We're well past the platform where enshittification has become cliché and bandied about to death but every new "platform" I see now feels l

Your platform is a trap

submited by

Style Pass

2025-01-05 21:00:04

We're well past the platform where enshittification has become cliché and bandied about to death but every new "platform" I see now feels like a trap.

I remember chatting with friends I met on bulletin boards using Adium — AIM, Yahoo! messenger, XMPP — it didn't matter. We had reasonably open protocols and interop wasn't yet a four letter word.

Now we've got Discord, Slack, IRC (still plugging along!), WhatsApp, SMS, RCS, iMessage, Telegram, Discord, Signal. Good lord. I'll concede using Signal — it is very secure and it still works better than RCS chats between iOS and Android. Have you tried a group chat with iOS and Android users? It's still a broken mess.

Need a newsletter? We'll handle that for you. We'll even enhance it with social features. It's not a nazi bar, it's free speech.

Meta managed to capture the social graphs of millions, Twitter (now a one letter portal to hell) captured the public square, Snapchat did some stuff, BeReal floundered about, App.net tried to do...something? TikTok does stuff I don't understand[1].