Even if any of them believe they are praying, their “faith” is a sham in support of their real religion: power. To Republicans, “politics” is the religion founded on increasing personal power through performative speech and conduct.
They are hollow, nihilistic simulacrums of human-like virtue, expressing themselves only to drain the actual human value and agency from the public.
Yeah, Match.com isn’t satisfied until everyone is miserable.
It’s weird to think about how dominantly successful any app that took a principled position and resisted enshittification starting in 2010 would be now.
I think civilization is probably just ending after these last few generations, frankly.
Probably for the best…
Yes, I opt out. The point of the scan is to (1) build a thorough database (although DOGE probably already did that, we just haven’t found out yet), and (2) to accustom you to your identity not belonging to you.
The second point is the real point of opting out - as soon as nearly nobody opts out, and they’ve made headway on a database, it will no longer be optional. Opting out in that sense is the only vote you’re going to get to cast against it.
Stylophone is very nice. The abrasive overtones are an acquired taste, but I’ve acquired it. It has a nice, rounded sound while not being generic like a sine wave.
Sometimes I do it for comments, and it’s just because I don’t really like what I wrote. I read it and it’s just banal, and I’m like, “you’re not moving the discourse forward at all.”
What annoys me are people who did that to thousands of their posts after leaving Reddit. They’re their posts, they have the right to do it, but I’m like, c’mon, Reddit isn’t suffering from it. They’re selling the data for the same price with or without, and they have all the backups. No, all the users who are googling a one-place-on-the-Internet solution to their extremely specific problem are suffering.
I think that’s like getting angry at your boss and taking it out on your family.
Yeah, this post started as a reassurance that Tailscale wouldn’t enshittify. But it turned out to just be an argument about how to avoid enshittification that boiled down to two principles:
Both are partially right and partially wrong.
For #1: Yes, making your product worse eventually harms the company. No, you can’t expect CEOs to accept that as a reason to not make their product worse because even if it harms the company, short-term incentives that lead to enshittification are eventually going to become irresistible. His comment about reaching “zen” with leveled growth and profit will never stop VCs from calling in demands and favors.
For #2: Yes, founders typically “get it” more than their VC- or failure-initiated replacements. No, that doesn’t mean founders are uniquely resistant to enshittification. This is your point too, and it’s why I don’t believe this person - they lose credibility here because they don’t acknowledge they aren’t special. Every tech bro out there thinks they’ve cracked the code to permanent tech hegemony. That exceptionalist thinking turns into enshittification, since the product-worsening or overcharging is easier to justify as temporary/necessary/not-a-big-deal (until it isn’t).
And all of this doesn’t explain why Tailscale specifically gets immunity if the principles are true.
So interesting post, and a lot more self-awareness than most founders which is still a little reassuring, but a lot of warning signs too.
Edit: clarity