Darkness and deception are hopeless. We are not.

Enshitification was my favourite word last year, but I only recently realised that it is hiding deeper and darker truths about the concentration of wealth and power.

Now that I see it, it’s everywhere, and I want you to see it, too.

The idea behind enshitification is simple: as platforms gain users (aka customers and partners), the service, experience, and value they receive degrade while the costs of using the platform increase.

That fact alone is awful and a reason to rebel.

But there’s another, more insidious by-product of enshitification: the rapid concentration of wealth and power in the owners of these platforms and the disintegration of wealth and power held by everyone else.

Privatise the profits. Socialise the costs.

Too much is never enough for the billionaire broligarchy, and they are willing to cheat everyone and exploit everything to preserve and expand their ventures.

They aren’t even hiding their ambition these days.

That’s why Sam Altman protests any regulation forcing OpenAI to pay creators, aka all of us, for the data they use (steal) to train ChatGPT.

He still can’t make his business work, even with billions in the bank, a free ride on training data so far, and $200 monthly subscription fees.

That’s why Daniel Ek breaks the bonds we share with our favourite artists (or charges them to reach their fans) and replaces them with cheap content that Spotify controls.

He can only make his business profitable by devaluing the creativity and humanity we share and convincing us to pay a premium for the privilege.

I can continue naming and shaming, but you probably get the point.

We know what the billionaire broligarchy wants. Unchecked, they will continue to privatise all the profits and socialise all the costs.

Heads, they win. Tails, we lose.

Here’s the punchline: Darkness and deception are hopeless. We are not.

We have immense power to shift the collective consciousness, not by fighting on their turf and terms but by working solely on ours.

We must create and sustain new and different systems to share profits and costs evenly and transparently.

That’s why we’re working on an alternative to the enshitification of social and streaming media. If that appeals to you as an artist, fan, maverick, contrarian, or sensible person, please get in touch.

Our team and movement are growing by the day.