garbabe SEO has been there since almost the beginning. More recently google started to promote sites base on their profitableness.
Remember when you could suppress sites from Google search results? Due to “unknowable reasons”, they got rid of that feature. Enshittification is real.
Cory coined the 2023 word of the year, enshittification, on 21 Jan 2023.
“Here is how platforms die: first, they are good to their users; then they abuse their users to make things better for their business customers; finally, they abuse those business customers to claw back all the value for themselves. Then, they die.
@maique I've been using #HEY for a really long time now, but why the hell am I only finding out about this feature now! Did you know it works like this? 🤣😂
I’m really happy for Eugen’s success, and am grateful for his essential contribution to widespread adoption of the ActivityPub protocol, even though I don’t agree with him on a lot of things.
I think it was honest for him to acknowledge Google’s role in sidelining the XMPP protocol, and while I don’t want to quibble about the other mitigating factors, I do take issue with him comparing the trajectory of ActivityPub with SMTP with the visible adoption and mutually assured destruction of major corporations in maintaining email’s nominal interoperability.
If people haven’t read it yet, they should check out (already Fedi-famous for his article on Enshittification) Cory Doctorow’s article Dead Letters – about how it is impossible for even a well-known public figure with access to the best server infrastructure and technical know-how to run a small private email server hosting completely legal content serving nothing resembling spam in the age of Gmail, Yahoo, and Microsoft Outlook. There are several ways that federating with Meta can kill this movement, and ActivityPub becoming the new email is one of them.
Basically, if we allow Meta, BlueSky, and Twitter to federate, the very network effects Eugen mentions make it more valuable for them to federate with each other than any smaller server. Predictably they will underfund moderation staff who make errors or their faulty algorithms automatically de-federate smaller servers due to false-flagging spam. Small operators will have to work harder and harder until it is basically impossible for them to overcome the error or fix the problem and re-federate. Eventually small groups that aren’t directly sponsored by one of the giants will be weeded out, as their users migrate to more reliable services. Even if the disconnections and undelivered messages are not the fault of the sysops, they will be scapegoated, and eventually more and more will throw up their hands and leave the rigged game.
While having a protocol you championed become the defacto web standard may feel like a great accomplishment, the Fediverse will never be a “Social Web” until the tools we use to communicate are incapable of being taken from us by corporations. Eugen’s vision of a social media ecosystem where any small developer can write a platform and have access to the entire ActivityPub network is at odds with his enthusiasm for the emailification of ActivityPub.
There are social obstacles to building the “Social Web” and as good as the Activity Pub protocol is, the true technical solution is Solidarity.
I’m really happy for Eugen’s success, and am grateful for his essential contribution to widespread adoption of the ActivityPub protocol, even though I don’t agree with him on a lot of things.
I think it was honest for him to acknowledge Google’s role in sidelining the XMPP protocol, and while I don’t want to quibble about the other mitigating factors, I do take issue with him comparing the trajectory of ActivityPub with SMTP with the visible adoption and mutually assured destruction of major corporations in maintaining email’s nominal interoperability.
If people haven’t read it yet, they should check out (already Fedi-famous for his article on Enshittification) Cory Doctorow’s article Dead Letters – about how it is impossible for even a well-known public figure with access to the best server infrastructure and technical know-how to run a small private email server hosting completely legal content serving nothing resembling spam in the age of Gmail, Yahoo, and Microsoft Outlook. There are several ways that federating with Meta can kill this movement, and ActivityPub becoming the new email is one of them.
Basically, if we allow Meta, BlueSky, and Twitter to federate, the very network effects Eugen mentions make it more valuable for them to federate with each other than any smaller server. Predictably they will underfund moderation staff who make errors or their faulty algorithms automatically de-federate smaller servers due to false-flagging spam. Small operators will have to work harder and harder until it is basically impossible for them to overcome the error or fix the problem and re-federate. Eventually small groups that aren’t directly sponsored by one of the giants will be weeded out, as their users migrate to more reliable services. Even if the disconnections and undelivered messages are not the fault of the sysops, they will be scapegoated, and eventually more and more will throw up their hands and leave the rigged game.
While having a protocol you championed become the defacto web standard may feel like a great accomplishment, the Fediverse will never be a “Social Web” until the tools we use to communicate are incapable of being taken from us by corporations. Eugen’s vision of a social media ecosystem where any small developer can write a platform and have access to the entire ActivityPub network is at odds with his enthusiasm for the emailification of ActivityPub.
There are social obstacles to building the “Social Web” and as good as the Activity Pub protocol is, the true technical solution is Solidarity.
It's interesting that a story is doing the rounds about an institution migrating from Basecamp because of the views of the company founders on DEI and adjacent topics, given that the latest episode of the 37Signals podcast is about this very topic.
Firefox users are reporting an 'artificial' load time on YouTube videos. YouTube says it's part of a plan to make people who use adblockers "experience suboptimal viewing, regardless of the browser they are using."
Here is how platforms die: first, they are good to their users; then they abuse their users to make things better for their business customers; finally, they abuse those business customers to claw back all the value for themselves. Then, they die.
Today I decided to check on my small Bionicle parts for the first time after moving since I'm considering getting more. Ended up putting together a creachure and curing my depression.
At the end of the day, its pretty clear to me that Youtube is going to lose the war on adblocking. Either by hook or by crook those that want to use Adblockers are going to keep doing it no matter what....
Here is how platforms die: first, they are good to their users; then they abuse their users to make things better for their business customers; finally, they abuse those business customers to claw back all the value for themselves. Then, they die.
The poll found 50% of Democrats approve of how Biden has navigated the conflict while 46% disapprove — and the two groups diverge substantially in their views of U.S. support for Israel. Biden’s support on the issue among Democrats is down slightly from August, as an AP-NORC poll conducted then found that 57% of Democrats...
Sure, and I’m with you there. It sounds like your values are in the right place, but marketing affects everyone, and nearly all of our media is owned by billionaires who have repeated the same narrative until we internalize it.
Electric cars and working from home are great, but they’re not a solution - they’re a compromise between reality and the status quo. Just like recycling - it’s a way to sell personal responsibility, but it’s entirely ineffective. They don’t even pretend to recycle anymore, they just throw it into the dump, because it was never a solution to single use packaging, it was marketing.
We have to stop the carbon at a system level, by realigning incentives to make companies feel the hurt for the damage they do, and then deal with the consequences.
But back to the topic at hand…I guess if I had to sum it up, it’s not about being entitled to free things.
It’s about the deal being altered unilaterally in a very hostile way for short term profits. These things were free because that’s how the numbers worked out… This isn’t about profits or revenue, it’s about investors
Look at unity - they killed their own company, and damaged an entire industry. And for what? They couldn’t even answer basic questions about how their wild licensing scheme change would work. A small group who knew it was coming made a lot of money, but far more value was destroyed
YouTube is the same - the numbers have been worked out. This action makes ads worth less because it’ll lower conversion, makes the experience worse for everyone, and shrinks the pie for the creators that make a living on the platform.
At the end of the day, this is logging companies cutting down the whole forest and putting themselves out of business. The investors make more money at first, which they can reinvest in the next thing. Meanwhile, we have a bunch of loggers out of a job, a destroyed forest, and people still need wood. They can move on to destroy another forest with a new company, and make even more money if they own the shipping too.
From the owners perspective, it’s taking the lump sum instead of the annuity.
That’s the issue here - companies are destroying value. It’s extremely profitable for a small number of people, but the whole pie shrinks.
In the case of a marketplace (or platform) you get enshittification, in the case of an industry you have endless acquisitions and downsizing.
The key driving force is the same - it’s late stage capitalism. We have to suppress these lose-lose situations systematically, because chopping down the forest and reinvesting is always the more profitable choice so long as it’s on the table.
This kind of went all over the place because to me this is all about looking at misaligned incentives in our system, but there’s a Enshittification essay that is an approachable starting point to break down the YouTube and Reddit issue we started with
There's a cheat-code in US #antitrustm it's been increasingly used since the #Reagan administration, when the "#ConsumerWelfare" theory ("#monopolies are fine, so long as the lower prices") shoved aside the long-established idea that antitrust law existed to prevent monopolies from forming at all.
If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
For years, Amazon ran a program called #AmazonSmile, where a share of every purchase you made would be given to a charity of your choice - but only if you found that item by searching for it on Amazon, and not via Google or a direct link:
"For years, Amazon ran a program called #AmazonSmile, where a share of every purchase you made would be given to a charity of your choice - but only if you found that item by searching for it on Amazon, and not via Google or a direct link: https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/21/potemkin-ai/#hey-guys
The thing is, any feed or search result is "algorithmic." "Just show me the things posted by people I follow in reverse-chronological order" is an algorithm. "Just show me products that have this SKU" is an algorithm. "Alphabetical sort" is an algorithm. "Random sort" is an algorithm.
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If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
And finally, enshittification requires blocking digital self-help measures like ad-blockers, alternative clients, scrapers, reverse engineering, jailbreaking, and other tech guerrilla warfare tactics:
Think of everything that makes you miserable as being caught between two opposing, irresistible, irrefutable truths:
"Anything that can't go on forever eventually stops" (#SteinsLaw)
"Markets can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent" (Keynes)
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If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
Now, in my theory of enshittification, the step that follows the pivot is death: "Finally, they abuse those business customers to claw back all the value for themselves. Then, they die":
Many people have asked me about the conspicuous non-death of Facebook! That's where I have to fall back on Stein's Law: "Anything that can't go on forever eventually stops."
This week on my #podcast, I read my recent #Medium column, "Microincentives and Enshittification," about the way that monopoly drives mediocrity, with Google's declining quality as Exhibit A:
If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
This means that each executive in the Search division is forever seeking out ways to shift value to Google and away from searchers and/or publishers. When they propose a enshittificatory tactic, Google's market dominance makes it easy for them to win arguments with their teammates.
A web search tip to avoid AI generated SEO junk (lemmy.world)
enshittification (lemy.lol)
vmst.io/
The State of the Federation, with Mastodon's Eugen Rochko (flipboard.video)
cross-posted from: slrpnk.net/post/5068112...
YouTube Says New 5-Second Video Load Delay Is Supposed to Punish Ad Blockers, Not Firefox Users (www.404media.co)
Firefox users are reporting an 'artificial' load time on YouTube videos. YouTube says it's part of a plan to make people who use adblockers "experience suboptimal viewing, regardless of the browser they are using."
Meta Officially Accepts Blood Money to Promote the Big Lie (gizmodo.com)
Then and now (i.imgflip.com)
Youtube Adblock Reckoning as a service problem?
At the end of the day, its pretty clear to me that Youtube is going to lose the war on adblocking. Either by hook or by crook those that want to use Adblockers are going to keep doing it no matter what....
Meta payment message (iusearchlinux.fyi)
So I got the message from instagram about either paying or using it free (at the cost personalised ads) just now....
Nearly half of Democrats disapprove of Biden’s response to the Israel-Hamas war, AP-NORC poll shows (apnews.com)
The poll found 50% of Democrats approve of how Biden has navigated the conflict while 46% disapprove — and the two groups diverge substantially in their views of U.S. support for Israel. Biden’s support on the issue among Democrats is down slightly from August, as an AP-NORC poll conducted then found that 57% of Democrats...
«Je trouve ça scandaleux» : le ras-le-bol des Français face à la hausse des prix des Netflix, Spotify ou Disney+ (www.lefigaro.fr)