I do know that Cory Doctorow used it specifically to refer to the dynamics of two sided marketplaces. I chose to use it the way it’s more commonly used, to refer to the general enshittifying pressures of late stage capitalism, to get my point across.
Choosing to use a word incorrectly isn’t any better (and it’s not even the way it’s usually misused, so even more confusing). It does exemplify why it’s such an awful word in general though, so that’s helpful in some small way, I guess.
The answers to both questions is that most everyone on the internet only use it to call something shitty, because that’s the only part of the word they recognize. But the Internet Smartman, Cory Doctorow, coined it, so they think they sound clever using it to call things shitty while instead they are just part of the problem. The leveraging of consolidated power by internet titans to squeeze society for every penny and resource they can get is too important of an issue for that to be the word for it.
If something is shitty they’ll call it shitty. Enshittification is inherently used to refer to a process of getting shittier. And 99% of the time people are referring to capitalism / corporate greed as that process.
Enshittification is inherently used to refer to a process of getting shittier.
Right, that’s the problem - that’s not what it means, but that’s what it looks like it means, and the misuse dilutes the word to be functionally useless to point out the actual and critically pressing problem is was imprudently coined for.
I do know that Cory Doctorow used it specifically to refer to the dynamics of two sided marketplaces. I chose to use it the way it’s more commonly used, to refer to the general enshittifying pressures of late stage capitalism, to get my point across.
Choosing to use a word incorrectly isn’t any better (and it’s not even the way it’s usually misused, so even more confusing). It does exemplify why it’s such an awful word in general though, so that’s helpful in some small way, I guess.
How do you think it’s most commonly misused?
Why is it awful? Because people have generalized its original specific meaning? Or because of the awfulness it represents?
The answers to both questions is that most everyone on the internet only use it to call something shitty, because that’s the only part of the word they recognize. But the Internet Smartman, Cory Doctorow, coined it, so they think they sound clever using it to call things shitty while instead they are just part of the problem. The leveraging of consolidated power by internet titans to squeeze society for every penny and resource they can get is too important of an issue for that to be the word for it.
If something is shitty they’ll call it shitty. Enshittification is inherently used to refer to a process of getting shittier. And 99% of the time people are referring to capitalism / corporate greed as that process.
Right, that’s the problem - that’s not what it means, but that’s what it looks like it means, and the misuse dilutes the word to be functionally useless to point out the actual and critically pressing problem is was imprudently coined for.