Technology

Partly, this is because "the free market will solve it" is just a neoliberal lie. Sometimes, there's simply no other choice as corporations race each other to the bottom.

So this streaming service might have gotten shitty, espensive or unethical, but you can move to another right? Oh no, looks like they're shitty and unethical too, just slightly differently.

Then in six months time, they've each absorbed one another's shitty, greedy practises anyway, ensuring consumers are fully exploited with nowhere else to go.

But the true power of neoliberalism lies in its giant book of premade excuses, so neoliberals (or neoliberals in disguise) will of course read from the next page:

"Oh that's just because there isn't enough competition. We just need to deregulate heavily and allow companies to do whatever the streaming equivalent of dumping toxic by-products in the river is!"

But of course, that won't ever come true either. The companies that already exist will grow more profitable polluting the river and new entries into the market will be either stamped out, bought and stripped for parts or enshittified by the same greed over time.

Following the flowchart taught at exclusive, expensive schools the world over, the next excuse is to blame the consumers.

"Oh if people really cared, they'd simply stop buying things entirely. But they don't, because these companies continue to bring in record profits. So secretly, consumers actually love their chocolate being picked by child slaves".

While they do fight back with boycotts, public outcry and (in this case) things like password sharing and piracy, it's nothing companies can't crush if it looks like it might actually dent their profits.

At some point, consumers need to pick their misery and the choices are bleak but obvious.

They can accept the minor misery of advertising, even as they pay a subscription, just like the corporation knew they would.

They can escalate their own misery further by boycotting the entire platform or industry.

But the moral high ground doesn't make spending your few hours of personal time each day staring at the wall suddenly as entertaining as whatever content you're no longer watching.

Also, the company doesn't care. That was part of their calculations and they're still making even more money.

Or finally, they could maximise their misery and actually do something, like busting out the guillotines or becoming a politician that opposes neoliberalism yet is somehow allowed power.

So anyway, people are tired. The fight never ends and some people have fought it for 50 years already. Encourage them to take the third option by all means, but don't shame them for taking the first option.

They might already be miserable enough.