5 ms·

I am wondering: Some engineers must have worked on this type of integration. Heck, some of them are probably also reading along here. What kind of narrative is

I am wondering: Some engineers must have worked on this type of integration. Heck, some of them are probably also reading along here. What kind of narrative is being build around the feature to justify its implementation?

huhtenberg 3y ago
It's a $-denominated narrative. Dollars in, ethics out. Just like with every second high-tech company that pays their devs from the ad, tracking, invasive profiling, personal data aggregation and all other blatantly anti-person techs that fuels much of their business. Don't have to go far for examples.
harshtruth3123 3y ago
[dead]
wirrbel 3y ago
I imagine: "As a MS Edge user, I would like to have Chromium tabs readily available when I open MS Edge, so that I can continue working in MS Edge seamlessly ...."
- madsbuch 3y ago
  This does sound quite reasonable. So the narrative is that this is a UX improvement.
  - thecatspaw 3y ago
    Well, it IS a UX Improvement. They just need to make sure that they are asking for consent properly and dont ignore the answer
    - madsbuch 3y ago
      So the current implementation has some non prioritised bugs laying around.
latexr 3y ago
> Some engineers must have worked on this type of integration. Knowing how to program is not correlated to someone’s ethics or capacity for empathy. A desire to shit on users for profit is not exclusive to ad executives.
- madsbuch 3y ago
  I am old enough to experience that I have done something I whole-heartedly believed to be the right thing only to be re-interpreted to be malicious. I do not believe that some people mean mal intend, and so my original question was in which framework this would no be mal intend. (My heart are with the anti nuclear protestors who's work is being reinterpreted to have ruined the earth these years, despite them doing what they believe was right)
  - latexr 3y ago
    I agree in the abstract, but not with the specifics. You can be tricked or misinterpreted a couple of times and deserve the benefit of the doubt, but you no longer have an excuse when your company has this long of a pattern of being user-hostile. Microsoft has been criticised (and even sued) for these practices for years. At a certain point you have to accept they are doing it on purpose. Anyone inside the company who decides on or implements these features and is genuinely surprised by the backlash is either unbelievably naive or unbearably incompetent. It’s been going on for too long for plausible deniability.
    - talkin 3y ago
      > Microsoft has been criticised (and even sued) for these practices for years. But that also is proof for the abstract! By having this image, MS preselects on engineers with lower ethical standards.
      - latexr 3y ago
        > By having this image, MS preselects Thus it’s no longer abstract but specific to Microsoft, which is my point. In general we shouldn’t assume malice right of the bat. But the situation changes when we’re talking specifically about an entity with a history of being malicious (however we define that for each case).
goda90 3y ago
TFA has an update at the bottom that suggests it might be a case of the "continuous import" setting being synced between multiple computers after being set on only one. Not sure I believe it though.
FirmwareBurner 3y ago
>What kind of narrative is being build around the feature to justify its implementation? I dunno, what kind of narrative are Googlers or Meta employees using to justify building an ad tracking and surveillance dragnet for the whole world, including one that emotionally manipulates youngsters into depression and slef loathe? Probably making enough money to be able to afford not to think about ethics. Everyone has their price, especially those with no wealth to their name.
- madsbuch 3y ago
  So you believe that people working at mentioned companies get into work everyday with the conviction that their work is making the world a worse place, but disregard it because of $$?
  - FirmwareBurner 3y ago
    Are you saying Meta and Google employees are unaware from where the crazy good money for their paychecks comes from? Maybe not with conviction, but they can't tell the world with a straight face they don't know what their masters are doing with their tech. The excuse "I'm just moving buffers around as I'm told" doesn't hold up, same how "I'm just a low level foot soldier following orders " didn't hold up at Nuremberg.
  - AndroTux 3y ago
    Same thing with people working at McDonalds producing burgers that make people fat, unhealthy and give them heart attacks. It's the economy we live in. You're lucky if your job doesn't actively destroy society, nature, health or whatever else there is. Basically every job has side-effects. You build housing for the poor? Well, nature isn't going to be happy with you pouring concrete everywhere.
    - FirmwareBurner 3y ago
      Funny to equivalate poor MacDonalds workers who don't have many other options to highly paid Googlers and Meta employees who could work anywhere else, and also equivalate damage being done from building housing for the poor to damage being done from building user tracking and manipulation software. Building housing for the poor does damage to the environment but it also provides a public good, the poor now have housing.
fifteen1506 3y ago
I'd do it -- absolutely no issues. Gotta earn money to compensate the lack or deficit of social services and/or house prices. I'd just protest a bit with an email for upper management just in case upper management tried to shift the blame to me.
stetrain 3y ago
Step 1 - Define a KPI, ie percentage of users using Edge or number of users switching to Edge in <timeframe> Step 2 - Define target goals for this KPI for each quarter Step 3 - Create user stories for features and changes to meet those goals Step 4 - Implement stories, release, and measure KPI increases Step 5 - Give presentation to <next level up in the org> showing the successful KPI line go up
Stranger43 3y ago
The feature being developed was a way to make adopting Edge easier and with that mindset of that being what the users want developing robust ways for edge not to run it's import feature at every boot simply never gets to be an priority. The mentality at MS is for everything to be about promoting their SaaS divisions to the point where there is no longer an independent business unit selling windows, and bundling them with an nearly impossible opt out is an proven strategy for selling value add services that people might either not need or prefer to get from 3rd parties if asked to explicitly opt in to the vendors version of that service.

huhtenberg 3y ago

It's a $-denominated narrative. Dollars in, ethics out. Just like with every second high-tech company that pays their devs from the ad, tracking, invasive profiling, personal data aggregation and all other blatantly anti-person techs that fuels much of their business. Don't have to go far for examples.

harshtruth3123 3y ago

[dead]

wirrbel 3y ago

I imagine: "As a MS Edge user, I would like to have Chromium tabs readily available when I open MS Edge, so that I can continue working in MS Edge seamlessly ...."

madsbuch 3y ago
This does sound quite reasonable. So the narrative is that this is a UX improvement.
- thecatspaw 3y ago
  Well, it IS a UX Improvement. They just need to make sure that they are asking for consent properly and dont ignore the answer
  - madsbuch 3y ago
    So the current implementation has some non prioritised bugs laying around.

latexr 3y ago

> Some engineers must have worked on this type of integration. Knowing how to program is not correlated to someone’s ethics or capacity for empathy. A desire to shit on users for profit is not exclusive to ad executives.

madsbuch 3y ago
I am old enough to experience that I have done something I whole-heartedly believed to be the right thing only to be re-interpreted to be malicious. I do not believe that some people mean mal intend, and so my original question was in which framework this would no be mal intend. (My heart are with the anti nuclear protestors who's work is being reinterpreted to have ruined the earth these years, despite them doing what they believe was right)
- latexr 3y ago
  I agree in the abstract, but not with the specifics. You can be tricked or misinterpreted a couple of times and deserve the benefit of the doubt, but you no longer have an excuse when your company has this long of a pattern of being user-hostile. Microsoft has been criticised (and even sued) for these practices for years. At a certain point you have to accept they are doing it on purpose. Anyone inside the company who decides on or implements these features and is genuinely surprised by the backlash is either unbelievably naive or unbearably incompetent. It’s been going on for too long for plausible deniability.
  - talkin 3y ago
    > Microsoft has been criticised (and even sued) for these practices for years. But that also is proof for the abstract! By having this image, MS preselects on engineers with lower ethical standards.
    - latexr 3y ago
      > By having this image, MS preselects Thus it’s no longer abstract but specific to Microsoft, which is my point. In general we shouldn’t assume malice right of the bat. But the situation changes when we’re talking specifically about an entity with a history of being malicious (however we define that for each case).

goda90 3y ago

TFA has an update at the bottom that suggests it might be a case of the "continuous import" setting being synced between multiple computers after being set on only one. Not sure I believe it though.

FirmwareBurner 3y ago

>What kind of narrative is being build around the feature to justify its implementation? I dunno, what kind of narrative are Googlers or Meta employees using to justify building an ad tracking and surveillance dragnet for the whole world, including one that emotionally manipulates youngsters into depression and slef loathe? Probably making enough money to be able to afford not to think about ethics. Everyone has their price, especially those with no wealth to their name.

madsbuch 3y ago
So you believe that people working at mentioned companies get into work everyday with the conviction that their work is making the world a worse place, but disregard it because of $$?
- FirmwareBurner 3y ago
  Are you saying Meta and Google employees are unaware from where the crazy good money for their paychecks comes from? Maybe not with conviction, but they can't tell the world with a straight face they don't know what their masters are doing with their tech. The excuse "I'm just moving buffers around as I'm told" doesn't hold up, same how "I'm just a low level foot soldier following orders " didn't hold up at Nuremberg.
- AndroTux 3y ago
  Same thing with people working at McDonalds producing burgers that make people fat, unhealthy and give them heart attacks. It's the economy we live in. You're lucky if your job doesn't actively destroy society, nature, health or whatever else there is. Basically every job has side-effects. You build housing for the poor? Well, nature isn't going to be happy with you pouring concrete everywhere.
  - FirmwareBurner 3y ago
    Funny to equivalate poor MacDonalds workers who don't have many other options to highly paid Googlers and Meta employees who could work anywhere else, and also equivalate damage being done from building housing for the poor to damage being done from building user tracking and manipulation software. Building housing for the poor does damage to the environment but it also provides a public good, the poor now have housing.

fifteen1506 3y ago

I'd do it -- absolutely no issues. Gotta earn money to compensate the lack or deficit of social services and/or house prices. I'd just protest a bit with an email for upper management just in case upper management tried to shift the blame to me.

stetrain 3y ago

Step 1 - Define a KPI, ie percentage of users using Edge or number of users switching to Edge in <timeframe> Step 2 - Define target goals for this KPI for each quarter Step 3 - Create user stories for features and changes to meet those goals Step 4 - Implement stories, release, and measure KPI increases Step 5 - Give presentation to <next level up in the org> showing the successful KPI line go up

Stranger43 3y ago

The feature being developed was a way to make adopting Edge easier and with that mindset of that being what the users want developing robust ways for edge not to run it's import feature at every boot simply never gets to be an priority. The mentality at MS is for everything to be about promoting their SaaS divisions to the point where there is no longer an independent business unit selling windows, and bundling them with an nearly impossible opt out is an proven strategy for selling value add services that people might either not need or prefer to get from 3rd parties if asked to explicitly opt in to the vendors version of that service.