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Ask HN: Why is today's Internet experience so user hostile?

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Re: Ask HN: Why is today's Internet experience so user hostile?

#151

Businesses deceive themselves when they think they measure user satisfaction. There's a thing out there called "net promoter score." That's when somebody asks you "would you recommend our business to a friend?" It's based on a 2006 business book with the megalomaniacal title "The Ultimate Question." https://www.worldcat.org/title/ultimate-question-driving-goo... In theory it's a great idea. In theory it effectively c…

Celine's 2nd Law, a/k/a "shoot the messenger".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celine%27s_laws

See also Hyman G. Rickover on Quaker Problem Solving:

https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/28uxu6/more_hy...

Re: Ask HN: Why is today's Internet experience so user hostile?

#152
post #98

If you ask me it's due to a confluence of: - People like and expect stuff on the internet to be free; - The companies who produce this stuff have shareholders who want to see their squiggly lines go up. Honourable mention: Because cybersecurity is hard and involves saving users from themselves. That's my oversimplified take, anyways.

> - People like and expect stuff on the internet to be free;

God damn. The race to the bottom where users are now unwilling to even pay 99 cents for an app on iOS is what kept many of us working for our Corporate Overlords instead of ushering in a new golden age for the indie developer.

I'm so sad now. That would have been Easy Street; we're left now to find the niches I guess — as is usually the case with powerful corporations running the show.

Re: Ask HN: Why is today's Internet experience so user hostile?

#153
Something I've noticed as I've started to more actively try things with crypto wallets(which have made inroads on being identity/login solutions) is that there is a refreshing transparency and friction to the on-chain interactions. There are many things that cost a fee and make the wallet prompt for my password again when interacting with blockchains, but I haven't used Ethereum, so I've never seen a fee above a microscopic amount. And even given that the fees don't impact me, it throws the reality of what it costs to run the system in my face, making the low friction and opacity in big tech UX look shady by comparison, like, "well, why are you rushing me through this?"

Something significant happened to our trust model when we made that little leap from computer systems still "driven" by front office desk clerks and receptionists to fully automated ones - the ability for the intermediary to properly look out for you disappeared under the lens of KPI, as OP notes. So computing tech became more of a weapon for all sides - a thing to exploit or be exploited through at hyper speed. While the crypto way of doing it has a long way to improve still and also suffers frequent headliner exploitations, the core of it reminds me of the past in a good way; both "no questions asked" and "gets your permission". It just needs "smart enough to spot and correct grave errors".

Re: Ask HN: Why is today's Internet experience so user hostile?

#154
post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ironically the "my mom" and "but my grandparents" angle is what has always been used to dumb down and introduce user-hostile patterns. Surprise, after 20 years the developers and managers assume they are building software for retarded un-learnable "grandparents and mothers", the end result is well stupid software.

> Ironically the "my mom" and "but my grandparents" angle is what has always been used to dumb down and introduce user-hostile patterns. Dumbed down and user-hostile are independent things. Dark patterns are being introduced for nefarious purposes. No one is explaining away things like "click to subscribe, wait 3 hours in a phone queue to unsubscribe" as required for "grandmothers" The software isn't stupid, it's int…

> hard wait time to unsubscribe

It really is the grandmother excuse "you the user dont know what the unsubscribe button is doing, so we ask you to wait 3h and confirm 4 times because maybe you are clicking by mistake since you dont know where and what you are clicking".

Re: Ask HN: Why is today's Internet experience so user hostile?

#156
post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Roku is now publicly traded so its beholden to getting quarterly value for shareholder. Investors have deemed all of this data collecting valuable. Capitalism killing innovation by making it another homogeneous device that doesn't respect you doesn't surprise me.

> Capitalism killing innovation by making it another homogeneous device that doesn't respect you doesn't surprise me. What is this weird fascination with capitalism on HN? If a socialist government thought collecting data was a good idea and directed its resources that way, would that okay? My read is (rightly or wrongly) they want to have cloud services, and cloud services require identification.

> What is this weird fascination with capitalism on HN?

It's the one doing the data collecting in our lives.

Re: Ask HN: Why is today's Internet experience so user hostile?

#157
post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not a cricket. I told you what to do, dont use that software, dont accept the license or terms, uninstall, deactivate, deny. Read a book, go hiking. You arent forced to use shit software.

Oh boy, tell me how you do tax reports with the amazing experience of pen, paper and standing in a window. I bet you're outsourcing misery rather than avoiding it.

The government services dont show me any ads or dark patterns. How is it where you live? Does the IRS really try to trick you?

Re: Ask HN: Why is today's Internet experience so user hostile?

#159
post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think anyone is directly blaming the users here. It is just a fact of life that a sizeable portion of users "accept" dark patterns, and PMs consider that as a sign of success. However I strongly doubt users are doing it by choice. IMO it's actually because of lack of choices, lack of knowledge or learned helplessness. That might be controversial, but to me the point is that A/B tests and KPIs are the wrong in…

> I don't think anyone is directly blaming the users here. The comment I'm replying to is LITERALLY blaming "normal users" for these problems.

I said "directly" blaming, very important distinction.

The people making the garbage is still the ones to blame for the garbage itself. The reason people make such garbage is because a subset of people accept it. But nobody is saying the people accepting it are doing it out of an evilness (maybe they're saying it's out of "dumbness", but I would disagree with that too).

Re: Ask HN: Why is today's Internet experience so user hostile?

#160
post #22

Users tolerating such bullshit is the reason why it exists and keeps on existing. Nobody is forced to continue using dark-pattern software, nobody was forced to use Apple and tie their credit-card to their "apple cloud account", yet normal users dont see a problem with it at all and just continue even paying for software which is hostile to them and their interests. Your question is like, "Why does DRM exist it is ac…

Is Apple's case really a dark pattern? I can start a software subscription trial and immediately cancel. Do that with a random third party and suddenly the cancellation page is "down for maintenance" and you have to call in for support where they try to sell you a discounted package (cough Adobe.)

Also do you really want to go around typing in credit card details into every app you pay for? for every in-app purchase, for every movie rental, every song purchase? How is that user hostile?

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