You don’t even need bribery. You can just throw money at something and make things happen.
If you think something is true, you can pay the world to prioritize things as if it were true.
If you think vaccines cause autism and you are rich, you can create massive “education” campaigns and the like to convince people its true. You can buy ads telling people its true. You can amass an enormous following of people who believe you and change policy without bribery.
the same process
It doesn’t necessarily involve the middle man, who is ultimately the bigger fish that enshittifiers are looking to land. I think that’s relevant. Enshittification’s process involves capturing both a “retail” user base and a business user base and then squeezing both.
Edit. Enshittification is layered and more specific to industries and markets that are not inherently profitable. It starts with seed money being burned for that initial user base and fucks over everyone up and down the chain because the business is not really profitable otherwise. Skimp/shrinkflation is more about squeezing more profit than you are already making.
I’ve see it used a lot recently to describe the general degradation of quality in service of increasing profits. I think technically, it is not enshittification. Below is my general definition of the process enshittification describes. Repost from another comment.
A word that includes the word “shit” in it has a very nice ring to it when describing things getting generally shittier in favor of profit. I suppose language can evolve rapidly and things mean what people believe them to mean.
Edit: As per Wikipedia’s Shrinkflation Entry:
Skimpflation involves a reformulation or other reduction in quality.
I see skimpflation as a form of shrinkflation. The idea is still that the price stays the same but to try and hide the cost increase from the customer they give you less. I guess fewer strawberries per “smoothie” is even more subtle than fewer ounces of the original “smoothie” formula per bottle.
To be a pedantic asshole, technically enshittification is meant to refer to online services that follow an inevitable process of…
Admittedly, I see enshittification used colloquially meaning basically “business found a way to fuck over its customers more than usual to increase their profit”. Perhaps that is what you mean by “General enshittification”.
Why do ordinary people seem so unprotected against these shady practices
Assuming you are in the USA, it’s fundamentally because our politics is fueled by private money. The “haves” spend lots of money to make rules that protect and enrich themselves at the expense of the “have nots”. The rich get richer, and the rest of us get a larger share of the burden.
The rich then spend more of their money convincing everyone else that some minority group of their fellow “have nots” are to blame and let us fight amongst ourselves. They starve us but leave us with just enough left to lose so that the price of doing something about it is too high (quitting, losing health insurance, getting arrested at a protest, etc) for most of us to bear.
how can we change this?
Get money out of politics. Get the public to stop blaming their fellow have nots and demand change from the haves.
How does one person even start to address these issues?
Have empathy for and help your neighbors if you can, especially when they take the risks required to push for actual change. Talk to people. Organize. Support/start unions or a mutual aid organization. Go to local government meetings and make your voice heard. Run for local office.
Its easy for a small group of wealthy organizations to tilt specific elections or politics in their favor. It’s much harder them to do that in 1,000+ small communities across the nation.
Fundraisers and charities, when you have a lot money, are rarely acts of charity. They tend to be PR campaigns and power plays.
Honestly, even when the acts have good intentions, they are often quite damaging. The involvement of the wealthy in charity is very similar to their involvement in politics. Their wealth buys influence and gives them a disproportionate say that allows them to ignore and overrule the will of the people and sometimes even reality.
For example, look into the impact of Bill Gates’s “acts of charity” in the education space. He poured money into charter programs that negatively impacted public education. Later studies showed that his programs were not particularly effective.
Let’s say, hypothetically, that a very rich person is convinced by some charlatan that they found the a means to produce free energy. The wealthy person throws tons of money at the idea. How many talented people will be taken from other legit programs because the paycheck at Bullshit Energy Nonprofit is better? These rich people are successful and think they know bestr. Their money ensures they get treated like experts because money makes things happen whether or not those things are helpful.
In the US, conservative lawmakers have been waging a quiet war against our postal system for a while now.
Highlights: They forced it to be self-sustaining (cut federal funding), then when that didn’t kill it they forced it to, in a very short time frame, pre-fund retirement benefits ahead of time for all current and former employees.
The postal system is more or less dependent on the funds it gets from spam mailers.
Edit: To clarify, I’m not insinuating that the bulk/majority of its income is from junk mail, I’m just stating that its not nothing, so they don’t really have an incentive to kill that source if revenue.
Market socialism can be distinguished from the concept of the mixed economy because most models of market socialism propose complete and self-regulating systems, unlike the mixed economy. While social democracy aims to achieve greater economic stability and equality through policy measures such as taxes, subsidies, and social welfare programs, market socialism aims to achieve similar goals through changing patterns of enterprise ownership and management.
I mind if you are simultaneously linking to a Wikipedia article defining it as being completely self regulated, lacking any form of social welfare.
Capitalism’s problem is that, ultimately, it’s “compete” or die because you need to work to afford to live. I’m not necessarily advocating for the nationalization of all industries or a command economy. There can be competition, but the playing field needs to be leveled first. Workers owning the enterprise as a collective is a step in the right direction but that still leaves the door open for “B2B” exploitation when an enterprise’s failure can mean its workers now cannot afford to live.
A theory to use as a standard for regulation assuming you are restrained to a capitalist system, maybe.
But it is a system that can be maintained with appropriate regulation.
The nature of Capitalism requires that some have while others have not. Many of those among the capitalist class will use the full force of their power to obstruct and corrupt regulation, find loopholes, and obtain more power. Regulatory capture, pivoting to the bleeding edge of industry where nobody knows how to regulate yet (financial derivatives, crypto, AI), or just leading a coup - they’ll find a way.
The only way is something that resembles socialism, but you can call it “appropriate regulation” if it makes you feel better. Sure, competition has its place… but it doesn’t belong anywhere near basic human needs.
I think perfect competition is impossible. The incentive is not to compete fairly, it’s to maximize profits and the most effective ways to maximize profits are anticompetitive, exploitative, or both. Anyone arguing for a society built around such a system is either naive or trying to buy more time with false hopes.
Virtually every condition in the ideal scenario is a barrier for profit, and I don’t think any civilization has managed even a single one of those conditions. There will always be actors looking to take advantage of any loopholes or create unregulated markets.
It’s just not a system that is sustainable. The incentives are simply wrong and the society built around those incentives can’t maintain a system of perfect conditions even if one were to exist.
Demonstrating the inherent contradiction of capitalism in practice.
Capitalism is allegedly the only fair way to price things, via the “Price Mechanism”. However, capitalists have simultaneously been creaming their pants at the idea of charging specific people or people in specific situations more, because they can get more profit, in service of Profit Maximization.
I’m sure I’ll get a lecture on how they are not at all mutually exclusive but I don’t care, honestly. It’s either going to price gouge when the customer is perceived to be in more need (low battery pricing for taxi apps) or have a price based on the customer’s ability to pay… at which point why not socialism?
Essentially, the capitalist will support what is best for themselves and make up reasons why it theoretically might benefit consumers (but not really).
I think what people are feeling is what has been often described as enshitification. The definition of that term as given by its creator doesn’t match the context in which I see it increasingly used. However, I think that the phenomenon that people often use it to describe is what is killing consumer confidence.
If the economy is actually serving consumers, then those at the top are making less profits. This is unacceptable. They have to keep making money. They have to keep increasing how much money they make. They have to keep increasing the rate at which they increase the money they make. If they’re not, then they are stagnating according to investors. This is incompatible with the survival of normal people. Growth cannot be infinite.
So the companies consolidate and find corners to cut and we absolutely feel it even if it doesn’t show in the numbers. They find new and creative ways to create “shrinkflation”. They don’t have to literally shrink the product - that’s too obvious. They can instead alter the formula, find cheaper low quality components, squeeze their workers harder or outsource labor, stand behind their products just a little less by updating wording to sound the same but technically promise less, add a little friction to their warranty process, hedge against inevitable future failure with no class action clauses or forced arbitration in their terms…
It feels like every company is doing something like that these days… and if they aren’t, they are being abused or bought by a company that is.
How can confidence then not be down?
In maybe third grade I brought my collection of x-men trading cards as part of a sort of show and tell activity. It was in a sizable three-ring binder with those 3x3 slot cars sheets. I had a number of highly valued “foil/hologram” cards. The binder was gone when I got back from lunch. I was devastated and learned to never leave anything of value not locked up if I’m not watching it.
At work we have a kitchen/break room. I’ve had shit stolen from there a lot. Utensils, cups, bowls. Wash it after lunch, put it in the drying rack, come back in an hour to get it and it’s gone. Once my department had a leftover pizza from an event donated to us. I brought in a baking sheet to reheat it in the oven for a lunch morale boost for the team because we had to work that weekend. The sheet, left in a drawer and not visible to any casual observers, was gone by Monday. That was actually the first item I’d had stolen there but I thought I was just s fluke.
I’ve literally bought upgrades and utensil sets for the kitchen (maybe people “stealing” my utensils just forgot to bring a fork, borrowed mine, and brought it home by accident?). Stuff like drying towels, soap dispensers + large refill bottles, a microwave food cover… all stolen. I’d keep getting frustrated with, for example, people leaving the sponge wet in the sink. I’d think “its been a year since I last donated something, maybe it’ll be different this time…” and I’d buy an OXO sponge holder or something and within a week it would be gone. Everyone in my office, including secretaries and cleaning staff, gets paid at least a living wage with great health benefits. Some make well over 100k. I just imagine someone making twice my salary seeing a nice soap dispenser and taking it home… lost a good bit of faith in humanity and affected me way more than it should have.
I found a solution though. Whoever was stealing this shit couldn’t deal with the shame of being reminded that they stole it. I started labeling the donated items using my organization’s acronym with a permanent marker in big visible letters. None of that’s been stolen. I was going to engrave my utensils/dishes but decided instead to look like an asshole and bring my own towel when washing my dishes, drying them immediately, and taking them back to my desk immediately.
That wasn’t my point. I was waiting for “guys with guns” so I could remark on the “very low levels of gun related crimes” statement.
I’m sorry - it was clear to me you were not voting Trump, not clear that the opinions afterward weren’t your own.
Some of those comments are very disheartening. Regarding the truckload of cats, I did explicitly mention that I expect the person making good money off of them isn’t cutting them out of vehicles themselves. I overheard someone at the local motorsport shop bragging about making bank off of what I later realized were stolen cats. He worded it like he was recycling car parts with valuable metals in them to make it sound legit but yeah… Rich toolbag. I guarantee that little shit isn’t the one crawling under cars. Too busy taking friends joyriding in rented exotic cars.
Regarding guns, I’m more inclined to support better background checks, buyback programs, severe consequences for illegally selling or insecurely storing your gun, and reasonable limits on things like quantity and type. Close to what you are talking about. The problem is there are soooo many out there that you need more guns to protect yourself from the people who already have guns. It’s going to be a long road if we ever get anything done about it.
Also, you can be a great target shooter until the target starts shooting back. Learned that’s true from playing paintball with only eye protection. When pain avoidance kicks in, aim goes out the window.
Also an argument that arming normal folks doesn’t necessarily protect them from other armed folks. Not exactly a paintball enthusiast but I’ve played “paint or pain” (you’re done when you run out of paint or give up from pain) with an ex marine and Jesus fucking Christ that dude scared me. He was like a goddamn terminator and I absolutely gave up before he did and I had cover.
I saw that Brazilian video when it made its rounds. I still think most of that comes from desperation of one kind or another. If everyone’s needs were met there would be much less of that.
I was actually going to make a joke that the same idiot who feels safe thinking he can take a bear with his rifle like he’s some kind of action hero is the same dipshit who contributes to accidental gun death statistics. Also, bear attacks are a little more frequent than mountain lion attacks… Which are incredibly rare. My primary points were that guns are needed to defend against guns and there is a ridiculous disconnect between “guns aren’t a problem 'round here” and “I need an AR to defend my home”. When any asshole can buy a trunk full of ARs at a gun show, there is likely going to be a problem wherever they take them.
Anyway, preaching to the choir I suppose.
I doubt you give a shit what I have to say, but the causes of the problems you see… I don’t think you’ve got that part quite right.
You are expected to defend yourselves for 20 minutes. I’m genuinely curious - what are you defending yourself from? How often is this defense required?
Defending your livestock - sure, I can see that. What kind of gun do you need to do that?
Bear and mountain lions. Do me a favor and look into how many people have been killed by bears and mountain lions in the US’s recorded history. Now look into how many people have been killed by gun violence in the US since… the beginning of July.
Yeah, you don’t have a gun violence problem… that’s why you need a high capacity magazine to defend your home while waiting 20 minutes for the cops to arrive. Better make sure all that firepower is available for you with no limits, checks, or balances. There is no way somebody else might have the same firepower and use it to attack your house, rob a store a few towns over, blow their girlfriend’s head off in a fit of paranoid jealousy, or take out their incel anger in the local synagogue or some bullshit.
You say you’ve seen more mountain lions than ever before. Do you think that, perhaps, loss of habitat due to development or changing climate might be contributing to that? Look into how the wild animal population has changed in the US in the last 50 years or so. When food is scarce, animals will relocate searching for food. Now consider whether Democrats or Republicans are in favor of regulating, limiting development, destruction of nature, and pollution that damages ecosystems and the climate.
We all see homelessness and the associated drug addiction when we go into town. Addiction that is supported by the Democrat’s free needle program. Homeless camps that, until this week, were supported by Democrats
Holy shit man. There is so much to unpack here. I guess if you are cool with thousands of people dying every year from gun violence just so that you can feel safer with easy access to guns why not completely ignore the needs of the unhoused and drug addicted humans in your local town.
Frankly, this sounds a bit like Trump according to his nephew. This is what he quotes Trump saying about his (the nephew’s) disabled kid.
"maybe those kinds of people should just die,” given “the shape they’re in, all the expenses.”
You think free needles is the problem? That they’ll just stop doing the drugs? Or, perhaps, that they will, in desperation share and reuse needles, putting themselves at risk for all sorts of nasty shit. Where will they go when they get an infection or HIV/AIDS? If they don’t die, they’ll go to your local hospital. Do you think they can pay their bills? Nope. Now the hospital is in the red and needs to charge your community more to recoup costs.
Now we could get these addicted folks some actual help, but that’s expensive. Instead, you should lock them up somewhere… somewhere that will pay their medical bills, feed, cloth, and house them, likely for a tidy profit so there will be a good amount of overhead… and who will pay for that? Someone else?
…and what is it you recommend we do with these people who have nowhere to live? We can’t help them find a place to live, that’s socialism. Republicans sure as hell aren’t going to vote for a tax increase to fund it. Hell, whatever funds were previously available were likely cut in order to give tax breaks to the rich folks who have been destroying the mountain lions habitat so much that they’ve moved onto your property. You know what, maybe just throw the unhoused in jail too… I’m sure that will cost less than actually helping them and at least they’ll be having an even shittier time. It’s important for them to suffer more.
This is 95% a poverty issue. Homelessness? Poverty. Drug addiction? Likely poverty. Shoplifting? Poverty. Stealing gas, catalytic converters? Poverty. Sure, I’m sure there are a few assholes getting rich off of it but I think you’ll find that the folks taking the risks and doing the actual deeds are more desperate than greedy.
Permit fees? I agree - those should cost less or be free, but that doesn’t remove the need for regulation. That’s just people not wanting to pay taxes. I’m sure if your neighbor rigs up some solar panels without the proper checks and starts a wildfire that spreads to your land you’d still blame the Democrats for letting it happen while you paid your fees. Most of these regulations are right up there with the ridiculous warning on products. You know some chucklefuck did some serious damage somewhere and now we have to get it all checked out by a pro before we can install things or some other chucklefuck will do it again. While I’m sure some corrupt officials treat it as a bribe but most of the time there is an inspection to make sure rules were followed for your safety and the safety of others. I think it should be free and paid for by taxes but I’m sure Republicans would throw a fit.
The transition from fossil fuels is a rough situation. The US is a BIG place and rural infrastructure is often overlooked. Do you know which party wants infrastructure built out to meet these needs? Not Republicans. Too expensive, need to cut the taxes for the rich.
This has been way too long but there is just so much in your post that simplifies shitty situations so that somehow it is the Democrats fault. Now maybe you have a corrupt corporate Democrat running things. If so, fuck them and vote them out. Just don’t pretend that this is what Democrats stand for.
[How] do you think Trump, with the powers newly granted to the office he’s again running for, will act in his second term?
There could have been better worlds
So… because Trump didn’t get unhinged to the point where he started a nuclear war, you aren’t worried.
How did you feel about refusing to concede in the 2020 election and creating uncertainty and doubt about the electoral process among a not insignificant minority of voters?
How about inciting an angry mob to interrupt the peaceful transfer of power on January 6th?
How did you feel about hoarding and hiding classified documents so that he could show them off to impress his friends and guests? Maybe even sell them if times are tough?
How about strong-arming the Republican party and installing his family to run it?
How do you feel about how his SCOTUS has changed the fundamentals of the US government?
The Chevron deference?
Bribery?
Presidential “immunity” for official acts?
How do you feel about the loss of the right to have an abortion?
Do you think Trump, with the powers newly granted to the office he’s again running for, will act in his second term? Where is your line?
I see. So what has happened over the last 8 years as a direct result of his election isn’t concerning to you?
The policies are extremely popular and universal. Doesn’t really matter in a politicalcampaign if you struggle to achieve those ends. Trying is important and failing gives you ammunition against those who oppose extremely popular policies for next campaign.
The bottom line is that the average person isn’t listening for anything besides “how is the candidate going to help me because I feel like I’m drowning”. The right scapegoats something and promises to fix your problems by hurting the scapegoat (immigrants, minorities, socialists, whatever). This is a lie, but it’s just as, if not more, direct of a solution so some voters will support them.
Harris had attention when she said things like stopping price gouging and providing in-home elder care. Those were extremely popular ideas that she didn’t focus on. Instead, she pivoted right.