It’s not outside capital that leads to enshittification, it’s leverage that enshittifies a service.
A VC that understands that they can force you to wreck your users’ lives is always in danger of doing so. A VC who understands that doing this will make your service into an empty – and thus worthless – server is far less likely to do so (and if they do, at least your users can escape).
Incredibly clear article pointing out that no individuals will ever be able to resist enshittifaction pressures indefinitely.
The only way to prevent people with power from emiserating others is to structurally remove any benefit to doing so.
Last 16 years of my life have taught me (though I had read that stated before, just without such experimental confirmation) that even such obvious mechanisms humans don’t understand.
I mean, if you show the world as consisting of negotiating groups exchanging value in different dimensions, it’s pretty clear.
