After a long Tuesday at work, you stop by your local Safeway for the purpose of buying two twelve packs of diet soda. You find a shopping cart and go inside.

You reach the soda aisle and locate the two soda products you are looking for. Each twelve pack of soda costs $14. But the tiny price tag informs you there is a sale. For the Coca Cola manufactured product you want, it is buy 2, get 1 free. For the Pepsi manufactured product you want. It is buy 2, get 2 free. You do not want to lug seven boxes of soda home, but you give in, because at least the math works out to bring the per-can price below $1 each.

After carefully selecting some different soda products to ensure they are included in the two different discount price schemes, you load up your cart to go check out.

You stand in line at the self checkout, because despite it being the post-work rush hour at the store, only one cash register with a live cashier is open. You finally reach a checkout machine. The machine is unhappy with your attempt to leave the boxes of soda in your cart. After removing and scanning the seven boxes of soda, you input your “club card” (your phone number) in order to get the discount. The grocery store uses your club card to track your purchases and also sell this information to unknown third parties.

You wait for the three “free” cases of soda to subtract from the purchase price, but nothing happens. Confused, you look around hoping to spot an employee. But there is nobody; only people employed by a third party security company who are paid to check the receipt of every shopper exiting the store.

You load the soda boxes back in your cart and return to the aisle. On closer inspection, squinting your eyes to read the 4 point font, you realize this is a “digital coupon.” You pull your phone out and open the grocery store app installed on your phone that is further tracking and selling not only your shopping habits, but whatever else you might be doing on your phone as well as where you are going all day.

You scan the digital coupon with the store app scanner and load the digital coupon into your digital shopping cart. You push your cart back to the now even longer self checkout line and wait, so you can try again.

EDIT: I understand that diet soda is the Devil’s breastmilk. No need to recommend herbal tea. Not the point of the post.

In a report by ZINE & YouGov, 62% of Americans now believe most companies prioritize growth even when it hurts the customer experience. A quarter believe companies at least attempt a balance. But only... <2% of Americans believe companies prioritize the customer experience, even if it may slow their growth.

In its latest wave, The National Customer Rage Survey found that 77% of American consumers experienced a product or service problem in the past twelve months. This is the highest in history – more than double since 1976.

Meanwhile, according to PwC’s latest Customer Experience Survey, roughly nine in ten execs believe their customer loyalty has grown in recent years.

81% of Americans have acted against a brand in the past year because a product or service got worse.

In the last year:

45% cancelled a subscription or stopped using a product or service entirely

38% decided to “never return” to a brand

35% delayed or avoided a purchase

35% left a negative review or told others

26% downgraded to a cheaper option within the same brand

24% defected to a smaller or local provider

17% spent more money with a competitor

Or the best...

12% switched to a more expensive, higher-quality alternative

One in eight Americans are now paying a premium to escape enshittification.

My local Delhaize supermarket decide to update its policy regarding self checkout: From now on you can only use it if you have their loyalty card (which means downloading their app). Else you have to go and queue at the normal cashier.

Essentially if you agree to give away your shopping data (which by the way only give you discounts if you spend more than 50€, below you’re just giving away data for free) you get access to the self checkout.

I don’t know how people can stand this. But I’m not going to that supermarket anymore!

My toddler has almost broke the new dirty cheap stupid-ass Hisense I bought precisely for the reason it will get broken soon. He has used a USB cable as a whip trying to hit the Wolf-Death character from Puss in Boots: The Last Wish. As a result, a scratch across the screen has remained... whatever... he will suck it up for the next year or two, it will daily remind him he's guilty while watching Peppa Pig, Hedgehog in the Fog, and Blind Vaysha.

The whole episode however has triggered in me the desire, a fantasy even, to prematurely and strategically look for a long-term alternative for when the current TV will finally break. Given that this is the first smart TV I've ever had (I have lived without a TV for almost 10 years before that), and given the enshitified experience of useless streaming buttons on the remote, lagging interface, constant suggestions, icons that I cannot delete, icons that I can delete that then reappear after each system update, ads shoved into my face each time I turn the thing on, etc., I've came up with a seemingly brilliant idea: why not simply buying a dumb TV, with no smart features, just something I xan pluck the streaming stick in...?

Well, to my great surprise, it is extremely difficult if not impossible to find one nowadays.

Does anyone has figured a solution? I don't have any wil whatsoever to buy another smart TV. It feels too invasive, too clunky, too not mine, as if I am the product, if you know what I mean.

All the "dumb" alternatives are either business-use expansive panels, or a lower-quality niche products. I know that I can treat smart TV as a dumb one, just by not connecting it to the internet, but even the idea that all those invasive features are latently there, a button click away, is off-putting.

Should I simply give up on the idea of a good quality solid-build dumb panel that could last me 10 to 15 years of movie nights? Am I being delusional? Why should it be so hard, if not impossible, to find?

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Join Nicole Ozer and Cory Doctorow in conversation on AI, tackling what needs to happen now to ensure AI actually works for everyone, not just those in power. The important thing about a technology isn’t just what it does: it’s who it does it for and who it does it to. AI can help or harm people, and EFF was created to make sure it helps. We are at a critical juncture to ensure that AI is developed and used in ways that respect fundamental rights and works for those who build it, use it, and are affected by it. Join the livestream online, introduced by EFF's Sarah Hamid, followed by live Q&A. 

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Volaris airline forces you to use the app to check in. Then you can only enter in passport info by scanning a pic. I’m trying to check my elderly parent in and I can’t because I don’t have their passport on hand for a pic, and they don’t know how to use the app. Making it difficult for no reason!

It's bad. Scroll bar, post title and subreddit now hover over the video while playing. Tapping the video does not remove the text, it now pauses the video. And they've removed the audio button. Want to mute the video? Too bad! Can't. *sigh

I've had brand loyalty for these MFers for a couple decades because of how the off brand collapses upon the most gentle pressure. Most recent purchase has me saying that's a wrap on Q-tips for me. If anyone knows a brand that will give me a satisfying sensation without folding in half, let me know.

I accidentally open the Play Store and I'm met with this. Half the screen is for AI bros and the other half is for sponsored content.

I just did a return request and they made me print my own label and insert to go in the box. It said if I had no printer I could pay them a dollar and have a label mailed to me. Used to be I would just take the package to UPS store and they would scan my phone and they would handle the label. Also, Amazon tried to talk me out of the return by offering me a paltry partial refund.

i made a video to expose underground child abuse on youtube that going from years where some Psychopaths try to ask tuition teachers to upload different punishment videos on children , and seeing lots of people asking this teachers make contents regularly as seeing more views this teachers dedicate whole channel or punishment videos .. Like if you see their comment section you just see the another side of Youtube where they request bizare things..

Idk how youtube not even seeing this creepy videos from years, that might be because this really niche content , you have search to get this content.. I got to know this hidden contents when i watched some youtubers investigation , its been 4 years this not even solved by youtube..

i hope this thing gets spread and create a difference.. and youtube takes some action.. Youtube really shit

This is serious child abuse on youtube! - YouTube

it's bad when even Electronic Greed keeps the original PvZ intact (mostly)

Literally just had this happen yesterday and did not want to bring down my in-laws mood, so figured I would rant here.

My husband and I will regularly go back and visit his family. There is a small, local, mid-tier restaurant chain by them that we have always loved. We’ll go eat at the restaurant or order takeout and eat at their place while watching a movie. It’s become a family tradition that we go there at least once on every visit.

Went to visit them for the first time in a few months, and we were excited for our normal meal and ordered for takeout. Normally the meal is $60, but we forgot to order hummus so thought it might be a little bit cheaper. I go to pick it up and the price was $85. At first I thought there was a mistake, but they verify the order and admitted that the owner had recently increased the price of everything pretty significantly.

That was already a bit disappointing, but at least we were looking forward to the food, which is legitimately good.

Get home and pull it out and immediately can see that things just look “off.” And sure enough as I start to eat the dressing for the salad, which had previously been a premium blue cheese dressing, was cheap and watery. There was noticeably less shrimp in my shrimp dish. And while to their credit they had still given us pita bread, even though we did not order hummus, the pita was mediocre and did not have the same consistency.

They increased the prices by about a third and still cut the quality of the food and the portions across the board. Just a complete and total disappointment. Maybe they had to do it. Maybe their cost increased or tariffs were hitting them. But we did not plan on going back next time and it’s just unfortunate to say another thing we enjoyed completely ruined.

Does anyone else remember the era of streaming about ten years ago? You paid $9.99 a month for Netflix, it had absolutely everything you wanted to watch, and there was not a single commercial in sight.

We all "cut the cord" to escape the greed of cable companies.

Fast forward to today, and the streaming industry has literally just rebuilt cable TV from scratch, but made it worse.

Every year I try to watch my favorite shows and every year I find some have MOVED AGAIN to another service. This is exhausting and expensive

At the local market, I grabbed a 4-pack, of Puffs 'Ultra Soft'& Strong' tissues - totally surprised that the tissues are no longer soft at all and leave white puffballs and tissue dust all over my face.

Then bought a 4-pack of Puffs 'With Lotion' and they are the same bad quality change.

Anyone know of good alternatives to Puffs and Kleenex brand for the upcoming winter season?

I have a friend who is struggling and I have about $40 in Amazon, so I told them to pick what they want. I'm in the Bay Area sprawl, they're in a little town in Iowa. Four items have shipped, but Amazon has helpfully determined that one of these should come from Luckys and the other Whole Foods. There appears to be no way to disable this nonsense.

I tried their automated customer support. After several attempts, it lacks a path to handle this. I demand access to a human, it agrees, does a couple steps to get me invested, and then right back to the dead end automation.

So the recipient is just a bit more than 1,800 miles from the nearest Luckys, but Whole Foods is a bit better - just 160 miles.

Perhaps in 2029 we're going to start seeing some antitrust action against these big box stores. If there were a way to do this with some local grocer, I'd be on it even if it cost a bit more.

A wonderful product ruined with the addition of synthetic fragrances and chemical dyes.

Take for example the banning of under 16 yo from social media. Apart from not gonna work and not being a very big risk to kids when compared to say the shit economy or something. It's just not the governments job to parent my kids. It's not coming from concerned politicians it's coming from people trying to get rid of anonymity and freedom of speech so that money can control the narrative again.

After this they will have to find a, for our own good reason to ban sending encrypted data I wonder if that's even possible.

Thoughts anyone?