submitted 1 month ago by 5dh@lemmy.zip to c/enshittification@lemmy.world

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Do you think Lemmy and other parts of the fediverse will eventually enshittify? I think this would be an interesting discussion to have. There currently is not financial incentive like the ones that have led centralized platforms to enshittify. But there might be in the future. Does decentralization protect against that tendency in some way?

Lemmy and Mastodon do give me the hope, that when one platform turns to shit, there will be people creating a platform that - for the time being - is not.

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[-] beliquititious@lemmy.blahaj.zone 8 points 1 month ago

It depends on how things go with Threads and BlueSky. If either one were to gain a significant market share of the fediverse they could capture the ActivityPub protocol and add poisonous elements to it and require anyone federating to comply.

Under normal circumstances, a fediverser could switch instances, but that entirely depends on the platform continuing to allow users to export their accounts. Unless servers stop costing money, it's only a matter of time before the fediverse is polluted and fractured.

this post was submitted on 07 Oct 2024

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Enshittification

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What is enshittification?

The phenomenon of online platforms gradually degrading the quality of their services, often by promoting advertisements and sponsored content, in order to increase profits. (Cory Doctorow, 2022, extracted from Wikitionary) source

The lifecycle of Big Internet

We discuss how predatory big tech platforms live and die by luring people in and then decaying for profit.

Embrace, extend and extinguish

We also discuss how naturally open technologies like the Fediverse can be susceptible to corporate takeovers, rugpulls and subsequent enshittification.

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