Ars staffers take aim at some of the web’s worst predatory practices.
  • ragebutt@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
    3·
    5 days ago

    Bad article. Weak, had a chance to put actual offenders on blast with their platform but just softballs it with “general concepts” they feel are shitty. Aside from google stuff like search that is the most softball answer. And more likely google isn’t one of their advertisers

    • RedstoneValley@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      1·
      5 days ago

      Even the part about Google Search only highlights the AI crap and skips over the real problem of increasingly worse search results. The whole article is more of a rant from a user’s perspective and there aren’t any real insights.

    • demonsword@lemmy.worldEnglish
      0·
      5 days ago

      Ars itself has become pretty enshittified. It doesn’t hold a candle when compared to itself 10 years ago. Also, they mentioned Doctorow several times but apparently they couldn’t be arsed to put even a single link to his blog… why?

  • GooberEar@lemmy.wtfEnglish
    1·
    5 days ago

    I’ll put an offender on blast: Max.

    A couple of months ago I subscribed to the highest tier, ad-free plan. Around a week into it, we started getting ads for different kinds of sports shows, interrupting the shows and movies at random spots just like traditional ads on television.

    First thing first: Back in the days when we rode our Dimetrodons to school both ways uphill in fallen volcanic ash, we called it Cinemax and HBO was separate. And neither one of them had ads show up in the middle of their content because they were premium channels.

    Second thing second: When I contacted customer service about it, they actually had the audacity to tell me that those aren’t ads, they are previews for other content offered in their service.

    So to me, whether it is a bug in their system or the definition of ad has changed in the ensuing millennia since I first learned its meaning, the fact that there are even ads in premium media services like these is a prime example of enshittification to me.

    • vithigar@lemmy.caEnglish
      1·
      4 days ago

      Ads on a service I directly paid for was the line for me as well. I have no tolerance for that nonsense and it boggles my mind that anyone else does either.

      If even a tenth of the subscriber base for any of these services cancelled because of ads they’d be gone so fast you’d get whiplash, and yet most people just put up with it.

  • Pika@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    1·
    5 days ago

    this list is more concepts then actual enshittification. No YouTube, no reference to Google searches less helpful results. No reference to ad overload plaguing more services. No reference to crappy TOS’s with artibution clauses. It’s just using an excuse to say AI bad and rehash concepts learned back in 2015 with the drive to drop cable.