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> Why are we optimizing the case of users browsing bad websites? Why not cater to good websites instead? I would say it's not so much optimizing for good websi
by paulmd 6y ago
> Why are we optimizing the case of users browsing bad websites? Why not cater to good websites instead?
I would say it's not so much optimizing for good websites vs bad websites, as optimizing for real-world websites.
Real-world websites are overwhelmingly shitty, push dark patterns, invade users' privacy, abuse any APIs they are given access to, etc. Limiting the amount of things they can do is an enhancement to the user experience, even if it's worse for you as a dev.
It's a lot like having to have laws. Why do we have to have laws, isn't that "optimizing for bad people" instead of maximizing the freedom of good people?
- Leherenn 6y agoBut surely we can devise a way to minimise abuse and still let people who wants the features have them? This defeatist attitude is pretty sad, we have to be careful when designing new features, but we shouldn't let bad users just make it worse for everyone and give up. For instance, you could forbid websites from requesting the notification permission, but the user could manually go and allow it. It would probably cut 99% of the spam while allowing people that really want notifications to have them. As for the 1% left, we're not talking life and death scenario here, at that point the good outweighs the bad I would say.
- CameronNemo 6y agoDon't real world native apps do the same thing? Abuse APIs, push dark patterns, track users? There has to be a better way to prevent abuse other than "don't let this particular type of app use push notifications".