UPDATES BECOME DOWNGRADES

How Technology Inevitably Consumes the Consumer

Why would an app make itself worse? Social media companies often seem determined to ruin the user experience. In the early 2010’s, Facebook changed its layout enough to make middle-school-me post a pissy status update about how they made the site “unusable” overnight with no way to opt out. The next time this happened, I deleted my account. Soon after, Google forcibly integrated YouTube into its embarrassing failure of a social network “Google Plus,” forcing users to operate through a doomed, unwieldy Facebook-knockoff to use their YouTube accounts. A pattern was beginning to manifest. 

Since its acquisition by Meta, Instagram has become much worse that it’s almost impressive. The app is always adding tabs no one wants, warping user’s feeds with opaque algorithms, and censoring users with bot-run crackdowns that delete years of expression with little warning or recourse. Elon Musk’s takeover sparked a bipolar episode at Twitter that has seen the introduction and repeal of several terrible policies, including one that banned users for posting external links (think about that: a social media app that won’t let you post a link!). YouTube and Instagram are pivoting hard towards short-form video content, chasing TikTok’s popularity. Most salient of all, every major social media platform has instituted heavy content-restriction policies, and remained deaf to objections. 

It’s deeply depressing to see the Wild West Web of my youth rerouted into this restrictive, repetitive spiral. Yes, social media was always explicitly engineered to harness our attention for profit, but we dove right in because it was transformative and exciting. Never before in human history had so many people had access to such a vast canvas of self-expression and exploration. The social, artistic, and cultural possibilities felt infinite. But the internet, like all grown-up revolutions, has ossified into a bureaucracy. This story—from an exciting new world to an ever-growing list of inconveniences—is not just the trajectory of social media, but consumer technology in general. 

Planned obsolescence is Apple’s fundamental business model; the company that once presented itself as a bold revolution over tyrannical conformity now removes basic components of its products to force users to buy “next-gen” replacements. Redesigned charging ports require new chargers, new operating systems cripple old devices, and Bluetooth earbuds are a necessary addition to a phone without a headphone jack. 

Or consider the automobile industry, which is always adding new computerized features. Large touch screens have replaced analog buttons in the dashboard (forcing drivers, bereft of tactical feedback, to take their eyes off the road and onto a screen). The price to buy or repair modern cars has risen precipitously, thanks to an arsenal of sensors, programs, and other functionally inessential digital systems. Conveniently, a computerized vehicle can be controlled remotely—paving the way for cars that lock their features behind a subscription paywall, or cars that feature digital monitoring software that can commandeer the vehicle. This trend has caused the price of used vehicles to skyrocket in recent years, as people realize that the older machines are simply better. 

But even those who refuse to buy into next-gen tech are eventually forced to do so, as our interconnected world cuts off “outdated” systems. Software updates brick the battery life on old devices. Businesses and educational institutions require tech integration. Sometimes legislation simply mandates technological adoption—for example, all new cars sold in the United States must, by law, include a screen with a rearview camera. Harvard-educated mathematician and social theorist Theodore Kaczynski foresaw this in 1995: “When a new item of technology is introduced as an option that an individual can accept or not as he chooses, it does not necessarily REMAIN optional. In many cases the new technology changes society in such a way that people eventually find themselves FORCED to use it.”

Personally, I’m satisfied with technology once it reaches a certain level of functionality. Instagram worked great for me in 2016. I liked the iPhone 5s better than any model since. My 2008 Toyota Highlander is trusty and comfortable.

I don’t want the thinnest smartphone ever made if it means I can’t use an aux cord. I don’t want a new algorithm if it means I see fewer posts by my friends and more ads by strangers. I don’t want automatic navigation, built-in entertainment apps, and internet-connectivity in my car. These “innovations” are presented to the public with a veneer of improvement, but they make our lives worse—they waste more of our time and money. These updates are downgrades—and that’s actually the point.

The worsening of the consumer experience is an inevitable consequence of market incentives. Consider a family business in a small town—it has a good year if it puts food on the table and collects some savings for a rainy day. Profits can rise and fall, but what matters is that the business supports the family. Keeping customers/community-members happy is a basic principle of success. 

But a megacorporation has a very different incentive structure. Its success is determined by the value of its shares, which is dictated by an expectation of future profits. Shareholders of a corporation want each year to bring more profits than the last. A decrease from year to year—even if both years still net billions of dollars—will displease shareholders, who hold the decisionmaking power regarding the company’s operations. They expect continual growth, and will restructure or sell a company that isn’t constantly expanding. Thus, megacorporations only prioritize customer satisfaction insofar as it contributes to next year’s profits. When profit is better served by the implementation of unwanted features, those features are rapidly implemented. Backwards compatibility is a barrier to profit. Durability is a barrier to profit. Once market saturation is achieved, user satisfaction itself is a barrier to profit. When people are happy with what they have, they will not buy more. Dissatisfaction is baked into the system. 

Many will disagree with this. There’s an assumption, cooked up in Gates-Pinker-Epstein spheres and served to the masses via Enlightened Factual media, that technological progress inherently aligns with humanistic goals (look at the stats! lower infant mortality! greater global wealth! the eradication of terrible diseases!). Sure, but we’re not just analyzing technology in a vacuum; we’re analyzing technology companies. They are not governed by what’s good for the world, but by what’s good for the bottom line. The argument that those two incentives are convergent is, frankly, bullshit. Even if we follow our cultural conditioning and ignore the slave labor it takes to produce cheap devices, tech companies are still deeply exploitative.

The “rational consumer” theory holds that people make economic decisions in their own self-interest, which should result in the success of companies that benefit people, and the failure of those that don’t. But, as is often said of economic theories, it looks good in theory but combusts spectacularly in practice. “Voting with your wallet” is even less effective than regular voting. Both involve gambling on the promises of powers with every reason to lie, but at least a politician doesn’t have remote control over your decisions after-the-fact. Corporations, like candidates on the campaign trail, misrepresent their intentions and your interests. Even the most “rational” consumers can be baited into supporting their own disenfranchisement. For these purposes, new technology is an irresistible beacon.

I remember the optimism. You can microdose it with this video of Steve Jobs introducing the iPhone. Feel the hype in that room! It was everywhere in media. My subscriptions to Popular Science, Popular Mechanics, and Wired outlined new utopian prophecies in every issue. The rise of Silicon Valley inspired a sense of techno-populism. People thought global computing networks could eliminate inequality, lift the world out of irrational tribalism, automate away the worst parts of life and enhance the best parts. Elon Musk was going to save us from climate change with electric cars and solar panels and rockets to Mars. Mark Zuckerberg was going to create a connected global community where “anybody could share anything with anybody.” Universal basic income would allow people to pursue their dreams and focus on innovation. Self-driving cars! Nanotechnology! Carbon-fiber infrastructure! The end of cancer! Infinite knowledge! Build stuff and the world improves—that was the sentiment. 

Looking back on it, this was a bubble of expectations cultivated by nascent technocrats whose warm public altruism obscured a cold private rationality. It’s hard to blame us for believing them; they were giving us ever-cheaper access to ever-improving technology. Moore’s Law thrummed for half a century, (roughly) doubling computing power every two years. It had continued well beyond all previous expectations, why would it stop now? Why couldn’t technology free the world? 

As any realist knows, production eventually encounters bottlenecks. Optimization, no matter how impressive, is beholden to universal laws. Systems tend towards entropy. Resources are not infinite. And now we’re seeing technology recognize that it can’t innovate its way out of scarcity or chaos altogether. Supply chains are wobbling and breaking down like warped ceiling fans. Moore’s Law has been overruled—not by petty human error, but by the physical properties of silicon. Technofuturism is over. We’re not getting flying cars. 

But we got so much! Yes, the explosive trajectory of the digital age is beginning to plateau. But what has emerged is truly incredible—a globally accessible network of communication, knowledge, and art. For all the absurdity, many of Silicon Valley’s public-facing dreams have come true—personal computing is widely accessible, the internet is a universal library, everybody is interconnected on social media. This is unprecedented. Our species could spend the next thousand years adjusting to the Internet and we still wouldn’t fully perceive its power or gravity on our evolutionary timeline. In terms of progress, this is dramatic enough. A sane species would accept that further “progressing” this profound paradigm shift has diminishing returns, and would begin optimizing non-technological aspects of life using its newfound powers. 

We don’t need more updates. We need to properly manage the technology we have. Just as one can be individually satisfied with the sophisticated functions achieved by older websites, devices, and vehicles, the collective could level off the “advancement” of new consumer technology.  It’s okay to recognize we’re reaching a plateau, to stop climbing, and to focus on building homes and gardens at this new elevation. 

But the market doesn’t accept plateaus. It demands growth. Technological production may be slowing, but Wall Street expects rising quarterly profits. The spice must flo—I mean, the stocks must grow. It’s the one immutable law of this whole setup. Therefore, every update is designed for an uptick in profit. 

For a period, most innovations were aligned with consumer welfare. Sales exploded to meet the demands of an excited, opportunistic society. Costs were cut in production, by strong-arming powerless workers in developing nations and inventing faster, cheaper methods to make better stuff. But as we approach total efficiency in the construction of silicon transistors, as we approach a fully connected society where most already own smartphones, as social networks approach feasible saturations of active users, novel tech loses its market advantage. At this point, we’re all wired-in. With our marvelous devices, we have settled into online communities. High-end manufacturing techniques and recalibrated algorithms are not the profit-drivers they once were. Superior engineering is unnecessary when consumers are satisfied with existing products. Sure, tech companies are still wildly profitable, but are they still growing? 

They better be, for the sake of stakeholders. But having milked the technological revolution for most of its excitement and efficiency, megacorporations must extract value elsewhere. Now we reach the point where the interests of companies become directly opposed to our own, as our satisfaction becomes the bottleneck slowing the flow of shareholder profits. Margaret Thatcher once said, “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.” Conversely, the problem with capitalism is that you eventually run out of your own costs to cut. To fulfill the expectation of ever-greater growth, tech companies must always find new strategies to drain a little more of the user’s time, energy, and money. These strategies are so-called “updates.” A social media layout that shows you more ads, or a battery-killing operating system, or a component that selectively prevents DIY repair—technological updates! 

Many people still implicitly believe that their interests are aligned with these megacorps. They think that technocapitalism is still the altruistic dream-creator of the 2000’s, or else they’re distracted by the cultural smokescreen that loops, screensaver-esque, on the walls of the digital labyrinth. Many people still see the Internet as it used to be—uncontrolled territory, a new world, an all-access ladder upwards. Many people still see social media as a petty hobby rather than a global worldview-shaper. These models are understandable, but dangerously outdated. It is time we all recognize the power dynamic of this new world—technocrats versus the rest of us. He who trusts technological updates is a frog in a slowly boiling pot. He does not notice the incremental worsening of his situation. What would have once been intolerable is now normal. 

This was always the plan for the Musks, Zucks, and other fucks. They drew us into the excitement of this new world, but they were only ever growing their companies, their net worth, their future profits. It’s a classic business gambit; first get the customer hooked and then you can take everything he’s got. Silicon Valley did this on an unimaginable scale—delivered a gloriously addictive product to the entire world, ensured we could not live without it, and then raised the price. They're still raising it. Our civilization consumed silicon chips like a trail of breadcrumbs and found itself in a prison, which is constantly updated to give its architects more power. 

Technological advancements often benefit consumers for a time, but turn on them when their welfare is no longer the most efficient path to profit. Market incentives dictate that tech stop working for you, and start working upon you. An empire that no longer expands its borders has only one path to profit: tax its citizens. Silicon Valley has conquered the known world—now it builds a bureaucracy of control. 

In this dystopia, updates become downgrades.