Maybe there isn't A Tipping Point, but several. Like milestones on the long road to freedom. I've just reached one.
#enshittification
See tagged statuses in the local BookWyrm community
Jetpack: "Dear David for some obscure, arbitrary and unspecified reason, we decided that your blog is not eligible for the free version of our service anymore and now you'll have to pay."
Me: "Dear Jetpack, how about I uninstall you, instead? Also, fuck you."
I never thought I’d live long enough to see DRM’d hard disk drives.
“Synology confirms that higher-end NAS products will require its branded drives”
"O #Mastodon—desenvolvido por uma empresa #semfinslucrativos e formado por comunidades com admins independentes—tornou-se essencialmente imune ao conhecido padrão de #enshittification da #socialmedia.
O #Bluesky, apesar de sua tecnologia inovadora e das boas intenções,é construído sobre a mesma fundação das #BigTech, apoiado por #venturecapital.
O Mastodon—apesar de mais desafiador para começar—representa nossa melhor chance de construir uma #opentownsquare na internet."
Https://phillipjreese.com/the-social-network-that-cant-sell-out-understanding-mastodon-vs-bluesky/
If you're a #facebook user, you can object to your information being used for #aItraining: https://www.facebook.com/help/contact/6359191084165019
I left Instagram YEARS AGO and I deleted my account: the account was disabled for 30 days and then - according to #Meta - DELETED.
Today I've received a genuine email from Meta telling me that I cannot login because my password is wrong, asking me to reset password in order to reactivate my account.
Clearly, someone is trying to force that account, but does this mean that META DIDN'T ACTUALLY DELETE MY ACCOUNT AS REQUESTED?
We did it. Internet achieved. Perfect exchange; we can all go home.
#tech #enshittification #devices #developer #infotech #technology #folklore
But what if I really want a faster horse?
#Netflix today is very different. It’s not a library—it’s an experience. Instead of reliably showing me what I "have" and recommending what I might like, it shuffles content on each interaction, sometimes changing the cover images of shows in real time, like some black-market charlatan.
https://rakhim.exotext.com/but-what-if-i-really-want-a-faster-horse
Found on #hackernews
How in the absolute fuck have we gotten to a point where a website has approaching a thousand "partners" who all get my data if I agree to it? And who would've gotten it entirely without my knowledge or consent if this dialog box wasn't the legal bare minimum?
I couldn't name 925 different people off the top of my head and I have a memory like an elephant.
The modern internet is fucked. Build new, small-scale things for *people*, that's all that matters now. #enshittification
We are in 2025 After Crap and the most popular music streaming platform are these with the worst audio quality (i.e. Spotify, YouTube Music, etc.).
Meanwhile many underground and even some legendary music pieces which were available on vinyl or/and CDs have never been and may never be in the pretentiously 'unlimited' catalog.
What a swindle, better scratch a vinyl or rip a CD.
#enshittification in the #digital #music #streaming age
Website idea: a mashup of reddit and iFixit called “F these guys!” that surfaces/showcases 3d printable replacement parts and substitues for enshittified products. Things like replacement knobs for an oven, coat hooks, buttons for old stereos, car dashboard bits. Basically a pushback against planned obsolescence and the enshittification. Sure thingiverse and similar sites exist, but they are catch all. Difference here is a focused UI that encourages both models and replacement tutorials. Most stuff on Amazon is just plastic. The “vitamins” as the RepRap ppl call them are just a tiny portion of most manufactured goods. Website name is up for discussion. #3dPrinting #enshittification #maker #RightToRepair
If you're talking about the "open social web", "stakeholders", "community leaders", "social graph", "sustainable growth" and "commercial and open source implementations" then you're most certainly not talking about the Fediverse that I know.
#Fediverse #FediverseMeta #enshittification #SocialWebFoundation #SocialWeb #FediForum #astroturfing
#TeslaTakedown is proof that a population pissed off enough overcomes the collective action problem.
Tesla take down is the best antidote to #enshittification
So spread that woke mind virus, that any company that gloats about its profits has just established it’s too big for its britches and needs to suffer a bit of popular taxation in the form of losing customers.
Nothing like 100% tax rate of total revenue loss.
Permanently.
To me one of the personally (!) most annoying (!) aspects of #enshittification is the actuall enshittification: That with all that money, all that data & all this potential, even the things that, to users, are the most simple & baseline, like finding an address or phone # - things which, I might add, were simple even before digital & worked perfectly fine early on - are so frustratingly & stupidly broken. It's like the productivity paradox for everything & on horse steroids.
Thank you for delivering MULTIPLE talks here in #bloomingtonIN and for signing our books!
As you signed @pluralistic , "Disenshittify or die!"
So, a story about how I #disenshittify ... by force!
This story starts when I was working at #IndianaUniversity for #UITS in IT Client Services. My job was "Special Projects". I worked for a director and basically made magic happen.
Early November 2014, someone from a human interface robotics lab handed me a new piece of #hardware called the #ThalmicMyo . It was an upper armband with 8 myoelectric sensors that could measure electrical muscle function, and do stuff on a computer with that data! The base idea was that you could do the following: hand wave outward, inward, spread out, fist, and thumbs up.
So, being CrankyLinuxUser, I wanted a #FLOSS toolchain to get and do my …
Thank you for delivering MULTIPLE talks here in #bloomingtonIN and for signing our books!
As you signed @pluralistic , "Disenshittify or die!"
So, a story about how I #disenshittify ... by force!
This story starts when I was working at #IndianaUniversity for #UITS in IT Client Services. My job was "Special Projects". I worked for a director and basically made magic happen.
Early November 2014, someone from a human interface robotics lab handed me a new piece of #hardware called the #ThalmicMyo . It was an upper armband with 8 myoelectric sensors that could measure electrical muscle function, and do stuff on a computer with that data! The base idea was that you could do the following: hand wave outward, inward, spread out, fist, and thumbs up.
So, being CrankyLinuxUser, I wanted a #FLOSS toolchain to get and do my own thing with it. Whoops, only worked for #MSWindows .
Forum requests were met with silence. "Sorry you cant get the data", was the refrain. Lies.
So I used my #IU account and requested academic access. They IMMEDIATELY chimed up and said that access could easily be granted at $5000/year . UH huh.
So, I made them a target.
Took a few weeks. BUT I eventually got a shitty BUT working toolchain on Linux to use really basic machine learning. This is just a linear regression k-nearest-neighbors. No LLM fuckery. Theirs could do 5 gestures. Mine could do 10.
I initially released it on #HackerNews or YCombinator, not realizing that Thalmic Myo was VC funded by YC. And holy shit that was a #MartinHench moment where I fell into a WHOLE LOT OF SHIT. My article was auto-killed. My account on HN was shadowbanned. Ruh roh.
I had some contacts at @hackaday and I sent them my findings, my responses from HN, and my repo... and a really hostile Youtube video (one of my gestures was a middle finger to Thalmic).
On Nov 18, 2014, at 730am eastern, my phone blew up, figuratively speaking. Ping. Ping ping. PIIIIIIINNNNNGGGGG until 12pm.
The page is still up on HaD, by the way. https://hackaday.com/2014/11/18/thalmic-labs-shuts-down-free-developer-access/
At 12pm or thereabouts, Thalmic Myo announced that they made an official decision to "allow raw data access"! I was not only successful for my hardware, but hardware freedom for EVERYONE with this platform.
Normally, the story would stop. I handed back the borrowed hardware to the lab that loaned it to me. I know they were able to do some cool prosthetic automation with it. But that's not my specialty. I made it so they could. My director permitted me to buy a few for our office to continue and loan them out as well.
...... 3 months later
I get a call on my office phone doing a customer survey. Told them that the hardware was great. "What about our API?" I told them that I made my own, and I was the one that forced your company to open source 3 months back. Ive never heard silence so LOUD. She asked me to stand by.
She transferred me to the CTO. We had a spirited conversation. I basically told him that I think ignoring the FLOSS and hacker community was your first and fatal mistake. You were a hardware business. You can do the VC thing and gatekeep, but that just angers people. And what you were in was a MASSIVE awesome piece of unique hardware nobody else had. He told me that their original idea was a powerpoint slide advance. I gave him perhaps 6 different major ideas to jump off on.
Nothing else happened, for a while.
3 more months later.......
I get a reddit DM out of the blue. Saw my name, and connected the dots. (S)He was an engineer at Thalmic during the time I released my Linux FLOSS code. They told me that I basically flip-turned the whole company upside down. I broke their business model of #Extraction and #enshittification and forced #FLOSS on them without a choice. They thanked me for my contribution.
Later n, the company got acquired or died. I'm not sure. I moved on and no longer had any of the hardware. Although, the basic idea is actually pretty cheap to construct these days. The only hard part is the AgCl electrode plating.
So when people ask what they can do, there's a LOT we can do. And a SINGLE PERSON can change the course of history. Sure, sometimes being in the right place at the right time is a big part, but there's so many of these moments.
Just wanted to contribute back @pluralistic to the movement you've founded.
