I agree that enshittification is a, well, shitty term, but I know obly it to describe the problem at hand.
Alternstives I think of are walled gardens, collapse of the internet as we know it, lockdown of social media sites, etc. - none of them all that simple and miss the point enshittification has.
Decay is a natural process however that just happens if you don’t stop it. I still think ‘enshittification’ fits it best because it implies a bit of intentionality on the part of the shittifiers.
The term is sticky (ewww) and I think we are stuck with it.
The real problem with YouTube is the censorship, both of creators and commenters, when they aren’t saying anything offensive or problematic but simply referencing different companies, corporations, governments, countries or industries.
I’m in favor of censorship in some cases - which is why it really takes an insane amount of ridiculous nonsensical censorship that actually hinders constructive online communication for me to be saying there’s a problem with censorship. I thought I’d never say there was a censorship problem, but there really is now, although it seems mostly restricted to YouTube. Elon Musk’s Twitter has some stupid censorship too, though. It takes away accountability when things can’t even be criticised anymore, and misinformation/disinformation is allowed but can’t be corrected, for example.
I’m actually glad for it. It made me switch to Linux, discover Mullvad Browser and their VPN combo, get a GrapheneOS phone, find an amazing Freetube YT desktop client, and dabble with Home Assistant and PIHole. Plus I migrated to Protonmail and Kagi as my search, and Lemmy instead of reddit is also an amazing change, the discussions I’ve seen so far feel better and more in depth, and I’m enjoying my time here so far. The lack of endless content is also great, to help with implementing Digital Minimalism.
So, while I hate any large corporation and their greed with more and more passion, it has lead me to a nice privacy journey, for which I’m glad.
I almost did the same, just my phone is not a pixel, so i had to resort to some other custom ROM. And I still just use good ol’ firefox with proton VPN most of the time.
P.S. I also blocked our TV from accessing the internet as well. Ex. Codeberg is a GitHub replacement, and on mobile Grayjay/LibreTube works great for youtube.
Looked into Kagi. Seems interesting. Personally, I use either Brave search or Searx. There’s was post over at Linux@lemmy.ml about open source alternatives to ChatGPT and I might look into those. But I definitely keep Kagi in mind. By the way, How good is Kagi for,um… “sailing the high seas”?
What I don’t get is how most places, people get mad at us for not being able to read an article due to the paywall. I mean, I’m not going to subscribe to 50 shitty news sites just so I can read someone’s damn random shit.
This is my biggest gripe with lemmy. A MASSIVE amount of links I try to follow is just paywalls or so damn bloated with garbage it isn’t worth the effort
If you’re using Safari on macOS or iOS, download Vinegar for YouTube (and Baking Soda for other websites). It switches videos to the native player and skips ads (and autoplay). It also sets the quality to whatever you prefer (Best, in my case). Makes mobile YouTube so much better.
Capitalism does this to itself due to the profit motive. Where once is innovation and brand new disruption becomes petty iteration as this new frontier slowly but surely becomes a well-oiled profit machine. The upside is that FOSS makes replacing this profit-generating soul-sucking bloatware with better alternatives very easy.
Replacing the existing infrastructure of Capitalism by building up parallel structures is a valid means of weakening Capital itself.
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