This is the same business model that tech “startups” use, just at a vastly accelerated time table. Upend some existing market (in this case, several markets) by burning through cash at an unsustainable rate. Once your customers have been hooked, and/or the alternatives eliminated as competitors, you crank up the prices to try and make the business cashflow positive.
This isn’t enshittification in the traditional sense, they haven’t captured the market enough for that. They’re just panicking because they’re burning cash way too fast.
Don’t wanna be “that guy”, but if if 95% of the time people use it to generally mean “greedy companies making things shitty to try and wring an extra buck”, then that just is what that word means now.
It leaves a vacuum for the concept it was originally intended to describe, but that’s how she goes.
I guess so. But the original definition was useful and encapsulated a specific thing. And then everyone discarding that definition is a bummer. But it’s not like there is anything to be done about it. And Doctoro has said he’s not too annoyed by it himself.
I wholeheartedly agree. I love when I hear a new word, and a mushy concept just snaps into focus. Like, yea, I understood that concept in my “gut” but had not special word for it? So gratifying.
Feels like theft when it gets appropriated to something else.
Glad to hear Cory is cool w/ it. Putting a word (even by accident) to a poorly-expresable part of the human experience that let’s people communicate more effectively? That is a contribution to society that most of us only dream of. Fucker did it by accident. Thrilled for him.
I don’t think saying AI is being enshittified is too far from the orignal essay
This is enshittification: surpluses are first directed to users; then, once they’re locked in, surpluses go to suppliers; then once they’re locked in, the surplus is handed to shareholders and the platform becomes a useless pile of shit. From mobile app stores to Steam, from Facebook to Twitter, this is the enshittification lifecycle.
The AI companies were definitely subsidizing usage of the tech in the hopes of getting people locked in. Don’t think people are all that locked in. Probably some people are, suppliers like NVIDIA seem pretty locked in. But I don’t think there’s all that much to direct to shareholders relative to what they put into it to try to get lock in.
So it’s kinda failed enshittification? Premature enshittification… preshittification?
Well given the number of developers they canned so they could dump more money into the AI money pit, they kinda were heading that direction. But I guess they clued in that there might be a small problem with that business model.
Meta kind of did that with their VR stuff. They skipped the appealing to users part and build a bland, brand-safe, microtransaction-laden experience to sell to businesses assuming they could just use their size to force users to buy it.
Enshittification strategies only work if the product actually produces revenue and it grows along with market share. Unfortunately, even if market use grows, revenue from AI is not there. Even YouTube crossed the break even boundary before the start of ad enshittification and after the Google buyout. LLMs financial projections are starting to show that it will never reach enough revenue to cover costs, much less cover ROI into infrastructure and capacity. The math isn’t mathing and investors are starting to get cold feet. So they either enshittify now or the capital soon will start vanishing.
It’ll be a macguffin that makes your life a little more convenient in some ways, but it’ll cost the equivalent of a 1996 Honda Civic to use monthly and you have to smash your hand with a hammer to turn it on
Man, enshittification is happening so fast for ai. Imagine the next big thing. It’ll be enshittified prior to release.
This is the same business model that tech “startups” use, just at a vastly accelerated time table. Upend some existing market (in this case, several markets) by burning through cash at an unsustainable rate. Once your customers have been hooked, and/or the alternatives eliminated as competitors, you crank up the prices to try and make the business cashflow positive.
This isn’t enshittification in the traditional sense, they haven’t captured the market enough for that. They’re just panicking because they’re burning cash way too fast.
That word is only used correctly about 5% of the times it is used.
Don’t wanna be “that guy”, but if if 95% of the time people use it to generally mean “greedy companies making things shitty to try and wring an extra buck”, then that just is what that word means now.
It leaves a vacuum for the concept it was originally intended to describe, but that’s how she goes.
I guess so. But the original definition was useful and encapsulated a specific thing. And then everyone discarding that definition is a bummer. But it’s not like there is anything to be done about it. And Doctoro has said he’s not too annoyed by it himself.
I wholeheartedly agree. I love when I hear a new word, and a mushy concept just snaps into focus. Like, yea, I understood that concept in my “gut” but had not special word for it? So gratifying.
Feels like theft when it gets appropriated to something else.
Glad to hear Cory is cool w/ it. Putting a word (even by accident) to a poorly-expresable part of the human experience that let’s people communicate more effectively? That is a contribution to society that most of us only dream of. Fucker did it by accident. Thrilled for him.
I don’t think saying AI is being enshittified is too far from the orignal essay
The AI companies were definitely subsidizing usage of the tech in the hopes of getting people locked in. Don’t think people are all that locked in. Probably some people are, suppliers like NVIDIA seem pretty locked in. But I don’t think there’s all that much to direct to shareholders relative to what they put into it to try to get lock in.
So it’s kinda failed enshittification? Premature enshittification… preshittification?
You bastard… it’s perfect
It’s ironic, but I could care less. You’re literally beating a dead horse.
Are suggesting the word itself has become enshittified?
Interestingly enough, not the correct use for that word lol
😏
Quick, we need a word for enshittified enshittification!
“They’re burning cash too fast”
Their most recent earnings was 82.9B just last quarter, you don’t know what you’re talking about.
Ah yes. Of course, all of Microsoft just exists to subsidize GitHub AI tool usage.
Well given the number of developers they canned so they could dump more money into the AI money pit, they kinda were heading that direction. But I guess they clued in that there might be a small problem with that business model.
They’re putting copilot in everything, it’s not just github that has copilot lmfao
Basically what happened with Claude Opus 4.8
Meta kind of did that with their VR stuff. They skipped the appealing to users part and build a bland, brand-safe, microtransaction-laden experience to sell to businesses assuming they could just use their size to force users to buy it.
I think that’s because Meta acquiring Oculus was the enshitfication.
They forgot the first step where you make a great product that everyone’s clamoring to use.
They did, if by “everyone” you mean rich detached executives that constantly make decisions they have not the intelligence to understand.
„Enshittified“ implies it was ever not shit.
As a mod for the Enshitification you hate to see Enshitification in any form.
As a mod of Fuck_AI, I’ll make an exception in this one case.
COMMENCE THE ENSHITIFICATION!!!
Which completely goes against my Enshitification mod mindset, but here we are.
So…nobody told me life was going to be this way…
clap-clap-clap-clap
Enshittification strategies only work if the product actually produces revenue and it grows along with market share. Unfortunately, even if market use grows, revenue from AI is not there. Even YouTube crossed the break even boundary before the start of ad enshittification and after the Google buyout. LLMs financial projections are starting to show that it will never reach enough revenue to cover costs, much less cover ROI into infrastructure and capacity. The math isn’t mathing and investors are starting to get cold feet. So they either enshittify now or the capital soon will start vanishing.
It’ll be a macguffin that makes your life a little more convenient in some ways, but it’ll cost the equivalent of a 1996 Honda Civic to use monthly and you have to smash your hand with a hammer to turn it on