March 2025 - ResistTheSun

Enshittification

Window search for 10 and 11 is terrible. That a well known. Search function is worthless. Better off using file search to find stuff. Microsoft focus has been pushing users towards internet search. Why, well, to boost it adverting numbers. Deeply frustrating user experience. Google has made it own search function worse.

Is a term for all of this enshittification. Made in a blog post, can read it here. Also known as platform decay. What we have seen is focus on profits, over user experience. I can think of another example, Amazon. Have you tried buying something recently. Borderline impossible to find anything you want.

The question is does that concept exist in economics. I don’t know. What should happen is users leaving platforms. Thing is these platforms so massive they don’t have competitive that can exist. What should happen is regulation, rethinking how data is handled. Laws take time and economy is moving much faster. Of course going to be pushback against any changes.

I don’t think this concept is new, but push for endless growth, profit above all else is having a serious impact. Shareholders should not only consideration. Until that changes, things won’t get any better. At the moment, what we have right now is not a free and fair market. How do you create one without putting too much burden on new competition? Also, another problem we may be solving yesterday problem.

Don’t Panic: Time for Action on Ukraine

Calm heads are required. A knee-jerk reaction is a mistake. You should take your time, to consider and reflect. Failure to response to Russian aggression. Inaction is how we have got here. Europe as whole did not give Ukraine everything it needed to win. It tried to do half measures, to avoid economic pain. Russia war economy is overheating, it has been unable to take Ukraine. In the 3 years, progress has been painfully slow and stalled. What support we have given Ukraine has been a massive success. Now it seems the Americans have changed sides. Who could have seen that coming? Oh, I don’t know, it was in plain sight and obvious.

Europe and rest of the west should accept this what has happened. Learn from it mistakes. Warm words do not win wars. Action however does. What worries me is inaction and gravity pulling us in a direction that not in are interests. The last 3 years of policy look to be a failure. If you wanted Ukraine to win and this conflict between west and Russia to be contained. If not obvious we’re at war with Russia, that how they view it. Viewing it as a scale and willing to push but avoid what we consider all out war. So what should we be doing? Well, ramping up production, aiming to supply Ukraine. With the goal of domestic production. At the same time increasing defence spending and looking at replacing American’s ability in Europe. The goal here is building a new command centre with Europe in control and leading. Lots that need to be done here. That going to be longer term thing but required. Holding back on stronger sanctions for now unless something big happens. What is required, here, is going to be deeply painful.

What happened in the White House this week was shocking but a wake-up call. We have time to improve things. The price of peace is much higher than it was. Europe is rich and can pay that price. We may not like it, but we can do it. Otherwise, we’re heading towards war with Russia and going to end up unprepared. One bit of good news here, a formal war has not happened yet. I’m worried, yes, but half glass full we can avoid the worst of it. It does require paying the price to achieve peace we want and doing what is necessary.