3 ms·

People care about performance and reliability when there is more than one way to do the thing they want to do. The slowest, most inefficient solution is (depen

People care about performance and reliability when there is more than one way to do the thing they want to do. The slowest, most inefficient solution is (depending on the value of solving the problem) better than no solution at all.

TeMPOraL 4y ago
Alternate (and I think more accurate) phrasing: people tolerate bad performance and low reliability when there is no viable alternative tool that does the things they need. As is usually the case - software, particularly SaaS, resists commoditization. For almost any piece of software you may be using (and I am counting things like social media platforms or e-commerce sites in this), there is no equivalent substitute you could switch to on short notice. Often there's literally none at all. When there is, the effort to migrate your data tends to be prohibitive. Also, in my phrasing, I wrote "need" instead of your "want". From my observations, almost all interactions regular people have with software are out of necessity, in the sense that they're forced to use it to get what they want, and they have no power to change it. Examples: - Software your employer tells you to use at work, which sometimes is quite horrible, thanks to magic of enterprise sales. - Software your government tells you to use to submit various forms related to taxes, healthcare, childcare, business, social services, etc. This sometimes manages to not be all that bad. - Software your daycare suddenly forces you to use to communicate with their staff and access CCTV feeds. Software you can't ignore because absence reporting and invoicing goes through it too. Software that's hot garbage, surveillance capitalism optimized mobile app with no web version, created by some bullshit startup with lots of VC funding, which explains why, out of a sudden, every single daycare started to switch to it, despite the app being extremely limited, having abysmal ergonomics, discriminating against people who aren't glued to their smartphones, and likely violating GDPR in more than one way. I guess you can tell I'm a bit bitter about that last one.

TeMPOraL 4y ago

Alternate (and I think more accurate) phrasing: people tolerate bad performance and low reliability when there is no viable alternative tool that does the things they need. As is usually the case - software, particularly SaaS, resists commoditization. For almost any piece of software you may be using (and I am counting things like social media platforms or e-commerce sites in this), there is no equivalent substitute you could switch to on short notice. Often there's literally none at all. When there is, the effort to migrate your data tends to be prohibitive. Also, in my phrasing, I wrote "need" instead of your "want". From my observations, almost all interactions regular people have with software are out of necessity, in the sense that they're forced to use it to get what they want, and they have no power to change it. Examples: - Software your employer tells you to use at work, which sometimes is quite horrible, thanks to magic of enterprise sales. - Software your government tells you to use to submit various forms related to taxes, healthcare, childcare, business, social services, etc. This sometimes manages to not be all that bad. - Software your daycare suddenly forces you to use to communicate with their staff and access CCTV feeds. Software you can't ignore because absence reporting and invoicing goes through it too. Software that's hot garbage, surveillance capitalism optimized mobile app with no web version, created by some bullshit startup with lots of VC funding, which explains why, out of a sudden, every single daycare started to switch to it, despite the app being extremely limited, having abysmal ergonomics, discriminating against people who aren't glued to their smartphones, and likely violating GDPR in more than one way. I guess you can tell I'm a bit bitter about that last one.