Today’s links Someday, we’ll all take comfort in the internet’s “dark corners”: The Sea of Enshittification is rising and your online home will eventually be flooded. Hey look at this: Delights to delectate. This day in history: 2009, 2019, 2023 Upcoming appearances: Where to find me. Recent appearances: Podcasts, events and more. Latest books: You keep readin’ em, I’ll keep writin’ ’em. Upcoming books: Like I said, I’ll keep writin’ ’em. Colophon: All the rest. Someday, we’ll all take comfort in the internet’s “dark corners” (permalink) Platforms decay. Tech bosses, unconstrained by competition; regulation; ad blockers and other adversarial interoperability; and their own workers, will inevitably hollow out their platforms, using ultraflexible digital technology to siphon value away from end users and business customers, leaving behind the bare minimum of value to keep all those users locked in: https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/30/go-nuts-meine-kerle/#ich-bin-ein-bratapfel If you’d like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here’s a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog: https://pluralistic.net/2024/03/23/evacuate-the-platforms/#let-the-platforms-burn Enshittification is the inevitable result of high switching costs. Tech bosses are keenly attuned to opportunities to lock in their customers and users, because the harder is to leave a platform, the worse the platform can treat you – the more value it can rob you of – without risking your departure. But platform users are a heterogeneous, lumpy mass. Different groups of users have different switching costs. An adult Facebook user of long tenure has more reasons to stay than a younger user: they…Pluralistic: Someday, we'll all take comfort in the internet's "dark corners" (23 Mar 2024)