8 ms·
I don't understand why so many of you highly intelligent people subject yourselves to this kind of stuff. Here we are complaining about Microsoft, Google, and
by zelon88 8y ago
I don't understand why so many of you highly intelligent people subject yourselves to this kind of stuff.
Here we are complaining about Microsoft, Google, and Mozilla's behaviour. Arguing about openness, paying for software, market share. You control exactly two of those things. You control what you pay for, and your choices affect market share. Yet you're complaining about the level of open-ness of companies who aren't trying to be open, hoping that someday it will change.
They don't change because their customers arbitrarily WANT them to change. They change when their market share is threatened and they are FORCED to change.
You want to make the Windows team listen? Stop using Windows. You want Mozilla to stop using Google as their default search provider? Change your default search provider manually. You want Google to stop spying on you? Stop using Android.
A lot of people will argue that it's not practical, too much effort, too costly. That's fine, but don't expect anything to change. You're acting like sheep so you're being treated like sheep. In one breath you say "companies only care about their bottom-line!" and in the next you whine "Microsoft is upselling me, Googleplex is tracking me, Firefox is in bed with Google!"
Well, that's because Microsoft pushed Windows 10 in your face and you ate it. Google tells you they'll sell your info and you let them. Firefox tells you they're gonna hop into bed with Google and you said nothing about it. You're screaming, but they have headphones on that are made up of your cash. When you speak softly and carry a big stick, these companies will listen.
- VikingCoder 8y agoI use the operating system my employer chooses. I have exactly zero influence over that. Believe me, I've tried.
- SECProto 8y ago> I use the operating system my employer chooses. I have exactly zero influence over that. Believe me, I've tried. You've missed a key line of what GP said: > A lot of people will argue that it's not practical, too much effort, too costly. That's fine, but don't expect anything to change. It's not practical, and it's a lot of effort, and it's too costly, but you could use a different operating system. Find an employer who doesn't use that operating system. The "cutting-off-your-nose-to-spite-your-face" option.
- bairrd 8y ago"Find an employer who doesn't use that operating system" might be a viable option if we lived in a world where healthcare wasn't tied to employment, teleportation made geographic realities feasible, and no borders existed. Free market solutions aren't feasible the vast majority of the time.
- e12e 8y ago> if we lived in a world where healthcare wasn't tied to employment Lived in part of the world where healthcare wasn't tied to employment
- jenscow 8y agoExactly. I'd try to fix that before worrying about my OS.
- komali2 8y agoWell, that's why I yell about all those things too. You don't have to become a mountainman. You can't solve children starving in Africa at the same time as you solve racial inequality in the American justice system. It's fine to just pick a couple issues and do what you can. If your contribution to open source is pestering your boss about it regularly, well, there you go. Yell about it on Twitter a bit as well, maybe write your congressperson. There's options.
- purerandomness 8y agoYou have influence over who your employer is.
- VikingCoder 8y agoSorry, but do you really think there are competitive employers lined up who use DIFFERENT OSes and Browsers?
- wvenable 8y ago> You want to make the Windows team listen? Stop using Windows. At that point, I no longer need the Windows team to listen do I? I actually like Windows in general and I have plenty of devices running Linux and other operating systems. But if the balance ever tips so far that I stop using Windows as my primary desktop environment, I'm not likely to go back.
- alyandon 8y agoI'm pretty OS agnostic. I have systems running Windows 10, various distros of Linux and a MBP running MacOS. Every single one of those operating systems comes with their quirks/pile of warts and I can't objectively say that one is so superior to the others that I'd want to run it exclusively.
- wvenable 8y agoWindows also gets objectively better with each release, if you ignore some of the BS things like this.
- mrguyorama 8y agoWhile the Windows 10 kernel has had improvements over 7, things like this completely offset those improvements. I would LOVE to use current Windows, but instead I'm stuck on a 5 year old OS because Microsoft doesn't value my ownership rights over my own, hand built computer
- majewsky 8y agoFor private PCs, it's like you say. For corporate PCs, Windows 10 Enterprise is sort of like "Windows 10: The good parts" because your IT department can disable all that shit via group policy. At work, I've switched from a Macbook to a Lenovo and I vastly prefer Windows to macOS. It somehow manages to get out of my way better than macOS does, plus it has a window management UX that is not a hot mess like the one in macOS.
- 8y ago
- OnlyRepliesToBS 8y agosubject yourself? as in trying to say it's a shakeable annoyance? it's a roaming window of acceptance that is getting worse and worse no, this shit is unacceptable this is monopolistic practice
- api 8y agoToo bad the open source world has consistently failed to create a good UX... not because it can't but because the OSS community is still full of people who have a fetish for complexity and who actually look down on good UX.
- smolder 8y agoWhen "good UX" (highly subjective, btw) means limiting your ability to control and optimize your own workflows, yes, some people reasonably choose control over a low learning curve pre-baked option. Catering to people who want a super easy streamlined experience is hard. They want rigorous QA, tech support, and broad compatibility, all of which are very expensive goals to chase with diminishing returns.
- api 8y agoI don't think the core of UX is really that subjective. It's all about consistency, polish, and most importantly cognitive load. Eye candy is highly subjective but that's not what I'm talking about.
- majewsky 8y agoI think you're being downvoted because there is an ambiguity in what "subjective" refers to here. The core criteria of good UX are not subjective, as you say. But whether a certain UX qualifies as good under those criteria depends highly on the audience. A good video-editing UX for amateurs looks completely different from a good video-editing UX for professionals. Long-time users of vim or emacs love their editors because of their UX, while many new users hate them for the same UX.
- smolder 8y agoYes, that's a good distinction to make that I didn't capture well.
- thom 8y agoI actually find the opposite problem these days, at least in GNOME. Every release is less powerful, less customisable, and more filled with weird theory-driven bits of UI that just take up space on my screen and slow me down in the name of user friendliness.
- alerighi 8y agoThe problem is that you don't really have choice, these company created monopolies that are difficult to avoid, I wish I could switch all my computer to Linux, unfortunately I have to use software that works only on Windows, I have hardware that on Linux doesn't work well, and so on. It's like who says that if the price of gasoline is too high we should simply stop using cars for a couple of days and the oil companies will drop the price, sure but what if I need my car to go to work ? The real deal is that these abuses of dominant positions should be punished, a company like Microsoft or Google shouldn't be allowed to do actions aimed at damaging other small concurrent companies or discouraging the use of alternatives.
- wmccullough 8y agoI’m inclined to agree. For ten years we’ve seen companies have unfathomable growth, yet wages haven’t really grown. The public is being taken advantage in almost every industry—from pharma to tech. Anytime regulation is brought up, I see so many opponents. I think the United States is missing a healthy amount of regulation.
- GavinMcG 8y agoEvery single time something like this comes up, without fail, someone makes a comment like this: one that says "just solve the collective action problem!" The fact is, even if I go through the trouble to not use anything I find problematic, it's not going to affect those companies. "Here we are complaining" because getting others to be aware of the problem and to take action is the only thing that'll work.
- softawre 8y agoSo what you're saying is that you don't vote?
- cheapsteak 8y agoYou can vote _and_ participate in debates and activism to promote awareness
- komali2 8y agoSuggesting that a vote alone is a reasonable level of political activity to get anything done is absurd in 2018. You have to tweet, write, call, march, etc. Votes are determined in such a mass number that as an individual your voice is effectively worthless if it's only a vote. Obviously, you should still vote, but it's not enough. Hence, why we scream our heads off over things like this. I'm unable to find a source right now, but I remember reading in like the New Yorker or something YEARS ago about how all throughout the 50s-90s, the TV content ratings and what appeared on television was functionally decided by an organization titled something along the lines of "Christian Mothers of America," who would mass-write studios based on a similar value set. Given that this was the most tactile feedback the studios were getting (bearing in mind they're also getting ratings and viewership numbers), this was the primary determinate of TV content for decades.
- komali2 8y agoAnother example: is every person on HackerNews sorting their trash going to solve human-caused climate change? Obviously not. Shouting our heads off about what the rest of the people are doing is absolutely necessary to get results.
- phyzome 8y agoAlso: Don't just stop at not paying for Windows or Android; put that money towards the software that makes you happy and productive. Mozilla only takes Google's money because they need it for their work. If you give a yearly donation, they'll be less beholden to Google. I recently gave them several hundred dollars, partly to make up for lost time. Browsers are effectively operating systems now. What's a good OS worth to you?
- inetknght 8y agoI have very significant problems with allowing my browser to be its own OS.
- phyzome 8y agoSame here, more or less. But that's neither here nor there.
- PascLeRasc 8y agoI agree, I'm happy to give a few dollars to Canonical or Elementary every time I download an ISO from them. It's important to support high-quality software design.