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by stavros 750 days ago
"Enshittification" originally had a very specific definition:

> First, they are good to their users; then they abuse their users to make things better for their business customers; finally, they abuse those business customers to claw back all the value for themselves. Then, they die.

Nowadays it's just used as a catch-all for "made worse".

1 comments

Etsy fits Cory's original definition to a tee though.
Maybe, I'm not too familiar with their story. Who were the business users on Etsy?
- The users were the original arty-crafty people selling actually handmade products

- Businesses come in to exploit the users by flipping AliExpress crap at 10x margins, Etsy does nothing to stop this because $$$

- Etsy realizes they could make even more money off businesses by eg forcing them to buy ads from Etsy once their income exceeds $10k

- Now both users and businesses are pissed off and Etsy has entered a death spiral

The sellers. Doctorow's original article uses Amazon as an example; you could fit Etsy into the same framing.
Please point me to the part where it talks about Etsy putting the users first, then the sellers, then Etsy itself.