Public goods

Should be owned publicly

A standard retort against government-run industries is that they will be less efficient than privately owned industries, provide worse service, produce a miserable experience for you, the consumer. Bullshit. For one thing, private companies do an excellent job of providing a miserable experience for the highest possible price already. 

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common assumption that public systems are naturally shittier than private ones. That is an observation of current reality masquerading as a principle. Yeah, the public systems in America are often shittier, because we allow all the rich people to opt out of them and use private systems and then the public systems are left exclusively for the poor. Make everyone use the public system, and the public system will get better. Duh.

Related, Cory Doctorow on “enshittification”

pluralistic

What the fuck happened to the old, good internet?

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Google Search used to work. Facebook used to show you posts from people you followed. Uber used to be cheaper than a taxi and pay the driver more than a cabbie made. Amazon used to sell products, not Shein-grade self-destructing dropshipped garbage from all-consonant brands. Apple used to defend your privacy, rather than spying on you with your no-modifications-allowed Iphone.

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Here’s what enshittification looks like from the outside: First, you see a company that’s being good to its end users. Google puts the best search results at the top; Facebook shows you a feed of posts from people and groups you followl; Uber charges small dollars for a cab; Amazon subsidizes goods and returns and shipping and puts the best match for your product search at the top of the page.

That’s stage one, being good to end users. But there’s another part of this stage, call it stage 1a). That’s figuring out how to lock in those users.

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you’re stuck, because even though FB use comes at a high cost – your privacy, your dignity and your sanity – that’s still less than the switching cost you’d have to bear if you left: namely, all those friends who have taken you hostage, and whom you are holding hostage

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sometimes companies lock you in with money, like Amazon getting you to prepay for a year’s shipping with Prime

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Getting you locked in completes phase one of the enshittification cycle and signals the start of phase two: making things worse for you to make things better for business customers.

Cory Doctorow on “enshittification”Cory Doctorow on “enshittification”