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

The rise of user-hostile software

den.dev

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

241–250 of 303 posts

Re: The rise of user-hostile software

#241

Post by yawaworht1978 »

The medium to broadcast ads has simply shifted over time. It used to be expensive tv ads, billboards, and print. All very expensive and you could not target population segments precisely, it was limited to what time or during what tv show the ads were shown, or in print political leanings. Retargeting was almost impossible and expensive.

Then people started watching less tv and reading less newspapers(or did so online). Then JS got mature enough to track users and then the marketing departments started instructing the devs for maximum efficiency. At the cost of user ui/ux. Almost every web page loads ads via ajax , consents popups, email list ctas with a lot of bloat. Nobody knows how to fix it, or the financial incentives are just not there.

Re: The rise of user-hostile software

#242

Post by api »

rixed wrote: post #191
api wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Something weird happened over the past decade. I blame free (as in beer). If you can’t sell software you have to monetize in other ways. This creates a huge forcing function to push acceptance of surveillance, adware, and worse as hard as possible. It’s hard to complete with free. A free thing can build a network effect fast, then monetize with roundabout methods like surveillance. Payment also adds friction, and I…

> If you can’t sell software you have to monetize in other ways. If you can't sell software and have to monetize it somehow, sure you can steal user data. But you can also steal user data even if you sell the software, as has been demonstrated many times. Only authors who have no intend to monetize the software could really be trusted.

The ability to directly sell software is necessary but not sufficient to enable a software ecosystem that is not about exploiting the user.

That's why I mentioned forcing functions. Once "free" became the norm, it became impossible to even think about doing anything else. The door to conventional honest business models was closed for most software authors and vendors.

The notion of all software actually being free is a fantasy, unless you are talking only about software that can only be used by nerds. The amount of effort required to make software usable by the general public is absolutely massive. Then throw in constant UI changes, ecosystem changes, and supporting a lot of targets.

In general once the app basically works you are 10% done. The other 90% of the effort is UI/UX.

Re: The rise of user-hostile software

#243

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

Frost1x wrote: post #109
wolrah wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I blame marketing departments being given too much (read: almost any) control over product development. No developer cares about the level of analytics being pushed today, and unless they're profit sharing they probably don't care about the ads either. Those anti-features are there because marketing departments want them there and have enough power to get what they want. Don't let marketing make product decisions.

The underlying cause here is unbound and often unregulated profit motive with the farse that competition self regulates. At some scales competition self regulates but at scale we see now, it simply doesn't. There are too many barriers and too strong of foothold in markets. As a result it trickles down, how can we improve our revenue stream. More data, more ads, more nickel and diming consumers, how can we lockdown co…

If you build your culture on an ethic of competitive individualism, this is what you get.

Hardly anyone is really happy. Not even those with huge piles of money.

They're comfortable and (largely) immune to everyday threats. But the system as a whole continues to be made of traps and sharp edges. And a lot of people fall through them, never to be seen again.

Not a few were convinced it couldn't possibly happen to them, until it did.

Re: The rise of user-hostile software

#244

Post by TeMPOraL »

horsawlarway wrote: post #232
wolrah wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I blame marketing departments being given too much (read: almost any) control over product development. No developer cares about the level of analytics being pushed today, and unless they're profit sharing they probably don't care about the ads either. Those anti-features are there because marketing departments want them there and have enough power to get what they want. Don't let marketing make product decisions.

Back up even farther, though - SO MANY PRODUCTS are literally indistinguishable outside of marketing. I think the issue is much deeper than "don't let marketing make product decisions". Browse through any app store - click a category, and it's a sea of apps that provide essentially the same capabilities. Just like your grocery store has a sea of jars filled with slightly varying salsa. So take the diagram in the arti…

> Customers asked for it: Check.

> Customers would benefit from it: Check.

The key is in what the word "it" means. The answers are positive if by "it" you mean "this category of product". They may very well be negative if by "it" you mean "our particular product".

The customers want a jar of salsa. They don't want, and never asked for, your particular variation of a jar of salsa, essentially identical to 10 other variations except for a differently designed label.

Another tricky bit is in the "asked for" part. For most products on the planet, customers don't really ask for anything. The market isn't structured this way. Products are just dumped on the market, and those that sell survive. This is wasteful, but has some benefits. It would just be better if marketing wasn't there to meddle with things, artificially sustaining more variations of a product than needed.

Re: The rise of user-hostile software

#245

Post by lukifer »

Applejinx wrote: post #166

One word that keeps coming up in all these objectionable scenarios is 'market'. One word you never see is 'standard'. All this isn't an exception, it's the rule. If you want stuff to not be wrecked by externalities, back away from free market concepts and look towards more centralized control from whatever source. No exceptions. We could probably shift towards a sort of managed capitalism model and be just fine. It's…

I'd take it one step further: every market is a managed market, and we're only haggling over details. While you could find exceptions (local babysitting clubs using hours as currency), the vast majority of Actually Existing Markets use state currency, and state contracts, and property rights defined and enforced by the state. Markets are merely one tool in a political toolbox, and the details matter.

An excellent book on the history of property rights and policy (for good and ill), and which explores the tradeoffs between different forms of "ownership design": https://www.minethebook.com/

Re: The rise of user-hostile software

#246

Post by TeMPOraL »

michaelcampbell wrote: post #233
slingnow wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They were ubiquitous because your unwitting grandparents wanted into install some simple application and weren't savvy enough to read and uncheck all of the boxes that installed the new Ask Jeeves toolbar.

Right, that's partially my point. My unwitting grandparents are precisely in the set of "universally", and they didn't know nor care by whom these apps were distributed.

Oh, but my point is, they knew and cared after they got them installed and had to ask someone to have them removed.

Re: The rise of user-hostile software

#247

Post by inshadows »

> All of the examples above have one thing in common - they focus on the needs of developers instead of needs of the customers.

Exactly. https://web.dev is prime example of that. Shiny new features for _developers_ all the time, as if any of that will make incompetent web developers write slick and fast applications.

Re: The rise of user-hostile software

#248

Post by TeMPOraL »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #196
TeMPOraL wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> surely a generic hardware manufacturer wants to ensure a generic experience? What they want, first and foremost, is to not be a generic hardware manufacturer . Quite a lot of those user-hostile choices - custom apps, SaaS-ification, focus on collaboration features - are attempts to prevent the product from being a commodity. For example, I can replace my current washing machine with any other model of any other bra…

Which is better, to be a commodity, or to be a not-commodity but the thing that makes you not a commodity is a thing that nobody actually wants?

Market-wise? Obviously the latter, as can be plainly seen from company valuations.

Re: The rise of user-hostile software

#249

Post by wilde »

dend wrote: post #224
wilde wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for responding! I guess I was mainly reacting to your claim about the move to subscriptions. It costs $10/mo to make software these days. $0.33/mo (your stated price) isn’t tenable. I expect the added costs apply similarly for other portions of the supply chain. Apple hardware provides similar quality to what you’re asking for. It is 2-4x more expensive and that’s with the advantage of scale.

I think this can be taken on a case-by-case basis. With software, where I am looking is a place where I can buy a "snapshot" - the current release that time and effort was invested in, that I can compensate for. That's it. I am not asking for constant updates, as I would be perfectly content with the release I bought. That is, until it can't work for my needs, and I need to buy another version. But I do understand yo…

This is the perennial problem with pricing. You should pay for the value you get out of the software. At a fixed price, there’s a lot less flexibility. In this case that same software might decide to charge for 3y or 5y of value. Would you balk at paying $500-$700 for perpetual use?

The subscription is more efficient in the sense that the folks getting more value pay more.

Re: The rise of user-hostile software

#250

Post by stadium »

benatkin wrote: post #238
stadium wrote: post #130

I saw my get kid prompted to pay $59.99 usd to buy in-game achievements for the hill climb racing game on Android. That's a f-ton of money to be soliciting from anyone, yet alone a kid. He's not quite at reading age and just clicks things. The game design and characters is clearly targeting kids. In my opinion, these aren't games any more, they are gambling.

I've played Hill Climb Racing, and it's a pretty awesome game, even for an adult. The varying gravity, and inaccurate but fun physics, and the variety, are what made it fun for me. I haven't played it in years, and after that moved on to Geometry Dash, which I see myself wanting to play in the future more than Hill Climb Racing. I've scoffed at Candy Crush, but wondered if people who play that might feel the same way…

As a parent the volume of in-game purchase advertising and scarcity tactics are anxiety inducing for both myself and my kids.

Every game on every platform should have a global opt-out for in-game purchases, just like do-not-track on iOS 14.

Post reply on HN