Today in Trondheim, Norway, around 100 health doctors & nurses demostrated by walking with torches trough the city against the implementation of a new software in the hospital. The Helseplatform is an adaptation of Epic to the Norwegian Health system. Have this ever happen in history before? How bad can something be that users go out in the street to demostrate?
Ask HN: Have you ever heard of users demonstrating against software?
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Re: Ask HN: Have you ever heard of users demonstrating against software?
#2I've not seen anything as extreme as people in the streets, but regularly have seen employee pushback about erp system implementations, e.g. SAP. These enterprise systems are are all on the back of employees, by which I mean they are forced to take the extra time to use them while they are extremely unfriendly to the user - because they are bought by execs, and their value is not at all apparent to those who use then.
A simple example, imagine you told employees they now had to log their time and account for each 15 minutes, and do so through some kind of java.swing interface from the 90s that routinely screwed up, and they don't get any extra time to do so, and they're already busy. Now multiply that by whatever other silly management tasks they want you to use the tool for. You'd be pissed off too
Re: Ask HN: Have you ever heard of users demonstrating against software?
#3There is the infamous "Windows Refund Day" http://marc.merlins.org/linux/refundday/
Re: Ask HN: Have you ever heard of users demonstrating against software?
#4Not to that extend. I remember that when Left 4 Dead 2 was announced, there was a boycot movement: https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2021/05/one-zombie-of-a-chanc...
Re: Ask HN: Have you ever heard of users demonstrating against software?
#5I actually have a translated copy of this book:
https://www.ibiblio.org/mal/MO/matusow/beastofbiz.html
Also see: https://www.manchesteropenhive.com/view/9781526160720/978152...
"The result was the launch of the International Society for the Abolition of Data Processing Machines (ISADPM) – President, Harvey Matusow. The society was in many ways a media construct and little substantial activity took place on the ground, although much was promised. It was a minor, but for a time significant, part of a broader public debate in England around the emerging database society. It resonated with a cultural unease around computerization and its medium effects felt in the late 1960s, what might be termed a database anxiety. For many at that time computers seemed alien and the proposition that they might be ‘far more deadly than the Beatles’ yellow submarine’, as one US Congressman put it, 4 not entirely absurd."
Re: Ask HN: Have you ever heard of users demonstrating against software?
#6I've not seen anything as extreme as people in the streets, but regularly have seen employee pushback about erp system implementations, e.g. SAP. These enterprise systems are are all on the back of employees, by which I mean they are forced to take the extra time to use them while they are extremely unfriendly to the user - because they are bought by execs, and their value is not at all apparent to those who use then…
My significant other spends the last hour of her day just recapitulating and filling timesheets. Nothing else. I eat the bad moods this brings every day.
What a waste, 4 different stakeholders need their own timesheets filled EXCEPT for her actual direct boss. Yes, she works for TCS, how did you know?
Re: Ask HN: Have you ever heard of users demonstrating against software?
#7In my industry, several "open letters" have been sent to Autodesk for their lack of response to customer requests and seemingly basic or common-sense features that have been requested for decades:
https://the-nordic-letter.com/
https://archinect.com/news/article/150324438/nordic-architec...
Doubt anyone has marched in protest of Autodesk but sometimes I sure feel like doing so
Re: Ask HN: Have you ever heard of users demonstrating against software?
#8Would you be able to post any links to news reports of this?
Hospital software can be shockingly bad. The comments of this article on Ars the other day digressed onto the topic, with several interesting user perspectives https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2022/10/new-t...
Edit: can only find ones which are paywalled
https://www.adressa.no/nyheter/i/0QQv6g/arrangerer-fakkeltog...
https://www.nidaros.no/demonstrerer-mot-helseplattformen-sto...
Re: Ask HN: Have you ever heard of users demonstrating against software?
#9Not sure about a physical protest but wasn't there a LOT of online commentary etc about algorithms that were showing bias when used to making hiring or recruitment decisions?
Re: Ask HN: Have you ever heard of users demonstrating against software?
#10I've not seen anything as extreme as people in the streets, but regularly have seen employee pushback about erp system implementations, e.g. SAP. These enterprise systems are are all on the back of employees, by which I mean they are forced to take the extra time to use them while they are extremely unfriendly to the user - because they are bought by execs, and their value is not at all apparent to those who use then…
The software primarily serves its real customers, the executives who subject others to using the software. Seems like every field is taken over by these annoying products nowadays, which basically try to eliminate some employees and distribute the work to other employees (of course the software claims to mostly eliminate the work).
As for the 15-minute logging requirement, that may actually be part of it, cynically. Since they are cloud-based they can track every click, plus constantly time out and require you to log in again all day.