August 5, 2025: surviving enshittification

Everyone’s offering their thoughts on enshittification these days. I notice this phenomenon…seems like there are conversations that go on which I tap into for a bit before the move along. Makes me wonder if I’m just being carried along in the river of thought. Well, Dave Pollard would argue that indeed I am, and today he has a post on the phenomena of eshittification, and true to his character he also has a useful analysis and remedy for it, in the form of some design principles and a recommendation to the excellent search engine, Kagi, which does what search engines used to do.

Every sector is caving to the enshittification. And every sector has its mavericks that are hacking it back to human-centred dignity. Philanthropy and youth sports are like that and Will Cromack is that maverick. Today his post at The Art of Football is a brilliant summation of what he has done to change both of these sectors (and to change them mutually) and it’s a summary of his life’s work. If you know me, you will know why I love this guy so much.

Sometimes we survive it all? To be clear, I think climate collapse is a different beast than the other collapses human beings have visited upon ourselves in our short history on this planet, but this piece by Luke Kemp at least gets me going into my day with a sense of “okay, but, maybe…” Good enough for now.