Owning our own data is the only way to stop enshittifcation
It’s a familiar pattern. A new website or app comes along and it’s so good, you just have to try it. It’s free, so why not? You and millions of others will quickly become addicted and use it every day. But then it starts to change.
Some of your favorite features can now only be used for a fee. Ads start interfering with your user experience. It’s still the same thing, but now it’s a little worse, a little more corporate, a little less fun.
What has happened, in a term coined by author Cory Doctorow, is “enshittification” (see Has Life Today Been Enshittified? Cory Doctorow’s New Book Explores). Users are no longer the priority; shareholders are.
The Internet is full of examples, so much so that it now defines the history of the Web itself. Most of us rely on just a handful of apps and websites owned by tech giants, many of which aren’t as good as they once were.
The result, according to Tim Berners-Lee, is that his creation, the World Wide Web, is “as likely to arouse anxiety as joy.”
Damning words. But as he explains in “Most Are Good”: Tim Berners-Lee on the Current State of the Web, it doesn’t have to be this way. The problem is that we don’t control our own data. We’re handing it over to tech companies. Leaving is difficult; if you do so, you lose this data.
“ Most of us rely on only a handful of apps, many of which aren’t as good as they once were. “
Its solution is called a data module. Every time you generate personal data, it is transferred into the pod. You can then share that data whenever you want, with whoever you want, but you can just as quickly revoke sharing permissions and move your data elsewhere.
Data modules would certainly make it easier for tech companies to move down the enshittification route. Rather than being locked in, you can leave and simply take all your data with you. A stick in the hands of users, to balance the carrot of shareholder profit.
But how to introduce such a thing? Berners-Lee thinks a critical mass of early adopters will eventually be able to demand it, but it’s unlikely that tech companies will voluntarily give up some of their control. That leaves the state. As governments increasingly look for ways to reduce the power of big tech companies, forcing them to take back control of our data would be a good start.
