Episode 37 (January 2025) Show Me the $$

Beth Patin, Dave Lankes & Mike Eisenberg

Description

In the beginning … of our dot com digital age (roughly from the late 1970s) … there was a expectation that information and computer technology (ICT) would be a boon to society. Technology could be liberating rather than oppressing. The hope was that new products and services (e.g., personal computers, the Internet, the WWW, search engines, smart phones, social media)  would lead to a more equitable, open, and free society. Sadly, that didn’t happen. Instead, the pervasive goal in ICT became monetization—to make a buck and to maximize profits as much and as quickly as possible.

In this episode we’re not going to argue whether this is good or bad thing. We accept that the dominant characteristic in ICT was and still is the drive for commercial triumph. And with an information economy estimated to be around $5.5 trillion today (and growing), there is success beyond anyone’s wildest dreams.

Instead, we want to examine the implications of all this profit-seeking in the information sector. We’ve become aware of a disturbing trend: the decline of the quality in online products and services over time. This phenomenon is described in a Wikipedia entry as “Enshittification” where vendors and entrepreneurs initially “create high-quality offerings to attract users, then they degrade those offerings to better serve business customers, and finally degrade their services to users and business customers to maximize profits for shareholders.”

How big of a concern is enshittification in relation to the nature and quality of information resources and services in the commercial and public sectors? And of course, do we see this trend in the library world as well?

This episode includes:

• Wazzup?
• AI Watch
• Main Topic
• Awesome Library Thingy

References & Resources

Wazzup?

Darrington, Patrick. (2024, December 5). Cullman battles racist sundown legacy as it becomes Alabama’s cutest Christmas town. AL.com. https://www.al.com/news/2024/12/cullman-battles-racist-sundown-legacy-as-it-becomes-alabamas-cutest-christmas-town.html

Tougaloo College. (2024). State map: Using the Sundown Towns database. The Samuel Proctor Oral History Program. https://justice.tougaloo.edu/sundown-towns/using-the-sundown-towns-database/state-map/

Loewen, J. W. (2018). Sundown towns: A hidden dimension of American racism. The New Press.

Zinn Education Project. (2024). Sundown towns. https://www.zinnedproject.org/materials/sundown-towns/

AI Watch

Fox, V. B. (2024). A librarian against AI; or, I think AI should leave. https://violetbfox.info/against-ai/

CIRCL (Center for Integrative Research in Computing and
Learning Science) (2024). SLAAIT summative gathering. https://circl.community/index.php/slaait-home/slaait-summative-gathering/

Youngman, A., & Patin, B. (2024). Spreading Sankofa: Addressing digital epistemicide through LIS education. Journal of Digital Social Research, 6(1), Article 33238. https://publicera.kb.se/jdsr/article/view/33238

TurboScribe. (2024). TurboScribe dashboard. https://turboscribe.ai/dashboard

Gaudio Studio. (2024). Gaudio Studio. https://studio.gaudiolab.io/

Lalal.ai. (2024). Lalal.ai. https://www.lalal.ai/

OpenAI. (2024). DALL·E 3. OpenAI. https://openai.com/index/dall-e-3/

Audacity Team. (2024). Audacity [Software]. https://www.audacityteam.org/

Main Topic: Show Me the Money

Doctorow, C. (2023, January 23). The ‘Enshittification’ of TikTok Or how, exactly, platforms die. Wired. https://www.wired.com/story/tiktok-platforms-cory-doctorow/

Shepherd, T. (2024, November 25). ‘What many of us feel’: Why ‘enshittification’ is Macquarie Dictionary’s word of the year. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/science/2024/nov/26/enshittification-macquarie-dictionary-word-of-the-year-explained

American Library Association. (n.d.). ALA policy on outsourcing and privatization. Retrieved December 23, 2024, from https://www.ala.org/tools/outsourcing/background

British Columbia Library Association. (2024). BCLA connect. https://bclaconnect.ca/

Knuth, R., & Bair-Mundy, D. G. (1998). Revolt Over Outsourcing: Hawaii’s Librarians Speak Out About Contracted Selection. Collection Management, 23(1–2), 81–112. https://doi.org/10.1300/J105v23n01_04

Du, L., & Zeng, X. (2024). Environmental injustice and the forgotten community: A case study of the largest e-waste dumpsite in Nigeria. MIS Quarterly, 48(4), 1858. https://misq.umn.edu/environmental-injustice-and-the-forgotten-community-a-case-study-of-the-largest-e-waste-dumpsite-in-nigeria.html

Stacey, N. (Director). (2024, November). Buy now: The shopping conspiracy [Film]. Netflix. https://www.netflix.com/title/81554996

Caudron, S. (1997, March 1). Don’t make Texaco’s $175 million mistake. Workforce. https://workforce.com/news/dont-make-texacos-175-million-mistake

Goods Unite Us. (2024). Goods Unite Us. https://www.goodsuniteus.com/

Goldberg, E. (2024, December 7). What if charity shouldn’t be optimized? The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/07/business/charity-holiday-giving-Soptimized.html

Awesome Library Thingys

Catalini, M. (2024, December 9). New Jersey becomes latest state to prohibit bans on books in school, public libraries. AP News. https://apnews.com/article/new-jersey-ban-on-book-bans-269234b5f19dcdbbc21a6cf658b760db

Kosta, M. (2024). Michael Kosta meets the No. 1 book banner in Florida [Video]. The Daily Show. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bwlhhb5jgqs

Picchi, A. (2024, December 2). Bluesky says users weary of X’s “partisan microphone” are using its service. Here’s what to know. CBS News. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/bluesky-x-twitter-why-are-people-switching-how-to-join/

Parrack, D. (2024, November 27). Switched from X to Bluesky: What I love and hate about it so far. PCWorld. https://www.pcworld.com/article/2533396/switching-from-x-twitter-to-bluesky-pros-and-cons.html

Crowley, K., & Walrath-Holdridge, M. (2024, December 6). Social media platform Bluesky nearing 25 million users in continued post-election growth. USA Today. https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2024/12/06/bluesky-user-count-social-media/76624043007/

Filed under: Dr. Beth Patin, Dr. Dave Lankes, Dr. Mike Eisenberg, Season 5