As far as user-hostility on the web and in consumer products and services goes: it's there because there is no good honest economic model. Everything online ha

As far as user-hostility on the web and in consumer products and services goes: it's there because there is no good honest economic model. Everything online has to be free, which means companies have to find some sneaky underhanded way to finance it. They have to find a way to monetize you since you won't pay, and in many cases you can't pay because there is no good mechanism. People will retort by pointing out that many things you pay for have adopted user-hostile practices too. That's true. The problem is that without a simple honest economic model it is impossible to do business online in any other way. an honest straightforward economic model is necessary but not sufficient to create products and services that are not user-hostile. The other ingredient that must be there is user preference. People have to vote with their wallets and go toward ecosystems that don't treat them this way. But if there are none to begin with because everything has to be "free," then people don't even have that option. ... and no, open source is not an option for non-technical users. If my time is valued at $80/hour and I have to spend two hours a month maintaining something, that thing costs $160/month. That's pricey. Edit: The "constant release" pressure is a kind of SEO phenomenon. Searches tend to use liveness as a lazy metric of quality. People do this too. So something that's constantly pushing out trivial releases looks more alive.