📚 Tiktok's enshittification: The company manually allocates surplus to creators and can take it away again.
🌐 Enshittification: Platforms abuse their users and business customers to claw back all the value for themselves before eventually dying.
🛍️ Amazon's enshittification: It initially operated at a loss, subsidizing goods and providing a clean search. Eventually, it shifted to exploiting business customers and harvesting surplus from them.
📈 Facebook's enshittification: It started by showing users content from loved ones but then prioritized media companies and introduced more ads. It defrauded publishers and forced them into a "pivot to video."
💰 Monetization of attention: Attention cannot be used as a medium of exchange or store of value. Platforms like Tiktok monetize attention by exchanging fake money (attention) for real money through deception.
🔎 Unraveling platform algorithms: Online creators and organizations try to understand platform algorithms, but the logic may shift based on the platform's priorities, causing frustration and wage theft.
💡 Tiktok's recommendation system: Tiktok's success was due to its powerful recommendation system, but it now manipulates feeds with a "heating tool" to lure creators and media companies.
💩 Google's search results have become increasingly useless due to enshittification, with self-preferencing links, low-quality ads, and parasitic SEO junk.
💥 Enshittification is a harmful process that can lead to the downfall of platforms and companies. Google's layoffs and panic over AI chatbots highlight the consequences.
🤖 Designing a non-enshittified chatbot for search is challenging due to incentives that favor enshittifying results and the fragility of maintaining an equilibrium.
🌍 Instead of preserving dying platforms, policymakers should focus on minimizing user costs when these platforms expire by ensuring rights like end-to-end and freedom of exit.
🎮 TikTok's algorithm was once good at recommending content, but it has fallen victim to enshittification and is unlikely to recover.
📚 The web page also includes various other links and updates from Cory Doctorow, including his writing progress, upcoming appearances, and recent books.
📰 Key takeaway 1: Reddit has experienced significant changes recently, impacting D&D DMs and GMs.
📰 Key takeaway 2: The concept of "enshittification," coined by Corey Doctorow, describes a collapse or degradation of platforms and technologies.
📰 Key takeaway 3: DMs and GMs need to recognize and understand the patterns of enshittification to protect themselves and their games.
📰 Key takeaway 4: Having a backup plan is crucial, even when using enshittified platforms, to avoid potential negative consequences.
📰 Key takeaway 5: Caution is advised when giving content to enshittified platforms as ownership and control can be compromised.
📰 Key takeaway 6: Platforms like Amazon, Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube have gone through various stages of enshittification, negatively impacting users and businesses.
📰 Key takeaway 7: Enshittification also affects the world of RPGs, including platforms like Amazon and YouTube that offer valuable services but may have negative consequences for creators.
📰 Key takeaway 8: Understanding enshittification can help DMs and GMs make informed decisions about the platforms they use and the content they create.
😡 Reddit's recent collapse has permanently damaged its brand and may drive users to other platforms.
🔄 Discord is in the early stages of insidification, introducing changes and potentially bringing in third-party elements.
😬 Twitch is an insidified platform with spammy ads, but alternatives like YouTube or independent recording exist.
👥 Platforms like Roll20 and DriveThruRPG are in stage two of insidification, with third-party advertisers and publishers.
💰 Platforms like Patreon and Kickstarter are initiified with outside investors and potential pressure to increase profits.
📺 YouTube is a citified platform, but alternative platforms like podcasts provide a backup for content creators.
🛒 Amazon is an insidified platform that heavily impacts the speaker's business, with no clear alternative.
🌐 Google's insidification process involves indexing blogs, selling ads, and being difficult to avoid as a search engine.
🌍 Seeking decentralized platforms like RSS feeds, blogs, newsletters, and Mastodon can bypass insidified models.
📚 The speaker suggests supporting their own bookstore, subscribing to their podcast, and following their blog as direct ways to connect without intermediaries.
🤝 There's hope for the emergence of new platforms or alternatives to mitigate the risks of insidification.