4 ms·

Is there a good word for when a solution is bad (in a 'defective by design' sense) but offloads all the "badness" to the competitor, ironically making it look

Is there a good word for when a solution is bad (in a 'defective by design' sense) but offloads all the "badness" to the competitor, ironically making it look good to casual users? Like mac introducing files that are hidden to a mac but littering the place in other systems. Or like Google nor caring about false positives as long as its customers (i.e. record labels) are happy. In any case, I don't lose much sleep when one bad design hits another. My advice is the same as in the general case: avoid such systems.

tokamak-teapot 5y ago
The files don’t have to ‘litter the place’ on other systems. We have advanced technology that can hide such files from users.
- vntok 5y ago
  Hiding special files doesn't remove them. They are still there, in every directory, sitting completely useless, thereby littering the place.
cesarb 5y ago
> Is there a good word for when a solution is bad (in a 'defective by design' sense) but offloads all the "badness" I believe the expression you're looking for is "negative externality".
- tpoacher 5y ago
  That's a good one, but I'm not sure if it captures the full extent of the idea; in this case, the negative externality is a 'feature' for the transacting party, whereas in general the phrase 'negative externality' simply implies some negative external consequence of the transaction was not duly considered during the transaction (at least as I understand it; am I wrong?). What I have in mind is things like, e.g. youtube amping their ad ratio by 100% when they started offering paid subscriptions. Or Apple intentionally not fixing features that cripple using windows on their new Intel processor. Or IOS shaming android users in their messaging app instead of providing appropriate support. Or MS Word detecting files written in libreoffice as 'corrupt' and offering to fix them. Or matlab introducing syntactical changes that break octave. Or Android making you go through hoops to use software outside of the play store. etc. In other words, if you're a company engaging in such a tactic, it's probably not that you haven't necessarily considered how a 'feature' might affect users of competing products; it's probably that you have considered it, and it's just that extra bit of friction to make them feel your own product is more streamlined and superior (for all the wrong reasons).
csydas 5y ago
If you're talking about .DS_Store, understand that it's not just by comparison that it's better; .DS_Store does a lot for MacOS users and while they have no idea that .DS_Store does this, your average Mac user probably would be upset to lose things like the Finder column defaults per directory, the window position, etc. While I understand it's an annoyance to deal with an OS specific feature, at the same time, .DS_Store is so predictable that I just can't see how it's a challenge to deal with. Everything you need to know as a non-Mac user is basically "you don't need to consider this except by special request", and at worst, the end-result of not considering .DS_Store is your user(s) have to reset a few window settings. I truly don't get the vitriol expressed towards .DS_Store; it's a hidden system file like any other and I struggle to understand the use cases where having .DS_Store in a directory is an issue. I have read countless articles complaining on it, but I've not heard a reason beyond "it junks up file systems", which can be said about _any_ system file.
- lurker616 5y ago
  Why isn't something like that required on windows or linux?
  - tomerv 5y ago
    Windows has Thumbs.db
    - Tempest1981 5y ago
      And desktop.ini, for folder customization
  - _h9mb 5y ago
    Linux has XDG base directories despite many vendors no using them. https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/XDG_Base_Directory https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/XDG_Base_Directory PS. I don't know about Mac but Windows also have similar directories although more of a mess. There's no reason to save artifacts or local user config along with data.
- prvc 5y ago
viktorcode 5y ago
.DS_Store is pretty neat solution to store folder-specific metadata. Whenever a user changes settings on how contents of the folder are displayed the file gets created. And since .DS_Store is a local file it is portable. Nothing breaks when folder is moved anywhere. Some programs use that to present a simple drag'n'drop installation picture. You don't need anything else, just a folder with correctly positioned files and custom background image. I wouldn't call it a bad solution.

tokamak-teapot 5y ago

The files don’t have to ‘litter the place’ on other systems. We have advanced technology that can hide such files from users.

vntok 5y ago
Hiding special files doesn't remove them. They are still there, in every directory, sitting completely useless, thereby littering the place.

cesarb 5y ago

> Is there a good word for when a solution is bad (in a 'defective by design' sense) but offloads all the "badness" I believe the expression you're looking for is "negative externality".

tpoacher 5y ago
That's a good one, but I'm not sure if it captures the full extent of the idea; in this case, the negative externality is a 'feature' for the transacting party, whereas in general the phrase 'negative externality' simply implies some negative external consequence of the transaction was not duly considered during the transaction (at least as I understand it; am I wrong?). What I have in mind is things like, e.g. youtube amping their ad ratio by 100% when they started offering paid subscriptions. Or Apple intentionally not fixing features that cripple using windows on their new Intel processor. Or IOS shaming android users in their messaging app instead of providing appropriate support. Or MS Word detecting files written in libreoffice as 'corrupt' and offering to fix them. Or matlab introducing syntactical changes that break octave. Or Android making you go through hoops to use software outside of the play store. etc. In other words, if you're a company engaging in such a tactic, it's probably not that you haven't necessarily considered how a 'feature' might affect users of competing products; it's probably that you have considered it, and it's just that extra bit of friction to make them feel your own product is more streamlined and superior (for all the wrong reasons).

csydas 5y ago

If you're talking about .DS_Store, understand that it's not just by comparison that it's better; .DS_Store does a lot for MacOS users and while they have no idea that .DS_Store does this, your average Mac user probably would be upset to lose things like the Finder column defaults per directory, the window position, etc. While I understand it's an annoyance to deal with an OS specific feature, at the same time, .DS_Store is so predictable that I just can't see how it's a challenge to deal with. Everything you need to know as a non-Mac user is basically "you don't need to consider this except by special request", and at worst, the end-result of not considering .DS_Store is your user(s) have to reset a few window settings. I truly don't get the vitriol expressed towards .DS_Store; it's a hidden system file like any other and I struggle to understand the use cases where having .DS_Store in a directory is an issue. I have read countless articles complaining on it, but I've not heard a reason beyond "it junks up file systems", which can be said about _any_ system file.

lurker616 5y ago
Why isn't something like that required on windows or linux?
- tomerv 5y ago
  Windows has Thumbs.db
  - Tempest1981 5y ago
    And desktop.ini, for folder customization
- _h9mb 5y ago
  Linux has XDG base directories despite many vendors no using them. https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/XDG_Base_Directory https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/XDG_Base_Directory PS. I don't know about Mac but Windows also have similar directories although more of a mess. There's no reason to save artifacts or local user config along with data.
prvc 5y ago

viktorcode 5y ago

.DS_Store is pretty neat solution to store folder-specific metadata. Whenever a user changes settings on how contents of the folder are displayed the file gets created. And since .DS_Store is a local file it is portable. Nothing breaks when folder is moved anywhere. Some programs use that to present a simple drag'n'drop installation picture. You don't need anything else, just a folder with correctly positioned files and custom background image. I wouldn't call it a bad solution.