The most glaring example is probably the automatically AI-enabled Google search. Such a chore to turn that thing off every time you look for results by relevance!

Still, the concept of this isn't so much new (even L.L.Bean and Hammacher Schlemmer products, once known for lifetime warranties, have become crappier). It'a more the rate and frequency of how shitty all these things have become.

That said, far more galling and less talked-about is the whole venture-capital (and if the company is lucky, shareholder-driven) model itself. Which is the root of the problem: Companies no longer need to create a useful, profitable product or generate money to seem "successful" in the first place. It's more about putting on a show to keep investor cash flowing. The most glaring example of this being Musk's various enterprises. And so, when companies perceived as being huge and money-making are merely interesting, mostly unrealistic ideas on paper (or, worse yet, "disruptive"), we've got rot embedded as an actual goal. Why wouldn't some age-old endeavor w/a decent product start gradually hawking hollower bullshit instead, especially if there's new executive talent raised on such ideas?

The whole thing is more of a symptom of "tech" and the model it ushered forth rather than a symptom of capitalism itself. Many decades ago, people would have been puzzled by a company that doesn't make any money being perceived as an incredible success. New "business" is basically being promoted as a casino for investors instead of a public service.

Remember when Doc Martins were made in England and the soles had a life time guarantee?

Now they’re sweat shops and fall apart after a year or two.

Gramsci wrote: Fri Aug 15, 2025 12:50 pm Remember when Doc Martins were made in England and the soles had a life time guarantee?

Now they’re sweat shops and fall apart after a year or two.

You can still get made in England George Cox Creepers though!

https://www.georgecoxfootwear.com/

Good thread. Nearly every word of it true thus far.

I will duck in to add that, in addition to enshittification, you should know about technofeudalism, already hinted at upthread.

If you haven't already read or don't have time to read Yanis Varoufakis's book published earlier this year, you can watch this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DPpsr7ZJbWc

In a nutshell, things have been moving toward un-freedom.

At least if you're the average person.

Tech companies have already shown a flagrant disregard for ethical norms. They won't have a problem fucking us all over again and again in the name of progress until one day we wake up and society is barely recognizable (in a bad way).

There's some kind of through-line in the general move from union-busting and outsourcing and de-industrialization in America, to a service economy, to a tech-based world/technofeudalism, to a automation/AI, to the robots taking over and everyone wanting a dog all of a sudden to sniff out terminators/uncanny battle bots.

enframed wrote: Fri Aug 15, 2025 1:05 pm

Gramsci wrote: Fri Aug 15, 2025 12:50 pm Remember when Doc Martins were made in England and the soles had a life time guarantee?

Now they’re sweat shops and fall apart after a year or two.

You can still get made in England George Cox Creepers though!

https://www.georgecoxfootwear.com/

You can still get made in england Docs too, you're just gonna pay for 'em. I got a pair on sale for ~$200 in 2021 and they're going strong.

cakes wrote: Fri Aug 15, 2025 10:35 am

brephophagist wrote: Fri Aug 15, 2025 10:16 am Having worked in software for over 20 years, I can say I have been in many management meetings where the object is not to discover "what new ideas do we have to generate more money" (because line must go up), but instead: "how can we extract more from our existing customers without them revolting".

This. I always called out shitheads in meetings for this. Luckily, never been fired for it.

Ha, I definitely have been fired for it.

brephophagist wrote: Fri Aug 15, 2025 4:28 pm

cakes wrote: Fri Aug 15, 2025 10:35 am

brephophagist wrote: Fri Aug 15, 2025 10:16 am Having worked in software for over 20 years, I can say I have been in many management meetings where the object is not to discover "what new ideas do we have to generate more money" (because line must go up), but instead: "how can we extract more from our existing customers without them revolting".

This. I always called out shitheads in meetings for this. Luckily, never been fired for it.

Ha, I definitely have been fired for it.

Never been fired for it but have definitely quit a time or three.

Frankie99 wrote: Fri Aug 15, 2025 4:24 pm

enframed wrote: Fri Aug 15, 2025 1:05 pm

Gramsci wrote: Fri Aug 15, 2025 12:50 pm Remember when Doc Martins were made in England and the soles had a life time guarantee?

Now they’re sweat shops and fall apart after a year or two.

You can still get made in England George Cox Creepers though!

https://www.georgecoxfootwear.com/

You can still get made in england Docs too, you're just gonna pay for 'em. I got a pair on sale for ~$200 in 2021 and they're going strong.

I was planning a pair of these next winter. £200 is fine considering Docs are about £170 and shit.

Frankie99 wrote: Fri Aug 15, 2025 4:24 pm You can still get made in england Docs too, you're just gonna pay for 'em. I got a pair on sale for ~$200 in 2021 and they're going strong.

And just to add to the confusion the UK company who made Docs from the 50s to the 80s are still making them using the original machines: Solovair.

So -- unless I've got things muddled -- there are two companies making Docs in Wollaston.

It's not at all true that everything is worse now.

Still plenty of great physical things out there.

It is a matter of absolute fact that the internet is degrading. Essentially everything about it is getting worse.

Information is controlled and gatekept by the mass-market consolidation of search, e-comm, and news production.

Search has consolidated into a (very) few silos of trillion-dollar corporations.
E-comm has followed suit, in that one must play the game with these companies to survive selling stuff online.
News has almost utterly capitulated to:
--the demands of search in terms of what it takes to get visibility
--the allure of mass advertising (props to the likes of The Guardian for not giving in)

Those corporations that control search, therefore, control information to a great degree.
They have encouraged (I'd say spearheaded) the proliferation of not just advertising and commerce driving, but abject misinformation.
Misinformation in would-be news.
Misinformation in advertising, in a variety of clickbait/ragebait/despairbait nuggets.
Endorphin-producing devices designed to keep you hopping about online as much as possible.

That's why it feels like everything is worse.

AI will ensure that the flow of bullshit accelerates. It is easier to create manipulative garbage than ever before, and it won't get more difficult.

I think, as someone who works in internet advertising, that the solution is to spend less time online and more time out in the world around other people, animals, plants, bodies of water, sunshine, etc.

Just texting with some people about this subject, and a good friend who works in infosec said:

"I was at a work conference in Copenhagen and one brilliant dude said he wants to get out of this field (as do I) and then he wants to purge his house of every printed circuit board."

I think any circuit board before about 1995 is probably safe.

Part of my reply to him:

"the absolutely evil genius of getting people to carry around these lil trackers in the form of attention-sapping phone pacifiers...i mean the long con of the internet and tech in general is really something. it's up there with big oil"

I say this as an iPhone user, not as someone who is above it all. Yet. Maybe someday.

.