The piece argues that many tech companies and media businesses have turned against their users in an attempt to extract more value. Executives like David Zaslav are criticized for their cynical approach that aims to drain the culture’s “dream reserve” for profit. This enshittification process happens when platforms abuse their users to benefit business customers and then abuse those customers to claw back all value for themselves. The author suggests that capital’s desire for endless growth and control, without needing people, stems from an old capitalist fantasy that ignores human needs. However, the value of these businesses ultimately comes from people, not the executives. Therefore, there may come a time when people must part ways with those who own much but understand little.
I want to like this article and to share it with my relatives to help explain what I am so angry about. But it is so thick with irony and deep-cut references that even I, a long-time extremely online dude, had trouble parsing all of it.
for good or ill, that’s just part of the Defector style―most of their writers came out of the Gawker complex of sites which also had a style of writing like that.
It’s kinds of like a surface scrape of something very obvious. “I don’t like what these guys are producing. They’re scrambling & changing things up, people may stop buying it, and it will go away.”
Err, OK. Big whoop. Maybe it’s because I’m old, and I’ve been through several cycles of seeing favorite media/hobbies reach a point where they declined and I didn’t want them any more, but this is a totally normal process. Every industry gets threatened, goes in some direction, and sometimes they get out-competed. c.f. radio, newspapers, TV documentaries, etc. ad infinitum.
For example, we lost channels like Discovery, Bravo, History Channel, A&E to reality television… and it’s been replaced by independent creators on Youtube. Who knew, independent creators like The History Guy, CGP Grey, Crash Course, Smarter Every Day, LTT, Tech Ingredients could make more enjoyable content – and probably more accurate and complete – than big companies?
I enjoyed the writing. It was entertaining and made its points forcefully.