What's the management thinking behind enshittification | Hacker News Reader

What's the management thinking behind enshittification

3 pointschrisjj12 comments

... such as pushing a software update to your customers' smart thermostat to show ads on its screen - as a new thing.

One theory: Previously our customers were techy and smart, and would not stand it. Now we're more reaching average Joe, who is too dumb to push back.

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It mostly comes down to the company or division having started by running at a huge loss, with no plan for a path to generate income, to grow a customer base and increase the valuation of the company or division, then the leader cashing out and making it someone else's problem when they need to start generating revenue. At that point, the company or division is grasping at straws, because it has no experience with what people are willing to pay for, and customers are used to using a product or service that is sold at a loss. The more random revenue streams they try out, the higher the chances that they come across one that everyone is happy with, but the rest of them will be huge misses that no one is happy with.

But then why has this become prevalent only recently?

Valuation strategies have changed significantly over the last decade or two. Selling products at a significant margin used to matter a lot, but now recurring revenue matters much more (e.g. subscriptions) regardless of margin, even if it's negative. This means that startups that would have quickly gone bankrupt before now get round after round of seed funding, and can even make it to IPO, without ever generating net income.

And what caused this change do you think?

To some people, success looks like the linear accumulation of small wins. Each cycle, you sprint for the goal, rinse, repeat. As long as you deliver each one on schedule, everything is fine. There is no need to create a vision or roadmap, no need to work towards or even define quality, just react swiftly to the loudest signal every day.

This is a perfect storm for enshittification. No one is accountable for the quality of what was delivered, only that it was delivered. As long as the latest fire is out, all is well. Right?

Accepted, but why only recently has that loaded signal pointed shitwards?

Great question. I can only assume it's the flip side: a linear accumulation of quality regressions. With no one accountable for delivering improved quality, it just doesn't happen. And while problems accumulate linearly and silently, they manifest themselves in more volatile, emergent ways like bugs and outages and outright broken software.

Such outcomes used to disavantage the supplier, leading to elimination by natural selection.

Less so now. It seems the selection rules have changed somehow.

Money number must go up.

But that did not previously entail shit level must go up.

I'd say that's just a function of money number having to go up. Since at some point you can't charge more for [thing], maybe there are other ways of making money off [thing]? Let's use a bit less plastic on it! Boom, saved on manufacturing AND shipping.

I think it wasn't previously.

And enshittification is rarely less plastic or anything, but more ads etc.

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