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Sources

In Ottawa, The Neighborhood Bully Is A House Cat

In Ottawa, The Neighborhood Bully Is A House Cat

While some cities are plagued by youth gangs and others by encroaching wild animals, one neighborhood of Ottawa is reckoning with a small but very scary cat.


According to the Ottawa Citizen, the Glebe area of the Canadian capital has been terrorized by a relentless pet feline aggressor who swipes at peoples' faces and bullies 100-pound dogs. Despite its collar and name tag, the assailant's identity remains unknown, as the cat is allegedly too violent to approach.


One concerned citizen decided to take matters into her own hands, trying to reach the cat's legal guardian by posting flyers around the neighborhood. "Do you own a stocky grey cat with a blue tag and a shit attitude?" it reads. "Maybe your cat was born an asshole or maybe it's a sign of a condition like toxoplasmosis, hyperthyroidism epilepsy, abscesses, arthritis, dental disease, rabies, trauma, sensory decline or cognitive dysfunction. So please take your animal to the vet and keep it inside."


Forrest Hartman, the flyer's author, told the Canadian daily that "Angry Cat" hasn't turned up since the flyers' presence, perhaps a sign that the pen is mightier than the claw.

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Ideas

Look At This Crap! The "Enshittification" Theory Of Why The Internet Is Broken

The term was coined by journalist Cory Doctorow to explain the fatal drift of major Internet platforms: if they were ever useful and user-friendly, they will inevitably end up being odious.

A photo of hands holding onto a smartphone

A person holding their smartphone

Gilles Lambert/ZUMA
Manuel Ligero

-Analysis-

The universe tends toward chaos. Ultimately, everything degenerates. These immutable laws are even more true of the Internet.

In the case of media platforms, everything you once thought was a good service will, sooner or later, disgust you. This trend has been given a name: enshittification. The term was coined by Canadian blogger and journalist Cory Doctorow to explain the inevitable drift of technological giants toward... well.

The explanation is in line with the most basic tenets of Marxism. All digital companies have investors (essentially the bourgeoisie, people who don't perform any work and take the lion's share of the profits), and these investors want to see the percentage of their gains grow year after year. This pushes companies to make decisions that affect the service they provide to their customers. Although they don't do it unwillingly, quite the opposite.

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Annoying customers is just another part of the business plan. Look at Netflix, for example. The streaming giant has long been riddling how to monetize shared Netflix accounts. Option 1: adding a premium option to its regular price. Next, it asked for verification through text messages. After that, it considered raising the total subscription price. It also mulled adding advertising to the mix, and so on. These endless maneuvers irritated its audience, even as the company has been unable to decide which way it wants to go. So, slowly but surely, we see it drifting toward enshittification.

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