Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Why Johnny Won't Upgrade

jacquesmattheij.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 588 posts

Re: Why Johnny Won't Upgrade

#131

Post by cringepirate »

tomc1985 wrote: post #128
cringepirate wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No you got it the wrong way around. The power is in the hands of the user. > That will never happen as long as shareholders are the only people that companies are legally beholden to The user has a choice not to use products that are made by companies that don't respect them. > That will never happen as long as developers insist that their happiness is more immportant than that of their users The user can simply stop…

> If people can't be bothered and choose to be ignorant, they deserve what they get. The problem is that those that do care also have to suffer. After a certain point of critical mass, when it comes to tech, oftentimes you can't just take your business elsewhere any more.

This is incorrect. You can almost always take your business elsewhere. It depends whether you think it is worth it, depending on how hard it makes the rest of your life.

If people really cared (as much as they claim) you will make alternatives work for you.

Re: Why Johnny Won't Upgrade

#132

Post by cringepirate »

spirobel wrote: post #130
cringepirate wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No you got it the wrong way around. The power is in the hands of the user. > That will never happen as long as shareholders are the only people that companies are legally beholden to The user has a choice not to use products that are made by companies that don't respect them. > That will never happen as long as developers insist that their happiness is more immportant than that of their users The user can simply stop…

what about adobe though? what if you work in a field where you are forced to use a certain proprietary file format or software? this sounds a bit naiive. go talk to real johnnys :-)

The last time I checked there was many competitors to Adobe in almost all the products they offered. You aren't forced to use their software at all.

In any event you can slowly move away from using a companies products. It isn't a all or nothing proposition.

Re: Why Johnny Won't Upgrade

#133

Post by tomc1985 »

cringepirate wrote: post #131
tomc1985 wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If people can't be bothered and choose to be ignorant, they deserve what they get. The problem is that those that do care also have to suffer. After a certain point of critical mass, when it comes to tech, oftentimes you can't just take your business elsewhere any more.

This is incorrect. You can almost always take your business elsewhere. It depends whether you think it is worth it, depending on how hard it makes the rest of your life. If people really cared (as much as they claim) you will make alternatives work for you.

If you've a following on instagram and you decide to leave for whatever reason, you can't take your followers with you. Maybe some will jump over if you link them to other platforms

If you've an iOS app and you've run afoul of the app store, you can't take those iOS users with you without asking them to switch to another platform or asking them to use a web app instead (both of which are forbidden, I think)

If you're on gmail and your account gets suspended, you can't set up a magical redirect that sends all your mail to another address. Can you even use Google Takeout?

These are all extremely popular platforms with strong lock-in effects through various circumstances.

In too many cases, the switching costs are so high as to be destructive. Yes you can technically switch but the price is dire. That doesn't count in my book.

Re: Why Johnny Won't Upgrade

#134

Post by asicsp »

joe_the_user wrote: post #31

Funny this post should come now. I've been dealing with a weird upgrade problem. I noticed a problem with various software on my Android phone about a month ago - some software had stopped because it couldn't upgrade and I wasn't able to download anything from the Play Store. It seemed the phone was waiting for wifi to do anything. The only problem was Wifi would come never 'cause of Covid. Moreover, changing Play St…

I have this issue. I don't use whatsapp much, but I wasn't able to update it, so I removed it rather than leaving my few friends wondering why I'm not replying to messages.

I just checked drive to try your workaround - and it says old version, needs update, which of course I cannot do. Oh well. One of these days I will take the plunge and see if a factory reset will work.

Re: Why Johnny Won't Upgrade

#135

Post by pseudalopex »

smabie wrote: post #70
egypturnash wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand why programmers are so precious about their choice of text editor. They obviously managed to learn and adapt to their current choice. Why can't they adapt to a new one?

I mean, a lot of programmers have spent their entire lives either using Emacs or vi keybindings. It's pretty unreasonable to ask them to change. Mentally switching to an entire different set of editing commands is incredibly difficult and time consuming. I've been using Emacs for over 15 years and I don't know any other keybindings. If I had to switch to vim, it might take me years to get comfortable.

That's the point.

Re: Why Johnny Won't Upgrade

#136

Post by OkGoDoIt »

prawn wrote: post #113

My App Store updates badge is triple-digits. I resist updates as long as possible because they are almost always riskier than the rewards they bring. They introduce ads, or cloud features I never wanted, they force subscriptions, they add tracking. At one point, I used my ancient text editor for 10+ years without updating it. I've used Sublime Text 2 for many years with no interest in updating it (though I'm sure it'…

Same here, I’ve had automatic updates disabled for years and I turned off the notification badge for the App Store. Unfortunately some apps phone home and determine they are not the latest version and then refuse to let you use them until you upgrade. Mostly banking apps, which I guess maybe I can excuse, but also Facebook messenger. Once FB messenger pops up with that notification that I need to “upgrade in order to access my chats again“, I usually go a week or two of just quitting it before I finally give in and upgrade and then things are subtlety worse, or shuffled around, or just inexplicably different. But I have friends who message me on there so I eventually have to give in and capitulate. My lack of control is utterly frustrating...

Re: Why Johnny Won't Upgrade

#137

Post by causality0 »

I keep a large folder full of installers. More often than not software gets worse over time. New methods of monetization creep in. Features that were in the free version move to the paid version. Licensing problems result in function crippling. The damned marketers and their unending push for change for only the sake of change so they have something different to show people. Developers seeing they have a sizable userbase for their simple app and deciding to mutilate it by tacking on "social features".

Re: Why Johnny Won't Upgrade

#138

Post by ren01r »

ben-schaaf wrote: post #76
gowld wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that why Mozilla sent notification spam to announce that the app will be updated?

The only notification I got was that the app was updated.

Same for me, I would've been happy if they atleast allowed sideloading extensions by flipping a switch in about:config.

Re: Why Johnny Won't Upgrade

#139

Post by causality0 »

orev wrote: post #106

I had been using a great app that’s been around since before the iPhone came out (PocketMoney on Palm). They rewrote it for IOS, and it was able to import the database from the Palm version. Really great. Then sadly the author died, and it languished for a while until it was sold to someone else. The new owner seemed to try to keep it going, but then finally gave up last year and crammed an absolutely awful “update”…

Not even that is risk-free. I was doxxed by a developer after Google's idiotic real-name policy put me in his crosshairs for my one-star review.

Re: Why Johnny Won't Upgrade

#140

Post by cringepirate »

tomc1985 wrote: post #133
cringepirate wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is incorrect. You can almost always take your business elsewhere. It depends whether you think it is worth it, depending on how hard it makes the rest of your life. If people really cared (as much as they claim) you will make alternatives work for you.

If you've a following on instagram and you decide to leave for whatever reason, you can't take your followers with you. Maybe some will jump over if you link them to other platforms If you've an iOS app and you've run afoul of the app store, you can't take those iOS users with you without asking them to switch to another platform or asking them to use a web app instead (both of which are forbidden, I think) If you're…

> If you've a following on instagram and you decide to leave for whatever reason, you can't take your followers with you. Maybe some will jump over if you link them to other platforms

You should diversify your social media presence then and let your followers know "look if I am not here one day this is my website or you can find me here".

> If you've an iOS app and you've run afoul of the app store, you can't take those iOS users with you without asking them to switch to another platform or asking them to use a web app instead (both of which are forbidden, I think)

This is probably the only valid scenario presented due to there being only two players realistically in the mobile phone space.

> If you're on gmail and your account gets suspended, you can't set up a magical redirect that sends all your mail to another address. Can you even use Google Takeout?

This actually happened to a friend of mine (he got locked out of his account). He ended up learning from the experience and owns his own domain and uses one of the other email providers.

The government might fix these issues in another 10 years ... maybe? You are actually validating my point about people being ignorant of the risks of using services that can suspend you account for any reason at any time. Don't use them, or if you must then mitigate any potential fallout from losing access to that service.

People that have been being censored by large tech companies have already started doing this.

> In too many cases, the switching costs are so high as to be destructive. Yes you can technically switch but the price is dire. That doesn't count in my book.

As we are arbitrarily deciding what counts, I don't think the social media accounts or the gmail issue is a big deal.

They are easily mitigated against as long as you aren't ignorant. Being a smart consumer, smart user will protect you much better than anything else. Which proves my point.

Post reply on HN