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Stop Ruining It

seths.blog

21–30 of 170 posts

Re: Stop Ruining It

#21
post #6

> Trust isn’t something a brand builds with an ad campaign. It’s what’s left if the marketers don’t ruin it. So much this. Are ads still a measurably good investment for businesses? I'm assuming they wouldn't run them anymore if not, but they feel so out of touch these days that it's really hard to imagine them really working on anybody. Sorry for the side-tangent, just felt like that last bit of the post really drov…

Its always been hard to know. "about one-half the money I spend for advertising is wasted, but I have never been able to decide which half." dates back more than a century

Some spend is just in case. Some spend is for prestige (we are on TV!). Some is for vague reasons that cannot be measured.

Re: Stop Ruining It

#22

This reminds me of trying to use File Explorer in Windows 11. I wish I could turn all their electron-app "improvements" off, to make it useful again, like it once was.. Case in point: Explorer now has tabs. I don't need tabs, I need a single tab, and a window title bar so I can drag the damn thing around. And.. my single tab, now tries to show the folder name, truncated to a few useless characters, so I now have tabs…

> Explorer now has tabs. I don't need tabs

Hey now! The `nautilus' file browser on linux got me hooked on tabs and for years it's been a glaring deficiency of File Explorer. Many tasks involve a collection of directories, and tabs can be ideal for reducing demand for screen space.

I concede the the current Windows implementation is poor but I hope they improve it, rather than dumping tabs entirely.

Re: Stop Ruining It

#23

As someone who works in marketing, this is extremely true. Right now, LLMs are causing a lot of one-time cashing in of trust. I've seen this pattern a bunch: 1. Person builds trust on X/LinkedIn or via an insightful blog/newsletter (substitute your channel of choice here) for a few years because they have unique opinions, interesting stories from personal experience, are entertaining/charismatic, or share data/insigh…

> a lot of one-time cashing in of trust.

I agree completely, but this is part of a larger pattern in society lately around short-term thinking. It seems like everyone is trying to cash ASAP and fewer people are investing or building long-term.

Between crumbling social institutions, climate change, governmental chaos, and increasing economic inequality, I think people just don't believe in the future as much as they used to. If you stop believing in the future, then making choices with short-term positives but long-term negatives becomes rational. You won't be around when the chickens come home to roost. Or, at least, you believe you'll have much bigger problems to worry about then anyway. Better to get yours now while you can.

Re: Stop Ruining It

#24

As someone who works in marketing, this is extremely true. Right now, LLMs are causing a lot of one-time cashing in of trust. I've seen this pattern a bunch: 1. Person builds trust on X/LinkedIn or via an insightful blog/newsletter (substitute your channel of choice here) for a few years because they have unique opinions, interesting stories from personal experience, are entertaining/charismatic, or share data/insigh…

>Person builds trust on X/LinkedIn

... You don't actually advise them to post on LinkedIn, do you? You know all the engagement on LinkedIn is fake, right?

Re: Stop Ruining It

#25

This reminds me of trying to use File Explorer in Windows 11. I wish I could turn all their electron-app "improvements" off, to make it useful again, like it once was.. Case in point: Explorer now has tabs. I don't need tabs, I need a single tab, and a window title bar so I can drag the damn thing around. And.. my single tab, now tries to show the folder name, truncated to a few useless characters, so I now have tabs…

>Case in point: Explorer now has tabs. I don't need tabs

Speak for yourself. Tabs in file explorer and notepad are my favorite windows feature in decades. I can't believe it took them this long.

Re: Stop Ruining It

#26

This reminds me of trying to use File Explorer in Windows 11. I wish I could turn all their electron-app "improvements" off, to make it useful again, like it once was.. Case in point: Explorer now has tabs. I don't need tabs, I need a single tab, and a window title bar so I can drag the damn thing around. And.. my single tab, now tries to show the folder name, truncated to a few useless characters, so I now have tabs…

Of the things that you could complain about modern Explorer and Notepad, you choose tabs? Really? A handy QoL feature that many have been requesting?

Re: Stop Ruining It

#28
It is in the nature of capital to ruin it - if users feel great about a product it implies that there is more to wring out of them. The ideal product leaves the user with nothing but the utility the product provides with no extra pleasure. If your employee loves to work for you, you're paying them too much. They can't hate to work for you (unless they have no other choice) but if they feel really good about it, that is a sign of a problem.

Re: Stop Ruining It

#29
Don't let the brevity of this post dissuade you from its value. I believe Seth is getting at a very good psychological insight.

By default, people give a lot of trust and benefit of the doubt. Everyone's account in life starts out a little positive when it comes to trust, welcome, empathy, and believe.

But the flip side of that is that people have a very good memory for past transgressions. When someone has extended you a little trust, or given you some time to learn your product, they will absolutely remember if you turn around and harm them.

It takes only a match to burn a bridge, but a year to rebuild it.

Re: Stop Ruining It

#30

This reminds me of trying to use File Explorer in Windows 11. I wish I could turn all their electron-app "improvements" off, to make it useful again, like it once was.. Case in point: Explorer now has tabs. I don't need tabs, I need a single tab, and a window title bar so I can drag the damn thing around. And.. my single tab, now tries to show the folder name, truncated to a few useless characters, so I now have tabs…

You can pull the File Explorer tabs from my cold, dead hands!

Also, I'm pretty sure the tabs were WinUI/XAML based, not WebView2 based. There are some "Electron" (i.e. web tech stack) components in File Explorer these days but I don't think most of the things you're complaining about are part of that.

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