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As a user I care about having the features I want, working the way they're supposed to. And, as someone who uses all of Windows, macOS, and Linux in a typical d

As a user I care about having the features I want, working the way they're supposed to. And, as someone who uses all of Windows, macOS, and Linux in a typical day, I want these features to work consistently across platforms. There is really nothing worse than a "cross platform" application that fucks you when you try to move back and forth, and the Electron applications I've used consistently do better at this than anything else. If Electron itself is the reason these teams are able to focus on features and let compatibility "just work" for the most part, that is IMO a huge point in its favor. More broadly, I think the popularity of Electron apps is evidence that users are actually very happy with them. There's an argument to be made that modern software is in general bad for users, but plenty of Electron applications (e.g. vscode, Obsidian) are IMO relatively unimpeachable in terms of offering real useful functionality with a minimum of dark patterns and/or other sketchy practices.

pseudalopex 5y ago
Using all of Windows, macOS, and Linux in a typical day makes you an extreme outlier. Widely used doesn't mean popular. Teams for example. Many widely used Electron apps are chosen by employers. Or are free and have network effects. Or became dominant as native apps and have a moat. Arq went back to native because users hated the Electron version. Slack users who see Ripcord say the company should hire the developer. I almost never hear anything positive about the Spotify app. Do you claim Electron apps have fewer sketchy practices?
- caconym_ 5y ago
  > Using all of Windows, macOS, and Linux in a typical day makes you an extreme outlier. Sure? I just wanted to make note of something I think is great and underrated about Electron. The outlier-y nature of that something is exactly why my next paragraph starts with "More broadly,". > Widely used doesn't mean popular. Teams for example. Many widely used Electron apps are chosen by employers. Or are free and have network effects. Or became dominant as native apps and have a moat. > Arq went back to native because users hated the Electron version. Slack users who see Ripcord say the company should hire the developer. I almost never hear anything positive about the Spotify app. VS Code and Discord are the big ones that come to mind as both widely used and widely preferred by their users. I don't think the fact that it's possible to build shitty applications in Electron is very interesting, since that's true of every other UI framework. Neither does the fact that some people actively dislike e.g. VS Code contradict the fact that a great many people like it very much and independently choose to use it. > Do you claim Electron apps have fewer sketchy practices? I'm not sure where you think I claimed this, but since you asked: I think sketchy practices are common throughout the consumer software industry, and I don't think there's anything about Electron that forces developers using it to implement sketchy practices. If they do, that's on them. And since Electron is so common in consumer software these days, I'd caution you to remember that correlation does not imply causation.
  - pseudalopex 5y ago
    Electron app developers and extreme outliers bring it up all the time. It seems over rated to me. Discord is free and has network effects. Lots of users complain about it. It competes with another Electron app mostly. VS Code is free and has network effects. And high overhead and lots of custom UI are the norm for IDEs. I don't think anyone meant Electron is suitable for nothing. Arq users didn't hate the Electron version because it was shittier than other Electron apps. They hated it because it was the normal level of shitty for Electron apps. Teams, Slack, and Spotify show many users doesn't mean happy users. I didn't say you claimed Electron apps have fewer sketchy practices. But it's strange and pointless to just praise Electron apps for a minimum of sketchy practices if you don't.
    - caconym_ 5y ago
      > network effects Unless you have a true captive market or some crazy sales-focused enterprise business, you can't get network effects without first achieving that critical mass of users more or less on your product's own merits, and if your software is shitty and/or pointless then you are not going to get there. > Lots of users complain about it Discord has like 200M+ MAUs, so of course "lots" of users complain about it. > But it's strange and pointless to just praise Electron apps for a minimum of sketchy practices if you don't. I'm not praising them for any such thing—I was just calling out the fact that most consumer software these days is abusive, so we have to be careful to speak about abuse in relative terms. I don't think Electron "apps" are on average better or worse, and if (looking at data) they did turn out to be better or worse in this regard then I would attribute that to the widespread adoption of Electron "apps" in certain market segments that tend toward abuse, rather than some inherent property of the framework that encourages it. In other words, the baseline for modern consumer software is to abuse the user, and I don't believe there is some inherent property of Electron that encourages (or discourages) that trend.
      - pseudalopex 5y ago
        > you can't get network effects without first achieving that critical mass of users more or less on your product's own merits No one said VS Code and Discord had no merits at all. Discord's core users were gamers. People who can afford to run much more demanding software for fun. People who don't care about accessibility mostly. It's free like I mentioned. It competes with Slack mostly. Slack has the same problems mostly. And 1 of Slack's merits on its way to critical mass was compatibility with other apps. VS Code's early merits were it was faster than Atom and free unlike Sublime Text. > Discord has like 200M+ MAUs, so of course "lots" of users complain about it. A large fraction in my experience. "Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize."[1] > I was just calling out the fact that most consumer software these days is abusive, so we have to be careful to speak about abuse in relative terms. Who said anything about abuse before you? [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- eitland 5y ago
  > Using all of Windows, macOS, and Linux in a typical day makes you an extreme outlier. Another extreme outlier here, so according to the 100/10/1 rule of 100 readers/10 voters/1 commenters we have 200 extreme outliers just in this thread ;-) (Although I should note that I don't use all of them every day. Mac is a Mac mini in our office at home, Linux is both on a work laptop and also on an old personal laptop that gets used for personal learning and personal projects, Windows is a work laptop. Telegram an Joplin gets used across all of them.)

pseudalopex 5y ago

Using all of Windows, macOS, and Linux in a typical day makes you an extreme outlier. Widely used doesn't mean popular. Teams for example. Many widely used Electron apps are chosen by employers. Or are free and have network effects. Or became dominant as native apps and have a moat. Arq went back to native because users hated the Electron version. Slack users who see Ripcord say the company should hire the developer. I almost never hear anything positive about the Spotify app. Do you claim Electron apps have fewer sketchy practices?

caconym_ 5y ago
> Using all of Windows, macOS, and Linux in a typical day makes you an extreme outlier. Sure? I just wanted to make note of something I think is great and underrated about Electron. The outlier-y nature of that something is exactly why my next paragraph starts with "More broadly,". > Widely used doesn't mean popular. Teams for example. Many widely used Electron apps are chosen by employers. Or are free and have network effects. Or became dominant as native apps and have a moat. > Arq went back to native because users hated the Electron version. Slack users who see Ripcord say the company should hire the developer. I almost never hear anything positive about the Spotify app. VS Code and Discord are the big ones that come to mind as both widely used and widely preferred by their users. I don't think the fact that it's possible to build shitty applications in Electron is very interesting, since that's true of every other UI framework. Neither does the fact that some people actively dislike e.g. VS Code contradict the fact that a great many people like it very much and independently choose to use it. > Do you claim Electron apps have fewer sketchy practices? I'm not sure where you think I claimed this, but since you asked: I think sketchy practices are common throughout the consumer software industry, and I don't think there's anything about Electron that forces developers using it to implement sketchy practices. If they do, that's on them. And since Electron is so common in consumer software these days, I'd caution you to remember that correlation does not imply causation.
- pseudalopex 5y ago
  Electron app developers and extreme outliers bring it up all the time. It seems over rated to me. Discord is free and has network effects. Lots of users complain about it. It competes with another Electron app mostly. VS Code is free and has network effects. And high overhead and lots of custom UI are the norm for IDEs. I don't think anyone meant Electron is suitable for nothing. Arq users didn't hate the Electron version because it was shittier than other Electron apps. They hated it because it was the normal level of shitty for Electron apps. Teams, Slack, and Spotify show many users doesn't mean happy users. I didn't say you claimed Electron apps have fewer sketchy practices. But it's strange and pointless to just praise Electron apps for a minimum of sketchy practices if you don't.
  - caconym_ 5y ago
    > network effects Unless you have a true captive market or some crazy sales-focused enterprise business, you can't get network effects without first achieving that critical mass of users more or less on your product's own merits, and if your software is shitty and/or pointless then you are not going to get there. > Lots of users complain about it Discord has like 200M+ MAUs, so of course "lots" of users complain about it. > But it's strange and pointless to just praise Electron apps for a minimum of sketchy practices if you don't. I'm not praising them for any such thing—I was just calling out the fact that most consumer software these days is abusive, so we have to be careful to speak about abuse in relative terms. I don't think Electron "apps" are on average better or worse, and if (looking at data) they did turn out to be better or worse in this regard then I would attribute that to the widespread adoption of Electron "apps" in certain market segments that tend toward abuse, rather than some inherent property of the framework that encourages it. In other words, the baseline for modern consumer software is to abuse the user, and I don't believe there is some inherent property of Electron that encourages (or discourages) that trend.
    - pseudalopex 5y ago
      > you can't get network effects without first achieving that critical mass of users more or less on your product's own merits No one said VS Code and Discord had no merits at all. Discord's core users were gamers. People who can afford to run much more demanding software for fun. People who don't care about accessibility mostly. It's free like I mentioned. It competes with Slack mostly. Slack has the same problems mostly. And 1 of Slack's merits on its way to critical mass was compatibility with other apps. VS Code's early merits were it was faster than Atom and free unlike Sublime Text. > Discord has like 200M+ MAUs, so of course "lots" of users complain about it. A large fraction in my experience. "Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize."[1] > I was just calling out the fact that most consumer software these days is abusive, so we have to be careful to speak about abuse in relative terms. Who said anything about abuse before you? [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
eitland 5y ago
> Using all of Windows, macOS, and Linux in a typical day makes you an extreme outlier. Another extreme outlier here, so according to the 100/10/1 rule of 100 readers/10 voters/1 commenters we have 200 extreme outliers just in this thread ;-) (Although I should note that I don't use all of them every day. Mac is a Mac mini in our office at home, Linux is both on a work laptop and also on an old personal laptop that gets used for personal learning and personal projects, Windows is a work laptop. Telegram an Joplin gets used across all of them.)