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The rise of user-hostile software

den.dev

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Re: The rise of user-hostile software

#261

Post by rich_sasha »

kevincox wrote: post #62
rich_sasha wrote: post #28

Ultimately, a developer's or a company's objective is not to provide good software, but to succeed financially (or in some other metric). This is somewhat aligned with the user's needs - if a user wants a calculator app, it should do arithmetics. But beyond that, The Dev is not a benevolent entity, and users are a means to an end. It doesn't have to be cynical and exploitative, but when push comes to shove, The Dev w…

Of course there are other motives. For most Free Software the motive is "Make something that is good for me ." Still not optimal for other users but closer aligned.

Sort of. As much as I like Linux, I don’t use it on my own kit. Linux is made for tinkerers, or people who know it’s internals well. For me Linux is always slightly broken.

I guess that’s because the devs building it don’t care that much about 100% seamless work on all hardware; 95% is good enough. But that remaining 5% means I just can’t use it. By contrast, Mac is a non-free, limited walled garden (prison?), but doesn’t need the trackpad be debugged or kernel recompiled.

So here, libre devs’ work is less aligned with my needs than the commercial operation, whose key selling point is seamless UX. (Not complaining, just saying)

Re: The rise of user-hostile software

#262

Post by quickthrower2 »

dend wrote: post #180
quickthrower2 wrote: post #32

> At the time of writing, this blog collects anonymized data with Google Analytics. Don’t want to send it? Have your browser send a Do Not Track request and no data will leave this page. It takes an if statement to do this, not a month of engineering work. How is this consistent with the message to not be hostile?

OP here. You have an explicit option to opt out, no gimmicks.

Is this default ON designed for the users needs? Or the developers?

Re: The rise of user-hostile software

#263

Post by srdev »

vbezhenar wrote: post #65
AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It is not "needs of developers" the problem, but the "needs of product manager, marketing, c-level asshole". Not entirely. Developers still make choices to use slow and bloated software stacks to save themselves time, which definitely negatively affects the user experience.

What stacks? I've yet to encounter a popular stack claiming itself as slow and bloated. React? Angular? Electron? There are very slim and fast apps built with those stacks. And if someone built slow Electron app, I'm sure that he would build slow Qt app (not sure if Qt considered slim nowadays). It comes either from lack of experience or lack of focus on performance. And that does not depend on stack.

None of those frameworks are slim and fast. No framework is going to admit that they are bloated, and many will claim to be slim and fast, despite the fact that they are not.

Re: The rise of user-hostile software

#264

Post by ticviking »

nottorp wrote: post #200
api wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Something weird happened over the past decade. I blame free (as in beer). If you can’t sell software you have to monetize in other ways. This creates a huge forcing function to push acceptance of surveillance, adware, and worse as hard as possible. It’s hard to complete with free. A free thing can build a network effect fast, then monetize with roundabout methods like surveillance. Payment also adds friction, and I…

> If you can’t sell software you have to monetize in other ways. What do you mean, can't sell software? Lately you can't BUY software. Everything is either free or subscription based. And they sell your data even if you pay for a subscription.

This is the thing that makes me most upset. I'd very happily pay more of they'd stop selling my data, but since it's always there as an option I basically have to either selfhost, be robbed, or get politically active on the topic.

Re: The rise of user-hostile software

#265

Post by hamburgerwah »

Closed source software has always been built on an extortion business model. As long as we permit math to be patented and copyrighted this will continue to be the case. The issue now is that each of us as individuals uses much more software than we did, 5, 10, or 20 years ago.

Re: The rise of user-hostile software

#266

Post by pseudalopex »

dend wrote: post #180
quickthrower2 wrote: post #32

> At the time of writing, this blog collects anonymized data with Google Analytics. Don’t want to send it? Have your browser send a Do Not Track request and no data will leave this page. It takes an if statement to do this, not a month of engineering work. How is this consistent with the message to not be hostile?

OP here. You have an explicit option to opt out, no gimmicks.

Few sites respect Do Not Track. Some even use it for tracking. So you force people to opt in to other tracking to opt out of yours.

Re: The rise of user-hostile software

#267

Post by xnx »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #26

Agreed on all points. Interesting to see this: > You can argue that all of this has existed for a very long time, back from the days of all kinds of toolbars and extensions that created multiple levels of address bar nesting in your web browser and taskbar. What I find ironic about the whole situation is, back then it was universally known that those toolbars and extensions are distributed by assholes. The whole soft…

Like other malware, they learned that it's best to not draw attention to yourself. Viruses don't put a big animation on your screen anymore, they silently enlist your machine in a botnet and steal your account number and credentials. Toolbars (now extensions) don't change your search engine, they silently add affiliate parameters and cookies.

Re: The rise of user-hostile software

#268

Post by the_third_wave »

the_third_wave wrote: post #69
southerntofu wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This seems like a lot of jumping to conclusions to fit your pre-determined opinion of them. Unfortunately, that's the opposite. I was very interested in suckless some years ago, and was very disappointed to learn their tolerance (if not sympathy) towards nazism. > They have said they're not, so we should take them at face value. Denying affiliation is a classic strategy in psyops. The alt-right and manosphere have…

> Denying affiliation is a classic strategy in psyops. The alt-right and manosphere have established entire PR strategies based on that. The same is true for attributing tainted characteristics to your ideological opponents - just call them "nazi" or "fascist" and anything goes. If they deny that they are nazis or fascists, well, that just proves they are nazis or fascists. This is called a Kafka trap. It is the same…

FYI, I vouched for tofu's dead reply to my question on whether he'd be inclined to trust anti-communists. I might not agree with his stance on this subject but I think he should be able to answer the question - which he did. From reading his comment history I get the idea that we agree on many points related to technology but disagree on many political subjects. I'd much rather have an honest discussion on all subjects out in the open, without labelling or epithet throwing than to suppress parts of that discussion while allowing other parts of it to thrive. The former might lead to some useless political discussions but those can simply be ignored - just collapse the thread [1]. The latter inevitably leads to some politics getting through while other politics is killed.

[1] this could even be an option in personal settings, something like 'Show dead [ ]', 'Show politics [ ]'). It would also make the job of policing the forum easier since anything political can simply be flagged as such by moderators or users, just like users can flag posts and replies.

Re: The rise of user-hostile software

#269

Post by TrinaryWorksToo »

squarefoot wrote: post #98
marcodiego wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> most mainstream software from renowned companies should be [...] classified as malware. Most FLOSS has not fallen in this category.

Exactly. To keep being user-hostile and keep the user base, software needs to satisfy some requisites: being closed or depending on not reproducible proprietary services, or having no better competitors. A user-hostile software that happens to be useful and is open would be forked and cleaned in no time, or users would flee to the competition if there is any. The fact that the most user-hostile applications today liv…

An interesting counterexample is Cheat Engine, which loads adware with its download unless you pay on patreon or build from source.

Re: The rise of user-hostile software

#270

Post by TeMPOraL »

Nextgrid wrote: post #255
TeMPOraL wrote: post #26

Agreed on all points. Interesting to see this: > You can argue that all of this has existed for a very long time, back from the days of all kinds of toolbars and extensions that created multiple levels of address bar nesting in your web browser and taskbar. What I find ironic about the whole situation is, back then it was universally known that those toolbars and extensions are distributed by assholes. The whole soft…

The problem is that since the past decade or so you started being able to get tons of investment money from simply "engaging" users (whatever the fuck that means). This works recursively too - you can create a company that provides services to other companies who "engage" users. Best of all, you don't even have to be profitable or have a long-term business plan (being against your users is not a successful strategy u…

Agreed.

> This works recursively too - you can create a company that provides services to other companies who "engage" users. Best of all, you don't even have to be profitable or have a long-term business plan (...)

A neat flavor of this is what I believe a good chunk of adtech industry is built on. Since these companies are all paragons of virtue, some apply the same honesty to their in-industry customers as they would to end-users. That is, you don't even have to supply your adtech customers with a product or service that works. You only need to supply the perception that it's working. With data-driven cargo cult, it's easy - neither you nor the other side is likely to know what the data means anyway, but as long as the numbers are printed in green, and the line on the chart goes up, everyone is happy and the money keeps flowing.

> "engaging" users (whatever the fuck that means)

English is my second language, and I've learned most of it from videogames and TV shows. For many years, I thought "engaging" is the thing that a starship does to another starship with phasers and photon torpedoes. Only later on I learned the ordinary meaning of the word.

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