2 ms·

What you say is true. And what you say completely misses the point. The problem isn't that cloud sync/backup is (or isn't) useful. It's that Microsoft isn't re

What you say is true. And what you say completely misses the point. The problem isn't that cloud sync/backup is (or isn't) useful. It's that Microsoft isn't respecting users' agency to adopt it or not. If the product is indeed useful on its merits, then there's no need to turn it on by default or continually nag users who say "no thanks." And it's not like Microsoft doesn't have a history of underhanded moves to capture users into its ecosystem; see what happens when you search for Chrome or Firefox in Edge https://www.theverge.com/23935029/microsoft-edge-forced-windows-10-google-chrome-fight https://www.theverge.com/23935029/microsoft-edge-forced-wind...

dan-robertson 2y ago
I think this particular change is less ‘evil’ than lots of the recent ‘evil’ Microsoft things, so I’m not very convinced by comparing it to bad Microsoft behaviour. I think the big advantage of backups is that they’ll have been on for ages by the time you need them. That is, their main failure modes are: - not backing things up because of some misconfiguration - not backing things up because of running out of money/quota/having a card on file expire - not having been set up - deleting files you later want to retrieve I think it’s actually somewhat hard to protect users from cases 2 and 3 without also ‘nagging’ other users. Causing a user to set things up could be a lot better for them than not setting it up because they quickly clicked through some screen during installation. There is some balance to be had and I think that as tech-savvy / high-literacy users, we should expect to feel like it is more on the nagging end of the scale than we would like.
- the_snooze 2y ago
  I don't make that distinction myself. It all falls into the bucket of "Microsoft doesn't respect user agency." Their design decisions are a direct reflection of their (broken) values, full stop.

dan-robertson 2y ago

I think this particular change is less ‘evil’ than lots of the recent ‘evil’ Microsoft things, so I’m not very convinced by comparing it to bad Microsoft behaviour. I think the big advantage of backups is that they’ll have been on for ages by the time you need them. That is, their main failure modes are: - not backing things up because of some misconfiguration - not backing things up because of running out of money/quota/having a card on file expire - not having been set up - deleting files you later want to retrieve I think it’s actually somewhat hard to protect users from cases 2 and 3 without also ‘nagging’ other users. Causing a user to set things up could be a lot better for them than not setting it up because they quickly clicked through some screen during installation. There is some balance to be had and I think that as tech-savvy / high-literacy users, we should expect to feel like it is more on the nagging end of the scale than we would like.

the_snooze 2y ago
I don't make that distinction myself. It all falls into the bucket of "Microsoft doesn't respect user agency." Their design decisions are a direct reflection of their (broken) values, full stop.