I’m not saying that what they are doing is enshittification. I’m saying that if they reduce the limit in the future, it will be, because it would mean the 50GB was just a marketing gimmick to make people sign up. Even if they reduce it to 25 GB it would still be enshittificaition, despite still being better than Windscribe’s current offer of 10GB. Because you’re comparing the same product from the same company at different points in time.
There are plenty of companies that have advertised an enticing offer when launching a new product, and made it clear from the beginning that this offer is temporary. There is no need to mislead people. And to be clear, I am not saying FF is misleading us. I am just hoping that they are not because enshittification is rampant, even with some privacy companies.
I am not implying Mozilla has bad intentions. I give them the benefit of the doubt. I am simply hoping that they won’t reduce their free offering in the future because I know that enshittification can also affect privacy companies.
Giving the benefit of the doubt is different. It’s when someone does something seemingly bad and you give them a pass until you know more and/or they do it again.
You don’t give the benefit of the doubt to a purely hypothetical scenario you make. Just feel like it makes the discourse overly negative for no reason.
Enshittification is inevitable because of primarily a few reasons: growing excessive greed, no real business model apart from advertising, and rationale for business to exist for business sake only and not providing value to all users along with making money sake (in other words, profit being the only priority).
This is a very interesting take. I have actually asked myself this very question repeatedly for a while.
Is enshittification inevitable? In other words, is it possible for an ethical business to be successful in the long term without sorting to enshittification? And if enshittification is inevitable, what is the tolerable/accetpable amount of it?
To me the answer is not clear. It would seem that enshittification is indeed inevitable, because it is so pervasive, but that just feels too obvious and too accommodating of the narrative corporations want to sell us. Also accepting enshittification as inevitable would mean that it is ok to some degree, and I don’t think it is.
Yes. If you don’t only and always prioritize making money over everything else. If you do, then you make decisions detrimental to everyone while losing long term business. Look at Adobe. It is currently but low key more hated than even Meta.
This all comes down to how you believe any business should exist and operate and why.
I personally blame the court case between Ford and Dodge for setting the precedent in America that today takes capitalism to the extremes no matter the cost (tangible or intangible) which has since been exported world wide. Few people know this.
I remember seeing an interview of the CEO of AriZona Iced Tea, in which the interviewer asked him why he had not increased the price of their drinks (99¢) after more than 30+ years. And he simply said it’s because they are successful and don’t need to.
Although there are myriad ways a business can be unethical, I remember being in admiration of that.
I am inclined to believe that it is possible despite mounting evidence that it seemingly isn’t.
You’ve hit the nail on the head. It could make us dive into a deep philosophical rabbit whole about the ethics of capitalism, but that’s for another time and place. One thing is clear, and it’s that at the very least capitalism needs to be curbed.
What I mean is that if we don’t fight back against enshittification because it’s just the name of the game, then we are accepting it, and we in turn think it’s ok for us to practice enshittification on others, because “that’s how smart people do business”.
Extreme capitalism. Be capitalistic. But retain your morals and run a business in a measured and balanced manner thinking about your employees and society/customers at large while you make money. It may not be as much as it could have but you will keep making it for longer and more sustainably. This also means being competitive and not doing things to eliminate said competition.
But alas such is not how any business would even succeed today. So, moot wishing for it.
They only say this because society equates smart with more money. I know many millionaires who are idiots. Like, not being able to apply basic logic idiots. But they have the money and we are supposed to listen to them.
Just look at US “leadership” currently. More realistic than not, the world is just waiting the current government out. No one is happy with the state of affairs globally. But I’m going off topic now. I’m only trying to make a point.
Yes. Buying your competition or future competition is a way of eliminating it. So many of the services that we use and enjoy today were acquired by big companies, YouTube and Android being prime examples of it.
There are people fighting for a better world, so I don’t think it’s pointless to aspire to it.
Never heard of Valve. Not sure about Nintendo, Costco and Patagonia, as I don’t know much about them from a business perspective. But I know about Wikipedia.
The truth is, most people and businesses will not settle for 10 millions dollars in profits if they know they can make 100 million or a billion.
I also fear that like banks, some Big Tech companies are considered too big to fail. As an example, I am for passing a law than bans the monetization of personal data and advertising. If by some miracle we were close to passing such a policy, I suspect that many governments will be reluctant to do it because many businesses depend on it, not just the big tech corporations. There is a good chance that banning personal advertising would disrupt the economy, and politicians won’t want that.
I personally hate when Big Tech companies use their low income employees and the om-and-pop shops that depend on them as shields to oppose regulation. The do that as if all of their interests are aligned, when those Big Tech companies don’t care about the welfare of their employees or the small businesses that they exploit.
I would be furious. And cancel out of principle. Not because I say “everything must be free”, but because I think that you should never advertised something if you cannot keep it up
We say this.. and I want to believe it is true. But today’s highly and unhealthy levels of capitalistic nature of all businesses makes it incompatible with said inevitability. No business today can make it work if they don’t resort to shady tactics to gain more customers and users. Unless a business is born immorally resorting to extreme capitalism, it will not suceed enough to then be better at providing value to your customers who pay. It’s a catch 22 of sorts. One thing can’t happen without the other if you want to be good in the end. It’s just not compatible with the system in place today.
I say this with years of experience in different industries and different parts of the world (East and West). I often find only well traveled people agree with this sentiment.
What does your previous statement actually mean then?
There is no room for exceptions with it, unless you are claiming and implying that Mullvad VPN resorts to shady tactics to gain more customers and users.