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By that same argument, we could deprecate PDF support, as almost every PDF content on the web has an equivalent and emphasized HTML version. Or we could deprec
by kuschku 1y ago
By that same argument, we could deprecate PDF support, as almost every PDF content on the web has an equivalent and emphasized HTML version.
Or we could deprecate support for .txt and .xml in the browser itself, for the same reasons.
We obviously don't want that. It's valuable to have support for multiple formats, and it's especially valuable to have a single file that can be used by both machines and humans.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- otterley 1y agoMetrics show that users frequently access text and PDF files in their browsers. They almost never access XML files, despite the purported benefit you mention. Not everything that has a benefit is accepted by customers. Some stuff just doesn't sell.
- kuschku 1y agoHave you considered that the only users who access XML files might be a) at work (where you won't get telemetry) or b) techies, who also disable metrics? You can't just use the metrics of "what do people who don't know how to disable telemtry use?" to make decisions for everyone.
- otterley 1y agoWhere's your proof that it is in use sufficient to justify maintaining the functionality? If you have such data, take it to the decision makers. Nobody's going to make decisions based on hypotheticals in the presence of data. As more than one VP has said at my company: "In God I trust. Everyone else needs data."
- kuschku 1y agoI'm arguing that such decisions shouldn't be taken based on flawed metrics, and here you demand I produce my own flawed metrics to "prove" my point. This isn't really leading anywhere.
- otterley 1y agoBy your logic, nobody should take an action unless the data that supports it is flawless. That's not how the world works and would lead to widespread decision paralysis. Most of the world's progress is based on taking calculated risks based on the information you do have, despite imperfections.
- kuschku 1y agoSo here's what you'd do if you wanted to have actual metrics. 1. Analyze which groups of users you've got, and how large they are 2. For each recorded metric, categorize it into the appropriate group 3. Weight each set of metrics by the actual sizes of each user group from step 1 If some users groups have no, or too little data, pay users in these groups to do surveys. Now you've got actual metrics telling you how many people will be affected. Going beyond that, measure how long each visit was, and how long each session was. If users don't agree, again, pay them to take surveys or to watch them browse. Now you can weight the metrics by how many individual sessions will be disrupted, and how much time you've cost users with your decision. And this is just the very basics of collecting proper metrics, as done by proper polling institutes. You could contract Nielsen (US) or GfK (DE) to do this for you, they've got decades of experience collecting such metrics for all kinds of industries. But "Number of page loads of opted in users" is a metric that only tells you how many ad views will be disrupted by a change.
- otterley 1y agoIn this instance, why not compare against page loads of documents that have the same substantive content but in a different format? Also, I'm not sure where ads came into this discussion; none of the documents at issue here have ads in them.