[keiferski]

The argument is:

There is a phenomenon that is very clearly happening. Doctorow and others use a vulgar term to describe this phenomenon.

Because this vulgar term is used, it limits the ability of lawmakers, academics, and other "serious" people to care about, discuss, or pass laws that aim to address this phenomenon.

As an analogy: imagine if the concepts of inequality or social injustice were primarily described by a vulgar term. Instead of discussing, "democratic backsliding" or "failure of democracy" we said "democracy shit the bed." This would limit the range of the critique, which if one is interested in actually solving the issue, is an immensely impractical move.

[komali2]

I don't understand, Doctorow of course uses enshittification all the time but I've see "platform decay" used plenty of times as well. But also, plenty of "Serious" people seem to be discussing it

Financial Times: The enshittification of apps is real. But is it bad? https://www.ft.com/content/acaf3fb1-d971-48ad-8efb-c82787cdd...

Not in the title, but Warzel uses the term in his Atlantic article, "Streaming Has Reached Its Sad, Predictable Fate" https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2023/09/strea...

ABC Radio National interviewed Professor Inger Mewburn, Director of Researcher Development at the Australian National University, and titled the interview "'Enshittification' and social media for academics" https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/saturdayextra/enshitt...

Bonus: The Italians are using the term. "Anche TikTok sta andando in malora (il fenomeno dell'enshitting)" https://www.repubblica.it/tecnologia/blog/stazione-futuro/20...

So I guess I'm just not seeing how this is limiting anyone's abilities in any way.

[keiferski]

These are individual media articles, not laws, not academic papers, not think tank reports, or anything that has actual legislative influence. Note that I wrote:

> it limits the ability of lawmakers, academics, and other "serious" people to care about, discuss, or pass laws that aim to address this phenomenon.

Now, to be fair, I don't think the word is going to sink the whole attempt. But I think it's just juvenile and unhelpful. Why pick a word that is deliberately impractical, and then critique anyone that says, "I agree with your ideas, but maybe pick a more political-friendly name, so it's easier to do something about it?"

[ikr678]

There is a whole branch of policy that generally covers enshittification, it's just not called that. Consumer Protection (laws, agency and enforcement) are the answer.