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Just sounds like a rude word with little meaning, doesn't it? But no, it actually describes a process by which companies deliberately reduce the quality of their offerings in order to boost profits. The infuriating thing is that they get away with it time after time with little resistance.
As a Sky customer, I can see this happening with their service right now. I've got Sky Q and while it has some significant, annoying quirks and limitations due to poor software design (the hardware is very good) there's nothing better coming along to replace it. In fact, Sky are slowly phasing out their satellite TV delivery completely in favour of an all-streaming internet delivery with their Sky Stream and Sky Glass products, which should offer a better service but actually doesn't.
These devices can't record, their program navigation isn't anywhere near as good and one can't keep a recording beyond what Sky allows. For example, with Sky Q, while some downloaded programs had expiry dates on them where the recording is deleted on a certain date and time, the vast majority don't, so a recording can be kept on the hard drive indefinitely and watched as many times as one likes, even after the program is no longer available on Sky. So, a TV series could be available for download for only another three days say, but once on the hard drive, those recordings won't expire. Not so with Sky Stream, where you're at the mercy of the restrictions imposed by the TV channel on Sky, so in my example, you'd have only those three days to watch them before they expire, which might not even be possible, especially if there are over a hundred episodes or so. And anyway, who wants to be under that sort of pressure just to beat some arbitrary cutoff point in order to watch something that they're supposed to enjoy?
Also, on starting playback of a program, the video quality may be quite poor for a while as the system senses the bandwidth available to it and raises it accordingly, especially if one isn't on a superfast connection of 100Mbps or more. I find this distracting and annoying. This happens all the time on Netflix and Amazon Prime, so I expect it to be the same with Sky Stream. In fact, I've noticed streaming only content on the Sky Q box do this, too. Of course, this never happens on a DVR recording of any brand.
I'm a techy guy and I can tell you that there's no technical reason why these streaming only devices have to work like this. All Sky had to do was create a Q box without the satellite reception capability and the customer would be sorted. Also, current Sky Q boxes would work just fine without a satellite signal as they have full download and streaming functionality already, so no changeover required.
Here's another example: Sky Sports+ was launched 11 days ago. It's streaming only and to its credit can deliver much more sport than over satellite as internet capacity is effectively unlimited. However, try shuttling back and forth through a program and you'll find that while it's technically possible, in practice it's virtually impossible to do so for more than a few seconds either way as the program pointer barely moves. I can't believe Sky put out a service like this. And again, no one's complaining about it.
These things are a massive downgrade over Sky Q and what gets me is that consumers are just quietly accepting these limitations without fuss. Even the reviews don't really make much of it, although, they do usually mention these restrictions. I've got roughly four years left until the satellite service is switched off and then I'll have to move to Stream or some other equally crap service.
Oh and of course, prices are generally no cheaper, either.
Yeah, enshittification is real alright and this rude word is very apt for how these big companies are screwing over their customers. Whatever happened to continuous improvement through competition?
en.wikipedia.org
rxtvinfo.com
As a Sky customer, I can see this happening with their service right now. I've got Sky Q and while it has some significant, annoying quirks and limitations due to poor software design (the hardware is very good) there's nothing better coming along to replace it. In fact, Sky are slowly phasing out their satellite TV delivery completely in favour of an all-streaming internet delivery with their Sky Stream and Sky Glass products, which should offer a better service but actually doesn't.
These devices can't record, their program navigation isn't anywhere near as good and one can't keep a recording beyond what Sky allows. For example, with Sky Q, while some downloaded programs had expiry dates on them where the recording is deleted on a certain date and time, the vast majority don't, so a recording can be kept on the hard drive indefinitely and watched as many times as one likes, even after the program is no longer available on Sky. So, a TV series could be available for download for only another three days say, but once on the hard drive, those recordings won't expire. Not so with Sky Stream, where you're at the mercy of the restrictions imposed by the TV channel on Sky, so in my example, you'd have only those three days to watch them before they expire, which might not even be possible, especially if there are over a hundred episodes or so. And anyway, who wants to be under that sort of pressure just to beat some arbitrary cutoff point in order to watch something that they're supposed to enjoy?
Also, on starting playback of a program, the video quality may be quite poor for a while as the system senses the bandwidth available to it and raises it accordingly, especially if one isn't on a superfast connection of 100Mbps or more. I find this distracting and annoying. This happens all the time on Netflix and Amazon Prime, so I expect it to be the same with Sky Stream. In fact, I've noticed streaming only content on the Sky Q box do this, too. Of course, this never happens on a DVR recording of any brand.
I'm a techy guy and I can tell you that there's no technical reason why these streaming only devices have to work like this. All Sky had to do was create a Q box without the satellite reception capability and the customer would be sorted. Also, current Sky Q boxes would work just fine without a satellite signal as they have full download and streaming functionality already, so no changeover required.
Here's another example: Sky Sports+ was launched 11 days ago. It's streaming only and to its credit can deliver much more sport than over satellite as internet capacity is effectively unlimited. However, try shuttling back and forth through a program and you'll find that while it's technically possible, in practice it's virtually impossible to do so for more than a few seconds either way as the program pointer barely moves. I can't believe Sky put out a service like this. And again, no one's complaining about it.
These things are a massive downgrade over Sky Q and what gets me is that consumers are just quietly accepting these limitations without fuss. Even the reviews don't really make much of it, although, they do usually mention these restrictions. I've got roughly four years left until the satellite service is switched off and then I'll have to move to Stream or some other equally crap service.
Oh and of course, prices are generally no cheaper, either.
Yeah, enshittification is real alright and this rude word is very apt for how these big companies are screwing over their customers. Whatever happened to continuous improvement through competition?
Enshittification - Wikipedia
New Sky Sports+ channel launching 8th August - RXTV
Thursday 8th August marks the beginning of a new era for Sky Sports, with its latest service launching on Sky, Virgin Media, NOW and EE TV.
rxtvinfo.com
The only thing I'd curb a bit is if someone was gratuitously swearing all the time which I've never seen on NZ. The word filter is also disabled here too, so no auto censorship to worry about, hence no using asterisks or silly things like that required.
