4 ms·

I'm starting to find them emotionally manipulative in a bad way. FireFox settings should not be showing a sad-face emoji just because it's not my default browse

I'm starting to find them emotionally manipulative in a bad way. FireFox settings should not be showing a sad-face emoji just because it's not my default browser. Especially when I'm using BrowserTamer[1] to intercept all URL launches so I can feed a few work URLs to Edge and Chrome, and FireFox as the default for everything else, so it effectively is my default browser. It's not the only piece of software behaving somewhat like that, either. [1] https://www.aloneguid.uk/projects/bt https://www.aloneguid.uk/projects/bt

hammock 3y ago
>FireFox settings should not be showing a sad-face emoji just because it's not my default browser. The irony of using the normative "should" to project your preferences onto Firefox, while expressing a desire that Firefox not do so on you. Also - what about iPhones stubbornly showing green texts from Android messagers? That's not even "I'm sad you're using Android." It's more a passive-aggressive "I'm going to degrade your experience because your friend uses Android." Forget about emojis- Apple is weaponizing colors!
- overgard 3y ago
  To be fair, the blue/green thing is kinda useful, I don't use a ton of apple-ecosystem exclusive things but it's nice to tell when I can or not.
- jodrellblank 3y ago
  What's emotionally manipulative about "should"? ... what's degrading about green?
  - exac 3y ago
    Look at the re-sale market for used iPhones. Youth do not want to be caught dead with Android phones.
    - jodrellblank 3y ago
      The claim was that Apple is giving someone a degraded experience. How is "Android user doesn't like their Android phone" evidence of a degraded experience for an iPhone user?
      - pavlov 3y ago
        The reason why kids in USA don’t want Android isn’t the phones themselves but the way their messages get presented by Apple’s software. No teenager wants to be flagged as poor to their peers by a bright green bubble. Imagine if Microsoft had done this 20+ years ago when they were on top. All emails sent from a Mac would be displayed in magenta Comic Sans when opened on Windows. Wouldn’t that have been a blatantly anticompetitive move to make Macs look worse to business users?
        bonoboTP 3y ago
        But green isn't the equivalent to goofy conic sans, it's just a color. People in Europe use WhatsApp and it's green. The problem is that money based status competition is so rampant in America and this is merely an effect of it.
        jodrellblank 3y ago
        I understand, but that is a different discussion. "Alice doesn't want to appear poor to Bob" != "a degraded experience for Bob". If Microsoft had displayed emails in magenta Comic Sans they would have been harder to read, and thus a worse experience for the recipient, manipulative but still not emotionally manipulative - compare, say you install Linux on your former Windows PC and Microsoft change the boot loader to a war photo of a crying child being torn from her crying parents by an enemy solider and the text "I'll miss you so much".
        pavlov 3y ago
        Young iPhone users genuinely complain that the green bubble is searingly bright and ugly compared to the iMessage blue which is darker and less saturated. I know the whole thing is kind of silly. But it clearly does have a surprisingly strong effect on people’s perceptions. And Apple has some history of deliberately rendering competing products as ugly (Mac OS X used to show Windows network shares with a grim icon of a beige CRT monitor).
  - numpad0 3y ago
    There are supposedly psychological effects in using green at all, and there is also a known controversy over green bubble used on iOS bundled Messages app[1][2]. As for "should", not sure about that... 1: https://www.wsj.com/articles/why-apples-imessage-is-winning-teens-dread-the-green-text-bubble-11641618009 https://www.wsj.com/articles/why-apples-imessage-is-winning-... 2: https://uxdesign.cc/how-apple-makes-you-think-green-bubbles-gross-e03b52b12fed https://uxdesign.cc/how-apple-makes-you-think-green-bubbles-...
- thrashh 3y ago
  I mean iPhones do it purposely to make people buy iPhones. And it works. Apple is full of marketing geniuses. They’re maybe using a lot of dark patterns but they’re raking in profit.
  - computerfriend 3y ago
    iMessage itself is a feature that makes people want to buy iPhones (maybe). The colour of the text bubble is not.
    - hammock 3y ago
      Ask a teenage girl whether she would want an iPhone just for the color of the bubbles when she texts her friends
- loganc2342 3y ago
  The green bubble has nothing to do with with iPhone vs Android, it has to do with iMessage vs a regular text message. iMessages typically use data and text messages typically don’t. Furthermore, iMessages have greater features that obviously can’t be delivered to people who don’t use iMessage, like reactions and effects. iPhone users who use a different messaging app also have green bubbles, as do messages sent as a text message while off of data.
  - joshxyz 3y ago
    yes this. green messages imply the person has poor internet reception e.g. when out of town or during heavy storms
  - Hamuko 3y ago
    I actually get green text bubbles from a relative with an iPhone because they send messages to my work number whereas my iMessage is tied to my personal number.
    - redwall_hp 3y ago
      I only get green bubbles, because pretty much everyone uses Discord or Facebook Messenger. The only messages I get that arrive through the Messages app are from Android users, usually via Android Auto, or automated notifications.
      - TRiG_Ireland 3y ago
        By far the majority of my text messaging happens in WhatsApp these days.
  - dTal 3y ago
    It has nothing to do with iPhone vs Android, it's just a symptom of Apple pushing people into using an iPhone-only messaging app which they refuse to port to Android, specifically to create vendor lockin! Totally different!
- majormajor 3y ago
  > The irony of using the normative "should" to project your preferences onto Firefox, while expressing a desire that Firefox not do so on you. Firefox is not a person, why should it have "preferences"? It's a tool. Tools should be used because they're useful, not because they "prefer to be used."
  - jamesdwilson 3y ago
    It could be argued that the user above chose to use Firefox. They chose to use this in their minds inferior tool or a tool with an undesirable feature. They made that decision. > A bad workman always blames his tools –Old proverb
    - bryanrasmussen 3y ago
      Is the argument here that developers should no longer test their sites in FF?
      - jamesdwilson 3y ago
        I'm arguing people can use whatever they want. No one is making anyone use the browser of their choice.
- raincole 3y ago
  > The irony of using the normative "should" to project your preferences onto Firefox, while expressing a desire that Firefox not do so on you. Because I'm a person and Firefox is a tool? How is it irony? Next time you're going to say Firefox can set my diet just like I can set its search engine?
- brobinson 3y ago
  green to me = unencrypted and getting stored directly into a government database forever
madeofpalk 3y ago
That's not emojis being emotionall manipulative - that's Firefox being poor copywriters
yreg 3y ago
I recently encountered a payment app at a restaurant that had a slider for adjusting the tip. There was a smiley face above the slider and it cried unless you set the tip to over 10%. (While usually expected, it's not socially mandatory to give out tips in my country.)
- mcpackieh 3y ago
  I wonder if this kind of thing actually pays off, or if it backfires more often. I know for me, whenever I see some emotional manipulation like this it makes the choice easy (not that I was ever going to tip into a computer instead of cash in the first place.)

hammock 3y ago

>FireFox settings should not be showing a sad-face emoji just because it's not my default browser. The irony of using the normative "should" to project your preferences onto Firefox, while expressing a desire that Firefox not do so on you. Also - what about iPhones stubbornly showing green texts from Android messagers? That's not even "I'm sad you're using Android." It's more a passive-aggressive "I'm going to degrade your experience because your friend uses Android." Forget about emojis- Apple is weaponizing colors!

overgard 3y ago
To be fair, the blue/green thing is kinda useful, I don't use a ton of apple-ecosystem exclusive things but it's nice to tell when I can or not.
jodrellblank 3y ago
What's emotionally manipulative about "should"? ... what's degrading about green?
- exac 3y ago
  Look at the re-sale market for used iPhones. Youth do not want to be caught dead with Android phones.
  - jodrellblank 3y ago
    The claim was that Apple is giving someone a degraded experience. How is "Android user doesn't like their Android phone" evidence of a degraded experience for an iPhone user?
    - pavlov 3y ago
      The reason why kids in USA don’t want Android isn’t the phones themselves but the way their messages get presented by Apple’s software. No teenager wants to be flagged as poor to their peers by a bright green bubble. Imagine if Microsoft had done this 20+ years ago when they were on top. All emails sent from a Mac would be displayed in magenta Comic Sans when opened on Windows. Wouldn’t that have been a blatantly anticompetitive move to make Macs look worse to business users?
      - bonoboTP 3y ago
        But green isn't the equivalent to goofy conic sans, it's just a color. People in Europe use WhatsApp and it's green. The problem is that money based status competition is so rampant in America and this is merely an effect of it.
      - jodrellblank 3y ago
        I understand, but that is a different discussion. "Alice doesn't want to appear poor to Bob" != "a degraded experience for Bob". If Microsoft had displayed emails in magenta Comic Sans they would have been harder to read, and thus a worse experience for the recipient, manipulative but still not emotionally manipulative - compare, say you install Linux on your former Windows PC and Microsoft change the boot loader to a war photo of a crying child being torn from her crying parents by an enemy solider and the text "I'll miss you so much".
        pavlov 3y ago
        Young iPhone users genuinely complain that the green bubble is searingly bright and ugly compared to the iMessage blue which is darker and less saturated. I know the whole thing is kind of silly. But it clearly does have a surprisingly strong effect on people’s perceptions. And Apple has some history of deliberately rendering competing products as ugly (Mac OS X used to show Windows network shares with a grim icon of a beige CRT monitor).
- numpad0 3y ago
  There are supposedly psychological effects in using green at all, and there is also a known controversy over green bubble used on iOS bundled Messages app[1][2]. As for "should", not sure about that... 1: https://www.wsj.com/articles/why-apples-imessage-is-winning-teens-dread-the-green-text-bubble-11641618009 https://www.wsj.com/articles/why-apples-imessage-is-winning-... 2: https://uxdesign.cc/how-apple-makes-you-think-green-bubbles-gross-e03b52b12fed https://uxdesign.cc/how-apple-makes-you-think-green-bubbles-...
thrashh 3y ago
I mean iPhones do it purposely to make people buy iPhones. And it works. Apple is full of marketing geniuses. They’re maybe using a lot of dark patterns but they’re raking in profit.
- computerfriend 3y ago
  iMessage itself is a feature that makes people want to buy iPhones (maybe). The colour of the text bubble is not.
  - hammock 3y ago
    Ask a teenage girl whether she would want an iPhone just for the color of the bubbles when she texts her friends
loganc2342 3y ago
The green bubble has nothing to do with with iPhone vs Android, it has to do with iMessage vs a regular text message. iMessages typically use data and text messages typically don’t. Furthermore, iMessages have greater features that obviously can’t be delivered to people who don’t use iMessage, like reactions and effects. iPhone users who use a different messaging app also have green bubbles, as do messages sent as a text message while off of data.
- joshxyz 3y ago
  yes this. green messages imply the person has poor internet reception e.g. when out of town or during heavy storms
- Hamuko 3y ago
  I actually get green text bubbles from a relative with an iPhone because they send messages to my work number whereas my iMessage is tied to my personal number.
  - redwall_hp 3y ago
    I only get green bubbles, because pretty much everyone uses Discord or Facebook Messenger. The only messages I get that arrive through the Messages app are from Android users, usually via Android Auto, or automated notifications.
    - TRiG_Ireland 3y ago
      By far the majority of my text messaging happens in WhatsApp these days.
- dTal 3y ago
  It has nothing to do with iPhone vs Android, it's just a symptom of Apple pushing people into using an iPhone-only messaging app which they refuse to port to Android, specifically to create vendor lockin! Totally different!
majormajor 3y ago
> The irony of using the normative "should" to project your preferences onto Firefox, while expressing a desire that Firefox not do so on you. Firefox is not a person, why should it have "preferences"? It's a tool. Tools should be used because they're useful, not because they "prefer to be used."
- jamesdwilson 3y ago
  It could be argued that the user above chose to use Firefox. They chose to use this in their minds inferior tool or a tool with an undesirable feature. They made that decision. > A bad workman always blames his tools –Old proverb
  - bryanrasmussen 3y ago
    Is the argument here that developers should no longer test their sites in FF?
    - jamesdwilson 3y ago
      I'm arguing people can use whatever they want. No one is making anyone use the browser of their choice.
raincole 3y ago
> The irony of using the normative "should" to project your preferences onto Firefox, while expressing a desire that Firefox not do so on you. Because I'm a person and Firefox is a tool? How is it irony? Next time you're going to say Firefox can set my diet just like I can set its search engine?
brobinson 3y ago
green to me = unencrypted and getting stored directly into a government database forever

madeofpalk 3y ago

That's not emojis being emotionall manipulative - that's Firefox being poor copywriters

yreg 3y ago

I recently encountered a payment app at a restaurant that had a slider for adjusting the tip. There was a smiley face above the slider and it cried unless you set the tip to over 10%. (While usually expected, it's not socially mandatory to give out tips in my country.)

mcpackieh 3y ago
I wonder if this kind of thing actually pays off, or if it backfires more often. I know for me, whenever I see some emotional manipulation like this it makes the choice easy (not that I was ever going to tip into a computer instead of cash in the first place.)