Doctrow argues that nascent tech unionization (which we’re closer to having now than ever before) combined with bipartisan fear (and consequent regulation) either directly or via agencies like the FTC and FCC can help to curb Big Tech’s power, and the enshittification that it has wrought.
Everything about it is wrong. They don’t have only certain content, they have everything from Oscar winning movies and indie shows to shit reality shows. They don’t only buy rights, they also produce a lot of content. Liking their content is not ‘lock-in’, you can cancel any day you like and get entertainment on may different platform (including cable TV) or just buy DVDs or whatever. The service is also not degrading in any way. The price goes up, that’s the only problem people have with it. The still make Oscar nominated movies, even this year and they still make popular shows.
Youtube is the exact opposite: there’s nowhere else to go for this type of content, they are pushing more and more ads on everyone and the recommendation algorithm gets more problematic all the time. That’s enshitification. Netflix doesn’t have any of those issues.
DVDs (how many people even still own a player?) are not a real alternative to streaming for a number of reasons. Nor is “just watch something else on another platform.” Or, at least, if your claim is that entertainment is interchangeable then you’ve got no real complaint about YouTube. Hell, YouTube has its own ad-free subscription. By your own logic, the ads can’t be enshittificantion because you can just pay more to avoid it!
The enshittification of Netflix goes beyond just charging more. It’s any decision the company makes to make the user experience worse so they can make more money. That’s things like hiding your list and your recently watched shows so they can make you scroll through more recommendations. So then they can autoplay the content they stuck in your way. Recommendations that, like YouTube, are more concerned with what they want to monetize than what you actually want. And it’s restricting the way you used to be able to use the service, like on multiple TVs even within the same house, to get you to wade through a bunch of payment plans.
But my point still stands. Enshittification doesn’t require them to become a monopoly and start producing nothing but reality TV. It just describes the strategy shift that these companies inevitably make from making the platform better to attract more users, to making it worse to extract more money from the user base they’ve built up.