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Comment by tarsinge | Hacker News Reader

Bureaucracy didn’t emerge in the 21th, contrary to lack of customer support for big companies. Bureaucracy is a symptom part of the enshittification, the root cause is Monopoly (direct or through organized shareholders across an industry). You don’t need support or good service when customers don’t have the choice to go elsewhere.

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They can go elsewhere , but then they would have to pay. And users hate to pay when there is a free offer.

I would even go a step further, and say that bureaucracy, in and of itself, is not a bad thing. It is a natural and inevitable consequence of a large organization: you need more measures in place to keep track of things when there are too many for people to keep track of in their heads.

The problem arises when the bureaucracy becomes, at least for portions of the organization, the end in itself rather than a means to an end (the end being something like better service, efficiency, and accountability). That's when it starts to contribute to frustrations and bad experiences (and, if allowed to continue in this vein, enshittification).

Yes. In fact I was referring to bureaucracies in general as a state’s “support” organization.

> Bureaucracy is a symptom part of the enshittification

Bureaucracy does not cause things to get worse. It's not a bad rash that the system displays when it's about to get worse or the puss discharged when it's irritated.

Bureaucracy is a response to a system that works well. It adds rules and hierarchies and red tape to maintain the system state as it is. It's organizational glue.

Bureaucracy is only a problem when trying to change a system.

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