Digital products and services keep getting worse. In the new report Breaking Free: Pathways to a fair technological future, the Norwegian Consumer Council has delved into enshittification and how to resist it. The report shows how this phenomenon affects both consumers and society at large, but that it is possible to turn the tide.
The Ensh*ttificator (the video on Vimeo)
A Day in the Life of an Ensh*ttificator (the video on Youtube)
Read more on:
Breaking Free
Transcript:
You can call me a s*it maker. My job is to make things s*itty. The official title is I'm ens*ittificator. Um, what I do is, I take things that are perfectly fine and I make them worse. More specifically, I make it s*itty.
I come from a long line of people making things s*itty. Uh, my father was an ens*ittificator, his father before him and his father before him. So, yeah, it's a proud tradition in our family, making things s*itty.
But it is hard work, and it's not very cost-efficient to do it like this. I can only be in so many places at one time.
So I, I needed a way to, to scale up the business without working myself to death and just when I needed it, the solution lands right in my lap.
Enter the internet. All of a sudden I didn't have to move around to make things s*itty. I could just stay in one place and make things s*itty for way more people at the same time.
And that's when things really started to move. Got a favorite website? Let's fill it with pop-ups. Preferably scam. Enjoying a video? “Oopsie! Ad break!” Oh, you bought an expensive phone? Great! Here's an update to make it s*itty. Let's say you have a thousand pictures of your deceased mother. Oh, so sad. What do I do? I make you pay for it. The memories may be yours, but the photos, they're mine.
So, it's very important: it needs to be nice at first, but then... “Yes, Yes! What do you say? Okay. Woo! That's what I'm talking about. Woohoo! Finally! Make it s*itty!”
You're not happy with the way something you really liked turned s*itty, what do you do? Contact customer service. Here, talk to completely useless chatbot. No human available. Here's my favourite part.
Let's say someone starts an alternative service. What do we do? We buy them.
“Make people dependent enough, and then... Make it s*itty!!“
“You: sell me a car!“ “Uh, well, it's, uh, great...“ “Sold! I'll buy your car. Now what? I don't have any more money. You have me in the palm of your hand. You can crush me. So what do you do? Updates. Radio? Premium feature. Heating? Premium feature. Now I have a s*itty car and I can't afford a new one, but what I can afford, it's a small monthly payment!! Make it s*itty!!“
The future? The future is looking bright. (Speeding car speaking to driver:) “Breaking is now a premium feature. Please enter your credit card details.” (Crashing sound...)
Text on screen:
It's not just your imagination.
Digital services are getting worse.
Luckily, it doesn't have to be this way.
Read more about enshittification on:
https://www.forbrukerradet.no/breakingfree