I wonder how our mental model of nature will evolve over the next decades. For example, in the early 1900's, the United States had more laws protecting animals from overwork than it did for children. That feels unfathomable in today's United States, where animals are treated more as property than people. Perhaps something similar will happen, where we will understand everything as a "legal entity" that has protections.
While I think I understand your point, there’s probably a few ways to look at this.
One is many products start out pleasing most users, but pivots to enterprise customers because of revenue. Thus, the product shifts heavily towards the enterprise use-case of a few customers at the loss of most small-medium users. Getting more users in this enterprise world means making changes to accommodate special needs and that leads to entropy.
Another new need is to hit next quarters revenue targets, so companies find more juice to squeeze somewhere.
Those things can happen, sure, but GP is saying that the term "enshittification" was coined to describe a very specific kind of phenomenon about monopoly internet platforms and their pattern of first building dependency and market power before becoming maximally extractive. It's not supposed to be about just any generic way that software might get worse for its users.
Arguably it was a poor choice of word, but some of us would still like to be able to refer to that specific phenomenon.
It's intense market demand by people with lots of money against products that have a very long supply chain. Even with multiple sellers competing, this kind of demand is insane, and the buyers pockets run deep.
The other way I look at this is that these companies have been collecting an insane amount of wealth and value over the last 2-3 decades, are finally in a situation where they feel threatened, and are willing to spend to survive. They have previously never felt this existential threat before. It's basically bidding wars on houses in San Francisco, but with all the wealthiest companies in the world.
My experience at poorly run public schools is that leadership and admin change out VERY quickly because of burnout. The article talks about how military has long term continuity (8 year terms) but civilian have 2-4 year terms. I’ve seen schools where the principal doesn’t even stay the full year. In the end of the day, the civilian world is full of choices and people come and go at will.
Alternatively, unknown creators have less incentive to falsely promote or lie. It’s the reason I tend to trust random strangers on Reddit than popular YouTubers who have achieved monetization and sponsorship.
I’ve seen how PR firms interact with creators. It’s much easier to get the small time creators to take your product and make a positive video because getting some free product is the biggest payout they’re getting from their channel. They will always give positive reviews because they have more to gain from flattering the companies that send them free stuff than from the $1.50 they’re going to earn in ad money.
The PR firms who worked with the company I was at had a long list of small time video creators who would reliably produce positive videos of something as long as you sent them a free product. The creators know this game.
I believe Japan has a different concept of retirement than America; I can't speak for other Western cultures. More elderly people work low-paying part-time jobs to remain members of society, in addition to their financial needs. Americans tend to work in retirement out of financial needs, while idealizing not working during retirement.
Overall, I enjoyed the essay and agree with the messaging. However, there were a few sentences that threw me off. I personally struggle with self-esteem issues, and I found these words extremely triggering, despite being sandwiched between words of self-affirmation.
> My best wasn't good enough. I'm not good enough.
> I don't mind feeling ugly or low-status or whatever -- I know my place.
> I don't need (or deserve) your sympathy.
It's difficult to tell if this is just rhetoric / sarcasm, or if the writer successfully processed through these initial feelings. Either way, I take these moments seriously because it's not healthy to let these feelings grow.
If you feel like you're struggling, I encourage you to talk to someone -- preferably a therapist, but anyone supportive works like a friend or family.
If you're adamant about not talking to someone, consider reading The Gifts of Imperfection by Brené Brown.
So what would the therapist convince him of? That his work was brilliant irrespective of the outcome? That's just gaslighting. (Not to say that the interview evaluation was fair)
You would hope that it would help him come to an acceptance of himself in such a way that he was less likely to engage in this kind of negative self talk.
