The FTC is apparently going after Amazon, so I’d be curious to see how that goes

It’s crazy to think that a little over two decades ago, Microsoft was almost broken up for selling an operating system and a web browser. How monopolistic!

I think this article from the Verge explains it pretty well.

tl;dr:

• The Fed kept interest rates low from 2008 to 2021. Low interest rates made it easier to borrow money and meant that debt-backed investments like bonds had a low return, so investors favored stocks for a better yield on their investment.
• This meant tech companies could borrow a ton of money at low interest rates and raise a ton of money from investors through stock sales, allowing them to build services that weren’t profitable in order to grow as rapidly as possible. This basically defined the internet as we know it today - big companies offering free/cheap services with minimal restrictions. Companies could afford to charge low fees and look the other way on things like ad blockers.
• However, now that interest rates are going up, borrowing is much more expensive and investors are less motivated to buy stock, so all that easy money has dried up. Companies are having to raise revenue by increasing prices, adding more ads, blocking ad blockers, etc.

Online services cost a lot of money. People don’t realize how much because VCs and corpos w/ deep pockets have been subsidizing most major services for a long time. Now that the free money period is more-or-less over, these services need to start paying the bills with their users - commence enshittification

I’m just a layman, but it has been nagging my brain how all these big tech companies seem to be turning shitty all at once. I’ve seen others propose similar explanations, but the basic idea is that the historically low rates got them addicted to “free” capital. Now the faucet has been slammed shut and they have to make up for the shortfall.

Also, it’s not just big tech at fault. The massive worldwide inflation we’ve experienced happened for the same reason - shortsighted greed.

I am an apple user, but I was on android up until last year. It’s more an observation based on conversations I’ve had before and after switching than anything.

I mean he’s kinda right. I’ve seen starving, rabid dogs go at road kill with less intensity than an apple user at a “new” apple invention.

Apple already has attestation in safari, so why would any major companies exclude them when they offer it also?

Google would be really stupid to try to exclude apple os, because apple has safari. They would lose their iOS users, iOS users wouldn’t become android users.