The Enshittification Thread

PatrThom

PatrThom

Adobe executive, probably: "Oooh! I wonder how else we can yank the chains of our subs?"
Not that kind of sub, Adobe!

--Patrick
 
PatrThom

PatrThom

variety.com

MTV News Website Goes Dark, Archives Pulled Offline

The website of the already-defunct MTV News has been fully pulled offline.
variety.com variety.com
Paramount has pulled 25+ years of MTV News offline, along with pretty much everything from their sister channel, CMT, which was pulled just last week.
Some of the content lives on under the Paramount umbrella, but nowhere near "most." And all of the "news" archival content is gone. Including Kurt Loder.
Alex Young, on consequence.net, suggests that:
...the decision [may have been] at least partially motivated by Paramount's unwillingness to pay for E&O (errors and omissions) insurance and associated licensing costs (such as for Getty Images) in perpetuity. Every piece of content published on a site like MTV comes with a certain amount of risk. Is there a sentence that is inaccurate? Does a negative review contain something that an artist might construe as libelous? Is a photo or video properly licensed? And often times, these issues don't surface until years after the initial piece of content was published.
Click to expand...
In other words, rather than licensing it to someone else (give up control? Never!), Paramount just decided to torch ~50yrs (25-ish x2) of legitimately valuable historical journalism.

At least Archive.org still has most, if not all, of it. Unless Paramount forces them to take it down, too.

--Patrick
 
Bubble181

Bubble181

On the other hand, it's funny how the trend towards monetization of everything as service is somehow the exact opposite of the planned obsolescence which is/was the profit model of so many (other) sectors.
I don't want to pay for lighting-as-a-service, car-as-a-service, etc, but if it means they'll suddenly go "sure, we can make lamps/cars/whatever that last for fifty years like they used to", it's... Well...
 
PatrThom

PatrThom

Ha! Pez beat me to posting it.
Bubble181 said:
if it means they'll suddenly go "sure, we can make lamps/cars/whatever that last for fifty years like they used to", it's... Well...
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It does not. What it means is that they will give you a new disposable lamp/car/whatever every year and expect you to handle the disposal of the old, busted one.

--Patrick
 
PatrThom

PatrThom

Wow. They're really doubling down on the "unclear on the concept," aren't they? The vast majority of reddit's value comes from the fact that the pool of contributors is essentially unrestricted, allowing for ideas and discourse to have maximum genetic diversity/cross-pollination/whatever you want to call it. Restricting access with the recent search changes and paywalling off communities might make the shareholders happy, but it's like building a protective roof over your greenhouse--you're ultimately going to be choking off the very thing that makes your website flourish. I feel like there's an appropriate goose-related metaphor for this.

--Patrick
 
Dave

Dave

Staff member
Also, it's like working somewhere where YOU pay them. I mean, Reddit would be devoid of content were it not for the users. But then again people are dumb. I mean, they pay for Twitter.
 
blotsfan

blotsfan

As one of 5 people with cable I find it a bit sad how early Adult Swim starts now. It starts at 7pm, and from 5-7 it’s old 90s cartoons. It works better for me personally, but it’s sad how little there is for kids.
 
AshburnerX

AshburnerX

blotsfan said:
As one of 5 people with cable I find it a bit sad how early Adult Swim starts now. It starts at 7pm, and from 5-7 it’s old 90s cartoons. It works better for me personally, but it’s sad how little there is for kids.
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The kids are watching everything on streaming apps. Cable viewers are mostly 30+ adults these days, statistically.
 
Ravenpoe

Ravenpoe

blotsfan said:
As one of 5 people with cable I find it a bit sad how early Adult Swim starts now. It starts at 7pm, and from 5-7 it’s old 90s cartoons. It works better for me personally, but it’s sad how little there is for kids.
Click to expand...
There are no kids watching cartoon network, they're watching Mr Beast videos or some shit.
 
Bubble181

Bubble181

I can't comment as to any particulars, and obviously I know nothing, but a major shipping/delivery/logistics company is going to introduce tracking as a paid service beginning of next year. Oh, as an individual you'll be free to track your couple of packages - but if you're a big company tracking hundreds of shipments? Expect to pay per shipment, per time you track. And the first plans are of course only aimed at resellers and third party apps doing hundreds of thousands of tracks per hour (yes, literally - there's a LOT of packages going around you know), the intent is to monetize this towards smaller companies and eventually individuals, too, once live tracking is performative enough.
So, enjoy your "your package will be delivered tomorrow between 13:17 and 14:58" for free right now, because in a few years we'll be back to "it'll be there somewhere next week, probably....Unless you pay, then you get to know the exact time to within the half hour, because obviously we know, but we won't tell you, because fuck you".

To be clear, again, I know nothing, and this isn't about any particular company, it's just random gossip I've heard mentioned by, let's say, the butcher's son from around the corner. Nothing else. Of course.
 
Tress

Tress

I’m pretty sure that certain shipping/delivery/logistics company posted a NET profit over 4 BILLION last year, which means any attempt to squeeze more money out of customers is particularly petty and disgusting. I hope they fucking choke on their profits.
 
Bubble181

Bubble181

Tress said:
I’m pretty sure that certain shipping/delivery/logistics company posted a NET profit over 4 BILLION last year, which means any attempt to squeeze more money out of customers is particularly petty and disgusting. I hope they fucking choke on their profits.
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Oh sure, certain companies made record profits never seen before, but they're still cutting over 2000 jobs in Europe (possibly including certain owl-themed people) because the European branch isn't making a profit domestically. Globally, sure, in the US, obviously, internationally, definitely - but intra-Europe, sorry, not profitable enough (because of terrible management choices which were roundly rejected and criticized by everyone on the floor), yep, gotta find a way rto squeeze more profits. Shareholders > stakeholders.
 
PatrThom

PatrThom

I can no longer turn off "Autoplay next video" in the YouTube app.
Oh sure, the option is still there, but when I highlight the "don't" option and press the confirmation button, I just get a pop-up that says, "Something went wrong. Please try again later." I've tried resetting the app, even deleting and redownloading the app to eliminate any leftover cookie-type garbage, but NOPE.
I can't imagine they're exactly rushing to fix it. I'm kind of wondering if it only works now if you're signed in, which I never do. How to (safely) test, hmmm...

--Patrick
 
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