How platforms dominate and enshittify
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Continuing the side discussion on platform dominance from Discoverability on the Fediverse and Thought Dump, where @timglorioso said:
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Continuing the side discussion on platform dominance from Discoverability on the Fediverse and Thought Dump, where @timglorioso said:
Does this count? https://variety.com/2024/music/news/spotify-artists-streaming-fraud-1235965379/
Was talking about it earlier with @Mel and Ebauche.
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Continuing the side discussion on platform dominance from Discoverability on the Fediverse and Thought Dump, where @timglorioso said:
I said I was going to simmer down for a while in the search and discovery topic. But I do want to address this, because it's the crux of the issue. Our analysis of the problem is going to determine our theory of change. So, what I said was;
And @timglorioso replied;
I agree that they have never been better for music or musicians, in the long term. The comparison to junk food is apt.
But they came to dominate because at first, they provided a much better experience for audiences. Once audiences were locked in, they started making it worse for them, but a better experience for their commercial partners. Mainly the corporate music publishers. As they too got locked in, the platforms could make it worse for them too, and start extracting the value for their shareholders.
This is Cory Doctorow's basic theory of how enshttification works. He also talks about 4 forces that can prevent or roll back enshittification; credible exit, self-help, labour power and uncaptured regulation.
I don't always agree with Cory, especially the casual misrepresentation of other schools of tech criticism. But his thesis on how and why platforms enshittify matches what I've been observing online since the DotCom bubble.
