Enshittification of Airports, Airlines, and Airplanes
Months ago: Enshittification is Everywhere: You Pay More, the Services Get Worse
Earlier today and earlier this month I mentioned how air travel became more strenuous despite technological advancements (or because of them). It's not a question of whether you're a Free (libre) software stickler or not; the consensus when I speak to people is that things got harder, not simpler, yet we're meant to think "apps" make life easier (they typically don't; a human being with speciality is better than any "app"). Airports turn people away... to machines (offloading labour costs), airlines expect people to do all the work on their own (via "apps" or online "webapps"), and airplane crews sometimes refuse to give gadgets like headphones. They say people might steal them; but to them it just cuts costs associated with sanitation, packaging etc. Using that very same logical fallacy maybe coffee shops should only ever serve customers plastic cups, as glasses might be stolen. Headphones don't cost much more to produce than a nice mug. Airplanes never have good headphones anyway, just generic plastic things.
Enshittification as it was defined (and coined) by Cory Doctorow was about intentionally worsening services or lowering quality in the name of increasing profits, or turning from losses (temporary) into profitability. It's always done at the expense of the people gullible enough not to foresee enshittification, such as people who wrongly perceived Microsoft GitHub as "free stuff" (now it seems increasingly likely that GitHub will be gone in a few years and some people take the matter seriously*).
Boeing cutting salaries has meant enshittification of aircrafts (planes fall from the sky, but Boeing can increase profits by reducing expenses). Contrary to a common misconception - perpetuated by media that tries to 'normalise' the 'security theatre' at airports (as this became Big Business) - very few aviation casualties are due to terrorism:
Quality of planes, ground control, and maintenance problems (due to cuts) are why many people die. In 2012 things were a lot less turbulent than in 2025. It's not like many more people are flying now.
This is in less than 6 months:
If people are willing to tolerate standard declines and enshittification (nowadays sold as "pivot to AI" or "replaced by AI" or "AI layoffs") they will pay for it some other way, sometimes with their time (having to do the work previously done by salaried workers) and sometimes with their lives. â–ˆ
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* Earlier this week Linux Matters said: "Alan prepares for the inevitable by mirroring Microsoft's proprietary prison GitHub to Forgejo."
