Wanna listen to this story instead? Check out this week's Better Offline podcast, "The Man That Destroyed Google Search," available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and anywhere else you get your podcasts.
This is the story of how Google Search died, and the people responsible for killing it.
The story begins
If only there were specific people making those executive decisions that enshittify everything, we could all try to hold them at least a little bit accountable for it. We could call them “executives” or something.
Alas, corporate growth-at-all-cost policies are merely an emergent property with no one particularly responsible for them at all. It’s not like there’s something as damning as, say, an email thread outlining exactly who made all those shitty decisions.
If only there were specific people making those executive decisions that enshittify everything, we could all try to hold them at least a little bit accountable for it. We could call them “executives” or something.
Alas, corporate growth-at-all-cost policies are merely an emergent property with no one particularly responsible for them at all. It’s not like there’s something as damning as, say, an email thread outlining exactly who made all those shitty decisions.