We are not far away from an era where AI will code up a Windows clone.
If MS doesn't protect the user-experience of Windows users, it's over for them.
Microsoft's "fix" for Windows 11
711–720 of 804 posts
Re: Microsoft's "fix" for Windows 11
#712Earlier 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.
Sure, but there's a power disparity here. I think the clearest example is smart TVs where there have been examples of consumers buying a TV, and then having ads retroactively added to the product a year later. There's not much a consumer could to avoid that. It's our regulatory environment allowing that.
On top of that, the TV manufacturers subsidize the cost of their own TVs by shoving as much adware as possible and having it pay for the cost of the hardware. "Smart" TVs will almost always be cheaper than equivalent dumb TVs because of this reason, which forces many consumers' hands. I don't think there's any way to avoid this other than regulation, which likely won't happen because the system moves too slow to keep up.
Re: Microsoft's "fix" for Windows 11
#713Earlier quoted context omitted.
I mean I kinda agree on what you are saying but then it logically follows that if you don't want to try out alternatives, don't want to push your government to enact better laws, don't want to spend time taking them to small claims court - basically don't want to do anything but suffer - then just suffer.
I don't know how to better explain this, but as I get older I find I just have less energy to address all the things. My worldview gets larger and my energy levels become less and eventually I need to just 'stop' progressing in a certain activity. It could be re-learning the TV's remote control like my grandparents, or it could be re-learning how to drive with an EV touchscreen on modern cars, or it could be re-learn…
Sure, if you ignore all the time you're wasting on the status quo. You are still using energy on all the problems of the existing system.
For a remote or a car there is no benefit to changing. For Windows there is.
Re: Microsoft's "fix" for Windows 11
#714Earlier quoted context omitted.
Telling people to just go without a TV is a little more than a “perceived” inconvenience. The reality is that companies know they can get away with crap because they all get away with crap. And because they all do it, consumers are powerless. This is why regulation isn’t a bad the thing that many HNers seem to recoil at. The real problem with regulation is when it’s defined by lobbyists rather than consumer groups. B…
If somebody "needs" a TV then they might "need" some hobbies. A disturbing proportion of my family spend more than half of their free time watching television (typically while doom scrolling tiktok). They don't "need" TVs - they need to find interests.
Sounds like they need God
Re: Microsoft's "fix" for Windows 11
#715Simplicity is best.
They should return to that fundamental principle.
Current Windows has far too many unnecessary features.
Re: Microsoft's "fix" for Windows 11
#716It’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…
I call this odious practice "profit maximization titration" and almost all companies do it now. They continually enshittify the product a little at a time until they notice a dip in profits and then they dial back the shittiness a bit. Or if they're really sophisticated they will enshittify the product by a large amount and then do a binary search to restore product functionality in logarithmically smaller steps until the balance between profits and customer dissatisfaction re-stabilizes. They 'git bisect' the product's shittiness, as it were.
Re: Microsoft's "fix" for Windows 11
#717Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'd love if everyone switched to Linux and the walled gardens just died, but the most realistic outcome would be Microsoft and Apple having to up their game and improve their respective products. Right now they're driving hellbent for leather into OSaaS monthly computer subscriptions, eliminating use agency to the greatest degree possible, and exploiting every possible intrusion and usurpation of consumer privacy, va…
Mac OS comes with the purchase of the hardware. For mobile and tablets, yes, there is a strict walled garden. But I've been programming on Mac OS for longer than the age of this HN account, and even longer on Linux. In practice there's not much beyond the window manager and containerization that are impractical on Mac for every day programming compared to mainstream Linux distros. The family computer is set up to boo…
Not giving Apple money means no Apple hardware. I've gone decades doing it and haven't regretted it once. I've turned down work because it involved having to work with Apple devices and software. It's really, really easy to not give them money.
Pirate everything if you have to, but stop feeding the companies that are making everything awful.
Re: Microsoft's "fix" for Windows 11
#718there is literally nothing microsoft could possibly do or change now or ever to make me even consider going back to using windows on a personal machine. i don't care if they turn windows into the greatest OS in the world and make it free, microsoft can fuck right off forever
Re: Microsoft's "fix" for Windows 11
#719Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's a very upside down way to think about it. The question is: "are staffers $14 / mo more productive with it, than the free version?" The answer may also boil down to satisfaction, support calls, other things, aka 'total cost of ownership' as well. Not 'But it costs $X million!'. Companies will spend a fortune giving staff the right monitor, or chair, but literally don't think they're smart enough to know the dam…
This is exactly right. You're going to pay a dev on the order of $10,000 per month, then make it harder to do their job to save $14? That's idiocy. The person responsible for picking our work laptops asked me for advice selecting our new Macs since our old model was being replaced: "Do we really need to spend an extra $1000 for 64GB of RAM instead of 24GB?" "That'd save us $300 per year, or about a dollar a day, over…
My company doesn't OK basically any software requests, even cheap stuff :( We also don't make anywhere near $10k/mo (not USA). REcently got a new dev machine and it had 512GB m2 SSD and 16GB of RAM. I had to order 32GB but I had to explain why: to run docker images (and i'm hitting limits with 32GB constantly). I had to wait 2 weeks for the RAM upgrade. I wanted a bigger SSD but it would have taken longer and I needed to upgrade ASAP. It doesn't even have a USB-C plug (but a SD card slot, good grief).
Re: Microsoft's "fix" for Windows 11
#720It’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." developer delusion. devs who barely use their own apps. who dont understand the day-to-day user experience.
No this is product and finance. Product wants more features because that looks better to leadership. And finance likes ads