Gregory's ServerWe need a word for real-life enshittification caused by online culture. Like being unable to find an organisation’s info because they’ve Instagram but no website. Or panicked people being sent a videolink to download to their phone when they ring for an ambulance. Or being excluded from residents' association news if you're not on Facebook. Or having cash payment refused. Or staff in the business you’re physically standing in telling you to find the answer to your question on their website.
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Ciara
358 comments
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James Bartlett :terminal:
@mcmenguc
Jamin Bogi
@mcmenguc Then showing up for the appointment, only to have an hour-long wait due to the walk-ins ahead of you... 😭 
Ciara
@analogfusion Me too. Technology is excluding so many people. Or rather, it's the companies and organisations who are doing the excluding, demanding that we use their technology their way.
Lance
@CiaraNi That's the crux of the matter right there: technology is increasingly deployed in ways that work against people. I've long been a tech enthusiast, but I want to use the devices I buy for my own benefit rather than serving ongoing corporate agendas. The maker of my operating system doesn't own my computer, and I should be able to control how the system is used, which features are enabled, etc.
Ciara
@analogfusion Agreed, all of this! The expectation that we must download apps and accept constant updates and give away our data and fill our phones and computers, often for something simple and banal like buying a ticket or asking customer service a question.
Lance
@CiaraNi I don't know if you saw my posts from months ago, but I actually forfeited attending a concert I'd paid for because of this. I forget the name of the ticketing agency, but in order to use your ticket, you have to download an app to present at the venue. They won't let you print a physical copy. I didn't realize that at the time. The only other option is presenting the credit card used, but it has to be in your name (it was in my wife's). I refuse to play their game.
Jill the Pill
This is a good collection of these problems. Add the common situation where an uncurated search engine or map platform will give directions to facilities that no longer exist, particularly a problem when searching for electric car chargers on a low battery. And fragility: when the credit card network or machine malfunctions, no-cash businesses just can’t function. Underfunded cities wasted millions on electronic parking meters and kiosks that couldn’t survive ice.
King Kaufman
@jill_the_pill @CiaraNi @analogfusion It's even more annoying when a business that does take cash WON'T function if their system is down. They refuse. Write down what people buy and enter it into the system later? Take cash? Nope.
Ciara
@jill_the_pill Those are real problems. Even just seeing the card-swipe machines go offline for a short period in a supermarket - utter chaos. Everyone paralysed, staff and customers alike.
David Brent 📚
@analogfusion @CiaraNi Ticket stubs used to be great souvenirs and reminders of good times. I guess those days of having a paper ticket as a keepsake are gone. At Disney World, Fast Passes used to be a paper ticket. If you didn't use it, you could just hand it to someone else who might want it. Since everything is all digital now, that little act of kindness is impossible.
Heather
@CiaraNi I've literally never had any other digital ticketing system require me to change out of darkmode before, I was very flustered because I was like, where even is that option, I turned it on when I bought the phone, where do i turn it off and blind myself ? Just don't do interlaced images, do a background of white for your barcodes, geeze.
Oliver Mantell
@CiaraNi We had one last night: a taxi firm that only uses an app (so when the ordered taxi ‘disappeared’, there was no number to call / way to query it).
Ciara
@olivermantell Perfect example. That exact situation happened to us last time I was in London amd it was a pre-booked taxi trip to catch a train. No way to contact them, just increasing one-way notifications that gave us no information about length of delay.
Sven :8bit_mario2:
@CiaraNi Lol, finding an actual business information between all the fluff posts on Instagram* has made me furious in the past, too. 😅 What's that video link example thing, though? * not to mention all the "It's better in the app" and "You should REALLY log in, you know?" popups.
Ciara
@Sven A recent news story here (Denmark) about emergency service dispatchers haranguing callers after sending them an SMS with a video link. Idea is good, it lets you show the injury or wound for assessment. But there are recordings of dispatchers being rude and demanding to people who, mid-panic and mid-emergency, couldn't find & work the link. They just kept ordering a distressed man to work out the videolink on his phone instead of just dropping it and sending help for his injured wife.
Sven :8bit_mario2:
@CiaraNi Ugggh. Modern healthcare needs a lot of change, this is not one of them. 😅 
Christo 🏴
@CiaraNi
Ciara
@Christo This occurs to me sometimes too - younger people treating us like technological fools if we don't want to use a certain app or technology because it is unhelpful, or data-bloated, or unnecessary for our needs. We are just old enough and have been online long enough to know that there are other, sometimes better, ways.
Citoyen européen Ray Hindle
@Christo Reminds me of the time, many years ago, when I went to a job interview and was told “But they didn't have computers when you went to school, so how can you possibly know about them.”
Christo 🏴
@rayhindle
Citoyen européen Ray Hindle
@Christo A colleague of mine was once denied a post in IT because he didn't have an engineering background, despite being fully trained in FORTRAN and COBOL! (His background was in mathematics.) 
Mother Bones AKA Bae'd Runner
Alex@rtnVFRmedia Suffolk UK
This is why I find it hard to have sympathy for high street business owners who have to close down due to online competition as their staff seem increasingly unwilling to provide any customer service, in spite of most people paying a higher price to deal with an actual human in physical premises..
Peter Gutsche
@CiaraNi I agree! In particular, when organizations or artists etc use Facebook or Instagram as only "communication" channel and force you to register at an advertisement platform to get more information, is kind of ignorant and attests to an indifferent attitude towards their target group.
Ciara
@silberspur It is a short-sighted policy, I think - it excludes entire groups. I needed to return something recently and discovered that the little local shop has no regular opening hours and no sign with opening times. I finally succeeded in catching it open and was told the 14-day return period was up. When I politely said I had tried several times before but they had no advertised opening hours, they said 'we post them each week on Instagram'.
Peter Gutsche
@CiaraNi this is, to put it mildly, an impertinence, and the fact that they do not accept the exchange can certainly be legally contested under these conditions.
The Hand That Feeds
@silberspur @CiaraNi I've gone the other way. If someone messages the cafe FB page the auto reply tells them to phone (gives number) or email (gives address) because I don't have the FB app on my phone & FB got rid of browser support for messaging.  
Workshopshed
@CiaraNi walking up the person at the restaurant front desk and being told that you need to go over computer console to book a table for dinner (centreparx)
Ciara
@Workshopshed It's wild and wildly rude, I think. Restaurants, not just fast-food ones, are increasingly trying to make us use QR codes and apps to even see the menu. I am never going to do that.  
Pepijn
I 💯% agree with your main point. In my experience the example about the videolink option used by emergency services is an improvement instead of an enshittification though: Earlier this year I was first on site of a medical emergency. And while the person unfortunately died the video-aided link instantly made the diagnosis different, leading to our actions also being different. It absolutely upped the persons chances to survive and helped us provide some comfort to a dying person.
Ciara
@Pepijn That was a great thing you did. Must have been a tough experience. The emergency service link is a good example of technology that's beneficial when used appropriately, but problematic when humans don't use situational judgment when using it. If (recent example) a distressed man can't find the SMS and link on the fiddly phone that he's also trying to talk into while his wife is injured beside him, then the dispatcher needs to stop repeatedly demanding he use the link and just send help.
Ciara
@Pepijn There were some news stories about the problem earlier in the year. I heard one man interviewed on P1 about it. The recording of his call was played and it was distressing to hear the dispatcher throwing rudely-worded demands about use of technology at him instead of talking him through his wife's injury while sending help.
Eliot Lear
@CiaraNi IMHO The word you are (mostly) looking for is a "dehumanization", where we fail to interact with each other as people, and more like bits on a wire, even when those bits are right in front of us, gelled into a human.
Colman Reilly
@CiaraNi it’s “enshittification” because online *is* real-life and the belief that the two are distinct spheres has done a lot of damage. Online culture isn’t a thing.
Karen Mardahl
@CiaraNi This is what worries me about the move to have Rejsekort in an app. The next step will be to have it only in the app, which excludes anyone who doesn’t have a smart phone, doesn’t want a smart phone, has a smartphone with a dead battery, and so on. Public transport is for the general public so avoid the bling bling that can entail exclusion! 
CaveDave
@CiaraNi @kmdk They're apparently trying to make an option for people who don't have a smartphone but idk what it is. What also concerns me if this unknown method will also factor in the possibility to buy an anonymous one. A Rejsekort has the ability to be purchased from an authoritised vendor with cash. I find such an option very useful, especially when they weren't excepting cash for transport during covid
Karen Mardahl
@engravecavedave @CiaraNi Oh! Another scenario: those with dementia or cognitive challenges where a flat card on a lanyard around their necks will always function as opposed to an app. (Just test the idea with all kinds of users and not just your bros, bros!)
Ciara
@engravecavedave @kmdk Good point about the Anonym cards. They're useful for non-regular commuters and for guests from abroad. If we want to get more people out of cars and into public transport, we need quick-and-simple ways to pay on the fly, not requirements to sign up and use an app.
Eleanor Rees
@CiaraNi searching for what to do for a child having an asthma attack, and getting a popup asking for consent to tracking cookies before it'll tell you any information. On an NHS website!
LillyLyle/Count Melancholia
@CiaraNi It's really important that no one be forced to use the Zuckerberg platforms. There are so many reasons to boycott them. It's just laziness when organisations, shops etc only allow themselves to be reached that way.
Ciara
@LillyHerself Agreed! I asked one group that I'm in (in real life) if we could share information some other way for people like me who aren't on Facebook and the organisers were genuniely puzzled by my question. Because why would anyone not be on Facebook? Next meeting, they made a public suggestion that members join Facebook 'because you'll get better information, more often'.
Ciara
@junesim63 I love this! Anything Granny Weatherwax says is fine by me. My only hesitation would be having to use Granny's fine name to name something so negative :-)
Threadbane
@CiaraNi
jon r
@CiaraNi People of the German left are working on an Offline Access Act precisely for these reasons, applied to public administration at first.. You should check out the hashtag #Offlinezugangsgesetz and see how this idea could be mobilised for your legislation.
Paul Martin
@CiaraNi Can't use new NHS Wales App for reordering prescriptions for Mum as she's over 80, hasn't had a driving licence since her stroke in 2009 and her passport expired about five years ago. No acceptable photo ID to sign up and there's no alternative mechanism yet (unlike NHS England). The website that DID work is being decommissioned at the end of this year. 
Jeff Grigg
Last month we were in the bank manager's office and he helped us do a transaction on our cell phones, as there were fewer "hoops to jump through" than with the internal computer system on his desk -- even with him calling their support desk, and with his authority. Also, I got the information on my parent's investments online while waiting *weeks* to try to get the same from their personal representative.
Jeff Grigg
The "hoops" I had to "jump through" at the bank to demonstrate that I am who I say I am, *with* "Real ID" driver's license *AND* passport with photo (no, I'm not foreign). 🙄
Jenny Fx
@CiaraNi like bank managers having to call a call center to access your account while you're in the bank or not being able to turn on the TV or radio because the internet provider is down. I propose #techshittification 
Hans-Cees
@CiaraNi @breadandcircuses or simply my 85 year old mother not able to use the banking app since they are So #agile the gui changes every month 
iquanyin
@CiaraNi @breadandcircuses either that or everyone get free mobile phones, free laptops, the os of their choice on both, and free internet. 
Mike "piñata economy" Sims
@CiaraNi Went to a jewelry store to buy a necklace. Decided to. The process involved the sales rep pulling up the standard public store website and then walking me through entering the info and buying it online. Do they have any stock whatsoever in the store, except one to try on? No. 
Steve Felten
@CiaraNi Seems like every streaming service has one or two shows worth seeing, but you can’t afford to subscribe to all of them.
MooMoo the Cat
@CiaraNi OK, that last one would set me on fire. I'm not sure if I would recover from it. (Also, most of these I've dealt with, and they are BS. It's frustrating.) 
Nonya Bidniss
@CiaraNi Like not being able to opt out of cars phoning home with a detailed database of everything you do or say and everywhere you go
Knitting dancer 🏴
@CiaraNi see also hotel chains that only have a chatbot, no phone number, email address, Facebook, anything. That said I've just been on holiday in Germany, where to get a seat reservation refund I had to go to a station with a staffed ticket office, queue to get a numbered ticket, and then queue another 30 mins to talk to a human (whose English, not unreasonably, was about as good as my German) who made me physically sign a form then handed me cash. There has got to be a middle way.
run_atalanta
@CiaraNi That last one for real. I had a brick-n-morter franchise that would try to turn every item I picked up into a “subscription” and tried to get me on their direct ship service. The looked a little intimidated when I told them I was at a physical store because I wanted to browse and read labels on my own. 
AN/CRM-114
@CiaraNi Rhymes with self checkouts in the supermarket and ATMs - shadow labor, where vendors make the customer do a little work for them. *looks at Doctorow’s original definiton That’s at least paleo-enshittification
Gene Cowan 🏳️🌈
@CiaraNi Or being mandated by a judge to take some kind of remediation class or course only to find that the course only accepts a mobile app payment and as a 70-something non-techy you have no way to meet this requirement.
OddOpinions5
I hold an odd opinion: that mastodon suffers from an almost complete lack of historical awareness I mean, Upton Sinclair, the FDA etc ? My Grandfather swore that this advert appeared with some regularity in the classified ads of the NYT "Last Chance to send in your dollar. PO Box 34500, Grand Central Station, NY, NY"
Ted Tschopp
@CiaraNi this is a “Tech-22” situation caused by incomplete digitization of process or an over reliance on them because no one recalls the process anymore because those that did have all been churned out to save money.
DaveShep
@CiaraNi @Nonya_Bidniss I especially appreciate the Facebook one. I haven’t been on FB for almost 10 years, but organizations still insist on putting info and discussions there. I’m left out of that stuff all the time. 
Darwin Woodka
@CiaraNi I had to deal with my sister's cremation this week by email, text and website. it was infuriating. One phone call from an actual person who gave a damn probably could have sorted everything. Instead she was text messaging me. 
Mirre :mastocheck:
@CiaraNi may i add to the list? My sister’s father in law recently got a new pacemaker installed. Said pacemaker requires him to download and use a proprietary app. Do you think this 70 year old man has a phone that is compatible with said app? Of course not. He had to spend hundreds of euros for a new phone just to make sure his heart can function and not die. 
Marjon
@CiaraNi At a nature campsite in the woods, trying to get a spot for our tent while on cycling holiday. The touchscreen wasn't working. We had called the ranger who arrived and restarted the Windows computer. We had cash, but absolutely *had* to wait for the computer to update and book online.
John Arnold
@CiaraNi … even when you’re inside an organisation it can be very frustrating, as at “a friend’s” workplace where a website “upgrade” has removed most of the navigation menus… told by the so-called experts that “everyone uses search now”. The “friend” and co-workers are already getting many frustrated people trying to find things, and it’s the quiet time of year right now. 😩
LiverpoolWiz
@CiaraNi As we say in English, You've hit the nail on the head. We now have to have a mobile phone attached to our person at all times, learn to use it, hope that there's a signal and then there's no guarantee there'll be a useful response on the other end. 99.9% of website a very badly designed and a torment to use. They're never tested on normal human beings. 
Tushar Chauhan
@CiaraNi I recently needed to buy a TV. There is no options in the world right now except what are comically called "Smart TVs" - badly put-together software stacks designed for marketing and surveillance. It needs setting up of what they call 'apps' (HATE that word) for almost anything, including wireless streaming of paid-for content. If you don't subscribe to a million streaming services the modern TV is a disaster. I wish for an affordable dumb TV with a good screen instead. 
Wirry Loberts
@CiaraNi i think "enshittification" can naturally extend its meaning to non-digital stuff.
MarkG
I was thinking maybe a combo of the words "virtual" and "feces", like "virtufece" --> "that company is virtufecing us all!" Or combining "stink" and "web": that company is stwebbing me! But it's a bit too Elmer Fudd. Shit + Net = Shnet. That company is just shnet. More shnetting from them! Or fuck + online: that company is fucklining me! Amazon is the cause of this. And they took their name from a rain forest. Thus, we're reignfucked. "That company is reignfucking us!" 
herbert
@CiaraNi I lived in The Netherlands for a few years. Loved it, btw. But was baffled that government, municipalities, businesses take it for granted one uses WhatsApp. Their “Stuur een appje” message (translates to “Send a message via WhatsApp”) is all over the place. I’ve dealt with businesses that did not want to communicate any other way. So, I didn’t use their services.
LeftyLabourTechToronto
@CiaraNi Or telling older seniors to navigate websites for services that are so badly designed that even web savvy people have difficulty navigating them.  
snep
@CiaraNi and everything being a stupid monochrome void. And cars having built-in texting while driving. And clothes being the same cheap shit with different meaningless brand logos on it. And everything that used to have fun dedicated objects being reduced to apps on a nightmare rectangle that delivers only bad news. And every tv show and movie being boring and bleak instead of taking risks and trying something different. And literally the state of capitalism. 
UkeBLCatboy
@CiaraNi I never had any of those, maybe because I am on insta, facebook, X, youtube, discord, everywhere, and here. :D (I am a weeb. My entire life and friends are in fandom for 15 years now, I love following cool cosplayers all over the world - as long as they are there, I am there, also in fun discord server,s follow fun vtubers on youtube etc. But this website ha a great community too, so here also). Never had the other problems. :D and with the last one, I'd prefer website anyway tbh! XD
W.J. Flowers
New word eh? That’s a tall order. A real kerfuffle. How about: “kerfuccus”. As in, “What a kerfuccus.” “After a 2-hour commute to [establishment xyz], I wound up getting kerfucct by their service reps today.” “I haven’t ordered anything from [company xyz] ever since their kerfucculation.” “[Such and such a system change] sounds a bit kerfucculatory.” Adversary-speak: “Let’s kerfucc this, kerfucc that, & kerfucc the other.” Double Cs. cc: @clive 
Claudia Dias
@CiaraNi the coat check at the MoMA in New York makes you enter a phone number on a tablet. And then proceeds to sms you a link to give a tip to the staff. That's also the phone number you need to enter when you pick up your jacket - the app shows them the code of the location where they hung it.
Someone tell me to get up
@CiaraNi the shop that fixed my phone (twice now) has a phone number, and I think even has a website, but they have two different business cards (which I discovered when I picked up my phone and took a second look) and I happened to grab the one that only has their Facebook and Yelp information on it. I think I had to check google maps for the actual phone number. Overall it was a frustrating experience and I have no idea why they print two different types of cards
hairylarry
@CiaraNi@mastodon.green 
Robert Kingett on hiatus
I never thought about this but the more I think about it, the more we really do need an offline version of Enshittification. I had to send my phone in for repair so I didn't have a smartphone for a while, but then I couldn't access restaurant menus because everything was QR code. I also tried to go to a local indie bookstore to get an audiobook they said was in, on CD, and they tried to give me a code to download it on Libro FM instead of giving me a CD. @CiaraNi
Den of Earth
Arguably the tech is merely enabling rather than causing this - it's the companies using it to find bold new ways to screw customers Even previous generation tech is still being used like this. I was buying a piece of furniture, at the counter about to pay, when the clerk answered a landline and started answering questions at length for a customer who effectively cut in line from home! Sadly I didn't walk as I really wanted that sideboard but I gave him the glaring of a lifetime.
FrancescaJ
@CiaraNi so frustrating! One of the major Aus supermarkets now does member prices but to get them you have to have the app so they get to track me 😡 and the mall doesn’t get data half the time so you need the “free” wifi to scan the card and you have to answer three questions to get on it which is more info gathering plus risks of public wifi. I hate it so much!
Carsten
I was in a pub in Belgium and they wanted me to download an app to order drinks, even though the staff was RIGHT THERE, it wasn't busy, and people have been ordering drinks like that since the invention of coinage. Being Danish, I am pretty non-confrontational, but I said I we would leave if we couldn't order in person and in the end they took our order. I am sure they thought I was being dumb, but you know. They're wrong.
Accidental Tourist
@CiaraNi When I have a problem I go to the Companies House web page to get the name and address of the CEO. Next to LinkedIn for any additional information. I bypass all the people lower down the chain.
Living in a Banana Republic
@CiaraNi Love this..... first item I read this morning (here in Florida) Agree times100....needless clutter, complexity. Yes, we need a word.
Menno
@CiaraNi  
TundraWolf
@CiaraNi The term that used to used by management consultants was 'avoidable contact'... Which is an admission that organisations don't to talk to you and want you to fall in line and just accept whatever piss poor system they have invented to keep you away.
Prof Prachi Srivastava
@CiaraNi Agreed. I had this same thought a couple of days ago about universities and not being able to find basic info even if you're a prof or student there. Seemed to resonate.  
Jargoggles
@CiaraNi |
@CiaraNi Apple Store manager telling you to make an online appointment to buy a product when you are actually in the store that has the product.