It’s this way in the entire country. There are many things I can get upset with in Germany (I moved abroad 10y ago and have an outsider’s perspective by now) but the traffic light example to me just indicates you didn’t ask why certain things were the way they were.
(I'm sure there are various German things to criticize or to make fun of. Much of what I read here, however, says more about the (US?!) authors, though.)
Uh, Signal. SimpleX. Session. XMPP/OTR. PGP.
Discussing things on TikTok, that the government must not know about, seems a bad idea.
Or, in other words: If there is no alternative, this is due to your own faults. Either deal with it, or find ways to undo your mistakes.
I've used Linux for 25 years, and never have I thought it has enshittified. It's only Android in the last decade that has, much like the iPhone, Windows and the big social networks defending their monopolies in court and even losing in some cases, though maybe not enough yet.
No, enshittification is not new. It was obvious from day 1 that it will eventually happen. To everybody who know basic mechanisms of how human beings interact with each other.
Sometimes people come to me and say "yeah, well, it's about technology, that's not my business, and I don't really care". This is stupid in various regards. At first, the same people shifted their entire life into that 'technology', and were constantly crying how everything is going to be digital in the future. Beyond that, the entire topic is not at all about tech. It's about how human beings interact. About markets, and all kinds of non-tech things.
"enshittification on modern computers is still relatively new" is like a chain smoker saying something like "lung cancer is still relatively new". Sure, in some way it might actually be new. But is it a good excuse for anything? No. That danger was crystal clear since the first cigarette. Right? Everything else is lame excuses and stupid babble.
As long as everybody knows that you are just talking, but in the end you are basically fine with everything and declare "pragmatism" and all those lame excuses from the last ~20 years, there will never be any actual movement for the better. So why taking care and constantly having those lengthy debates?
Is it just your way to deal with frustration? Or what are these discussions actually for?
I'm really just asking, because I'm actually asking that myself since quite some time now. I just don't get it. The same for some other yet similar topics, e.g. having these dependencies to corporate social media, ..., ...
Additional thought: I also constantly find people somewhere, fighting some decades old fight, e.g. against Windows and Microsoft, and how bad it is in terms of privacy, sovereignty, freedom, ..., and Recall, etc.; but if you ask them "Do you use WhatsApp?", they don't even have a clue why you ask...
IMHO, if the community isn't able to recognize that entire mindset as problematic AND find some actual solutions for it, there is no value in all these discussions.