# Which dotcom companies have NOT enshittified? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [December 20, 2025, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-dotcom-companies-have-not-enshittified/1025892 "2025-12-20T15:45:38Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Reply](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/reply/32/15952_2.png) [@Reply](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reply)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2025, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-dotcom-companies-have-not-enshittified/1025892/21 "2025-12-20T20:12:37Z")
> [@Spice\_Weasel](#): > > I consider Steam at least partly enshittified because they did that whole, “you own nothing you actually bought, you just pay us for the privilege of _using_ it” bullshit. Are you referring to a specific incidence, or the general idea of downloadable software with DRM? ---
**Author:** ![Llama\_Llogophile](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/49beb7/32.png) [@Llama\_Llogophile](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Llama_Llogophile)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2025, 8:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-dotcom-companies-have-not-enshittified/1025892/22 "2025-12-20T20:13:38Z")
> [@Spice\_Weasel](#): > > I consider Steam at least partly enshittified because they did that whole, “you own nothing you actually bought, you just pay us for the privilege of _using_ it” bullshit. This is why I’ve opted out of… well, just about everything non-essential. I’m unable to think of any business, dotcom or not, that hasn’t in some way succumbed to seeing customers are people to be fleeced rather than competed for with good products. ---
**Author:** ![Shoeless](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/shoeless/32/7099_2.png) [@Shoeless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shoeless)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2025, 8:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-dotcom-companies-have-not-enshittified/1025892/23 "2025-12-20T20:18:35Z")
> [@Reply](#): > > Spotify might be slightly more expensive these days, but not by much, and it’s still an excellent service that just mostly stays out of your way I tried Spotify for a week or so awhile back, and I thought it sucked, but maybe I was doing it wrong. It was chock full o’ ads, and I remember at point it played a couple of ads then said “Now 30 minutes of uninterrupted music.” Nope, it played two songs then more ads. It also seemed to play the same songs in the same order several days in a row. I found it very frustrating and decided it wasn’t worth paying for a subscription. ---
**Author:** ![Reply](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/reply/32/15952_2.png) [@Reply](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reply)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2025, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-dotcom-companies-have-not-enshittified/1025892/24 "2025-12-20T20:23:48Z")
> [@Shoeless](#): > > I tried Spotify for a week or so awhile back, and I thought it sucked, but maybe I was doing it wrong. Sorry that you had that experience. A paid subscription doesn’t have ads (I mean, not from Spotify, at least… many podcasts will have their own sponsorship messages). Listening to music, I haven’t heard an ad in more than a decade. We pay for a family plan for $20/mo split among 6 people, but everyone has their own accounts and playlists and such. They don’t really check for location the way Netflix does, and several of the 6 people are in different countries. > [@Shoeless](#): > > It also seemed to play the same songs in the same order several days in a row. Most people I know use playlists (which can be community-curated or AI-recommended), usually with dozens or hundreds of songs that you can shuffle through. If you turn on “smart shuffle”, it will also keep playing after the end and suggest similar songs. Its recommendation system is nowhere as powerful as Pandora’s Music Genome Project, but generally good enough if your playlist is more than an album or two large. It also has “radio” stations that play similar-sounding tracks from the beginning, rather than a strict premade playlist. That said, it’s really not that different if you already have YouTube Music, Apple Music, Amazon Music, etc. But if you’re a traditionalist and prefer album ownership, then it’s not the right service. ---
**Author:** ![Procrustus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/procrustus/32/2994_2.png) [@Procrustus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Procrustus)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2025, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-dotcom-companies-have-not-enshittified/1025892/25 "2025-12-20T20:41:31Z")
> [@Spice\_Weasel](#): > > Discord is fine, I guess. My husband and I use it as our primary means of communication during the day. We have a bunch of different channels so we can organize our thoughts on different subjects. Thanks for this. I have never heard of it, and googled. I _think_ I understand what it is, and I’ll look for an opportunity to try it out. ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2025, 10:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-dotcom-companies-have-not-enshittified/1025892/26 "2025-12-20T22:49:16Z")
> [@Reply](#): > > Are you referring to a specific incidence, or the general idea of downloadable software with DRM? I think they sent an email about it sometime in the last six months or so. Yeah, I really think the whole thing is bullshit. I believe that once you buy something, you should own it. And I think creative works in particular - books, music, movies, games - should always be things that can’t be taken away from you. I think policy in this case should overwhelmingly favor the consumer. In the book _Enshittification_ one of the examples used was Adobe suddenly deciding all of its users had to pay to subscribe to certain colors in its palette - and if you didn’t subscribe, every work you ever created throughout history using Adobe would render these colors in black and grey. It’s basically extortion. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2025, 11:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-dotcom-companies-have-not-enshittified/1025892/27 "2025-12-20T23:10:50Z")
I am pleased that it’s starting to be possible to buy ebooks without DRM. Both T Kingfisher’s and Nghi Vo’s work all seems to be available drm-free. (So i bought several books.) ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2025, 11:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-dotcom-companies-have-not-enshittified/1025892/28 "2025-12-20T23:33:35Z")
> [@Spice\_Weasel](#): > > I believe that once you buy something, you should own it. And I think creative works in particular - books, music, movies, games - should always be things that can’t be taken away from you. While I have some sympathy with this point of view, the idea of buying _access to experiences_ as opposed to buying _things_ has a long and respectable history: movie tickets, concert tickets, theater tickets, etc. ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2025, 11:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-dotcom-companies-have-not-enshittified/1025892/29 "2025-12-20T23:47:43Z")
That’s not what we’re talking about, though. We’re talking about media that worked perfectly fine as personal property until corporations decided they had a right to corrupt and ruin them, and due to regulatory capture, nobody stood in their way. We live in a society that overwhelmingly favors corporations over people and this is just symptomatic of that. For art in particular, it’s potentially pretty dire, when they start deciding what books, music and movies you should no longer be allowed to see. Also, I don’t want to conflate two issues. There’s a difference between “I don’t want you to copy this thing,” which, fine, and “I don’t want you to own this thing you paid for.” This is really going far beyond DRM. Amazon did it by no longer allowing people to download their purchased books and Steam did it by forcing all purchased games to run through Steam and reserving the right to take away what you bought for any reason whatsoever. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2025, 12:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-dotcom-companies-have-not-enshittified/1025892/30 "2025-12-21T00:24:38Z")
> [@Spice\_Weasel](#): > > We’re talking about media that worked perfectly fine as personal property until corporations decided they had a right to corrupt and ruin them I don’t know what you mean; it looks to me like there has _always_ been a struggle to figure out how to balance the rights and needs of the people who create content, those who distribute content, and those who consume content, in a way that is workable and sustainable and fair for everyone. > [@Spice\_Weasel](#): > > There’s a difference between “I don’t want you to copy this thing,” which, fine, and “I don’t want you to own this thing you paid for.” What does it mean to “own” a thing if that thing is not a material object? That’s the part I’ve never been clear about. But, getting back on topic, is [bandcamp.com](http://bandcamp.com) a dotcom that has not enshittified? ---
**Author:** ![Reply](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/reply/32/15952_2.png) [@Reply](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reply)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2025, 3:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-dotcom-companies-have-not-enshittified/1025892/31 "2025-12-21T03:40:58Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > But, getting back on topic, is [bandcamp.com](http://bandcamp.com) a dotcom that has not enshittified? I’m not sure. I haven’t used them in a long time as either a customer or a musician. I do know that Epic Games (as in Unreal and the Steam competitor) bought them a a few years back, laid off 800+ people when they tried to unionize, and then sold the company again a year later. Not sure how that might’ve affected the consumer or musician facing sides of things. Edit: Sorry, I misunderstood. Epic laid off 800+ of its _overall_ workforce, not just in Basecamp. They divested Bandcamp at the same time. ---
**Author:** ![jjakucyk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/3d9bf3/32.png) [@jjakucyk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjakucyk)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2025, 4:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-dotcom-companies-have-not-enshittified/1025892/32 "2025-12-21T04:20:26Z")
I feel eBay was already somewhat enshittified from the start because of its integration with PayPal (the difference between us and other banks is that other banks are banks). Recently they’ve been shilling Venmo in a banner ad that none of my Safari filters can seem to touch (UBlock Origin on Firefox does block it though). Same goes for their relentless “download our app and save $5 on your next purchase!” popups. Their worsening treatment of sellers/businesses and keeping a bigger piece of the pie for themselves, such as their app which they can then track you with and sell your data, is the final stage of enshittification before death. Granted it’s been very slow and gradual, but it’s not trending in the right direction. In the face of competition from Facebook Marketplace and even Amazon, I fear eBay is just going to tighten the screws rather than innovate. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2025, 12:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-dotcom-companies-have-not-enshittified/1025892/33 "2025-12-21T12:33:29Z")
> [@Spice\_Weasel](#): > > Steam did it by forcing all purchased games to run through Steam and reserving the right to take away what you bought for any reason whatsoever. So what do you want to do with the games you bought? Keep them on your hard drive? Because I have hundreds of games on Steam, and I could fit maybe four of the big ones on my computer at any given time. Do you want to own games that exist solely on Steam’s server, with Steam being obligated to allow you do download them at any time, at a very high speed? I can’t own my games because MY games don’t actually _exist_ until they’re on my PC; until that happens, all I own is the right to have Steam install those games on my computer from its own library. You can either own a game on physical media (which very few people seem to want to do any more), or you can purchase the right to a game from somebody like Steam. There is no middle ground. As for Steam taking games away - it’s troubling when it happens. It’s never happened to me, though, and I can’t think of many cases when it’s happened to other people, either. Correct me if I’m wrong, though. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2025, 12:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-dotcom-companies-have-not-enshittified/1025892/34 "2025-12-21T12:40:07Z")
I think that the only cases of Steam taking away games was when the games in question were horrible, hateful things that violated the Steam terms of service, and possibly even the law. They’ve also stated that, if the service ever shuts down permanently, they plan to turn off the DRM on all of the games before they turn off the server. Whether they actually will or not, impossible to say until it happens, but that’s the current plan, at least. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2025, 1:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-dotcom-companies-have-not-enshittified/1025892/35 "2025-12-21T13:01:58Z")
IANA gamer, as will soon become obvious. I was under the impression that most games worth playing these days were multi-player. Such that you need a game server and other participants. None of which would continue to exist if the game server company shut down. Sure, you’d still have the client on your HD, but it’d be as useful as my old Compuserve client that might still exist in some long forgotten backup of mine somewhere. ---
**Author:** ![Quimby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/22d042/32.png) [@Quimby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quimby)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2025, 1:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-dotcom-companies-have-not-enshittified/1025892/36 "2025-12-21T13:10:06Z")
It is ironic that people are saying Steam because I am old enough to remember that when it was first announced gamers HAAAAAAAAATED the entire concept. Torches and Pitchforks hated. “You mean I have to be online to play games ON MY OWN PC?!?!” ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2025, 1:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-dotcom-companies-have-not-enshittified/1025892/37 "2025-12-21T13:12:51Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > I was under the impression that most games worth playing these days were multi-player. Your impression is wrong. What most games are is _huge_ - too big to put on physical media, which is why they have to be stored off-site on the servers of companies like Steam. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2025, 1:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-dotcom-companies-have-not-enshittified/1025892/38 "2025-12-21T13:14:43Z")
> [@Quimby](#): > > “You mean I have to be online to play games ON MY OWN PC?!?!” Steam has had an offline mode for several years. It’s how my son and I can share an account, so long as both of us aren’t playing multiplayer games at the same time. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2025, 1:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-dotcom-companies-have-not-enshittified/1025892/39 "2025-12-21T13:21:05Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > Steam has had an offline mode for several years. Since the start, I think. But while there are a lot of great multiplayer games out right now, there are also a lot of great single-player games. And a lot of great huge games, and a lot of great tiny ones. There are just a lot of great games, now, in general. Which is due, in large part, to Steam. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2025, 1:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-dotcom-companies-have-not-enshittified/1025892/40 "2025-12-21T13:24:16Z")
My son just shared his Steam library with me, through Steam. Apparently Steam let’s you create a group of… Maybe up to six people… who can all use each other’s games. I don’t think we even need to play at different times. I certainly wasn’t offline when we all played one of his games in my basement. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-dotcom-companies-have-not-enshittified/1025892.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-dotcom-companies-have-not-enshittified/1025892.md?page=3)