I just finished Illich's "Tools for Conviviality" and the law you articulated at the end -- "The more a business knows about all of its customers, the less it needs to care about any particular one" -- reminds me of this passage from Illich:
"Nazi doctors explored what the organism can endure. They found out how long the average person can survive torture, but this did not tell them anything about what someone can tolerate."
There's something about generalities that do a splendid job of blinding us to specifics.
I think this may be a part of the general "enshittification" as noted by Ed Zitron, Cory Doctorow, Noah Smith and many others (including me). The companies look at the digital engagement metrics rather than the actual transactions and happiness. I reckon this is going to end in tears for the enshittifiers though because people are now actively looking for alternatives.
The good news is that companies like stripe seem to have a business model devoted to working with the smaller businesses and giving them the same features are the big boys so when the big boys stumble there will be alternatives
I'm sure our data rich environment has exacerbated this phenomenon, but I think it has more to do with the relative size of the business vs the customer. I recall similar dismissiveness from big businesses in the 90s, and my parents complained about it in the 80s. The bigger the business, the less they care about an individual, because more individuals patronize them. Similarly, if you interact with a small business, you'll find that they are much more flexible and fair about terms, problems that crop up, etc.
I think the computer also puts more distance between the customer and whoever is calling the shots in the business, which also exacerbates the problem.
This is also why hospitals typically treat women like hamburger meat on a conveyer belt in childbirth. A set of zombie protocols, not evidence based, implemented to make the OB's life easier. As long as they have a monopoly on American birth, there's little incentive to change.
I just finished Illich's "Tools for Conviviality" and the law you articulated at the end -- "The more a business knows about all of its customers, the less it needs to care about any particular one" -- reminds me of this passage from Illich:
"Nazi doctors explored what the organism can endure. They found out how long the average person can survive torture, but this did not tell them anything about what someone can tolerate."
There's something about generalities that do a splendid job of blinding us to specifics.
I think this may be a part of the general "enshittification" as noted by Ed Zitron, Cory Doctorow, Noah Smith and many others (including me). The companies look at the digital engagement metrics rather than the actual transactions and happiness. I reckon this is going to end in tears for the enshittifiers though because people are now actively looking for alternatives.
I wrote a post about google ones - https://ombreolivier.substack.com/p/alternatives-to-google - I probably ought to look at facebook, amazon and apple ones too.
The good news is that companies like stripe seem to have a business model devoted to working with the smaller businesses and giving them the same features are the big boys so when the big boys stumble there will be alternatives
I'm sure our data rich environment has exacerbated this phenomenon, but I think it has more to do with the relative size of the business vs the customer. I recall similar dismissiveness from big businesses in the 90s, and my parents complained about it in the 80s. The bigger the business, the less they care about an individual, because more individuals patronize them. Similarly, if you interact with a small business, you'll find that they are much more flexible and fair about terms, problems that crop up, etc.
I think the computer also puts more distance between the customer and whoever is calling the shots in the business, which also exacerbates the problem.
This is also why hospitals typically treat women like hamburger meat on a conveyer belt in childbirth. A set of zombie protocols, not evidence based, implemented to make the OB's life easier. As long as they have a monopoly on American birth, there's little incentive to change.