That chart of Net Approval coincides with roughly the time that the NYTimes decided to change how it reported on tech:
> Instead of covering [tech] with a business‑press or consumer lens, they shifted to a very tough investigative lens — highly oppositional at all times and occasionally unfair … This was a very deliberate top‑down decision.
(Per Matt Yglesias - former journalist at NYT)
Even outlets like Wired which literally started as industry mouthpieces followed suit at almost exactly this time period. It's also roughly this time where Google went from beloved and open to distrusted and defensive.
It could be a lot of what kicked off enshittification of tech was largely a change in perception. Eating from the tree of knowledge - and now we must all wear clothes.
davidw · 2d ago
Nitpick: Yglesias has never worked as a journalist at the NYT as far as I can tell.
Did the shift occur as the result of tech companies and people accumulating a lot of power and maybe needing more investigation? Outfits like Amazon, Meta, the M*k companies... are very influential at this point.
PaulHoule · 2d ago
There has been a long term axis of conflict between Google and Facebook and news publishers over commercial interests that must play into this.
duxup · 2d ago
I feel like user behavior, right or wrong, really encourages this cycle.
We want free stuff, generally users don't pay up front. So the model is to lose money (nobody is paying) to gain users and then figure out how to make money. The path to making money is often the same, user data, advertising... user behavior really doesn't change that.
I wish I knew what could break the cycle. I also wish we as users didn't feed it.
> Twitter is a somewhat different story, but this post is about enshittification, not Nazification.
> Instead of covering [tech] with a business‑press or consumer lens, they shifted to a very tough investigative lens — highly oppositional at all times and occasionally unfair … This was a very deliberate top‑down decision.
(Per Matt Yglesias - former journalist at NYT)
Even outlets like Wired which literally started as industry mouthpieces followed suit at almost exactly this time period. It's also roughly this time where Google went from beloved and open to distrusted and defensive.
It could be a lot of what kicked off enshittification of tech was largely a change in perception. Eating from the tree of knowledge - and now we must all wear clothes.
Did the shift occur as the result of tech companies and people accumulating a lot of power and maybe needing more investigation? Outfits like Amazon, Meta, the M*k companies... are very influential at this point.
We want free stuff, generally users don't pay up front. So the model is to lose money (nobody is paying) to gain users and then figure out how to make money. The path to making money is often the same, user data, advertising... user behavior really doesn't change that.
I wish I knew what could break the cycle. I also wish we as users didn't feed it.
> Twitter is a somewhat different story, but this post is about enshittification, not Nazification.
Brutal.