I'm only tired that it's so overused. But taken as originally used by one guy one time, it is perfectly fine, and "worsening" is worse. Enshittification, before it became a Flaming Moe, has imagination and life. Worsening has neither. Humans, or at least, I, are not mere data processing devices. Mere dictionary correctness is not enough to convey an idea, and especially not enough for that idea to have any impact. If Cory wrote and spoke that BORING, he would be like all the other perfectly correct and perfectly ignored.
Reading your comment, I do agree. Another thing though is that I cannot really use the word outside of the "Hacker News/Tech" scene. If I want to speak to someone who isn't online as much and not in the loop I have to use "worsening" or something else anyway.
I don't use the term often, but I've used it with normal people (as opposed to tech people), and every time, they've instantly understood what I meant.
But sure, there are countless things I too don't say a certain way or even whole topics I don't discuss at all depending on who I'm talking to or in what context.
You can also just blame it on him. You can say it, and say this guy said this instead of just saying it directly. I do that I guess just for the lack of imagination reason. I hate repeating someone else so I haven't actually adopted the word in my own speaking, so if I were to talk about the topic with someone, I'd probably say this guy said it this way and it's perfect... I said it's perfect and yet I distanced myself.
Cory does use "enshitification" to mean a specific bait-and-switch
tactic in which companies offer a free product for years, corner a
market, and then abuse their trapped user base.
It's sassy. But specifics are most useful in writing that has
durability as well as aesthetic power. People reading in 10 years
won't necessarily get what "enshitification" means.
Instead I prefer to talk about:
Hijack. It's pretty common for BigTech to take over a company or
service and hold it hostage.
Sabotage. The deliberate breaking of standards, dumbing down of
information, reduction of capabilities. Most often when BigTech
interacts with an existing system it leaves it much worse of
functionally.
Betrayal. Quite simply BigTech is treacherous. Whatever faith or
loyalty long-standing users have the company will sell them for a
dime, break promises, lie and steal whatever data they like.
And we could go on with many timeless names for harms perpetrated by
these aggressive and socially derelict companies - but my point is
that it pays to pause for a moment and think about the deeper nature
of the harms to find the best word for what's really happening.
it's about kind-of watering-down any value and substituting it with something "free"-beer-like (but for which you "pay" giving away your kidneys. or kids)
Decay implies simple neglect, vs deliberate actions that make the platforms or systems worse, sometimes out of incompetence, but often because the companies objectives no longer align with the customers.
"Worsening" would be a euphemism, and a mild one at that.
Do you want to end up minimizing in that way, maybe like spy movies saying "sanctioning" instead of "murdering"?
That said, I see your side of the point. I see people calling the police "thugs" and my judgement falls on the people doing the name calling. So, I don't know the answer.
maybe it is to choose a better strong term, like corruption.
Not really. I'm a nonnative English speaker, maybe that's why it invokes a gross image in my imagination.
Having that said, very inappropriate of you to make assumptions about me ;)
He's just coming up with new terms for old concepts. He's just talking about anti-trust law and anti-trust economics. This is all very well trodden territory.
There's nothing wrong with him doing this and in some ways I appreciate how he gets new audiences excited about these rather staid concepts. He's a teacher in that way, and if he can get more people clued into anti-trust thinking in the technology space then good for him.
> He's just talking about anti-trust law and anti-trust economics. This is all very well trodden territory
He seems to be very much arguing for a _comeback_ of something that has been less used in recent decades. He's not hiding that. Does that count as "well-trodden" if it's nearly forgotten in modern times?
