49 upvotes, 1 direct replies (showing 1)
View submission: An Update Regarding Reddit’s API
I'm not sure TikTok is a great example given that it's never been a developer friendly platform. Reddit is the complete opposite, for much of its existence there wasn't even an official app, third party apps were built and benefitted Reddit greatly.
In fact they still very much do, I'd see your argument about enshitification and raise you a great TED Talk by Malcolm Gladwell[1] that talks about how giving users options that suit their preferences is incredibly powerful.
1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iIiAAhUeR6Y
Comment by ryecurious at 18/04/2023 at 18:17 UTC
28 upvotes, 0 direct replies
In TikTok's case, the vendors aren't devs, they're content creators. People were given an audience by TikTok in exchange for keeping people watching TikTok, and they built their livelihoods around that (the same way a dev might for a platform's API).
And again, the whole point of enshittification is that the platform is great to vendors, until they aren't. Reddit being great to vendors, especially their biggest 3rd party devs, doesn't disprove the pattern. It just means we're still in step 2, where they want more vendor lock-in (if the cycle is actually happening, which it seems to with every social media site eventually).
I'll check out Malcolm Gladwell's talk, but your description sounds like it's largely compatible with what Doctorow describes. User's choice is one of the biggest things Doctorow focuses on in his article, and how it largely becomes incompatible with maximized profit.