Breaking Free.
In the new report Breaking Free: Pathways to a fair technological future, the Norwegian Consumer Council has delved into enshittification and how to resist it. The report shows how this phenomenon affects both consumers and society at large, but that it is possible to turn the tide. Together with more than 70 consumer groups and other actors in Europe and the US, we are sending letter to policymakers in the EU/EEA, UK and the US.
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Weirdest thing about this is that it would actually be comforting to me if there was a villain executing an elaborate plan. Instead it’s just greed that drives it. You put a regular joe through business school, give em a CEO position with shareholders breathing down their neck and they’ll start pushing shit down their customers throats in no time.
Yeah - if there was a villain, we could build companies without villains. But since entshittification seems to be endemic, you can’t trust anybody. That nice cool startup claiming to “don’t be evil”? Wait a few years, change out some people and it will totally be doing evil things.
Wouldn’t that make greed itself the villain? Turns out following a socioeconomic philosophy that can be boiled down to “Greed is Good” leads to deliberatively exploitative and harmful outcomes, even for the “winners.”
We’re always going to have a system that optimises (aka is greedy), it’s just a practical necessity. The issue is what gets optimised. The utopian solution is not to eliminate greed but to make incentives that lets people be greedy for maximum overall happiness (ie make sure people get paid the most when everyone is happiest with the outcome and the environment is minimally affected, etc).
Unchecked capitalism is just as bad as communism. Capitalism kept in check by proper regulations is good. That demands a well functioning democracy however, and is unfortunately quite rare.
It occurred to me that what the US and even UK call capitalism is a lie, ie. their system is not capitalism. IIRC “market forces” and “equal chances” somehow play a central role in the economic definition of it. In reality these forces are distorted by tariffs, subsidies, nepotism, legalized extortion and the general repression of equal chances.
Edit: forgot to mention subsidies
And solid intitutions and regulations.
fantastic video. completely agree with what they’re saying. if a service is so popular that it makes more money than a small country then the service should be nationalized.
