Staying opinionated as you grow
5 comments
·November 5, 2025jdpage
Point of order: "enshittification" does not mean what the author's using it to mean. It does not just mean "the product got worse". It means "the product was purposefully made worse in order to capture additional value from the customer," i.e. a rug pull.
Maybe I'm being pedantic, but I'd hate to see such a useful term for corporate malfeasance diluted.
joshbuddy
Well, Cory recently said in a podcast we can use it to mean "product got worse", so I've become less pedantic on this point fwiw. (I think it was in the episode of Adam Conover from about a month ago)
mvkel
Yep. The irony being that "enshittification," properly deployed, can actually lead a company to even more success. Product people always think "having the best product" wins the day, but there are billions of dollars made through a perfectly baked enshittified pie.
randomdrake
Defending focus is way harder than adding features.
When you're building, adding yet another feature can sometimes shave off all the edges that made you successful in the first place.
Same with messaging. The more you try to sound universal, the less anyone hears you.
Strong opinions that are honestly held and communicated are such great signs of respect. It's refreshing to see: "This is who we are. If it's not for you, that's okay."
Good piece.
It was a let down to be bought into the "hook" that saying no, taking focus, is the key to continued long term success as a scaled company, only for it to devolve into how courageous it is to have a simple homepage.
I wanted to read a new story; one about an internal debate where the easy answer was to "just do it," but a hard no is what actually saved everything.
Surely that story exists.