Comment on GitHub: Can no longer search code without being logged in

• towerful@programming.dev ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  I don’t know that “requiring a free account” is enshitification.
  Enshitification is the pursuit of profits at the expense of users and core experience.

  Sure, it’s annoying. Especially if I’m checking something on a random computer that I don’t want to log into GitHub with.
  But worst case, I can search on my phone then navigate to the file.

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  • m_r_butts@kbin.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    pursuit of profits

    What non-profit motive do you think they have for requiring a login?

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    • towerful@programming.dev ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      Right, and at the expense of who?
      You can’t just quote a small section of what I say, and “gotcha” me.
      How is this at the expense of users or core features?

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      • m_r_butts@kbin.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

        I'll do one drastic, but not unthinkable, example. The Signal messenger source is on GitHub. You can't imagine a single oppressive government out there that would be keenly interested knowing who in their country is interacting with it? Or maybe you haven't noticed that there are a lot of countries not too keen on encryption, trying to backdoor everything or just straight-up outlaw encryption. This isn't just about a single login box. "Who's looking at what" is the kind of surveillance that blacklists thrive on.

        And please don't come back with "then use a fake email". Once you're that far gone, you're definitely breaking a user's "core experience".

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      • averyminya@beehaw.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

        Well for the experience of users, cookies/tracking/having to log in.

        Personally, I’m annoyed when I’m trying to do a basic function and am forced to log in. I’m not affected by this particular case with GitHub, but as a user where this happens elsewhere it is annoying.

        I’d be interested in the rationale behind the decision, asking your same question to them. Why do they need account login to search repositories?

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