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Comment by emodendroket | Hacker News Reader

I really dislike "enshittification" suddenly appearing in essays everywhere. Why don't we use established words to describe this concept that aren't going to date the piece and make it embarrassing to read in a few years?

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Cory Doctorow[1] came up with a catchy way of talking about a ubiquitous phenomenon that didn't have a word to describe it before, I'm not too surprised it rapidly became successful.

And I hope you're right and it will be embarassing to read in the future, because it would mean this trend of user-hostile behavior has stopped, but I'm not holding my breath.

[1] https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/21/potemkin-ai/#hey-guys

I think we had words for the concept of making something worse. Whatever, I'm not you guys' editor.

Enshitification: The process of making something shit

To shit on: To cover in feaces from above

Shit: The refuse, rubbish, that which comes out the other end. As opposed to mana or fodder.

In conclusion, new words are great. A word for new words is neologism, it is a very nice word. I think enshitification really hits the mark here - something good is made bad. And it is visceral, you can feel the process slipping through your fingers as you try and hold on to the past.

I'm not a big fan of the word per se but it has been coined to describe the _exact_ concept that's happening here. What would be an established word for it? Deteriorating? Diluted? I'm not an English native, but the internet has always been a bit of a vulgar place and all that so enshittification seems about right.

"Degradation" or "crippling" are some that come to mind. My issue is less that it's vulgar and more that I think it's going to read in the near future the way people calling everything they liked "teh secks" years ago online reads now.

Fair enough. I've never come across that saying and spend a considerable amount of time online, but I get what you mean.

Well, seeing the path many of the big social media players chose, I could imagine that the term enshittification will be around for a little longer, unfortunately.

Based on Urban Dictionary that one had its heyday around 20 years ago so it's understandable if you haven't.

Some of the most lasting culture is laden with references to contemporary culture and events. This goes for Shakespeare and it goes for Dante Alighieri.

We're all a product of our time and circumstance. Trying to wash that away in order to write something timeless means we just write something bland instead.

We would not have six thousand human languages if new words were never invented. Computer languages are also new. Just try programming in Aramaic.

Surely you recognize some middle ground between trying to remove oneself from time and circumstance altogether and glomming onto every meme and short-lived trend.

I think it's more like "grok"[0], where it's a weird little in-group signal that makes some small portion of people who read it cringe inwardly, but never becomes outdated because it never had a date in the first place.

[0] Which is functionally identical to "understand" whenever it's used, except 99% of the population has no goddamn idea what it means and 1% of the population can read the subtext that the person using who said it is a nerd

Having a distinct word for this process, hideous as it may be, having a distinct word is useful in that it lets us be specific about what we're talking about, otherwise one might mistake it for other forms of decline.

"Making it shit" doesn't really seem that much clearer. "Enclosure" might more specifically capture the sense of formerly "common" or free elements being closed off and set up as stations to collect rents.

Life itself is being enshittified and this is just one more cow pie in the process.

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