Enshittification

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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.

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Google, then vs now (lemmy.world)

submitted 5 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

Regarding your concerns of astroturfing, I'm a legitimate Kagi user and I'm incredibly pleased with their service. I know I'm just one person, but here I am. You can easily check my post history and see that I'm not a Kagi shill. I heard about it here back when we were all coming here from reddit, tried it out, and stuck with it. The cost is a small price to pay considering how many times per month I was getting frustrated with Google - it was hundreds of times per month.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago

Thanks :)

I never saw any evidence in anyone's post histories. Everyone seemed like they were typical Lemmy users.

I wouldn't have hidden my disclaimer in a spoiler if I had seen anything that suspicious, but I also wouldn't have been suspicious in the first place if I didn't get a weird gut feel. As I've said in an earlier thread, I myself have sounded like an ad before - there is a non-zero chance every single post about the surface I have ever read has been 100% legitimate. Genuine enthusiasm for a product can be entirely distinguishable from manufactured enthusiasm.

I did use the trial, and it is legitimately an excellent experience. It's not like, oh wow, the results are so much better than Google's, but the results are better than every single provider except Google, plus you don't feel dirty when you use it.

There's a chance this is the last time I complain about this suspicion I can't prove. After all, I'm rooting for them.

Semi-tangential: The status quo is more or less acceptable today, but if price discrimination kicks in hardcore someday thanks to data mining, it will cost a lot of people a lot of money, and by then it might be too late. (That’s probably my big fear. Advertisers don’t care about you or me specifically, I’m not paranoid in that sense, but they do salivate at the thought of learning enough about us they can do custom pricing on everything and charge each of us the absolute maximum we’re willing to pay.)