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#enshittification

86 posts80 participants8 posts today

Another example of legacy #media circling the drain, not unlike certain small college faculty telling their students to use #AI to find sources, summarize text, etc., you know, skills you are supposed to learn, just let the machine do them for you...poorly.

> New York Times Encourages Staff to Create Headlines Using AI futurism.com/new-york-times-ai

Futurism · New York Times Encourages Staff to Create Headlines Using AIBy Noor Al-Sibai

You've probably heard of it by now: Amazon will prevent downloading your ebooks via USB transfer for offline use in 7 days (Febr. 26th). This handy browser skript will help you download your library in batches of 25 at a time instead of having to manually click and download _every_single_ ebook. You don't need any programming knowledge, just this script by Chris Hollindale (not me) and the browser extension Tampermonkey.

github.com/chrishol/greasemonk

Firefox addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firef
Chrome chromewebstore.google.com/deta

But why should you download your ebooks to your own computer? Many people bought a Kindle to read books offline in the first place. Or you use Linux and can't or don't want to "just use the Kindle app". Or your Kindle is old and doesn't have Wifi. Or you may want to use a Kobo or another reader in the future. And last but not least - Amazon has removed ebooks from users Kindle devices in the past (including a version of Orwell's 1984 - of all books 🙄 ).

Replied in thread

@thom @EUCommission

Yes, and they have chosen the worst possible name for it, which became a hype too, everyone mindlessly doing #DigitalTransformation.

These two words convey exactly what we do *not* want or need. Please give us technology that supports people in their daily lives and not stuff where they have to 'digitally transform' (because that is what it boils down to).

Digital transformation is mostly pure cost-cutting, and civilians notice it in the form of pure #Enshittification.

Was going to book a local motel room because my rewards run out tomorrow, but it would still have cost me about $24 (plus tip) and I'm just not in the headspace to pack up and go across town for one night as much as I'd enjoy more and cleaner space than I have in the trailer. Unless my neighbors start triggering me in some way.

I hate rewards that expire. It is actually the last I'll use that platform because the only thing keeping me there was the rewards. #Enshittification

I'll never get Reddit's hype. I closed my account ages ago, never looked back. DNGAF when it was free, sure as fuck ain't going to give a shit if it is paywalled.

> Reddit will lock some content behind a paywall this year, CEO says arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/0

Ars Technica · Reddit will lock some content behind a paywall this year, CEO saysBy Scharon Harding

#Disney #advertising #enshittification

'On February 12, 2025, Disney sent an email to users of their online streaming services, announcing a newly updated "Subscriber Agreement." These changes — which affect not only Disney+ subscriptions, but also ESPN and Hulu — include a particularly curious linguistic interpretation of the words "advertising" and also "free."'

boingboing.net/2025/02/15/new-