I don't think many people understand that if they use Lemmy or kbin, they are posting to the fediverse. There are other platforms and will be more to come. Referring to a post on "Lemmy" or "kbin" is like saying you saw a post on your Windows or Mac computer....
Ok but telling others of the specific platform I use is still useful, like if somebody doesn‘t know what a computer is it helps them to hear in Windows or Mac cause then they know what computers there are.
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.
At first it was all about presenting data in an original looking way. In the end it was about pushing political ideas in your throat using a plain bar graph. It was not about sharing something interesting you found but about taking advantage of a captive audience.
r/antiwork before say 2020 and even worse after the Fox thing, a lot of trolls came in once it got big and where before it was fun discussions on anarchist antiwork theory that coined the name, with some venting and support or discussing how a different society might look like.
Then it became the usual political battleground like many big subs, all about who to vote for in the US and a repost place for latestagecapitalism, then all the text quitting or firing screenshots and tipping battles for some reason, which I‘d also not seen before then. Oh and all the nationalist humble bragging which seemed condescending to me as EU person towards the US people and at the same time dismissive of issues in the EU too. I guess it could be summed up with: it felt more hostile to me.
Ok cool, I liked antiwork better, because in the beginning it wasn‘t about "lets just reform it a little bit", that is just what it turned into cause I guess most people can‘t see anything between being forced to labor and not moving at all aka lazy shits.
Abolition of work is an interesting text which imagines something else entirely, a world in which the absence of money and hierarchy could lead to replacing all work with a voluntary and playful version of it, where people may still choose to spend their time doing various activities mainly for the community and the results of their labor vs just getting someone or themselves more money. Similar to how most firefighting places and other charitable organisations or open source projects are already run, despite all capitalist logic saying we shouldn‘t give our labor for free.
That‘s what it was about before it got snuffed out and turned into a harmless "lets change nothing on the hierarchy but maybe unionise to get more money and vote for little bit better" movement anyway. It‘s not like I think I can convince you or anyone anymore, so have your work reform and your politicians and fight the good fight for workers, you‘re certainly not alone with it, most everyone seems to enjoy all these conflicts to get wrapped up in just fine. I even support it to an extent, I‘m in the union too out of practicality.
I just enjoyed having a space where I could talk about this theory and the hypothetical world I would enjoy instead and am lamenting it‘s loss, that‘s all.
It‘s ok, I struggle with that too, for some things people ask me when I bring this up I have an answer, for others I don‘t. I guess it‘s as if you asked a tribal hunter/gatherer person to imagine a world where all of the food is delivered to them in a store, they couldn‘t imagine it and if they try they‘d get a lot of it wrong.
I do think as automation gets rid of more and more production labor and the majority are pushed into service labor or bullshit jobs, it becomes more important that people at the losing side of that equation try to imagine it differently though, cause I don‘t think those at the top will and otherwise.. well my username says it, I feel like I‘m caught in a storm of massive proportions trying to tell it to please stop, slow down, and look at what we could all do if we changed this or that. I keep coming back to the open source though, cause it‘s what I work on sometimes in my free time and has shown me what people can accomplish even in absence of a profit motive.
So roughly I imagine it like this: voluntary organisations replacing involuntary ones and a shared purpose to get rid of unpleasant and unnecessary work and for the results to be shared with their community. I think luxuries would be less abundant, but we could manage to make what we need and perhaps we‘d value more the things someone does make for us voluntarily.
I already elaborated enough on this from my own perspective, so instead I‘ll use this next laziness dig to conform to this view of me and lazily quote something random I like:
This struggle, for a world of free association and play, has been placed under the banner of antiwork and anarchy. Personally, I’m fond of post-work, because I think it better encapsulates my desire to both oppose and propose, to move against and beyond this detour, this phase of destruction called work, but the term antiwork does what it needs to do too. There have been attempts to co-opt and defang this liberatory project, but despite the recent online drama, this struggle is older than the Internet, and it will continue unabated, because I believe the impulse to be free is one of the defining attributes of the human experience, and this system is fundamentally unfree. Once liberated from the shackles of employment, people will be free to sloth and to slack, but also to do and to act. Humans are verbing creatures. We should fight for a world where we can verb to fulfil our needs and express ourselves instead of line pockets and destroy the Earth. All power to all the people.
Oh wow nobody ever followed me before, I’m not sure if that will be a great experience for you, cause I sometimes post kinda random or darker thoughts and then get embarrassed and delete it after a few minutes.
I was standing on the street today when a man and woman passed me. The man was heatedly explaining to the woman about the reddit strike. I overheard him say "It's the third largest subreddit...." and he was making hand gestures I could see as they walked past. (Which one is the third largest?)...
We have a news thing which runs on our trams and I saw Reddit on there pretty much the last day I had spent on it. First time I‘ve seen it in news outside of tech magazines.
Hopefully the last time too, cause I want to see ActivityPub/fediverse now, I want no more of this company money making crap in my social media.
I used Apollo the last years, but I had an Android before that and used RiF, I‘m sad about both and sad about the death of all the others I never used too. Reddit has lost me as a user forever and hope they enjoy their corporate curated ad experience over there. Goodbye to all the talented devs, may their next projects be even more successful.
Wow thanks for posting, what a read. I suspected average employees would not like what is going on.
I can relate, up until recently I was in a company whose product and decisions I strongly disliked and browsing r/antiwork like wild to cope. I was close to burnout due to the mismanagement and work heaped on me.
Until eventually something in me snapped and I went and found a better job. Is everything good here? God no, but my current manager is nice and my workload more manageable for now and I learned I have options if it grows unmanageable again, a lot of options actually.
So thanks for those who keep posting to move on as well, it‘s a bit repetitive and perhaps obvious, but useful nonetheless for those who don‘t see it yet.
Though if one loves the product and coworkers and work and the main shit thing is the management, maybe a union would be the more useful solution. It‘s a good way to influence some of these decisions, perhaps what makes my current employer better is the presence of a union.
It is not Lemmy or kbin, it is the fediverse. (kbin.social) en
I don't think many people understand that if they use Lemmy or kbin, they are posting to the fediverse. There are other platforms and will be more to come. Referring to a post on "Lemmy" or "kbin" is like saying you saw a post on your Windows or Mac computer....
deleted_by_author
What was the subreddit that represented to you the best example of downspiral of quality? To me it was /r/dataisbeautiful (kbin.social) en
At first it was all about presenting data in an original looking way. In the end it was about pushing political ideas in your throat using a plain bar graph. It was not about sharing something interesting you found but about taking advantage of a captive audience.
hearing about reddit strike on the street (kbin.social) en
I was standing on the street today when a man and woman passed me. The man was heatedly explaining to the woman about the reddit strike. I overheard him say "It's the third largest subreddit...." and he was making hand gestures I could see as they walked past. (Which one is the third largest?)...
Goodbye RIF - Talklittle's Goodbye to Reddit is Fun users (talklittle.com)
From the site:...
Six verified Reddit employees discussing the current atmosphere at the company. Featuring "First the company needs to get rid of Steve", "It's garbage", and actively hoping to be laid off. : r/ModCoord (teddit.adminforge.de) en