Comment by madduci
3 days ago
This happens because of capitalism.
In a few years will have a cemetery of software and products locked behind DRM or requiring a remote connection to a server that won't exist anymore, because it's too expensive to maintain. It is already happening, the effect will be much more amplified sooner
The days where middle and high-end goods were of a relatively higher quality were also produced under a capitalist system, though. The US was capitalist when it built my parents' normal washer/dryer combination that lasted for 25 years with no interruptions to service, and it was capitalist when Google was first invented and you could conduct literal string searches on the internet. I don't think there's anything inherent to "capitalism" that causes degradation of product lines that doesn't also cause the creation of the product lines in the first place.
My suspicion is that the "great enshittification" has more to do with the swelling in numbers and purchasing/borrowing power of the lower classes. The middle class now has worse computers and dryers [1], but the lower class now has computers and dryers. Corporations can still make colossal sales numbers with degraded products because they're selling to people for whom possessing a product at all is a major life upgrade, and aren't worried about "the best version of this product". The same is happening to movies and TV.
[1] Many will point out that on paper and in certain metrics modern goods outperform past goods, but I think the extremely high prices commanded by quality vintage and near-vintage goods across all genres of product lines speaks for itself.