Enshitification doesn't happen because of the tools, it happens because the market will bear it.
"More apps that use far too many resources", "Interfaces with more friction"
Let's extend this to just performance/latency/ux at large for web based tools/sites/resources. The market has shown in some cases people will tolerate a lot of this, like phone support, can take >30 mins, but in other cases/scales, like search, every millisecond matters. The garbage apps I encounter like this now I feel are on the wrong side of this line are generally are enterprise apps that deal with payroll, HR training, etc. These apps are allowed to be bad because their users are generally captive/don't choose the apps and their developers aren't likely to care much because nobody is passionate about making sexual harassment quizzes. I actually like the chances of a 2-3 person team using LLM coding tools being able to upset these entrenched garbage piles. The likelihood of a tool/site with good UX and performance now degrading because junior engineers are using LLM code seems to be about zero, if you've built these tools you know how hard it is to drive the culture/ethos on shipping the code that powers these projects before copilot/chatGPT was around, and that isn't going to change. So ultimately, I think
-Garbage apps that exist now will become slightly worse
-The chances of slightly better, cheaper apps replacing those apps will grow
-Good apps that exist now won't regress
Because of the tools? No, of course not. Do the tools make enshitification easier and does the current incentive structures create an environment where I expect these types of tools to accelerate enshitification? Certainly. These are two very different things. I hope we can understand the difference because these types of details are important to prevent enshitification.
I am pretty sure enshitification is a specific process with a specific meaning, what you're talking about, quality going down for whatever reason you can just call "going to shit."
Let's not lose the useful concept enshitification is a pointer to by overloading the word :)
I don't think I'm really pushing the bounds here. The fast pace does help make things sticky. We love shiny new features. Even if it is just a polished turd. My worry is about more polished turds, which I think is pretty in line with enshitification since the de facto tech is reliant upon network effects. But I guess the thought is more general.
Words shift meanings and once you have coined something you lose control over it. Bitter sweet.
"More apps that use far too many resources", "Interfaces with more friction" Let's extend this to just performance/latency/ux at large for web based tools/sites/resources. The market has shown in some cases people will tolerate a lot of this, like phone support, can take >30 mins, but in other cases/scales, like search, every millisecond matters. The garbage apps I encounter like this now I feel are on the wrong side of this line are generally are enterprise apps that deal with payroll, HR training, etc. These apps are allowed to be bad because their users are generally captive/don't choose the apps and their developers aren't likely to care much because nobody is passionate about making sexual harassment quizzes. I actually like the chances of a 2-3 person team using LLM coding tools being able to upset these entrenched garbage piles. The likelihood of a tool/site with good UX and performance now degrading because junior engineers are using LLM code seems to be about zero, if you've built these tools you know how hard it is to drive the culture/ethos on shipping the code that powers these projects before copilot/chatGPT was around, and that isn't going to change. So ultimately, I think
-Garbage apps that exist now will become slightly worse -The chances of slightly better, cheaper apps replacing those apps will grow -Good apps that exist now won't regress