Technical Enshittification: Why Everything in IT is Horrible Right Now and How to Fix It

Enshittification: “when platform… starts to exploit [its] user base… at the expense of user experience” Cory Doctorow

Socio-economic enshittificatio n Platform gathers users by providing value Critical mass locks users in Platform stops providing value, sells the users

Ttechnical enshittification A purely technical (albeit reductionist) view

Baruch Sadogursky - @jbaru ch × Head of DevRel at TuxCare × Developer Productivity Nerd × Development -> DevOps -> #DPE

shownotes × × × × speaking.jbaru.ch Slides Video All the links!

It’s a vein diagram Software I like Software I know really well

  1. Everything is getting worse Bugs… bugs are everywhere

You had one job, operating sy stem

Privacy. That’s apple. Kinda.

Twitter/x Ux: It’s not (only) el on’s fault

Move fast and break things

you had one job, Secure vault

If it’s down, no one can hack it

On the other hand, if it’s not p rotected, it’s not down!

But maybe running on win 3.1 is not a great idea after all

Let’s add Ai, what can possibly go wrong

Number of issues…

Just a tiny bit of issues

  1. stagnation No, slapping chatbot on doesn’t count

What’s new in the latest andr oid and ios

Windows 10 vs windows 11: na me 3 differences

  1. Speed of innovation Can ANYTHING be released in less than two years?

Let’s just slap a chatbot on it !

Even slapping chatbot on takes years

A freaking wireless charger

A (not so) new look is coming (not so) soon

Living on elon’s time

  1. bloat Old man yells at software size

Surface of attack is insane

ARE YOU AFRAID YET?

F*ck it, we’ll do it lite

Chrome nom-noms ram

Chromium nom-noms ram

Electron apps nom-noms ram

Tale of two pdf readers

Tale of two pdf readers

No Ozempic for websites

  1. Feature mismatch Let’s add features no–one needs and remove features people like

Windows 10 -> windows 11

New app at all costs

Remember sonos? Let’s look w hy…

  1. no-code To get new features out, developers should write code. They don’t.

You can’t create product with ou t writing code

  1. management There are so many ways to screw up when you’re in managmenet

With overconfidence

Bad Org habits can kill produ ctivity

  1. Artificial rigid deadlines “Because I said so”

The “art” of not letting go

  1. bad code When developers do code, they are drawn in technical dept

You can’t create value fast if you’re drowning

It’s not just sonos

Onboarding time for new devel oper

  1. much more bad code Let’s let AI generate tons of bad code, what can possibly go wrong

Garbage in -> Garbage out

AI gets creative with Technical debt

  1. Complexity More code, especially bad code makes it impossible to understand tech

Example: Security

  1. Wrong features How do product managers know what we want? They don’t.

Product management is guess work

  1. Copy the trend Let’s just do the current thing

More “shittification”

Ai assistants everywhere

We can fix God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

  1. Productivity How to write more code

Keep loops tight. Yeah, really. No manual toil. Protect deep focus time

Use AI smartly! Right tool – right job Not all tools are created equal. Go deep, not wide ATM specialized beats generalized Local ai = control Better control and privacy.

Agentic AI is RAD if it does the right thing

  1. agile (yes, it’s 2025) Not necessarily what you think

Code > meetings More data = better calls Make choices that are easy to undo Done is better than perfect

  1. DevOps (yes, it’s 2025) Probably exactly what you think

DevOps Engineers do not exist, DevOps Team is just a silo. Do DevOps right Automate all the things It it’s painful, you’re doing it wrong You test in production anyway. Make it less painful

  1. Write good code Well, that sounds actionable

What idiot wrote this?! Bad code never gets better on its own. If it calls for comment, rewrite it Kill it before it kills you

Write docs, find docs

  1. Think negatively Not in live, just about your code

Don’t feed them Ensure resilience Catch and recover Getting feedback on social is not great

  1. Know what you don’t know But don’t panic

Delegate to pros when needed

  1. Help your business Even regular dev can help

“Faster time-to-market” Write it down Be direct, not snarky Flag issues early

Everything is terrible, but it d oesn’t have to be × It’s not just you, enshittification is real × Developer productivity and managerial decisions to blame × You, the developer, can help!

THANKS! Q&A and Twitter X/Bsky/Mastodon/LinkedIn ads: x @jbaruch x #Javaland x speaking.jbaru.ch