It should, but it's becoming more and more obvious that it won't and can't. Literally every economic incentive it pushing towards 1) making it crappier until it's just good enough to buy, 2) maximally exploiting its users.
The market won't save us, because a competitor who tries to gain market-share by not doing that crap will eventually turn around and join in the fun, once it's in their interest.
Mobile internet may end up as being a giant mistake. It opens up an entire superhighway of enshittification, makes us more dependent on centralized control, and doesn't provide a much better communication experience that the telephone network.
No need for such pessimism - what can, and will change how things work is the consumer, being smart enough to demand better. See the other comments here, there is a market for responsible sustainable and boundary-respecting products. It is just a matter of time IMHO, until the majority of people have enough.
Imagine the food industry 20 years back. It looked like the end of the world - literal poison everywhere you look. Your arguments back then would never foresee today's organic food hype and vegetables craze.
> No need for such pessimism - what can, and will change how things work is the consumer, being smart enough to demand better. See the other comments here, there is a market for responsible sustainable and boundary-respecting products. It is just a matter of time IMHO, until the majority of people have enough.
I'll believe it when I see it. But it's not looking good. Subscription streaming was supposed to be like that: you pay to get a "responsible sustainable and boundary-respecting products." But it turns out showing people ads makes more money, so those products are pushing users in that direction.
> Imagine the food industry 20 years back. It looked like the end of the world - literal poison everywhere you look. Your arguments back then would never foresee today's organic food hype and vegetables craze.
Isn't that mainly an affluent consumer thing? And often subject to lies and nonsense?
I expect the digital equivalent to be something like Google's doing: changing their products to ostensibly "protect" user privacy, but in reality giving all the data to Google and locking out its competitors.
>The market won't save us, because a competitor who tries to gain market-share by not doing that crap will eventually turn around and join in the fun, once it's in their interest.
Doesn't this imply, though, that there is some kind of market force which would allow such a competitor who isn't doing that to grab market share in the first place? What happens to that market share when the competitor eventually decides to change their trajectory - does it just disappear?
It should, but it's becoming more and more obvious that it won't and can't. Literally every economic incentive it pushing towards 1) making it crappier until it's just good enough to buy, 2) maximally exploiting its users.
The market won't save us, because a competitor who tries to gain market-share by not doing that crap will eventually turn around and join in the fun, once it's in their interest.
Mobile internet may end up as being a giant mistake. It opens up an entire superhighway of enshittification, makes us more dependent on centralized control, and doesn't provide a much better communication experience that the telephone network.