Hardware, software or services that adamantly and progressively enshittify the user experience directly or indirectly in order to serve a corporate or political agenda. The enshittification degree varies and could be seen in many forms.
Below are examples ranked from bad to worse:
1. Simple full-screen ads or ads that cant be removed & are placed in critical interfaces and locations such as a login screen or a start menu.
2. Pushing irrelevant services that numb the user's overall experience, such as the AI everywhere all the time phenomenon.
3. Software that removes the user's control or right to consent (or makes objection very obscure) to data collection, auto-updates, etc...
4. Making shady deals —with a common supplier or otherwise— to attack or starve out a good competitor's service or product by deliberately making the experience worse with the competitor's product or making it inaccessible instead of improving own product.
5. Services that remove the right to ownership or make it very difficult for the user to stop paying for the service.
6. Hardware designed with planned obsolescence in mind.
7. Manipulating the market's pricing with tactics such as introducing artificial scarcity; having monopoly-tier economic power and using it maliciously.
8. Bundling surveillance/spy hardware in consumer grade units.
Below are examples ranked from bad to worse:
1. Simple full-screen ads or ads that cant be removed & are placed in critical interfaces and locations such as a login screen or a start menu.
2. Pushing irrelevant services that numb the user's overall experience, such as the AI everywhere all the time phenomenon.
3. Software that removes the user's control or right to consent (or makes objection very obscure) to data collection, auto-updates, etc...
4. Making shady deals —with a common supplier or otherwise— to attack or starve out a good competitor's service or product by deliberately making the experience worse with the competitor's product or making it inaccessible instead of improving own product.
5. Services that remove the right to ownership or make it very difficult for the user to stop paying for the service.
6. Hardware designed with planned obsolescence in mind.
7. Manipulating the market's pricing with tactics such as introducing artificial scarcity; having monopoly-tier economic power and using it maliciously.
8. Bundling surveillance/spy hardware in consumer grade units.
Maple: But I heard Intel CPUs ship with something called IME and I don't know what's that...
Harris: Yeah, Intel CPUs ship with another mini-CPU running its own MINIX OS and has a networking stack, can watch the user's activity since it sits below the kernel and bios; hardware level, can execute remote code and receive and send data to God knows where!
Maple: Really? Wow, Intel is such a cuckware company!
Harris: True...
Harris: Yeah, Intel CPUs ship with another mini-CPU running its own MINIX OS and has a networking stack, can watch the user's activity since it sits below the kernel and bios; hardware level, can execute remote code and receive and send data to God knows where!
Maple: Really? Wow, Intel is such a cuckware company!
Harris: True...
by snowden! January 27, 2026
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