4 ms·

Which is one of the reasons major communication systems should be distributed and standards based like email, rather than proprietary and run by a single compan

by dror 12y ago

Which is one of the reasons major communication systems should be distributed and standards based like email, rather than proprietary and run by a single company.

GuiA 12y ago
The problem is that in the short term, it is trivial for a well funded private company to offer a better product in the eyes of the end user (eg. GMail when it came out over every other open source mail system). The only solution to that problem that I can think of is to better educate the end user, and to make them see that even though company X's shiny product seems better right now, in the long term there is everything to lose by using their communication systems. That's a hard fight though.
- seanmcdirmid 12y ago
  In other words, we need to train end users how to accept poor user experiences for their own good?
  - PavlovsCat 12y ago
    Not poor, just less shiny, and even that mostly at first. That is, if everybody used the stuff regardless of it being less shiny, a lot more development would flow into it, and it might even end up just as shiny. It's a bit of a chicken/egg thing.
    - seanmcdirmid 12y ago
      Many idealist developers brush off well designed and feature rich artifacts as shiny because they simply just don't get it and never will. So having users use a "less shiny" but more "ideal" artifact isn't going to magically make it better; the developer is still oblivious.
      - PavlovsCat 12y ago
        Yeah, but I don't, and I don't see how that follows from what I said either. I was actually more thinking of things like old Opera vs. the current minimalistic trend in browsers - "shiny" to me has nothing to do with features, and in the worst case features even get sacrificed for shinyness. If two things have the same functionality, the more "shiny" one wins, obviously. But that wasn't what I was talking about at all; I have nothing against beauty, but form should follow function, and function should be king.
        seanmcdirmid 12y ago
        Unless you can define "the shiny" as anything more than a self-constructed pejorative, your argument lacks substance. What is the shininess? Why is it worthless? Why are users still attracted to it even though its worthless? Believe it or not, people are actually kind of rational, and pick product A over B for some real reason. Usually B, if feature equivalent or even feature advanced of A, has a hideous UX (command line, really?) and/or visual design (e.g. ugly fake chrome). It might also not be up to date on what is in fashion, but we don't buy unfashionable cars either unless we are going for something retro (part of our culture); consider that "the shiny" at your own peril.
- afarrell 12y ago
  Unfortunately, education is itself a massively hard problem. that, and you are trying to teach people to avoid something that greatly improves their lives on moral principles. The only tool I know for doing that is threatening them with eternal torture.
- comex 12y ago
  I think a more realistic solution is to educate developers to prioritize making open shiny. After all, Gmail may have its problems, especially recently with Google+, but it interoperates with every other email service (and until recently, Jabber client) and is relatively easy to move off of; for most of its 10 years of existence, I'd say it had a positive role in keeping people using email. It's far, far better than something like Twitter where the platform owner has absolute control and can censor tweets or arbitrarily crack down on third party clients. Similarly, while App.net didn't exactly replace Twitter, I think I think its emphasis on encouraging people to write independent clients for it was very healthy for it (and while some of those clients were proprietary, proprietary native clients for open platforms are far less bad than proprietary platforms). Why didn't tent.io try to launch with spiffy clients? To be honest, I don't think it's as much that open can't be shiny as that creating a social platform without an existing userbase to leverage is nearly impossible - most closed platforms fail too. And I think most developers know that shiny is necessary - it's just that there isn't enough motivation and enthusiasm. But it's unreasonable to expect anyone to use your platform if you're not going to spend enough engineering effort on it...

by dror 12y ago

Which is one of the reasons major communication systems should be distributed and standards based like email, rather than proprietary and run by a single company.

GuiA 12y ago

The problem is that in the short term, it is trivial for a well funded private company to offer a better product in the eyes of the end user (eg. GMail when it came out over every other open source mail system). The only solution to that problem that I can think of is to better educate the end user, and to make them see that even though company X's shiny product seems better right now, in the long term there is everything to lose by using their communication systems. That's a hard fight though.

seanmcdirmid 12y ago
In other words, we need to train end users how to accept poor user experiences for their own good?
- PavlovsCat 12y ago
  Not poor, just less shiny, and even that mostly at first. That is, if everybody used the stuff regardless of it being less shiny, a lot more development would flow into it, and it might even end up just as shiny. It's a bit of a chicken/egg thing.
  - seanmcdirmid 12y ago
    Many idealist developers brush off well designed and feature rich artifacts as shiny because they simply just don't get it and never will. So having users use a "less shiny" but more "ideal" artifact isn't going to magically make it better; the developer is still oblivious.
    - PavlovsCat 12y ago
      Yeah, but I don't, and I don't see how that follows from what I said either. I was actually more thinking of things like old Opera vs. the current minimalistic trend in browsers - "shiny" to me has nothing to do with features, and in the worst case features even get sacrificed for shinyness. If two things have the same functionality, the more "shiny" one wins, obviously. But that wasn't what I was talking about at all; I have nothing against beauty, but form should follow function, and function should be king.
      - seanmcdirmid 12y ago
        Unless you can define "the shiny" as anything more than a self-constructed pejorative, your argument lacks substance. What is the shininess? Why is it worthless? Why are users still attracted to it even though its worthless? Believe it or not, people are actually kind of rational, and pick product A over B for some real reason. Usually B, if feature equivalent or even feature advanced of A, has a hideous UX (command line, really?) and/or visual design (e.g. ugly fake chrome). It might also not be up to date on what is in fashion, but we don't buy unfashionable cars either unless we are going for something retro (part of our culture); consider that "the shiny" at your own peril.
afarrell 12y ago
Unfortunately, education is itself a massively hard problem. that, and you are trying to teach people to avoid something that greatly improves their lives on moral principles. The only tool I know for doing that is threatening them with eternal torture.
comex 12y ago
I think a more realistic solution is to educate developers to prioritize making open shiny. After all, Gmail may have its problems, especially recently with Google+, but it interoperates with every other email service (and until recently, Jabber client) and is relatively easy to move off of; for most of its 10 years of existence, I'd say it had a positive role in keeping people using email. It's far, far better than something like Twitter where the platform owner has absolute control and can censor tweets or arbitrarily crack down on third party clients. Similarly, while App.net didn't exactly replace Twitter, I think I think its emphasis on encouraging people to write independent clients for it was very healthy for it (and while some of those clients were proprietary, proprietary native clients for open platforms are far less bad than proprietary platforms). Why didn't tent.io try to launch with spiffy clients? To be honest, I don't think it's as much that open can't be shiny as that creating a social platform without an existing userbase to leverage is nearly impossible - most closed platforms fail too. And I think most developers know that shiny is necessary - it's just that there isn't enough motivation and enthusiasm. But it's unreasonable to expect anyone to use your platform if you're not going to spend enough engineering effort on it...