F2F #70: Welcome to the era of (paid) enshittification

For a few years now, we have been mindlessly swallowing garbage and enduring changes on social media platforms, through thick and thin, with vague promises of finding diamonds in the rough. But, observing from the distance, we just look like starving boars stuffing our noses deeper and deeper in muddy pools of shit in hopes of finding a semi-rotten truffle to get through the day.

I came across the concept of enshittification many years back. Coined by Cory Doctorow, "enshittification" describes how platforms decay as they optimize for profit over users.

Enshittification sums up what I believe to be true about most aspects of everyday life: a general relaxation of quality standards and moral values because no one gives a fuck anymore. Everything is so vague, decoupled and ethereal that agency and ownership are just distant memories of golden days of yore. Everything is turning to shit slowly, too slow for us to notice the gradual change, until it smells bad. And now, everything smells really bad.

Everything is broken. Design doesn't mean anything anymore. Things neither work nor look great. And we're paying for it.

Sure, a few creators and opinion leaders still stand out... but they're exceptions swimming in a sludge of sameness. I'm seeing the same content being posted on LinkedIn in different languages, by people who claimed it's a personal story. They're posting the same content, word by word. No shame, no penalisation (yet).

I have been researching the latest changes on Twitter's algorithm. How come I had about 5-10 retweets per post and about 20 likes when I had 1000 followers, and now, with 6000 followers, I have zero interactions without being shadowbanned?

The reality is the following: Xitter now optimises for virality & video-first content. They've been pushing the "for you" very hard. You can have a million followers amassed through years of seeding and harvesting, with the best content possible, that your content is now buried under AI sludge and viral videos of dubious moral content. Jason Fried (Basecamp, 37Signals) describes it on this episode way better than I could, towards the end of the clip. His content doesn't appear on the feed of his own followers!

My own research led me to find that I can only grow my audience through posting garbage OR paying a subscription. In fact, the former isn't a guarantee to success, but the latter seems to have a great effect. Buffer published very interesting data here.

Similarly, I ran tests on YouTube, too, with my own podcasts. For five years, I've been trying to get them off the ground organically, but it's a real struggle. I've dumped 20-50 euros here and there and in just two days I've gotten impressive results: hundreds of subcribers to my channel in a few hours, dozens of thousands of views in just days, as opposed to a few hundred in months.

You can't win without paying anymore.

A few years ago, being edgy, creative, viral or outspoken would've gotten you far in terms of views and subscribers, because few people were paying. Only brands & companies afforded to pay for social media love and attention. However, as prices went down because everyone bought into the idea of paying to play, this has generated the reverse effect: a power creep for free users that leaves them out of the race altogether no matter how hard they try.

As a result, it seems that paying is the only way now if you want to play the game of attention. The price is so low, so why shouldn't you?

That'd make perfect sense if we all played fair, had great content and added value with each piece of content we produced, but the reality says otherwise: everything sucks and most people and companies just produce garbage in a desperate effort to turn a profit on it.

Creators think paying means earning reach. Platforms exploit this illusion for profit. Platforms have monetized our desperation. Pay-to-play doesn't reward value - it just sells hope.

By accepting the new rules of pay to play, we've lowered the entry barriers to even more barbarians at the gates, which have lowered, in turn, even lower, just to accept being swept out by a sea of mediocrity that is adding more fuel to the fire, worsening the problem.

As I mentioned before, some people still produce great content, but it's increasingly harder to find because they might rely solely on organic, or they might not adapt to the algorithmic changes or eventually they'll realise that this is too much and they will give up trying.

There'll always be a silver lining: new places and platforms that haven't been exploited yet (Substack/Ghost newsletters, Reddits, TikTok virality without spend...) and other opportunities that cannot be exploited by design (open source communities). Just give enough time to the former to end up swallowing their principles and surrendering to greed and decay.

Unbeknownst to us, we have been led to end up paying for this global enshittification of social media, and the internet in general.

First, we paid with our attention and data. Remember when they said "if you're not paying, then you're the product"? Well, guess what.

Now, you are the product and the customer. Enjoy your front-row seat at this global enshittification circus. You've more than paid for it.