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I agree with you. But.. > "Tinder has been updated. Deal with it". is an interesting choice of example. The anger at updates only really makes sense for ap

I agree with you. But.. > "Tinder has been updated. Deal with it". is an interesting choice of example. The anger at updates only really makes sense for apps that are entirely local to your hardware. As soon as you have an app where part of it runs on a server that you don't control, that logic goes out the window. They can stop your non-updated app from working with no effort, just by making the server API incompatible. As long as you are depending on someone else's server to be up and responding and not changing, you give up your rights to be in control of local updates. It sucks, but that's the reality of SaaS. I'm a fan of using local apps whenever possible. For instance, Google Docs is just too damn useful not to use sometimes. But I still, majority of the time, will choose to use a local word processor whenever I can get away with it. And when I'm done working on a Google Docs project, I download it in several formats and put it in the drawer. In the meantime I'd really like to see more take-up of open source, federated hosted solutions based on open document standards and open protocols. But so far the big corporations are winning that game.

ryandrake 9y ago
The anger is still valid because at the end of the day, the software (that used to work) no longer works due to a choice made by the company that makes the software. To the end user there is no difference between "making a breaking API change on the server" and "pushing a native update that disables the app". This may be the current sucky reality of SaaS, but it could be fixed if the market demanded it.
- radarsat1 9y ago
  Ah, yes sorry, I do agree with that. The company is changing things. It does suck. The main difference is just that with SaaS, when they change the server, they change something for everyone, there is no way to really block it. With local apps, you can block updates.* I'm not so much angry about server-based apps changing things, although I see your point, but I am angry about too many server-based apps in the first place. At least when it's not necessary. Hard to argue when it's literally for a social network. * Although in practice this only works for so long as it gets more and more painful as time passes.. there are still users of Windows XP! But I'm sure it's far from a pleasant experience these days.
  - b0rsuk 9y ago
    Don't forget about forking. Lack of source code might not matter for the 98% of application users, but the remaining 2% can modify it for everyone. If people don't like the new direction of OpenOffice or MySQL, they make LibreOffice and MariaDB. People should value nerds and their needs more.
- Analemma_ 9y ago
  > but it could be fixed if the market demanded it. Meaning, effectively, that it will not be fixed. I understand the frustration. I work on a mobile application that, like Uber, relies on a lot of server-side communication and deliberately stops working if the client is out of date. And I do know that this sucks. But the reality is, our API is non-public, and so there is no pressure from anyone to maintain backward compatibility. And I have a thousand features that need to ship, with not enough time as it is, or I will start getting heat from management. Abandoning the cadence of "constant breaking changes bundled with client updates" would slow development considerably, for no gain except the one-hundredth-of-one-percent of HN weirdos who care about this stuff. It's just not going to happen.
  - yousir 9y ago
    > but it could be fixed if the market demanded it. The market (my mom for example) is unaware there is a fix. > there is no pressure from anyone to maintain backward compatibility. You and your manager are both part of the problem. And the phone makers, because they invented a market place for shit companies that wants to ship unfinished software and push daily updates to their users to eventually reach a point where their API is stable. There used to exist software developers who took great pride in (API) backwards compatibility. These days, where are they? My guess is they have been overrun by the a huge crowd of new people who have never maintained a backwards compatible API and who don't know how to. Management love fast-moving people who say "yes sir" and "not a problem sir".
    - Analemma_ 9y ago
      I'll brush off your sneer at my perceived lack of ability. Of course I can do API back-compatibility. But everything comes at a cost that has to be weighted against the corresponding benefit, and the apparent benefit (to management) in this case is near-zero: most people don't care, and the ones who do care aren't going to single out and stop using our app because of it, because all the other apps do it as well. It is, unfortunately, a coordination problem that is not likely to be solved anytime soon.
      - 9y ago
- gameshot911 9y ago
  It seems to me that the company that makes the software had the perfect right to decide when it does and does not work. No?
  - leereeves 9y ago
    There's a sense of loss in that for many of us who were born into a world where, once you bought something, you owned it. Now, you often buy only a license to use something until the company that made it decides not to let you use it anymore. In some sense, we live at the mercy of people we've never met.
sheetjs 9y ago
> It sucks, but that's the reality of SaaS. I'm a fan of using local apps whenever possible. For instance, Google Docs is just too damn useful not to use sometimes. But I still, majority of the time, will choose to use a local word processor whenever I can get away with it. And when I'm done working on a Google Docs project, I download it in several formats and put it in the drawer. Out of curiosity, would you pay for a standalone Google Docs that worked locally and pushed data to a server (say, a daemon you can also purchase and run in your home computer or droplet) only when you wanted to sync? If you are willing to pay, Microsoft offers much of this through Sharepoint + Office.
- marcosdumay 9y ago
  Does the mobile MS Office keep working if it can't connect to the licensing servers for a month? Because the desktop version doesn't.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - Godel_unicode 9y ago
    The desktop version absolutely does not have that requirement, you just have to buy the right one. Office 2016 can be installed and used offline without ever talking to a Microsoft server. You're referring to a restriction specific to the Office365 version. If you don't want cloud requirements, don't buy the cloudy version.
    - marcosdumay 9y ago
      You know, "buying the right one" Microsoft product can easily be a full time job. That is, if it is even possible. I was under the impression that the only version of Office available was the 365. But anyway, my workplace brought some version with a clear requirement of getting an eternal license on it. Yet, it breaks all the time because it can't get licenses on the cloud. I am still not sure how MS isn't evading the requirements, but well, it's not my job to check it.
dustingetz 9y ago
It didn't have to end up that way. The data is behind a cloud API because data is a source of power and the API is a control point. Whatever data the uber app needs could have been on his phone or in a cdn close to his phone or in a cloud computer operating on the user's behalf instead of for Uber. The balance of power has shifted asymmetrically towards centralized entities, but it does not mean that is the only possible solution. It is mostly a history lesson to understand why the balance today is what it is. It could have been different. Humans made all this stuff, there's no laws of nature saying software distributed systems only work if a megacorp is positioned in the center of it. Consider the world wide web.
- schoen 9y ago
  Yes, and as in your web example, the economic dynamics can sometimes point the other way, providing a strong incentive to maintain compatibility with an installed base that's not really under the service operator's control. People providing services can argue a lot about the limitations for them of this situation and the advantages of having more control: https://signal.org/blog/the-ecosystem-is-moving/ https://signal.org/blog/the-ecosystem-is-moving/ http://paulgraham.com/road.html http://paulgraham.com/road.html (Analemma_'s comment elsewhere in this thread also expresses this.) But it also comes at a cost to users' power and autonomy: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/who-does-that-server-really-serve.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/who-does-that-server-really-s...
arbie 9y ago
Then keep the app in the browser. There is no user-benefit to requiring installation of Uber or Tinder. Hard for companies to give up that juicy user monitoring, though.

ryandrake 9y ago

The anger is still valid because at the end of the day, the software (that used to work) no longer works due to a choice made by the company that makes the software. To the end user there is no difference between "making a breaking API change on the server" and "pushing a native update that disables the app". This may be the current sucky reality of SaaS, but it could be fixed if the market demanded it.

radarsat1 9y ago
Ah, yes sorry, I do agree with that. The company is changing things. It does suck. The main difference is just that with SaaS, when they change the server, they change something for everyone, there is no way to really block it. With local apps, you can block updates.* I'm not so much angry about server-based apps changing things, although I see your point, but I am angry about too many server-based apps in the first place. At least when it's not necessary. Hard to argue when it's literally for a social network. * Although in practice this only works for so long as it gets more and more painful as time passes.. there are still users of Windows XP! But I'm sure it's far from a pleasant experience these days.
- b0rsuk 9y ago
  Don't forget about forking. Lack of source code might not matter for the 98% of application users, but the remaining 2% can modify it for everyone. If people don't like the new direction of OpenOffice or MySQL, they make LibreOffice and MariaDB. People should value nerds and their needs more.
Analemma_ 9y ago
> but it could be fixed if the market demanded it. Meaning, effectively, that it will not be fixed. I understand the frustration. I work on a mobile application that, like Uber, relies on a lot of server-side communication and deliberately stops working if the client is out of date. And I do know that this sucks. But the reality is, our API is non-public, and so there is no pressure from anyone to maintain backward compatibility. And I have a thousand features that need to ship, with not enough time as it is, or I will start getting heat from management. Abandoning the cadence of "constant breaking changes bundled with client updates" would slow development considerably, for no gain except the one-hundredth-of-one-percent of HN weirdos who care about this stuff. It's just not going to happen.
- yousir 9y ago
  > but it could be fixed if the market demanded it. The market (my mom for example) is unaware there is a fix. > there is no pressure from anyone to maintain backward compatibility. You and your manager are both part of the problem. And the phone makers, because they invented a market place for shit companies that wants to ship unfinished software and push daily updates to their users to eventually reach a point where their API is stable. There used to exist software developers who took great pride in (API) backwards compatibility. These days, where are they? My guess is they have been overrun by the a huge crowd of new people who have never maintained a backwards compatible API and who don't know how to. Management love fast-moving people who say "yes sir" and "not a problem sir".
  - Analemma_ 9y ago
    I'll brush off your sneer at my perceived lack of ability. Of course I can do API back-compatibility. But everything comes at a cost that has to be weighted against the corresponding benefit, and the apparent benefit (to management) in this case is near-zero: most people don't care, and the ones who do care aren't going to single out and stop using our app because of it, because all the other apps do it as well. It is, unfortunately, a coordination problem that is not likely to be solved anytime soon.
    - 9y ago
gameshot911 9y ago
It seems to me that the company that makes the software had the perfect right to decide when it does and does not work. No?
- leereeves 9y ago
  There's a sense of loss in that for many of us who were born into a world where, once you bought something, you owned it. Now, you often buy only a license to use something until the company that made it decides not to let you use it anymore. In some sense, we live at the mercy of people we've never met.

sheetjs 9y ago

> It sucks, but that's the reality of SaaS. I'm a fan of using local apps whenever possible. For instance, Google Docs is just too damn useful not to use sometimes. But I still, majority of the time, will choose to use a local word processor whenever I can get away with it. And when I'm done working on a Google Docs project, I download it in several formats and put it in the drawer. Out of curiosity, would you pay for a standalone Google Docs that worked locally and pushed data to a server (say, a daemon you can also purchase and run in your home computer or droplet) only when you wanted to sync? If you are willing to pay, Microsoft offers much of this through Sharepoint + Office.

marcosdumay 9y ago
Does the mobile MS Office keep working if it can't connect to the licensing servers for a month? Because the desktop version doesn't.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- Godel_unicode 9y ago
  The desktop version absolutely does not have that requirement, you just have to buy the right one. Office 2016 can be installed and used offline without ever talking to a Microsoft server. You're referring to a restriction specific to the Office365 version. If you don't want cloud requirements, don't buy the cloudy version.
  - marcosdumay 9y ago
    You know, "buying the right one" Microsoft product can easily be a full time job. That is, if it is even possible. I was under the impression that the only version of Office available was the 365. But anyway, my workplace brought some version with a clear requirement of getting an eternal license on it. Yet, it breaks all the time because it can't get licenses on the cloud. I am still not sure how MS isn't evading the requirements, but well, it's not my job to check it.

dustingetz 9y ago

It didn't have to end up that way. The data is behind a cloud API because data is a source of power and the API is a control point. Whatever data the uber app needs could have been on his phone or in a cdn close to his phone or in a cloud computer operating on the user's behalf instead of for Uber. The balance of power has shifted asymmetrically towards centralized entities, but it does not mean that is the only possible solution. It is mostly a history lesson to understand why the balance today is what it is. It could have been different. Humans made all this stuff, there's no laws of nature saying software distributed systems only work if a megacorp is positioned in the center of it. Consider the world wide web.

schoen 9y ago
Yes, and as in your web example, the economic dynamics can sometimes point the other way, providing a strong incentive to maintain compatibility with an installed base that's not really under the service operator's control. People providing services can argue a lot about the limitations for them of this situation and the advantages of having more control: https://signal.org/blog/the-ecosystem-is-moving/ https://signal.org/blog/the-ecosystem-is-moving/ http://paulgraham.com/road.html http://paulgraham.com/road.html (Analemma_'s comment elsewhere in this thread also expresses this.) But it also comes at a cost to users' power and autonomy: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/who-does-that-server-really-serve.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/who-does-that-server-really-s...

arbie 9y ago

Then keep the app in the browser. There is no user-benefit to requiring installation of Uber or Tinder. Hard for companies to give up that juicy user monitoring, though.