Welcome to Enshittification
A community for everyone who misspelt it as enshitification.
"I the onceler felt sad as I watched them all go, but business is business and business must grow, regardless of crummies in tummies you know."
This is your space to document the decay, demise, and destruction of the tech world as we know it. Share stories, articles, and firsthand experiences that capture the ongoing decline of once-celebrated platforms, services, and companies in the late stage capitalist landscape.
From monopolistic corporate shifts to anti-user updates and the relentless pursuit of profit over quality—if it’s broken, bloated, or just plain bad, it belongs here. We’re here to spotlight the moves that make the tech world worse, one piece of enshittification at a time.
Guidelines
🔹 Stay on Topic: Only post content about the decline of tech products, platforms, or companies.
🔹 Quality Content: Give some context when posting links or articles to drive quality discussions.
🔹 Respectful Discussion: Critique companies, crappy tech, and capital, not community members.
🔹 Positive Monday: The first Monday of every month is reserved for positive content only that shows enshittification isn't inevitable.
Join us to expose the changes that ruin the things we once loved and to discuss what comes next in a tech world gone wrong.
Typical shitty-Ars reporting.
"Little by little, Google has traded some of that openness for security..."
No they haven't. There is nothing about this which improves security. This is about CONTROL of your phone and you, and the data they collect from you.
I am, like, 99% sure this is at least partially at the behest of companies, like Spotify, and their own interests, YouTube, to prevent people from being able to load cracked apps for their streaming services.
Used a cracked Spotify app for free Premium and it worked fine until like a few months ago; updating the app itself became a giant process that also needed to be done almost daily. I ended up switching to a crack of YTMusic, but it's still a PitA to deal with.
This is the grip that they've got on you
This is the place that they pull you to
This is the trap that they set for you
This is control
This is control
Here is the life that they've set for you
Here is the hole that you'll fit into
These are the choices they made for you
This is control
This is control
nobody can break into your house if i just demolish it for you...
Google won't check the content or functionality of the apps, though.
Trust me, it's for safety, bro. Just let me verify your app, bro.
Computer says no.
So... How's LineageOS running these days?
You would need to unlock the bootloader and most phones make it a pain to unlock or downright impossible.
Yup, done it a few times before. It's been years tho.
Waiting patiently for the official build for my phone to be completed.
What does this mean for F-Droid?
Individual devs need to submit their app to google to get it blessed, before publishing it on f-droid. Makes it harder for them. Google can say no.
Time to figure out how to leave Android, then.
2026 is the year of the Linux phone?
Fuck F-Droid; what does this mean for YouTube ReVanced?
It's the only sideloaded app I care about. I can't live without it.
EU mandated Apple to allow sideloading, can we have a state like California to mandate sideloading in it's state? This is anticompetitive practice.
God, I miss Lina Khan
If the EU mandated it from Apple, how are Google managing to get around that?
https://arstechnica.com/apple/2024/05/apple-must-open-ipados-to-sideloading-within-6-months-eu-says/
Maybe Google will do everywhere except EU, or maybe they found a loophole?
Even if they found a loophole, the loophole would be closed, otherwise apple would do the same.
Lina Kahn is one of my favorite modern political figures
So… How’s GrapheneOS running these days?
Still great :)
looks at other comment. Uhhhhhh
The project is not currently fucked as the other person stated. Google has just made things more difficult for the devs with the recent asinine changes. They very well could completely fuck over the project in the future if they want to though, so it would be nice if a manufacturing agreement can be found for custom hardware.
Google stopped publishing the Pixel's device tree and the whole project is fucked from it.
They are looking for a new hardware host.
Maybe they'll finally support fairphone after shutting it down for years.
looks at other comment. Uhhhhhb....
One of my jobs is programming Android devices so my customers can use them for business critical tasks. The apps I write aren't in a repository, they are sideloaded without exception.
As soon as control of what may run is passed to someone in a far away land - bye bye, Android, hello new platform (most likely a Debian-based Linux).
Seems like a workaround is for everyone to stand up their own App store, register that app, and then load whatever you want in your own app store bypassing any restrictions.
Or get a devunlock, then load those binaries as test applications.
Didn't know about this one. Saving it for the future. Thanks!
I don't see why the tech crowd would bother to use Android at that point. Side loading is the reason it's used. Otherwise might as well go to iOS which has better integration with multiple Apple systems and a functional tablet for common use recommendations or actual Linux for more privacy / edge case testing / experimentations.
I'm just going to go back to flip phone. These mfers are greedy AF.
The flip phones can't connect to the cell network anymore. They shut down the 3G towers. And they don't make new dumbphones, as far as I can find.
This timeline sucks.
LTE is 4G and still active. They shut down EDGE and GSM towers and maybe in some jurisdictions 3G networks too
Sorry, typo. Fixed.
There are plenty of flip phones and "dumb" phones available that work on current towers. A simple search provides many examples right off the bat.
Do you have any examples? I did a search less than a week ago, and couldn't find any below $200.
Essentially every option in this article is well below $200 for use in the US
I'll concede that the Nokia 2780 does seem to work, and is only $160 new. But its availability is pretty bad. That article has 3 sponsor links to Amazon, Walmart, and Target. The Walmart and Target links are broken. The Amazon link says "No featured offers available", and you have to click "See all buying options", and then select either a used one, or a "new" one from a seller with 44% positive reviews over the last 12 months. There are probably other places to get it. (Edit: It seems to be 4G capable, but not 5G, so reception would be pretty shoddy.)
Punkt. MP02 costs $315 at cheapest.
"Kyocera DuraXV Extreme+" costs $260 at cheapest, and only works on Verizon.
"Lively Jitterbug Flip2" is a loss leader for its mandatory proprietary cell network that is unreasonable to most people.
Wisephone II costs $400.
"Easyfone Prime A7" has no availability, and no listed price.
TCL Classic is $70. It might be viable, but the fact that there are at least 3 different versions for different carriers suggests to me that each version has limited radio bands. It probably won't work in roaming situations. Reviews say it misses a lot of incoming calls.
None of these come close to the solid simplicity and cheap $20 MSRP of the Motorola c168i from 2006. That was a true burner phone.
This is one single curated list found at the top of a search, the point is that there are plenty of options if you look. Plus demand drives availability. Low demand will certainly entail low availability. Your criteria of needing to be below $200, not rely exclusively on Verizon, and have mass market availability have been pulled out of thin air. You gotta take what you can get to some degree.
The fuck? Like half of the apps I use are side loaded, unverified apps.
Fuck Google. Guess it's finally time to try a new OS.
Let's all share as many partial and complete workarounds as we can, with the completest, noob-friendliest instructions imaginable.
Usable phones are worth banding together for.