Hacker News

Verschlimmbesserung: The Word Your Software Updates Need

24 points by speckx 3 hours ago | 7 comments

dwoldrich 13 minutes ago

Value is now only _extracted_. Place the acquired good into the press and smash it until all but the faintest essence remains among the mash. The squeezings are bottled and saved to pay for future _extractions_.

Companies like Valve can continue largely unshittificated because they are private. Once that is no longer the case, all our game rentals will be squozen away from us.

levzettelin 22 minutes ago

Just from looking at the title, I feel that this talking about AI in general...

alhirzel 21 minutes ago

I would probably abbreviate that to v17g.

boxed 2 hours ago

We already have a word for it? "Misfeature"

The opposite is the more interesting word though: hit bug. A bug/mistake/fuckup that turns out to improve the software.

dylan604 20 minutes ago

They're not bugs, they're undocumented features

Krasnol 54 minutes ago

I'd say enshitification is a good enough word.

Verschlimmbesserung is not widely used these days in Germany.

ahf8Aithaex7Nai 15 minutes ago

I do think it's part of many people's vocabulary. It's a bit informal. And it's not a word you use every day. But it's definitely a word that gets used when the occasion calls for it, just like the related verb "verschlimmbessern."

"Enshittification" isn't the same thing. "Verschlimmbesserung" is when you try to fix a loose connection in a power cord and then no electricity flows at all, or when you try to fix a bad haircut with a trimmer and the haircut ends up looking even worse, etc.