Yeah, valid, enshittification as per Doctorow mostly applies to systems you can change on the fly ( e.g. firmware-enabled devices) and engineered obsolescence (and indeed the march of progress making things genuinely obsolete) is not new. It’s just that so many physical products are worse than they were (not Toyotas, taps that used to last 50+ years and are lucky for a couple of years now, washing machines) that the term expanded. Some MBAs decided making ‘good enough’ cheap crap creates a ‘revenue stream’ when people have to replace it.

Technology does indeed progress, and many times that’s a good thing (and not just a cheaper way to get a product sold. LED lights are great). 9 Billion people leads to a lot of good ideas, not a doomsayer, but I’d still like focus returned to longevity and quality in some way that advertisers can’t fuck up. One can dream, I get sick of having to constantly research products to see if I’m going to need to do it again in a short time.