Enshittification

cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/27708324

The long-term effects of tech enshitification are becoming apparent in how people perceive software bug reports. A software defect that would have been easily regarded as a bug in the 1990s is now seen as software functioning normally and as expected. The rise of enshitification and fall of software quality has conditioned consumers to unwittingly lower their standards of quality.

In the case of millennials and gen-z, they are starting off with a baseline of low standards as they were immersed in enshitified tech from the beginning.

Observation ①: Software ignores user’s instructions. The enshitification-era perception→ “not a bug”

The Lemmy web client enables users to generally block whole instances in their settings. Users can also subscribe to specific communities. The web client supports user input to block a whole instance while simultaneously subscribing to a community on that blocked instance.

People with a history of exposure to well engineered software naturally expect treatment that simultaneously accommodates all user instructions. The only way to honor both of the user’s instructions in this scenario is to prioritise the specific instruction to subscribe to a particular Lemmy community above the general instruction to block the node that hosts it.

To invert that priority necessarily entails disregarding the user’s specific instruction to subscribe to the community. This is what Lemmy does today. A machine that silently disregards user instructions without even so much as any sort of notice to the user can only be regarded as a poorly designed application that disservices the user if your exposure to technology pre-dates the era of enshitification (pre-2000s).

Reaction to this bug report shows the result of a devolution in perceptions of software quality. To be clear, Lemmy is not enshitified because enshitification is more of a consequence of conflicts of interest. Lemmy devs most likely simply failed to be adequately meticulous, yielding an honest bug. However, enshitification has downgraded users’ standard of quality so they cannot identify a defect when they see it.

Google demonstrated a parallel analogue to this. I used to search using dejanews before Google bought it. The search engine honored my queries. In particular, negations were respected. That is, searching “foo -bar” would yield results that do not contain the token “bar”. Likewise in Google early on. Today Google generally scraps the negation. You negate a word and Google nannies you by not only showing results that the include the negated word but in fact Google internally rewrites the query to suit its business interest.

The population accepts it. Google is still the top search engine. People have become conditioned to accept machines that ignore their instructions.

Observation ②: Lemmy deceives senders on status of msg delivery. The enshitification-era perception→ “not a bug”

Gen-Xers have an expectation that non-defective software is truthful. When a machine lies to the human user, it’s a defect. It is a most obnoxious kind of defect in the context of communication from human to human because of the importance of knowing whether a message is delivered. A false message about delivery can cause embarrassment, outrage, or loss of respect toward another human -- when in fact the machine is to blame.

Example: Bob blocks the Lemmy.World instance. Alice@Lemmy.World DMs Bob. To Alice, the message appears to be delivered. Nothing signals to Alice to indicate non-delivery. And nothing signals Bob that an attempt was made. Alice is deceived about the delivery and Bob is deceived about what to expect because blocking an instance does not block everything from the instance (e.g. public comments from LW users are still presented to Bob). Bob would not naturally expect a DM directed specifically to him to be blocked when public comments from the same person are shown to him.

Yet in this enshitification era, a significant number of people regard the deception to Alice and the astonishingly baffling contradiction of behaviour as software functioning as expected.

People born before the 90s tended to be disgusted with the idea of email servers that silently blackhole email, which accepts an email for delivery but then throws it away without anyone knowing. Then Reddit comes along with their rampant practice of shadow banning, which is even more abusive than blackholing because the deception of false delivery is bolstered by showing the user their own msg where it was sent to proactively maintain the deception.

I believe Reddit did a lot of damage there by conditioning the younger generation to accept being lied to about the comms status of message delivery.

Just as smoking changes personalities, so does enshitification

A study found that cigarette smoking actually modifies the personality of the user to become more accepting of filth. This is because the filth of cigarettes is unavoidable. Ashes are very lightweight and get carried everywhere. Ashtrays catch a majority but there are always some ashes in sight as well as cigarette butts. A smoker would have to have an unlikely high level of OCD cleanliness to counter it. So their personality gives. Smokers just become accepting of filth.

Enshitification of technology has the same propensity to modify people’s personality to accept the burdens it brings. Those who solve CAPTCHA become increasingly more willing to solve them. The industry of all things enshitified is banking on this effect. The more willing people become, the better enablers they become which supports current and future manifestations of enshitification.

As an enshitification resister, I have the burden of writing paper letters instead of email or web. It’s comparable to resisting cigarettes to not be conditioned to accept a filthly environment, but with more effort.

The fix

I don’t see the onslaught of enshitification being fixed. Software quality is worse as Ada loses popularity. But I believe if more people would read Tim Wu’s Tyranny of Convenience essay it would perhaps get more people to loosen their grip on convenience and the addiction thereof. The grip on convenience is a death-like grip as enshitification enablers refuse to acknowledge their own role in it.

In any case, this needs to be studied. Enshitification will proliferate non-stop if we don’t gain understanding on why consumers accept it.