#Enshittification isn't inevitable: under different conditions and constraints, the old, good internet could have given way to a new, good internet. Enshittification is the result of specific policy choices: encouraging monopolies; enabling high-speed, digital shell games; and blocking #interoperability.
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If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
But tech is different, because digital is flexible in a way analog can't be. Tech companies can "#twiddle" the back-ends of their #clouds to change the rules of the business from moment to moment, in a high-speed shell-game that can make it impossible to know what kind of deal you're getting:
To make things worse, users are banned from twiddling. The thicket of rules we call #IP ensure that twiddling is only done against users, never for them.