https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/21/potemkin-ai/#hey-guys
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, and it is a seemingly inevitable consequence arising from the combination of the ease of changing how a platform allocates value, combined with the nature of a "two sided market," where a platform sits between buyers and sellers, hold each hostage to the other, raking off an ever-larger share of the value that passes between them.
[...] Search Amazon for "cat beds" and the entire first screen is ads, including ads for products Amazon cloned from its own sellers, putting them out of business (third parties have to pay 45% in junk fees to Amazon, but Amazon doesn't charge itself these fees). All told, the first five screens of results for "cat bed" are 50% ads.
This is enshittification: surpluses are first directed to users; then, once they're locked in, surpluses go to suppliers; then once they're locked in, the surplus is handed to shareholders and the platform becomes a useless pile of shit. From mobile app stores to Steam, from Facebook to Twitter, this is the enshittification lifecycle.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 25 2023, @08:35PM (2 children)
Well, forgive me, I was imagining why we have to imagine it.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday January 25 2023, @09:01PM (1 child)
Because we don't have the U yet, not even on a state much less national level. I mean, O.K. Alaska has the Permanent fund and that is universal for people who spend 6+ months resident in state, but that's both unreliable in it's amount and hardly starts to make up for the increased costs of living in the great frozen North. Take the Alaska Permanent fund and push that up to $15K per year per person, reliable, throughout the state of Alaska, and see how that changes things. Right now the AK permanent fund payout typically only runs $1K-$2K per year. Average heating costs in Fairbanks run over $6K per year. Now, make that U across the whole US of A at $15K per person per year and see what happens...
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 25 2023, @09:21PM
I suspect we will go on hearing the sob stories of orange-haired cry babies, with silver spoons cascading out of their pouty mouths, who haven't been allowed to be Pwesident or Kingy Wingy.