The basis of this article seems to be interpreting stage 1 of enshittification (“platform is good to users”) as being a “free rider”. However, that is incidental to users and not even necessarily known to them. Therefore it’s a flawed view to say users are trying to be a “free rider”. All the users know at that point is they are receiving a good deal.
I, a user on BlueSky or Threads or Facebook or Mastodon or whatever, have paid exactly zero of any currency to access it. Here, the user is almost definitionally a free-rider.
The platform may be paying to grow their business and advertise, essentially, or they may be using the customer as a source of data and audience as required to sell ads. So it’s quite wrong to look at it as if the user is acting entitled or taking advantage of someone.
If that right is restricted or they are expected to trade something for that right – even something ultimately immaterial and intangible, like seeing ads – they cry “enshittification” and push blame for this state of affairs onto the platform, then try and leave it for another platform that is willing to indulge free-riders… until their costs, too, become unsustainable.
This is all really so wrong as to be painful to read. As if Facebook doesn’t make money from people using their service?