Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I think consumers have little power here. Our economic system fundamentally chooses to reward such behaviour. Consumers have the final say, our economic system fundamentally is consumer spending. (Ok, save for most recent year(s) of mag7 AI buildout. But generally that's the case for USA economy). We have to stop taking out our wallet and just accepting things like sheep. (nearly) Every one of the "scrapped" comput…
Sort of related, I think this is why big tech loves “free, ad-supported” so much. Using Google search or YouTube or ChatGPT or Fortnite doesn’t seem like an action that is “supporting a company.” When none of the money comes from your pocket, you don’t really feel like you’re making an important choice to patronize one business or another.
Microsoft's "fix" for Windows 11
531–540 of 804 posts
Re: Microsoft's "fix" for Windows 11
#532Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I think the only way this gets better for consumers is if customer response more often insisted further roll backs than just the last straw if a company crosses the line. I think consumers have little power here. Our economic system fundamentally chooses to reward such behaviour. Until we change that, the power will always be with these kind of companies. Perhaps governments could levy punative fines in such situat…
"Our economic system fundamentally chooses to reward such behavior". This is true, but what people seem to fail to grasp is that rewarding such behavior == buying the product. If people simply didn't buy it, they wouldn't do it. It's really that simple. It may be hard to not buy, of course. The alternatives may be worse, there may be downsides to not buying, etc. But nothing else will really be effective.
Another instance where companies can have more leverage than consumers is gaming. Console exclusives are a thing because they work; not giving consumers the option to play Pokemon on anything but the Nintendo Switch drives switch sales. Microsoft is better off working with other gaming companies to ensure Windows keeps being dominant, than building an OS to gamer's preferences.
I think time has proven many times that consumers aren't always good regulators for the market. The market is best regulated by organized entities.
Re: Microsoft's "fix" for Windows 11
#533Domestic violence analogies for computing....really gross. I wouldn't hire or work with 'Sam Bent'.
Re: Microsoft's "fix" for Windows 11
#534Re: Microsoft's "fix" for Windows 11
#535Microsoft lost its way much earlier than 4 years ago. It abused users at the time of Netscape wars and forcing Internet Explorer down people's throats. But they hit an infinite gold mine with government adoption and for the last 30 years no amount of bad engineering was able to shake off government use. Windows 11 is bad? Yes, but did you try Microsoft Teams? The only way to force Microsoft into "users matter" engine…
Am I the only one who prefers Teams to the Slack and Zoom? The ability to write in the meeting chat before and after a meeting for example. That is some serious quality of life function that all others are lacking.
Re: Microsoft's "fix" for Windows 11
#536Earlier quoted context omitted.
"Our economic system fundamentally chooses to reward such behavior". This is true, but what people seem to fail to grasp is that rewarding such behavior == buying the product. If people simply didn't buy it, they wouldn't do it. It's really that simple. It may be hard to not buy, of course. The alternatives may be worse, there may be downsides to not buying, etc. But nothing else will really be effective.
Do people really have a choice though? Many people don't choose what OS they use for work, and even when one can pick, the environment we exist in is one where being less productive is often hard to afford. Another instance where companies can have more leverage than consumers is gaming. Console exclusives are a thing because they work; not giving consumers the option to play Pokemon on anything but the Nintendo Swit…
Re: Microsoft's "fix" for Windows 11
#537Why are there so many "slop" animations in this article? They don't actually provide anything useful over the already explained text, and the "click to restart" is incredibly distracting.
Re: Microsoft's "fix" for Windows 11
#538It’s quite common for companies to work their way up to the line of the most user hostile version of their product that users will tolerate. Especially with software where they can just go flip a switch and turn off whatever feature did cross the line but keep everything they gained by inching up to the line, which seems to inevitably result in things like the condition of windows 11. I think the only way this gets b…
> It’s quite common for companies to work their way up to the line of the most user hostile version of their product that users will tolerate. this is in general how the market for pretty much everything works (sometimes 'users' are replaced by 'the regulator', but it doesn't matter too much). lesson in there is 'majority of users don't care nearly as much as you think', usually.
I think the desktop Linux ecosystem is an example of something healthier, but it goes too far in the other direction. There are too many options to choose from that it's hard to find the one for your needs.
Re: Microsoft's "fix" for Windows 11
#539Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is about markets. It has nothing to do with capitalism. And in fact, it is usually _because_ of healthy competition that this type of enshittification happens everywhere because quality is hard to compare for the buyers and so the sellers are forced to compete on cost.
How the hell can healthy competition breed enshittification? That makes absolutely no sense to me. Take an industry with healthy competition like restaurants. You can compete in price, quality, format, service and probably a lot more. Now tell me how that competition enshittified eating at restaurants? For me, nothing stands out. If a restaurant charges nonsense fees, under-staffs to increase profits, reduce portions…
Yes, and you correctly point out: On the average restaurant visit, nothing stands out. A good restaurant only needs to provide not-terrible food and not-terrible service to be almost indistinguishable from all others. Quality of a restaurant visit is hard to measure and compare. Price is easy to measure. Thus, the rational consumer will prefer the cheaper option (and even at the same price, a restaurant with lower costs will be more profitable, thus expand more easily).
The same thing happens on Amazon and other market places: When it is difficult to compare quality, price always wins out. Some products are interchangeable with well defined specs, like a 16GB RAM stick is obviously twice as good as 8GB RAM and so it can be twice as expensive and still sell. But when I'm looking for a new light for my bicycle there are no standardized specs to compare. All the product descriptions and pictures are exaggerated. I have no reliable information to tell if the lamp that is twice as expensive is really twice as good (and from personal experience: they never are), so I'm buying the cheapest one cause I expect all of the products to be equally crappy no matter the price.
It's not Amazon's fault. This happens everywhere.
Re: Microsoft's "fix" for Windows 11
#540This follows the standard windows pattern of every release alternating between bad/good. 98 good ME bad XP good Vista bad 7 good 8 bad 10 good 11 bad When 12 comes windows will be tolerable again.