But is there a solution to this though?
How does one stop 'enshittification' of everything exactly?
I'm not talking just about Anthropic.
Like is it ethical to put in my ToS that you get a free api but you can’t use it to make a competing service? I feel this is quite common
Strong privacy laws
Tech unionization
Mandated data portability.
Intellectual property, at it's simplest, is a government mandated monopoly granted to allow for progress in the sciences and "useful arts" (think trades really, not arts and crafts). All monopolies are bad, but it was only to be granted for a limited time so it was fine.
Corrupt politicians ruined the entire trade off though, and now it seems that copyrights and patents last for 100 years plus the life of the universe. During which time no one can really compete fairly.
If we want rapid progress in science, we want short patents. Instead we opted for long patents and a higher stock price. R&D budgets have been shrinking ever since.
Which places has this been successful?
So what are you going to do about this?
Why not try them?
I don't know what you are on about but we want solutions not complaining about 'corporate lobbyists' and other conspiracy theories.
Do well enough that you don't need outside investors, or if you take on outside investors select them carefully and ensure they don't expect an IPO.
For game developers, they are a nearing close to a monopoly with Steam, anything PC and for distribution has to go through them and they take a cut, any other places aren't as effective.
Valve has no real competitors or competition.
Unless Valve faces intense competition to change, enshittification will be inevitable since they know nobody can really challenge them.
This is regardless of self or outside funding or no plans to IPO.
Their competition is beholden to quarterly reports, and can't do the sort of long term plays that would be needed to compete effectively with a company like Valve, which isn't beholden to quarterly reports.
Valve doesn't need to enshittify because they aren't subject to shareholders pressuring them increase the profit. As a private company that's pretty much printing money, they don't need to do anything... which has largely been their entire strategy. What would Gabe even do with even more profits, buy a third and fourth yacht?
The need to do 'nothing' works if you are a monopoly or have little to no competition.
Epic and Battle.Net are not real competition.