We all know the struggle of beloved services slowly going downhill. What’s one service, tool, or website you’ve been using for years that’s still great and hasn’t turned to crap?
Let’s you register an easy to remember domain name linked to an IP address you specify. It’s useful for self hosting or avoiding having to buy a domain name.
Free version makes you confirm every month that you still want the domain name, but that’s just a couple of clicks from the email they send you.
Commenting for future reference
They have always provided downloads from filehosters, torrents, Usenet and a VPN. And at the end of the year, there has always been a good deal to get the service for a whole year (or even two).
It’s too good to be true and every year I wonder when they’ll enshittify. But they haven’t done so, yet.
Craigslist
Hasn’t changed much at all, and their app is exactly what it needs to be, nothing more–i think the only thing I wasn’t able to do in the app was clear a saved search, but there’s no bloat, no ads, don’t need an account unless you’re posting or saving searches.
Every few years I’ll look for something on craigslist and every time I’m amazed that it’s still going strong and it’s still exactly the same.
The site still looks like it came right out of the late 90’s and that’s all it needs to be
There is currently an amazing amount of top-quality, open source, design and development software: Blender, Godot, Inkscape and Krita, for instance.
That’s different, those are open source projects, not walled off paid service from companies
My local ISP. They are not a monopoly, they are local only, they provide fiber and great customer service. You call and they answer instantly, they don’t treat you like an idiot when you call. They don’t restrict anything and you have unlimited data. It’s very simple.
Last month T-mobile bought them after years of great service so I expect the enshittification to come any day now, but so far nothing has changed.
Mine too!
Still local, small time with a few thousand customers. They don’t upcharge internet prices if you skip linear TV.
All emplyees are local and I see them drive around.I don’t care how good your pitch is, Mr. Salesman at my door: I’m sticking with what I’ve got!
I don’t think I’ve heard of anyone who loves their ISP since the early days of transitioning from 56K modems.
Are we using the colloquial definition* or the definition of the person who coined the term?
*“Stuff I don’t like”
The colloquial definition is still the original one. A handful of people misunderstand and think it means just “is shitty” but mostly it’s used correctly.
We have had different experiences.
It’s no use. Resistance is futile.
Signed,
Someone Who Raged Against the Destruction of “FUD” Back in the Day
😭
Not sure if they qualify as “services,” but discogs, rateyourmusic and genius are holding up fairly well. IMDB is also pretty good, still.
IMDB is also pretty good, still.
Sure, it’s still useable. But the redesign a few years ago made it harder to use and I’m still mad about them removing their forums. Who dares to talk about movies and TV shows on a platform meant for that.
IMDb is so enshittified nobody uses it anymore. Bad example.
I swear I ran into a problem with IMDb having some basic stuff like “what has this actor been in recently” stuck behind their IMDbPro paywall at some point in the last couple years.
But I just went and checked a few movies and shows, can’t seem to replicate that issue anywhere.
I either hallucinated it, or they rolled back the enshittification after seeing a drop in traffic, not sure
They toyed around with moving things in and out of public. I’m not sure i’ve seen the what else get chained off, but for a while you coudn’t get much information about anyone. That’s when I started using Wiki
A bit more niche, but I’d say Roll20 for online TTRPG’s. It has quirks, absolutely, but it has gotten better overall and is free with optional paid plans that offer good benefits which are not necessities.
PiHole
Linux
It just keeps getting better and more polished.
Linux and the ecosystem are freaking amazing
I think Linux enshitifcation will happen when Linus Torvalds is no longer the benevolent dictator. I assume bigtech would add more DRM crap for more usecases etc, regular (unintentional) userspace breaking for desktop users since development would be focused for server/cloud computing etc.
I think Linux enshitifcation will happen when Linus Torvalds is no longer the benevolent dictator.
I hope not. Linus surrounds himself with good people (like Greg Kroah-Hartman) who will take over the reigns and most likely continue the legacy in his name.
Well thankfully FOSS allows anyone to fork anything, so I imagine there will always be decent distros out there.
There’s still danger here. While anyone can fork, it’s painful and work-intensive. A well-funded actor could fork something useful, add a bunch of features the community wants, and do a shitty job of committing back. Once most of the community stops using the old stuff and the devs go back to their lives, we can lose control of useful stuff.
Stuff like when Signal enshittifies. It has enough inertia and spin up cost that the forks barely see any traffic.
We need to protect Linus at all costs.
Opalstack for webhosting.
Actual paid services? Basically only Steam.
FOSS is the only software you can count on to not start nickel and diming you once the subscriber count starts to level out.
Steam
30% markup. Predatory currency conversion policies. Recent scandals with Steam censoring games on behest of Australian Right nuts groups.
You missed 3 times in a row.
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The 30% cut thing has been industry standard since the dawn of time. Valve goes out of its way to make exceptions to this rule down to 10% in cases of very high volume but everyone only talks about the 30 since thats all they hear about. Only an Epic Games apologist would parrot this as a talking point. Plus, developers are not getting nothing for that 30%, especially games that use Valve’s Steam networking services. Unlike Microsoft and Sony who also take 30% cuts, Valve doesn’t charge $10,000 per game patch to have someone review and approve it to be published.
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The regional pricing goes both ways. There was literally a game recently users were complaining about NOT getting it because the publisher opted out or something, where the regional pricing would have made the game affordable but in USD (Valves country of origin and therefore default), it was exhorbitantly priced. And this one wasn’t even Valve’s fault.
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Valve did not censor games directly on behest of the Australian nutjobs, they fought back against them pretty hard, but Valve is ultimately beholden to the payment processors (who they also pushed back on). Once Visa and MasterCard started threatening to pull services, Valve was put in a “comply or die” situation. If they didn’t do as they were told they wouldn’t be able to accept money with anything but Stripe or Bitcoin. They literally lost Paypal as a payment option over this fight.
I think its very dishonest of you to frame these points as enshittification. This term means the intentional degradation of a product or service for the sole motive of increasing profits. For point 1, the whole industry literally started off like that. For point 2, it was literally an attempt at equity (valve may not get the deltas correct but in some countries they’re losing money on games). And for point 3, you might be able to argue it but ultimately it wasn’t for profits so much as it was survival.
If you wanted to shitsling at Valve, you should have mentioned how Valve invented lootboxes in TF2 and then exacerbated the issue in CS:GO/CS2, releasing that awful plague onto the industry.
Only an Epic Games apologist would parrot this as a talking point.
Why are you trying to offend me? I didn’t call you names, why are you doing that?
but ultimately it wasn’t for profits so much as it was survival.
Visa and Mastercard aren’t the only available payment options in Steam. Yielding to them was for profit.
Survival? Steam has enough profit to create it’s own payment processor and make it popular.
He didn’t. He said people who parrot it are.
Unless you do, there is no reason to be offended. Up to you.And no; realistically, if you lose Visa and Mastercard, you can close shop. Obviously it’s for profit, because a 99% reduction in turnover means all employees out of work.
Yes, I took that number out of thin air, but I know most people would never bother as that is what they have.
Maybe it’s different in your country.
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Agnostic:
- VLC
Windows:
- TotalCommander (Android too!)
- Irfanview
Mac:
- A better finder rename
- Daisy disk
- Iterm2
