Enshittification — ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Great book and easy read; why is it great? mostly because it highlights the problem of ‘platforms’ where both the consumer and business lose out. Cory directly calls out examples of Uber and Amazon.

The playbook is quite simple: land → subsidise → capture → extract

We’ve seen this play out on Social Media, but also in our streets (in the UK): » Uber is super expensive now compared to local taxi companies, yes there is less convenience and you have to call someone but hey it’s cheaper » Takeaway delivery is through the roof » Amazon’s most favoured nation on pricing (I believe, without substantive research, take with a pinch of salt, but it makes sense) is deciminating our local highstreets » Amazon’s tax ‘efficiency’ just extracts wealth from the UK

All because regulators have been reluctant to, and lacked the power to, take on monopolies, that isn’t the right phrase in this context but it’s the best word to describe it.

And… we can see it starting with AI.

We’re definitely in the subsidise phase.

Very thought provoking from a British perspective.