Ask HN: What things has tech made worse in your life? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: What things has tech made worse in your life?

#141

Post by bmitc » Fri, Dec 10, 2021, 6:02 PM UTC

Eric_WVGG wrote: post #89

ok_dad wrote: post #4

Advertising. I know this is an extreme view, but I think any advertising other than a spec sheet style ad (just facts) should be banned. I feel like it steals your attention and mindshare day after day. The ads I see on TV now (rarely, as I don't watch live TV much) are just so horrible. Dripping with emotions and trying to tug on your heartstrings to sell some toilet bowl cleaner or some other garbage. Social media.…

I bet you'll love these before-and-after photos of Sao Paolo after their outdoor advertising ban: https://99percentinvisible.org/article/clean-city-law-secret... Anti-advertising was one of the pet causes of Generation X, back before more pressing things like "the war on terror" and a financial collapse and health care crisis took the stage. And those are bigger deals, but man, advertising is just awful too.

That’s absolutely amazing. In reading that, I had to ask myself several times if it was real or not. No one seems to make such bold and decisive decisions for good anymore.

Re: Ask HN: What things has tech made worse in your life?

#142

Post by ben-schaaf » Fri, Dec 10, 2021, 6:03 PM UTC

ok_dad wrote: post #4

Advertising. I know this is an extreme view, but I think any advertising other than a spec sheet style ad (just facts) should be banned. I feel like it steals your attention and mindshare day after day. The ads I see on TV now (rarely, as I don't watch live TV much) are just so horrible. Dripping with emotions and trying to tug on your heartstrings to sell some toilet bowl cleaner or some other garbage. Social media.…

> Most products today are less durable and are generally worse than "yesterday", in my opinion.

Planned obsolescence is pervasive - it's hard to have endless growth when you've reached market saturation. It's also incredibly hard to go against the grain here, as it's really difficult to judge how long something will last without intimate knowledge of the product.

Re: Ask HN: What things has tech made worse in your life?

#143

Post by nicolaslem » Fri, Dec 10, 2021, 6:03 PM UTC

Fragmented communication. Depending on the person I'm contacting I either have to use Signal, Messenger, iMessage, Email, Slack, Skype, IRC, SMS and I'm probably forgetting one or two others.

The fact that most of those are not interoperable is so frustrating. We all know the only reason they are not interoperable is because each one tries to keep us in their walled ecosystem. Such a waste for the users.

Re: Ask HN: What things has tech made worse in your life?

#144

Post by nja » Fri, Dec 10, 2021, 6:03 PM UTC

DataGata wrote: post #90

gherkinnn wrote: post #33

Algo-paranoia. Every time I interact with a remotely "clever" system, I keep thinking how my input will feed some machine. How fast do I scroll, what is in my viewport. What do I listen to and when. Is this an A/B test? Will something I do on a whim affect that machine to predict something incredibly stupid tomorrow? It only became obvious recently, as I was readying an actual, physical book. The relief to realise th…

It should be reassuring to know that most of the things you interact with are actually too bandwidth constrained to care about those things, and the algos you interact with are fairly obvious and explicit (Feeds, curated things, etc)

I used to think this, until I happened across FullStory. With that tool you can replay a website visitor's exact session as if it was recorded live on video -- everything they typed (even if it was cleared and never sent in a request), where/when clicks happened, the contents and response of every request, etc.

As a backend engineer, I had no idea that frontend monitoring was this advanced, but apparently it is. So now we all have to be extra paranoid, because _any_ website could be using this tool to "spy" on everybody.

Of course, it _was_ very helpful to us in tracking down some issues (ever tried to tell a customer how to send you a HAR?). And I assume that operating with an adblocker and blocking nonessential cookies will prevent or hamper the output for us more technical types. Even so...

Re: Ask HN: What things has tech made worse in your life?

#145

Post by stormdennis » Fri, Dec 10, 2021, 6:03 PM UTC

Car key fobs that fail silently on cars that have no (visible) door keyhole and no ignition one. The first time it happens is an education you could do without.

Re: Ask HN: What things has tech made worse in your life?

#146

Post by amelius » Fri, Dec 10, 2021, 6:03 PM UTC

ericmay wrote: post #86

amelius wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Maybe not advertising completely but at least targeted advertising. Non-targeted advertising is still distracting. Why not ban it completely? Or perhaps allow dedicated advertising places, so everybody can be happy.

I used to think that too but a complete ban probably doesn't work well. What else would you be banning? Bumper stickers and logos on cars (get rid of the Apple logo on the back of your Mac), yard signs for political campaigns, newspapers, I mean there's a lot there. And then once you start selectively allowing it then you also create hyper-competitive scenarios for the ads that are allowed and I'm thinking if you do…

I think the problem is that we allow any kind of advertising unless there is some problem. We should turn this around: ban all advertising unless there is something for society to be gained.

Re: Ask HN: What things has tech made worse in your life?

#147

Post by ryanbrunner » Fri, Dec 10, 2021, 6:04 PM UTC

Watching movies at home.

Streaming services, while initially seeming awesome, offer way less selection than browsing through a Blockbuster or local video store. I suppose you can rent movies online as well, but the browsing experience is pretty bad if you're not looking for the latest thing.

Re: Ask HN: What things has tech made worse in your life?

#148

Post by zaptheimpaler » Fri, Dec 10, 2021, 6:04 PM UTC

Recently I went to a 7-11, and the cashier wanted me to teach me how to use an app to checkout. Instead of putting my items down and having him scan it, I had to pull out my phone, scan items with a line of people behind me, then present a code he scanned to bill me. Took 5 minutes to do something that usually takes 30 seconds.

Just as in your examples, imo the key here is not "tech". It's that the tech is being used to offload work that used to be done by an employee to you, without passing on the benefits or the choice to opt out.

I think the frame of technology good vs. technology bad is not useful. Technology is a means distinct from the ends it serves. Many modern applications of technology don't serve customers, they serve company profit margins or governments or don't really serve anyone except the maker and that's why they suck.

Good technology is applied to eliminate work altogether like say sending an email instead of snail mail, or doing something fundamentally new & useful like having a detailed map of the world in your pocket.

Re: Ask HN: What things has tech made worse in your life?

#149

Post by dexwiz » Fri, Dec 10, 2021, 6:04 PM UTC

notacoward wrote: post #132

Manual controls. There's a lot to like about the infinite reconfigurability of touchscreens and on-screen controls, but there was also a lot to like about being able to find controls without looking and getting positive tactile feedback when you pressed or turned something. This is especially true in cars, but it shows up in other areas (e.g. kitchen equipment) as well. Related: human-oriented design in general. Ever…

I think this is in part due to how quickly software is developed. Since reqs > mvp can be hours, days, or at most weeks, there is a lot pressure on designers for quick turn around.

My friend is an Industrial Designer, and works on Faucets, probably one of the last interfaces replaceable by a touch screen. Their design pipeline is years long. They build multiple prototypes and mock them with real humans, and get the space to actually watch people use them. I have very rarely seen a UX designer get more space to experiment than a InVision mockup. So of course what they design is disconnected.

Re: Ask HN: What things has tech made worse in your life?

#150

Post by codazoda » Fri, Dec 10, 2021, 6:05 PM UTC

ok_dad wrote: post #4

Advertising. I know this is an extreme view, but I think any advertising other than a spec sheet style ad (just facts) should be banned. I feel like it steals your attention and mindshare day after day. The ads I see on TV now (rarely, as I don't watch live TV much) are just so horrible. Dripping with emotions and trying to tug on your heartstrings to sell some toilet bowl cleaner or some other garbage. Social media.…

Just last night I was thinking about how much of my life is wasted watching advertising on TV. 15 minutes is worth more than a few dollars to me.

I was watching a movie on the Roku Channel. Because the channel is free, it's got commercials. The more I watched, the longer the commercials got. At some point I gave up and turned it off. The movie is 132 minutes long and there are 10 stops for commercials. The last commercial was 2 minutes.

I'd rather pay for a subscription than watch commercials and I will definitely not pay for a channel AND watch commercials.