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Apps Getting Worse

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Re: Apps Getting Worse

#551

Post by lupire »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #249
grishka wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Banks and finance are like the number one employer of software developers outside of pure tech companies. Right now, with all the churn that only serves to update various financial numbers in databases and is generally useless for the society at large. As an end user, I view a bank as a box to keep my money so I don't have to deal with cash. That's really it. It already works for me as it is right now. A rather pop…

> Where did we make the wrong turn? We force companies to grow, I guess. All of the bullcrap the banks are doing mostly serves one purpose: get you to buy more of their products at terms that are bad for you. All the complaints I have against the UX of the banking websites and apps I use can be attributed to this: they do a shitty job on purpose, because the site/app is primarily a vector to upsell you loans, credit…

Why would a shitty app promote more sales?

The only reason I use MegaBank and its obnoxious but functional app is that Local Credit Union can't afford to build a decently functional app.

Re: Apps Getting Worse

#552

Post by atom058 »

crateless wrote: post #375

On the other hand, theres YT which has remained pretty much the same UI-wise for as long as I can remember. And it is terrible. I cannot search for videos about python that are longer than 1 hr. That is my pet peeve and regularly drives me up the wall. I have wanted this for years. In addition to that, my feed is static. It's like I'm being told, "hey you, we know that you will like these and I won't show you aught e…

Well, you could always click the ambiguous three dots with a 5 pixel click target and chose "Not Interested". Super convenient to do for the hundred videos on the front page (of which you have already watched >50% within the last month).

Re: Apps Getting Worse

#553

Post by city41 »

lupire wrote: post #550
city41 wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I wouldn't be surprised. I think bugginess just doesn't affect bottom lines of most companies these days, hence the state we're in. Also, anecdotally, I find people are very tolerant of bugs and just suffer in silence a lot of the time.

Why did you write "yeah" and then contradict everything parent said about revenue impact?

Are you equating "bottom line" with revenue? Is that why you feel this is a contradiction? Bottom line also has a more general definition of "the company's end goal". If the bugs don't impact Spotify's goals, then they are not motivated to fix them.

Re: Apps Getting Worse

#554

Post by grishka »

leppr wrote: post #363
grishka wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am indeed desiring one, but I'm too picky. And it's not for the money, but rather mostly for socialization (I'm lonely af). Maybe I'd work at a startup, but there aren't many of those that would want an open-source app, and there are even fewer that do something legitimately useful instead of inventing a problem and then heroically solving it. I worked at VKontakte (Russian social network) and was the only Android…

I would suggest the crypto industry, specifically DeFi. Reasoning: * It's (mostly) all open-source. * It's self-directed. Don't like a team? There are a dozen others waiting scrambling for developers that you can join with no bureaucracy nonsense. Want to work alone? The tools are mostly mature enough that you can release products as a one man team. * You seem to have disinterest or even aversion towards money, from…

To be honest, I don't really believe in crypto. All the blockchain stuff is mostly solutions looking for problems. And, after all these years, cryptocurrencies still haven't replaced regular money. I still can't buy a coffee with bitcoin. There were numerous efforts to create such a cryptocurrency, but they've all failed — because governments aren't letting go of the control they have over everything, and they have the necessary physical force to enforce these views. Currently, all I see about cryptocurrencies, is people mostly using them for trading or see them as an investment. Sometimes they buy drugs with them. And that's really it.

Though, yes, if I wanted easy money, I could go work at such a company. Or I could as well go to a FAANG-ish megacorp and earn craploads by working an hour a day.

Re: Apps Getting Worse

#555

Post by pfranz »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #52

> It’s obvious. Every high-tech company has people called “Product Managers” (PMs) whose job it is to work with customers and management and engineers to define what products should do. No PM in history has ever said “This seems to be working pretty well, let’s leave it the way it is.” Because that’s not bold. That’s not visionary. That doesn’t get you promoted This mentality isn't unique to product managers. Mobile…

I think you're talking about a few different concerns and not all should be ignored. Resume driven development is something that should be avoided, but there are good reasons to update your tech stack even if the old one is working fine. To your point, I've been to tech workshops for new tech where everyone was laughing about their current jobs' quagmire from previous new tech. All I could think about is not wanting to use either in production for what they were doing. However, I was also at a job pulling teeth trying to convert from SVN to git. A lot of people argued changing was fashionable, but branching and merging were frustrating (therefore not heavily used), tools we wanted to integrate with less often supported SVN, and a lot of the automated processes in place would have been much more lightweight after transitioning.

While I don't think appealing to new hires should drive your tech stack, telling them we still used SVN was something you kind of said under your breath with a bit of shame. As for "nobody wanted to work on someone else's codebase" is true, but I think needs some give and take. If you're making someone responsible for something you need to give them some latitude for running it their own way. I'm going to grumble less about dealing with my own mistakes over someone else's, but rewriting everything every time someone quits isn't an option either.

Re: Apps Getting Worse

#556

Post by mxuribe »

I'm a digital product manager, and I concur with everything that Tim stated in his post...however, the sad part is - at least where i have worked - there is inertia from higher up that forces (yes *forces*) certain directions. "You have to keep adding to your products, else they're considered dying!...yada yada yada" I've even heard that in other places of business, there isn't a forcing function so much as incentives to "keep innovating"..."Hey, if you want your bonus, you have to show that you did something to your products...yada, yada, yada..." Which, unfortunately leads to what Tim so rightly noted about there being a cost to the user, etc. For every X numbers of frustrated users out there, there are a number of frustrated/blocked product managers...i sure feel that way.

(Maybe i should have stayed as a web dev. years ago...life was simpler back then, and not as rife with frustrations with other humans as it is nowadays. /sigh)

Re: Apps Getting Worse

#557

Post by the_other »

peterkelly wrote: post #398
Negitivefrags wrote: post #29

The worst offender recently in my opinion is Spotify on desktop. It used to be that when you clicked on an artists page you would see all the music tracks listed. Now it's all buried deep in and you have to search through the individual albums. Even the list of albums itself is not shown on the main artist page, you have to click "See Discography" first. The "Home" page is even worse. Where is my discover weekly play…

The stupidest part is why it changed: https://engineering.atspotify.com/2021/04/07/building-the-fu... According to https://community.spotify.com/t5/Community-Blog/The-New-Desk... "We're working on bringing back a list-like Discography view, something many of you have mentioned missing in the new UI" They could have just left things as is, but no.

The article alleges they hoped to increase accessibility with the move to Electron.

How is that stupid?

(I'm not an Electron fan, but I think accessibility is important.)

Re: Apps Getting Worse

#558

Post by Anthony-G »

Negitivefrags wrote: post #29

The worst offender recently in my opinion is Spotify on desktop. It used to be that when you clicked on an artists page you would see all the music tracks listed. Now it's all buried deep in and you have to search through the individual albums. Even the list of albums itself is not shown on the main artist page, you have to click "See Discography" first. The "Home" page is even worse. Where is my discover weekly play…

I tried using the Spotify desktop player a few years ago when I first subscribed to their service. I found the application to be a real resource hog compared to any other desktop music player (such as VLC, Audacious, Foobar2k or Winamp). It also lacked the usability and many of the features of these older players but the deal-breaker for me was that it didn’t support gap-less playback which ruins the experience of listening to live albums or DJ mixes.

Re: Apps Getting Worse

#559

Post by noveltyaccount »

egypturnash wrote: post #270
noveltyaccount wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think OneNote ticks all your requirement boxes.

Is there a way to get rid of that thing where you have to manually drag out text boxes to type in? I really hated that, if I want freeform page layout I’ll use an actual notebook or Illustrator.

I don't think there's any way to turn it off but I'm like you. I only ever use the default text area and never place free-form. So I just ignore the feature :)

Re: Apps Getting Worse

#560

Post by avh02 »

blowski wrote: post #19

This article sounds rather ‘truthy’. On HN, you’re always getting to get some upvotes for saying “technology used to be so much better, amirite?! Bloody product managers ruining everything!”. But it’s harder than that. Apps need to keep up to date with operating systems, technology changes, business changes. Take The Economist mentioned. Maybe they noticed an uptick in cancellations, so the change was designed to ste…

> I preferred the old version. But my wife, who had never used it until last year, got on fine with the new one.

This could be one of those things where you don't know it can be better until you see it.

Things like - faster computer, more comfortable car, better mattress (for you). Sometimes you live fine until the glass shatters and the old one will never be the same.

Edit: this sounds very consumer-y, it's just the examples that pop in to my head. It can be better bosses, more competent plumber, whatever.

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