The specific meaning in the sidebar is explicitly about differentiating it from other generic capitalist decay. It's specific to online platforms, and in that specificity, is narrowly tailored and more relevant to what we experience in the 2020s.
That's the beauty of words - you don't need to reuse the same word for vastly different phenomenon, and by allowing words to have specific meanings, you increase the deftness with which we articulate and discuss the world.
Well, I mean, I remember when Cory Doctorow first created the word, and it's always meant to me what the sidebar says. It captured specifically why online platforms start out very consumer-friendly to attract users, until the users and businesses are trapped by network effects, and they become the product being sold.
Maybe language changes, maybe it now means just "things getting worse" to some people. But I honestly think that's a tragedy, because if "enshittification" loses its specific meaning, it loses the power to specifically call attention to this phenomenon.
I mean, I agree with this and think it should be spread widely, but probably should be in politics or politicalmemes.
Enshittification is, from the sidebar, "The phenomenon of online platforms gradually degrading the quality of their services, often by promoting advertisements and sponsored content, in order to increase profits."
Just a reminder that, especially for Trump and those who staff his new media-manipulation-savvy regime (Fox News defectors), Friday night is when you take action or release things that you don't want people paying attention to. Friday night, we're all exhausted and/or distracted. By Monday there will be a new news cycle.
Installing loyalists in the top military positions is one of the things that is signal, not noise.
This seems like a standard hopium piece on the left. Take the first anecdote:
Last June, the popular UFC fighter Sean Strickland surprised onlookers when, immediately following a victory, he ducked into the audience and took a photo with a bystander: Donald Trump. “President Trump, you’re the man, bro,” Strickland declared in his post-match interview with Joe Rogan. “It is a damn travesty what they’re doing to you. I’ll be donating to you, my man. Let’s get it done.” Video of the moment rocketed across social media, serving as an early indicator of Trump’s enduring strength with his base, despite his recent felony convictions.
Strickland went viral last week for a very different reason: opposition to the president and his plan to take over Gaza. “Man if Trump keeps this bs up I’m about to start waving a Palestinian flag,” the fighter posted on X. “American cities are shitholes and you wanna go spend billions on this dumpster fire. Did we make a mistake?! This ain’t America first.” Strickland’s lament racked up 159,000 likes and 13.2 million views.
This isn't even buyer's remorse - Strickland couldn't even bring himself to make a statement rather than a question - but even assuming it is, the article fundamentally misunderstands MAGA believers' relationship with Trump. Sure, they will question random one-off decisions, but even outright contradicting their own interests will at best draw this - momentary mild annoyance. Meanwhile, if next week Trump says something that can be contorted to be a show of support for their own goals, even if wildly improbable and incoherent, they'll be back to fawning over him.
We see him as a toddler, or a middle-school bully who tears the legs off frogs for fun. Yes, that is true, but irrelevant. What this article writer doesn't get is that parents will usually do anything to protect their baby, or live in denial that their middle-schooler is a psychopath.
These complaints are in reality just cries for the warm blanket of propaganda to lull them back to sleep with some easy answer, and annoyance at the vertigo of momentarily seeing reality. The thesis that Trump's support will fall over time because of this is absurd.
The fastest way to dehumanize immigrants is to normalize not treating them like humans.
I was surprised to see Zuckerberg with higher unfavorable and lower favorable ratings. Musk is in my opinion clearly the most evil and hateful figure at the moment. But then when they break out the statistics by party, it makes sense and seems obvious.
Everyone on both sides politically dislikes Zuck, because Facebook is a hellhole. But Musk has the GOP. Averaged out, Musk gets a boost, benefitting from the politicization.
It seems like this is putting data behind the motive for Zuck more publicly supporting right wing efforts.
They can convert that money into control/ownership over land and people.
If the economy is broken for everyone else, but you control the survival of people (through destroying or blocking labor laws, wage protections, public insurance, and eventually distribution of food and water, etc) and the space around those people (land, property), that control will outlast the economy and potentially the government. That's because they can afford their own monopoly on violence in a given domain, if the state's monopoly falls apart.
We're not quite there yet, but fiefdoms could yet come back in style.
Zelensky has been very careful not to burn the Trump bridge prematurely, but Trump's Russia misinformation comments seem to have turned the tide.
Trump was just baiting and waiting, and this response unfortunately likely took the bait (though who can blame him, it's all true). So I think this is the turning point and will give Trump an excuse to lash out by revoking aid, and jointly propose a "peace" treaty with Russia that gives Russia substantial parts of Ukraine.
Trump defended the order, stating, “He who saves his Country does not violate any Law.”
Wow, that really sums up the fascist intent right there. The ends justify the means and no law applies to him.
I wish the general public were paying more attention.
Gosh, wherever could Trump be getting his Ukraine strategy from?
Is...is the car glued together?