As Internet enshittification marches on, here are some of the worst offenders
Ars staffers take aim at some of the web’s worst predatory practices.
Bad article. Weak, had a chance to put actual offenders on blast with their platform but just softballs it with “general concepts” they feel are shitty. Aside from google stuff like search that is the most softball answer. And more likely google isn’t one of their advertisers
Even the part about Google Search only highlights the AI crap and skips over the real problem of increasingly worse search results. The whole article is more of a rant from a user's perspective and there aren't any real insights.
Another space where they avoid offending advertisers, who are the real thing that ruined google search (along with seo bullshit).
Like if the only change to google search was the ai blurb I don’t think people would care nearly as much. They care because the actual results are heavily weighted to be sponsored results above all else for the entire first page, and the second page is designed to redirect you to images or other things that push you to start a new search (thus seeing new sponsored results). What you wanted to find is meaningless, it’s solely about shoveling products and services down your fucking throat
Ars itself has become pretty enshittified. It doesn't hold a candle when compared to itself 10 years ago. Also, they mentioned Doctorow several times but apparently they couldn't be arsed to put even a single link to his blog... why?
They fear Cory, as should they all.
this list is more concepts then actual enshittification. No YouTube, no reference to Google searches less helpful results. No reference to ad overload plaguing more services. No reference to crappy TOS's with artibution clauses. It's just using an excuse to say AI bad and rehash concepts learned back in 2015 with the drive to drop cable.
About the PDF chapter: you (and the publishers) use it wrong. PDF was never intended for processing, only for representation; think of it as a digital print. Scientific stuff should be published in an e-book format instead.
I'll put an offender on blast: Max.
A couple of months ago I subscribed to the highest tier, ad-free plan. Around a week into it, we started getting ads for different kinds of sports shows, interrupting the shows and movies at random spots just like traditional ads on television.
First thing first: Back in the days when we rode our Dimetrodons to school both ways uphill in fallen volcanic ash, we called it Cinemax and HBO was separate. And neither one of them had ads show up in the middle of their content because they were premium channels.
Second thing second: When I contacted customer service about it, they actually had the audacity to tell me that those aren't ads, they are previews for other content offered in their service.
So to me, whether it is a bug in their system or the definition of ad has changed in the ensuing millennia since I first learned its meaning, the fact that there are even ads in premium media services like these is a prime example of enshittification to me.
Ads on a service I directly paid for was the line for me as well. I have no tolerance for that nonsense and it boggles my mind that anyone else does either.
If even a tenth of the subscriber base for any of these services cancelled because of ads they'd be gone so fast you'd get whiplash, and yet most people just put up with it.
wrecks the thing I care most about: copying and pasting details that I need to write articles. Instead, I often get garbled, shortened pieces of other parts of the document intermingled with the text I want—assuming I can even select it in the first place.
There are two things doing this: PDF optimisation and document obfuscation.
The Optimisation thing is something I've seen with many Asian PDFs. If they want to use a non-standard font, and want the document to actually use it, they have to embed it into the PDF, potentially blowing it up size-wise. In comes the optimiser: It looks which of the thousands of glyphs of that Asian language are actually used in that document, and creates a new font with only those glyphs. This font has a totally different numbering scheme from the original font, so it also replaces the numbers in the document that represent those glyphs. Result: A much smaller PDF. It looks the same, it prints the same. You can still "copy" the characters, but as their only meaning is related to the internal representation of the font, you cannot past them into e.g. Google Translate. It's just gibberish.
Example: The text is "Jack and Jill", and the numbers in the document representing those characters would be ASCII/UNICODE: 74 97 99 107 32 97 110 100 32 74 105 108 108 (74 being 'J', 97 being 'a', etc.). This is standard and works basically everywhere. The optimizer sees the letters " Jacdikln" (sorted) and assigns them numbers starting with e.g. 0 for " " (space), 1 for "J", etc. The images for all other characters are thrown away, as they are not needed. The internal numbers for the text are now 1 2 3 6 0 2 8 4 0 1 5 7 7, which are not standard ASCII/UNICODE, and copying them to another application would just result in problems.
The Obfuscation is often done by putting additional text in the background color behind the main text. You cannot see it, it does not show up in prints, but when you select a piece of text, it gets copied along, if you like it or not.
So you see "Jack and Jill" in black, but behind it is "went up the hill" in white, and you copy something like "Jacwentk upandth hiell".
90% of the offenders belong to Google & Co. So maybe its time to ditch big tech and choose better alternatives / go open source.
AT enshittified themselves over the last couple of years. Used to be great source.
Checks list... Youtube?
No. So not a serious list then...
While right on a lot of things, how was windows not shitty from the beginning?
I don't know if that has been enshittified or was has always been shit in the first place but:
Annotation Apps
Seriously, how hard is it to make an app that let's me make markups, use a stylus, and share that across devices.
Exhibit A: Xodo
It was once free, with all the good features, but then they took those features away and implemented a subscription model.
Exhibit B: Drawboard PDF
Once, came free with a Surface Pro or was a buy once use forever software, until Microsoft took a away all the bought licenses and locked most features behind a paid subscribtion.
Exhibit C: Saber
Its free. It doesn't use Windows Ink. Why even bother?
Exhibit D: Adobe Acrobat Reader
Hahahahahahaahahaaaaaaaaaaahaaaa Wheeze hahahhhahaahahahaaaaa
Exhibit E: Microsoft One Note
Aneurism Simulator. You know how printing things suck because printers never play along? Microsoft decided to solve this problem by making printing out One Note sheets properly almost impossible on the software level. Also it can't open PDFs properly or have normal A-Format pages. Either infinite drawing space or nothing.
Exhibit F: Samsung Notes
Actually decent. Free. Android Only. But at least it keeps the annotations separated from the PDF so you can still edit them after transfer. Good choice.
Arse Technica is the prime example of enshittification
I don't get it, why you're being downvoted for saying something true? Ars was much better years ago