Today’s links Tech workers and gig workers need each other: Each disenshittifies the other. Hey look at this: Delights to delectate. This day in history: 2004, 2009, 2014, 2019, 2023 Colophon: Recent publications, upcoming/recent appearances, current writing projects, current reading Tech workers and gig workers need each other (permalink) We’re living in the enshittocene, in which the forces of enshittification are turning everything from our cars to our streaming services to our dishwashers into thoroughly enshittifified piles of shit. Call it the Great Enshittening: https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/09/lead-me-not-into-temptation/#chamberlain How did we arrive at this juncture? Is it the end of the zero rate interest policy? Was it that the companies that formerly made useful things that we valued underwent a change in leadership that drove them to make things worse? Is Mercury in retrograde? None of the above. There have been many junctures in which investors demanded higher returns from firms but were not able to force them to dramatically worsen their products. Moreover, the leaders now presiding over the rapid unscheduled disassembly of once-useful products are the same people who oversaw their golden age. As to Mercury? Well, I’m a Cancer, and as everyone knows, Cancers don’t believe in astrology. The Great Enshittening isn’t precipitated by a change in how greedy and callous corporate leaders are. Rather, the change is in what those greedy, callous corporate leaders can get away with. Capitalists hate capitalism. For a corporate executive, the fact that you have to make good things, please your customers, pay your…Pluralistic: Tech workers and gig workers need each other (13 Jan 2024)