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Why our website looks like an operating system

posthog.com

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Re: Why our website looks like an operating system

#131

Post by w-ll »

ZaoLahma wrote: post #107
RadiozRadioz wrote: post #82

This must have taken them a really long time. That worries me, don't they have other things to do? If engineers have so much free time that they can work on nice & fun things like this that aren't totally necessary, they must have overhired (which is wasteful and a sign of impending layoffs) or they don't have enough actual work to do (which is a sign the company is stagnating). Or the time and money required to do t…

Oof...! A lot of innovation originates in engineers' "boredom". I've been at a company that mandated innovation by having a mandatory annual innovation day, and full productivity for the rest of the year. "Be innovative for 8 hours, damn it!". That never worked. Not once. Never ever. Innovation was limited to evolution, and evolution was so slow that our customers had started implementing what we provided in house in…

i can agree, but this doesnt seem like engineer boredom, more like manager or higher

Re: Why our website looks like an operating system

#132

Post by Cthulhu_ »

xp84 wrote: post #67
ttiurani wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. If they indeed only use the cookie for essential functionality, this kind of joke banner only makes their choice to respect visitors' privacy equally annoying. Even worse: because it makes it seem like the EU law is just meritless pestering of people, they are actually fighting for the right for worse sites to spy on their visitors. It's baffling.

> EU law is just meritless pestering of people It is that. It has done literally nothing to improve anything whatsoever, in any country. And most of the "cookie management" scripts that people use, barely even work. Both the law and the way it's complied with in practice are a dumb solution to a problem that the EU should have forced browser vendors to solve. Only the user's browser can choose not to send back cookie…

The EU law is fine, the implementation used isn't. But never blame the EU laws for cookie banners; the law does not mandate banners at all, let alone the ones full of dark patterns to nag you into accepting anyway. That's all the industry.

The industry could have come up with a standard, a browser add-on, respect a browser setting, etc but they chose the most annoying one to pester you, the user.

Re: Why our website looks like an operating system

#133

Post by Cthulhu_ »

beeflet wrote: post #115
benjiweber wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Something like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Do_Not_Track ? Which failed in part because Microsoft turned it on by default which even further disincentivised publishers from respecting it.

The fix here would be to legally force them to comply with Do Not Track instead of forcing them to post compliant banners

They are not forced to use banners, they are forced to get explicit opt-in permission before tracking users, which can be done in non-obtrusive ways.

Re: Why our website looks like an operating system

#134

Post by Doxin »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #132
xp84 wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> EU law is just meritless pestering of people It is that. It has done literally nothing to improve anything whatsoever, in any country. And most of the "cookie management" scripts that people use, barely even work. Both the law and the way it's complied with in practice are a dumb solution to a problem that the EU should have forced browser vendors to solve. Only the user's browser can choose not to send back cookie…

The EU law is fine, the implementation used isn't. But never blame the EU laws for cookie banners; the law does not mandate banners at all, let alone the ones full of dark patterns to nag you into accepting anyway. That's all the industry. The industry could have come up with a standard, a browser add-on, respect a browser setting, etc but they chose the most annoying one to pester you, the user.

> let alone the ones full of dark patterns to nag you into accepting anyway.

In fact the law pretty explicitly disallows dark patterns like that. Of course tech companies have a loosy-goosy relationship with the law at the best of times.

Re: Why our website looks like an operating system

#136

Post by cturner »

boredtofears wrote: post #19
Twey wrote: post #3

I've always thought ‘multi-document interfaces’ as we used to call them are an anti-pattern. I have a perfectly good window manager; why does every app need its own incompatible, usually inferior window manager built in? (Mind you on mobile I very much don't have a perfectly good window manager, and indeed can't even open multiple instances of most apps…)

To throw gasoline on the fire: this how I’ve always felt about tmux. Why use an incomplete in terminal windowing system when I can just have multiple terminal windows open managed by the superior OS window system. (That said I know tmux is sometimes the only option and then it makes sense to me)

I tend to run my tmux session for months at a time on my office workstation. When I remote in to that computer, I can type ‘tmux attach’ and all my context is there. I might have four long arc dev projects running at once, and my planning system, all within those windows.

On our datacentre servers, I also have tmux running. It is fast to connect to these hosts, attach tmux and continue from where I left off.

Another use case: it is common for corporates to require devs to use windows desktops, but to then give them a headless linux host in a datacentre for development work. Here, you use putty to connect to the linux host, fullscreen it, run tmux. On your desktop you have outlook and office and putty and a browser and no dev tools. You can do all your planning and dev work on the linux host, using your favourite ten thousand hours text editor and building your own tools, and this becomes your hub. You lose awareness that you are connected to this from a locked down windows host. Corporate security reboots your windows host for patching several nights in a row, and it does not cause you any hassle because your work context is in the tmux session on another host.

Re: Why our website looks like an operating system

#137

Post by kedihacker »

unglaublich wrote: post #66
keyle wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's about user retention. If people have fun on your website, they'll stick around and they might even read some text!

If your website is about finding things, then spending more time is a bad sign.

Google doesn't know it only sees a happy user

Re: Why our website looks like an operating system

#139

Post by pembrook »

xboxnolifes wrote: post #93
rmunn wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I mean is that if they don't add it, they're going to get threatening emails from regulators saying "Hey, you don't have a cookie banner". Those regulators don't have any way of knowing how their site operates, so the small banner at least manages to inform them and keep Posthog from receiving emails. That is what I meant by "practically". I mean "in a practical sense" as opposed to in a theoretical sense.

And they can reply back: "Hey, you're wrong".

Doesn’t usually go over well with regulators. If they have to prove their site is fully compliant in court it would become mighty expensive to do so.

So, cookie banner it is.

Re: Why our website looks like an operating system

#140

Post by fifticon »

xp84 wrote: post #67
ttiurani wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. If they indeed only use the cookie for essential functionality, this kind of joke banner only makes their choice to respect visitors' privacy equally annoying. Even worse: because it makes it seem like the EU law is just meritless pestering of people, they are actually fighting for the right for worse sites to spy on their visitors. It's baffling.

> EU law is just meritless pestering of people It is that. It has done literally nothing to improve anything whatsoever, in any country. And most of the "cookie management" scripts that people use, barely even work. Both the law and the way it's complied with in practice are a dumb solution to a problem that the EU should have forced browser vendors to solve. Only the user's browser can choose not to send back cookie…

I don't agree. It is the main way I am being informed that some sites I attempt to use, share my data with thousands of external partners, for no relevant function. I do not believe this information would be divulged to me and the public, if voluntary. The public is mistreated in innumerable ways, starting by not letting them know it is happening.
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