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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?

#311

Post by denton-scratch »

simonh wrote: post #214
r_singh wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Users are the last ones to blame. If anything it’s policy makers, investors and industrialists. If you want to participate in society, you need a smartphone, and guess what? The whole world is okay with only 2 companies doing this….

For the same reasons the world is ok with only 2 commercially viable mass market desktop operating systems. Consolidation benefits users. It increases capital investment in the dominant platforms making them better faster; it increases the chances your software and skills will be compatible with your next computer; you benefit if your family, friends or colleagues use a compatible platform; it focuses developer effor…

> only 2 commercially viable mass market desktop operating systems

There's a chap from RedHat here, telling me that Linux is commercially viable.

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

#312

Post by 5560675260 »

micromacrofoot wrote: post #229
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.

try buying a ticket to a concert by avoiding ticketmaster and you’ll find yourself not going to concerts… I can’t subscribe to any local newspaper without a digital opt-in and a phone opt-out… …a bunch of these services are much harder to avoid than you think

I agree that most of the time with entrenched players it looks like there are no outs. But let's try to look at your example of ticketmaster. Your options depend on how much you are invested in concert-going as entertainment. If not much - stopping altogether might be preferable to further feeding the beast. If a lot - you can explore your local musical scene of amateur bands. The ones that play in bars and other venues that probably don't even sell tickets, or at least do it without relying on ticketmaster. Sure, you'll lose access to stadium-kind of experience, but there will be no change without at least some sacrifices.

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

#313

Post by denton-scratch »

r_singh wrote: post #179
kleiba wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't have a smartphone, am I not participating in society?

What I mean is that you need it to use an increasing number of private and public services these days. Speaking from my experiences in Europe and South Asia. So effectively companies and the government are telling us that we need one of these to get avail conveniences and in some cases to be able to use their service at all… With policies that mandate the use of digital vaccine certificates, apps and QR codes being u…

> I cannot enter or place an order at most coffee shops today without a smartphone

Really? I wonder where you are.

I own a smartphone, but I don't carry it with me; I've never been to any kind of shop that doesn't accept my debit card, other than for small-value purchases like a bag of onions from a greengrocer, for which cash is sometimes required.

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

#314

Post by ModernMech »

javajosh wrote: post #246
edanm wrote: post #232

I think we software developers tend to overstate the impact that the inner world of software developement has on this kind of thing. It wouldn't even occur to me that "release often KPIs" has anything to do with it. The reason the web looks like it does today is because it mostly works , for the value of works that the people building the web care about. Most things on the web are there because someone wants to make…

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…

> (A variant: content tech enthusiasts create without profit motive (and therefore without market correction)

I would not agree that the consequence of lacking a profit motive is an absence of corrective market forces. There are many kinds of markets out there, and many kinds of market forces that aren't related to monetary profit. For example, the marketplace of ideas is very powerful for people without a profit motive -- they toil in order to earn currency in their communities, which can be something as trivial as Github stars.

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

#315

Post by simonh »

denton-scratch wrote: post #311
simonh wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For the same reasons the world is ok with only 2 commercially viable mass market desktop operating systems. Consolidation benefits users. It increases capital investment in the dominant platforms making them better faster; it increases the chances your software and skills will be compatible with your next computer; you benefit if your family, friends or colleagues use a compatible platform; it focuses developer effor…

> only 2 commercially viable mass market desktop operating systems There's a chap from RedHat here, telling me that Linux is commercially viable.

There are several commercially viable desktop OSes other than Windows and MacOS, but they are not mass market. I knowingly wrote my comment to exclude specialist players addressing niche markets because they have completely different adoption dynamics.

Actually ChromeOS is arguably mass market. That's all beside the point though really. It doesn't change the fact that the dynamics that drive consolidation are actually in a very large part motivated by user self interest.

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

#316

Post by denton-scratch »

5560675260 wrote: post #312
micromacrofoot wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

try buying a ticket to a concert by avoiding ticketmaster and you’ll find yourself not going to concerts… I can’t subscribe to any local newspaper without a digital opt-in and a phone opt-out… …a bunch of these services are much harder to avoid than you think

I agree that most of the time with entrenched players it looks like there are no outs. But let's try to look at your example of ticketmaster. Your options depend on how much you are invested in concert-going as entertainment. If not much - stopping altogether might be preferable to further feeding the beast. If a lot - you can explore your local musical scene of amateur bands. The ones that play in bars and other ven…

I've never been to a stadium gig. I've been to concert-hall shows, with letter/number seating, and no grooving in the aisles; the ticketing experience was horrible. The shows were good, in a way; but I've always much preferred pub gigs and student-union gigs, where you just pay cash at the door.

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

#317

Post by ClumsyPilot »

5560675260 wrote: post #291
ClumsyPilot wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Withing 15 years, there will be microchips in your seat, table, and the packaging of your bread. And your iToaster will not toast unauthorised bread.

I am concerned about firmware because it is being used to take ownership of our devices away from us.

Oh, you could fix your device by replacing the chip, but we own the firmware and it's a crime to copy it. Also we can uodate the device at any time and add or remove fubctionality without you even knowing.

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

#318

Post by leros »

The rise of AB testing and releasing often is probably somewhat to blame. It turns out that if you have a good, popular product that you can push your users to their limits. I've seen so many tests that resulted in lower NPS scores but increased usage, revenue, and other metrics.

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

#319

Post by mistermann »

falcolas wrote: post #254
mistermann wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The solution is to introduce laws to reign in "profits at the expense of others". Now you have two problems.

When something isn’t working, you don’t point at ideologies and say “if we followed this to the letter, things may get better”. You change something. None of the changes so far seem to be catching industry wide. Perhaps it’s time for a change that comes with teeth.

I agree, but can our flavour of democracy actually(!) accomplish such things in a reliable manner?

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

#320

Post by denton-scratch »

duckmysick wrote: post #248
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…

> Previously the internet was better since the average internet user avoided scams How long ago are we talking about? Because scams and hostile threats were on the internet as long as I remember. Phishing and carding was present in the 90s, Morris worm was in the late 80s. Perhaps things are worse now because the stakes are higher. Ecommerce wasn't popular back then and computer viruses sent some spam or displayed fu…

> Morris worm was in the late 80s

To be fair, that wasn't any kind of scam; it was more like "I started a joke that started the whole world laughing".

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