3 ms·

Around 90% of users will never change a default setting unless it's directly interfering what they're trying to do.

meowster 5y ago
My observation is 95% of people will never change a default setting even if it's directly interfering with what they're trying to do. I'm not sure why. Either maybe they don't know that there's a way to change settings, or maybe they're too afraid they'll break something, I don't know. I try to show people where settings are in different apps and opperating systems and encourage them to explore the options, but it seems like they never do. I think most people are just conditioned to live with the way things are. Some people will try to search for a solution online, but that's an extreme minority in my opinion. It seems like most people will suffer silently, and some others might complain, but they still won't do anything to fix it - just complain.
- bredren 5y ago
  Changing settings was a good way to break your computer not long ago. There’s probably some ptsd from seeing a geek squad van pulling up out front for a lot of households.
- coif 5y ago
  I tend to forget how customizable phone settings have become. When I had my first iPhone 3G the settings were quite meager. It feels like by now I'm conditioned to just expect the experience to be consistent throughout the life of the device. The thought of playing with settings rarely occurs to me unless I'm actively having an problem with an app.
- oblio 5y ago
  There are several of solid reasons to not change anything: 1. It might not be obvious that changing a setting could improve things. You need to have a solid mental model of how the specific tech works and how the setting could influence things. Casual users don't really have a model. Well, everyone has one, but for casual users it's more like a half-drawn sketch. 1. Changing a setting might break something - sometimes for good. Worse, it could break something unrelated (at least unrelated for the casual observer). Worst case scenario, it breaks something in a subtle way, that you only notice after a long time. 2. Changing a setting might break something that you can't fix on your own. Which takes us to a crucial social aspect: nobody like to feel dumb. Asking for help in many cultures and for many individuals makes them feel dumb.
  - throwaway492338 5y ago
    An example from someone normally on the "just try it out" side: Got a new laptop, it has a "high performance" nvidia GPU as well as the integrated AMD one. I was getting notifications that regular apps were using the wrong GPU and wasting battery, and I should use an option from the manufacturer to disable it. Once I eventually figured out that you needed to kill all such apps before enabling it does anything, everything seems fine, until weeks later I realise sleep isn't working. Took a detour investigating "modern standby", which is Microsoft's new sleep mode that doesn't turn off the CPU and so was suspicious. But after messing around trying to force classic S3 sleep, messing with the powercfg command (which reported sleep as normal, wake on keypress, no wake timers, etc.), and testing with all apps closed, no change. On the verge of giving up and assuming this was just the nature of modern standby, I booted a Ubuntu live USB, hit sleep, and saw all the usual pulsing LEDs. That reminded me of seeing the same thing when I used the laptop for the very first time, so I had enough confidence to "refresh Windows" (a reinstall that keeps files). After doing so, I hit sleep, it worked fine, then had to gradually reconfigure the laptop, hitting sleep every time until it broke, which of course was just after I started feeling brave enough to make multiple changes every time. Narrowed it down to the GPU setting and all working fine after changing it back, but I'm going to be very selective about what I change and install for a while now. I think most people who enabled the setting (as prompted!) would just be living with the battery drain though.
goalieca 5y ago
> unless it's directly interfering what they're trying to do That's where the trouble will come. I can see trend emerge where essential functionality could be blocked on account of tracking being disabled. I have some faith policies and people will work against this but i've seen so many dark patterns in freemium that I think this sort of dishonesty could just work.
- goerz 5y ago
  Apple added an App Store rule specifically to prohibit this, see the first FAQ at https://developer.apple.com/app-store/user-privacy-and-data-use/ https://developer.apple.com/app-store/user-privacy-and-data-...
  - dylan604 5y ago
    It is okay for games to have limited gameplay until you use in-app purchases to unlock more features. You could easily have an app that provides a limited bit of functionality, but then allow you to unlock more just by changing this setting. Especially if any of the monopoly cases against Apple forces them to change.
    - vbezhenar 5y ago
      The proper way of handling that would be to show less ads to those who enabled tracking. Tracked ads have more value because it's more likely that you'll buy something targeted at you. So you need to show less ads compared to untracked ads to extract the same value. I think that this kind of differentiation is allowed by Apple and probably will be implemented in some apps.
- sethd 5y ago
  What about a feature that is both useful and, by its nature, requires tracking to even work? (not a dark pattern but technically depends on something that falls under the purview of tracking)

My observation is 95% of people will never change a default setting even if it's directly interfering with what they're trying to do. I'm not sure why. Either maybe they don't know that there's a way to change settings, or maybe they're too afraid they'll break something, I don't know. I try to show people where settings are in different apps and opperating systems and encourage them to explore the options, but it seems like they never do. I think most people are just conditioned to live with the way things are. Some people will try to search for a solution online, but that's an extreme minority in my opinion. It seems like most people will suffer silently, and some others might complain, but they still won't do anything to fix it - just complain.

bredren 5y ago
Changing settings was a good way to break your computer not long ago. There’s probably some ptsd from seeing a geek squad van pulling up out front for a lot of households.
coif 5y ago
I tend to forget how customizable phone settings have become. When I had my first iPhone 3G the settings were quite meager. It feels like by now I'm conditioned to just expect the experience to be consistent throughout the life of the device. The thought of playing with settings rarely occurs to me unless I'm actively having an problem with an app.
oblio 5y ago
There are several of solid reasons to not change anything: 1. It might not be obvious that changing a setting could improve things. You need to have a solid mental model of how the specific tech works and how the setting could influence things. Casual users don't really have a model. Well, everyone has one, but for casual users it's more like a half-drawn sketch. 1. Changing a setting might break something - sometimes for good. Worse, it could break something unrelated (at least unrelated for the casual observer). Worst case scenario, it breaks something in a subtle way, that you only notice after a long time. 2. Changing a setting might break something that you can't fix on your own. Which takes us to a crucial social aspect: nobody like to feel dumb. Asking for help in many cultures and for many individuals makes them feel dumb.
- throwaway492338 5y ago
  An example from someone normally on the "just try it out" side: Got a new laptop, it has a "high performance" nvidia GPU as well as the integrated AMD one. I was getting notifications that regular apps were using the wrong GPU and wasting battery, and I should use an option from the manufacturer to disable it. Once I eventually figured out that you needed to kill all such apps before enabling it does anything, everything seems fine, until weeks later I realise sleep isn't working. Took a detour investigating "modern standby", which is Microsoft's new sleep mode that doesn't turn off the CPU and so was suspicious. But after messing around trying to force classic S3 sleep, messing with the powercfg command (which reported sleep as normal, wake on keypress, no wake timers, etc.), and testing with all apps closed, no change. On the verge of giving up and assuming this was just the nature of modern standby, I booted a Ubuntu live USB, hit sleep, and saw all the usual pulsing LEDs. That reminded me of seeing the same thing when I used the laptop for the very first time, so I had enough confidence to "refresh Windows" (a reinstall that keeps files). After doing so, I hit sleep, it worked fine, then had to gradually reconfigure the laptop, hitting sleep every time until it broke, which of course was just after I started feeling brave enough to make multiple changes every time. Narrowed it down to the GPU setting and all working fine after changing it back, but I'm going to be very selective about what I change and install for a while now. I think most people who enabled the setting (as prompted!) would just be living with the battery drain though.

goalieca 5y ago

> unless it's directly interfering what they're trying to do That's where the trouble will come. I can see trend emerge where essential functionality could be blocked on account of tracking being disabled. I have some faith policies and people will work against this but i've seen so many dark patterns in freemium that I think this sort of dishonesty could just work.

goerz 5y ago
Apple added an App Store rule specifically to prohibit this, see the first FAQ at https://developer.apple.com/app-store/user-privacy-and-data-use/ https://developer.apple.com/app-store/user-privacy-and-data-...
- dylan604 5y ago
  It is okay for games to have limited gameplay until you use in-app purchases to unlock more features. You could easily have an app that provides a limited bit of functionality, but then allow you to unlock more just by changing this setting. Especially if any of the monopoly cases against Apple forces them to change.
  - vbezhenar 5y ago
    The proper way of handling that would be to show less ads to those who enabled tracking. Tracked ads have more value because it's more likely that you'll buy something targeted at you. So you need to show less ads compared to untracked ads to extract the same value. I think that this kind of differentiation is allowed by Apple and probably will be implemented in some apps.
sethd 5y ago
What about a feature that is both useful and, by its nature, requires tracking to even work? (not a dark pattern but technically depends on something that falls under the purview of tracking)