4 ms·

I love the fallacy in this thinking, complete with supposedly wise sayings (and in fact often false ones) like, "half of all people are below average," which if

I love the fallacy in this thinking, complete with supposedly wise sayings (and in fact often false ones) like, "half of all people are below average," which if the person saying this was actually knowledgeable would know a statement as such requires knowledge of the underlying distribution (it will more likely be correct if the word "median" was used but even that could be misleading.) I don't know how one could ignore how much of the result of the "kiosk"-ness of modern tech is not because people are dumb and somehow, their dumbness willing kiosks into existence, but that it was a deliberate, somewhat one sided decision by computer companies because they knew they would make more money this way. Solitaire on windows used to not have ads. People (even the supposedly dumb people) were happy to play solitaire without ads. Now, they cannot easily. It's not because their dumbness made solitaire grow ads, it's because Microsoft realized their position and put ads into solitaire. This really isn't a mystery, in fact, a clear mind and memory from even 15 years ago when solitaire didn't have ads is enough to demonstrate that this was clearly a move by tech companies chasing more profits and consumers not having many options.

betwixthewires 4y ago
I never said people were dumb. I'm not talking about how people are dumb. The key word in your paragraph is "easily." People want everything to be easy. They want to be entertained easily. Yesteryear it was TV, today it's twitter. If that's not for you then the things they use are not for you, and it not being easy is a part of that, that's all I'm saying. I can play solitare without ads right now. And if I can, they can. But they don't. And they're who all this stuff we complain about is built for. It's not built for me, you know how I know? Because I don't use it and it's continuing along just fine. They don't bitch about the difficulty of the things they don't use that I do, things that are made for me and not them, they just use what works for them. If you don't like the things made for them, use different things, that's my only point.
- noobermin 4y ago
  Those people existed in 2005 and Microsoft released solitaire without ads in it for them and me. Now Microsoft does not. As far as I am concerned, I could play solitaire without ads and I still do today but it's harder and requires more steps. Again, I don't know how non-technical people's existence influences the garbage IT companies now put out and have gotten appliance makers to put out because they always existed! The only thing I can recognized as changing is just a profit-minded decision by IT companies (and even there, the jury is somewhat out, but that's another discussion). Talking about people who don't know to look harder is not even the issue or relevant. I apologize for being miffed about the "stupid people" talk because it is somewhat presumptous to me, but at the very least I want to submit that I don't understand how that knowledge helps me or anyone at all who has to deal with the garbage the tech companies put out now. As far as I can tell, things that were easy for me years ago are harder now. It doesn't mean I don't still make things work for me because I still do like likely most HN readers, but I did not have to do half of these things 10 years ago but I have to now. I cannot blame "stupid people" because "stupid people" didn't make my computer, my OS, or my air filter, but developers at IT companies did. That to me is the more interesting conversation is because they're the actual responsible party.
  - ynniv 4y ago
    This might be spam, but I also like playing solitaire and hate ads, so I made solitairesport.com. It's simple and has some bugs, but plays well enough on mobile and costs me essentially nothing. Few people use it because buying ads cost money. Maybe a search engine that could remove hits that contained ads would help mobe things in the right direction.
meltyness 4y ago
Regarding ads in solitaire. Due to the nature of investment, and the fact that rather than targeting the highest-quality product, Microsoft targeted short term revenue growth, so it is indeed possible to argue that dumbness made solitaire grow ads. Rather than speaking up, and demanding an end to corporate stock manipulation through buybacks, people accepted the product changes necessitated by the targeted revenue trajectory.
- noobermin 4y ago
  If we really want to go down this route, here's what I notice. I remember almost every single time a website changes its design (namely the major ones, like twitter, facebook, etc), a lot of people complain almost immediately, then the complaints stop and people adapt. The reality is such small nudges are below the threshold of pain, so people put up with it and adapt, and the next thing we know after many nudges later, my air filter needs to connect to wifi. Still, however we want to analyze it, I still don't know why we need to go after consumers over the people who actually did the deed, no? Why are consumers who do not make the design and development decisions become who I should focus on instead of the people who implemented the actual changes? If someone stabs me in a park, sure it is a sad state of affairs if no one will call the ambulance, but surely the fellow I should be more upset with should be the stabber, no, and not aloof by-standers?
  - meltyness 4y ago
    This is the contention of politics, if you accept to live in a society that voted to rip out all the psychwards, and hiked taxes on the mentally ill then you should expect this. https://youtu.be/7eYcWpgCb7o https://youtu.be/7eYcWpgCb7o Concretely, investors over fairly short term demand differential risk, and convex return, and in the current season this means big tech works on decommodifying products, without necessarily improving bottom-line quality. It's also probably a fraudulent way for banks and financiers to extract cash from a large number of pensions and retirement funds, with the current constellation of made-up metrics like "user engagement", "ad revenue" and so on.
  - klibertp 4y ago

betwixthewires 4y ago

I never said people were dumb. I'm not talking about how people are dumb. The key word in your paragraph is "easily." People want everything to be easy. They want to be entertained easily. Yesteryear it was TV, today it's twitter. If that's not for you then the things they use are not for you, and it not being easy is a part of that, that's all I'm saying. I can play solitare without ads right now. And if I can, they can. But they don't. And they're who all this stuff we complain about is built for. It's not built for me, you know how I know? Because I don't use it and it's continuing along just fine. They don't bitch about the difficulty of the things they don't use that I do, things that are made for me and not them, they just use what works for them. If you don't like the things made for them, use different things, that's my only point.

noobermin 4y ago
Those people existed in 2005 and Microsoft released solitaire without ads in it for them and me. Now Microsoft does not. As far as I am concerned, I could play solitaire without ads and I still do today but it's harder and requires more steps. Again, I don't know how non-technical people's existence influences the garbage IT companies now put out and have gotten appliance makers to put out because they always existed! The only thing I can recognized as changing is just a profit-minded decision by IT companies (and even there, the jury is somewhat out, but that's another discussion). Talking about people who don't know to look harder is not even the issue or relevant. I apologize for being miffed about the "stupid people" talk because it is somewhat presumptous to me, but at the very least I want to submit that I don't understand how that knowledge helps me or anyone at all who has to deal with the garbage the tech companies put out now. As far as I can tell, things that were easy for me years ago are harder now. It doesn't mean I don't still make things work for me because I still do like likely most HN readers, but I did not have to do half of these things 10 years ago but I have to now. I cannot blame "stupid people" because "stupid people" didn't make my computer, my OS, or my air filter, but developers at IT companies did. That to me is the more interesting conversation is because they're the actual responsible party.
- ynniv 4y ago
  This might be spam, but I also like playing solitaire and hate ads, so I made solitairesport.com. It's simple and has some bugs, but plays well enough on mobile and costs me essentially nothing. Few people use it because buying ads cost money. Maybe a search engine that could remove hits that contained ads would help mobe things in the right direction.

meltyness 4y ago

Regarding ads in solitaire. Due to the nature of investment, and the fact that rather than targeting the highest-quality product, Microsoft targeted short term revenue growth, so it is indeed possible to argue that dumbness made solitaire grow ads. Rather than speaking up, and demanding an end to corporate stock manipulation through buybacks, people accepted the product changes necessitated by the targeted revenue trajectory.

noobermin 4y ago
If we really want to go down this route, here's what I notice. I remember almost every single time a website changes its design (namely the major ones, like twitter, facebook, etc), a lot of people complain almost immediately, then the complaints stop and people adapt. The reality is such small nudges are below the threshold of pain, so people put up with it and adapt, and the next thing we know after many nudges later, my air filter needs to connect to wifi. Still, however we want to analyze it, I still don't know why we need to go after consumers over the people who actually did the deed, no? Why are consumers who do not make the design and development decisions become who I should focus on instead of the people who implemented the actual changes? If someone stabs me in a park, sure it is a sad state of affairs if no one will call the ambulance, but surely the fellow I should be more upset with should be the stabber, no, and not aloof by-standers?
- meltyness 4y ago
  This is the contention of politics, if you accept to live in a society that voted to rip out all the psychwards, and hiked taxes on the mentally ill then you should expect this. https://youtu.be/7eYcWpgCb7o https://youtu.be/7eYcWpgCb7o Concretely, investors over fairly short term demand differential risk, and convex return, and in the current season this means big tech works on decommodifying products, without necessarily improving bottom-line quality. It's also probably a fraudulent way for banks and financiers to extract cash from a large number of pensions and retirement funds, with the current constellation of made-up metrics like "user engagement", "ad revenue" and so on.
- klibertp 4y ago