nicktaylor , 2 days ago

@MissConstrue @pluralistic

Apologies if you have seen this before - but this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kv79t-7gYXM

is Mark Blyth (an economist for whom I have a great deal of time), describing the enshitification of things like parking-metres.

Everything is being enshitified. There's probably a way of proving that it is a mathematically provable inevitable outcome given, certain axioms/constraints.

I'd give it a year or so before AI can do game-theory proofs of this sort of thing. Somehow Bibbits will be involved as well I suspect. Monte Carlo simulations etc.

blaise , 2 days ago

@nicktaylor @MissConstrue @pluralistic
IIRC, #Enshittification is the side effect of a business reaching the "extraction" phase, when it must convert value into cash and pay investors.

(I'm not an economist, nor an accountant), I imagine that there are milestones related to when major debts become dues, or the growth curve reaches a certain slope.
So, look for indicators that the flow of cash changes direction and begins to leave the business?

blaise , 2 days ago

@nicktaylor @MissConstrue
BTW, I learned rentier capital from @pluralistic and I just added Brett's book to my Audible library.
https://marxandphilosophy.org.uk/reviews/21487_our-lives-in-their-portfolios-why-asset-managers-own-the-world-by-brett-christophers-reviewed-by-thomas-klikauer-thu-nguyen/

Speaking of audiobooks, I can't wait for a fediverse alternative.

blaise , 2 days ago

@nicktaylor @MissConstrue @pluralistic
BTW, students of Deming et al. will note that if a business must prioritize extraction then it's less likely to improve and will eventually collapse into disorder.

Software developers will recognize this as "tech debt" and observe that repayment is typically left as an afterthought, when everything else is done.