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from the aka-avoiding-the-enshittification-of-software dept.
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. [...]
And Daniel Cantarín's follow up essay includes the following:
[...] Mr. Oliva tells us that, between enshittified software and free software, the choice is not hard. It’s the very article’s title, and it alone should scandalize anyone with minimal knowledge in the matter between its implicit lack of touch with objective reality and its close distance with hypocrisy, all that in a very light tone that even had the intention of being somehow funny. And this discourse wasn’t even in a divulgation context, with an auditorium strange to free software: it was for LibrePlanet, where most people use free software and knows its history and details. Considering that Mr. Oliva is a public and important figure inside the community, a referent, and also considering that I can very rarely participate in this kind of community events -because I have very little free time-, I immediately asked myself: is this the kind of stuff the community is talking about? Are this the discursive lines our references tell us to follow?
No, Mr. Oliva, I’m afraid you’re deeply mistaken: choosing free software is hard. VERY hard. TOO hard, I dare say. And I have my serious suspicions that our leaders/references and the course of our communities has a lot to do with that. But let’s take a look at this argument by contrasting my context with your article.
The tip of the iceberg
Mr. Oliva tells us about different types of software enshittification in different contexts, both historical and operational. Stuff we all know and hate like forced updates, software stores, remote policying, inability to go back to previous versions, and so on and so on. Please go read the full article, as in this regards is actually fruitful if you don’t know what we’re talking about here. I believe all of Mr. Oliva’s remarks are true: enshittification is a real phenomenon, he’s not the first one to mention it (as he adequately clarifies), and it’s an actual and important issue that we all need to pay attention to. That’s all fine, and the problem with his article of course is not there. The problem is how he talks about it, specially to force his interpretations as if it where some kind of “common sense”. So it’s important to take a look at his arguments.
Let’s begin by this quote: [...]
Rights which we had in the analog world are getting increasingly difficult to carry over into the digital realm. Whether we can or not will depend on software and the protocols and file formats the software rely upon.
Previously:
(2024) Enshittification of Google and the Men Who Killed Search
(2024) Bruce Perens Solicits Comments on First Draft of a Post-Open License
(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, Interesting) by Reziac on Friday August 16 2024, @03:22AM
Hell, I use a DOS app from 1991 that's been irreplaceable. My primary work software, also with no reasonable replacement, was last updated in 2005 (but fortunately will run on W95 onward). My daily driver runs XP64 because it doesn't constantly make me want to jerk a UI dev through the monitor and bite his head off. I became annoyed with modern versions of business card software and reverted to Rockford, which was designed for Win3.0, dumb as bricks but did what I wanted without an argument.
Yeah, I feel the pinch sometimes, but it's not enough to make me switch fulltime to the Win11 laptop or even the linux box. Because the chronic annoyances and deficiencies that have been introduced over the years are not worth it.
They way they make anything attractive to ordinary people is by making it the path of least resistance. And if you're not a geek, that's the only path there is. We're outclassed and outnumbered.
Now, everyone off our lawn!
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.