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The User Always Loses

thenation.com

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Re: The User Always Loses

#111

Post by nicbou »

superkuh wrote: post #7

So don't be a user. Self host and federate. The internet of the 90s is still alive if you step outside the walled gardens. And when you use other's services, like, say, reading an article hosted at 'thenation.com', a site which attempts to block you from reading unless you run their javascript and CSS, use a browser with tools that allow you to toggle things like JS and CSS to read it anyway. Then re-share the articl…

I host my own content. Even then, 90% of my visitors come from search engines. This is not a problem for my personal blog, but it's a problem for my other website, which is my main source of income.

This is a much more serious problems in other fields, where you can only reach your crowd through YouTube or Instagram.

That being said, having a crowd wasn't even a thing back then. Platforms have given immensely talented people a free soapbox to show the world all sorts of things. Anyone can share something nowadays, not only people who know HTML and a few other things.

Re: The User Always Loses

#112

Post by nicbou »

ppod wrote: post #62

>When users are scapegoated, Silicon Valley is left off the hook Is this really the dominant narrative? Are there lots of thinkpieces going around about how fair and kind Silicon Valley is, if only it weren't for all those mean people using their services? Maybe it is so obvious that it doesn't need to be said, but when comparing the early internet to the current internet, we cannot let the users off the hook! The fu…

Excellent counterpoint.

People forget the impressive quality of some online content now. Everyone can publish something now, not just technically inclined hobbyists. It gave us videos with insane production quality, top notch writing and larger and more diverse communities than ever before.

If a few ads and annoying modals is the price to pay for free, endless quality content, so be it.

Re: The User Always Loses

#113

Post by ssalazar »

jasode wrote: post #32
benjaminjosephw wrote: post #16

The VC model for funding technology is the root cause of user hostile technology. The pressure of investments that expect high returns is a feature/bug that determines the course these companies are likely to take. It creates the need to occasionally tade end-user freedoms for opportunities to "capture value". Venture Capital also imports theories of scarcity and under-production that our entire open-source ecosystem…

>The VC model for funding technology is the root cause of user hostile technology. The pressure of investments that expect high returns [...] VCs are not the root cause. You're not looking hard enough for counterexamples . Examples of software companies that didn't take VC money that many consider to be "user hostile" are: - Intuit -- see 1-star reviews on Amazon of annual Quicken releases and forced upgrades of bugg…

Capital and expectations for growth are the common denominator between these examples.

Building a business and making money doesn't mandate user hostility; hockey-stick or growth in a saturated market does.

Re: The User Always Loses

#114

Post by slaymaker1907 »

juped wrote: post #108
ohazi wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> laughable "First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win" -- Misattributed > horrible user interfaces and is every bit as user-hostile as for-pay software This statement is laughable. A poorly designed UI is not equivalent to a UI filled with dark patterns. I was asserting that free software is a known solution to user-hostile software, not a solution to bad UI. Do you really thin…

The Git UI will probably never be "improved" because it makes sense to people who understand how Git works rather than pasting command lines they found online, and the few real warts like status output telling you to use "git pull", which is a mistake in the workflows most people use, are too old and entrenched. If you look at the discussions on the mailing list, you'll see people care a lot and make thoughtful decis…

This is empirically false. Git has added commands solely for the purpose of improved usability via git reset and git switch. Neither of these add new capabilities to git and were instead added to provide clarity.

Re: The User Always Loses

#115

Post by im3w1l »

fullshark wrote: post #52

Nostalgia for the old internet is basically nostalgia for a wild period of market capture that will never come again. People took chances and accepted massive short term losses in an attempt to capture hypothetical market share. Now that we know better what the internet is going to look like you aren't going to see people take big chances and provide user value at massive discounts again (simple example: News papers…

It's not that I miss the bait part of bait-and-switch. I miss what the bait outcompeted.

Re: The User Always Loses

#116

Post by [deleted] »

thewebcount wrote: post #79
ohazi wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The real root cause of "user hostility" is that companies are run by humans and humans are self-serving and want to make more money. At least for software, we know of one solution that works: free (as in speech) software. Still made by humans, but usually without the self-serving greed, and if any of that does turn up, you never lose access to the last-good version and source, in case you or someone else wants to f…

> At least for software, we know of one solution that works: free (as in speech) software. Still made by humans, but usually without the self-serving greed Sorry, but this is laughable. Instead of self-serving greed, you have self-serving "what interests the person writing it." That leaves us with open source software that has horrible user interfaces and is every bit as user-hostile as for-pay software. (For example…

[deleted]

Re: The User Always Loses

#118

Post by Animats »

bleepblorp wrote: post #88
jasode wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The VC model for funding technology is the root cause of user hostile technology. The pressure of investments that expect high returns [...] VCs are not the root cause. You're not looking hard enough for counterexamples . Examples of software companies that didn't take VC money that many consider to be "user hostile" are: - Intuit -- see 1-star reviews on Amazon of annual Quicken releases and forced upgrades of bugg…

The real problem here is excessive governmental tolerance of monopolies and the lack of an adequate regulatory/legal regime to protect end-users from harms caused by vendor-lock in. All of the companies you mention have near-monopolies in their respective sectors. Hundreds of years of economic history show that monopolies are extremely harmful to their customers. Autodesk is only able to get away with what it does be…

Autodesk is only able to get away with what it does because regulators allowed it to buy out its competitors. Further, the extreme technical difficulty of reverse-engineering complex file formats--including legal obstacles such as enforceable shrink-wrap contracts against reverse engineering, the DMCA ban on reverse engineering, and patent issues--means that it's virtually impossible for competing, interoperable, products to emerge in Autodesk's markets.

The main competition for Autodesk's Fusion 360 is SolidWorks. It's possible, although not that easy, to get models back and forth.[1]

There's FreeCAD. There are many low end 2D CAD programs. If you're building something bigger than a house or more complicated than a keyboard, though, you probably want a pro product.

[1] https://www.buildercentral.com/solidworks-vs-fusion-360/

Re: The User Always Loses

#119

Post by MrGilbert »

ohazi wrote: post #46
jasode wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The VC model for funding technology is the root cause of user hostile technology. The pressure of investments that expect high returns [...] VCs are not the root cause. You're not looking hard enough for counterexamples . Examples of software companies that didn't take VC money that many consider to be "user hostile" are: - Intuit -- see 1-star reviews on Amazon of annual Quicken releases and forced upgrades of bugg…

> The real root cause of "user hostility" is that companies are run by humans and humans are self-serving and want to make more money. At least for software, we know of one solution that works: free (as in speech) software. Still made by humans, but usually without the self-serving greed, and if any of that does turn up, you never lose access to the last-good version and source, in case you or someone else wants to f…

> At least for software, we know of one solution that works: free (as in speech) software.

Imho, that's not the solution to the problem mentioned by GP. One needs to control self-serving greed, not give everything for free. I still need to live from something, but I don't need to earn six-figure numbers.

I agree that software can be free, if you happen to find people who support the idea behind it. But that doesn't happen that often. What does work for me is that everything I write in my sparetime is freely available. It's like other people do volunteering work.

Re: The User Always Loses

#120

Post by bergstromm466 »

asdfasgasdgasdg wrote: post #65
TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are also tangible disbenefits - like having your home destroyed by climate change, or having your democracy hollowed out, having to live with the risk of bankruptcy if you get ill. Never mind the loss of online privacy. The problem is that raising these as the real issues they are puts you outside the dominant ideology. If you don't do it anonymously you are in real danger of discrimination during job searches.…

> There are also tangible disbenefits - like having your home destroyed by climate change, or having your democracy hollowed out, having to live with the risk of bankruptcy if you get ill. These all seem like things wealth protects from, which helps explain why founders and all other humans will tend to want to accumulate it.

> These all seem like things wealth protects from

This sounds to me like Silicon Valley solutionism. Getting rich only works for some time in a world with widespread crop failures and the many other effects of global heating. [1]

When that happens I'd say it's only a matter of time before the pitchforks and guillotines come out...

“I don't believe in charity. I believe in solidarity. Charity is so vertical. It goes from the top to the bottom. Solidarity is horizontal. It respects the other person. I have a lot to learn from other people.”

― Eduardo Galeano

[1] https://archive.is/mXJ1B

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