111–120 of 239 posts
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The CSS standard defined user stylesheets and specified their behaviour. Unfortunately, it seems most browser vendors are slowly attempting to destroy this feature.
Which is sad, because in real life many users really want this feature. "--Can you please implement dark mode for your site/webapp?" "--Dude, just use whatever css you want."
Instead of asking me what I want, they decide what I want. I'm not sure if authoritarianism is the right name for this trend, but I think it's also related to companies no longer wanting users to think of themselves as owning the products they bought, and the shift to subscription-based services. They want to turn users into dumb, docile, obedient cows to be milked for $$$, and what better than to start them down tha…
It is also done in part to hide just how thin most catalogs are. Notice how Netflix does not allow hiding any of their offerings. Imagine you had the ability to never see particular movies / shows / genres / movies you'd seen paraded before you again — when you cut out all the junk and things you'd never watch, you see the 10 choices left you might, depending on how bored you are, actually watch. Once you're there, y…
Netflix know what I watch, how long, what time of day etc. These are statistics about me, so I should have full access to it.
Preferably with additional option to get JSON, so I could parse them as I want.
I feel like the implication is that people prevent you from customizing stuff for ego reasons, but isn't it a lot of code and testing to implement the personalization UI? But thinking about it more, I suppose the answer is to let the users write their own clients. Netflix should have a JSON API that's a list of all the programs, and each record should contain a link to video file. They don't do that because of DRM an…
They could do that but you deeplink back into the Netflix app to actually watch to solve the DRM issue. Which I think shows that it's about more than just DRM. They want to control the experience.
DRM doesn't effectively keep you from finding everything anyway, and much DRM is flimsy, easy-to-bypass pro forma DRM; because DRM -is- about controlling the experience, first and foremost.
Its sheer presence activates the DMCA felony protection of circumventing copyright. This is why Cory Doctorow always calls copyright evasion "felony contempt of business model". It's there so the company can control the experience and squash any attempt to bypass that control; in that sense, the DRM on the UX is more important than the DRM on the content itself.
Obligatory Cory Doctorow "Unauthorized Bread" link: https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2020/01/unauthorized-bread-a-...
This is interesting. My experience with macOS is the opposite, but that's because I like to personalize the technical parts of my OS.
I feel like the implication is that people prevent you from customizing stuff for ego reasons, but isn't it a lot of code and testing to implement the personalization UI? But thinking about it more, I suppose the answer is to let the users write their own clients. Netflix should have a JSON API that's a list of all the programs, and each record should contain a link to video file. They don't do that because of DRM an…
But thinking about it more, I suppose the answer is to let the users write their own clients.
That's certainly one reason (on the operational layer), but I very much doubt it's the main reason. Otherwise, companies wouldn't go out of their way to prevent you from writing your own client.
My suspicion is, there is an additional layer between data gathering and customisation that is extremely interesting for companies: the target metric.
If you're allowed to customize things yourself, you supply your own target metric to judge if the current settings work well for you. It's mostly implicit, but I'd guess in most cases, it would be about ergonomics, how easy you can archieve things that are important to you, how much it matches your personal visual style, etc.
Telemetry and "forced personalisation" allow the company to supply their own target metric instead. Yes, ergonomics and personal preferences play a role, but the company can easily mix in other things, such as retention, which are exclusively important for them but not for you.
I often end up returning things because I searched for something specific, and Amazon returned a bunch of things that were not that. (And it shows that for similarity search, that the "corrections" do need to have domain-specific awareness.)
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> and if I don't cede control I miss out on the primary means of social communication for people my age. What I do: Fight it by being part of the solution rather than contributing to the problem by continuing to use these platforms. This is obvious, but the only thing that makes it the “primary” means of communication is the people using it. Don’t be one of those people, and tell your friends the preferred way to get…
that doesn't work if you want to make new friends.
Not sure whether this is common, but the definitions I use are: Customization - decisions that you make for yourself Personalization - decisions made for you based on implicit and explicit signals
Customization: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/customization
Personalization: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/personalization
If I can't tweak something like I want, then it's not personalized.
Who even has time to play with settings of every application or website? I understand that some people may want it, but I sure cannot relate to caring one bit what color my buttons are.
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Of course they do. If they ever have any hope of improving margins, they need to argue that “our curation drives content discovery” to get better deals out of content providers.
they've abandoned the content acquisition strategy. that went out the boat a long time ago. netflix is a content creation company now, competing with HBO, NBC, etc.
As a producer/show runner, who would you rather make a series for, Netflix or a streaming service you've never heard of? Which would you accept less money upfront from?
Suppose you choose Netflix to fund your philosophical sci-fi show? Netflix tell you they will put it at the top of the main menu for everyone who's ever watched the new Star Trek as long as you agree to X. Do you agree to X?