I know Cory Doctorow coined the term “enshittification” to refer to a specific dynamic with social media, but what he described is really just a particular example of a more fundamental process that happens to virtually all notably successful companies. And this is a prime example of it.
In the beginning, the company gains success by offering a quality product that people want at a reasonable price. They actually provide a product or service the people want at terms with which they’ll agree, and thereby succeed, and that’s where the focus is.
But along the way, they pick up a layer of essentially parasitic executives and shareholders who are paid obscene amounts of money mostly just for having achieved their positions. They bring little if anything of value to the company - they just funnel enormous sums of money into their own and each other’s pockets.
And then the focus changes. It goes from winning customers through offering the best possible service or product at the best possible price to maximizing revenue with which to pay grotesquely inflated salaries and dividends to a relative few by offering the shittiest possible service or product at the highest possible price, and counting on market share, lack of competition, name recognition and inertia to keep the company going in spite of the fact that it’s now… enshittified.
And that’s what we’re seeing at Spotify right now.
This isn’t a “tech” issue. This is what happens without competition. Notice how in areas without many coffee shops, the few that exist get away with serving crappy coffee? But if there’s a lot of coffee shops the quality increases?
This is a fundamental part of economics. More choices result in better quality because of competition. Of course this relies on many things: being able to switch easily, customers understanding the product, etc. Literally every other industry wants to consolidate and avoid competition but it’s only possible in some of them.
I know Cory Doctorow coined the term “enshittification” to refer to a specific dynamic with social media, but what he described is really just a particular example of a more fundamental process that happens to virtually all notably successful companies. And this is a prime example of it.
In the beginning, the company gains success by offering a quality product that people want at a reasonable price. They actually provide a product or service the people want at terms with which they’ll agree, and thereby succeed, and that’s where the focus is.
But along the way, they pick up a layer of essentially parasitic executives and shareholders who are paid obscene amounts of money mostly just for having achieved their positions. They bring little if anything of value to the company - they just funnel enormous sums of money into their own and each other’s pockets.
And then the focus changes. It goes from winning customers through offering the best possible service or product at the best possible price to maximizing revenue with which to pay grotesquely inflated salaries and dividends to a relative few by offering the shittiest possible service or product at the highest possible price, and counting on market share, lack of competition, name recognition and inertia to keep the company going in spite of the fact that it’s now… enshittified.
And that’s what we’re seeing at Spotify right now.
See also : Uber, Airbnb, Netflix, Google…
This isn’t a “tech” issue. This is what happens without competition. Notice how in areas without many coffee shops, the few that exist get away with serving crappy coffee? But if there’s a lot of coffee shops the quality increases?
This is a fundamental part of economics. More choices result in better quality because of competition. Of course this relies on many things: being able to switch easily, customers understanding the product, etc. Literally every other industry wants to consolidate and avoid competition but it’s only possible in some of them.