let’s examine how enshittification works. It’s a three-stage process: first, platforms are good to their users. Then they abuse their users to make things better for their business customers. Finally, they abuse those business customers to claw back all the value for themselves. Then, there is a fourth stage: they die.
There are four forces that discipline companies, serving as constraints on their enshittificatory impulses:
Competition. Companies that fear you will take your business elsewhere are cautious about worsening quality or raising prices.
Regulation. Companies that fear a regulator will fine them more than they expect to make from cheating, will cheat less.
Self-help. Computers are extremely flexible and so are the digital products and services we make from them.
And, finally, workers. Tech workers have very low union density, but that doesn’t mean that tech workers don’t have labour power. The historical “talent shortage” of the tech sector meant that workers enjoyed a lot of leverage. Workers who disagreed with their bosses could quit and walk across the street and get another, better job.
Then some examples of how each of these have been eroded/neutered, and of the laws that are being leveraged to protect those who are already entrenched.The pre-enshittification era wasn’t a time of better leadership. The executives weren’t better. They were constrained. Their worst impulses were checked by competition, regulation, self-help and worker power. So what happened?
One by one, each of these constraints was eroded, leaving the enshittificatory impulse unchecked, ushering in the enshittocene.
And the more-or-less closing statement.I’m not going to cape for capitalism. I’m hardly a true believer in markets as the most efficient allocators of resources and arbiters of policy. But the capitalism of 20 years ago made space for a wild and woolly internet, a space where people with disfavoured views could find each other, offer mutual aid and organise. The capitalism of today has produced a global, digital ghost mall, filled with botshit, crap gadgets from companies with consonant-heavy brand names and cryptocurrency scams.
--Patrickit may be true that the law can’t force corporations to conceive of you as a human being entitled to dignity and fair treatment, and not just an ambulatory wallet, a supply of gut bacteria for the immortal colony organism that is a limited liability corporation. But it can make them fear you enough to treat you fairly and afford you dignity — even if they don’t think you deserve it.
Stumbled across this article which seems to agree with you. I had not heard of Nutanix before you mentioned it, and this guy says they have a "community" version that even supports multiple nodes, which sounds better than what VMWare was offering.a lot of people are thinking Nutanix and Proxmox might be the bigger gains for this
EDIT: Looks like the new management has noticed the rumblings:with the new VMware by Broadcom, the direction has changed, the air feels different, and the community is no longer a priority with costs and revenue now the focus for Broadcom. Rest in peace VMware ESXi free edition, a virtualization platform to remember.
Reddit signs $60mil/yr licensing deal with "an unnamed large A.I. company" to allow them to train their A.I. on reddit's
[HP] rents people a printer, allots them a specific amount of printed pages, and sends them ink for a monthly fee.
One of the most perturbing aspects of the subscription plan is that it requires subscribers to keep their printers connected to the Internet.
HP says it enforces a constant connection so that the company can monitor things that make sense for the subscription, like ink cartridge statuses, page count, and "to prevent unauthorized use of Your account." However, HP will also remotely monitor the type of documents (for example, a PDF or JPEG) printed, the devices and software used to initiate the print job, "peripheral devices," and any other "metrics" that HP thinks are related to the subscription and decides to add to its remote monitoring.
...[The TOS agreement] says that HP may “transfer information about you to advertising partners” so that they can "recognize your devices," perform targeted advertising, and, potentially, "combine information about you with information from other companies in data sharing cooperatives" that HP participates in, and that "You hereby grant to HP a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free right to use, copy, store, transmit, modify, create derivative works of and display Your non-personal data for its business purposes."
Yaaaaaaay.Sony bumps Crunchyroll prices weeks after shuttering Funimation
Today, Sony’s anime streaming service Crunchyroll announced that it’s increasing subscription prices as follows:
- The Mega Fan Tier, which allows streaming on up to four devices simultaneously, will go from $9.99/month to $11.99/month
- The Ultimate Fan Tier, which allows streaming on up to six devices simultaneously, will go from $14.99/month to $15.99/month
I swapped from Plex to JellyFin about 2 years ago - the actual media swap wasn't bad - it was able to keep the same folder structure for the media and it picked it all up.Even Roku is starting to turn evil. They're talking about putting video ads both on the main menu screen and have them pop up when you pause whatever you're watching, even if it is a straight HDMI source into a Roku TV's HDMI port. I'm starting to worry that Plex might be the next domino to fall, and I might have to migrate my stuff to Jellyfin.
Well, yeah. I was just referring to the actual switchover. The rest of it is all on him.You're aware that in GB's case that would mean also installing JellyFin on his... Father? I think? System, and troubleshooting a dozen other users who'd suddenly have to make the switch right?