Comment by _factor

The problem isn’t the necessary fluff that must be added, it’s how easy it becomes to keep on adding it after the necessity subsides.

Google was a more honorable company when the ads were on the right hand side only instead of tricking you in the main results. This is the enshitification people talk about. Decision with no reason other than pure profit at user expense. They were horrendously profitable when they made this dark pattern switch.

Profits today can’t be distinguished accurately between users who know it’s an ad and those who were tricked into thinking it was organic.

Not all enshitification is equal.