this post was submitted on 12 Jun 2024
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Enshittification
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What is enshittification?
The phenomenon of online platforms gradually degrading the quality of their services, often by promoting advertisements and sponsored content, in order to increase profits. (Cory Doctorow, 2022, extracted from Wikitionary) source
The lifecycle of Big Internet
We discuss how predatory big tech platforms live and die by luring people in and then decaying for profit.
Embrace, extend and extinguish
We also discuss how naturally open technologies like the Fediverse can be susceptible to corporate takeovers, rugpulls and subsequent enshittification.
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What you’re saying is valid in a model where the server hosts content and provides it on demand, and that’s not what I was describing.
Here’s the model I had in my head, but I am not sure if anyone has attempted this yet:
1..user uploads a video which borrows resources from p2p network
2..the shared burden is shifted around as nodes become active or inactive
3..content is always available in asynchronous, on demand fashion
I don’t work in distributed and networked systems, so I don’t expect the above model to strictly be based in reality, but it’s not that fanciful based on the wiki article I shared
I guess it’s a fair point that users maybe don’t want to be responsible for the burden. In which case, I guess why complain about ads then 🤷♀️
You are kinda describing "maidsafe"
But maidsafe isn't fully free, you technically pay access by sharing/lending hardware to the network
Cool, so I don’t understand why it has to be fully free. I think people should be comfortable taking control of their technologies otherwise they should be okay with getting what they get from the service providers
I totally agree with you, I'm happy to pay when the service is good. I was only mentioning it wasn't fully free because I know some care about that.
You're right that this is possible. But the speed and quality are going to decline considerably under this model, particularly across distant regions.
Because the average internet user (and many FOSS users, sadly) have gotten into the mindset that they deserve everything for free, the way they want it.
(For those taking offense to the bit about freeloading FOSS users, I refer you to the FOSS dev burnout trend we were discussing a month ago)