It’s technically closer to Schrodinger’s truth. It goes both ways depending on “when” you look at it. Publicly traded companies are more or less expected to adopt AI as it is the next “cheap” labor… so long as it is the cheapest of any option. See the very related: slave labor and it’s variants, child labor, and “outsourcing” to “less developed” countries.
The problem is they need to dance between this experimental technology and … having a publicly “functional” company. The line demands you cut costs but also increase service. So basically overcorrection hell. Mass hirings into mass firings. Every quarter / two quarters depending on the company… until one of two things becomes true: ai works or ai no longer is the cheapest solution. I imagine that will rubberband for quite some time. (saas shit like oracle etc)
In short - I’d not expect this to be more than a brief reprieve from a rapidly drying well. Take advantage of it for now - but I’d recommend not expecting it to remain.
The line demands you cut costs but also increase service.
The line demands it go up. It doesn’t care how you get there. In many cases, decreasing service while also cutting costs is the way to do it so long as line goes up.
Absolutely. I should have used the term productivity rather than service. Lack of caffeine had blunted my vocabulary. In essence: more output for less work. Output in this case is profit.
Enshitification is, in essence, the push beyond diminishing returns into the ‘lossy’ space … sacrificing a for b. The end result is an increasingly shitty experience.
I think what makes enshittification is “give users less and charge more”. It’s about returning shareholder value instead of customer value.
Netflix is a great example. They have pulled back on content, made password sharing more challenging, and increased cost. They still report increases in paying users.
They’ve done the math. They know they can take lost in users because they know they’ll make up for it. That’s the sad part in all of this.
They’ve done the math. They know they can take lost in users because they know they’ll make up for it. That’s the sad part in all of this.
They really haven’t taken massive hits because we are creatures of habit: it’s more convenient to hang around even if we know we’re getting ripped off. There is a conversion rate - but it’s low enough where clearly they believe the market will bear more abuse.
It’s technically closer to Schrodinger’s truth. It goes both ways depending on “when” you look at it. Publicly traded companies are more or less expected to adopt AI as it is the next “cheap” labor… so long as it is the cheapest of any option. See the very related: slave labor and it’s variants, child labor, and “outsourcing” to “less developed” countries.
The problem is they need to dance between this experimental technology and … having a publicly “functional” company. The line demands you cut costs but also increase service. So basically overcorrection hell. Mass hirings into mass firings. Every quarter / two quarters depending on the company… until one of two things becomes true: ai works or ai no longer is the cheapest solution. I imagine that will rubberband for quite some time. (saas shit like oracle etc)
In short - I’d not expect this to be more than a brief reprieve from a rapidly drying well. Take advantage of it for now - but I’d recommend not expecting it to remain.
The line demands it go up. It doesn’t care how you get there. In many cases, decreasing service while also cutting costs is the way to do it so long as line goes up.
See: enshittification
Absolutely. I should have used the term productivity rather than service. Lack of caffeine had blunted my vocabulary. In essence: more output for less work. Output in this case is profit.
Enshitification is, in essence, the push beyond diminishing returns into the ‘lossy’ space … sacrificing a for b. The end result is an increasingly shitty experience.
I think what makes enshittification is “give users less and charge more”. It’s about returning shareholder value instead of customer value.
Netflix is a great example. They have pulled back on content, made password sharing more challenging, and increased cost. They still report increases in paying users.
They’ve done the math. They know they can take lost in users because they know they’ll make up for it. That’s the sad part in all of this.
They really haven’t taken massive hits because we are creatures of habit: it’s more convenient to hang around even if we know we’re getting ripped off. There is a conversion rate - but it’s low enough where clearly they believe the market will bear more abuse.