4 ms·

I have to sympathize with their post a bit. There's no reason for it to be "a little bit of work". Google is not some indie company. As much as I enjoy tinkeri

I have to sympathize with their post a bit. There's no reason for it to be "a little bit of work". Google is not some indie company. As much as I enjoy tinkering and having control over my device, sometimes I want things to just work. The Steam Deck and SteamOS are the what I consider the gold standard for this: SteamOS is very beginner friendly, but allows power users to access the Desktop mode and unlock its full potential. I've talked about this before on HN [1]. I cannot backup my Minecraft worlds on Android 13 without paying Mojang $4 for their server to act as an intermediary to transfer files, whereas people in the "walled garden" of iOS can access it via a file manager app or plug their phone into a computer and backup the worlds. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36350135 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36350135

kristopolous 3y ago
It's a company deciding what they will and what they will not do. If you want an all encompassing authoritarian provider, you have an option. But demanding that of everyone narrows the periphery and extinguishes the creative sparks of discovery Vendors should embrace diversity and not line up in compliance with whoever the perceived market leader is. This is called Error reinforcement: when a tech company makes a poor decision and their competitors copy them out of fear because they don't know it's a mistake. The original firm sees the copycat work as evidence they were right. See Google/Apple maps, iPhone/Android, Google/Bing etc This leads to service degradation, feature reduction, persumptive interfaces, poor defaults, hostile interfaces, and disliked products with no alternatives because everybody is racing to clone each other feature for feature assuming that everybody else knows what they're doing Any presumed market diversity from competition is then traded in for compliance, uniformity and conformity. So go buy your Apple device. Expecting everyone to be like Apple (or anyone else) is offensive to the craft of innovation
- lazycouchpotato 3y ago
  ??? Are you sure you've responded to the correct comment? Or did you misunderstand my comment? No where did I say I want an "all encompassing authoritarian provider" or to "narrow the periphery and extinguish the creative sparks of discovery". All I asked for is my device to "just work" when I want it to. You can have have your cake and eat it as well - it is possible to be friendly towards both novice and pro users, as I demonstrated with the Steam Deck example (whether they will continue this, is a separate discussion). Things can "just work" without a company deciding what's best for me. I used to be able to plug my phone into my laptop and copy my Minecraft files. I can't do that any more. I own the device. I decide what I want to do with it. I myself have faced the brunt of "error reinforcement": my phone doesn't have expandable storage, lacks a headphone jack and didn't come with a charger in the box, - all to inconvenience me and raise Google's bottom line. If you're up for constructive criticism, please don't come off so aggressive.
  - kristopolous 3y ago
    Sorry I'm passionate about the industry. Apple took the first step on almost all those feature killing things you listed and then to "keep up with the industry", the android vendors followed suit. Products that "just work" often in practice get that attribute by only working in a proscribed way and then flat out failing in others. Your fail case is inevitably because the just work philosophy was followed for some other imagined use case so being a tool was replaced with being an appliance. When you try to meet the user too far you inherently compromise functionality and adaptability in exchange for narrowed convenience. You need to take things away and remove decision points from the user in order to get to a just work state. Then there's an actual group of users that reinforces this and classifies such things are progress. I care a lot about a productive meaningful future and I want to push things in the right directions
    - lazycouchpotato 3y ago
      All good. Thing is, power users are a vocal minority in his industry. People like our families are the majority, and I don't want them to have to deal with quirks or troubles, but I also don't want an oligopoly controlling the space and compromising innovation, privacy, etc. in the name of "convenience" (profit).
      - kristopolous 3y ago
        Power user is the wrong view. The problem here is whether someone wants a good knife or a bunch of specialized knife like devices like cheese slicers for specialized knife functions. The problem in technology is we presume it's Either the mandolin Or the knife and not both. The fleeting elegance in the craft of engineering tech products is in empowering all these modalities and not the endemic narrowcasting we see plaguing the industry. It's possible, it's just sadly not common

kristopolous 3y ago

It's a company deciding what they will and what they will not do. If you want an all encompassing authoritarian provider, you have an option. But demanding that of everyone narrows the periphery and extinguishes the creative sparks of discovery Vendors should embrace diversity and not line up in compliance with whoever the perceived market leader is. This is called Error reinforcement: when a tech company makes a poor decision and their competitors copy them out of fear because they don't know it's a mistake. The original firm sees the copycat work as evidence they were right. See Google/Apple maps, iPhone/Android, Google/Bing etc This leads to service degradation, feature reduction, persumptive interfaces, poor defaults, hostile interfaces, and disliked products with no alternatives because everybody is racing to clone each other feature for feature assuming that everybody else knows what they're doing Any presumed market diversity from competition is then traded in for compliance, uniformity and conformity. So go buy your Apple device. Expecting everyone to be like Apple (or anyone else) is offensive to the craft of innovation

lazycouchpotato 3y ago
??? Are you sure you've responded to the correct comment? Or did you misunderstand my comment? No where did I say I want an "all encompassing authoritarian provider" or to "narrow the periphery and extinguish the creative sparks of discovery". All I asked for is my device to "just work" when I want it to. You can have have your cake and eat it as well - it is possible to be friendly towards both novice and pro users, as I demonstrated with the Steam Deck example (whether they will continue this, is a separate discussion). Things can "just work" without a company deciding what's best for me. I used to be able to plug my phone into my laptop and copy my Minecraft files. I can't do that any more. I own the device. I decide what I want to do with it. I myself have faced the brunt of "error reinforcement": my phone doesn't have expandable storage, lacks a headphone jack and didn't come with a charger in the box, - all to inconvenience me and raise Google's bottom line. If you're up for constructive criticism, please don't come off so aggressive.
- kristopolous 3y ago
  Sorry I'm passionate about the industry. Apple took the first step on almost all those feature killing things you listed and then to "keep up with the industry", the android vendors followed suit. Products that "just work" often in practice get that attribute by only working in a proscribed way and then flat out failing in others. Your fail case is inevitably because the just work philosophy was followed for some other imagined use case so being a tool was replaced with being an appliance. When you try to meet the user too far you inherently compromise functionality and adaptability in exchange for narrowed convenience. You need to take things away and remove decision points from the user in order to get to a just work state. Then there's an actual group of users that reinforces this and classifies such things are progress. I care a lot about a productive meaningful future and I want to push things in the right directions
  - lazycouchpotato 3y ago
    All good. Thing is, power users are a vocal minority in his industry. People like our families are the majority, and I don't want them to have to deal with quirks or troubles, but I also don't want an oligopoly controlling the space and compromising innovation, privacy, etc. in the name of "convenience" (profit).
    - kristopolous 3y ago
      Power user is the wrong view. The problem here is whether someone wants a good knife or a bunch of specialized knife like devices like cheese slicers for specialized knife functions. The problem in technology is we presume it's Either the mandolin Or the knife and not both. The fleeting elegance in the craft of engineering tech products is in empowering all these modalities and not the endemic narrowcasting we see plaguing the industry. It's possible, it's just sadly not common