Tamara’s Reviews > Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It > Status Update

For example, the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has a shameful record of rubber-stamping ridiculous, overbroad, incredibly obvious patent applications [...] The USPTO's attitude to junk patents has historically been "Grant 'em all and let the courts sort 'em out."

Case in point: does anyone remember cockygate? 😂

"Varoufakis's technofeudalism thesis holds that, in the years after the Great Financial Crisis of 2008, tech was transformed from a primarily profit-seeking enterprise to a primarily rent-seeking enterprise. The thing that makes tech giants powerful is that they control "factors of production" that they rent to actual, productive businesses."

So, welcome to feudalism v2, I guess?

So basically, Google had the potential to be really great, and it was great for a while, but the lack of regulation allwed it to become the most evil version of itself.

This is Black Mirror material right here. Quote in comments.

"In 2022, Photoshop users were informed that they would henceforth need to pay a subscription fee for certain colors in their images, and if they didn't pay the fee, those colors would be replaced with plain black in every existing file they appeared in."

I haven't heard of this one before, but does it surprise me? Not anymore.

"... Diapers.com was excited for its future and saw no reason to sell out to Amazon.
That wouldn't do. Amazon [...] proceeded to set $200 million on fire over every single month, selling diapers bellow cost. In the end, Diapers.com went bust; Amazon picked it up for pennies on the dollar and then shut it down."


They did this to BookDepository too 😭😭😭

"... HP still has to worry that once you discover the existence of cheap, reliable third-party ink, you'll stop buying HP cartriges forever."

Which is why HP now charges a monthly subscription for pinting, making it so you can't use their printers unless you pay your subscription 🫣