That rage you feel as you deal with every single piece of tech in your life? It’s caused by enshittification and the dictionaries are taking notice.
It’s also the most misused and ill understood word of 2024. At least half of the people here on Lemmy are using it wrong.
This Australian dictionary didn’t need, nor should they have, created their own definition as the guy who coined it had already defined it.
“It’s a three stage process: First, platforms 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 key here is that it’s not just the users of platforms or services who have problems but ultimately the very businesses doing business with the service or platform, the supposed real customers, who end up having problems.
You don’t have to trust my ignorant ass on this either, you can go directly to the source.
The enshitification of the word enshitification was so rapid on Lemmy that it only took a week before I thought the people using it were parroting idiots.
Enshittification names the problem and proposes a solution. It’s not just a way to say ‘things are getting worse’ (though of course, it’s fine with me if you want to use it that way. It’s an English word. We don’t have der Rat für Englisch Rechtschreibung. English is a free for all. Go nuts, meine Kerle).
Also, as a note, enshittification being a process it can still be pretty clear when you are in the midst of it, rather than just valid to use at the end. this is most likely where you see most of the “misusage” of the term. regardless, the rot is absolutely visible to people, and a dictionary’s job is to catalgue woros as they are used.
Idk, “HOLLYWOOD” has some really big letters
Cory Doctorow my beloved
I know that the need to create this word isn’t awesome, but it’s got to feel pretty good to have coined a word that is almost instantly in everyone’s vocabulary.
Right up there with Dan Savage birthing the word santorum as a gift to the American people.
It’s not serious until the thesaurus gets involved.
Right behind it is “slop” imo.
