2024-04-28 14:34:17 I saw this article at the front page of Lobste.rs, it talked about yet another example of enshittification, which I decided to look into more thoroughly. https://fy.blackhats.net.au/blog/2024-04-26-passkeys-a-shattered-dream/ Note that, Lobste.rs commentors also poins out that Passkeys getting "worse" isn't "enshittification": https://lobste.rs/s/gqoj5n/passkeys_shattered_dream#c_knqbom "I made this joke on Mastodon: First “enshittification” delivered a lot of value tor readers as a coherent theory of capitalism. Then it delivered value to writers as a way of signaling understanding that theory. Now it delivers all value to the platforms themselves as an empty signifie" So enshittification, the term, is now subject to enshittification? (This is yet another example of inaccurate use of the term. Bathe in the rich irony.) --- Anyways, before I can assess these takes I must first study in more depth the term itself. This is a collection of the parts of the rabbit hole regarding big tech companies enshittifying their products I've explored. Many of which come from readings of months or years before, which I'm now reminded of when looking into this topic. This document might receive periodic updates for the next few days as I continue to collect and refine notes from articles and possibly even books mentioned. Last update: 2024-04-29 11:30:11 Conventions: - Verbatim quotes: Indented blocks wrapped with "" - I try to paraphrase at least a little for non-quotes - Books: b"" --- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enshittification - Links to the DEF CON talk and several corporate examples. - Links to references and further reading - DEF CON 31 - Cory Doctorow https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:DEF_CON_31_-_An_Audacious_Plan_to_Halt_the_Internet%27s_Enshittification_-_Cory_Doctorow_(q118B_QdP2k).webm - facebook - marketed as privacy-respecting myspace - cost of moving away from the system - ads - 3 criteria, after having been met, enshittification is inevitable 1) lack of competition dominance by a selective list of companies eliminating competition - google - they're just buying other people ideas because they're rich interop - google/apple office suite allowing conversion/import from microsoft office - myspace -> facebook - easy transition 2) laws - unrestricted "twiddling" for us 3) embrace laws - just the ones that would help them restricted "twiddling" for them - open up walled gardens - make it easy to switch systems - hack, scrape, reverse engineer - asking govs to require tech to not break interoperability - Interesting related books I found related to the speaker - b"Chokepoint Capitalism" https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/60098290-chokepoint-capitalism - b"The Internet Con" https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/120806182-the-internet-con - b"Information Doesn't Want to Be Free" https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/20763766-information-doesn-t-want-to-be-free - b"How to Destroy Surveillance Capitalism" https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/55134785-how-to-destroy-surveillance-capitalism - b"Content" - b"Context" - Seirdy's - WhatsApp & User Domestication It talks about enshittification (perhaps 50% of the way there) as applied to WhatsApp, introducing the concept "user domestication". Vendor lock-in "WhatsApp rose by trapping previously-free beings in their corral and changing their habits to create dependence on masters. Over time, this made it difficult or impossible to return to their previous lifestyle. That process should sound familiar: it’s eerily similar to the domestication of animals." 1. Dependence on a vendor 2. Lack of control on the software for users - Preventing modification - Preventing migration 3. Exploit What Seirdy expounds here seems quite similar to "enshittification" as presented by the talk at the start. The first two points draw parallels to the talk's "eliminate competition" step. - Seirdy's - Keeping platforms open - mentions XMPP https://seirdy.one/posts/2021/02/23/keeping-platforms-open/ Explores ways to prevent enshittification, as applied to open standards. How open platforms become closed 1. "A forced migration onto a different platform. 2. A single implementation growing dominant, blurring the line between specification and implementation. 3. Dominant implementations adopting too many unstandardized features and behaviors. These three approaches overlap: they frequently feature platform monoculture and a single vendor controlling both clients and servers." Solutions - users - Use clients & servers made by others - make boxing more difficult - Pick ones that have less feature creep beyond what is in the spec - Pick clients judging on how well the features are implemented, rather than what features it has - Encourages implementations to focus on compliance on standards, reliability and compatibility over "innovators" - Prefer "boring technology" over shiny features. https://mcfunley.com/choose-boring-technology Solutions - vendors - Focus less on scaling and more on developer experience - setupu & install - barrier to entry - Limit/Control growth - Encourage decentralisation and choosing alternatives - Don't make reference implementations too dominate. Slow down spec development to have other implementations catch up. - Don't move fast and break things Drawbacks - Slows development & features - An example is mastodon - users must make a decision in choosing clients and instances on step 1 - Solution - offer recommendations for non-technical friends you know well Parallels - Programming languages driven by standard rather than reference implementation. Compare C++ vs Python (CPython being the dominate implementation). - "Move fast and break things" - It's hard to rapidly improve a service, but also hard to quiuckly worsen a service. - Ploum - "How to kill a decentralised network" https://ploum.net/2023-06-23-how-to-kill-decentralised-networks.html This is almost entirely a description of the enshittification process as applied to decentralised social networks and open standards. Facebook - eliminate competition by buying it. But the Fediverse cannot be bought. But taking down something like Fediverse has been done before - Google, and XMPP - Ploum explains with more detail and personal experience than Seirdy's case-study about the fall of XMPP. - Microsoft Playbook "In fact, in 1998, Microsoft engineer Vinod Vallopllil explicitly wrote a text titled "Blunting OSS attacks" where he suggested to "de-commoditize protocols & applications […]. By extending these protocols and developing new protocols, we can deny OSS project’s entry into the market."" - b"Rebel Code" - Microsoft Office propietary formats EEE - ...and now, Threads "There’s one thing my own experience with XMPP and OOXML taught me: if Meta joins the Fediverse, Meta will be the only one winning. In fact, reactions show that they are already winning: the Fediverse is split between blocking Meta or not. If that happens, this would mean a fragmented, frustrating two-tier fediverse with little appeal for newcomers." "Fediverse can only win by keeping its ground, by speaking about freedom, morals, ethics, values. By starting open, non-commercial and non-spied discussions. By acknowledging that the goal is not to win. Not to embrace. The goal is to stay a tool. A tool dedicated to offer a place of freedom for connected human beings. Something that no commercial entity will ever offer." - Ploum - "A society that lost focus" https://ploum.net/2024-03-18-lost-focus.html It begins by presenting an anecdote that exhibits what "fast reaction" and fast-moving culture makes us do in today's society. - Makes us think less, more shallowly - "Cognitive style of PowerPoint" - Back then, transmission medium was the bottleneck. Now it is our brains. - "Instant feedback, permanent connectivity" Google found a nice way to exploit attention - by learning as much as possible from users -- tailored experience. b"Survellance Capitalism" Getting the attention and data of users is now "normal practice" "The two consequences of all this are that our privacy is invaded as much as it is technologically possible and that our attention is scientifically captured as much as it is technologically possible." - b"Deep Work" - Cal Newport - b"The Ideas Industry" - Daniel Drezner "Daniel Drezner observes that long, subtle and complex ideas are more and more replaced by simplistic slogans, the epitome being the famous TED conferences. In 18 minutes, people are sold an idea and, if the speaker is a good salesman, feel like they’ve learned something deep and new. The mere fact that you could learn something deeply enough in 18 minutes is an insult to all the academic world. Without surprise, the same academic world is seen by many as boring old people spending their time writing long articles instead of making a catchy slogan to change the world." - Google, a forced monopoly "Why are we playing one hour of what was supposed to be five minutes of a stupid smartphone game instead of reading a book? Why are we spending every minute awake checking our smartphone and replying to mundane chitchat, even if we are in the middle of the conversation with someone else? Why are we compelled to put our life and the lives of our children at risk just to quickly reply while driving?" - Evolution - Crave new experiences - Dopamine rush - b"The molecule of more" "Even in airplane mode, it was demonstrated that having the phone on your desk or in your bag degrades heavily your attention and your thinking performance. Performance went back to normal only when the phone was put in another room." - b"The Typewriter Revolution" - Richard Polt - b"Digital Minimalism" "Even in airplane mode, it was demonstrated that having the phone on your desk or in your bag degrades heavily your attention and your thinking performance. Performance went back to normal only when the phone was put in another room." - b"To Save Everything, Click Here" - Evgeny Morozov "The root cause is there: we don’t have any mental framework left other than spying on people and steal their attention. Business schools are teaching how to do catchy PowerPoints while stealing attention from people. Every business is at war with the other to catch your attention and your brain cycles. Even academy is now fighting to get grants based on catchy PowerPoints and raw number of publications. This was the raw observation of David Graeber: even academics have stopped thinking to play the "catch your attention game"." "We need to start to appreciate harder works which don’t offer us immediate short-term profit. Our mind, not the technology, is the bottleneck. We need to care about our minds. To dedicate time to think slowly and deeply. We need to bring back Sapiens in Home Sapiens." - Ploum - "Stop trying to make social networks succeed" https://ploum.net/2023-07-06-stop-trying-to-make-social-networks-succeed.html No single social network will "succeed", no single one will, or should, "rule them all". Focus on community, "local" success instead. - More by Ploum... https://ploum.net/index_en.html - Software disenchantment https://tonsky.me/blog/disenchantment/ Slightly unrelated to... corporation stuff and capitalism. More about software as a whole. It talks more about technological advancement, in particular software. - Good times create weak men https://tonsky.me/blog/good-times-weak-men/ - Talk by Jonathan Blow - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pW-SOdj4Kkk tech examples - XMPP - google - Facebook (?) - Microsoft - EEE https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguish - Google... "Don't be evil" - WhatsApp - RSS - Email... - see jcs marketshare, spam stats graph -- for aiding indentation vim: expandtab shiftwidth=2