It’s honestly really sad what’s been happening recently. Reddit with the API pricing on 3rd party apps, Discord with the new username change, Twitter with the rate limits, and Twitch with their new advertising rules (although that has been reverted because of backlash). Why does it seem like every company is collectively on a common mission of destroying themselves in the past few months?
I know the common answer is something around the lines of “because companies only care about making money”, but I still don’t get why it seems like all these social media companies have suddenly agreed to screw themselves during pretty much the period of March-June. One that sticks out to me especially is Reddit CEO, Huffman’s comment (u/spez), “We’ll continue to be profit-driven until profits arrive”. Like reading this literally pisses me off on so many levels. I wouldn’t even have to understand the context behind his comment to say, “I am DONE with you, and I am leaving your site”.
Why is it like this? Does everyone feel the same way? I’m not sure if it’s just me but everything seems to be going downhill these days. I really do hope there is a solution out of this mess.
Like any other company, they are trying to make more money. Since inflation is high, the amount they want to "stay ahead of the competition" (and feed the pockets of investors or owners) is higher too. Productive companies like the one I work at do this by "making more with less", so less labour (layoffs, hiring freeze) and higher prices typically.
With the products of social media companies being people and the price they are willing to pay being somewhat low and elastic (not necessary for life like say food and housing so easy to drop), they have to enshittify it in various ways to press more profit out of the products in less direct ways than price increases.
We‘ll see if ultimately this aggressive business model works out for them, I personally hope it doesn‘t.