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Pluralistic: Tiktok’s enshittification (21 Jan 2023) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow

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No trackers, no ads. Black type, white background. Privacy policy: we don't collect or retain any data at all ever period. Here is how platforms die: first, they are good to their users; then they abuse their users to make things better for their business customers; finally, they abuse those business customers to claw back all the value for themselves. Then, they die. I call this enshittification, and it is a seemingly inevitable consequence arising from the combination of the ease of changing how a platform allocates value, combined with the nature of a "two sided market," where a platform sits between buyers and sellers, hold each hostage to the other, raking off an ever-larger share of the value that passes between them. When a platform starts, it needs users, so it makes itself valuable to users. Think of Amazon: for many years, it operated at a loss, using its access to the capital markets to subsidize everything you bought. It sold goods below cost and shipped them below cost. It

Today's links Tiktok's enshittification : The company manually allocates surplus to creators, and they can take it away again, too. Hey look at this : Delights to delectate. This day in history : 2003, 2008, 2013, 2018 Colophon : Recent publications, upcoming/recent appearances, current writing projects, current reading Tiktok's enshittification ( permalink ) Here is how platforms die: first, they are good to their users; then they abuse their users to make things better for their business customers; finally, they abuse those business customers to claw back all the value for themselves. Then,

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