5 ms·

At this point they've crossed over from 'dark pattern' to 'black magic fuckery'.

by Zhyl 7y ago

mkl 7y ago
There's no indication of magical behaviour, it's just unfriendly.
- weikju 7y ago
  And it will end up being used by fewer people, after which their telemetry will indicate that fewer than X % of people are using the feature thus they will claim it's justified to remove it.
  - nickjj 7y ago
    Yes, and I bet that data is what provoked them to start doing this already. Even before this change you have to navigate out of your way to pick an offline account. It would be easy to think "oh, a large percent of users don't want local accounts" just looking at the telemetry data. When really that's a given because the option is only going to be found by someone who knows beforehand that they want an offline account and fully expects it to be buried multiple menus deep in an advanced setting. Microsoft was doing really good to gain developer traction with things like WSL, VSCode and the upcoming WSL2 release. But if they ever really do require a real account to use Windows, well... that's enough to cancel all of those things out to the point where die hard developers might just throw their arms up in the air and move to Linux even if it means making sacrifices for certain things.
    - cameronbrown 7y ago
      Silver lining: WSL2 and vscode make Linux evermore competitive when it comes to developer tools by being the standard.
    - behnamoh 7y ago
      >> that's enough to cancel all of those things out to the point where die hard developers might just throw their arms up in the air and move to Linux even if it means making sacrifices for certain things. And would those programmers develop software that's not written for Windows only? I don't think so. As much as I hate Windows and advocate the idea of moving to other operating systems (even macOS), at the end of the day, developers don't have enough discretion in choosing which platform(s) to write programs for; it's the management that decides it.
- Zhyl 7y ago
  I think having to type the wrong answer in deliberately multiple times or complete the process without internet access is beyond unfriendly.
- wslh 7y ago
  It is a dark pattern because it is from a corporation that know what they are doing and had passed all the internal UI/UX tests. At this time it should be punished as well as its difficult to avoid telemetry issues.
  - mkl 7y ago
    I agree it's a dark pattern. I've seen much worse dark patterns though, so it's hardly beyond that.
    - wslh 7y ago
      I don't think this is a light dark pattern. Once you sign up in your desktop computer, which it is also called a personal computer, this is not personal anymore.
- danShumway 7y ago
  By magic, GP means that it's undiscoverable. It's a crazy thing to say, "start the installer without a network connection and you'll suddenly get a new option in the installer." Or, "when the installer asks you for your email, keep spamming invalid responses until it gets frustrated and unlocks the ability to skip the prompt." That doesn't sound like a sensible UX flow, or even a UX flow with consumer-unfriendly prompts and directions. It sounds like a video game cheat code or easter egg.
  - mkl 7y ago
    Ah. I interpreted it as meaning removing the option was magical. This seems like just an increase in the dark patterns that were already present around local accounts, not a qualitative difference. Microsoft has been pushing back against local accounts hard in the setup process - you already had to carefully jump through hoops to make one. Trying again without network access is actually one of the first things I'd try, but yes, it's undiscoverable for most people.
pndy 7y ago
I'll start selling cups with that line and Windows 10 logo /s

At this point they've crossed over from 'dark pattern' to 'black magic fuckery'.

by Zhyl 7y ago

At this point they've crossed over from 'dark pattern' to 'black magic fuckery'.

mkl 7y ago

There's no indication of magical behaviour, it's just unfriendly.

weikju 7y ago
And it will end up being used by fewer people, after which their telemetry will indicate that fewer than X % of people are using the feature thus they will claim it's justified to remove it.
- nickjj 7y ago
  Yes, and I bet that data is what provoked them to start doing this already. Even before this change you have to navigate out of your way to pick an offline account. It would be easy to think "oh, a large percent of users don't want local accounts" just looking at the telemetry data. When really that's a given because the option is only going to be found by someone who knows beforehand that they want an offline account and fully expects it to be buried multiple menus deep in an advanced setting. Microsoft was doing really good to gain developer traction with things like WSL, VSCode and the upcoming WSL2 release. But if they ever really do require a real account to use Windows, well... that's enough to cancel all of those things out to the point where die hard developers might just throw their arms up in the air and move to Linux even if it means making sacrifices for certain things.
  - cameronbrown 7y ago
    Silver lining: WSL2 and vscode make Linux evermore competitive when it comes to developer tools by being the standard.
  - behnamoh 7y ago
    >> that's enough to cancel all of those things out to the point where die hard developers might just throw their arms up in the air and move to Linux even if it means making sacrifices for certain things. And would those programmers develop software that's not written for Windows only? I don't think so. As much as I hate Windows and advocate the idea of moving to other operating systems (even macOS), at the end of the day, developers don't have enough discretion in choosing which platform(s) to write programs for; it's the management that decides it.
Zhyl 7y ago
I think having to type the wrong answer in deliberately multiple times or complete the process without internet access is beyond unfriendly.
wslh 7y ago
It is a dark pattern because it is from a corporation that know what they are doing and had passed all the internal UI/UX tests. At this time it should be punished as well as its difficult to avoid telemetry issues.
- mkl 7y ago
  I agree it's a dark pattern. I've seen much worse dark patterns though, so it's hardly beyond that.
  - wslh 7y ago
    I don't think this is a light dark pattern. Once you sign up in your desktop computer, which it is also called a personal computer, this is not personal anymore.
danShumway 7y ago
By magic, GP means that it's undiscoverable. It's a crazy thing to say, "start the installer without a network connection and you'll suddenly get a new option in the installer." Or, "when the installer asks you for your email, keep spamming invalid responses until it gets frustrated and unlocks the ability to skip the prompt." That doesn't sound like a sensible UX flow, or even a UX flow with consumer-unfriendly prompts and directions. It sounds like a video game cheat code or easter egg.
- mkl 7y ago
  Ah. I interpreted it as meaning removing the option was magical. This seems like just an increase in the dark patterns that were already present around local accounts, not a qualitative difference. Microsoft has been pushing back against local accounts hard in the setup process - you already had to carefully jump through hoops to make one. Trying again without network access is actually one of the first things I'd try, but yes, it's undiscoverable for most people.

pndy 7y ago

I'll start selling cups with that line and Windows 10 logo /s