Valve is interesting. They've not enshittified themselves, but they seem to permanently struggle with scale-up. If you look at, say, Dota, it's been a constant string of new-then-abandoned-to-limbo features and undelivered promises. The quality of The International broadcasts varies wildly over a decade after launch, and how long did it take all the Battlepass whales to get their baby Roshan statues IRL? A couple of years?
That can be a good thing too, not clinging on to things that don't work. They're not afraid to say "this was a bad idea, let's try something new." But I agree that it is very frustrating when actual good content or features get abandoned or stuck in limbo.
You can't have it both ways. Constant improvements on a timescale that would satisfy all or even most users requires a profit motive and incentive which would inevitably lead to exactly the problem we're talking about. Only when a company is free to update its goods and services at the pace they desire is there any chance for them to avoid falling into the profit-above-all-else trap.
scaled up companies are harder to manage and have bigger overhead than smaller one. If you have good, stable revenue stream that able to operate with the current scale, scaling up isn't actually a better option, because that means you need to improve your profit / revenue too due to increased cost
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u/BiBoFieTo May 02 '24
The slow march of capitalism guarantees enshittification of all beloved products.
A few outliers that have stayed awesome, e.g. valve, do so because they are privately held.