constructive sabotage idea for anti-capitalists
Build FOSS software that's clearly better than the alternatives, but make it *exactly* the right amount of hostile-to-corporations; so that it is frustrating to use and slows down business processes, but isn't *so* bad that it justifies buying or developing an alternative
Take advantage of corporations' inability to see the long-term costs resulting from short-term savings. If they can enshittify our software, we can enshittify theirs
Also works with existing projects that are already widely adopted by corporations
re: constructive sabotage idea for anti-capitalists
@pinoaffe That's the process of gradually making it shittier (for corporate use) but never to such a degree that it's bad enough for them to jump ship
re: constructive sabotage idea for anti-capitalists
@pinoaffe Ah, right - that's going to be dependent on the type of software, usually, but a good first pass is "hyperoptimize it for non-commercial use where no money changes hands"; like, deliberately build things without room for a billing mechanism or customer management, for example (eg. no ability to suspend an account for non-payment).
Another good one (though it requires more care to not introduce eg. unintended accessibility issues) is to design around a rigid way of using the system, especially around reporting.
Corporate users often need the software to work in very specific ways because "the manager said they want a report in such-and-such format" regardless of whether that actually makes sense, and every such reported issue that you can answer with "we have no intention of supporting this, _____ should be good enough" is a win.
It does take some experience, but after a while you'll learn to spot the complaints and feature requests that are obviously for corporate use, vs. those of individuals or collectives. "Needs a feature or change because someone else told them to, rather than because it solves a clear problem" is the major red flag.
re: constructive sabotage idea for anti-capitalists
@pinoaffe (Note that they usually won't *tell* you that someone else told them to; they will just insist that they need the feature and be incredibly vague as to why, or come up with an explanation/usecase that doesn't make sense)
re: constructive sabotage idea for anti-capitalists
@joepie91 ah yes, thanks!
re: constructive sabotage idea for anti-capitalists
@joepie91 yeah let me rephrase my question: how does one make software specifically shitty for corporate use without making it as shitty for everyone?