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The rise of user-hostile software

den.dev

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Re: The rise of user-hostile software

#251

Post by FeepingCreature »

southerntofu wrote: post #148
FeepingCreature wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Germany does not have laws against Nazi jokes.

When is a joke a joke and when does it stop being a joke? Alt-right types are famous in their attempt to blur the lines by claiming sarcasm or dark humor. To be clear, that's fine in certain contexts: if you're with people you know well, and with whom you have a mutual understanding of when to understand the exact opposite of what just came out of your mouth. However, when you're doing that with strangers in public,…

I'm just referring to the previous comment. You have to be pretty overt to fall afoul of §130, blurred lines don't count.

(It says something about the intelligence of neonazis that the paragraph still finds frequent application.)

Re: The rise of user-hostile software

#252

Post by xanaxagoras »

kibblesalad wrote: post #222
xanaxagoras wrote: post #221

I recently left iOS over the surveillance stuff and I was looking at a Nokia device to replace my Apple Watch. I read in the Amazon review that you had to create an account and their privacy policy explains that your location data will be synced with Nokia and you can't opt out, the device can't be configured without accepting that. Nope. I'm at my wit's end with ALL of this stuff. Most software, apps, digital life,…

That seems to be the end result of companies seeking untapped income from harvesting and selling customer data, besides offering everything as a subscription service without any kind of end-user ownership or guaranteed ongoing functionality. Why just make money off the sale of the product when you can continuously gather telemetry, personal information, track their location, their usage patterns, their contacts, thei…

Yeah, this whole thing has been a big eye opener for me and you've the nail on the head. Moving from iOS to Calyx involved reading up and a few things and that's a community that's much more disposed to discussing privacy related concerns that I simply haven't been aware of. It's a bitter pill to swallow and infuriating, the degree to which we're surveilled and manipulated. Went back and paid attention to the Prism disclosures. It's all just fucking mental.

> Why just make money off the sale of the product when you can continuously gather telemetry, personal information, track their location, their usage patterns, their contacts, their photo albums, metadata and browsing activity?

This is the key issue, it absolutely makes sense for them to do it. I'm one of those people who just hit "accept" but no more. My new answer to any company that continues to ask that question is simply... because if you do that, you lose the sale. It's frustrating that basically amounts to spitting in the ocean but I simply can't participate any longer.

Re: The rise of user-hostile software

#253

Post by xanaxagoras »

Paianni wrote: post #230
xanaxagoras wrote: post #221

I recently left iOS over the surveillance stuff and I was looking at a Nokia device to replace my Apple Watch. I read in the Amazon review that you had to create an account and their privacy policy explains that your location data will be synced with Nokia and you can't opt out, the device can't be configured without accepting that. Nope. I'm at my wit's end with ALL of this stuff. Most software, apps, digital life,…

I don't think their S30+ (dumb) phones have that sort of ToS imposed...but then I can't imagine you want to revert to that sort of thing.

Ah, sorry, maybe a bit unclear - I was referring to a smart watch that Nokia makes. From iPhone 12 with iOS 14 I moved to a pixel 4 with CalyxOS.

Re: The rise of user-hostile software

#254

Post by TeMPOraL »

selfhoster11 wrote: post #181
sneak wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But even a significant portion of FLOSS can be legitimately called spyware. Firefox, Chromium, Docker (although Docker Desktop is no longer open source), Homebrew, Mattermost, Netdata, Bitwarden - all of these are common, popular FLOSS that embed spyware, oftentimes operating silently (other than a little notice at install time that the authors think constitutes informed consent). The spyware epidemic is real, and FL…

With FLOSS, the culture often looks down upon telemetry so there's an incentive not to include those because of user outcry (Audacity, ahem). Forking or patching out the offending pieces of code is also possible (see Audacity again). Caddy v1 also came with telemetry, but it was trivial to rebuild it with the telemetry switched off. The best you can do with closed software like Windows is to apply a hack and hope it'…

That's true, but still, the trend of embedding spyware in FLOSS is becoming normalized. On top of that, FLOSS spyware vs. proprietary spyware is a distinction that is useful only for software developers - a subset of "tech-savvy people". Until recently, tech-savvy people could just assume that FLOSS software is free from bullshit, and both use it and recommend it to non-tech-savvy people without checking.

FLOSS or not, most software is still products, with a name and an owner. The openness could, in principle, enable a "network of slightly different forks" model of software evolution, but it didn't. There's universally a single canonical repo, with the "real" owners, and occasionally some niche forks. A fork takes over only when it can win the marketing game against the repo it forked from. So, each time an owner of the canonical repo decides to include telemetry in their project, their users who aren't software developers are screwed.

Re: The rise of user-hostile software

#255

Post by Nextgrid »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #26

Agreed on all points. Interesting to see this: > You can argue that all of this has existed for a very long time, back from the days of all kinds of toolbars and extensions that created multiple levels of address bar nesting in your web browser and taskbar. What I find ironic about the whole situation is, back then it was universally known that those toolbars and extensions are distributed by assholes. The whole soft…

The problem is that since the past decade or so you started being able to get tons of investment money from simply "engaging" users (whatever the fuck that means). This works recursively too - you can create a company that provides services to other companies who "engage" users. Best of all, you don't even have to be profitable or have a long-term business plan (being against your users is not a successful strategy unless you're a monopoly), you can just enjoy the VC money and get you and your mates a nice salary for a few years and then rinse & repeat.

This turns the entire thing upside down. It used to be that you made money by making good tools that users paid money for because they solved their problem - thus the incentives are clear and aligned. But now it's the opposite, you simply waste the user's time and annoy them as much as possible and money just magically appears and the users don't even have a choice because they're not the ones paying for it.

Re: The rise of user-hostile software

#256

Post by dend »

wilde wrote: post #249
dend wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

If the software is worth it, absolutely - I would pay $500 and use it for years to come. Up until a couple of years ago, that was the model used by Adobe for their Creative Suite. Tools like Vegas Pro are in the same boat - it's expensive for a one-time fee, but I view it as an investment in my craft (if I really need the tool).

My hypothesis (and I have no data to back this up) is that most users leverage the same functionality over and over despite the updates and new features. As a hobbyist user of photo-editing software (and Photoshop in the past), I can't recall a single update to the stack in the past five years that was groundbreaking in my day-to-day usage of the tool. That's not to say this won't be the case in the future, but when it is, I will happily pay a premium for the next version.

There is, of course, the argument that subscriptions lower the bar of entry - a student can't afford $600 per tool, but they can much easier bear the $29.99/mo. My argument is less about "no subscriptions, ever" but more about "give me an option to give you money upfront and forget about updates until 5 years later."

Re: The rise of user-hostile software

#257

Post by wilde »

dend wrote: post #256
wilde wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

If the software is worth it, absolutely - I would pay $500 and use it for years to come. Up until a couple of years ago, that was the model used by Adobe for their Creative Suite. Tools like Vegas Pro are in the same boat - it's expensive for a one-time fee, but I view it as an investment in my craft (if I really need the tool). My hypothesis (and I have no data to back this up) is that most users leverage the same f…

Ok, that’s fair then!

Re: The rise of user-hostile software

#258

Post by srdev »

I've gotten a lot of flack for saying that advertising and marketing are terrible industries and need to be chopped down by 95% or more, but I think this only supports my point. They can't stop themselves from trying to hook into everything so that they can track and "engage" the user.

I've gotten a lot of stink eye by strongly pointing out that the users don't want to be "engaged" with your brands and that people are creepy for having that expectation. They just want a product or service that works well. Somehow along the way we convinced ourselves that all of this is normal.

Re: The rise of user-hostile software

#259

Post by l0b0 »

stronglikedan wrote: post #151
kstenerud wrote: post #80

You'll notice that all of his examples of user-hostile software lack a universally accepted standard. This is not new. Do you need to install special vendor software to use your bluetooth devices? No - everyone follows the standard, so your OS just knows how to hook up your headset. With USB it's different, because the standards are insufficient for the gadgets that we use, resulting in specialized software for your…

> Do you need to install special vendor software to use your bluetooth devices? No Logitech and Samsung would like a word...

Oh? The Logitech G613 Bluetooth keyboard and M510 Bluetooth mouse were plug and play on Windows, Arch Linux and NixOS. Back in the day, sure, but I don't think custom drivers are much needed for anything but GPUs by now.

Re: The rise of user-hostile software

#260

Post by nsm »

Another example: Cue Health makes a rapid COVID19 test. They ship you a little box, and a set of wands to insert into the box. The box should literally be able to tell you whether the test passed or failed, like thermometers, and pregnancy tests.

But no, the stupid thing requires you to install an app on your phone, create a cloud account (because we all know we can totally trust the cloud with personal data) and it will refuse to work without any of this.

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