or signup to continue reading Top marks to the people at Macquarie Dictionary. Their word of the year for 2024 is probably the best since they started bestowing the honour on popular new colloquialisms in 2006. "Enshittification: noun the gradual deterioration of a service or product brought about by a reduction in the quality of service provided, especially of an online platform, and as a consequence of profit-seeking.
" We've all felt it. The hold times on the phone, waiting for a human to help resolve an issue with a bank/telco/insurance company. "We're experiencing an unusually high volume of calls" is a lie.
The truth is they're aren't enough operators. It's bad enough enduring syrupy music interspersed with messages telling us it's so much easier to do it online - especially maddening when the internet's down. The survey at the end of the ordeal is a twist of the dull knife.
The self-checkouts with their accusatory announcement of an unexpected item in the bagging area. We're doing the work of the retailer or supermarket to help their profit margin but, adding insult to injury, these machines tell us we're not doing it properly. The supermarket chains that charge more for fruit and vegetables not wrapped in plastic so they can eke more shelf-life and more profit out of the humble potato and carrot.
The airport check-in kiosks. When they work, they demand you tag your own bags, again doing the work the airlines once did. When they don't, locating a human to help can be li.