Andy Piper<p>Last night, a friend and I took part in the weekly quiz at a local pub. We were a bit stuck for a team name, and ended up hitting on the (we thought amusing) name “The Enshittiification Continues”. </p><p>At the end of the first round, as he always does, the quiz master came around to collect the team name – the bar staff then got to vote on the best / most amusing one, and that team got a packet of crisps (!) and an extra point. </p><p>So, we gave him the name – and he said he did not get the reference. We then attempted to explain the concept. That’s in spite of “enshittification” being a Word of the Year <em>somewhere in the world</em> in both <a href="https://americandialect.org/2023-word-of-the-year-is-enshittification/" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">2023</a> and in <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-11-26/macquarie-dictionary-word-of-the-year-2024/104648884" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">2024</a>. </p><p>Being in tech, and an avid reader of <a href="https://craphound.com/" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">Cory Doctorow’s work</a> (mostly on the non-fiction side, but I’ve dipped into some of the fiction stuff too), of course, it’s a term I’m very familiar with. Last night’s experience was another reminder of the remarkably tiny interest and social bubbles in which we exist.</p><p>… our team name was not even listed as one of those that got any kind of attention from the bar staff, and we lost out on that much sought-after (!!) packet of crisps.</p><p>… we did, however, come second overall when the scores were totalled up, which was pretty impressive considering there were only two of us, and at least 14 out of 60 questions were sports-related (although we did nail 17/20 of the movie round, so there’s that). Hurrah!</p><blockquote><p>Shout-out to the man Ash that runs that weekly quiz, he’s nice guy, and doesn’t get a ton of support from the venue, we appreciate him when we’re there!</p></blockquote> <p>In semi-related news, the fancy Nokē smart padlock1 that I was gifted as a birthday present ~10 years ago is the latest victim of capitalism and tech eating themselves. </p><p>Arrived home on Friday night to discover that the rarely-used gadget had been used to lock up a delivery, but that since I hadn’t used the app for months, Apple had kindly uninstalled it from my phone. The only problem was that I then could not log back in to my account in the app. A <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/bicycling/comments/1gr192z/seeking_others_affected_by_discontinued_noke/" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">Reddit search later</a>, and also a grep through the depths of my email – the company was sold to another one last year, the servers taken down, and the promised “transfer of function” to the new company’s app was never actually communicated to customers. Fortunately, a day later I was able to use the failsafe mechanism to unlock it (having already sourced a potential loan of an angle grinder). </p><p>My appeal to a support email address to resolve the issue has been ignored, but “rewarded” (!!!) by apparently immediately being added to the marketing email list for the new company, as yesterday I received a junk message. 🤬</p><p>Needless to say: the enshittification does, in fact, continue; and I am <em>very</em> annoyed about it.</p> <ol><li>I know… technology may not always be an ideal solution to every problem. It <em>was</em> a very nice gift, though, and it was good while it lasted. ↩︎</li></ol><p><a href="https://andypiper.co.uk/2025/02/18/the-enshittification-continues/" class="" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://andypiper.co.uk/2025/02/18/the-enshittification-continues/</a></p><p><a rel="nofollow noopener" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://andypiper.co.uk/tag/100daystooffload/" target="_blank">#100DaysToOffload</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://andypiper.co.uk/tag/complaining/" target="_blank">#complaining</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://andypiper.co.uk/tag/cory-doctorow/" target="_blank">#coryDoctorow</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://andypiper.co.uk/tag/enshittification/" target="_blank">#enshittification</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://andypiper.co.uk/tag/quiz/" target="_blank">#quiz</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://andypiper.co.uk/tag/technology/" target="_blank">#Technology</a></p>