There's a supermarket in the Northeast, mainly in NY, called Wegmans. They are the opposite of this phenomenon, and they continue to thrive. They seem to operate for the benefit of their employees and their customers, not the owners (who do quite well anyway).
Amazon is a kind of opposite case. They have enshitified their business customers instead of their retail customers. Makes sense. Their business customers are not their primary source of revenue.
IMNSHO, they've enshitified both. I avoid them in part because their search is usually broken, returning unsuitable "sponsored" products ahead of - sometimes instead of - those I want. Also, "Amazon Basics" have an insane rate of arriving non-functional, or dying in their first month.
I try to avoid the "Sponsored" products by selecting for high reviews.
They've also started noting which products have been purchased multiple times by people, and how many have been bought recently.
I think I have developed better ways to assess product reviews, ignoring both the gushy ones and the cranky ones and focusing on the most analytical ones (which I reward by marking "Helpful").
It would be great if a 3rd party reviewer could somehow aggregate all those non-bot "helpful"--i.e., analytical--reviews. I mean, >90% of all the products I've ever seen on Amazon have like 4.8 star reviews.
I just read Amaxon has been quietly raisong its prices on some things despite earlier agreeing with trump they wouldn't do so. In response to tariff increases? Or enshittification?
I take this as a sign that Besos puts profit ahead of kowtowing to Trump. Too bad he took the opposite approach with WaPo. Maybe because WaPo could never be a significant revenue source for him. More of a side hobby that failed to hold his interest.
Amazon has /never/ had a sort by "price and shipping" option the way its fellow dot-coms like eBay has, and indeed the "sort by price" option has gotten buried further and further as time goes on. A new "feature" is that the number of items shown shrinks dramatically if you sort by price.
In the early days* of "health maintenance organizations" (HMOs), Harvard Community Health Plan advertised that it was run by doctors, not accountants. Their primary competitor—the one run by accountants—eventually bought them out.
Yes! I worked there from fall 1983 to fall 1989. I'm told the model could not be sustained due to fewer healthy enrollees and more unhealthy enrollees. But during those years, it was a glorious place to be employed and to serve patients . Also, because we were "not for Profit", we would get a bonus at the end of the years in which there was a surplus of income. The bonus would be allocated based on a formula including seniority and years of employment
Tip: your screen name is too long. There’s a Substack bug where the right hand side of comments of users with long screen names is clipped off. At least on an iPhone. If you want iPhone users to read your comments, put a space between the two words. Or nag Substack to fix the wretched bug.
Funny that you mention Wegmans, because I thought of them as I read the article. Wegmans has forever offered just one name brand (maybe two) of a product and placed their own store brand (with very nice graphics) next to it. Eventually they drop the name brand and offer only their own, which may be almost as good as the name brand, but maybe not. In any event, it’s now your only choice. Prediction: watch this happen with Heidelberg Bread (that Wegmans sells for $1 loaf less than our local food co-op in Buffalo). It recently happened to a specialty jam: Bonne Maman. I know, first world problem. Yes, Wegmans is enlightened when it comes to labor relations but only because it’s being pushed by unionized Tops Markets (Wegmans workers are not organized). But don’t be fooled- Professor Krugman’s article perfectly describes Weggy’s.
That's largely true, but you don't go to Weg's for packaged groceries so much as for things like their meat, produce, seafood, etc. For raw ingredients, they're hard to top. And some of their house products are a pretty good deal.
Their sea food still very good.. and it's amazing because my experience is never buy fish in the supermarket if you like fresh fish. Theirs is so good that the local fish market retired. And this is the case in many areas- the big guys destroy local businesses while people opt for one stop shopping when most things are "pretty good" and people don't have the time to shop like the Europeans.
Don't you all have independent butchers & farmers markets? Farmer/ranchers are so gouged by meat packers is why I think bougie butcher shops are proliferating. I usually go to the independent butchers for meat the rare times I have company & shop the farmers' market in the summer time. The city I live in now is predominately independent Italian owned grocers that remained when white flight high tailed it to the suburbs. I shop at those locations & at Aldi's, too, located in lower income neighborhoods. Noahpinion, imo, is a neoliberal hack who used one of our locally owned grocers in a city-owned property in the hood as a negative example of what Mamdani of NYC is proposing. This city suffers from years of rust belt decline (not as bad as other cities, but I rode the city bus recently and canvassed for Bernie 2016 in some of the neighborhoods that are reminiscent of how NYC in the 1970's is portrayed). Loss of industry and not welfare is what has contributed to a lower class without socially-acceptable ambition. Our city's old money tries mightily (with its tax favorable PR) to help left behind people rise, but it is a constant challenge and the new economy is only going to make it worse, imo.
We do have independent butchers and farmer's markets dotted sporadically around different boroughs/neighborhoods. The indy butcher's are far more expensive - if you're lucky enough to be within walking distance from one. I'm not too thrilled with the idea of spending a half hour (not to mention the fare) on the subway with a bag of warming meat, followed by another half hour on the bus. Wegman's and another supermarket are both within walking distance of my building.
Yeah, it just feels like it. I think we'll start to see a glimmer of light at the end of this long dark tunnel in 2026, when the blue tsunami rolls in.
We don't have Wegmans on the West Coast, but it sounds similar to Trader Joe's. TJ has similarly brought in new products, only to replace them with nearly identical store-brand items. Employees are non-union.
Still, I do most of my shopping there because quality, prices, and service are way better than at the now-private-equity-owned Safeway, which has driven most other local supermarkets out of the area.
I just shopped at the TJ in Harlem and had to throw out my whole bag of stuff except for the frozen butter chicken.
Bagged salad kit: wilted and seeping.
Bagged organic fresh stringbeans: the tips were moldy and compromised the lot.
Avocados: rotten inside
Packaged smoked salmon slices: nearly every slice had at least ons bone … not skinny little thread size bones but two plus inch fat needles!
Tart Cherry Juice (not from concentrate) — the expiration date was fine but however they stored it it got hot enough to turn color and separate into weird sludgy sediment.
Check out the TJ sub on Reddit and you will find my experience is far from unique.
Even the frozen and highly processed pre packaged foods have had ingredient swaps recently where cheaper substitutes were used.
Get your favorites now because they won’t be the same in a few months.
Sometimes private label merch works right: Vendor offers a hot product that Wegman's knows they can produce, and sell, for less under private label. When that happens, the original product generates less profit, so the vendor pulls it, or Wegman's not longer stocks it. That's good; that's Deshittification!
I have noticed this too about Wegman's- the disappearance of name brands leaving the only choice the Wegman's brand. Some really good products have disappeared period. Their paper products are good. Bonne Mamam is still available at Wegman's here so it may go store by store; maybe, probably, they give a product a while then take it away if it does not sell enough... which is a catch 22. This is not based on quality. I think many must not care enough about quality and this is the result.
We use Whole Foods as well and this works.Their cheeses are good. First world problem- the need for imported blue cheese from Neal's Yard, amazingly found at WF.
Exactly right! The big time shareholders in our system of predatory capitalism only care about money and incessantly demand more at the expense of all other considerations.
Grocery businesses are extremely competitive; there’s minimal network effects that Wegmans could leverage to maintain a customer base if they dropped product quality. “Enshittification” is possible because of strong network effects and the potential for monopoly profits at the end of the business development process. Tech services could never be as good early as they were without the promise of networks to reap for profits at the end.
As I point out in a comment further down, it's not mainly about network effects--it's about very low marginal cost to scale up and serve more customers. Netflix has also enshittified, but it doesn't depend on network effects from what I can tell. And there's a large amount of competition in the streaming video sector, which in fact coincided with the enshittification!
I think it’s worth distinguishing enshittifaction from a general reduction in product quality; I perceive Netflix’s reduction in quality to be more about increasing competition in streaming reducing access to licenses and putting pressure on profitability.
Netflix profits have risen a lot since ca 2020, though, which is around when the product started to become worse, I would say. (They went from ~$9B profits to ~$20B in that period.)
The other thing that makes me skeptical about the role of network effects is Youtube, which obviously has network effects going for it but is still pretty excellent in terms of the product quality.
To quote Matt Yglesias on this issue:
"The way investors advise software founders is that in the initial case, they should focus overwhelmingly on making a product that is good and that solves problems in users lives and that users love. The idea is that in software, your marginal costs tend to be low, so whatever your business model problems are, they’re easier to solve with 100 million users than with one million users. That’s different from the restaurant business. If you have a chain with five outlets and it loses money, going to 5,000 outlets doesn’t solve your problems. But with software, it’s easier to figure out a way to be profitable if you get really big first, so you initially focus on growth. Eventually, though, you do need to make money, so a pivot has to occur where you start focusing more on revenue considerations and less on “do customers love this?” That does mean making the experience worse for many people, and they are entitled to be upset about that and even call it “enshittification” if they want. "
Was a long-time shopper at Wegman's Early on (20+ years ago!) they were an excellent shopping experience -- great choices, great prices. Haven't shopped there in years as the choices are still great but the prices... yikes! Anyone tried Aldi's ?? Basic selection but the prices cannot be beat.
I love Aldi. You have to step out of your brand-name comfort zone. I just found their dark chocolate. The price and the quality are outstanding. Cheese. Chicken. Steaks. Shhhh.
Am a big fan of their dark chocolates, especially their Sea Salt. Also a fan of their 94% lean ground beef, small potatoes and apples. Excellent products and good prices. Winning combination.
Wegman's utilizes AI for dynamic pricing, raises prices in real time to capture more revenue. Wegman's, of course, denied this, arguing that its dynamic pricing keeps its pricing competitive. However, if its competitors are using dynamic pricing to optimize revenue, then, by definition, Wegman's is doing the same thing.
That practice would almost qualify as price fixing. Of course, thanks to extreme deregulation, that's apparently no longer a problem for the profiteers.
When all of the sellers willingly provide their sensitive and confidential information to an algorithm for pricing purposes, that would likely be considered price fixing. That scheme is the subject of multiple lawsuits, initiated by governmental authorities across the country, against large landlords.
Wikipedia: "The defining characteristic of price fixing is any agreement regarding price, whether expressed or →implied←."
There are ways to finesse anti-competitive practices by tacit agreement. Of course if one competitor raises prices but the others don't follow suit, the first business may have to back off. It happens often enough, though, that the other competitors raise prices, too, possibly because of a shared problem with supply and demand (e.g., culling due to avian flu sharply reducing the supply of chicken eggs).
I believe it does qualify as price fixing and is similar to the use of algorithmic pricing used especially among private equity owned single and multiple family housing units.
Wegmans is also strong in N VA. Their emergence ahead of Whole Foods was rapidly accelerated by Amazon's takeover.
My prediction is that Wegmans will continue to be a high quality outfit until the current generation retires and turns it over to their children. The only option for slowing the process of decay would be the employee ownership path. But even that will eventually be ineffective. It's about the entropy of the process.
Fortunately, there is the possibility that a new, responsive competitor will emerge, its growth spurred by the decay of its competition. The cycle will then repeat itself.
Has already happened - the newest generation (first one with a MBA) has been running the show for the past eight years, with the result that the quality of their products has declined and shopping there is no longer the previous excellent experience.
The network externality of Twitter is so strong. A number of Japanese illustrators have been leaving Twitter following Elon Musk’s policy change (their posts are forcibly used to train AI) and moving to platforms like Bluesky and Mastodon. Ultimately, however, they stayed on Twitter because its popularity is irreplaceable.
I find it ironic that Wegmans is now seen as a corporate "good guy". Back when they were just a supermarket in Rochester, NY, my Dad would refuse to shop there "because they jack up the prices on bread and milk every time there's a snowstorm". (And in Rochester in the 1960s and 70s, there were a lot of snowstorms!) They drove their local competitors out of business long before they became regional and beloved.
surprised in this forum so many comments are nitpicking, negative re, in this case, Wegman's. In our local region with the good fortune to have LIDL, TJs, Super Shop Rite, Whole Foods, Wegmans, and other specialty groceries and farmers markets all close by, our family has many, many good things to say and experiences at Wegmans. Just being in the store - the staffing, customer service, organization, friendliness, produce quality etc is all evident. Want lower prices and $ saves on certain items? of course TJs, LIDL, ALDI and other options prevail. Amidst an era of DEI attacks and craziness, Wegmans and CostCo both stand out as very good experiences and emphasis of support for their large employee Teams.
Target is targeted for its PR of cratering to Trump re: DEI, however one nearest me has a Black hair care line because of our demographics & others throughout the metropolitan area as well have various minorities whom seem sharp working in them. Perhaps ignore the PR and focus on reality--however, I read that Costco stated that it wasn't going to change its program regardless & it's supposedly one of the best places to work.
Texas has a similar grocery store chain, HEB that is the opposite of this as well, and like Wegmans they are also privately held. As mentioned Costco is a good example of a public corporation that tries hard to be unshitty. All of which shows that the rot starts from the top.
Boston is lucky to have both Wegman’s and Market Basket as options. While Market Basket is also privately held, there is an ongoing feud within the family that owns the business. The sisters, who hold the highest percentage of ownership, are threatening to give control to private equity for a generous payout. We all know what will happen if the sale goes through.
The only thing I miss from the East Coast that they don't have here on the West Coast, is Wegmans. Safeway, Albertsons and Fred Meyers don't even come close to their level.
i have relatives who life in the east, and one of the things I do when I visit them is go to Wegman"s. I actually wrote Wegman's a letter one time requesting that they open a store out here in the west, but they haven't done it yet, and most assuredly won't.
As I read this I thought of the streaming services. So convoluted now. Pricing (with and without ads), bundling with this other platform or that. It's so hard to navigate and so segmented it's like someone decided to drive their customers to the brink of insanity.
But then I realize, it's not about entertainment, it's about cold hard cash. Enshitification at its best:-)
This doesn’t just happen with new technologies, the US auto industry became enshittified for a long time until the quality of Japanese cars improved so much that US companies were finally forced to compete. We found that out the hard way.
I believe I have figured out how to navigate streaming services. One thing we consumers have in our favor is lack of contracts. So, Netflix off, Apple on. Apple off, Hulu on. Let them build up their libraries while I don’t pay so I can gorge when I do pay.
Agreed and that's what I'm about to do. Cancel the two I've got, switch over to two I used to have. None of the algorithms show me things I really want to watch. For example, I never watch anime or rom-coms and they're constantly presenting me with those types of shows. Also, there's a ton of good stuff on PBS and I like supporting them now.
What many smug cable-cutters believed was that the switch to streaming services was going to give them more control to pay for the things they wanted but none of what they didn’t. The illusion of the line-item veto. But the economics of media never work that way.
Instead, you find many lured into the pool when the business was new, prestige television was a differentiator, and pricing was attractive for newcomers. But in the end, the media companies were always going to get their pound of flesh.
As the heat of adoption faded and bills had to be paid, many customers are now paying more than what they paid for basic cable service. And with adverts and less valuable programming.
My entertainment (other than reading Substack, NYT, & a few other comment sections is to go out and sit at a restaurant bar to eat or listen to live music. Since my mom died I no longer have access to worthless tv and am not willing to pay for it. Unfortunately, I'm older and if there are people out and about solo, most of them are glued to scrolling on their smartphones.
Doctorow’s terminal step of “then they die” may be more on the mark than Prof. Krugman admits. Some deaths result in being acquired by other companies, private equity, etc. For instance, an enshittified Paramount is hoping to be gobbled up by Ellison nepo baby’s Skydance Media. Same story, different characters: Comcast, GE, NBC. Or the Warner Bros. Discovery Trail of Tears (a.k.a. how to enshittify a valuable brand name like HBO.)
Taking it even further, isn’t enshittification simply the evolutionary endpoint of asset-based executive compensation and late stage capitalism? The system rewards short-term greed, does it not?
I'm still trying to get my head around imagining the staid editors at the NYT allowing Paul to explain enshittification in a Times column, even with a bunch of squeamish asterisks. It is, after all, a frontal assault on much of what stinks about late-stage capitalism. We're a deeply unequal, fractious society that is deeply in long-term debt, deeply in denial about the path forward, and being run by the most insanely dishonest, immoral, cruel and incompetent people in the history of modern government.
This is the story of nearly everything in America. Remember airlines that had free baggage checks and meals? Even JetBlue, just a few years ago was good and popular until they started prioritizing profit - they were already profitable - and now are hated and the service is awful. The government too with its failing infrastructure and traffic pile ups (and a million other examples) became awful when they started cutting taxes, I’m old enough to have seen this phenomenon happen over and over again. A company like Tower Records comes in strong, puts everyone else out of business, then starts to suck, then goes out of business having ruined the entire industry.
I don't think Tower Records died primarily because of what they did to their market. They did put a lot of small shops out of business but that wasn't what killed them. It was the internet, Napster, and Apple Music that did it.
But remember, that isn't why people will vote for GOP even though their policies will hurt them.
“If you can convince the lowest white man he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t otice you’re picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he’ll empty his pockets for you.” LBJ
Racism and Misogyny are driving US politics. The idea that those "others" will be hurt much more than you and you are willing to endure a lot of pain to get rid of those "others". All of this based upon how we go so wrong with education in this country after about the 3rd grade.
"Remember airlines that had free baggage checks and meals?"
Princess O'Wales got in before me on this. What I remember are airlines where meals and checked bags were included in the price, with no option of a cheaper ticket when you don't need those services.
I think there is a parallel process of enshittification with physical products. When I lived in NYC in the 1970s, Entenmann's baked goods were supernaturally good. Later the brand went national. I have come back to Entenmann's in the last few years as a national brand, and now they are just barely better than their national competitors, and nowhere near supernatural in quality as they used to be. They are my archetype of enshittification.
houses, appliances...things start out sturdy and then manufacturers start shaving and skimping to get away with the least (but throw on a few bells & whistles for distraction)
Paul, Another example is Amazon. When Amazon began it gathered together databases of books from all over and was a wonderful source. As a librarian I would go to Amazon for information as well as occasional purchases. After doing business personally for a while, at Christmas time loyal customers received a travel Cup in the mail with words of thanks. And Jeff was just Jeff then and he asked customers to call, providing his ow phone number, when there was a problem. I think I need say no more as an example of what has happened, but from a source that was once innovative and successful it is now reviled by so many for so many reasons. It has certainly been enshittified.
Of course it was just a gift to endear/charm the users who did a good business with t hem--the exact point Paul was making. The tried to hook you in deeper at first by being oh so good to you, then gradually the gifts ended, the phone was not directed to Jeff and all things began to change as he added all the many many things to Amazon sales. I have to admit then in retirement we moved to a rural community that had little shopping resources and Amazon was a lifeline for things that were most essential or for books that were less accessible with no bookstore nearby. And one of the first things we began to notice all over the country was that bookstores were closing almost en masse because the prices were better at Amazon, and the shipping charges were absorbed by them if you purchased a certain amount and then Prime came into the picture. Another sop to the regular customers. I too use it much less freqently now, having once again moved and using local stores or other onlne resources.
The only problem being now you go to a local retailer for anything and there are very few products available for purchase while you are shopping, but signs all over telling you to purchase from their website. SHOP LOCAL is the heard all across the land - but first there has to be products on the shelf. It is almost like the retailers really don't want me physically in the store, but just on line. At 80, I've found that I really do want to look over the lettuce before I put it in my shopping cart, and do insist that the grocery stores I patronize have floors that I don't stick too because they didn't properly clean up the spills.
I am very grateful that I do not live where you do. I have a choice of many groceries, and at 90 I resent the highways that I have to drive, even for a short distance. But when I get there shelves are full and the produce and meats are generally good with too many selections on the shelves. I will wish for more for you Barbara because I understand your frustration.
Grocery Stores aren’t a problem, I live in metro Phoenix area. It is other retailers where there maybe 1 of an item with signs all over to order from their website, etc.
Commercial retail real estate landlords are going to have to drop their prices if they want to keep tenants. Following the Epstein brouhaha, I researched Leslie Wexner. Leslie seemed such a plucky, precocious little prick when he tried to order his parents around in their smaller city independent store, but he was correct. Read an article about him online published by Forbes several years ago....Nordstrom does this today, using their discount Rack stores as marked-down merchandise "warehouses" open to the public. The leather bags & I presume anything designer or expensive is also for sale online, hence why the store always seems picked over when I go. Socks, shirts, separates, etc that people might need to go get immediately can be in stock with a few eye catching rare buys in the window to attract attention that can be ordered in the store for pick up or online delivery for the right size.....some people want to try things on before purchase and in-store alteration will keep independents in business with the brick & mortar model.
I understand that Amazon is a resource foreural communities that aren't near brick and mortar retail.
I think that more of us recognize that Amazon was playing the long game in absorbing shipping costs and running losses until they grew and bought other online retailers (Zappos) to extend their presence.
For its first ten years, Amazon was unprofitable. The vulture capitalists who funded it weren't concerned because they - and Bozo Bezos - knew all along that the plan was achieve a monopoly upon going public. Back then, Bozo was "merely" a millionaire - totally funded by vulture capital. Post IPO, Bozo rapidly became the richest man on Earth, before MuskRat surpassed him - following the massive subsidy granted by Obama's green business policies.
I'm not blaming Obama for the rise of MuskRat. He had no way to know any more than the rest of us.
There are plenty of reasons to hate Jeff Bezos (and I do), but I think Amazon is as good as it has ever been. You may not like its acquisition strategy, or how it treats its workers, or how it rips off people who want to sell through Amazon. But this article is not about that. It is about the enshittification of the service a company provides to its customers.
I've been an Amazon customer since they only sold books, and I think their service is better than ever.
Somewhat disagreeing. The amount of unrelated and uninteresting crap they fling at me in every search is frustrating as hell. And some of it is clearly not "do you mean this?" as much as "hey, maybe you'll buy this too!"
Yes, I get some of that but not much. More often, Amazon is the only place I can find things I need. I try to find them at local businesses but often don’t succeed. The locals just can’t afford to stock such a variety of items, I guess.
I'm really disappointed Birkenstock sold to a private equity outfit. I always went direct to Birkenstock's website or direct to any others for whatever I want and try to avoid an online general store for anything unless I can't find it directly from an independent retailer. Bought some huarache open-toe sandals online made in Mexico from a young couple living in Texas recently....hope they don't get caught up in all of this ICE bs.
Yes. Amazon persecutes its employees, and not just in the warehouses. It’s an awful place for software engineers, too, and has been since the beginning. They are also very hard on their suppliers. They get away with it through monopoly power. But Amazon provides increasingly good service to customers. One-day delivery is common where I live. Two days, pretty much expected, except for small suppliers who do their own shipping.
I disagree - it’s now so hard to find quality products if I’m not looking for something by a specific brand already. I’ve had to go back to buying a bunch of stuff at the mall. The mall! And even when I’m looking for something specific, the list is so clogged up with other things that I sometimes give up, guessing that Amazon somehow doesn’t carry the thing I’m looking for (if it does, it’s sometimes impossible to find). There are still many things I buy from Amazon - free shipping is great! But often, the things I’m buying at Amazon are simply things I used to buy at CVS (before they enshittified themselves by dramatically cutting staff and locking everything up).
That scene from The Godfather has always been my model for what is morally wrong with American capitalism. All the evil done in the service of maximizing investor returns is "Nothing personal. It was always only business."
A nice moment in the book that gets left out of the films is when the Michael tells Tom that that line is all bullshit, and if there's one thing he learned from watching their father all this time, it's that everything in life is personal.
Now Prof Krugman, i want you to build a mathematical model that demystifies enshittification of Politics. How did we go from FDR-Eisenhower-Kennedy to likes of Trump-DeSantis-Schumer & rest of Gerontocracy. How did this happen is among the greatest question of 21st century.
It seems to me that a sense of ethics, public duty, personal integrity was supplanted by a need for power and wealth for most political figures. Jimmy Carter, Al Gore, Hillary Clinton and yes...Chuck Schumer (he explained the reason for his unpopular decision; and it made sense) are exceptions, in my opinion. Trump is the leading example of the personal corruption which has infested the "ruling class".
I've spent the last two decades developing solid state lighting devices. Competition and better performance killed the incandescent light, not "lawyers".
As for incubators...plenty of other ways to produce heat. What you miss is that you could do it cheaply (if inefficiently). Frankly, if there were a market for it, it would not be that difficult to produce a a Edison base hot wire heater for incubators. Given the UL cost and all, I'm going to guess they would not be $0.50/ea.
Huh. Are all "Democrats" lawyers? Or are all Lawyers Democrats? I am not following.
Yes legislation put the final nail in the coffin. Take your point! That's probably an endorphin rush, right? lol. I've been in those lamp factories, nobody wanted to be the last one making incandescent bulbs. Nobody. It was bad business. I had probably $2MM of unsold inventory on my P&L that literally I could not give it away. Habitat Restore didn't even want it! I had to write it off and it was thrown in the trash.
Incandescent lighting has been a dead/dying industry, with zero investment, for years. Most, if not all, of the old lamp making machines were switched over to filament LED bulbs. Meanwhile, lamps and fixtures moved forward, gaining wireless control and color tuning capabilities that customers actually wanted.
Dude, you can't get folks to buy last year's phone or computer and you're arguing that what people really want is a rotary phone, and not the iPhone 16 Pro. But yeah, it's the "lawyers" and "Democrats" that did it.
I have a Nokia feature phone with actual push buttons like my old Blackberry. I know I'm not enough of a market share, but I did read a comment by a grandma? who stated that her grand kids? or kids? & friends had a disposable camera with another sporting a non-internet type camera taking pics out and about to avoid their misdeeds forever online. I'm one of those, too, looking for something to take pics that won't be online.
There is an undercurrent appreciation happening for a return to an analog (cassette futurism) lifestyle, in many cases, being driven by fairly young folks. I don't know if it is a boomerang retro-nostalgia (the polaroid being sold in costco, young women wearing wired earbuds, use of flip phones, etc), or if it is the seeds of a fundamental shift in thinking. I somewhat hope the latter, but that won't see me asking for incandescent lamps again...that ship has sailed (that's good technology). I think we (as indviduals, society(ies), nations, etc) should be doing is engaging in active discussions about technology and how it intersects with our life. (Say it can't be done? The Amish do it every day.) It is simply not the case that any of this is inevitable, every bit of it is a choice. AI adoption should be the conversation we are all having every single day. We struggle to bring up proper humans, yet we're barreling head-on with GPAI that can vastly out perform any human at massive scales. A 3 year old having tantrum or a 14 year old in a rage can massively disrupt normal situations. Imagine the same from an AI that's running a global communications or banking system.
It was the right move to make. Incandescent bulbs use far too much electricity. They're a 100+ year old technology, thus obsolete. I stopped using them long before they were banned. I don't miss them.
Incandescent bulbs were originally designed to last. There is in fact a bulb of early design and manufacture still functioning. Google "centennial light" for the story.
Because the early design was so robust, manufacturers realized as that the market for bulbs was limited and intentionally redesigned them to last for relatively short periods. How many times have you had to replace incandescent light bulbs and how much has it cost you?
Say what you want about the Democrats, Edison, and lawyers but light bulbs were an early example of product enshittification.
There is a physical trade-off between expected lifetime and efficiency (or brightness for a given amount of power) for incandescent bulbs. When bulbs were cheap people opted for the brighter bulbs.
You can make a "modern" 100 watt bulb last virtually forever by running it on half voltage. It will use much less power, it won't put out much light and and it will be quite inefficient.
Incandescent technology advancements (and there were some) were getting off of the existing efficiency-lifetime curve (to a new and better one). Finally CFLs and LEDs made that whole thing obsolete.
I should add that enshittification requires something that inhibits competition, whether network effect, monopoly, patents, price fixing, etc. With government required lifetime and efficiency (light output and power consumption) labeling on incandescent bulbs, it was actually a market where a superior product might get rewarded.
This is a common misquote (though very true and 100% apropos to this post) of Eric Hoffer’s 1967 original (which is also great, and 100% applies to djt & MAGA):
“What starts out here as a mass movement ends up as a racket, a cult, or a corporation.”
I, too, have wondered what's down the road for Substack. I also wonder who ultimately controls the Internet infrastructure. Can the president, who the Supreme Court ruled is above the law, order the Internet be shut down?
There are vast parts of the internet infrastructure that are not in the United States and are beyond the reach of the US government. (One of the reasons that archive.org has servers outside the US.) Could the government try to shut down information coming into the US, similar to the way China does? Maybe. But could the US government shut down the internet more generally? No.
Marc Andreeson and his venture capital firm have infused it with cash to adapt it towards social media and advertising that the founders originally stated they wouldn't do.
Substack arrived pre-enshitified, from the POV of readers, compared to previous blogging platforms. It was designed primarily for bloggers/influencers wanting to collect money from followers, with a cut to the platform that's doubtless been very profitable for them.
Commenting features have now *almost* reached the prior state of the art. But not quite.
The first company I know doing this was Apple with its "Walled Garden" and creating Apple only standards. I worked with them early on, and our business soon took on the same mantra. Get the customers then trap them and raise prices.
How, then, has Apple maintained relatively high quality in their field? So far, they haven't hit the last phases of the process. They raised prices and then were able to stay on the plateau. In the long term they might go the way of IBM, which kept up the same kind of relationship with customers for decades before they largely missed the boat with the latest trends. But they are still around; they just stopped growing.
Apple hasn't innovated since 2007. They created the app infrastructure then made it larger(iPad), smaller(iWatch), and on your face (Vision Pro). They charged a lot more for the same thing in most instances.
In recent years, they are more known for their anticompetitive practices than products. High app store fees, forced to stop unique accessories, and their brutal treatment of Chinese workers. They were so anticompetitive in the Epic trial that the judge changed course and forced them to open up.
Apple's biggest innovations now are camera updates and milking people who have a lot invested in their ecosystem.
They focused on a slightly premium market, rather than the cutthroat low end. They largely own that market, so aren't growing as fast. In the US they have 60% of the total smartphone market. They haven't stopped growing as fast because they've gotten shittier, but because at some point they can only grow with population.
Don't. Windows is easily hackable for when you don't have the downtime for updates. I don't know what you will use your computers for, but I have a Chrome tablet for anonymous internet browsing as a "guest". I now have a foreign email for personal business, as I don't trust our government or the corporations that own it. I'm sure you will do your research.
thanks for advice and confidence. but I’m 89 and live in Canada and use my computer for screaming into the void. (and I threaten to go to Windows in an effort to get my Mac to smarten up - free-floating photo on screen at the moment - gotta fire up my scooter and go see my computer guru)
I needed to purchase a certain electronic component and found a company selling it on line. Through their website, I navigated to the product, selected it, and hit "check out," which brought me to the check-out page. After filling in all the information (name, address, credit card, etc.), I clicked on "PURCHASE" and . . . got a pop-up telling me I had to register and set up an account. Ten minutes of filling out on-line forms later, I was registered and had an account . . . and now my shopping cart was wiped away. So I reran the entire process, getting all the way through the check-out page and clicking "PURCHASE" . . . only to get redirected to another page demanding I log in with my newly created account. I did so . . . and now my shopping cart was wiped away again. Third time through the process, and despite having an account with all the information (name address, etc.), when I finally got to the shopping cart NONE of the information would autofill. A full 30 minutes of my time to make one single-item purchase!
Second story: Went to a local pizza joint the other night and ordered some slices. The girl at the register demanded my phone number and email address before she could ring up my order. Me protesting that I was standing right there with cash in my hand made no difference because their point-of-sale system could not process transactions without that data. I skipped my slices and had Chinese instead.
I run a small online retail Website out of my home. When I set up my shopping cart system, I specifically set it up to not allow or require the creation of user accounts.
That's partly for security issues, but mostly because I hate the experience you described above and I won't subject my customers to it. Want to buy? Add an item to your cart, fill out the form with your address and payment information, and click "Buy Now."
Simple.
Now I get email from customers: "I want to buy something and I'm trying to create an account on your site but I can't find the link or page to do it. Please help!"
I reminded me of the days when Radio Shack demanded your address for every transaction so they could send you catalogs. It made every transaction adversarial as I'd be trying to buy a blank cassette tape for $5 cash and the store manager had to treat it as though I was financing a new car.
Enshitification is much broader than networks. Take agroindustrial tomatoes. They moved to Fla for the long growing season despite the shitty soil. Maybe good for consumer. Then were bred for long-haul trucking: so hard ( and tasteless) they could fall off a truck without a scratch and last forever. Good for grocers, terrible for consumers. Then production moved to Canadian hothouses, at least for those able to pay. I thought enshitification was just another word for capitalism.
In my area, we have “dry-farmed tomatoes.” Wonderful taste and texture. A little more expensive, around 20% I think. Not all year, though. Just for a season that lasts four of five months.
The hothouse tomato and bell pepper discussion has been circulating around my house for years. With the Murika Fi(r)st movement, that discussion has slewed to one about why don't we have a domestic hothouse industry for anything but dope. Perhaps Dr. Krugman would, or already has, explore that weirdly niche but strangely universal economic sector. The pepper and tomato sector, not the dope, they seem to be doing fine.
It has to do with the short season. East coast has a hot house company - back yard tomatoes financed the Fidelity Investments retirement fund - the company bought hydroelectric power to farm their 40 acre sites
Not sure I agree with the tone of this piece. One could just as well regard early adapters as receiving a bonus of paying less than full cost in return for beta testing and enlarging the customer base. Nothing like that lasts forever, whether it’s discovering a holiday spot before it gets on insta, being treated like royalty when a restaurant has just opened, being allowed to keep your slightly damaged books from amazon, enjoying the bonus interest rate for new accounts. Enjoy it while it lasts then move on, especially if the company in question has become evil, like FB.
The point is that the vast majority of people don't move on...partly because they've become accustomed to poorer service/quality, partly because there are few choices due to monopolization.
Tens of millions still cling to FB, despite its pathetic quality, pro-outrage algorithms, and history of harm to democracies.
Greed by monopolistic and a surrender of agency by users have brought us to this abyss.
I find my corner of FB to be cosy, keeps in touch with people...I don't get the awful stuff people talk about, but I don't browse on it (well, there are those ghastly short film thingees)
Because millions believe as you do...that you're safe in a cozy corner, you enable FB to collect and sell data...directly enriching Zuckerberg and empowering him to weaponize algorithms that are destroying societies amd radicalized new generations.
Americans are unwilling to sacrifice even their social media use to save their societies and freedoms.
yeah - but it is not possible to be a part of the modern world without participating in our own abuse - I quit work at 40, lived in a shack in the country, now live in town in a small house and buy virtually everything 2nd hand - but there is no better way to keep in touch with people (hundreds of them from various former activities or forums) than to further enrich Jeff (I haven't entirely given up the WaPo yet either) - I drive (as little as I can and in a 2nd-hand vehicle) despite knowing that I'm contributing to climate catastrophe.....but there is no other way to get around - we are trapped and the best we can do is keep it down to a dull roar...until the day comes (hah!) when the world is not based on profit
The multi-national world-spanning conglomerates and corporations, with a lot of gov't (usually republican)support, have squashed out all competition. When someone comes up with a brilliant idea or product, the corporations BUY it, and find a way to "enshittify" it- lower quality & raise prices, and when possible, make customers dependent upon it (as I wailed about having to rent Photoshop a few days ago).
US being turned into a debt-renter system. Nobody really owns anything. Subaru kept track of everything I did and everywhere I went in my new Impreza. And kindly sent me monthly "reports". I was glad to sell it, get an older "dumb" car. When I called Samsung about a problem with my new refrigerator, they already knew about it, and told me what to do. That's awful. The last thing I want is a "smart house".
There's a supermarket in the Northeast, mainly in NY, called Wegmans. They are the opposite of this phenomenon, and they continue to thrive. They seem to operate for the benefit of their employees and their customers, not the owners (who do quite well anyway).
In a world of Facebooks, be a Wegmans.
It's no surprise that Wegmans is privately owned. They are answerable only to their customers, suppliers, employees, and themselves.
That makes sense. Costco would be the publicly-owned version of this, imo.
Amazon is a kind of opposite case. They have enshitified their business customers instead of their retail customers. Makes sense. Their business customers are not their primary source of revenue.
IMNSHO, they've enshitified both. I avoid them in part because their search is usually broken, returning unsuitable "sponsored" products ahead of - sometimes instead of - those I want. Also, "Amazon Basics" have an insane rate of arriving non-functional, or dying in their first month.
I try to avoid the "Sponsored" products by selecting for high reviews.
They've also started noting which products have been purchased multiple times by people, and how many have been bought recently.
I think I have developed better ways to assess product reviews, ignoring both the gushy ones and the cranky ones and focusing on the most analytical ones (which I reward by marking "Helpful").
This.
It would be great if a 3rd party reviewer could somehow aggregate all those non-bot "helpful"--i.e., analytical--reviews. I mean, >90% of all the products I've ever seen on Amazon have like 4.8 star reviews.
I just read Amaxon has been quietly raisong its prices on some things despite earlier agreeing with trump they wouldn't do so. In response to tariff increases? Or enshittification?
I take this as a sign that Besos puts profit ahead of kowtowing to Trump. Too bad he took the opposite approach with WaPo. Maybe because WaPo could never be a significant revenue source for him. More of a side hobby that failed to hold his interest.
Most of the sellers on Amazon are third party, I believe. So Bezos wouldn’t control those prices.
Amazon has /never/ had a sort by "price and shipping" option the way its fellow dot-coms like eBay has, and indeed the "sort by price" option has gotten buried further and further as time goes on. A new "feature" is that the number of items shown shrinks dramatically if you sort by price.
No clicks. Not until you can explain yourself.
It's a spam bot.
F*** off spam bot. Reported.
The high road is a strategy when lots of competitors take the low road. It is only open to a few competitors, but which ones, and why?
In the early days* of "health maintenance organizations" (HMOs), Harvard Community Health Plan advertised that it was run by doctors, not accountants. Their primary competitor—the one run by accountants—eventually bought them out.
________________
*They were really trying to be better back then.
Yes! I worked there from fall 1983 to fall 1989. I'm told the model could not be sustained due to fewer healthy enrollees and more unhealthy enrollees. But during those years, it was a glorious place to be employed and to serve patients . Also, because we were "not for Profit", we would get a bonus at the end of the years in which there was a surplus of income. The bonus would be allocated based on a formula including seniority and years of employment
Tip: your screen name is too long. There’s a Substack bug where the right hand side of comments of users with long screen names is clipped off. At least on an iPhone. If you want iPhone users to read your comments, put a space between the two words. Or nag Substack to fix the wretched bug.
Funny that you mention Wegmans, because I thought of them as I read the article. Wegmans has forever offered just one name brand (maybe two) of a product and placed their own store brand (with very nice graphics) next to it. Eventually they drop the name brand and offer only their own, which may be almost as good as the name brand, but maybe not. In any event, it’s now your only choice. Prediction: watch this happen with Heidelberg Bread (that Wegmans sells for $1 loaf less than our local food co-op in Buffalo). It recently happened to a specialty jam: Bonne Maman. I know, first world problem. Yes, Wegmans is enlightened when it comes to labor relations but only because it’s being pushed by unionized Tops Markets (Wegmans workers are not organized). But don’t be fooled- Professor Krugman’s article perfectly describes Weggy’s.
That's largely true, but you don't go to Weg's for packaged groceries so much as for things like their meat, produce, seafood, etc. For raw ingredients, they're hard to top. And some of their house products are a pretty good deal.
Their sea food still very good.. and it's amazing because my experience is never buy fish in the supermarket if you like fresh fish. Theirs is so good that the local fish market retired. And this is the case in many areas- the big guys destroy local businesses while people opt for one stop shopping when most things are "pretty good" and people don't have the time to shop like the Europeans.
Don't you all have independent butchers & farmers markets? Farmer/ranchers are so gouged by meat packers is why I think bougie butcher shops are proliferating. I usually go to the independent butchers for meat the rare times I have company & shop the farmers' market in the summer time. The city I live in now is predominately independent Italian owned grocers that remained when white flight high tailed it to the suburbs. I shop at those locations & at Aldi's, too, located in lower income neighborhoods. Noahpinion, imo, is a neoliberal hack who used one of our locally owned grocers in a city-owned property in the hood as a negative example of what Mamdani of NYC is proposing. This city suffers from years of rust belt decline (not as bad as other cities, but I rode the city bus recently and canvassed for Bernie 2016 in some of the neighborhoods that are reminiscent of how NYC in the 1970's is portrayed). Loss of industry and not welfare is what has contributed to a lower class without socially-acceptable ambition. Our city's old money tries mightily (with its tax favorable PR) to help left behind people rise, but it is a constant challenge and the new economy is only going to make it worse, imo.
We do have independent butchers and farmer's markets dotted sporadically around different boroughs/neighborhoods. The indy butcher's are far more expensive - if you're lucky enough to be within walking distance from one. I'm not too thrilled with the idea of spending a half hour (not to mention the fare) on the subway with a bag of warming meat, followed by another half hour on the bus. Wegman's and another supermarket are both within walking distance of my building.
Their beef has gone downhill fast. I avoid it lie a plague. The company started to decline when the current generation took over.
Ultimately, nothing lasts forever. But can we say nothing bad lasts forever, too, or does it just feel like it?
It doesn't last forever, but it's always replaced by more of the same.
Yeah, it just feels like it. I think we'll start to see a glimmer of light at the end of this long dark tunnel in 2026, when the blue tsunami rolls in.
It could be a regional thing. I haven't had any such issues.
Good point
We don't have Wegmans on the West Coast, but it sounds similar to Trader Joe's. TJ has similarly brought in new products, only to replace them with nearly identical store-brand items. Employees are non-union.
Still, I do most of my shopping there because quality, prices, and service are way better than at the now-private-equity-owned Safeway, which has driven most other local supermarkets out of the area.
I just shopped at the TJ in Harlem and had to throw out my whole bag of stuff except for the frozen butter chicken.
Bagged salad kit: wilted and seeping.
Bagged organic fresh stringbeans: the tips were moldy and compromised the lot.
Avocados: rotten inside
Packaged smoked salmon slices: nearly every slice had at least ons bone … not skinny little thread size bones but two plus inch fat needles!
Tart Cherry Juice (not from concentrate) — the expiration date was fine but however they stored it it got hot enough to turn color and separate into weird sludgy sediment.
Check out the TJ sub on Reddit and you will find my experience is far from unique.
Even the frozen and highly processed pre packaged foods have had ingredient swaps recently where cheaper substitutes were used.
Get your favorites now because they won’t be the same in a few months.
It's closer to Whole Foods - before Bozo Bezos took over and ruined it.
Sometimes private label merch works right: Vendor offers a hot product that Wegman's knows they can produce, and sell, for less under private label. When that happens, the original product generates less profit, so the vendor pulls it, or Wegman's not longer stocks it. That's good; that's Deshittification!
I have noticed this too about Wegman's- the disappearance of name brands leaving the only choice the Wegman's brand. Some really good products have disappeared period. Their paper products are good. Bonne Mamam is still available at Wegman's here so it may go store by store; maybe, probably, they give a product a while then take it away if it does not sell enough... which is a catch 22. This is not based on quality. I think many must not care enough about quality and this is the result.
We use Whole Foods as well and this works.Their cheeses are good. First world problem- the need for imported blue cheese from Neal's Yard, amazingly found at WF.
All stores must assess this way actually.
Exactly right! The big time shareholders in our system of predatory capitalism only care about money and incessantly demand more at the expense of all other considerations.
this!
F*** off spam bot. Reported.
Grocery businesses are extremely competitive; there’s minimal network effects that Wegmans could leverage to maintain a customer base if they dropped product quality. “Enshittification” is possible because of strong network effects and the potential for monopoly profits at the end of the business development process. Tech services could never be as good early as they were without the promise of networks to reap for profits at the end.
As I point out in a comment further down, it's not mainly about network effects--it's about very low marginal cost to scale up and serve more customers. Netflix has also enshittified, but it doesn't depend on network effects from what I can tell. And there's a large amount of competition in the streaming video sector, which in fact coincided with the enshittification!
I think it’s worth distinguishing enshittifaction from a general reduction in product quality; I perceive Netflix’s reduction in quality to be more about increasing competition in streaming reducing access to licenses and putting pressure on profitability.
Netflix profits have risen a lot since ca 2020, though, which is around when the product started to become worse, I would say. (They went from ~$9B profits to ~$20B in that period.)
The other thing that makes me skeptical about the role of network effects is Youtube, which obviously has network effects going for it but is still pretty excellent in terms of the product quality.
To quote Matt Yglesias on this issue:
"The way investors advise software founders is that in the initial case, they should focus overwhelmingly on making a product that is good and that solves problems in users lives and that users love. The idea is that in software, your marginal costs tend to be low, so whatever your business model problems are, they’re easier to solve with 100 million users than with one million users. That’s different from the restaurant business. If you have a chain with five outlets and it loses money, going to 5,000 outlets doesn’t solve your problems. But with software, it’s easier to figure out a way to be profitable if you get really big first, so you initially focus on growth. Eventually, though, you do need to make money, so a pivot has to occur where you start focusing more on revenue considerations and less on “do customers love this?” That does mean making the experience worse for many people, and they are entitled to be upset about that and even call it “enshittification” if they want. "
YouTube isn’t bad, if you psy to not see ads.
Or up to date ad blockers work well if you're not on your phone
Was a long-time shopper at Wegman's Early on (20+ years ago!) they were an excellent shopping experience -- great choices, great prices. Haven't shopped there in years as the choices are still great but the prices... yikes! Anyone tried Aldi's ?? Basic selection but the prices cannot be beat.
I love Aldi. You have to step out of your brand-name comfort zone. I just found their dark chocolate. The price and the quality are outstanding. Cheese. Chicken. Steaks. Shhhh.
Am a big fan of their dark chocolates, especially their Sea Salt. Also a fan of their 94% lean ground beef, small potatoes and apples. Excellent products and good prices. Winning combination.
LOVE Wegmans
Wegman's utilizes AI for dynamic pricing, raises prices in real time to capture more revenue. Wegman's, of course, denied this, arguing that its dynamic pricing keeps its pricing competitive. However, if its competitors are using dynamic pricing to optimize revenue, then, by definition, Wegman's is doing the same thing.
That practice would almost qualify as price fixing. Of course, thanks to extreme deregulation, that's apparently no longer a problem for the profiteers.
Reacting to your competitors public price changes is not price fixing.
An agreement between competitors regarding price, quality, or availability of products is.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_fixing
When all of the sellers willingly provide their sensitive and confidential information to an algorithm for pricing purposes, that would likely be considered price fixing. That scheme is the subject of multiple lawsuits, initiated by governmental authorities across the country, against large landlords.
Wikipedia: "The defining characteristic of price fixing is any agreement regarding price, whether expressed or →implied←."
There are ways to finesse anti-competitive practices by tacit agreement. Of course if one competitor raises prices but the others don't follow suit, the first business may have to back off. It happens often enough, though, that the other competitors raise prices, too, possibly because of a shared problem with supply and demand (e.g., culling due to avian flu sharply reducing the supply of chicken eggs).
That's true, but what you're describing is explicit. Using AI for "dynamic" pricing could be seen as implicit price fixing.
I believe it does qualify as price fixing and is similar to the use of algorithmic pricing used especially among private equity owned single and multiple family housing units.
Exactly!
Wegmans is also strong in N VA. Their emergence ahead of Whole Foods was rapidly accelerated by Amazon's takeover.
My prediction is that Wegmans will continue to be a high quality outfit until the current generation retires and turns it over to their children. The only option for slowing the process of decay would be the employee ownership path. But even that will eventually be ineffective. It's about the entropy of the process.
Fortunately, there is the possibility that a new, responsive competitor will emerge, its growth spurred by the decay of its competition. The cycle will then repeat itself.
That's why they call it enshittification.
Has already happened - the newest generation (first one with a MBA) has been running the show for the past eight years, with the result that the quality of their products has declined and shopping there is no longer the previous excellent experience.
The network externality of Twitter is so strong. A number of Japanese illustrators have been leaving Twitter following Elon Musk’s policy change (their posts are forcibly used to train AI) and moving to platforms like Bluesky and Mastodon. Ultimately, however, they stayed on Twitter because its popularity is irreplaceable.
All outfits eventually follow Twitter or Meta's playbook, including Substack, I imagine.
I find it ironic that Wegmans is now seen as a corporate "good guy". Back when they were just a supermarket in Rochester, NY, my Dad would refuse to shop there "because they jack up the prices on bread and milk every time there's a snowstorm". (And in Rochester in the 1960s and 70s, there were a lot of snowstorms!) They drove their local competitors out of business long before they became regional and beloved.
surprised in this forum so many comments are nitpicking, negative re, in this case, Wegman's. In our local region with the good fortune to have LIDL, TJs, Super Shop Rite, Whole Foods, Wegmans, and other specialty groceries and farmers markets all close by, our family has many, many good things to say and experiences at Wegmans. Just being in the store - the staffing, customer service, organization, friendliness, produce quality etc is all evident. Want lower prices and $ saves on certain items? of course TJs, LIDL, ALDI and other options prevail. Amidst an era of DEI attacks and craziness, Wegmans and CostCo both stand out as very good experiences and emphasis of support for their large employee Teams.
Target is targeted for its PR of cratering to Trump re: DEI, however one nearest me has a Black hair care line because of our demographics & others throughout the metropolitan area as well have various minorities whom seem sharp working in them. Perhaps ignore the PR and focus on reality--however, I read that Costco stated that it wasn't going to change its program regardless & it's supposedly one of the best places to work.
Texas has a similar grocery store chain, HEB that is the opposite of this as well, and like Wegmans they are also privately held. As mentioned Costco is a good example of a public corporation that tries hard to be unshitty. All of which shows that the rot starts from the top.
HEB also has a lot of store brand encroachment.
They're definitely big enough to support not just a lot of products, but the variety of "flavors" the name brands have.
...annnnd HEB delivery just drove up.
In Boston and surrounding areas it's Market Basket that carries on like a real Grocery store.
Boston is lucky to have both Wegman’s and Market Basket as options. While Market Basket is also privately held, there is an ongoing feud within the family that owns the business. The sisters, who hold the highest percentage of ownership, are threatening to give control to private equity for a generous payout. We all know what will happen if the sale goes through.
was just coming to post this. Market Basket is an incredible operation and case study. Arthur T has a soul.
The only thing I miss from the East Coast that they don't have here on the West Coast, is Wegmans. Safeway, Albertsons and Fred Meyers don't even come close to their level.
Plus cookies by the pound.
i have relatives who life in the east, and one of the things I do when I visit them is go to Wegman"s. I actually wrote Wegman's a letter one time requesting that they open a store out here in the west, but they haven't done it yet, and most assuredly won't.
I’m not sure Wegmans can be accurately described as “in the Northeast” anymore—I’ve seen several well below the Mason-Dixon Line.
We have a Wegmans I use regularly. I agree.
As I read this I thought of the streaming services. So convoluted now. Pricing (with and without ads), bundling with this other platform or that. It's so hard to navigate and so segmented it's like someone decided to drive their customers to the brink of insanity.
But then I realize, it's not about entertainment, it's about cold hard cash. Enshitification at its best:-)
Thanks for the post Paul!
This doesn’t just happen with new technologies, the US auto industry became enshittified for a long time until the quality of Japanese cars improved so much that US companies were finally forced to compete. We found that out the hard way.
Enshittification, thy other name, monopoly power.
I think that’s the problem with Facebook, no competition. Although Instagram maybe (also owned by Zuck.)
I believe I have figured out how to navigate streaming services. One thing we consumers have in our favor is lack of contracts. So, Netflix off, Apple on. Apple off, Hulu on. Let them build up their libraries while I don’t pay so I can gorge when I do pay.
This is what we do as well. I refuse to pay for more than one service at a time.
You can watch an amazing amount on YouTube.
I've thought of the tactic, and thought myself clever for it, but lacked confidence to do it. Thanks to three commenters I could cut a service or two.
Agreed and that's what I'm about to do. Cancel the two I've got, switch over to two I used to have. None of the algorithms show me things I really want to watch. For example, I never watch anime or rom-coms and they're constantly presenting me with those types of shows. Also, there's a ton of good stuff on PBS and I like supporting them now.
Same for televised sporting events.
Finally, an explanation for what's happened to the New York Yankees.
Wouldn't mind seeing the explanation spelled out a bit more.
What many smug cable-cutters believed was that the switch to streaming services was going to give them more control to pay for the things they wanted but none of what they didn’t. The illusion of the line-item veto. But the economics of media never work that way.
Instead, you find many lured into the pool when the business was new, prestige television was a differentiator, and pricing was attractive for newcomers. But in the end, the media companies were always going to get their pound of flesh.
As the heat of adoption faded and bills had to be paid, many customers are now paying more than what they paid for basic cable service. And with adverts and less valuable programming.
YouTube TV is another example. Offered first as a Cable-Cutting tool, it costs us now more than Cable.
Yes. If you pay not to see ads.
My entertainment (other than reading Substack, NYT, & a few other comment sections is to go out and sit at a restaurant bar to eat or listen to live music. Since my mom died I no longer have access to worthless tv and am not willing to pay for it. Unfortunately, I'm older and if there are people out and about solo, most of them are glued to scrolling on their smartphones.
yep. I remember loving the Netflix genesis. I don’t subscribe anymore
Doctorow’s terminal step of “then they die” may be more on the mark than Prof. Krugman admits. Some deaths result in being acquired by other companies, private equity, etc. For instance, an enshittified Paramount is hoping to be gobbled up by Ellison nepo baby’s Skydance Media. Same story, different characters: Comcast, GE, NBC. Or the Warner Bros. Discovery Trail of Tears (a.k.a. how to enshittify a valuable brand name like HBO.)
HBO plus Cinemax minus Cinema minus HBO plus HBO minus Max
Facebook is still there but I doubt it’s growing.
Taking it even further, isn’t enshittification simply the evolutionary endpoint of asset-based executive compensation and late stage capitalism? The system rewards short-term greed, does it not?
Do unto others then split.
I'm still trying to get my head around imagining the staid editors at the NYT allowing Paul to explain enshittification in a Times column, even with a bunch of squeamish asterisks. It is, after all, a frontal assault on much of what stinks about late-stage capitalism. We're a deeply unequal, fractious society that is deeply in long-term debt, deeply in denial about the path forward, and being run by the most insanely dishonest, immoral, cruel and incompetent people in the history of modern government.
What could go wrong?
Profiteering at its finest.
This is the story of nearly everything in America. Remember airlines that had free baggage checks and meals? Even JetBlue, just a few years ago was good and popular until they started prioritizing profit - they were already profitable - and now are hated and the service is awful. The government too with its failing infrastructure and traffic pile ups (and a million other examples) became awful when they started cutting taxes, I’m old enough to have seen this phenomenon happen over and over again. A company like Tower Records comes in strong, puts everyone else out of business, then starts to suck, then goes out of business having ruined the entire industry.
I don't think Tower Records died primarily because of what they did to their market. They did put a lot of small shops out of business but that wasn't what killed them. It was the internet, Napster, and Apple Music that did it.
Blame the citizens for the tax cuts and the GOP who think govt shouldn’t help the people.
But remember, that isn't why people will vote for GOP even though their policies will hurt them.
“If you can convince the lowest white man he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t otice you’re picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he’ll empty his pockets for you.” LBJ
Racism and Misogyny are driving US politics. The idea that those "others" will be hurt much more than you and you are willing to endure a lot of pain to get rid of those "others". All of this based upon how we go so wrong with education in this country after about the 3rd grade.
Remember airplane seats that didn't squash you into misery?
"Remember airlines that had free baggage checks and meals?"
Princess O'Wales got in before me on this. What I remember are airlines where meals and checked bags were included in the price, with no option of a cheaper ticket when you don't need those services.
Ticket prices came down way before they cut meals and services. It was deregulation that brought competition that got prices to come down.
There is another element to enshittification. The transfer of the work employees of a company do to the customers of that company.
Airplanes tickets are also cheaper than they've every been relative to income.
Tower was killed off by a combination of streaming, MP3's and YouTube.
Just think, someone born in 2000 doesn’t even know what a record store is. LPs are ancient. Although I hear they’ve developed a cult following.
I think there is a parallel process of enshittification with physical products. When I lived in NYC in the 1970s, Entenmann's baked goods were supernaturally good. Later the brand went national. I have come back to Entenmann's in the last few years as a national brand, and now they are just barely better than their national competitors, and nowhere near supernatural in quality as they used to be. They are my archetype of enshittification.
houses, appliances...things start out sturdy and then manufacturers start shaving and skimping to get away with the least (but throw on a few bells & whistles for distraction)
The best Soundwave ever, back then.
Paul, Another example is Amazon. When Amazon began it gathered together databases of books from all over and was a wonderful source. As a librarian I would go to Amazon for information as well as occasional purchases. After doing business personally for a while, at Christmas time loyal customers received a travel Cup in the mail with words of thanks. And Jeff was just Jeff then and he asked customers to call, providing his ow phone number, when there was a problem. I think I need say no more as an example of what has happened, but from a source that was once innovative and successful it is now reviled by so many for so many reasons. It has certainly been enshittified.
But was Amazon's Christmas gift just a candy move to endear itself to users?
I only used Amazon occasionally, and havr actively avoided it since Bezos began neutering the WaPo.
Of course it was just a gift to endear/charm the users who did a good business with t hem--the exact point Paul was making. The tried to hook you in deeper at first by being oh so good to you, then gradually the gifts ended, the phone was not directed to Jeff and all things began to change as he added all the many many things to Amazon sales. I have to admit then in retirement we moved to a rural community that had little shopping resources and Amazon was a lifeline for things that were most essential or for books that were less accessible with no bookstore nearby. And one of the first things we began to notice all over the country was that bookstores were closing almost en masse because the prices were better at Amazon, and the shipping charges were absorbed by them if you purchased a certain amount and then Prime came into the picture. Another sop to the regular customers. I too use it much less freqently now, having once again moved and using local stores or other onlne resources.
The only problem being now you go to a local retailer for anything and there are very few products available for purchase while you are shopping, but signs all over telling you to purchase from their website. SHOP LOCAL is the heard all across the land - but first there has to be products on the shelf. It is almost like the retailers really don't want me physically in the store, but just on line. At 80, I've found that I really do want to look over the lettuce before I put it in my shopping cart, and do insist that the grocery stores I patronize have floors that I don't stick too because they didn't properly clean up the spills.
I am very grateful that I do not live where you do. I have a choice of many groceries, and at 90 I resent the highways that I have to drive, even for a short distance. But when I get there shelves are full and the produce and meats are generally good with too many selections on the shelves. I will wish for more for you Barbara because I understand your frustration.
Grocery Stores aren’t a problem, I live in metro Phoenix area. It is other retailers where there maybe 1 of an item with signs all over to order from their website, etc.
Commercial retail real estate landlords are going to have to drop their prices if they want to keep tenants. Following the Epstein brouhaha, I researched Leslie Wexner. Leslie seemed such a plucky, precocious little prick when he tried to order his parents around in their smaller city independent store, but he was correct. Read an article about him online published by Forbes several years ago....Nordstrom does this today, using their discount Rack stores as marked-down merchandise "warehouses" open to the public. The leather bags & I presume anything designer or expensive is also for sale online, hence why the store always seems picked over when I go. Socks, shirts, separates, etc that people might need to go get immediately can be in stock with a few eye catching rare buys in the window to attract attention that can be ordered in the store for pick up or online delivery for the right size.....some people want to try things on before purchase and in-store alteration will keep independents in business with the brick & mortar model.
I understand that Amazon is a resource foreural communities that aren't near brick and mortar retail.
I think that more of us recognize that Amazon was playing the long game in absorbing shipping costs and running losses until they grew and bought other online retailers (Zappos) to extend their presence.
Ultimately it's up to consumers.
temu is not that bad... (amazon boycotter here)
Temu: really nice pickleball paddles for under $50 compared to $200-250 from Selkirk, CRBN, etc.
My inbox disagrees!
For its first ten years, Amazon was unprofitable. The vulture capitalists who funded it weren't concerned because they - and Bozo Bezos - knew all along that the plan was achieve a monopoly upon going public. Back then, Bozo was "merely" a millionaire - totally funded by vulture capital. Post IPO, Bozo rapidly became the richest man on Earth, before MuskRat surpassed him - following the massive subsidy granted by Obama's green business policies.
I'm not blaming Obama for the rise of MuskRat. He had no way to know any more than the rest of us.
There are plenty of reasons to hate Jeff Bezos (and I do), but I think Amazon is as good as it has ever been. You may not like its acquisition strategy, or how it treats its workers, or how it rips off people who want to sell through Amazon. But this article is not about that. It is about the enshittification of the service a company provides to its customers.
I've been an Amazon customer since they only sold books, and I think their service is better than ever.
Somewhat disagreeing. The amount of unrelated and uninteresting crap they fling at me in every search is frustrating as hell. And some of it is clearly not "do you mean this?" as much as "hey, maybe you'll buy this too!"
Yes, I get some of that but not much. More often, Amazon is the only place I can find things I need. I try to find them at local businesses but often don’t succeed. The locals just can’t afford to stock such a variety of items, I guess.
I'm really disappointed Birkenstock sold to a private equity outfit. I always went direct to Birkenstock's website or direct to any others for whatever I want and try to avoid an online general store for anything unless I can't find it directly from an independent retailer. Bought some huarache open-toe sandals online made in Mexico from a young couple living in Texas recently....hope they don't get caught up in all of this ICE bs.
When I buy something from Amazon, I go to the website and I buy it. If they are trying to sell me other stuff, I never even see it.
Same. I don’t see ads.
I hate it when they return items that don’t fit what you typed into the search box.
gotta wade thru the sludge - I go to Temu now - it's kinda nuts tho
I agree with you RC. However, if you look at Prime--the joining fees and the streaming service--I think it falls within the Professor's model.
Yes. Amazon persecutes its employees, and not just in the warehouses. It’s an awful place for software engineers, too, and has been since the beginning. They are also very hard on their suppliers. They get away with it through monopoly power. But Amazon provides increasingly good service to customers. One-day delivery is common where I live. Two days, pretty much expected, except for small suppliers who do their own shipping.
I disagree - it’s now so hard to find quality products if I’m not looking for something by a specific brand already. I’ve had to go back to buying a bunch of stuff at the mall. The mall! And even when I’m looking for something specific, the list is so clogged up with other things that I sometimes give up, guessing that Amazon somehow doesn’t carry the thing I’m looking for (if it does, it’s sometimes impossible to find). There are still many things I buy from Amazon - free shipping is great! But often, the things I’m buying at Amazon are simply things I used to buy at CVS (before they enshittified themselves by dramatically cutting staff and locking everything up).
Amazon is a big help to me, who can’t get out to stores.
That scene from The Godfather has always been my model for what is morally wrong with American capitalism. All the evil done in the service of maximizing investor returns is "Nothing personal. It was always only business."
A nice moment in the book that gets left out of the films is when the Michael tells Tom that that line is all bullshit, and if there's one thing he learned from watching their father all this time, it's that everything in life is personal.
Now Prof Krugman, i want you to build a mathematical model that demystifies enshittification of Politics. How did we go from FDR-Eisenhower-Kennedy to likes of Trump-DeSantis-Schumer & rest of Gerontocracy. How did this happen is among the greatest question of 21st century.
How? Citizens United. Though money in politics was certainly an issue before that ruling.
Citizens United for sure. Then there’s the rise of Fox News in the 1990s.
It seems to me that a sense of ethics, public duty, personal integrity was supplanted by a need for power and wealth for most political figures. Jimmy Carter, Al Gore, Hillary Clinton and yes...Chuck Schumer (he explained the reason for his unpopular decision; and it made sense) are exceptions, in my opinion. Trump is the leading example of the personal corruption which has infested the "ruling class".
Lol Gerontocracy! Gonna use that
Hey, Dr Krugman. Reading your posts make me brighter than a 100-watt light bulb.
Cheers!
I've spent the last two decades developing solid state lighting devices. Competition and better performance killed the incandescent light, not "lawyers".
As for incubators...plenty of other ways to produce heat. What you miss is that you could do it cheaply (if inefficiently). Frankly, if there were a market for it, it would not be that difficult to produce a a Edison base hot wire heater for incubators. Given the UL cost and all, I'm going to guess they would not be $0.50/ea.
Huh. Are all "Democrats" lawyers? Or are all Lawyers Democrats? I am not following.
Yes legislation put the final nail in the coffin. Take your point! That's probably an endorphin rush, right? lol. I've been in those lamp factories, nobody wanted to be the last one making incandescent bulbs. Nobody. It was bad business. I had probably $2MM of unsold inventory on my P&L that literally I could not give it away. Habitat Restore didn't even want it! I had to write it off and it was thrown in the trash.
Incandescent lighting has been a dead/dying industry, with zero investment, for years. Most, if not all, of the old lamp making machines were switched over to filament LED bulbs. Meanwhile, lamps and fixtures moved forward, gaining wireless control and color tuning capabilities that customers actually wanted.
Dude, you can't get folks to buy last year's phone or computer and you're arguing that what people really want is a rotary phone, and not the iPhone 16 Pro. But yeah, it's the "lawyers" and "Democrats" that did it.
I have a Nokia feature phone with actual push buttons like my old Blackberry. I know I'm not enough of a market share, but I did read a comment by a grandma? who stated that her grand kids? or kids? & friends had a disposable camera with another sporting a non-internet type camera taking pics out and about to avoid their misdeeds forever online. I'm one of those, too, looking for something to take pics that won't be online.
There is an undercurrent appreciation happening for a return to an analog (cassette futurism) lifestyle, in many cases, being driven by fairly young folks. I don't know if it is a boomerang retro-nostalgia (the polaroid being sold in costco, young women wearing wired earbuds, use of flip phones, etc), or if it is the seeds of a fundamental shift in thinking. I somewhat hope the latter, but that won't see me asking for incandescent lamps again...that ship has sailed (that's good technology). I think we (as indviduals, society(ies), nations, etc) should be doing is engaging in active discussions about technology and how it intersects with our life. (Say it can't be done? The Amish do it every day.) It is simply not the case that any of this is inevitable, every bit of it is a choice. AI adoption should be the conversation we are all having every single day. We struggle to bring up proper humans, yet we're barreling head-on with GPAI that can vastly out perform any human at massive scales. A 3 year old having tantrum or a 14 year old in a rage can massively disrupt normal situations. Imagine the same from an AI that's running a global communications or banking system.
That's true, but that's not a bad thing.
It was the right move to make. Incandescent bulbs use far too much electricity. They're a 100+ year old technology, thus obsolete. I stopped using them long before they were banned. I don't miss them.
Incandescent bulbs were originally designed to last. There is in fact a bulb of early design and manufacture still functioning. Google "centennial light" for the story.
Because the early design was so robust, manufacturers realized as that the market for bulbs was limited and intentionally redesigned them to last for relatively short periods. How many times have you had to replace incandescent light bulbs and how much has it cost you?
Say what you want about the Democrats, Edison, and lawyers but light bulbs were an early example of product enshittification.
This one is not true.
There is a physical trade-off between expected lifetime and efficiency (or brightness for a given amount of power) for incandescent bulbs. When bulbs were cheap people opted for the brighter bulbs.
You can make a "modern" 100 watt bulb last virtually forever by running it on half voltage. It will use much less power, it won't put out much light and and it will be quite inefficient.
Incandescent technology advancements (and there were some) were getting off of the existing efficiency-lifetime curve (to a new and better one). Finally CFLs and LEDs made that whole thing obsolete.
I should add that enshittification requires something that inhibits competition, whether network effect, monopoly, patents, price fixing, etc. With government required lifetime and efficiency (light output and power consumption) labeling on incandescent bulbs, it was actually a market where a superior product might get rewarded.
Bring back incandescence! My egg incubator has been enshittified without it!
You can buy heat lamps I believe.
You can, as my daughter's snake enclosure will testify. And since they are incandescent they burn out all the damn time.
Your daughter has a snake enclosure? Why?
For her ball python.
LEDs use much less energy.
“Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket.”
This is a common misquote (though very true and 100% apropos to this post) of Eric Hoffer’s 1967 original (which is also great, and 100% applies to djt & MAGA):
“What starts out here as a mass movement ends up as a racket, a cult, or a corporation.”
~Eric Hoffer, “The Temper of our Time”
Perhaps it foretells the rapid rise and eventual enshittification of Substack?
Oh boy. Let's just not go there... 🫣
I, too, have wondered what's down the road for Substack. I also wonder who ultimately controls the Internet infrastructure. Can the president, who the Supreme Court ruled is above the law, order the Internet be shut down?
Hypothetically yes, but the corporate backlash from internet dependent companies would make it untenable - and force him to TACO.
There are vast parts of the internet infrastructure that are not in the United States and are beyond the reach of the US government. (One of the reasons that archive.org has servers outside the US.) Could the government try to shut down information coming into the US, similar to the way China does? Maybe. But could the US government shut down the internet more generally? No.
Marc Andreeson and his venture capital firm have infused it with cash to adapt it towards social media and advertising that the founders originally stated they wouldn't do.
Substack arrived pre-enshitified, from the POV of readers, compared to previous blogging platforms. It was designed primarily for bloggers/influencers wanting to collect money from followers, with a cut to the platform that's doubtless been very profitable for them.
Commenting features have now *almost* reached the prior state of the art. But not quite.
Bloggers/influencers have to pay bills too.
I hope not. That's not out of the question.
The first company I know doing this was Apple with its "Walled Garden" and creating Apple only standards. I worked with them early on, and our business soon took on the same mantra. Get the customers then trap them and raise prices.
How, then, has Apple maintained relatively high quality in their field? So far, they haven't hit the last phases of the process. They raised prices and then were able to stay on the plateau. In the long term they might go the way of IBM, which kept up the same kind of relationship with customers for decades before they largely missed the boat with the latest trends. But they are still around; they just stopped growing.
Apple hasn't innovated since 2007. They created the app infrastructure then made it larger(iPad), smaller(iWatch), and on your face (Vision Pro). They charged a lot more for the same thing in most instances.
In recent years, they are more known for their anticompetitive practices than products. High app store fees, forced to stop unique accessories, and their brutal treatment of Chinese workers. They were so anticompetitive in the Epic trial that the judge changed course and forced them to open up.
Apple's biggest innovations now are camera updates and milking people who have a lot invested in their ecosystem.
And convincing the faithful that they absolutely must have the latest ridiculously-priced iPhone.
They focused on a slightly premium market, rather than the cutthroat low end. They largely own that market, so aren't growing as fast. In the US they have 60% of the total smartphone market. They haven't stopped growing as fast because they've gotten shittier, but because at some point they can only grow with population.
Not that hard to shift to android.
used to love apple - replaced ancient machines (a desktop and a laptop) with new ones....and I hate them...contemplating getting windows
Don't. Windows is easily hackable for when you don't have the downtime for updates. I don't know what you will use your computers for, but I have a Chrome tablet for anonymous internet browsing as a "guest". I now have a foreign email for personal business, as I don't trust our government or the corporations that own it. I'm sure you will do your research.
thanks for advice and confidence. but I’m 89 and live in Canada and use my computer for screaming into the void. (and I threaten to go to Windows in an effort to get my Mac to smarten up - free-floating photo on screen at the moment - gotta fire up my scooter and go see my computer guru)
Two enshittification stories:
I needed to purchase a certain electronic component and found a company selling it on line. Through their website, I navigated to the product, selected it, and hit "check out," which brought me to the check-out page. After filling in all the information (name, address, credit card, etc.), I clicked on "PURCHASE" and . . . got a pop-up telling me I had to register and set up an account. Ten minutes of filling out on-line forms later, I was registered and had an account . . . and now my shopping cart was wiped away. So I reran the entire process, getting all the way through the check-out page and clicking "PURCHASE" . . . only to get redirected to another page demanding I log in with my newly created account. I did so . . . and now my shopping cart was wiped away again. Third time through the process, and despite having an account with all the information (name address, etc.), when I finally got to the shopping cart NONE of the information would autofill. A full 30 minutes of my time to make one single-item purchase!
Second story: Went to a local pizza joint the other night and ordered some slices. The girl at the register demanded my phone number and email address before she could ring up my order. Me protesting that I was standing right there with cash in my hand made no difference because their point-of-sale system could not process transactions without that data. I skipped my slices and had Chinese instead.
I run a small online retail Website out of my home. When I set up my shopping cart system, I specifically set it up to not allow or require the creation of user accounts.
That's partly for security issues, but mostly because I hate the experience you described above and I won't subject my customers to it. Want to buy? Add an item to your cart, fill out the form with your address and payment information, and click "Buy Now."
Simple.
Now I get email from customers: "I want to buy something and I'm trying to create an account on your site but I can't find the link or page to do it. Please help!"
Wow. A pizza parlor demanding the high tech version of "your papers".
I reminded me of the days when Radio Shack demanded your address for every transaction so they could send you catalogs. It made every transaction adversarial as I'd be trying to buy a blank cassette tape for $5 cash and the store manager had to treat it as though I was financing a new car.
123 Main Street, Anywhere, USA
First story: online shopping hell—we’ve all been there.
867-5309 & JesseGotYour#onTheWall@aol.com
Enshitification is much broader than networks. Take agroindustrial tomatoes. They moved to Fla for the long growing season despite the shitty soil. Maybe good for consumer. Then were bred for long-haul trucking: so hard ( and tasteless) they could fall off a truck without a scratch and last forever. Good for grocers, terrible for consumers. Then production moved to Canadian hothouses, at least for those able to pay. I thought enshitification was just another word for capitalism.
In my area, we have “dry-farmed tomatoes.” Wonderful taste and texture. A little more expensive, around 20% I think. Not all year, though. Just for a season that lasts four of five months.
The hothouse tomato and bell pepper discussion has been circulating around my house for years. With the Murika Fi(r)st movement, that discussion has slewed to one about why don't we have a domestic hothouse industry for anything but dope. Perhaps Dr. Krugman would, or already has, explore that weirdly niche but strangely universal economic sector. The pepper and tomato sector, not the dope, they seem to be doing fine.
It has to do with the short season. East coast has a hot house company - back yard tomatoes financed the Fidelity Investments retirement fund - the company bought hydroelectric power to farm their 40 acre sites
Not sure I agree with the tone of this piece. One could just as well regard early adapters as receiving a bonus of paying less than full cost in return for beta testing and enlarging the customer base. Nothing like that lasts forever, whether it’s discovering a holiday spot before it gets on insta, being treated like royalty when a restaurant has just opened, being allowed to keep your slightly damaged books from amazon, enjoying the bonus interest rate for new accounts. Enjoy it while it lasts then move on, especially if the company in question has become evil, like FB.
The point is that the vast majority of people don't move on...partly because they've become accustomed to poorer service/quality, partly because there are few choices due to monopolization.
Tens of millions still cling to FB, despite its pathetic quality, pro-outrage algorithms, and history of harm to democracies.
Greed by monopolistic and a surrender of agency by users have brought us to this abyss.
Yup. I keep wondering why so many people and reliable organizations still post on what Charlie Warzel describes as the Nazi neighborhood hangout: https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2025/05/stop-using-x/682931/
I find my corner of FB to be cosy, keeps in touch with people...I don't get the awful stuff people talk about, but I don't browse on it (well, there are those ghastly short film thingees)
Because millions believe as you do...that you're safe in a cozy corner, you enable FB to collect and sell data...directly enriching Zuckerberg and empowering him to weaponize algorithms that are destroying societies amd radicalized new generations.
Americans are unwilling to sacrifice even their social media use to save their societies and freedoms.
yeah - but it is not possible to be a part of the modern world without participating in our own abuse - I quit work at 40, lived in a shack in the country, now live in town in a small house and buy virtually everything 2nd hand - but there is no better way to keep in touch with people (hundreds of them from various former activities or forums) than to further enrich Jeff (I haven't entirely given up the WaPo yet either) - I drive (as little as I can and in a 2nd-hand vehicle) despite knowing that I'm contributing to climate catastrophe.....but there is no other way to get around - we are trapped and the best we can do is keep it down to a dull roar...until the day comes (hah!) when the world is not based on profit
I line dry my clothes instead of using a dryer, but when my kids were at home I drove them all over the place. We all choose our good deeds and sins.
Whatever happened to group emails? Google, MS are spying spying on us for govt purposes & yahoo has been hacked. I'm typing this from Proton.
The multi-national world-spanning conglomerates and corporations, with a lot of gov't (usually republican)support, have squashed out all competition. When someone comes up with a brilliant idea or product, the corporations BUY it, and find a way to "enshittify" it- lower quality & raise prices, and when possible, make customers dependent upon it (as I wailed about having to rent Photoshop a few days ago).
US being turned into a debt-renter system. Nobody really owns anything. Subaru kept track of everything I did and everywhere I went in my new Impreza. And kindly sent me monthly "reports". I was glad to sell it, get an older "dumb" car. When I called Samsung about a problem with my new refrigerator, they already knew about it, and told me what to do. That's awful. The last thing I want is a "smart house".
I don’t like the way Facebook has gone.
The "first one's free" is an extreme example of hooking users. Practiced by drug dealers. FWIW.
And razor companies