> We don't know why Docker did this.
Well, yes and no. They've said why they've done this:
> we've made this change to make sure we can improve the Docker for Mac and Windows experience for users moving forward.
but at the same time, that explanation is clearly bollocks. Something I realised and find very helpful to remember is this:
> If someone gives a reason for something, and the reason is clearly bullshit, then it means the person giving the reason has a hidden agenda which is likely to be negative for the explainee. - "Will's law of corporate bullshit"
Here's how it works. People do stuff for a reason, for instance I ate lunch because I was hungry. I have opened the windows because it is hot and I like the breeze.
It is usually easy to match the action with the reason given, there is no suspicion here, there is no cognitive dissonance.
So let's take the example in question, Docker moving downloads of their software behind a login. Without attempting to guess at their motivations it seems clear that this is a very inconvenient thing to do for end users. As someone has pointed out, the steps to download the software are nearly doubled, and there are fears of getting corporate spam.
So OK, that's the action, what's the reason given?
> we've made this change to make sure we can improve the Docker for Mac and Windows experience for users moving forward.
Well, that's clearly bullshit, right? It isn't possible to match the reason given with the action. It's not going to allow for a better experience for end users.
Let's apply the logic. Company does something -> Reason given is bullshit -> there is likely a hidden agenda that is bad for the explainee.
So we have arrived at a situation where we are pretty sure that the hidden reason for Docker to make this change is negative. We don't know exactly what yet (we can speculate), but we are pretty sure it's negative.
So you are right, "We don't know why Docker did this", but we can be fairly certain it's not going to be for the benefit of us end users.