Ask HN: Platforms That Avoid the Enshittening?

[bburnett44]

What are some good examples of consumer platforms that have avoided the enshittening? Companies w subscription models are pretty good about avoiding this but it seems like being ad supported really corrupts the process. To me, YouTube is the only one that's really done a good job but I only go there for select videos so I'm not a huge user. Any other ones people can think of? And any common characteristics between them?

[pwg]

> YouTube is the only one that's really done a good job

Youtube's only done a good job is you use yt-dlp to download the videos. Watching on youtube the video gets interrupted multiple times for "commerical breaks".

[spaulmark → pwg]

Ublock origin. Haven't seen an ad in 10 years.

[logicalmonster → spaulmark]

From my perspective, I think ads are just about the smallest issue with YouTube's platform. I don't mind a reasonable amount of YouTube ads too much. Hosting millions of videos is expensive, and it's reasonable that they find a way to at least make enough money to sustain it. I'm not expecting Google to host a free video charity forever; are you?

But YouTube's management is incredibly hostile to both creators and viewers with regards to everything that made them so popular in the first place: everything from bad algorithms, to censorship, to bad and unfriendly policies for independent creators, to cringe Rewind and CEO videos, and other things show that show that they really don't care about keeping a beautiful site alive.

[esperent → spaulmark]

Also Sponsorblock which can strip out many of the "and now let me talk about the sponsor for today's video" sections.

[unmole → pwg]

YouTube Premium.

[muzani → unmole]

Yeah, can't expect amazing service for free. The real treasure is YouTube Music. Being ad free is just a bonus.

[gardenhedge]

Can you define "enshittening"? I've never heard of that before

[jaggs → gardenhedge]

Coined by Cory Doctorow - https://www.wired.com/story/tiktok-platforms-cory-doctorow/

[KomoD → jaggs]

or for anybody who does not wanna bother visiting that:

> 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.

[tra3]

Linux and Emacs come to mind.

I’ve been using Gaia gps for what feels like forever without it becoming shit.

I hate to say it, but Gmail has been solid since 2007.

[quickthrower2 → tra3]

gmail is solid but my fear of account loss with zero support to rectify it is driving me to move to a domain I control and a paid solution.

Zoho for example is more than good enough. Arguably better than Gmail in some ways.

[quickthrower2]

Hard to think of many, especially free and widely know ones to be honest. HN of course - but we are quite niche really. There are a few PHPBB type sites that are pleasant to use but again for niches.

I would go for Reddit if you use “old” I guess and pick good subs.

[CM30]

Well, federated platforms seem to have avoided it, since one actor can't just degrade the quality of the whole service. See for example, the Fediverse in general.

Fan/individual/community run sites and networks seem to avoid this issue, since they don't need to make a profit from their work/pay off those venture capital investments. For example, the Nintendo Independent Wiki Alliance seems pretty good there, with the likes of Mario Wiki, Zelda Wiki and Bulbapedia most relying on unintrusive advertising to stay afloat.

For a well known platform? I guess WordPress.com seems pretty good in that respect, at least from the sites I've visited there. Can't see many ads, paywalls or other dubious practices there.

[shoo]

iphone, android?

Linux? stretching "consumer" platform a little here.

Costco?

[MilnerRoute]

Bookshop.org

Bandcamp.com