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As Internet enshittification marches on, here are some of the worst offenders:
Two years ago, a Canadian writer named Cory Doctorow coined the phrase "enshittification" to describe the decay of online platforms. The word immediately set the Internet ablaze, as it captured the growing malaise regarding how almost everything about the web seemed to be getting worse.
"It's my theory explaining how the Internet was colonized by platforms, why all those platforms are degrading so quickly and thoroughly, why it matters, and what we can do about it," Doctorow explained in a follow-up article. "We're all living through a great enshittening, in which the services that matter to us, that we rely on, are turning into giant piles of shit. It's frustrating. It's demoralizing. It's even terrifying."
Doctorow believes there are four basic forces that might constrain companies from getting worse: competition, regulation, self-help, and tech workers. One by one, he says, these constraints have been eroded as large corporations squeeze the Internet and its denizens for dollars.
If you want a real-world, literal example of enshittification, let's look at actual poop. When Diapers.com refused Amazon's acquisition offer, Amazon lit $100 million on fire, selling diapers way below cost for months, until Diapers.com folded. With another competitor tossed aside, Amazon was then free to sell diapers at its price from wherever it wanted to source them.
Anyway, we at Ars have covered a lot of things that have been enshittified. Here are some of the worst examples we've come across. Hopefully, you'll share some of your own experiences in the comments. We might even do a follow-up story based on those.
Smart TVs have come a long way since Samsung released the first model readily available for the masses in 2008. While there have certainly been improvements in areas like image quality, sound capabilities, usability, size, and, critically, price, much of smart TVs' evolution could be viewed as invasive and anti-consumer.
Today, smart TVs are essentially digital billboards that serve as tools for companies—from advertisers to TV OEMs—to extract user data. Corporate interest in understanding what people do with and watch on their TVs and in pushing ads has dramatically worsened the user experience. For example, the remotes for LG's 2025 TVs don't have a dedicated input button but do have multiple ways for accessing LG webOS apps.
This is all likely to get worse as TV companies target software, tracking, and ad sales as ways to monetize customers after their TV purchases—even at the cost of customer convenience and privacy. When budget brands like Roku are selling TV sets at a loss, you know something's up.
With this approach, TVs miss the opportunity to appeal to customers with more relevant and impressive upgrades. There's also a growing desire among users to disconnect their connected TVs, defeating their original purpose. Suddenly, buying a dumb TV seems smarter than buying a smart one. But smart TVs and the ongoing revenue opportunities they represent have made it extremely hard to find a TV that won't spy on you.
Doctorow writes about so many different aspects of enshittification that is not possible to cover them all here, and it would be wrong to copy the entire source. However, he discusses Google, PDFs, Apple, TV Sports, AI, Windows, etc. I recommend that you read the original source, but you will probably spend much of the time nodding in agreement to his observations and comments.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Barenflimski on Friday February 07 2025, @04:59PM (12 children)
I got a Roku back in the day because I needed an interface for Plex. It used to work like a charm. Simple interface, my favorites were at the top. Nice and neat.
Then, Enshittification.
Roku is now pushing ads. They're pushing streaming services, some their own, others paid by whomever wants their tile at the top. They're collecting gobs of data.
Today the Roku's I have hardly function as they are now ad servers with bloatware. They crash all the time. When not crashing, they are slow, laggy. My "favorite" tiles are rarely on the first page anymore.
Sometimes at night I stand in the window, fists raised at the sky and I yell, "Ma Roku!"
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Friday February 07 2025, @05:29PM (3 children)
Almost a decade ago, I got a Vizio smart TV, just a 24", mostly to check them out. It became so crappy no one uses it any more. No longer connects to YouTube. Frequently forgets Netflix user id and password, and tapping that in on a remote control is annoying. Anyway, I canceled Netflix. Several other commercial services it was programmed to access have gone under. Now it just sits there gathering dust. I only turn it on for weather reporting on broadcast TV, when there is severe weather.
I thought, hmm, is this how we get family to stop watching TV? But no, everyone uses laptops with ad blocking, and some endure ads on tablets.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 07 2025, @06:02PM (2 children)
If you block the Vizio's Internet connection, will it function as a simple monitor, like HDMI or whatever input?
(Score: 3, Informative) by bzipitidoo on Friday February 07 2025, @06:11PM
Yes, it can still do that. It has had a few forced "upgrades" which I do not think have disabled the HDMI input.
(Score: 3, Informative) by driverless on Saturday February 08 2025, @05:51AM
That's the solution for "smart" TVs, just hellban them. VLAN them off or block them at the firewall or whatever it takes, let them run in their own private universe where they're perfectly happy but can't do anything.
In fact I'm surprised someone hasn't made a $20 box any nontechnical person can buy and use for this and plastered it all over the usual crapvendors (Amazon, Temu, etc).
(Score: 3, Informative) by VLM on Friday February 07 2025, @08:04PM
I shelled out the money for Emby; support your local(ish) software developers, etc. Its "basically the same thing" if you're unfamiliar with Emby. You're paying money for them to pay attention to bug reports on the forums more or less. Also they give free OTA listings which has a cost and I feel they deserve the small amount of cash.
There are options in the settings to remove most of the shit and bloatware from Roku, to the point that it works pretty good.
I find it aesthetically annoying that they change the background image/decor. I'd be happy with light gray.
My current only annoyance with Emby is theres no "logical" way to handle transcode vs direct play for different files. Obviously direct play doesn't work or looks awful for some file formats so I can't set it and forget it to direct play, although it works beautifully with most files. Obviously transcoding is trash for some formats and it would be better to just "do your best" rather than trying to convert to a format that doesn't look any better or chokes out the CPU making it unwatchable anyway due to occasional timeouts, so I can't set it and forget it to transcode always.
"Obviously" in my infinite spare time I need to write a script for HandBrake or maybe directly mess with ffmpeg to slowly and methodically transcode any file I have encoded with trash into something that looks really good on Direct Play. Or I could throw infinite CPU at the problem using infinite money so transcoding always "works".
It would be nice if Emby had a ruleset for playing based on characteristics rather than just directplay or attempt to transcode and hope for the best.
Live TV recordings work perfectly; videos downloaded from YouTube work perfectly; my problem is entirely movies and tv shows downloaded from ... the usual sources ... sometimes very old now, (10, 15 years old) and having what would now be considered odd video encodings.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Gaaark on Friday February 07 2025, @09:07PM (3 children)
Go into settings and you are able to turn off a bunch of ads (you can turn off 'seasonal' and 'ad' backgrounds, etc.
I find the Roku bounds better than the firestick, but yes, shit is spilling over the septic tank.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. I have always been here. ---Gaaark 2.0 --
(Score: 3, Touché) by Ox0000 on Friday February 07 2025, @09:35PM (2 children)
Why are the ads even on to begin with? Is this another MBA fishing for a promotion who convinced people that "Oh yes, people LOVE seeing ads, they totally want this turned on and will love your product for it"?
(Score: 5, Funny) by Gaaark on Friday February 07 2025, @11:46PM
[Ivanova rants about EarthGov's decision to sell B5 merchandise.]
Susan Ivanova: Welcome to Babylon 5, the last, best hope for a quick buck!
John Sheridan: Commander—
Ivanova: Oh, this is demeaning! I mean, we're not some…some deep-space franchise! This station is about something.
Londo Mollari: It's a mockery! It doesn't even have any, uh…attributes.
Sheridan: Attributes?
Londo: Do I have to spell it out for you?
[Londo gestures downward. Ivanova and Sheridan stare at Londo, then at each other.]
Sheridan, Ivanova: Ohh!
Ivanova: I see. So you feel like you're being symbolically cast... in a bad light.
Sheridan: Well put.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. I have always been here. ---Gaaark 2.0 --
(Score: 3, Touché) by Freeman on Monday February 10 2025, @05:42PM
It's called money.
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: 2) by Gaaark on Thursday February 13 2025, @09:30PM (2 children)
Just got this pop-up notice:
Have to see how this goes..... :/
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. I have always been here. ---Gaaark 2.0 --
(Score: 2) by Barenflimski on Thursday February 13 2025, @10:19PM (1 child)
Damn. These guys...
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Thursday February 13 2025, @10:54PM
I might look into Jellyfin or Kodi; but right now I'm having motherboard or gpu issues. My system will work for a while, then start slowing and then freezing or just almost immediately freezing. :/
Still narrowing it down before i buy something to replace something....
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. I have always been here. ---Gaaark 2.0 --