6 ms·

As a user, I want to be enabled / to be able to do more things with a piece of software than what I could do without it. I do NOT want to be "protected".

by bambax 1y ago

drysart 1y ago
That's why it's the developer's responsibility to do it. Because the user won't.
- bsza 1y ago
  "Protect" can mean whatever the service provider wants it to mean. Such as requiring developer verification for any program you want to install on your own phone.
  - jraph 1y ago
    You don't get it, it's for your own good! The greater good! :-) (sarcasm, obviously)
isoprophlex 1y ago
Reframing it as "protect their interests" helps. Protect the users from corporate manipulation, from lock-in, from rent seeking, from dishonest practices.
- photonthug 1y ago
  I'm also reading TFA's intent as less about big-brother and info-hygiene stuff, and more about standard enshittification. Since we're talking about "doing more things with a piece of software than [users] could do without it", well, living with 10% of the features at 1000x of the price would typically still fit those criteria. Since this is exactly where most companies would like to go after establishing market-dominance, yeah, I think we do want to be protected. Whether any dev or group of devs could realistically push back against the forces at work in the org or the wider economy here is a separate question of course.
jraph 1y ago
I didn't take "protect" the same way as you at all. Big tech is putting inside our heads that users shall be protected by removing control from them and that's detrimental. This gatekeeping is not protection, it's dystopia. Protect can be taken as in "Protect the user from bad decisions", or as in "Protect users' freedom" [1], which would completely go your way. I understood protect as "make the user your first priority". I'm happy with being protected. I'm not happy with my control being removed. It may look like the first implies the second, but it should not and we need to fight against this idea. This leads to (tech!) people here on HN believing their restricted mobile ecosystems are good for them and their parents. [1] (edit:) another commenter suggests "protect their interests", which nails it for me.
- bambax 1y ago
  Ok -- but then the word 'protect' is too ambiguous and overused, and we should find a better one.
  - Nevermark 1y ago
    Until then, I like "protect". :) Very few mottos can withstand literal dissection. For that matter, many phrases have entirely different meanings than if they were read as normal words. Words bend to the context, and by associating a motto with the ideal it is proposed for, it quickly becomes its own context. "Protect the user, their data and the truth!", if you say it loudly, comes across to me like something the Three Musketeers would exclaim. If they were programmers, about to enter the forest of dark patterns, risking their lives for the users they know, and those they will never meet. Love it. All subjective of course.
  - jraph 1y ago
    Fair enough, I suppose we can just drop it :-) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45100163#45100585 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45100163#45100585
  - IAmBroom 1y ago
    You are certainly free to do so. This article isn't a mandate.
baq 1y ago
There's a reason some buttons are behind glass and some switches have guards you have to unlock first. You say you don't, but you can't not qualify when, otherwise you're simply wrong.
- jraph 1y ago
  As long as you can reach the buttons by yourself and don't need to ask big tech's permission, I fully agree that having safeguards for potentially dangerous buttons is a good thing.
globnomulous 1y ago
Plus res gere
- IAmBroom 1y ago
  "Do more things"
  - globnomulous 1y ago
    'Res gestae' in Latin are aren't just 'things done.' The phrase is an idiom meaning "exploits" or "deeds" -- with the implication that there's something notable about them -- e.g. they're worth recording or remembering -- i.e. 'accomplishments.' So 'res gerere' to my ear means something closer to "accomplish" than "do things."
KaiserPro 1y ago
The people that operated looms in cotton mills used to say the same thing. A guard would get in the way, It slows me down when I try to do x. "I'm a skilled technician, just let me have access" They'd keep saying that until they lost a hand, arm, leg to the big swirling mass of metal.
- OfficeChad 1y ago
  [dead]
- andrepd 1y ago
  Apples and oranges. Installing an encrypted chat app, a torrent client, or an open source OS stripped of spyware will not mangle my limbs, but big tech and governments are hard at work trying to make these a thing of the past. People on hn would do well to stop giving cover to such disastrous pretenses.
  - IAmBroom 1y ago
    Relevant xkcd. https://xkcd.com/327/ https://xkcd.com/327/
  - KaiserPro 1y ago
    context: > I do NOT want to be "protected". to which you replied: > Installing an encrypted chat app, on a thread about developers making sure that user data is safe. I want to install an app, I don't want to scout around and make a value judgement to see if its going to steal all my data. In the same way that victorians had to work out if the local baker is cutting cheap flour with chalk or worse[1]. we are "qualified" to make that value judgement, the vast majority of people outside of this forum are not. This means that the longer we let predatory spyware run our ecosystem (lets be honest, most of the "internet" is paid for by google, facebook and apple et al) the longer we ingrain in people to expect to be exploited. The solution is not only opensource, because frankly thats even more user hostile. (oh you lost your entire history? lol you should have done x,y,z and not pressed the "make it awesome" button, as if you'd read the code you know its in. alpha) The solution is as "the people" to demand safe software. This won't happen because the current tech giants are the only reason why US GDP is growing. The solution is tackling the tech behemoths. But that wont happen with current US system. [1] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-25259505 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-25259505
mcv 1y ago
Empower the user, protect the data. My Latin is too poor for this, but Google suggests "usorem potestatem da, data protege".
Timwi 1y ago
I agree. A better choice of word would have been diligere, meaning to value (verb). Value the user, the data, and the truth. Diligere usorem, data, (et) veritatem. Further, I'm not sure if the infinitive was the best choice of verb form. It feels to me more applicable as an imperative (thou shalt...), so I think it should be dilige (present imperative) or diligito (future imperative). I don't know Latin well enough to judge which of those two it should be.

As a user, I want to be enabled / to be able to do more things with a piece of software than what I could do without it. I do NOT want to be "protected".

by bambax 1y ago

As a user, I want to be enabled / to be able to do more things with a piece of software than what I could do without it. I do NOT want to be "protected".

drysart 1y ago

That's why it's the developer's responsibility to do it. Because the user won't.

bsza 1y ago
"Protect" can mean whatever the service provider wants it to mean. Such as requiring developer verification for any program you want to install on your own phone.
- jraph 1y ago
  You don't get it, it's for your own good! The greater good! :-) (sarcasm, obviously)

isoprophlex 1y ago

Reframing it as "protect their interests" helps. Protect the users from corporate manipulation, from lock-in, from rent seeking, from dishonest practices.

photonthug 1y ago
I'm also reading TFA's intent as less about big-brother and info-hygiene stuff, and more about standard enshittification. Since we're talking about "doing more things with a piece of software than [users] could do without it", well, living with 10% of the features at 1000x of the price would typically still fit those criteria. Since this is exactly where most companies would like to go after establishing market-dominance, yeah, I think we do want to be protected. Whether any dev or group of devs could realistically push back against the forces at work in the org or the wider economy here is a separate question of course.

jraph 1y ago

I didn't take "protect" the same way as you at all. Big tech is putting inside our heads that users shall be protected by removing control from them and that's detrimental. This gatekeeping is not protection, it's dystopia. Protect can be taken as in "Protect the user from bad decisions", or as in "Protect users' freedom" [1], which would completely go your way. I understood protect as "make the user your first priority". I'm happy with being protected. I'm not happy with my control being removed. It may look like the first implies the second, but it should not and we need to fight against this idea. This leads to (tech!) people here on HN believing their restricted mobile ecosystems are good for them and their parents. [1] (edit:) another commenter suggests "protect their interests", which nails it for me.

bambax 1y ago
Ok -- but then the word 'protect' is too ambiguous and overused, and we should find a better one.
- Nevermark 1y ago
  Until then, I like "protect". :) Very few mottos can withstand literal dissection. For that matter, many phrases have entirely different meanings than if they were read as normal words. Words bend to the context, and by associating a motto with the ideal it is proposed for, it quickly becomes its own context. "Protect the user, their data and the truth!", if you say it loudly, comes across to me like something the Three Musketeers would exclaim. If they were programmers, about to enter the forest of dark patterns, risking their lives for the users they know, and those they will never meet. Love it. All subjective of course.
- jraph 1y ago
  Fair enough, I suppose we can just drop it :-) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45100163#45100585 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45100163#45100585
- IAmBroom 1y ago
  You are certainly free to do so. This article isn't a mandate.

baq 1y ago

There's a reason some buttons are behind glass and some switches have guards you have to unlock first. You say you don't, but you can't not qualify when, otherwise you're simply wrong.

jraph 1y ago
As long as you can reach the buttons by yourself and don't need to ask big tech's permission, I fully agree that having safeguards for potentially dangerous buttons is a good thing.

globnomulous 1y ago

Plus res gere

IAmBroom 1y ago
"Do more things"
- globnomulous 1y ago
  'Res gestae' in Latin are aren't just 'things done.' The phrase is an idiom meaning "exploits" or "deeds" -- with the implication that there's something notable about them -- e.g. they're worth recording or remembering -- i.e. 'accomplishments.' So 'res gerere' to my ear means something closer to "accomplish" than "do things."

KaiserPro 1y ago

The people that operated looms in cotton mills used to say the same thing. A guard would get in the way, It slows me down when I try to do x. "I'm a skilled technician, just let me have access" They'd keep saying that until they lost a hand, arm, leg to the big swirling mass of metal.

OfficeChad 1y ago
[dead]
andrepd 1y ago
Apples and oranges. Installing an encrypted chat app, a torrent client, or an open source OS stripped of spyware will not mangle my limbs, but big tech and governments are hard at work trying to make these a thing of the past. People on hn would do well to stop giving cover to such disastrous pretenses.
- IAmBroom 1y ago
  Relevant xkcd. https://xkcd.com/327/ https://xkcd.com/327/
- KaiserPro 1y ago
  context: > I do NOT want to be "protected". to which you replied: > Installing an encrypted chat app, on a thread about developers making sure that user data is safe. I want to install an app, I don't want to scout around and make a value judgement to see if its going to steal all my data. In the same way that victorians had to work out if the local baker is cutting cheap flour with chalk or worse[1]. we are "qualified" to make that value judgement, the vast majority of people outside of this forum are not. This means that the longer we let predatory spyware run our ecosystem (lets be honest, most of the "internet" is paid for by google, facebook and apple et al) the longer we ingrain in people to expect to be exploited. The solution is not only opensource, because frankly thats even more user hostile. (oh you lost your entire history? lol you should have done x,y,z and not pressed the "make it awesome" button, as if you'd read the code you know its in. alpha) The solution is as "the people" to demand safe software. This won't happen because the current tech giants are the only reason why US GDP is growing. The solution is tackling the tech behemoths. But that wont happen with current US system. [1] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-25259505 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-25259505

mcv 1y ago

Empower the user, protect the data. My Latin is too poor for this, but Google suggests "usorem potestatem da, data protege".

Timwi 1y ago

I agree. A better choice of word would have been diligere, meaning to value (verb). Value the user, the data, and the truth. Diligere usorem, data, (et) veritatem. Further, I'm not sure if the infinitive was the best choice of verb form. It feels to me more applicable as an imperative (thou shalt...), so I think it should be dilige (present imperative) or diligito (future imperative). I don't know Latin well enough to judge which of those two it should be.