I agree with a slight caveat. You’re right that the internet of today is more forgiving of platforms that enshittify. “If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face – forever.” -literally 1984, where the boot is advertising and the human face is consumers’ attention.
So we may be stuck at phase 3 for a while, where the consumers and the businesses are getting screwed over by internet platforms. But although the technological environment is changing more slowly, it’s still changing and “with strange aeons even death may die”. When the platforms inevitably die, enshittification will be part of the analysis why.
Of course in the meantime the internet platforms make money for one set of people, and other people’s lives are made crappier because of it.
I agree with a slight caveat. You’re right that the internet of today is more forgiving of platforms that enshittify. “If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face – forever.” -literally 1984, where the boot is advertising and the human face is consumers’ attention.
So we may be stuck at phase 3 for a while, where the consumers and the businesses are getting screwed over by internet platforms. But although the technological environment is changing more slowly, it’s still changing and “with strange aeons even death may die”. When the platforms inevitably die, enshittification will be part of the analysis why.
Of course in the meantime the internet platforms make money for one set of people, and other people’s lives are made crappier because of it.