I recently learned a new meme (word?), "enshittification".
Quoting the article:
Here is how platforms die: first, they are good to their users; then they abuse their users to make things better for their business customers; finally, they abuse those business customers to claw back all the value for themselves. Then, they die.
The writer called this enshittification.
I observed this "degradation" phenomenon also happening to softwares (looking at you, Google Chrome), tools, programming frameworks, and many things.
We are all trapped in the enshittification of the Internet.
A generation is lost. We don't know how to build software that lasts for decades. Schools hardly teach that anymore.
The reality is, it is business — people need things fast, and they can't wait a year to get a polished product, so they will get something that does the job with a few bugs and workarounds so they can get on with their business.
Anti-long lasting software: brittle, bloated, performance is not a feature, bigger is better, unsustainable business model, business disguise as open source software, not self-hostable, dark tactics, sign-up/subscribe first to use, data collection, doesn't degrade gracefully with poor Internet connection, memory/CPU hogger, data hostage, feature creep, never ending churn under your feet, over-engineered, hype-driven, for the sake of "modern".
The herd mentality make it worst. Everything is increasingly complex. A few examples:
- Kubernetes instead of VPS
- microservices instead of monolithic app (Django)
- Spark instead of Bash scripts
- MongoDB Cloud instead of PostgreSQL
I brought that up because as a software crafter, I am reminded again today by this piece written by Neovim's author about Bram and VIM: https://neovim.io/news/2023/08
Quoting the article:
never appealed to sensationalism or personal judgements
... responded only to advance his understanding of a problem to solve. Bram was one of those humans quietly providing deep value to the universe, but there was no parade and little celebrity.
... anchored to reality, directly interested in results and adjusting what produced them. The "Problem/Solution" mantra in his commit messages is simple yet profoundly effective.
I like:
- VIM has soul — they are principled
- Less dogmatic, more pragmatic
- Integrity (don't sell out)
- Going against the flow (not boring)
- Stable but dare to innovate
- Know what they are doing (not mindless and blindly follow)