Everywhere but here, seemingly.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enshittification

I started reading more about this after posting in the Influencer Darwin Awards thread. Someone mentioned Reddit surviving Enshittification, evidently not.

I’ve been noticing this for a lot longer than just digital services. I remember years ago the Muji store (a Japanese everything store) sold these fantastic super high quality tee shirts, made in Portugal. Then suddenly they were shit and made in Bangladesh or China. I would have happily paid more for the shirts, but no, they just started selling shit, so I stopped buying.

Honestly, being a consumer now mostly sucks. Even the tee shirts Of This Parish are cheap and the stitching started unraveling immediately. EA* could have brought US union made tees, said that and adding five bucks to the price. But it’s an endless race to the bottom almost everywhere except for stuff like indie vinyl and… honestly not much else.

Let’s hear your Enshittification shit list.


* love you guys, but buy nicer tees and charge more.

It's a great term and it's been around for a bit. I think it pairs well with Graeber's Bullshit Jobs as a symptom of the decay in our society.

(I know everyone will eye roll here, but Southpark had a great episode on it. It's the one where Randy and Sharon separate.)

The fact that there are a lot of subscription models out there, that have transitioned to have ads in paid subscriptions. You get less ads if you pay more money!

The fact that you spend $2k on a refrigerator and it'll last 5 years tops.

Pushing new versions of computer hardware that don't really have significant updates, but rather small incremental changes. The improvements exist, but the release cycles are faster than the implementation of significant improvements.

Vacations. Going to a theme park and spending $30 on a single burger that someone stepped on and microwaved. How normal people tolerate this and give away thousands of dollars on mediocrity just fucking amazes me. And that businesses are happy to exploit people who use their life savings to make their kids' dreams come true is fucking evil.

Try living in the UK. People here have zero standards. You can serve absolute garbage, go to an hardware store where staff don’t even know the difference between bathroom and wall paint and no one complains. I love living in London, but holy hell people here accept being treated like shit as a national sport.

PS it’s most not the “people” that are the problem, it’s business owners. They pay shit and don’t train their staff. Hardly surprising service can be non existent.

Facebook and Google are the poster children of enshittification. Younger people have no idea how much of an advancement Google was over prior technologies. Now, it’s just maddening.

YouTube might have its problems, but it does seem to have resisted enshittification better than other tech companies and social media platforms. I never get emails from YouTube, and when I search for a particular song or subject, it takes me there. Maybe an ad or two pop up in the feed, but it’s nothing like the pages of shit Google makes you wade through. And when I blocked AI-generated content and right-wing or hateful content, it STAYED blocked.

Wood Goblin wrote: Thu Aug 14, 2025 11:02 am YouTube might have its problems, but it does seem to have resisted enshittification better than other tech companies and social media platforms. I never get emails from YouTube, and when I search for a particular song or subject, it takes me there. Maybe an ad or two pop up in the feed, but it’s nothing like the pages of shit Google makes you wade through. And when I blocked AI-generated content and right-wing or hateful content, it STAYED blocked.

The neat part is, you get served right wing content after watching kids videos!

i've had a notably less maddening youtube experience from duck player, although it's a pity there's no linux build at time of writing.

it is true that the english, for better or (mostly) worse my people, have a special gift for self-defeating misery. withstanding it and regenerating it.

The thing that comes to mind that hasn't been mentioned yet... automobile manufacturers releasing "features" into their cars before they are ready for prime time.

We bought a new Honda earlier this year (tariff-related purchase... bastages!) and it has a feature that is supposed to tell you on the dashboard what is the active speed limit. It does this by attempting to read the street signs. The feature blows ass so bad. It's wrong like 80% of the time. And I cannot turn off the piece of shit!

I'm not sure if this 100% classifies as enshittification, but it at least seems adjacent.

jfv wrote: Thu Aug 14, 2025 11:52 am The thing that comes to mind that hasn't been mentioned yet... automobile manufacturers releasing "features" into their cars before they are ready for prime time.

We bought a new Honda earlier this year (tariff-related purchase... bastages!) and it has a feature that is supposed to tell you on the dashboard what is the active speed limit. It attempts to do this by reading the signs. The feature blows ass so bad. It's wrong like 80% of the time. And I cannot turn off the piece of shit!

I'm not sure if this 100% classifies as enshittification, but it at least seems adjacent.

The whole "let's put out shit and fix it later" effect is awful. I mean, I kinda get it, it works for some things (like, building web applications), but it doesn't work for others. It sucks for video games, where many big developers don't even bother putting out a polished product and expect people to pay top-dollar for a half-assed experience.

But worse would be car companies like Toyota selling cars with all the features, but some features are locked behind a subscription model, like a seat warmer.

Wood Goblin wrote: Thu Aug 14, 2025 11:02 am Facebook and Google are the poster children of enshittification. Younger people have no idea how much of an advancement Google was over prior technologies. Now, it’s just maddening.

YouTube might have its problems, but it does seem to have resisted enshittification better than other tech companies and social media platforms. I never get emails from YouTube, and when I search for a particular song or subject, it takes me there. Maybe an ad or two pop up in the feed, but it’s nothing like the pages of shit Google makes you wade through. And when I blocked AI-generated content and right-wing or hateful content, it STAYED blocked.

I actually pay for YouTube premium because it’s really the only tv I need. I’ve curated the hell out of my feed. I insta-click “no not recommended this channel” if anything I don’t like pops up. It seems to work pretty well.

Facebook is absolutely useless. I have no idea why anyone under 70 still uses it. I recently discovered a trick to stop Instagram getting enshitified. You can completely reset your recommended results. It clears your cache and seems to reset the recommendations to things specifically based on what you follow. I’ll be doing that once a month.

jfv wrote: Thu Aug 14, 2025 11:52 am The thing that comes to mind that hasn't been mentioned yet... automobile manufacturers releasing "features" into their cars before they are ready for prime time.

We bought a new Honda earlier this year (tariff-related purchase... bastages!) and it has a feature that is supposed to tell you on the dashboard what is the active speed limit. It does this by attempting to read the street signs. The feature blows ass so bad. It's wrong like 80% of the time. And I cannot turn off the piece of shit!

I'm not sure if this 100% classifies as enshittification, but it at least seems adjacent.

Huh - my 2019 base model insight does this with about 80%v accuracy, tho I agree with you overall. I've had cars with the modern features that were more hassle than they were worth. Hands free volume motion control for the stereo on a BMW was silly, obtrusive and worked poorly.

I do LOVE modern adaptive cruise. A godsend for those of us whose main driving nowadays is roadtrips.