cross-posted from: https://beehaw.org/post/17602033
You are the victim of a con — one so pernicious that you’ve likely tuned it out despite the fact it’s part of almost every part of your life. It hurts everybody you know in different ways, and it hurts people more based on their socioeconomic status. It pokes and prods and twists millions of little parts of your life, and it’s everywhere, so you have to ignore it, because complaining about it feels futile, like complaining about the weather.
It isn’t. You’re battered by the Rot Economy, and a tech industry that has become so obsessed with growth that you, the paying customer, are a nuisance to be mitigated far more than a participant in an exchange of value. A death cult has taken over the markets, using software as a mechanism to extract value at scale in the pursuit of growth at the cost of user happiness.
These people want everything from you — to control every moment you spend working with them so that you may provide them with more ways to make money, even if doing so doesn’t involve you getting anything else in return. Meta, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft and a majority of tech platforms are at war with the user, and, in the absence of any kind of consistent standards or effective regulations, the entire tech ecosystem has followed suit. A kind of Coalition of the Willing of the worst players in hyper-growth tech capitalism.
Things are being made linearly worse in the pursuit of growth in every aspect of our digital lives, and it’s because everything must grow, at all costs, at all times, unrelentingly, even if it makes the technology we use every day consistently harmful.
This year has, on some level, radicalized me, and today I’m going to explain why. It’s going to be a long one, because I need you to fully grasp the seriousness and widespread nature of the problem.
If one uses Spotify instead of a personal music collection one controls, this is what one gets. If one uses Facebook, Google or similar, this is what one gets.
I read about 1/3rd of the piece until I was sure that not a single one of the problems described concerns me. Because I don’t use Sonos, I don’t use Spotify and every other shitty service described as enshittified in this text.
I feel sorry for the technologically poor, every single sod who totally relinquishes control of most of their digital life, in a time when more and more of our daily live becomes digital, to people they know are out to get them. I will never understand it.
One of the main points of the article is not how it affects one as a individual, but how impacts the very social fabric of our societies. Even if you’re spared from the effects of the rot economy, you’re surrounded by people who are, and it impact them psychologically which in turn affects their mood, well being and their behavior towards their peers.
While I don’t agree with everything in this article, it has some very important points. The digital services that we use can have an impact on our digital daily lives on par to a governments.
This isn’t a call for every person to save themselves. This is a call to save our peers and our well being on a macro level.
I haven’t read the article so I can’t comment on it, but thinking that the solution is simply avoiding the services in question is not enough. It assumes that people know what the consequences to sign up are (most people probably don’t understand DRM) and it also assumes that there are better alternatives. Unfortunately, for the latter, I feel like there are fewer and fewer alternatives and the ones remaining are becoming increasingly niche. One may not be able to get a car which is self-repair friendly, independent on internet connectivity. So what does one do if one needs a car? Build one?
There’s always going to be cars that are repairable, they’re just never going to be the flashiest, newest, cheapest or most media and socially hyped up vehicles. And that’s what people want.
Folk complain about a simple thing like non-replaceable batteries in phones. But there’s always been phones with replaceable batteries. They’re just not Samsung phones or packed with the latest AI.
And honestly, if people cannot understand what they’re signing up for… Perhaps they shouldn’t sign away their first born child to begin with?
You literally cannot attend a baseball game without installing the Ticketmaster app on a smartphone. Full stop. There are no alternatives.
Maybe a small example, but simply avoiding this stuff is becoming difficult.
Are there other games or events that totally require Ticketmaster?
The graduation at my university. That’s how they handled tickets. I was on both ends. Watching my friend graduate and giving to tickets to my family so they could come to my graduation.
That’s fucked up
I am 100% sure it’s possible to attend baseball games without the Ticketmaster app, just not the ones you want to see.
It may not be the flashiest, biggest games with the baseball superstars or the matches hyped up by the media or your peers. And that’s what people want. 🤷
reports.exodus-privacy.eu.org/…
I’ve stopped going to concerts at the big avenues because I have to use an app or buy tickets online. I can’t see the biggest artists with the most flashy albums that’s been hyped up by all the advertisements. Actually bums me out. But I can still attend other concerts at less predatory avenues.
Such is my way of navigating clown world.
Right. I can also just hang out in the park and watch little league.
Yep. It’s all about what you value the most - Your personal privacy and integrity or watching specific people slap a ball with a stick.
I understand the attitude of “if you want a curated stream of music or a free app, you need to accept that you are giving up your privacy to get that.” Like, pay for the app or buy the music and curate it yourself as an alternative. Just like people have done for generations.
But we’re talking about a thing that just four years ago required only a paper ticket that could be purchased with cash suddenly requiring an app. The product didn’t change in any way, it just requires an app now. I think everyone should be angry about that.
It doesn’t have to be just the listed examples. It’s just anything that ceases to listen to the community and starts making changes on a whim. I’m sure you’ve had some experience with any service changing just for the sake of changing.
Sure, that’s why I self-host or use trusted services from people I actually know for EVERYTHING I can, not just the stuff that’s too awful to accept. I can’t be bothered with being disappointed and jump ships yet again.
Sadly, a lot of it comes down to financial well-being.
Owning and controlling stuff costs more. If not money, then time.
I don’t care if the big corpos set up obvious data privacy traps that sucks the data right out of people’s pockets any more than I’m upset about a venomous snake on the side of the road. I’m more upset with the people who blindly walk into them despite clear warnings from more knowledgeable people, and in the process gives up OTHER people’s data as well.
I don’t want Facebook to have my phone number associated with my name, yet I’m sure countless people over the years have given it to them by uncritically accepting the app’s terms and pressed the “Sure, go ahead and have full access to my phone’s contact list” button.
