"I’ll admit that I’m conflating a few different topics here, but I promise there’s a throughline: our economy demands the optimization of everything"
Despite the articles and book titles shown as examples, it depends on the opposite: the enshitification of everything. Squeezing profit margins, boosting stocks, and nobody gives a fuck about quality.
"The perfect/optimal" etc. aspect comes because parts of the economy also depend on another thing: selling status signals and aspirational bullshit.
Funnily, enshitification and aspiration-selling can work together: what's sold for perfection and high status is either shit or getting shittier each year. It's just the branding and optics that count. Some call the result "premium mediocre").
My good friend has five siblings and they all obsessively research every purchase; it's clearly a form of competition. The legwork involved in every quotidian item is beyond compulsive. Amazing to hear them argue about the tech specs of artisanal hand grinders or the stitching pattern on a pair of five way stretch khakis.
"I’ll admit that I’m conflating a few different topics here, but I promise there’s a throughline: our economy demands the optimization of everything"
Despite the articles and book titles shown as examples, it depends on the opposite: the enshitification of everything. Squeezing profit margins, boosting stocks, and nobody gives a fuck about quality.
"The perfect/optimal" etc. aspect comes because parts of the economy also depend on another thing: selling status signals and aspirational bullshit.
Funnily, enshitification and aspiration-selling can work together: what's sold for perfection and high status is either shit or getting shittier each year. It's just the branding and optics that count. Some call the result "premium mediocre").
Oh so it was you looking in my kitchen cupboards😂
My good friend has five siblings and they all obsessively research every purchase; it's clearly a form of competition. The legwork involved in every quotidian item is beyond compulsive. Amazing to hear them argue about the tech specs of artisanal hand grinders or the stitching pattern on a pair of five way stretch khakis.
It's compensation for hating their lives
as a recent wok buyer, i’m very upset by the last paragraph. (and i’ll have you know we’ve used it 5 times in a month!)