this post was submitted on 28 Sep 2026

159 points (90.4% liked)

Enshittification

5273 readers

22 users here now

What is enshittification?

The phenomenon of online platforms gradually degrading the quality of their services, often by promoting advertisements and sponsored content, in order to increase profits. (Cory Doctorow, 2022, extracted from Wikitionary) source

The lifecycle of Big Internet

We discuss how predatory big tech platforms live and die by luring people in and then decaying for profit.

Embrace, extend and extinguish

We also discuss how naturally open technologies like the Fediverse can be susceptible to corporate takeovers, rugpulls and subsequent enshittification.

founded 3 years ago

MODERATORS

hydra@lemmy.world

Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world

159

YouTube. Im sure this has been a thing for a while... but this is getting out of hand. (lemmy.ca)

submitted 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) by Setiyeti93@lemmy.ca to c/enshittification@lemmy.world

92 comments fedilink hide all child comments

It'll keep continuing until you get one FPS and no audio without paying for premium.

top 50 comments

sorted by: hot top controversial new old

[–] warm@kbin.earth 78 points 6 days ago (6 children)

Of all the problems with YouTube, this isn't one of them. It's reasonable for a free service to offer premium features such as this. If you upload in higher resolutions, people still get free access to those and even if your screen is 1080p, watching in 4K gives you higher bitrate.

Enshittification doesn't mean adding new features and charging for them. It means changing the existing service to make it worse, to encourage people to pay for subscriptions.

[–] DaGeek247@fedia.io 33 points 6 days ago (1 children)

It's reasonable for a free service to offer premium features

Very true.

Enshittification means ... changing the existing service to make it worse, to encourage people to pay for subscriptions.

Also very true.

YouTube cut the default bitrate when they added this "feature". It was incredibly obvious to my eyes the instant it was pushed out, and remains obvious everytime I come across one of these videos. If they had just charged for better bitrate, I wouldn't have cared. However, they also cut the default bitrate down, making all the videos that have this look really bad.

This is textbook inshittification, complete with the gaslighting bullshit of saying "we were always like this! Its your fault it seems worse than it was!" in every design decision involved in the process.

[–] warm@kbin.earth 3 points 5 days ago (2 children)

If they did, then that would be enshittification, yeah. But I cannot find any evidence of it being true, only testimonies from people. Which could be the player buffering, showing lower resolution due to internet connection etc, etc.

My 1080p streams have looked the same as they always have. Testing it now, they are playing at around 80,000kbps, using AV1. If people upload at 1440p/4K, then it's just a non-issue anyway as they have much higher bitrates.

[–] Orygin@sh.itjust.works 5 points 5 days ago

They did. When I encounter such videos, I immediately think "why is it stuck in 720p" only to discover it's 1080p non premium, that is way worse than any other standard 1080p video.

[–] DaGeek247@fedia.io 5 points 5 days ago (1 children)

This feature is limited to videos that don't have a better resolution than 1080p. It's also even more limited to videos that the uploaders choose to enable it on, or at least, se subset of 1080p videos, since I've seen new 1080p videos both with and without it. Finally, it doesn't apply to old 1080p videos.

if people upload at 1440p/4K, then it's just a non-issue anyway as they have much higher bitrates.

Yup. Doesn't make it any less frustrating to see my favorite nature guy's videos turn to shit just because of it.

[–] warm@kbin.earth 3 points 5 days ago (2 children)

These two videos look identical to me and get the same bitrates. Why are they only uploading in 1080p now though? Their video could be poorly encoded in the first place which YouTube cannot magically save. It's going to look worse in these kind of videos anyway, because of all the foliage and particles from fires.

There is still no hard evidence YouTube made regular 1080p worse to sell "Enhanced Bitrate" and I don't think there is going to be. I think people got used to higher bitrates with 1440p/4K videos and now when they see a 1080p video they are surprised by the quality change, see the "Enhanced bitrate" option and make this assumption.

I have gone back to old videos and they are just the same as they were. They have been transcoded to AV1, but that codec is magic, they are probably using less bitrate now than they were when released.

load more comments (2 replies)

[–] ericwdhs@discuss.online 9 points 6 days ago

Agreed. The service needs to justify the resources it uses somehow. Personally, I even think locking 4k playback completely behind subscriptions would have been justified by the much higher bandwidth required as long as that also meant subsidizing a better experience for everyone staying free on 1080p and below. That feels like a more reasonable balance to me than them frantically trying to get enough ad revenue to make up the difference, but what do I know?

[–] chisel@piefed.social 7 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Adding new features and charging for them can absolutely be a component of enshitification.

[–] warm@kbin.earth 3 points 6 days ago (2 children)

Nah, because if them features didnt exist, they havent affected the original service/product by being introduced, thus hasnt enshittified it. If access to the original is affected, then that would enshittification.

load more comments (2 replies)

load more comments (3 replies)

[–] chaotic_disorganizer@lemmy.world 33 points 6 days ago (3 children)

Premium bitrate has been a thing for years.

load more comments (3 replies)

[–] Muffi@programming.dev 26 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Ooooh, learning Godot? Best of luck, it is an absolutely fantastic engine.

[–] Setiyeti93@lemmy.ca 14 points 6 days ago (2 children)

I was waiting for something like this 😂

I cut my teeth on Unity so Godot is both familiar and confusing..

[–] Muffi@programming.dev 15 points 6 days ago

Fight through and it will be worth it!

I quit Unity after their price changes about 2 years ago, and have made 15 small games in Godot since then. It is like the Blender of Game Dev. A little rough at first, and then when it clicks it is a perfect little piece of software that is so much fun to use.

load more comments (1 replies)

[–] bold_atlas@lemmy.world 3 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

Yeah, only pay piggies get to enjoy youtube's greasy AI filter in all it's high-res sloppy enshittified splendor.

[–] ParadoxSeahorse@lemmy.world 11 points 6 days ago (3 children)

720p is the best fight me

[–] Bobbysaurus@lemmy.world 10 points 6 days ago (2 children)

On YouTube it’s most definitely not. The quality is shit thanks to their compression.

[–] ParadoxSeahorse@lemmy.world 5 points 6 days ago (4 children)

Yeah it’s not the best. But it never stutters, I can change cell towers on a train, WiFi in the garden, whatever, it’s done

load more comments (4 replies)

load more comments (1 replies)

[–] Setiyeti93@lemmy.ca 6 points 6 days ago (3 children)

It's fine for most things... I'm trying to remember now what standard DVD definition was.

[–] Zachariah@lemmy.world 11 points 6 days ago

480p or 480i

[–] Hond@piefed.social 8 points 6 days ago

Nah, 720p is horrible in practice because of the employed bitrate in most cases. But i dont argue against a well encoded 720p file. It can be alright in theory depending on the content.

load more comments (1 replies)

[–] Gutek8134@lemmy.world 4 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Meanwhile my internet that can only handle 480p

load more comments (1 replies)

[–] PotatoesFall@discuss.tchncs.de 4 points 5 days ago

what game are you building? :D

[–] diaphragmwp@discuss.tchncs.de 7 points 5 days ago

Downloading with yt-dlp results in full bitrate if the "AV1" format is selected. Well, last I tried.

MPV has a yt-dlp plugin (historically still referenced "ytdl") if you want to watch once and burn the download: mpv -- ytdl://video_id_here. Note that if the video is 4K or 8K, it will play that and not auto switch.

[–] altphoto@lemmy.today 3 points 5 days ago

Remember TV at 320x200? Or if you wanted 780p you could touch the Bunny ear antenna and then do yoga.

[–] jay@pie.zerojay.com 7 points 6 days ago

It's been there for like 3 years or something already.

[–] melsaskca@lemmy.ca 3 points 5 days ago

I watch free youtube on my tv. I get ads but in the big scheme of things the variety of content I get from youtube dwarfs any advertisement interruptions I receive...so far. As far as video quality goes, sometimes it's good, sometimes it's bad, depending on the source. I watched the old "Crime Story" series on youtube and it was pretty bad and blurry and I enjoyed the hell out of that series. Your brain can quickly autofill a lot of visual blanks. The nickel and dime bullshit is getting annoying though. One day they'll price themselves out of customers or switch to only serving the elite (in this case the 'elite' mean those with employment).

[–] curiousaur@reddthat.com 2 points 5 days ago

You can stop using it.

[–] buzz86us@lemmy.world 1 points 4 days ago

I'm waiting for the 200fps with UHD

load more comments