4 ms·

We've ended up in a world where power users have been forgotten. Not out of malice, but out of a misguided aim to reduce complexity and achieve consistency with

We've ended up in a world where power users have been forgotten. Not out of malice, but out of a misguided aim to reduce complexity and achieve consistency with the web. I would argue that desktop is the platform for power users, and its future depends on them. The keyboard shortcuts, the micro-interactions, the window management -- this stuff is all important when you're using a system for 8+ hours per day. Yet we risk desktop experiences becoming less useful due to the UI becoming "dumber" as we keep shoehorning websites onto the desktop. Website UI is dumb. It's mouse driven, keyboard is an afterthought. There's no consistency, and you have to re-invent the wheel every time to get the details right (almost never happens).

tomrod 6mo ago
This is why, for me, year of the Linux desktop was 2008. It's been atrocious since then.
marcos100 6mo ago
Mozilla removed a lot of power-user features and customization from Firefox claiming that their telemetry showed that few users used them. That's the reality now, nobody wants to develop and maintain things for the 1%.
- ShroudedNight 6mo ago
  Was it the same 1% that was using each of the long-tail features? I suspect that by refusing to invest effort in at least some amount of niche features, we essentially alienate _everybody_
- bityard 6mo ago
  Browsers like Vivaldi that cater to power users are gaining in popularity. They are not trying to be the next Chrome, they are just out to serve their niche well. Firefox has nothing to differentiate itself from Chrome at this point.
  - kristofferR 6mo ago
    Try installing Sidebery or a good adblocker on Chrome.
    - throwaway2037 6mo ago
      I use AdBlock on Chrome. It is excellent. Do you not like it?
      - pxc 6mo ago
        Go to an adblock test page in Chrome and compare it to Firefox with uBlock Origin. Chrome can't block some ads, and some of the ads it can block leaves behind empty containers.
  - encom 6mo ago
    >Firefox has nothing Not only that, but for a time, Firefox seemed to be copying everything Chrome did, maybe as a way to stop the exodus of users. But people who wanted Chrome-y things were already using it, and people who didn't might as well, because Firefox was becoming indistinguishable from it. God I wish Mozilla would be made great again. It's tragic how mismanaged it is.
    - ethbr1 6mo ago
      > It's tragic how mismanaged it is. Is it mismanaged? Sure, they spend a fair amount on administration. Sure, they spend about 10% on Mozilla Foundation stuff. But they still spend ~2/3 of revenue on software development. And they're somewhat stuck between a rock and a hard place. If they try to evolve their current platform, power users bitch. If they don't evolve their current platform, they lose casual users to ad-promoted alternatives (Chrome and Edge). And they don't really have the money to do a parallel ground-up rewrite. The most interesting thing I could see on the horizon is building a user-owned browsing agent (in the AI sense), but then they'd get tarred and feathered for chasing AI. Part of Mozilla's problem is that the browser is already pretty figured out. After tabs and speed and ad blocking, there weren't any killer features.
- hliyan 6mo ago
  Sometimes this is a self-fulfilling prophecy. It is the novice users who, over time, become power users through repetitive usage. If there are no user efficiency gains to be had through experience in a UI, then it just prevents the emergence of power users. Users just have to wait until a product manager or designer somewhere notices their pain and create a new feature through 10x the effort it would have taken to simply maintain the lower level shortcuts (e.g. keyboard accelerators, simple step automations).
- iamcalledrob 6mo ago
  Personally, its not so much about customisation as it is consistency, quality, and attention to detail. Being able to keyboard through menus as standard. Focus being deeply considered and always working as expected. Compact UI elements -- in the 90s/00s we decided buttons should be about 22px tall. Then suddenly they doubled in size.
- shmeeed 6mo ago
  >their telemetry showed that few users used them I wonder if they ever stopped to think that power users are the ones that disable telemetry immediately upon install.
  - jasonlotito 6mo ago
    That's not remotely universal, but they did consider that. It's immaterial.
    - account42 6mo ago
      It's really not immaterial. Power users are also the ones that get anyone to install Firefox in the first place. Considering Firefox market share trends all decisions at Mozilla should be by default considered textbook material for what not to do.
    - raxxorraxor 6mo ago
      The power users I know do that immediately and then it becomes uncertain. Also, most of these metrics suck. We didn't always collect such metrics and I wouldn't say it did improve software in general. On the contrary, it probably brought in far more dark patterns than better UI. To hell with it and then some. Also to ignore uncertainty means you will be wrong. There is no "perhaps" or "likely" here.
rigonkulous 6mo ago
>We've ended up in a world where power users have been forgotten. I think its more like the OS vendors have stopped being operating system vendors, and are now - instead - vendors of eyeballs to advertisers. The less the user is GUI'ing, the more they are just watching, placid, whatever else is on their screen. For native apps to survive, they need to not be platform-specific - i.e. web apps, which require a browser and all its responsibilities - but rather cross-platform, reliable, predictable on all platforms - i.e. dissuaded from using native, but rather bespoke, UI frameworks. This is attainable and there are many great examples of apps which are in fact, old wheels not re-invented, which still work for their particular user market. I have the most respect for apps I can use on MacOS, Windows, and Linux - with the same hotkey/user experience on all platforms, equitably - and the least respect for apps which 'only run on one of them', since that is of course nonsense in this day and age. The cognitive load of doing a web app that can do all the things a native app can do, is equivalent to the load required to build a cross-platform app using native frameworks, so ..
- jen20 6mo ago
  > I have the most respect for apps I can use on MacOS, Windows, and Linux - with the same hotkey/user experience on all platforms, equitably - and the least respect for apps which 'only run on one of them', since that is of course nonsense in this day and age. No. I want things like keyboard shortcuts to reflect the platform norms of where the app is running (macOS in my case). A shared core is fine, but the UI framework must be native to be acceptable. Ghostty is a "gold standard" there. This is why most web apps are lowest-common-denominator annoyances that I will not use.
  - rigonkulous 6mo ago
    Indeed, if the framework is sensible, keyboard shortcuts reflecting platform norms is entirely attainable in a manner that developers don't have to bother with it, much, if they don't want to. There are plenty of examples of cross-platform UI's surviving the hotkey dance and attaining user satisfaction. There are of course poor examples too, but that's a reflection of care, not effort.
- 6mo ago
graemep 6mo ago
> Not out of malice, but out of a misguided aim to reduce complexity and achieve consistency with the web. The web is not consistent itself. Lots of sites, and most web apps, invent their own UI.
liendolucas 6mo ago
If you become a power user you realize that nothing matches the power of the command line. And at that point you also realize that are better OSes that allow you to fully explode the true computing power that is terribly limited and constrained by a GUI.
- layer8 6mo ago
  Nonsense. Do you read and write your email using the command line? I use Mutt and Vim for that, and that’s not the command line. GUI with power-user support is just as efficient as Mutt and Vim. Did you use curl to read this thread and submit your comment? I use Firefox with Vimium C, which allows most web pages to be navigated and operated efficiently by keyboard.
  - dmitrygr 6mo ago
    Wait, mail clients other than mutt exist?
- rnd0 6mo ago
  >And at that point you also realize that are better OSes Nothing beats Windows 11+WSL2; literally the best of both worlds.
mghackerlady 6mo ago
I'm planning on writing a desktop (I've wrote about some of my goals here before) precisely for this reason
hypersolo 6mo ago
[flagged]
croes 6mo ago
In the future it will all be done by AI, no need for GUI. Just write or say what you want to do Hopefully /s
b00ty4breakfast 6mo ago
I know this isn't really your main point but I don't think they've been trying to reduce complexity but rather increasing ease-of-use for the end-user*. Those things are often completely at odds with each other in software as I'm sure you know. *well, that seems to have been their goal in the past; nowadays it just seems like they've been trying to funnel windows users to their other products and forcing copilot into everything.
butlike 6mo ago
The issue is that everyone wants a full-featured remote with only "on, volume, and channel changing" buttons.
runjake 6mo ago
> We've ended up in a world where power users have been forgotten. Not out of malice, but out of a misguided aim to reduce complexity and achieve consistency with the web. Power users are less susceptible to suggestion and therefore less profitable. They have largely moved to OSes that do not interfere with their wishes, allowing them to make their own choices about what they can or can't do/run (Eg. Linux).
jlarocco 6mo ago
> We've ended up in a world where power users have been forgotten. I think the world changed. "Power users" in the traditional sense use Linux and BSD now. Microsoft and Apple dropped them when they realized how lucrative it would be to dumb things down and make computers more like cable TV.

tomrod 6mo ago

This is why, for me, year of the Linux desktop was 2008. It's been atrocious since then.

marcos100 6mo ago

Mozilla removed a lot of power-user features and customization from Firefox claiming that their telemetry showed that few users used them. That's the reality now, nobody wants to develop and maintain things for the 1%.

ShroudedNight 6mo ago
Was it the same 1% that was using each of the long-tail features? I suspect that by refusing to invest effort in at least some amount of niche features, we essentially alienate _everybody_
bityard 6mo ago
Browsers like Vivaldi that cater to power users are gaining in popularity. They are not trying to be the next Chrome, they are just out to serve their niche well. Firefox has nothing to differentiate itself from Chrome at this point.
- kristofferR 6mo ago
  Try installing Sidebery or a good adblocker on Chrome.
  - throwaway2037 6mo ago
    I use AdBlock on Chrome. It is excellent. Do you not like it?
    - pxc 6mo ago
      Go to an adblock test page in Chrome and compare it to Firefox with uBlock Origin. Chrome can't block some ads, and some of the ads it can block leaves behind empty containers.
- encom 6mo ago
  >Firefox has nothing Not only that, but for a time, Firefox seemed to be copying everything Chrome did, maybe as a way to stop the exodus of users. But people who wanted Chrome-y things were already using it, and people who didn't might as well, because Firefox was becoming indistinguishable from it. God I wish Mozilla would be made great again. It's tragic how mismanaged it is.
  - ethbr1 6mo ago
    > It's tragic how mismanaged it is. Is it mismanaged? Sure, they spend a fair amount on administration. Sure, they spend about 10% on Mozilla Foundation stuff. But they still spend ~2/3 of revenue on software development. And they're somewhat stuck between a rock and a hard place. If they try to evolve their current platform, power users bitch. If they don't evolve their current platform, they lose casual users to ad-promoted alternatives (Chrome and Edge). And they don't really have the money to do a parallel ground-up rewrite. The most interesting thing I could see on the horizon is building a user-owned browsing agent (in the AI sense), but then they'd get tarred and feathered for chasing AI. Part of Mozilla's problem is that the browser is already pretty figured out. After tabs and speed and ad blocking, there weren't any killer features.
hliyan 6mo ago
Sometimes this is a self-fulfilling prophecy. It is the novice users who, over time, become power users through repetitive usage. If there are no user efficiency gains to be had through experience in a UI, then it just prevents the emergence of power users. Users just have to wait until a product manager or designer somewhere notices their pain and create a new feature through 10x the effort it would have taken to simply maintain the lower level shortcuts (e.g. keyboard accelerators, simple step automations).
iamcalledrob 6mo ago
Personally, its not so much about customisation as it is consistency, quality, and attention to detail. Being able to keyboard through menus as standard. Focus being deeply considered and always working as expected. Compact UI elements -- in the 90s/00s we decided buttons should be about 22px tall. Then suddenly they doubled in size.
shmeeed 6mo ago
>their telemetry showed that few users used them I wonder if they ever stopped to think that power users are the ones that disable telemetry immediately upon install.
- jasonlotito 6mo ago
  That's not remotely universal, but they did consider that. It's immaterial.
  - account42 6mo ago
    It's really not immaterial. Power users are also the ones that get anyone to install Firefox in the first place. Considering Firefox market share trends all decisions at Mozilla should be by default considered textbook material for what not to do.
  - raxxorraxor 6mo ago
    The power users I know do that immediately and then it becomes uncertain. Also, most of these metrics suck. We didn't always collect such metrics and I wouldn't say it did improve software in general. On the contrary, it probably brought in far more dark patterns than better UI. To hell with it and then some. Also to ignore uncertainty means you will be wrong. There is no "perhaps" or "likely" here.

rigonkulous 6mo ago

>We've ended up in a world where power users have been forgotten. I think its more like the OS vendors have stopped being operating system vendors, and are now - instead - vendors of eyeballs to advertisers. The less the user is GUI'ing, the more they are just watching, placid, whatever else is on their screen. For native apps to survive, they need to not be platform-specific - i.e. web apps, which require a browser and all its responsibilities - but rather cross-platform, reliable, predictable on all platforms - i.e. dissuaded from using native, but rather bespoke, UI frameworks. This is attainable and there are many great examples of apps which are in fact, old wheels not re-invented, which still work for their particular user market. I have the most respect for apps I can use on MacOS, Windows, and Linux - with the same hotkey/user experience on all platforms, equitably - and the least respect for apps which 'only run on one of them', since that is of course nonsense in this day and age. The cognitive load of doing a web app that can do all the things a native app can do, is equivalent to the load required to build a cross-platform app using native frameworks, so ..

jen20 6mo ago
> I have the most respect for apps I can use on MacOS, Windows, and Linux - with the same hotkey/user experience on all platforms, equitably - and the least respect for apps which 'only run on one of them', since that is of course nonsense in this day and age. No. I want things like keyboard shortcuts to reflect the platform norms of where the app is running (macOS in my case). A shared core is fine, but the UI framework must be native to be acceptable. Ghostty is a "gold standard" there. This is why most web apps are lowest-common-denominator annoyances that I will not use.
- rigonkulous 6mo ago
  Indeed, if the framework is sensible, keyboard shortcuts reflecting platform norms is entirely attainable in a manner that developers don't have to bother with it, much, if they don't want to. There are plenty of examples of cross-platform UI's surviving the hotkey dance and attaining user satisfaction. There are of course poor examples too, but that's a reflection of care, not effort.
6mo ago

graemep 6mo ago

> Not out of malice, but out of a misguided aim to reduce complexity and achieve consistency with the web. The web is not consistent itself. Lots of sites, and most web apps, invent their own UI.

liendolucas 6mo ago

If you become a power user you realize that nothing matches the power of the command line. And at that point you also realize that are better OSes that allow you to fully explode the true computing power that is terribly limited and constrained by a GUI.

layer8 6mo ago
Nonsense. Do you read and write your email using the command line? I use Mutt and Vim for that, and that’s not the command line. GUI with power-user support is just as efficient as Mutt and Vim. Did you use curl to read this thread and submit your comment? I use Firefox with Vimium C, which allows most web pages to be navigated and operated efficiently by keyboard.
- dmitrygr 6mo ago
  Wait, mail clients other than mutt exist?
rnd0 6mo ago
>And at that point you also realize that are better OSes Nothing beats Windows 11+WSL2; literally the best of both worlds.

mghackerlady 6mo ago

I'm planning on writing a desktop (I've wrote about some of my goals here before) precisely for this reason

hypersolo 6mo ago

[flagged]

croes 6mo ago

In the future it will all be done by AI, no need for GUI. Just write or say what you want to do Hopefully /s

b00ty4breakfast 6mo ago

I know this isn't really your main point but I don't think they've been trying to reduce complexity but rather increasing ease-of-use for the end-user*. Those things are often completely at odds with each other in software as I'm sure you know. *well, that seems to have been their goal in the past; nowadays it just seems like they've been trying to funnel windows users to their other products and forcing copilot into everything.

butlike 6mo ago

The issue is that everyone wants a full-featured remote with only "on, volume, and channel changing" buttons.

runjake 6mo ago

> We've ended up in a world where power users have been forgotten. Not out of malice, but out of a misguided aim to reduce complexity and achieve consistency with the web. Power users are less susceptible to suggestion and therefore less profitable. They have largely moved to OSes that do not interfere with their wishes, allowing them to make their own choices about what they can or can't do/run (Eg. Linux).

jlarocco 6mo ago

> We've ended up in a world where power users have been forgotten. I think the world changed. "Power users" in the traditional sense use Linux and BSD now. Microsoft and Apple dropped them when they realized how lucrative it would be to dumb things down and make computers more like cable TV.