theparadox

There were a lot of fires to put out and this fire department chose the ones that would benefit them and lectured those abandoned in burning buildings about how their building aren't burning and then campaigned arm in arm with a bunch of arsonists.

Yeah, their opponent was an arsonist so it wasn't the best strategy to sit this one out but there is a lot of blame to go around.

America needs to fix it's shit. I'm just hoping the arsonists don't burn it to the ground first.

Votes aren't all counted so no, 15 million didn't sit out. I'm not saying it wasn't millions, but it's not 15 million.

You're fine being part of the problem then? Shit looks bad so you're not going to even try and be civil? You sound like those disaffected voters.

What if the folks that voted in 2020 and didn't vote in 2024 are the type of folks who just normally don't vote and weren't inspired this year? What if the same kind of "there's no way Trump can win" thinking had them taking the situation for granted? Again, not saying they should have fucking voted but maybe it's more complicated than a few million people didn't vote this year so apparently the entirety of the non-republicans are racists. Group punishment is in order?

I disagree. Championing progressive policies in most instances actually appeals universally to a majority of the electorate.

I'm not suggesting they'd be able to follow through because I think a significant number of Democrat representatives can't stomach actually progressive policies... but I think they'd win more elections.

Yes, we all woke up to our future being a fucking fascist horror show. We're all grieving. Chill the fuck out with the "racist" shit, you just dividing the left more.

Yes, I'm sure some people are just misogynistic and racist and stayed home because of that. However, other people feel like it doesn't fucking matter. We understand that it does matter, but I'll be damned if I don't feel that way too sometimes. It's so goddamn frustrating when the Democrats tack right over and over again, hamstringing progressives along the way, and then turn around and say "Vote for us because we're the lesser evil. We've wedged you between a rock and a hard place so suck it up and do your patriotic duty like good little peasants."

Kamala's campaign veered right and abso-fucking-lutely alienated progressive voters. By the end I was legitimately worried she might actually end up being to the right of Biden economically.

Do I forgive lefties for sitting this one out? No. That doesn't mean they won't do it again and that, for the first time in what feels like decades, the Democrats need to actually learn the right lesson from losing an election.

Lol, like what? Does liking a sport and hating and exposing the corruption of it's organizers equate to supporting it's organizers? https://youtu.be/DlJEt2KU33I?si=WJAc7yVePsn0GwaA

...and apparently understanding the frustration with the EU but calling leaving it insane and urging people to vote against brexit is "supporting" it? https://youtu.be/iAgKHSNqxa8?si=JsEMq6gV7-tp5y7k

Like are you even trying? Nobody is perfect, John Oliver included, and I'm sure there are reasons to dislike him but could you at least chose topics he hasn't released multiple YouTube full clips of episodes of his show where he literally contradicts your point?

Do you know what a changing climate does to the needs of the people?

I mean, obviously, natural disasters like severe weather impact the needs of the people. Look at the last two hurricanes in the US south or the wildfires out west. Death, injuries, lives disrupted, houses and businesses destroy or damaged, links in supply chains shattered.

Imagine what happens to populated areas that, hypothetically, get hit repeatedly by this for a few years. Many in Florida can't find home insurance already. Eventually they'll have to leave and go... where? If this happens repeatedly in poorer neighboring countries? What if sea levels actually rise and wipe out coastal cities? Massive migration, climate refugees, regional instability. It gets too hot for a good crop yield or rainfall patterns change and we get less fresh water? Food and water scarcity, death and starvation... the needs of people can't be met.

Thr planet? It'll likely be fine in a few million years. We won't be.

Walz overstates the cost of insulin before cap

WALZ: “They were charging $800 before this law went into effect.”

The correction states the average insulin price was lower. However, the point in my mind was that there were companies charging $800+ for insulin when they were allowed to.

You don't even need bribery. You can just throw money at something and make things happen.

If you think something is true, you can pay the world to prioritize things as if it were true.

If you think vaccines cause autism and you are rich, you can create massive "education" campaigns and the like to convince people its true. You can buy ads telling people its true. You can amass an enormous following of people who believe you and change policy without bribery.

Just reiterating what others have said but... if you have an IP you like and want more of it in the future (regardless of medium!) then its success in any other medium will likely impact whether or not you get more.

Unfortunately, we live in a world where:

• Money matters more to most IP holders than the IP itself

• New IP is seen as risky

• Those in charge don't have to take responsibility for their failures

If there is a commercial failure of an IP, there is a good chance that its failure will be seen as the IP generally failing or falling out of poluarity instead of the failure to best utilize the IP that likely occurred. As a result, priorities will often shift away from the IP to something else in all mediums (ex. ASOIAF/GOT). Unless the IP is absolutely gangbusters in all other mediums, it will suffer. Similarly, success will likely lead to more utilization of the IP in any medium.

It's unlikely that the IP owner will sell or license the IP in the near future because at one point it was popular and new IP is hard to make. It would be better to hoard IP and maybe try again in a decade when they need a trick up their sleeve. Plus, another failure might damage the IP even more.

Admittedly, I'm not attached to any brands or IP in particular and so I'm not invested really. I just makes me a little sad when some IP I thought well of has this happen... or when the person who benefits from the IP turns out to be a person I'd rather not give money to. Occasionally I'll ponder what might have been if things had gone differently and feel a little bad.

the same process

It doesn't necessarily involve the middle man, who is ultimately the bigger fish that enshittifiers are looking to land. I think that's relevant. Enshittification's process involves capturing both a "retail" user base and a business user base and then squeezing both.

Edit. Enshittification is layered and more specific to industries and markets that are not inherently profitable. It starts with seed money being burned for that initial user base and fucks over everyone up and down the chain because the business is not really profitable otherwise. Skimp/shrinkflation is more about squeezing more profit than you are already making.

I've see it used a lot recently to describe the general degradation of quality in service of increasing profits. I think technically, it is not enshittification. Below is my general definition of the process enshittification describes. Repost from another comment.

1. Attract users/customers with high quality services/products to create a captive/dependent user base.
2. Attract business customers (ex. advertisers or businesses that can benefit from access to the user base in some way) by offering them high value services by fucking over your captive user base create a captive/dependent busiess customer base.
3. Fuck over your captive business customers to increase your own profit.

A word that includes the word "shit" in it has a very nice ring to it when describing things getting generally shittier in favor of profit. I suppose language can evolve rapidly and things mean what people believe them to mean.

Edit: As per Wikipedia's Shrinkflation Entry:

Skimpflation involves a reformulation or other reduction in quality.

I see skimpflation as a form of shrinkflation. The idea is still that the price stays the same but to try and hide the cost increase from the customer they give you less. I guess fewer strawberries per "smoothie" is even more subtle than fewer ounces of the original "smoothie" formula per bottle.

To be a pedantic asshole, technically enshittification is meant to refer to online services that follow an inevitable process of...

1. Attract users/customers with high quality services/products to create a captive/dependent user base.
2. Attract business customers (ex. advertisers or businesses that can benefit from access to the user base in some way) by offering them high value services by fucking over your captive user base create a captive/dependent busiess customer base.
3. Fuck over your captive business customers to increase your own profit.

Admittedly, I see enshittification used colloquially meaning basically "business found a way to fuck over its customers more than usual to increase their profit". Perhaps that is what you mean by "General enshittification".