Core Doctorow in “Google’s enshittification memos”
Below is the essence of “why” and “how”:
“When I think about how the old, good internet turned into the enshitternet, I imagine a series of small compromises, each seemingly reasonable at the time, each contributing to a cultural norm of making good things worse, and worse, and worse.”
and
“Think about Unity President Marc Whitten’s nonpology for his company’s disastrous rug-pull, in which they declared that everyone who had paid good money to use their tool to make a game would have to keep paying, every time someone downloaded that game:
The most fundamental thing that we’re trying to do is we’re building a sustainable business for Unity. And for us, that means that we do need to have a model that includes some sort of balancing change, including shared success.”
Let Core translate that for you:
“Shared success” is code for, “If you use our tool to make money, we should make money too.” This is bullshit. It’s like saying, “We just want to find a way to share the success of the painters who use our brushes, so every time you sell a painting, we want to tax that sale.” Or “Every time you sell a house, the company that made the hammer gets to wet its beak.”
That begs the question of why Unity and others want to share only in good times, not bad ones. Core nails it here:
“And note that they’re not talking about shared risk here — no one at Unity is saying, “If you try to make a game with our tools and you lose a million bucks, we’re on the hook for ten percent of your losses.” This isn’t partnership, it’s extortion.”
How does this happen?
“How did a company like Unity — which became a market leader by making a tool that understood the needs of game developers and filled them — turn into a protection racket? One bad decision at a time. One rationalization and then another. Slowly, and then all at once.”
Remember when Google’s search results were like a goldmine of relevant information? Yes, me too. Or the “don’t be evil” Google made us believe? Our alarms should’ve gone off: Anybody telling you how honest they are, actually isn’t.
Google used to be the poster child for user privacy, but now it’s more like the rebellious teenager who can’t keep a secret. With all the privacy concerns, trusting Google with our personal information is a big NoNo.
The way it bombards us with targeted ads based on our every online move? Like a nosy neighbor who can’t stop peeking through your window.
The shocking thing is that we would call the police on that annoying neighbour, but we let Google freely do what they please.
