Enshittification

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What is enshittification?

The phenomenon of online platforms gradually degrading the quality of their services, often by promoting advertisements and sponsored content, in order to increase profits. (Cory Doctorow, 2022, extracted from Wikitionary) source

The lifecycle of Big Internet

We discuss how predatory big tech platforms live and die by luring people in and then decaying for profit.

Embrace, extend and extinguish

We also discuss how naturally open technologies like the Fediverse can be susceptible to corporate takeovers, rugpulls and subsequent enshittification.

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Google fucked a whole generation with Chromebooks, and now they're fucking the next generation with AI (slrpnk.net)

submitted 2 days ago by stabby_cicada@slrpnk.net to c/enshittification@lemmy.world

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[–] partial_accumen@lemmy.world 6 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Folder structures and network drives are how all company data is handled.

Eh, kinda of, but modern enterprise document storage is largely evolving away from it for general business users. I say this as an IT professional that has been an active consumer of the evolution over the last 25 years. Yes, SMB/CIFs/NFS shares still exist in the corporate enterprise, but modern enterprise systems are doing document storage more in Sharepoint, Google Drive, or even object form (storage buckets). All of these last three don't use a traditional file system where folder (directory really) navigation is a required skill.

This is especially true with Google drive. Yes, there are folders, but its equally likely that the file you need isn't even in your folders because its been shared to you by another user from one of their folders. Links, bookmarks, and free text file searches are often more useful for locating document that navigating a traditional directory tree. This is somewhat true in Sharepoint too.

[–] Reverendender@sh.itjust.works 3 points 2 days ago

Corporate employee here, can confirm. Now you just turn on auto save and forget about it.

[–] wizardbeard@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

Edit: This came off intensely aggressive. Sorry.

I'm looking down the barrel of a massive project to shift all of our departments away from network shares to SharePoint. Simultaneously, my team is going to stop supporting "special" permissioned sub-folders, like share/Facilities/Managers/ so people can't see their co-worker's yearly review. Each Sharepoint site's "owner" (read, department manager) will be responsible for access management in their own site.

Also, knowing some of these departments, they will absolutely run up against the limit on amount of files in a single Sharepoint site. My boss seems to refuse to believe that's possible.

This is going to be such a clusterfuck. I am afraid.

Original comment:

Sincerely: How the fuck are your users utilizing Sharepoint that they don't need to navigate the file/folder structure concept? Just using the search bar every time? Maintaining a list of shortcuts or browser favorites?

How does a file being shared from another user's storage invalidate the need to still know how to get to it?

I can't speak to Google Drive, as I've only used that minorly as an end user. Object based storage is an entirely different use case than document/data organization.

File names and tags with shit chucked in what is effectively a root folder are not adequate for most companies' data organization and "securing so only the right people have access" needs.

[–] partial_accumen@lemmy.world 2 points 2 days ago

Sincerely: How the fuck are your users utilizing Sharepoint that they don’t need to navigate the file/folder structure concept? Just using the search bar every time? Maintaining a list of shortcuts or browser favorites?

How does a file being shared from another user’s storage invalidate the need to still know how to get to it?

Users are horrible at file management, but you know this part already. When your users have fully evolved away from SMB/NFS shares to Google Drive or Sharepoint it works like this:

User1: "Can you update the financials for your project for this quarter in the file QuarterReporter?"
User2: "Yeah absolutely, where is QuaterReporter?"
User1: "Its in the Reports folder, but theres a few version of it. Don't use QuaterReporterV1. Use QuaterReporterV1-restored_02-02-23". Thats one we maintain with current data in it. Here's the link to the file."
User2: "Uhh, I clicked on that link but don't have access to it. Can you grant it?"
User1: "Oh sure, let me add you to the doc. There, try it now"
User2: "Yep, that worked. Okay do you just need the financials update one time or would you like me to do that for each quarter ongoing?"
User1: "Ongoing please"
User2: "Okay, I'll bookmark this file then and use it again in 3 months. Hey, my financials only cover the top of the project, do you want the tactical detail too?"
User1: "I do actually, yes."
User2: "Okay add, Jim Smith to the doc, and I'll forward the link you gave of the file to him."

So yes, the file still lives in a folder somewhere, users often don't even have the right permissions to maintain the folder structure properly and they just route around that by ignoring it and using links, bookmarks, and email forwards of links.