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A comment on Copilot Edited an Ad into My PR. Parent comment

Re:Copilot Edited an Ad into My PR by KGunnerud on Monday March 30, 2026 @03:41AM (#47571545)
Another step into ensh*ttification? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T4Upf_B9RLQ
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Re:Copilot Edited an Ad into My PR by theturtletalks on Monday March 30, 2026 @03:54AM (#47571617)
It's becoming clearer and clearer that open-source is our only hope against enshittification. Everything that is VC backed or publicly traded will become enshittified, it's just a matter of time. At least with open-source, you can fork it and remove the "features" or point your agent to it and have it write the feature in your tech stack.

Hell, I just saw an amazing open-source alternative to Raycast[0] and just replaced it the other day.

0. https://github.com/ospfranco/sol

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Re:Copilot Edited an Ad into My PR by jjav on Monday March 30, 2026 @04:16AM (#47571767)
> It's becoming clearer and clearer that open-source is our only hope against enshittification. Everything that is VC backed or publicly traded will become enshittified, it's just a matter of time.

Stallman was always right, after all.

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Re:Copilot Edited an Ad into My PR by majewsky on Monday March 30, 2026 @04:41AM (#47571937)
Well, about the free-software part, anyway.
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Re:Copilot Edited an Ad into My PR by jwr on Monday March 30, 2026 @04:48AM (#47571982)
> open-source is our only hope against enshittification. Everything that is VC backed or publicly traded will become enshittified

Solo founder here. My business is not VC-backed nor publicly traded, and I specifically avoided taking investment so that I can make all the decisions.

I avoid enshittification. This sometimes hurts revenue, but so be it. I wouldn't want to subject my users to anything I wouldn't like.

So, open-source is not the only hope. You can run a sustainable business without enshittification. The problem is money people. The moment money people (career managers, CFOs, etc) take over from product people, the business is on a downward path towards enshittification.

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Re:Copilot Edited an Ad into My PR by theturtletalks on Monday March 30, 2026 @05:03AM (#47572066)
I believe you, it's just I've seen similar stories and the good-intentioned founder gets tired and eventually sells the business and the new owner ends up enshittifying the product. Not saying in the slightest it will happen to your company and I don't hold that against the founder. It's their prerogative after all.

Even when I use proprietary software, I sleep easier at night knowing that open-source alternatives keep them honest in their approach and I have an out if things do change.

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Re:Copilot Edited an Ad into My PR by mxmilkiib on Monday March 30, 2026 @08:04AM (#47573171)
public/legislative demand for data portability is imho the movement that will help shift society from this cycle

edit: oh, that and distributed authentication and distributed discovery

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