9 entries
Prices, platforms and institutions that were designed this way and would prefer you assumed otherwise.
Search within Systemic Absurdities →kun-VEEN-yuns feenounEuphemism
A charge added for the convenience of the company, passed on to you, on the grounds that you had no alternative.
Real meaningWe are charging you for the till.
"There is a two pound booking fee. For a booking. That I made."
dy-NAM-ik PRY-singnounEuphemism
Charging different people different amounts for the same thing, described as responsiveness rather than as finding out what you will pay.
Real meaningThe price is whatever you will tolerate right now.
"The tickets doubled while I was in the queue. Dynamic pricing."
en-SHIT-ih-fih-KAY-shunnounDiagnosis
The predictable arc in which a platform is good to its users until it has enough of them, then good to its advertisers until it has enough of those…
Real meaningIt was good, you were the product, and now there is nothing left to extract.
"Search results are unusable now. Full enshittification."
id-ee-OK-ruh-seenounDiagnosis
A system in which the least qualified people travel furthest, which everybody treats as satire right up until they check who is in charge.
Real meaningThe word came first. The film only made it a diagnosis.
"They put the marketing director in charge of public health. That is when idiocracy stopped being a funny word."
pland ob-suh-LES-unsnounDiagnosis
Designing a product to stop working at the point where repairing it becomes expensive, so that replacement looks like a choice.
Real meaningIt was built to die on schedule.
"The battery is sealed and the update finished it off. Planned obsolescence."
shrink-FLAY-shunnounDiagnosis
Reducing what the customer receives while holding the price, on the assumption that nobody reads the weight alongside the cost.
Real meaningIt costs the same and there is less of it.
"Same price, twenty grams lighter. That is shrinkflation."
sub-SKRIP-shun fuh-TEEGnounCoinage
The exhaustion of paying monthly for things that used to be a purchase, a possession, or included.
Real meaningI own nothing and pay for everything.
"I audited my subscriptions and found eleven I had forgotten about."
nounCoinage
Being offered fourteen options that are the same product from four companies, two of which turn out to be the same company.
Real meaningYou are choosing between the same three owners.
"Every energy tariff is basically identical. It is an illusion of choice."
thuh LOY-ul-tee taksnounCoinage
The surcharge paid for not shopping around, applied to everybody who assumed that staying would eventually be rewarded.
Real meaningNew customers get the discount. Existing ones fund it.
"My renewal quote was double the new customer price. The loyalty tax."