alt Hacker NewsThis is about markets. It has nothing to do with capitalism. And in fact, it is usually _because_ of healthy competition that this type of enshittification happens everywhere because quality is hard to compare for the buyers and so the sellers are forced to compete on cost.
How the hell can healthy competition breed enshittification? That makes absolutely no sense to me.
Take an industry with healthy competition like restaurants. You can compete in price, quality, format, service and probably a lot more.
Now tell me how that competition enshittified eating at restaurants?
For me, nothing stands out. If a restaurant charges nonsense fees, under-staffs to increase profits, reduce portions with the same value, etc. I can simply go to another one. Restaurants that enshittify will almost inevitably close.
But if we look at a closely related industry like the food delivery apps, we see the same exact signs of enshittification we see on the tech world due to monopolies (or oligopolies to be more exact) like: - Increased/hidden fees
- Increased delivery times
- Crappy apps with ads everywhere
- Ineffective review systems
- Pay-to-win search
- Dynamic pricing
They can get away with it because realistically, you don't have any other options. The cost to entry might not be that high but the network effect all but prohibits competition.