Josh

This is enshittification: Surpluses are first directed to users; then, once they're locked in, surpluses go to suppliers; then once they're locked in, the surplus is handed to shareholders and the platform becomes a useless pile of shit. From mobile app stores to Steam, from Facebook to Twitter, this is the enshittification lifecycle.

"For legends attract the very best in our times, just as ideologies attract the average, and the whispered tales of gruesome secret powers behind the scenes attract the very worst." (Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism)

The less time you spend thinking about or reading about or reacting to or writing about what anyone else is doing, the more time and positive energy you have to make your product the absolute best.

Which is how you will win.

“I know this” is a life on pause. “I don’t know this” is where the future lies.

In that earlier era, when we still drank from garden hoses, losing a job sucked, but it mostly didn’t take your community with it. In this new era, losing a job means getting gutted. Not only do you lose your paycheck, but you lose access to all the people and places where you used to have your non-work-but-actually-at-work fun.