Cory Doctorow has a similar concept of enshitification:

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.

…

This is enshittification: Surpluses are first directed to users; then, once they’re locked in, surpluses go to suppliers; then once they’re locked in, the surplus is handed to shareholders and the platform becomes a useless pile of shit. From mobile app stores to Steam, from Facebook to Twitter, this is the enshittification lifecycle.

…

Enshittification truly is how platforms die. That’s fine, actually. We don’t need eternal rulers of the internet. It’s okay for new ideas and new ways of working to emerge. The emphasis of lawmakers and policymakers shouldn’t be preserving the crepuscular senescence of dying platforms. Rather, our policy focus should be on minimizing the cost to users when these firms reach their expiry date: Enshrining rights like end-to-end would mean that no matter how autocannibalistic a zombie platform became, willing speakers and willing listeners would still connect with each other.

-Cory Doctorow. The ‘Enshittification’ of TikTok (archive link)

To add to this, I believe Tumblr has evaded some of this because of it having always had a niche audience and an abundance of porn. But the first steps of enshitification on Tumblr are the 2018 porn ban and the release of Tumblr live. Let’s be loyal to the community and not to the platform.

it does feel a little bit like being gaslit that the internet is slowly getting worse in barely perceptible ways- it’s validating to see an article that says, “yes, it’s not that you’re getting old and somehow losing your google proficiency, GOOGLE IS WORSE THAN IT USED TO BE.”

Amazon literally shows you fewer search results if you sort by user reviews instead of “Amazon recommended”, and I remember that it didn’t used to do that

Sounds like it’s time for me to write up

Katherine’s Guide to Making Google, Facebook, and Amazon Work For You

Keep reading

So like. I know this isn’t what the post is about but like. Firefox is *right* there. And it’s free. And you can add a bunch of extensions like *actual adblockers that work.* And scripts that tell corporations trying to collect your data to go fuck themselves, like Privacy Badger and Privacy Possum. And you can import your bookmarks and passwords with *literally* just two clicks of a button so you don’t lose anything.

So like. You don’t *have* to put up with Google. You can, absolutely, just ditch it. Let it rot in peace while you go make your internet experience habitable again.

Here’s a link to download it on windows. Go do it. And install uBlock Origin. Two clicks again. Thank me later.

What is with people who ostensibly use the same Internet I do who seem to believe Firefox, duckduckgo, and adblockers can undo all this shit? Firefox is not magic.

I use Firefox! In fact, I use IceRaven. I grappled with the extensions-to-mobile Collections project mozilla themselves seems to have forgotten to get back at least *some* of the benefits lost from using Kiwi/chrome re-skinned (hey mozilla no rush but you intro’d this years ago and you still have no built in translation). I’ve got the free version of Blokada on my phone. About:config messed with. F-droid. Phone is (well, was -forgot the damage an update can do) rooted. NewPipe instead of Youtube, xmanager for Spotify. Every single day I force myself to use duckduckgo like I don’t know there’s a 70% chance I’ll have to take my ass to google anyway. Miles of extensions just for blocking ads and content farms

NONE OF THESE TACTICS/COMPANIES ARE POWERFUL ENOUGH TO COMPLETELY REVERSE ENSHITTIFICATION.

What is mozilla gonna do about steam pushing connect 3 and hentai games to my recommendations? Why would all of the other search engines be impervious to SEOification? Did Privacy Badger bring porn back to Tumblr? Did you hear about reddit switching to a paid API model, killing staple make-reddit-usable project Pushshift? Hell, remember when AdBlock Plus was the belle of the ball? A Firefox staple? Only to get - you guessed it! Enshittified.

This is my ongoing pet peeve, like is it an ongoing astroturfing campaign? Gaslighting just for fun? do you even use the stuff you recommend? Because I do. I put more effort into curating my Internet than the average guy so I sit here with a bewildered look each time you guys come here and insist an individual downloading a different browser can overcome a hundred different companies conspiring against them. You are literally on the unfixably enshittified website right now. Nothing you download to your pc will undo FOSTA-SESTA

Firefox Guy has a point, actually. “Just download Firefox, problem solved,” is still an oversimplification, mind you.

But enshittification is in large part a product of monopolization. Tech giants don’t have much in the way of competition, and so they are able to pull back on giving customers the experience that customers want.

When Google made its brand, there were search engines everywhere. Now, the only competition Google has for their search engine that’s well enough known to exist in the public consciousness is Bing - And that’s because it’s a joke. “LOL Who would ever use Bing when Google’s right there?” The rest? Mired in obscurity.

Google doesn’t have to appeal to users anymore. They’re the default. They already own the entire user base. So they have no reason to care what their users think anymore. People would literally rather share tips for how to get Google to work for their needs despite the bullshit than actually go use a different search engine.

There isn’t much of a way to fix that. The same thing is happening to Walmart, to Disney, to Amazon, to any company that grows large enough that they’ve crushed all competitors and now irrevocably own the market regardless of how good their product is. This is what happens when somebody wins at capitalism and no longer needs to persuade their customer base to use their products.

The answer to that isn’t just “Firefox”. But yes, finding alternatives to Chrome browser and Google search and Amazon shopping and going to Walmart… These are things you can do to have a more enjoyable user experience than what these big Capitalism Winners are offering.

However, those are only short-term solutions. There are a few video sites out there that you can use as an alternative to YouTube, for example; But in the end, YouTube is where the creators are because YouTube is where the audience is, and YouTube is where the audience is because YouTube is where the creators are.

In the end, what we’re seeing here is a microcosm of the economic catastrophe known as late-stage capitalism. And until we figure out how we’re going to address that, Google will continue to sacrifice its user experience for the sake of pleasing shareholders, secure in the knowledge that you wouldn’t actually consider ever going anywhere else.