Companies are willing to make their products less reliable, less attractive, less safe and less resilient in pursuit of rents.
https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/24/rent-to-pwn/
Forget F1: the only car race that matters now is the race to turn your car into a digital extraction machine, a high-speed inkjet printer on wheels, stealing your private data as it picks your pocket. Your car's digital infrastructure is a costly, dangerous nightmare – but for automakers in pursuit of postcapitalist utopia, it's a dream they can't give up on.
[...] Don't drive a cab, create Uber and extract value from every driver and rider. Better still: don't found Uber, invest in Uber options and extract value from the people who invest in Uber. Even better, invest in derivatives of Uber options and extract value from people extracting value from people investing in Uber, who extract value from drivers and riders.
Go meta.
Related Stories
The American Dialect Society has chosen the neologism "enshittification" as its 2023 word of the year:
The term enshittification became popular in 2023 after it was used in a blog post by author Cory Doctorow, who used it to describe how digital platforms can become worse and worse. "Here is how platforms die: first, they are good to their users; then they abuse their users to make things better for their business customers; finally, they abuse those business customers to claw back all the value for themselves. Then, they die. I call this enshittification," Doctorow wrote on his Pluralistic blog.
Presiding at the Jan. 6 voting session were Ben Zimmer, chair of the ADS New Words Committee and language columnist for the Wall Street Journal, and Dr. Kelly Elizabeth Wright of Virginia Tech, data czar of the New Words Committee. "Enshittification is a sadly apt term for how our online lives have become gradually degraded," Zimmer said. "From the time that it first appeared in Doctorow's posts and articles, the word had all the markings of a successful neologism, being instantly memorable and adaptable to a variety of contexts."
The term was first seen over at Cory Doctorow's current blog, Pluralistic. It is a form of rent-seeking also known as platform decay.
Previously:
(2023) Enshittification Everywhere. Your Car, Your Phone, Your Tractor, Your Computer...
Here are two related essays on software freedom in light of the current environment where platform decay has become the norm.
Lead developer of Linux-Libre, FSFLA board member, and previous FSF board member, Alexandre Oliva wrote a piece back in June about platform decay (also known colloquially as enshittification) and how to fight it through software freedom. It's from his May 5th, 2024 LibrePlanet presentation with the same title ( video and slides ). This weekend, developer Daniel Cantarín wrote a follow up addressing the nature of software freedom and the increasing communication, philosophical, and political barriers to actually achieving software freedom.
The two essays are essentially in agreement but raise different points and priorities.
Alexandre Oliva's essay includes the following:
[...] Software (static) enshittification
Back in the time when most users could choose which version of a program they wanted to run, upgrading software was not something that happened automagically. Installing a program involved getting a copy of its installable media, and if you wanted to install a newer version, you had to get a copy of the installable media for the newer version.
You could install them side by side, and if you found that the newer version was lacking some feature important to you, or it didn't serve you well, you could roll back to the older version.
This created a scenario in which the old and the new versions competed for users, so in order for the newer version to gain adoption, it had to be more attractive to users than the older one. It had to offer more interesting features, and if it dropped features or engaged in enshittification, it would need even more interesting features to make up.
This limits how much enshittification can be imposed on users in newer versions. It was much harder to pull feature from under users in that static arrangement.
Software (dynamic) enshittification
But now most users are mistreated with imposed updates, and since they are required to be online all the time, they are vulnerable all the time, and they can't go back to an earlier version that served them well. The following are the most enshittifiable arrangements to offer computing facilities to users. Most enshittifiable so far, Homer Simpson would presumably point out.
Apps that run on remotely-controlled telephones (TRApps) and that are typically automatically updated from exclusive app stores, and their counterparts that run on increasingly enshittified computers (CRApps) are cases in which the programs are installed on your own computer, but are controlled by someone else. They've come to be called apps, so that you'll think of them as appliances rather than as something you can and should be able to tinker with.
Web sites that, every time you visit them, install and demand to run Javascrapped programs on your computer, are a case in which, even if the program is technically Free Software, in this setting, someone else controls which version you get to run, and what that version does.
And then, there are the situations in which, instead of getting a copy of a program, you're offered a service that will do your computing for you, under somebody else's control, substituting software that could have been respectful of your freedom. [...]
The Norwegian Consumer Council has published a new report, Breaking Free: Pathways to a fair technological future, about countering big tech's growing abuse of its increasingly concentrated power. The 100-page PDF is accompanied by two cover letters, one in English to various EU/EEA/UK and US institutions, and one in Norwegian to Norwegian authorities. The report starts with the problem of platform decay now known colloquially as enshittification. One change is the demand for action to be taken proactively:
Traditional competition tools are ex-post and focused on the abuse of market dominance by individual companies. The drives of enshittification cannot always be linked to one dominant company's abuse of its dominance. When enforcement relies on established harms rather than potential market disruptions, it will often also be too late – either because the digital market has already been skewed in big tech companies' favor or because big tech can argue that the case is no longer relevant.
The New Competition Tool allows authorities to investigate more general market failures that could potentially lead to future lock-in effects and implement interim measures before any harms have materialised. It gives competition authorities more flexibility when it comes to which services and practices can be investigated, and would allow them to investigate some of the drivers of enshittification, such as lock-in effects. In Norway, Germany and the UK, competition authorities already have such powers. These powers should be extended to other authorities, including to the European Commission.
However, the keys to platform independence, open standards (to include file formats and protocols), only get mentioned in passing. Albeit the goal of open standards, interoperability (whether cooperative or adversarial), does get more coverage.
Via Louis Rossmann Norweigan Government comes out swinging on enshittification (also on Odysee) who discusses the Norwegian Consumer Council's 4-minute hard hitting video on the scope of the problem.
Previously:
(2026) A Post-American, Enshittification-Resistant Internet
(2025) As Internet Enshittification Marches On, Here are Some of the Worst Offenders
(2024) Cory Doctorow Has a Plan to Wipe Away the Enshittification of Tech
(2023) Enshittification Everywhere. Your Car, Your Phone, Your Tractor, Your Computer...
(Score: 3, Touché) by istartedi on Thursday July 27 2023, @11:56PM
I'm going full meta, and frame in on another web site, with ads.
Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Friday July 28 2023, @12:19AM (5 children)
Customers flock to the stores (or Amazon) to purchase the newest "smart" thing. Smart dishwasher, smart clothes washer, smart refrigerator, smart car, smart pet feeders and waterers, smart lighting, smart fucking DILDOES! Why haven't I seen a smart toilet tissue dispenser on Amazon yet?
People need to just stop buying anything with unnecessary technology built in. I expect my phone, tablet, or desktop to be kinda smart. My kitchen range? Not only "NO", but "FUCK NO!"
We're gonna be able to vacation in Gaza, Cuba, Venezuela, Iran and maybe Minnesota soon. Incredible times.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 28 2023, @12:34AM (2 children)
> ...a smart toilet tissue dispenser
I could use one of those around here, two sheets at a time, only! Might reduce the need to pump the septic tank so often...
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 28 2023, @02:17AM (1 child)
You need a smart septic tank too.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Opportunist on Friday July 28 2023, @07:03AM
I could recommend a few conservative bloggers.
That "smart" part could use some work, I admit, but the rest is absolutely on par.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by PiMuNu on Friday July 28 2023, @07:37AM
I recall seeing something on SN a while back suggesting that while purchases of smart devices is high, the number of people actually connecting them is relatively low. I.e. the manufacturers bolt on a "smart thing" and an "app" and no one cares or uses it. Why do I need to set my washing machine running remotely?
(Score: 2) by RamiK on Friday July 28 2023, @12:09PM
The "smart" pressure cookers really needed the sensors and controllers since you'd otherwise need human supervision. It's not the topic but the variability is well covered here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n6GuQ821VxE [youtube.com]
compiling...
(Score: 5, Insightful) by SomeGuy on Friday July 28 2023, @01:28AM (3 children)
Don't forget to make your data "more secure" by handing over a copy of everything to Microsoft! And you KNOW that this is OK somehow because it ACTUALLY FUCKING SAYS THAT in the windows security settings!
Oh, and let them know every time you log in to your computer, use "apps", or do lots of other things by using a "Microsoft Account". No local account for you! Those are OOOOLD and we hide the ability to do that in disused lavatory with a sign reading " beware of the leopard".
Oh, hey do you want to RENT the ability to write a document? Want to "buy" a word processor? Yea, same lavatory.
I hate this planet.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Opportunist on Friday July 28 2023, @07:06AM (1 child)
Umm... not really. But I wouldn't mind using a free one [libreoffice.org].
They can only take away what you allow them to. Currently, the question is only just how much you put up with before you dare to go out of your comfort zone. The option is there, you know? If you put up with that, you have nobody to blame but yourself... for now at least. Yes, they're working really hard at making it impossible for you to flip them up and tell them to go fuck themselves, but right now, you still have that option.
Use it while you can. And not just with something as trivial as a word processor.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Friday July 28 2023, @04:01PM
I use LibreOffice at work as well as Microsoft Office/365. Not that I really need to use Microsoft Office, but I haven't set the default app to LibreOffice. I also use both, so I'm not totally useless when someone asks me about MS365 products. Unfortunately, we're a Microsoft shop. That said, our IT does support our use of Koha and it's hosted on a Linux server. We do have outside support for Koha itself, but it's hosted locally. I wouldn't have it any other way. Thankfully, our IT does support us in that. It sure helps that the cost of outside support for Koha is less than what we were paying for The Library Corporation's system. Koha has built-in support for generating our own reports too. Screw needing to pay an extra $k per year to have the privilege of generating our own reports. Also, screw having 1 choice for color scheme of our Online Public Access Catalog. I'm also rather bent out of shape for them having taken away my MACROS. While Koha's cataloging system has mostly gone the same direction. Koha was created by and for libraries and hasn't literally left the catalogers out in the cold. Default values in forms, actual macro support, an advanced editor (essentially text editor) with macro support for people with a brain, and all kinds of helpful things. Going with Open Source can have it's headaches, but being stuck with the Vendor's idea of everything, Sucks So MUCH MORE.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 3, Interesting) by bradley13 on Friday July 28 2023, @12:44PM
My next vacation project is to have a hard look at all the traffic on our LAN. We have too many "smart" devices, and I am certain that most of them phone home. Likely time to add some addresses to the PiHole...
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Barenflimski on Friday July 28 2023, @01:36AM (18 children)
When I post about how things used to last forever, I see replies that vary from, "You're an idiot", "If they weren't all plastic, they'd be expensive", "Things are so much more efficient now", "You're a boomer, go have a heart attack."
I laugh because I'm not a boomer, my 50 year old washer/dryer set is still made today by GE and isn't any more or less efficient than the ones with motherboards, the $12 metal tractor I had when I was 5 my kids can play with today. Maybe they have me on the idiot part?
I don't care what these folks try to tell me. When everything I buy, from pool floaties to "phones" to buckets pool chemicals are stored in, to thermometers to speakers to lawn mowers, which all break in 2 years or less, I'd prefer to pay today's inflation based prices. You won't convince me that buying something every 2 years for 20 years is better for the environment than buying something once every 20 years. You won't convince me that the kids birthday parties where every kid gets a bag load of plastic crap that hardly lasts a day is better than either nothing at all, or a metal whistle they might choke on but their kids will be able to play with.
To me, it seems clear that extraction of every single cent based on ones income is exactly what is being taught in Finance/Business school and is implemented in every company that produces anything. From a profits point of view, of course you want your users paying a subscription fee instead of having to pay the costs of having a decent product. It is expensive to re-sell your product and keep customers. It is labor intensive, and you have to be a decent person/company for however many years. That is scary for companies who have to make their numbers every 3 months.
How you convince the younger generations that this is terrible, while the younger generations want to blame their elders for everything wrong is beyond me. I do have a few ideas I'd like to try though.... (for clarity of this post, I'll keep them to myself, for now...)
It's all crap. Get off my lawn.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Friday July 28 2023, @02:17AM (10 children)
I've got an oldie for you. GE refrigerator, bought new, just about 35 years ago. My kids grew up with that fridge as a fixture in their lives. Nothing "smart" about it, unless you consider an icemaker/dispenser "smart". It crapped out. We called the guy, but the guy wasn't in business anymore. We called a couple other guys, but they couldn't get to us for a week or more. Hell, I'm not a fridge guy. I can point to the condensor, the fan, and the coils, but that's about it. I don't have the equipment, or the experience to fix the thing. It probably just needs recharged, but I can't be sure. So - we went and bought a new fridge.
We had to firmly state that we DID NOT WANT a "smart" refrigerator. That, of course, limited our choices. There were prettier fridges on the showroom floor. There were other fridges with features that we might have liked. But, a non-smart fridge did limit our choices. I thought that sucked.
If we weren't in a hurry to get a working fridge in the house, we may have found more, and better choices. But, at least one of us was in a hurry, so we got what we got.
We're gonna be able to vacation in Gaza, Cuba, Venezuela, Iran and maybe Minnesota soon. Incredible times.
(Score: 5, Funny) by bzipitidoo on Friday July 28 2023, @02:30AM (3 children)
One thing about most "smart" devices: If you don't tell them the WiFi password, they can't phone home.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Opportunist on Friday July 28 2023, @07:10AM (2 children)
Most, yes. But the "smarter" ones now simply start looking around for open WiFis and if they find one, they latch onto it. For your convenience, of course.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by PiMuNu on Friday July 28 2023, @07:39AM (1 child)
I note that this is probably illegal in the UK (not saying it doesn't happen, I just note this)
(Score: 2) by Opportunist on Saturday July 29 2023, @07:12PM
Rest assured the "solution" will be that the user can disable it if he somehow manages to find the undocumented menu item and bothered to do so.
(Score: 3, Informative) by krishnoid on Friday July 28 2023, @04:00AM
How unfortunate -- those are probably the most important and most core parts of your existing fridge. Your new one, who knows what it will need if it starts acting up [youtu.be]? You have to wonder if they can even be feasibly repaired.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by shrewdsheep on Friday July 28 2023, @08:42AM (3 children)
35 yrs is too old for a fridge. Fridges have become much more energy efficient by a combination of better insulation and better chillers. "Smart" seems to be an American thing, or I have missed the memo. In Europe, fridges tend not to be smart. At least 6 yrs ago when I bought my last I had no choice of going smart at all (I hope it stays this way).
(Score: 5, Interesting) by canopic jug on Friday July 28 2023, @08:57AM
Then it's past time to take a trip to the store and look around. Six years ago is very a long time and much has changed for the worse. The new appliances largely come with some kind of networking via Wi-Fi and seem to have rather short lives before they have too many critical failures to remain in service. Further, the components are built and/or arranged in such a way as to prevent or at least impair repair.
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by looorg on Friday July 28 2023, @01:52PM (1 child)
Was brought along last year when a friend should get a new refrigerator, we went to the usual big store sellers. A lot of dumb machines. But they had gotten more efficient and faster and used less power. They used LED lights inside these days. One model had an icecube-maker in the door and then there was one space age model (think it was a Samsung) that had like a tablet sized screen in the door and required WiFi and a camera inside so you can sync it to your phone and an app so when you go shopping you don't have to wonder if you have milk you can just watch your fridge-feed. We got the standard one. The biggest choice was the design of the door handle and the colour -- white, black or aluminum finish. His wife demanded it should be white. So it wasn't really a choice. Don't know if anyone actually buys the weird one with the screens and stuff. Most people here don't even have the one with the ice maker.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 29 2023, @12:45PM
> They used LED lights inside
We have a fridge with LED lights. The freezer light quit, I suspect a problem with the power conditioning built into the module, since all the 4 LEDs inside went out at once. Price for the replacement part/module was USD $130(!!) and a good search didn't turn up any 3rd party suppliers.
A little poking around with a multimeter showed 5VDC at the module so I bought a yard (~meter) of white LEDs-on-tape on AliExpress for very little. Hooked it up by faking a connector with bits of solid wire, has been working fine for about 5 years now. A bit crude, I used twist-ties (from food packaging) to attach the string of LEDs to the bottom of one of the racks.
(Score: 2) by Whoever on Friday July 28 2023, @06:28PM
That non-functioning refrigerator was either worth a lot of money or very expensive to repair.
If the freon was still in the refrigerator, it would be worth a lot of money to anyone who could recycle it. If the freon had leaked out, a repair is probably not economically viable.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Thexalon on Friday July 28 2023, @02:24AM (5 children)
The perfect company, as far as Wall Street is concerned:
1. Produces absolutely nothing.
2. Employs nobody.
3. Extracts all earned money from every human.
All companies are vying to maneuver themselves as close to that position as possible. For example, most any business in a position to give out a loan to ordinary customers does so, without hesitation, secure that they can charge such high interest rates that they will leave that ordinary customer paying for years for no additional product. Or if they can't officially give out loans, they ruthlessly overcharge for their product (they get away with this because their competitors are doing the same thing) and make their real money from the late payment fees that the vast majority of customers have to pay.
And anyone with a brain would note that if every company succeeded in reaching this goal, nobody would be employed, nothing would be produced, and nobody would have any money, and as such it would be a complete economic disaster. But that's the target.
"Think of how stupid the average person is. Then realize half of 'em are stupider than that." - George Carlin
(Score: 4, Insightful) by bzipitidoo on Friday July 28 2023, @02:36AM (2 children)
The word is "financialization".
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Thexalon on Friday July 28 2023, @02:51AM (1 child)
Sure, but sometimes it's beneficial to spell it out so people can't hide monstrosity behind euphemisms. Sort of like how moving all the work overseas so it could be done by Chinese teenagers who have nets on their company-owned housing to keep them from escaping work by killing themselves became "free trade".
"Think of how stupid the average person is. Then realize half of 'em are stupider than that." - George Carlin
(Score: 2) by acid andy on Saturday July 29 2023, @11:56AM
Coming soon to a country near you...
"rancid randy has a dialogue with herself[...] Somebody help him!" -- Anonymous Coward.
(Score: 1, Troll) by Freeman on Friday July 28 2023, @04:45PM
You just described the government and the IRS.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday July 29 2023, @01:33AM
In practice, you're not willing to yield on your interests even a little for someone who wants it all. And thus, they don't get it all. Their would be ideal, selfish state is of no relevance as a result.
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Friday July 28 2023, @04:03AM
True ... but you have to balance the cost of disposable vs the cost of durable [goodreads.com].
(Score: 3, Interesting) by driverless on Friday July 28 2023, @07:40AM (5 children)
Does anyone actually have any evidence of this happening, meaning an identifiable individual who did this with receipts for the machines and photos of them being ripped open? This same story has been credited to car manufacturers, Russia, industrial controller manufacturers, ... . The washing machines are going to have something like a low-end Cortex M0 or 8051-equivalent or perhaps even as much as a cheapie M3 in them which is (a) not even remotely automotive-qualified, (b) an SoC chosen specifically for its ability to drive the control circuitry of a washing machine rather than a car or missile or similar and (c) available in one form or another at any point during the pandemic, meaning that although there were shortages there was always something available from somewhere for vastly less cost and effort than trashing an entire containerload of washing machines just to scrape together enough CPUs for one car.
Although perhaps those stories that Hillary Clinton had an FBI agent killed after he ripped the CPUs out of Hunter Biden's laptop in order to steal the election are true after all?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Unixnut on Friday July 28 2023, @08:42AM (4 children)
Sounds like a pile of nonsense, for (a) reasons you already mentioned, and (b) you can buy equivalent silicon chips from China, in bulk if needs be. The Chinese are not so fussy as to who they will sell to. If you got the money, they got the product.
Buying up washing machines or whatever else just to extract a microcontroller from them just does not make sense, unless the microcontroller is more expensive than the washing machine and manufacturers are selling them at a loss.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Spook brat on Friday July 28 2023, @12:58PM (3 children)
I can almost believe it's a thing in wartime Russia, almost.
If I:
then I might consider spending $600-$1000 on a washing machine per missile so that I could ship on time. I mean, it's almost plausible, but there are a bunch of iffy conditions there.
Travel the galaxy! Meet fascinating life forms... And kill them [schlockmercenary.com]
(Score: 2) by driverless on Saturday July 29 2023, @01:56PM (2 children)
The Kinzhal isn't a hypersonic missile, or at least not as the term is usually used, it's a standard Iskander modified for air-launch with the name "Iskander" painted out and "Kinzhal" spray-painted over it. Most of the rest of it is as fake as the name change, e.g. its stated range includes the range of the launching aircraft. And as for the cost, it's probably $10K for the missile and $2,990,000 for the general in charge of the program and the two dozen Putin cronies supervising things.
They're also going to need something a bit more sophisticated than an 8051 to control the thing.
(Score: 2) by Spook brat on Monday July 31 2023, @01:04PM (1 child)
LOL, no doubt on either the processor requirements or the cronyism of the manufacturing.
The cronyism markup is, in fact, the main thing that makes this scenario plausible. If I were riding that gravy train, and my choice was either to stop making sales OR wastefully buy up a bunch of washing machines and de-solder ICs from their mainboards to make up a shortfall, I know which choice I'd make.
Of course, now we're back to the plausibility of washing machines using milspec chips, or missiles using 8051s, and we're back in fantasy land... Or, at least, Putin hopes that the missiles aren't using 8051s. ;)
Travel the galaxy! Meet fascinating life forms... And kill them [schlockmercenary.com]
(Score: 3, Funny) by driverless on Monday July 31 2023, @01:44PM
Actually that's a perfectly Russian way to do it, "Why are these 45-cent STM32's being billed at $1,000 each?". "Well to get them we had to buy a washing machine and then desolder the CPU from it, we've already recycled/trashed/sent to Siberia the washing machines so no need to check anything, just accept the cost of $1,000 per CPU. Now, about the $10,000 actuators, you won't believe what we had to do to get those...".
(Score: 3, Insightful) by VLM on Friday July 28 2023, @04:13PM
Its simpler than you'd think.
Whenever a middleman or someone trying to rent something tells you its a great idea, emulate the 80s anti-drug ads and "just say no"
There's almost no situation where making middlemen rich is a good idea.
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Friday July 28 2023, @11:01PM
Why not extract energy as well? That way, it looks like people are working for each other, when it's more like slavery, but with extra steps [youtu.be].