May the ensh*ttification be with you! 💩

Okay, not quite as catchy as May the 4th be with you but its the theme for this week and I'm erm sticking with it (Eeewwwww).

For those who are not familiar with the phrase ensh*ttification. It was coined by Cory Doctorow and became The American Dialect Society's word of the year 2023.

To use Cory's own words:

"what’s ensh*ttification and why did it catch fire? It’s my theory explaining how the internet was colonised by platforms, why all those platforms are degrading so quickly and thoroughly, why it matters and what we can do about it. We’re all living through a great ensh*ttening, in which the services that matter to us, that we rely on, are turning into giant piles of sh*t. It’s frustrating. It’s demoralising. It’s even terrifying."

You can read the full Financial Times article here, where he explains it in more detail and uses Facebook as a case study (For me at least, it was not behind a paywall)

Essentially, it’s a three-stage process: first, platforms are good to their users. I'm sure we can all think of examples.

Then they abuse their users to make things better for their business customers. I'm sure we can all think of examples.

Finally, they abuse those business customers to claw back all the value for themselves. I'm sure we can all think of examples.

Then, there is a fourth stage: they die. Or do they?

Now I do feel that five things are true.

1. This is not a universal thing, there are good companies out there that this does not apply to. Finding them can be hard however.

2. The ensh*ttification is often deliberate because the companies Go To Market strategy is not sustainable in the long term. Fuelled by investor cash and growth at all costs.

3. We have seen an increase in ensh*ttification over the last couple of years as VC funding has slowed dramatically and businesses have had to switch from growth at all costs to profitability

4. There's a wave of startups that have raised money in the last couple of years that don't think like the ones in previous years, many born by founders that experienced the heady days of "Get Sh*t Done" etc and decided that there is a better way to start a company, treat customers and make money. I've met a few founders over the past year that sit in this bucket and it's great to see.

5. Regarding the forth stage that Cory mentioned. They die! Like it or not the big tech of this world have built massive walled gardens, Apple being the best known for it, but also the most loved for it. The protectionism is huge and is all consuming.

This video explains this concept very well.

Take the below video that the wonderful Timothy Compton sent me earlier this week. It's the first official music video made with OpenAI’s Sora.

To which I replied "That's impressive, I was both bored and impressed at the same time"

Yesterday, I spent time helping to organise a school festival and the set list for the main stage (there's only one stage). Time and again the conversation came back to the fact that there are less and less places for young bands to play live music. How sad is that. Soon we'll be able to make any music we like, and the value will just disappear.

Though my hope is that the race of technology will drive us for more and more real world interactions. Though, perhaps not at CO-OP Live. 💩

Anyway, back to products. The Rabbit R1.

Why that name??? Both from a general perspective and also an SEO one. There's a hugely popular consumer device with excellent reviews for a very different market and use case. Let's just say, it has one job and it does it very well (so I have heard)

The 🐇 R1 as reviewed below has been sold with the future in mind, but you shouldn't buy a device for what might be. You buy a device for what it is right now... Which in this case is not very usable at all.

The trend for services, products and games (possibly the worst offenders) to launch things that "promise" great things in the future.

The reason they can sell of half baked products is because of the internet and the ability to update/patch for years to come. But then, whilst that can be good. It also means that one day your perfectly fine product suddenly won't be supported anymore and then what?

What can we do about it? Stop buying them, or at least wait until they are fully usable. There's a million other things you could be doing/using etc. choose differently because the 💩💩💩💩💩💩 won't stop until we march with our feet and our cash.

Anyway, I've got a date with The Browser Company 's new Windows 11 browser that everyone is raving about.

Hopefully its A) As good as I have heard it is. 2) It keeps being good and doesn't get 💩

They make some great points. If it's not out there, how will they even know if it is good. It's no longer in beta, so it has to stand up. 😍

Watching the below video made me want to rename this edition. "We live in perpetual BETA" or some such.

We need competition and people to think differently or we are all going to start wishing we were still using Piggy banks and SNES cartridges. I think many already are.

There's a brittle equilibrium, because the difference between “I hate this service, but I can’t bring myself to quit,” and “Jesus Christ, why did I wait so long to quit?” is razor-thin.

But first, it's not raining! Time to hit the local market or some other wonderful not raining activity before we go back to our Bladerunner existence.