Ask Lemmy
A Fediverse community for open-ended, thought provoking questions
Rules: (interactive)
1) Be nice and; have fun
Doxxing, trolling, sealioning, racism, and toxicity are not welcomed in AskLemmy. Remember what your mother said: if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. In addition, the site-wide Lemmy.world terms of service also apply here. Please familiarize yourself with them
2) All posts must end with a '?'
This is sort of like Jeopardy. Please phrase all post titles in the form of a proper question ending with ?
3) No spam
Please do not flood the community with nonsense. Actual suspected spammers will be banned on site. No astroturfing.
4) NSFW is okay, within reason
Just remember to tag posts with either a content warning or a [NSFW] tag. Overtly sexual posts are not allowed, please direct them to either !asklemmyafterdark@lemmy.world or !asklemmynsfw@lemmynsfw.com.
NSFW comments should be restricted to posts tagged [NSFW].
5) This is not a support community.
It is not a place for 'how do I?', type questions.
If you have any questions regarding the site itself or would like to report a community, please direct them to Lemmy.world Support or email info@lemmy.world. For other questions check our partnered communities list, or use the search function.
6) No US Politics.
Please don't post about current US Politics. If you need to do this, try !politicaldiscussion@lemmy.world or !askusa@discuss.online
Reminder: The terms of service apply here too.
Partnered Communities:
Logo design credit goes to: tubbadu
view the rest of the comments
I agree that this term was meant for online businesses but we can see the same concept happening with brands as well.
You build your image around a good product/service (ex. Fast food being cheap, tasty, and a source of calories) but then once your brand is an established go-to (i.e. McDonald's, Oreo, Apple, whatever) you do the work to make that product cheaper to produce, even if it means a marginal decrease in quality, and prop it up behind the facade of the brand.
What we are reaching now is the point where companies are trying to toe that line of not losing customers but still making sales. But customers are starting to see that drop in quality, and with their purchasing power being squeezed, they're taking notice. So we have a couple words for it that are becoming more popular. Shrinkflation is an example, but overall I think it still ties back to the concept of what enshittification meant. Build a brand, get the customers, cut your expenses, hope most of them don't notice.
There are a lot of people saying "but enshittification means websites" but the fact is, it describes a business model that a lot of companies are following that ends up in a shitty product. It may not be what the word exactly meant but unless someone gets another term that fits popularized, it still fits and it's not inaccurate to use.