Firefighters don't build roads.
That's it thats the end of the story.
In 15 years you'll have shed your PFY and will know and hate you PHB. Being a BoFH isn't bad.
Either you'll own the code or the code will own you. Choose wisely.
Ask HN: Why do so many developers seem hostile to their users these days?
21–30 of 68 posts
Re: Ask HN: Why do so many developers seem hostile to their users these days?
#22Lack of personal connections and interactions? Developers don't see users struggle in person, users don't see developers hard at work. Perhaps there's no real hostility, merely a lack of understanding of each other's problems and context. Also, gathered feedback through software interfaces seems to inhibit mutual understanding, for all that it scales well.
Most of your examples are more about companies using software to control customers and shift to extracting value rather than providing value though, not really about developer hostility.
Re: Ask HN: Why do so many developers seem hostile to their users these days?
#23[pulls up chair, sits backwards] OK so this is a question I'm arguably qualified to talk about -- I focus on usability and promoting it within a large tech company. The problem that I see a lot is that engineers are not well-versed in what I will call 'imaginative empathy'[1], which, as I define it, is the ability to creatively conceive of end-user needs by reflecting at length on who those people are, what they desi…
Thanks for doing this and thanks for writing about it.
Re: Ask HN: Why do so many developers seem hostile to their users these days?
#24Honestly I think it's because most software is infuriating to use, and the problem seems to be worsening.
The web is a fucking shit hole of surveillance, advertising, and megabytes of JavaScript to display a few paragraphs of text. Instead of the Great Equalizer we were promised, we got a dystopia that serves only to enrich a handful of billionaire CEOs who will go on to fuck the world over for decades, the way the Koch brothers have, with their abhorrent right-wing politics.
Phones and computers are getting faster every year but they feel worse to use because the bloated software stacks are laggy and not optimized for responsiveness. And they all track you except on Linux, which is great unless you want acceptable trackpad functionality and battery life.
Everything sucks and from my perspective, a bunch of bay area people are getting paid a fortune to make it suck more.
Re: Ask HN: Why do so many developers seem hostile to their users these days?
#25On an individual developer note, I think it's the Linus Torvalds / Steve Jobs effect. Lesser known developers see their arrogance [and arguable genius] and how they are idolised and want to emulate that. On a corporate level, I dunno. The total and utter contempt with with companies like eBay treat their users is mind-blowing. And others are equally as bad. I suppose it's an arrogance that comes with having such a hu…
I feel like my needs are reasonably well met by the choices I have. (This silent generally happy user population could well be what’s driving some of businesses’ choices that annoy some and we tend to hear from them. After all, if things are generally okay, you’re not going to take the time to be a vocal medium-supporter of a marketplace or merchant.)
Re: Ask HN: Why do so many developers seem hostile to their users these days?
#26These are not dev choices these are PM / biz dude choices. Devs are code monkeys who do what they’re told.
When I've contacted devs directly, they have also been "unhelpful". eg for open source - Well of course I don't work on it anymore, look at the git history. Further emails were ignored. Hostile?
This ofc doesn't tell me if they work on it anymore, as they stopped rather arbitrarily at some date and maybe they continued on another platform, maybe the project was acquired and an agreement was to leave what existed in place, etc.
It's the strange expectation that if you are clever enough to use the software, you understand what happened with it 10 years ago. Later on I found the community had migrated to a (copied) fork of the project, which was not traceable through github.
I do feel like it's a trend.
Re: Ask HN: Why do so many developers seem hostile to their users these days?
#27You build a next generation fighter jet, but the human pilots want you to make room in the cockpit for a cupholder. You'd be hostile too.
For transit missions, you do have to consider the biological needs of the crew. Fighter jets don’t teleport between their home base and the in theater air base.
Re: Ask HN: Why do so many developers seem hostile to their users these days?
#28Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is the sad truth, especially in companies the size of the ones listed and many more like them. I would be curious what would happen if a company gave developers at least some power to decide priorities for a quarter.
They would have sleek, performant products that work exactly as intended. And be out of business. A few years later, folks on HN will be waxing nostalgic and wondering why we can't build things like that anymore.
Nope, hopes and dreams. They will end up spending most of the time doing fancy refactoring, designing smart architectures and very well-generalized abstractions with near zero noticeable effects by the end users.
Re: Ask HN: Why do so many developers seem hostile to their users these days?
#29Low supply of developers, users being too ignorant about how software works.
Personally, all I would let users have is spreadsheets and email.
Unless users can learn macro and python, I'm not going to interact with them.
People need to learn how to use a computer. Seriously.
Re: Ask HN: Why do so many developers seem hostile to their users these days?
#30Low supply of developers, users being too ignorant about how software works. Personally, all I would let users have is spreadsheets and email. Unless users can learn macro and python, I'm not going to interact with them. People need to learn how to use a computer. Seriously.
Unfortunately, users aren't always given a choice. They have to interact with software, because it's the only realistic way to do their jobs, engage in commerce, get medical care, etc. Virtually all of this stuff happens within their browser. What are you going to do, tell people that they can't use a browser unless they've passed a leetcode interview? And how would it help?
I've seen elite developers get just as frustrated with bad software as anybody else.
And thank you for writing software that can be controlled via Python, if that's what you're up to.