We all know the struggle of beloved services slowly going downhill. What’s one service, tool, or website you’ve been using for years that’s still great and hasn’t turned to crap?
Craigslist
Hasn’t changed much at all, and their app is exactly what it needs to be, nothing more–i think the only thing I wasn’t able to do in the app was clear a saved search, but there’s no bloat, no ads, don’t need an account unless you’re posting or saving searches.
The site still looks like it came right out of the late 90’s and that’s all it needs to be
There is currently an amazing amount of top-quality, open source, design and development software: Blender, Godot, Inkscape and Krita, for instance.
My local ISP. They are not a monopoly, they are local only, they provide fiber and great customer service. You call and they answer instantly, they don’t treat you like an idiot when you call. They don’t restrict anything and you have unlimited data. It’s very simple.
Last month T-mobile bought them after years of great service so I expect the enshittification to come any day now, but so far nothing has changed.
PiHole
Actual paid services? Basically only Steam.
FOSS is the only software you can count on to not start nickel and diming you once the subscriber count starts to level out.
Steam
30% markup. Predatory currency conversion policies. Recent scandals with Steam censoring games on behest of Australian Right nuts groups.
Opalstack for webhosting.
Torrents.
Where do you get good ones these days?
Kiseido Go Server (KGS)
If KGS’s UI looks like it hasn’t been updated in 20 years, that’s because it’s already perfect. There’s no ads, it’s purely functional, it does exactly what it needs to do and nothing more. If you click on “KGS Plus” you have the option to spend money on lectures given by human pros. Otherwise it’s completely free, and it’s still an active go server that’s been around forever.
- Dropout.tv
- Davinci resolve
- Obsidian
- Jellyfin
- Airgradient air quality monitor
Which reminds me, I’ve had a few dropout shows on my jellyfin for a while but really need to drop a sub to support. They do great stuff
I swear, I feel like I’ve watched (or have shown off to people unfamiliar with dropout) A Game Most Changed like 5 times.
Or if they’re straight, Sam Says. Lol
Dropout is pretty good. I don’t think they’ve really been around enough to enshitify yet though. They’re on big up-swing. During that time they’ve been cheap, audience-focused, and fair to their cast and crew. They’ve already raised the price at least once. If they get some loans/investors involved or have a bad year, I could easily see them becoming more like other streaming services. I hope I’m wrong.
True, it’s likely too early to tell. I think I just inadvertently compare them to all the other streaming services right now. As for the price increase, that’s only for new subscribers- existing subscribers are grandfathered in at the previous price.
Steam
This! Steam is the only proprietary program I use on my Linux machines that I’m actually happy with and don’t want to get rid of
Wouldn’t it be great to have a search engine that would bring up sites and services like those in this thread, and exclude enshittified trash like youtube, amazon, etc etc.
With some manual configuration, that’s something you can do with Kagi!
Good point. I would prefer to crowdsource the whitelist I think. Also, it would be cool to do stuff like search youtube but bring up a link to a dis-enshittified youtube intermediary.
That is also something you can do with Kagi. 😆 I have it set up so that all YouTube results redirect me to Invidious, as well as Reddit and Twitter for their respective frontends.
1password, Fingers crossed though
Is this a joke? 1Password’s switch from “lifetime license with local vaults” to “Fuck you/pay me subscription-based, cloud-only vaults” is the poster child for enshittified software. Version 8 is the main reason Bitwarden/KeepPass/VaultWarden are so popular now.
I only started using it after the introduction of the subscription model. So from my point of view it hasn’t gotten worse, yet…
Ah. For those from the Before Times, Versions 1 through 6 were absolutely amazing. Version 7 included VC-inspired “improvements” that set off early-warning alarms, and Version 8 is the Stephen Miller of password managers.
Pinboard.in (bookmarking service)
Signal is good so far. Firefox is teetering on the edge, but it’s also good so far (poor little fox). Lemmy and Mastodon are both great, but maybe that’s EZ mode because they’re built as alternatives to proprietary social media sites.
I pay for ArsTechnica and I feel that I get a lot of value out of doing so. And keep in mind, being a paying subscriber of a service does not safeguard the service from enshittification, so that’s quite great
Stack Exchange. I know, controversial, as people complain about rules being there too strict and community not being too welcoming nowadays, but still a real goldmine of knowledge. All of that with no ads, no spam, no dark patterns.
