Everyone now sees the rot economy—and we’re beginning to understand what’s behind it
<p>Again, things I’ve been pointing out for over a decade—heck, even over two decades, if you consider early concerns I had over Yahoo!—are now mainstream thought.</p>
<p class="para"><a href="https://www.wheresyoured.at/what-were-fighting-for/">Ed Zitron’s latest newsletter</a> begins: </p>
<blockquote><p>A great deal of what I write feels like narrating the end of the world—watching as the growth-at-all-costs, hyper-financialized <a href="https://www.wheresyoured.at/r/6e7cd07d?m=5a4323f6-9413-4762-ba64-cdcc59ebfab6">Rot Economy</a> seemingly tarnishes every corner of our digital lives. My core frustration isn’t just how <em>shitty</em> things have gotten, but how said shittiness has become so profitable for so many companies.</p></blockquote>
<p class="para">Ed talks about the terrible software and websites that we now live with: </p>
<blockquote><p>product decisions are now driven, in many cases, by companies trying to make you do something rather than do something for you</p></blockquote>
<p>and:</p>
<blockquote><p>We live in a constant state of digital micro-aggressions, and as I wrote last year, it’s <em>everywhere</em></p></blockquote>
<p class="para">And like me, Ed has to defend himself by saying he doesn’t hate tech, but he knows that it could be, and could have been, so much better.</p>
<p class="para">Like me, he remembers the days of actual progress brought about by technology, not tech that attempts to milk users at every turn.</p>
<p class="para">Head over to his newsletter, <em><a href="https://www.wheresyoured.at/?ref=ed-zitrons-wheres-your-ed-at-newsletter">Where’s Your Ed at</a></em>. I’m relieved that there are others who see what I’ve been seeing for a long, long time. I wonder if those who criticized me for it, gaslighting me by saying that no one else experienced what I so frequently observed, now accept the truth, or do they still love <a href="https://lucire.biz/product/nineteen-eighty-four/">Big Brother</a>? Or have they simply conveniently forgotten their subservience?<br/>
<br/>
What’s the bigger picture here? Read <a href="https://www.notesfromthecircus.com/p/the-plot-against-america">‘The plot against America’ by Mike Brock in <em>Notes from the Circus</em></a>. It might not be that hard to draw parallels between certain things happening in the US and 1930s Germany, but the forces have been at play for a long time, and those forces differ. Then tell me that a lot of the people dismantling democratic systems aren’t wedded to some form of this techno-determinism. Brock labels it <em>epistemic authoritarianism</em>. And when I say that technology is here to serve us, it runs completely counter to the beliefs of this movement.</p>
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In my blog
Everyone now sees the rot economy—and we're beginning to understand what's behind it
jackyan.com/blog/2025/02/everyone-no... #enshittification #RotEconomy #BigTech #technodeterminism
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