Enshittification in action in the Netherlands. This is Hyundai Bluelink (navigation app). The driver apparently even paid for it...
Enshittification in action in the Netherlands. This is Hyundai Bluelink (navigation app). The driver apparently even paid for it...
Why yes, I am enjoying this book by @pluralistic (purchased from Bookshop.org)!
Why yes, I am enjoying this book by @pluralistic (purchased from Bookshop.org)!
@pluralistic > Disenshittification Nation (29 Jan 2026):
Like all the best Americans, I am a Canadian, and while I have lived abroad for more than two decades, I flatter myself that I am still steeped in our folkways, and so as is traditional at events like this, I would like to begin by apologising... I'm sorry... I'm really sorry... I know that at a tech event, you expect to hear from a speaker who will come up and tell you how to lose hundreds of billions of dollars building data-centres for the money-losingest technology in human history, a technology so wildly defective that we've had to come up with new, exotic words to describe its defects, like "hallucination." A technology that will never recoup the capex already firehosed on – let alone the trillions committed to it – and whose only possible path to glory is to somehow get so good that it makes millions of people unemployed... But don't worry: you can't make the word-guessing program into a "superintelligence" by shoveling more words into it...
#artificialTechnology #enshittification #disenshittification #counterdisruption #datacenters #workers #laborNews #tech #techNews #dmca #techHistory
https://pluralistic.net/2026/01/29/post-american-canada/#ottawa
@pluralistic > Disenshittification Nation (29 Jan 2026):
Like all the best Americans, I am a Canadian, and while I have lived abroad for more than two decades, I flatter myself that I am still steeped in our folkways, and so as is traditional at events like this, I would like to begin by apologising... I'm sorry... I'm really sorry... I know that at a tech event, you expect to hear from a speaker who will come up and tell you how to lose hundreds of billions of dollars building data-centres for the money-losingest technology in human history, a technology so wildly defective that we've had to come up with new, exotic words to describe its defects, like "hallucination." A technology that will never recoup the capex already firehosed on – let alone the trillions committed to it – and whose only possible path to glory is to somehow get so good that it makes millions of people unemployed... But don't worry: you can't make the word-guessing program into a "superintelligence" by shoveling more words into it...
#artificialTechnology #enshittification #disenshittification #counterdisruption #datacenters #workers #laborNews #tech #techNews #dmca #techHistory
https://pluralistic.net/2026/01/29/post-american-canada/#ottawa
Reading #enshittification and had to put it down after the Facebook case study because it made me so angry.
Specifically, I'm angry that our need to be social has been used to manipulate and control us. And it makes me more angry that most people stay on a shitty platform. AND it makes me even more angry that those who do leave, jump to a new platform that will be enshittified in a few years.
Thanks @pluralistic for spreading this message. I will return to the book once I simmer down
Reading #enshittification and had to put it down after the Facebook case study because it made me so angry.
Specifically, I'm angry that our need to be social has been used to manipulate and control us. And it makes me more angry that most people stay on a shitty platform. AND it makes me even more angry that those who do leave, jump to a new platform that will be enshittified in a few years.
Thanks @pluralistic for spreading this message. I will return to the book once I simmer down
I get email.
I remember reading and commenting on the essay where you first used the term #enshittification, on @medium back in November 2022. I doubt you or anyone else realized then how much it would catch on 🙂
https://doctorow.medium.com/social-quitting-1ce85b67b456
Also, happy to see another @thunderbird user. Sadly, Mozilla is becoming enshittified as well.
@Jueltrae Enabling end-users to control their hearing aids with #FOSS software reminds me of @pluralistic book #enshittification.
@Jueltrae Enabling end-users to control their hearing aids with #FOSS software reminds me of @pluralistic book #enshittification.
And now, thanks to @plambrechtsen his genius idea of asking @pluralistic to sign some sticky labels, I have a signed copy of #Enshittification.
And now, thanks to @plambrechtsen his genius idea of asking @pluralistic to sign some sticky labels, I have a signed copy of #Enshittification.
Well, shit. Dropbox no longer supports my old but perfectly fine Samsung Galaxy Tab A, meaning my old but perfectly fine Samsung Galaxy Tab A has suddenly become nearly useless to me, at least for work purposes.
Fuuuuuuuck #enshittification.
This film is for anyone trying to understand why the world's going to shit and what they can do about it.
From Uber rides to endless battles with customer service bots, Cory’s journey becomes a frustrating, absurd mirror of the very platforms he’s trying to expose.
We’ll be there as Cory dives in headfirst to confront the Enshittocene. It’s not for the faint of heart, but it’ll be entertaining!
Stay tuned and join us as we wade out of the enshittosphere #Enshittification @pluralistic
This film is for anyone trying to understand why the world's going to shit and what they can do about it.
From Uber rides to endless battles with customer service bots, Cory’s journey becomes a frustrating, absurd mirror of the very platforms he’s trying to expose.
We’ll be there as Cory dives in headfirst to confront the Enshittocene. It’s not for the faint of heart, but it’ll be entertaining!
Stay tuned and join us as we wade out of the enshittosphere #Enshittification @pluralistic
Fascinating @pluralistic is developing his theory of #enshittification into a general theory of the rise and eventual collapse of power based on network effects.
Short version: Network effects make switching costly. User are trapped and become sitting ducks for ever-increasing exploitation. As long as the cost of switching is larger than the costs of being exploited, nominally free users rationally decide grin and bear it. But when the costs of being exploited becomes to onerous, it starts to look attractive to buckle the costs of switching. Particularly if the burden of exploitation rises for lot of people in parallel.
This, so the general theory, not only applies to social media, but also to other systems with strong network effects, such as the dollar system.
I'm sure economists could turn this into a formula to predict the point where networks suddenly crumble.
https://pluralistic.net/2026/01/26/i-dont-want/#your-greenback-dollar
Fascinating @pluralistic is developing his theory of #enshittification into a general theory of the rise and eventual collapse of power based on network effects.
Short version: Network effects make switching costly. User are trapped and become sitting ducks for ever-increasing exploitation. As long as the cost of switching is larger than the costs of being exploited, nominally free users rationally decide grin and bear it. But when the costs of being exploited becomes to onerous, it starts to look attractive to buckle the costs of switching. Particularly if the burden of exploitation rises for lot of people in parallel.
This, so the general theory, not only applies to social media, but also to other systems with strong network effects, such as the dollar system.
I'm sure economists could turn this into a formula to predict the point where networks suddenly crumble.
https://pluralistic.net/2026/01/26/i-dont-want/#your-greenback-dollar