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You really should read Cory Doctorows original analysis where he coined the term "enshittification". He has written a book about this and it really is great. The point is that for companies to be able to enshittify their products, they need to be in a specific position. Esp. in regards of competition - if there is a market and other companies are able to offer non-enshittified products, you can't. If you are a monopoly, you totally can fuck over your users. So for an industry to un-enshittify, you need to break the monopoly structures there, kill regulatory capture, try to kill network effects and bring real competition into the industry.
You also can do it if you're syndicate
I feel like I'm dense and stupid to ask this, but:
What about streaming services? there are a quite a few of them, and I don't think any one of them is in a monopoly position. Despite that, all streaming services keep enshittifying. What am I missing?
They have a monopoly on content. If you want to watch Star Trek, you need Paramount+ for example. If you just want to watch Sci-Fi in general any streaming service would work but if you want to watch a specific show, then you still only have 1, maybe 2 options.
The services have become so segmented that you are forced into one to watch particular types of content. Want the Disney catalogue, well only one place to get that. Latest anime? Yup, generally the same thing. I wouldn't consider them monopolies in that right but walled gardens I think is the proper term. They exist but are closed off from each other so can do as they want in their own garden.
This and also there's no real competition because the entry barrier to create a streaming service is really high infrastructure wise.
Think: why is there only one YouTube? How many streaming services are popping up on your TV every year?
Yeah I guess that makes sense, actually. Thanks for explaining.
Not a problem. Have a nice day! :)
<3
Cartels serve the function of monopoly. Streaming services, and tech industries in general, are cartels.
that's a really good explanation
When all of the services are moving towards the same enshittification, it seems to almost become cartel-like
In my opinion the issue there is with the content monopolies.
If shows and movies were licensed by many platforms the platforms would have to compete on technical ability and price. Instead most content is licensed exclusively and the platforms compete on their exclusive libraries.
Netflix has the vast share of users. By a large margin so well they might technically not be a monopoly they are.
Doctorows concept is talking about platforms and social media sites and not Netflix:
https://doctorow.medium.com/social-quitting-1ce85b67b456
There might be a lot of Netflix clones, but YouTube is the only video platform that is relevant. And you can see how they screwed over their users and the content creators then screwed over the advertisers.