Ask HN: Why is today's Internet experience so user hostile? • Hacker News Board

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

#291

Post by 5560675260 » Mon, Jan 03, 2022, 3:25 PM UTC

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #93

5560675260 wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't like something? Take your money elsewhere, and make sure to tell why on social media, even if you don't have large following. Besides making bad practices unnoticeably less profitable this normalises caring about this. In the future we will see more business will see practices that you like as advantageous.

> Don't like something? Take your money elsewhere, If you have a phone with open-source firmware for the modem, I will buy it immediately. Who is taking my money?

Is modem firmware really the piece of software in you're more concerned about or at all? But still, if you want to see something changed on this front - give money to Purism or Pine64. Make sure to tell them that you'll continue your support if they continue moving in same direction.

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

#292

Post by djohnston » Mon, Jan 03, 2022, 3:27 PM UTC

iso1210 wrote: post #263

djohnston wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact that you're expected to pay some private company 35 quid for a test the NHS will send you for free is laughable and demands subversion.

You want the taxpayer to pay for the test so you can go on holiday?

I am the taxpayer.

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

#293

Post by javajosh » Mon, Jan 03, 2022, 3:27 PM UTC

edanm wrote: post #283

javajosh wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yours is a solid neo-liberal explanation that ignores one important fact: so much of what's online is not market-driven. It cannot survive in the steady-state on it's own. Much of it is investor funded. It's someone's best guess about what the public will find acceptable. And then, remarkably, these guesses are used by others to triangulate their own guesses, and you get something like a "UX bubble" divorced from eco…

I'm not sure about the impact of VCs here. For all their power, I think most people's biggest interactions on the web are with Facebook, Youtube, Amazon and Google. Do you have any good examples of VC-funded UX experiences that fairly prevalent?

The OP is not a blog post, but an Ask HN participant. Most of the poeple on this site are building VC-funded UX, and are early-adopters of the same. My comment is addressed to them, not most people.

Additionally, it is beyond my ken to even begin to comment on the bigness of people's interactions with anything, in general.

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

#294

Post by commandlinefan » Mon, Jan 03, 2022, 3:27 PM UTC

tluyben2 wrote: post #7

Not a main factor but a factor is 'always the latest tech' issue. Most banks and airlines I use rewrote their perfectly fine and fast sites and apps to reactjs and now they seriously suck. This is not the fault of react but more of this idea of tech people that everything has to be new which means we don't have 10+ year experience in it and the results just take more work to get right (despite what everyone says here…

> always the latest tech' issue ... rewrote their perfectly fine and fast sites and apps to reactjs ... we don't have 10+ year experience

React was open sourced in 2013. It's not that "new" - there are plenty of people who've been using it for 7+ years now.

> did a rewrite from php with js/jquery to react

The problem isn't the rewrite from php to react (or any x to any y), but the management saying "ok, we need to rewrite this thing in 'y'. You have two days to learn it. And you'd better show 40 productive hours of work on your timesheets in the meanwhile."

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

#295

Post by thereddaikon » Mon, Jan 03, 2022, 3:28 PM UTC

PeterisP wrote: post #61

ratww wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, that's the thing. You can't really fight against results. Putting an annoying modal asking for an email will give you lots of email leads. Sending newsletters will give more returns to the website. Sending desktop notifications whenever there's a new article works and gives more visits. A website that takes 20 seconds to load is not an issue. Advertisements give more than zero moneys. The reason it gives positi…

We can look at earlier consumer-hostile experiences which were generally solved by consumer rights regulations. You can fight against results - lying in advertising by saying that your Patented Snake Oil Tincture cures everything really does "work" and bring in money, but it was stopped by regulation; lying that this knock-off is really SuperBrandItem does work and bring results, but trademark laws significantly redu…

Yes, this is primarily a regulatory problem not a technical or design one. Most user hostile actions do work to bring in more users or make you more money. If they didn't then companies wouldn't be doing it would they? But just because something makes sense for a business does not mean it is ethical, moral or legal. Snake oil and counterfeit goods are solid examples. Things like auto charging, difficult to cancel subscriptions and the trade in user information should also be handled in a similar way.

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

#296

Post by pacifika » Mon, Jan 03, 2022, 3:30 PM UTC

I was guiding a relative with their 'new' Android tablet, the Youtube app goes either full of adverts or full screen. The latter hides the home button, because it's not a hardware one like the iPad.

So to stop playing a video you have to: 1. tap the screen to show controls 2. tap pause so you don't have to shout over them. 3. tap the icon which looks like a view finder but means exit full screen 4. swipe from the right to show the home button 5. press the home button

All of the above without pressing too softly or moving your fingers while tapping or swiping in a curve.

I understand now why iPads have a hardware home button.

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

#297

Post by buttercraft » Mon, Jan 03, 2022, 3:33 PM UTC

antocv wrote: 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…

This must be the attitude that scammers adopt so they can sleep at night. It's like saying that fraud is okay as long as the victim is stupid enough.

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

#298

Post by lazide » Mon, Jan 03, 2022, 3:37 PM UTC

pydry wrote: post #234

kortilla wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s pointing out that it’s a side effect of user market forces. The point is that users keep using these sites despite all of these annoying patterns.

It's blaming users for market forces though. It's kind of a lazy invocation of the just world fallacy: the users must be ok with it because otherwise they would have revolted if they werent. I've accepted many a dark pattern because of sunk costs and a lack of energy, time or options. I dont always have the energy to fight and punish. Ultimately market forces are about collective power , not a collective representati…

The challenge is, when no notable end user group is coordinate enough to havd significant market force/power to push back, what else do you call it but ‘users accept it’.

Everyone I know hates Comcast and the defacto monopolies in many areas with internet service. (Among many examples). But except in a few small areas, no one seems to even be effectively pushing back.

‘We’ve reached a hopefully temporary equilibrium point where corporate interests and ability to extract value vs user interests (and their lack of ability or interest in fighting for them) result in users hating life consistently’ isn’t any more explanatory I think, but says pretty much the same thing.

Users are relatively helpless/uneducated/captured and uncoordinated here at the moment, and the business interests are getting less pleasant as they fight each other in the absence of any other guidance/regulation as they try to grow and extract the maximum value they can.

At some point something with change and we’ll start shifting to another equilibrium point. Based on past experience I doubt it will be much friendlier to end users, but I have been surprised once or twice before.

And this isn’t (near as I can tell), ‘corporations bad’. Everyone always tries to get the maximum value they can get out of a system barring energy expended/concern about social judgement/blowback concerns.

From kids downloading warez to someone looking for maximum stimulation/emotional load from browsing instagram for free to a company getting the extra couple dollars from improving a signup flow.

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

#299

Post by commandlinefan » Mon, Jan 03, 2022, 3:37 PM UTC

noduerme wrote: post #67

You hit the nail on the head -- repeatedly. Shit. I just bought my gf a Roku as a stocking stuffer. We were setting it up and it made her put in her email and phone number to verify. I was appalled; I was like don't put in your email! I'll return it! But she wanted be able to watch YouTube on her TV since Apple removed it without warning from her AppleTV device . My own Roku from a couple years ago works great with n…

> I was like don't put in your email! I'll return it!

I was in Las Vegas with family a couple of years ago and there's a zipline over Fremont street that my kids wanted to do. They wouldn't let us do the fucking zipline until I gave them my email address.

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

#300

Post by Johnythree » Mon, Jan 03, 2022, 3:40 PM UTC

codeptualize wrote: post #169

I definitely agree some things have gotten quite bad, but at least for me there have been quite a lot of massive improvements. Banking is a good example, it has significantly improved for me; Instead of having to use one of those 2nd factor dedicated devices that require my card and pin code, I can now use my phone with the app as second factor, it's way more convenient as I don't have to go search for the device and…

For decades my bank used a hardware security device that I kept on my keychain. It worked flawlessly and I loved it. Recently they changed to an "App" to be able to use my account. The first I heard about it, I was overseas trying to get back during the Pandemic, and couldn't buy a plane ticket as SMS wouldn't work (apparently it was because I hadn't authorised "Roaming" before I left). Whatever, I did enjoy cancelling all my bank accounts when I returned. I will never use a shitty smartphone App for anything which involves security.