you don’t have alternatives.
There was a new Black Mirror episode along these lines as well.
It also raises issues with what happens when all firms use AI models that source the same data and we end up with a longer walk to the same price fixing…
I don’t have much to say about the points you’re making here. I have a feeling after we sit down and discuss this over coffee/a beer we will find out that we’re pretty much on the same page.
The only thing I want to point out though it that the term “enshitification” was coined for online platforms. It describes a business catering full hog to the needs of the users to create a following, then sell access to that following to other businesses, until both followers and b2b customers are locked in and get milked for every cent possible. From the user POV that’s when the service enshitifies
DVDand the b2b customers are between a rock and a hard place. Your cable example follows a similar mechanic but since it is not online it is technically not enshitification as dumped into the world as a term by Corey Doctorow.That’s just minor pedantry that you’re naturally free to ignore as well. As I said before, I don’t see us disagreeing on the overall point you’re making. Very eloquently, I might add.
Edited typo
The enshittification cycle Doctorow discusses is specific to online companies and services, but does have a certain general form that is applicable more broadly. But it isnt just “service degrades over time due to the tendency of profit to diminish.”
It’s about platforms, aka markets, aka middlemen. An online service doesn’t just exist to serve customers. Initially, the platform holder caters heavily to customers and to suppliers. Netflix offers a seemingly unlimited buffet of video for a low monthly fee, but also they seek out content creators to license their works and hire them to make new exclusive works. Epic Games store, same deal: free games for customers, huge exclusivity deals for publishers.
Enshittification happens when you get big enough to play the sides off each other. Publishers are captive to your platform for access to the audience, the audience is captive for access to your exclusive content. Older companies sold directly to stores or consumers, making it easier to just put the squeeze workers or customers.
By controlling the platform/market, you can extract wealth from every aspect of it: degrade customer experience, lock in and underpay producers and employees, and if you get big enough you can even start bossing around the government. Look at how much Amazon makes by forcing shippers and postal providers to cater to them.
That dynamic is somewhat novel. Markets are traditionally regulated, controlled, (and profited by) the government. David Graeber talks about the origins of markets under monarchs in order to centralize sales of goods to supply armies more readily. The modern capitalist understands that if you own the market, then you’ve won.
Unfortunately, what many don’t realize is a win for capitalism is a loss for basically everyone else.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305750X22002169
Tldr- the endlessly parroted “capitalism has lifted more people out of poverty” notion stems from a study that basically equated subsistence farming to poverty because despite meeting all their needs and desires it made zero money per day.
Basically, the entire notion that capitalism is swell is a lot like saying Africans were better off as slaves because they were previously unemployed and then given jobs. Which is basically the first argument capitalists tried to make while “extracting value” with the slave trade.
The first act of capitalism when it was created was the slave trade.
In what year do you believe that capitalism was created?
Also the implication is blatantly wrong because slavery has been a thing since the dawn of mankind.
They’re not saying capitalism created slavery. They’re saying that, upon creation of capitalism, the slave trade was its first business.
Which isn’t correct either, that was mercantilism, a stage before capitalism. But not that different, either.
Slave trading is way older than mercantilism.
They’re not saying capitalism created slavery. They’re saying that, upon creation of capitalism, the slave trade was its first business.
I don’t know how to break it down further than that.
You know that Mercantilism is the name of the policies the European countries had to trade with each other, right?
If you wanted to talk about overseas imperialism, also no, its first business was buying natural resources. Its second business was stealing natural resources. It only started trading people after there wasn’t easy stuff to take away anymore.
You keep missing the point. Have it your way. You win. Congrats, go celebrate.
The first act of capitalism when it was created was the slave trade. Corporations have always been vehicles the ultra rich use to extract wealth.
Where are you getting these flawed notions from?
He’s pulling them fresh from his butt.
It’s basically the emperors new clothes. And everyone plays along.
The word “enshittification” is new, but the motivation behind it certainly isn’t.
looks at the 25 year old fridge still running, and the 30 year old air conditioner also still running
Yup…totally. things just fail MUCH quicker now
Wow there’s so many things wrong in this that I don’t even know where to start. The sentiment is right, but your entire understanding of how the economy or even capitalism works is terrible. I hope you are like 15, and not a grown person.
You can still buy stocks worth $2, some of them might even end up being worth $120+ 17 years. The reason the stock was worth so little back then was that the company was smaller, see how that works? The guy buying AMD back then was taking as much risk as you are buying a $2 stock today.
Capitalism is a very flexible and moldable system, it can adapt to almost any conditions. Many of the problems that are inherent to capitalism can be smoothed and fixed but it requires political will to do so. I think capitalism works extremely well in two circumstances : a. System in which there are good wealth distribution system or b. Government avoids regulations in ways that increase the barriers to entry to markets in such a way that no one can ever compete again in said market without having more capital than the current competitors.
I prefer a. Just saying b. can work too but it’s actually much harder to pull of because the government would need to willingly dismantle itself and not in the way Trump is doing it.
I’ll bite.
The bitch of post social media reality is attention spans are fuck all and you’re either going to be sacrifice specificity to be succinct enough for people to get the point or you cover all the details in a tome no one but the most pedantic or argumentative will engage on. The above was a massive over simplification, yes, but it at least sets a stage for a more significant suggestion.
I guess, unfortunately I’m a grown ass man with teenage kids and decades of reading but again to my previous point, citing all the above turns it into an academic project no one wants to fuck with but nitpickers.
What you have to learn and accept is that capitalism as an economic system is mutually exclusive from democracy as a political system.
I’ll again use simplified views for the sake of brevity at the cost of some nuance…
What is capitalism? Are you a capitalist?
Economic systems basically revolve around who owns the factory that makes the things and private ownership. Now, that’s not to be confused with PERSONAL property, items owned by an individual.
Capitalism is where the building is privately owned either by an LLC or some other corporate entity.
Socialism is where the building is owned by the workers.
Communism is when the building is owned by the government.
None of these have exclusive ownership of the concept of work, employment, wages, or anything and all of them exist side by side in the modern economy. I work in a municipal utility where money is collected from everyone to pay for infrastructure and resources owned by the city. We work with solar co-ops owned by the workers that get profit sharing and we consult with privately owned corporations that have higher prices to account for advertising and payouts to shareholders. Our local privately owned utility has higher rates and always raises them as much as they can meanwhile we’re legally obligated to save as much money as possible as stewards of public funds.
And due to all of that, we have lower rates and far better service metrics.
The focus of communism is serving society. The purpose of socialism is serving the workers. The entire point of capitalism is wealth extraction for capitalists.
But what the fuck is a capitalist? A capitalist owns capital. Having and using cash doesn’t make one a capitalist. Capitalism creates two groups in society: a small group of very rich capitalists that own the resources and a massive group of workers paid as little as possible to create and maintain those resources without getting much of them.
Every American is propagandized from birth to confuse consumerism with freedom.
Publicly traded corporations have a fiduciary duty to shareholders which is ultimately the engine of the race to the bottom. The short term focus on the obligation to beat q/q metrics is the reason people get laid off and you pick up their work instead. It’s the reason raises aren’t in the budget despite your cost of living going up. It’s the reason we all have to tighten our belts and make sacrifices for ‘the family’ and executives making hundreds times more get millions in stock bonuses for laying off the people responsible for those achievements and holding on to the duplicitous self serving ladder climbers.
This isn’t bitterness about the success of others or my personal failings. The system itself isn’t sustainable because the focus of capitalism has always been about acreting wealth by stiffing employees and customers. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305750X22002169
Well the problem is that you’re hardly saying anything anyone doesn’t know, especially if they are on lemmy.
Why did China become capitalist?
Marx himself said that communism can only arrive through capitalism. Though he is hardly an oracle, that logic makes sense to me.
I don’t believe in communism, simply because I don’t believe that abolishing private property is something realistic, it seems even anti human. And so far the track record for communism is not great, because concentrating all wealth in the hands of the state (who is controlled by a few people) is somewhat of a bad idea it seems (who would have thought!)
I do believe in socialism. But the conditions are not here yet. Humanity grows on having something to exploit. We’re currently building the next exploited class which will be AI and advanced robotics.Once all human labor is rendered worthless, socialism will not only be viable, it will be necessary. Capitalism is the only force that provides the means to get there.
Is it unfair for us in the present? I guess. But it was also unfair for all the billions of humans who have died through history to create the conditions of the world we live in, which whatever you may think, is a vast improvement over every other period of time. Humanity is a constant project, and it is always the case that the present humans need to make sacrifices for the future humans. If that doesn’t happen our species stagnates.
The point of capitalism is that it creates endless hunger for endless desires and thus endless growth. In serving yourself you serve others. Of course capitalism needs to be curved if this is the case because it otherwise becomes destructive so in comes events of mass discontent, and massive political shifts much like you see now and in the Great Depression. We are soon approaching a point in which we will need a New New Deal.
But keep in mind this is not even the worst era of capitalism. Despite the disparity in terms of sheer wealth, the disparity in quality of life is much much smaller. I’m not dismissing the problems, but I think that one needs perspective as well.
Also people have a terrible idea of what democracy is. Democracy has never been “we all have equal say”. That’s a fairly recent interpretation of it. Democracy through most of its history has been “these specific group of people have equal say, and they decide for everyone else”. And that is basically the reality of almost every human system. We can make ourselves equal in rights but we will never be able to make ourselves equals in charisma or ability, and thus some people will always have more power than others, even if not officially others will look upon them for leadership.
Most people have a terrible understanding of most things because most subjects are basically infinitely complex and get worse the deeper you dig.
A representative Republic is the illusion of democracy at this point. You get to cast a vote for whomever you think will best ignore your ass while sucking off donors because the cost of elections is a product of capitalism and not a fault of democracy itself.
Any civilization that wants to function requires a government. The problem is usually who ends up in power.
Most people can’t understand all the issues. Elections are largely popularity contests for single issue voters. The key to popularity is lots of advertising. Supply, demand, profit, ensure it keeps getting more expensive because most media outlets are privately owned and publicly traded.
Trump was put into office via billions in free news coverage legitimizing an obvious and known fraud making election coverage a horserace for ad revenue instead of informing people about facts.
It’s never been easier to learn anything you’ve wanted to, but this is the first time people have actually started getting dumber to the point they dispute the shape of the planet under their fucking feet.
The better educated people are, the more questions they ask until they realize things don’t actually work like they’re told and then we get riots.
The US is a falling police state run by two private corporations that own the nation.
The dnc and rnc are privately held corporations that control who gets to run for office and both are well right of center entities.
Have you read about Smedly Butler and the business plot?
How can you actually write all this after saying capitalism is anti democratic, with the implication that being anti democratic is a bad thing. Look at what you wrote, and think long and hard if you actually want a popular democracy. The US system would work very very well if it had more parties and electors started acting the way they are intentioned to act (not vote for the president their constituents chose but rather the best choice according to their platform, utopic I know).
And yes both parties are right wing but that’s because Americans, on average are right wing. No shit political parties in democratic states mold themselves to be attractive to voters. But calling it a police state is the usual hysterical progressive stance that no one that has actually lived in a police state will take seriously. The US is not a police state. It is a corpocratic state though, no doubt. It’s a huge issue that I believe might come to a head soon, Trump is accelerating that with his blatant corruption. And then I hope money’s power over politics will be curtailed. Or not, we’ll see.
One thing I’d like to point out that Trump spent far less money than Kamala. And Kamala had the support of mass media while Trump didn’t.
What I get from you is that you are of course deeply troubled with the state of things but have not yet a clear idea of what would be a better system, you’re simply angry at what it is right now. Which is fair. But I think you need to make up your mind whether you think more government is good or if government as a human organization is inherently corruptible and therefore what we actually need is less government, and whether true direct popular democracy is good or whether we should become more technocratic/meritocratic/aristocratic because you seem to be flip flopping between one stance and the other. Even highly educated countries are electing right wingers right now so while education is a factor it’s not the only factor.
Yes I’m aware of the business plot. But I think you also need to understand the context in which that happened. The Federal Government was never meant to be as powerful as Roosevelt made it, the United States was envisioned as a state of states, kinda like what the EU is right now. So it is not surprising that a plot would form to take down a president that was trying to make a government that was much more powerful than it was ever meant to be. Trump is aesthetically a reaction to Roosevelt, but in reality is a result and even somewhat of a mirror image. Assuming that you are a principled person and not one that thinks politics is a team sports If you are outraged at the way Trump acts, you would be outraged at the way Roosevelt acted had you been there.
Yes, no, kinda, maybe.
The system is so bloated, corrupt, and convoluted there is no fixing it.
The bad actors are so many, so uniform, and so powerful there is no removing them.
The masses are so poor, tired, fractured, and ignorant, there’s no uniting them.
We’re looking at a likely push for a Trump dynasty. Even if the Democrats win, they’re really just controlled opposition to maintain the status quo and repiss off the red base by existing.
Say the impossible happens and all the bad guys die, there’s revolution that sees through the theatre of duopoly… Then what?
30% of the country eagerly embraced a convicted rapist after he spent decades being a piece of shit. 30% prefer Democrats making things worse slightly slower.
Everyone else checked out because they either know too little or too much about politics.
At the end of the day the problem is that nothing matters and it’s all just screaming into the void.
We could be 100% agreement on every detail and we’d just need 350 million other people to sign on to change a system they know is broken but don’t understand well enough to fix while very rich, very crazy people spend great deals of money to basically cause problems everywhere they can do they can sell a monthly treatment but never a fix because cruelty is basically always the point.
Oh, and the reason it’s mutually exclusive to democracy has already been demonstrated with Citizens United and putting unlimited dark money into elections and politics. If the law can be purchased, the wealthy have all the means and motivation they can to strip mine anything of value and pay for the propaganda calling it good.
The majority of all news is owned by billionaires telling us how to feel about what they tell us happens.
The Nixon campaign ADMITTED the war on drugs was a front to marginalize anti war leftists and black people. By criminalizing cannabis, they not only stifled Vietnam protests and the civil rights movement but also protected the profits of pharmaceutical corps, the alcohol industry, and the paper/wood industry.
The 24/7 news cycle came along to keep us hyper stimulated with bullshit we don’t even notice the things that matter and front line reporting has become a thing of the past specifically because of how motivated it made people to speak out.
Now, if you complain about Palestinian genocide you get called anti semitic by bots paid for by corporate interests and foreign states.
It’s all theater to keep us scared and fractured while they work us to death, steal our retirement with bubbles they pump and dump, and then start resource wars so poor kids will die for a chance at college.
Man vs woman, black vs white, gay or straight, it’s all divide and conquer to keep the workers from realizing the one fight that matters is the have nots vs the have yahcts.
The priority of news should be telling us what is happening in the world. Instead, it’s ad revenue, clicks, and sensationalism.
You have no rights when truth has become a toy of the ultra rich drunk on their own farts.
