Enshitification has from the beginning described a service or product which is first released one way, and then over time is made worse for the users in ways designed to squeeze more profit out of them.

Without some serious mental gymnastics, forced stealth sections tend to just be bad design choices. Not every bad thing is the same kind of bad thing.

[–] Madrigal@lemmy.world 2 points 1 month ago

I wasn’t implying that stealth sections were enshittification.

[–] FeelzGoodMan420@eviltoast.org 2 points 1 month ago

Entshitification itself has been entshitified.

[–] MossyFeathers@pawb.social -3 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (2 children)

Without some serious mental gymnastics, forced stealth sections tend to just be bad design choices. Not every bad thing is the same kind of bad thing.

While I disagree with your comment on the definition of "enshittification", I agree that forced stealth sections are just bad design. I remember those have been a thing for a long time now, and before then it was ice levels.

Copying from a later reply: I was reading their definition as being too specific. Imo enshittification is any time the relative average quality of a class of products or services decreases, either due to increased prices or decreased quality at the same price. This can be applied to a specific product or service, but can also describe a decline in quality across an industry.

[–] setsneedtofeed@lemmy.world 6 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

Wikipedia isn't the end all, but in this case I think it provides a working definition.

Enshittification (alternately, crapification and platform decay) is a pattern in which online products and services decline in quality. Initially, vendors create high-quality offerings to attract users, then they degrade those offerings to better serve business customers, and finally degrade their services to users and business customers to maximize profits for shareholders.

[–] MossyFeathers@pawb.social 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I was reading your definition as being too specific. Imo enshittification is any time the relative average quality of a class of products or services decreases, either due to increased prices or decreased quality at the same price. This can be applied to a specific product or service, but can also describe a decline in quality across an industry.

[–] Ashtear@lemm.ee 2 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

The term is more specific than that, referring to runaway capitalism being the cause. Otherwise you'd just use something simpler like "worsening."

The original context comes from a 2022 blog post.

[–] Zorsith@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Nah, Escort Missions are way worse than Ice. They're always so janky too

[–] mox@lemmy.sdf.org 5 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

This is not enshittification.

Enshittification refers to a process with specific phases that ensure services will degrade at the expense of users, and then business customers, so that shareholders can extract as much profit as possible from both of those groups. It was coined by Cory Doctorow, who explains it here:

Here is how platforms die: First, they are good to their users; then they abuse their users to make things better for their business customers; finally, they abuse those business customers to claw back all the value for themselves. Then, they die.

I call this enshittification, and it is a seemingly inevitable consequence arising from the combination of the ease of changing how a platform allocates value, combined with the nature of a "two-sided market," where a platform sits between buyers and sellers, hold each hostage to the other, raking off an ever-larger share of the value that passes between them.