I have enjoyed solving Wordle puzzles for a few years now. It was something to do every morning with a coffee when I should have been doing my geriatric jumparounds, I know. My longest streak was 29 and I even had a few lucky "solved-in-2-tries" in there. Well, I'm going to get back to exercising more consistently this fall because I've quit doing that wake-up Wordle. Someone got greedy.
Remember Cory Docterow's contribution to English vocabulary and our understanding of capitalism-as-monopoly in the term "enshittification"? In a nutshell, it described a service provider's progress from benign provider of a service, benignly financed with charges either quite low and/or shared by a consortium. Then the shift to predator pricing began once the competition had been largely eliminated. Access to content, whether cabbages or books or games, became monetized. Here's the story of Wordle's descent.
You may have downloaded the app as I did or bookmarked the site at the NY Times so that your daily edition of the game was a keystroke away. For a couple of years I entertained myself with it, as noted, every morning. If I missed a day, my winning streak went to zero and so I was encouraged to make it a habit.
There was also an archive of all previous Wordle puzzles, presumably back to its inception, and I got into those whenever I had a chance. Then, I organized my time so that I made those chances and I worked backwards through the archive. I was somewhere in 2022 when things changed. The hoard of games in the archive became restricted to players who signed up and paid a fee. I stopped playing that part.
Then every day's game came preceded with an advertisement. The algorithm generating the ads was perceptive enough to show me only products or services in my locality. At present, I can just wait a few seconds and then press the X to go the game. At one point I found myself staring determinedly off into space, not looking at the screen and counting to ten to avoid seeing the ad. I know, I know, but it annoyed me.
Now, I don't care if I play a Wordle or not. Our relationship has been degraded. Commercialized. Monetized. Exploited. Enshittified. And of course Wordle is not alone in its (or its owners') attempt to con me out of cash. Here's some other scams and cons and betrayals that I've found. You tell me yours.
Never, but NEVER, click on a Facebook post that has the word "sponsored" in the heading. You won't get the quick fix that the bylines promised, but will be given page after page of (probably AI generated) endorsements culminating in a "special one-time-only" offer and an easy entry mode for your credit card number. It's like giving the seller the key to your bank account.
There's been some, and only "some" research showing physical activity to have an ameliorating effect on the progress of Alzheimer's Disease. Given my Beverly's condition, I'm a gullible target in that area and I bit. The item wasn't even too expensive and I ordered a couple of hand exercisers and entered the payment data. We were travelling for a spell thereafter and I didn't check my visa statement for a few months. I won't ever make that mistake again.
The company just kept taking the initial amount paid every month. When I talked to the friendly voice from visa she said to write to the provider. I did with the result you would expect. I called the friendly voice back and said I was cutting up my card and would she please try to retrieve any monies possible from a fraudulent transaction. And if they wanted to send me a new card, I might continue to be a client. They did the latter.
FB isn't the only source of scams such as that. If you want some special application and would prefer a free version and do a search for it, your search engine will respond with a list of those "free" apps. When you start checking the products, however, you'll find endorsements and glowing descriptions and download links, but that download screen likely will offer these choices:
free but with minimal capability and series of other versions with escalating charges. And those charges won't buy you the app; they are for rent on monthly or yearly terms.
free for a trial period only and then only after you enter your credit card data. Don't do it.
No, that's not right. There are some applications you want and there really are reputable organizations and people who can vouch for them and you should buy them. Norton, for instance, has been offering protection for computer users for many years and the fact that they're still in business and receiving industry accolades for their innvoations is recommendation enough. I am not going to give a graded list of applications. You have sources that you trust. Stay with them. Just be alert to any slow reduction in service and escalation of price. Enshittification is theft by attrition.
This is the brief blog, but I'm back. Back from France and back from Spain and thereby hang some tales. I'll get into some of them next week. Button up your overcoats, friends in the northern hemispere. The heat dome and wildfires (and thank you firefighters from Mexico and Costa Rica and other countries) will give way to ice storms and atmosperic rivers. Climate is also enshittifying and we did it.