enshttification, also known as crpification and platform decay, is a pattern in which online products and services decline in quality. Initially, vendors create high quality offerings to attract users, then they degrade those offerings to better serve business customers, and finally degrade their services to users and business customers alike to maximize profits for shareholders
Certainly seems to apply to US healthcare system.
Oh it applies to so much more than that.
Google used to work. Now you wade through 10 ads to get to 3 “relevant” links which more often than not don’t answer the question.
Amazon starts off every search query now with “sponsored” links which ignore what you asked for. Say “powered security cameras” and you’ll get pages full of “solar security cameras” because “sponsored.”
My Vizio TV now reverts back to their opening splash screen, encouraging me to tune to the “Vizio Channel” instead of just letting me watch what I want. Likewise I just bought a new TV at Costco which insists on booting to a Google TV ad every time I hit the power button. If I wanted to subscribe to Google TV, I know how, and I don’t.
Parking at Kroger’s is a nightmare. They’ve reserved 10 spaces for their delivery app and two more for Instacart. There are 8 for handicapped, 1 for Employee of the Month, 2 for Veterans, and 1 for “Expectant mothers.” You can now park about 1/4 mile from the front door if you’re a lowly customer.
CVS runs you through 20 questions as you try to check out. Use the App? Have coupons? Want your receipt emailed? Sign up for notifications? Bah. Plus the touch screen is unresponsive, so you have to poke at it 26 times before it registers.
And don’t get me started on dealing with the doctor’s office. You used to be able to talk to someone, now it’s “Touch 3 to leave a message, and if we think it’s important enough we’ll call you back.”
I went into the Fish Market last week, the guy hands me the fish, then turns around the payment machine which demands “Tip 20%?”. The guy picked up a fish and put it in a bag. For that I owe him an extra 20%? I don’t think so. Of course he’s standing there glaring at me the entire time.
The Genius Bar at Apple will no longer help you. Now they send you for “online tutorials” which don’t answer the question. They will only take in broken hardware now, which does no good if the machine just doesn’t do something.
It is impossible to communicate with a human being at the cable company, except via tin-can-and-string from Mumbai. The sound quality is almost as bad as the service, and that’s saying something.
Speaking of which, the History Channel has no history, MTV has no music, there is nothing to be learned on The Learning Channel, Oprah’s channel is true crime, not self help, Bravo! has less arts than Arts & Entertainment, which has none. The news channels don’t do news, they are chat shows about politics preaching to an already converted choir, and the Weather Channel is reality TV featuring lots of snow. The promise of 500 channels came true, and not one was any good.
Speaking of which, streaming let us break the bundle so we could buy just those things we want, and not contribute to those we don’t (like, say, Fox and sports). Except now they’re becoming “another bundle” with Right Wing content (Amazon: Melania) and sports (Netflix & Amazon) so prices will go up just the same.
We will decipher all the hyroglyphics of Egypt before we understand cell phone plans, and we will need microscopes to read the instructions that now come with purchases from Temu. I guess saving that 4 square inches of paper is important, somehow. Shipping costs? Really?
OK, before this gets too personal, just let me say that I spent the entire day yesterday clearing snow from the sidewalk and driveway. Work for 10 minutes, rest for 2 hours. Repeat, repeat. There was a time when those numbers would have been reversed, so yeah, everything is getting worse.
They are doing that at the local Subway.
I glare back them.
How long before we have to tip fast food employees? Now they might have had a case when they were paid $7-8 an hour. They just got a raise in my town to $12.65 an hour on January 1.
I fired Comcast in 2010, and went back to using an antenna, for this very reason. Of course, there are bright sparks that want to shut over the air TV down entirely, so the cell phone operators can have the spectrum. I bought a new Samsung TV a couple years ago. Yes, it defaulted to coming on with a menu of subscription streaming services. Remember that great, unread, classic, the owner’s manual? It told me how to shut off that screen, so the TV would come on like a TV.
Steve
Hey Goofy, you left out the clouds! And don’t forget the lawn.
JimA
I’ll let Goofy off the hook for that and mention them: clouds, lawn.
There.
Pete