[HN Gopher] The Rise of User-Hostile Software (2021)
___________________________________________________________________
The Rise of User-Hostile Software (2021)
Author : rolph
Score : 218 points
Date : 2022-12-23 17:56 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (den.dev)
(TXT) w3m dump (den.dev)
| holyknight wrote:
| No, almost all users don't even know what they want. So sadly if
| you want to appeal to a large audience you need to put guardrails
| everywhere so user don't fck up and then sue you or make you a
| hell PR campaign. You can only have the luxury of giving user
| freedom when you appeal to a niche market, your userbase is savvy
| and they have ownership on what day do on your app (if they fck
| up they won't blame your for it)
| doug_durham wrote:
| I think there are a couple of nuggets of useful information in
| this article, but most of it is asking more a more developer
| friendly future, not a user centered future. The reason there are
| apps to control your keyboard color is that's what people want.
| They don't want the specs of the SPI interface so that they can
| program their own daemon to talk to it. The reason that different
| HID device vendors don't share the same app is "why would they
| ever". Why would you go through the trouble to create the
| "Universal HID LED color Consortium" with the associated meetings
| and hack fests to insure interoperability?
| kazinator wrote:
| A lot of the bullet points actually revolve around hostile
| hardware.
| myth2018 wrote:
| > "software that doesn't really care about the needs of the user
| but rather about the needs of the developer."
|
| Shall we not forget the software that only cares about aesthetic
| aspirations of its UX designers
| shmerl wrote:
| I'd add to the point of respecting user choices a requirement to
| be able to update firmware in your piece of hardware without the
| need for using Windows. If vendors don't want to support every
| OS, let them make an UEFI bootable image for firmware updating
| that's not tied to any OS.
| the__alchemist wrote:
| I like how the article brings attention to this issue, and I
| especially like its list of examples of hostile behavior. The
| actionable-advice part it transitions to is a bit odd,
| culminating at the list of the bottom of what to do as an
| engineer and project manager. It reads to me something like:
|
| " Hey bandits! Do this: - Don't mug people
| - Be ethical - Treat people with respect -
| Threatening bodily injury and death is bad too! - Instead
| of robbing banks, earn money through an occupation "
| emodendroket wrote:
| Plus, like, OK, imagine I'm an engineer. "I don't think
| customers would like this feature. In fact I think it's against
| their interests." "We appreciate your concern, but we've judged
| that this feature actually benefits customers, so please
| implement as specified." Discussion over.
| barnabee wrote:
| Quit. "I was just doing my job" stops being an excuse at some
| point...
| salawat wrote:
| If Software Engineers operated at parity with other
| Engineering fields, the conversation could be quite
| different.
|
| "I will not sign off on your design as specified. Change the
| design, or Do Not Operate". Any attempts to implement and
| operate without sign off will be reported to the authorities,
| because the Public's Interest, and my continued licensure are
| more important than your empire building."
|
| At this point, I think I'll suffer the burden of licensure to
| keep unethical groups/impls in check.
| jbay808 wrote:
| In Canada, if you have a P. Eng, you can do that (and, in
| fact, must).
|
| (I don't know how many software developers have P. Engs
| though. The regulators try to extend the coverage of their
| regulation to encompass software and tech, but at the same
| time ignore a lot of tech companies and workers operating
| without license. They also tend to write rules with an
| implicit assumption that all engineers are working in big
| utilities or mining companies, making it very hard for tech
| workers to jump through those hoops and get licensed.)
| /rant
| alexhsamuel wrote:
| Exactly this. It's now "industry standard" to mug people; why
| should I swear your Hippocratic oath when everyone else is
| getting rich? Instead of asking developers (the organizations,
| not the individuals) to mend their ways, we users need to take
| action to defend ourselves.
|
| - Education. People who didn't use computers in the earlier age
| of full user agency might not even imagine a world where they
| fully control their devices.
|
| - Advertising. One should not be allowed to advertise "selling"
| something without handing over full control.
|
| - Law. Shrink-wrap licenses should be neutered, software
| patents limited, DMCA abolished; these are legal moats around
| developers' power.
|
| - Technology. Open software, open hardware, open data, self-
| hostable services.
|
| - Platforms. It's time to treat software as hostile by default,
| the way an Internet connection is now de facto hostile. The OS
| needs to be hardened not only against hackers, but also against
| developers.
|
| These are vague generalities, not concrete suggestions, and
| there are huge obstacles to each. Perhaps others have useful
| suggestions.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| > why should I swear your Hippocratic oath when everyone else
| is getting rich?
|
| One must cultivate one's own garden.
| revolvingocelot wrote:
| Yeah, really. That said, anything that advances cultural
| acknowledgement of banditry is a good thing. Right now people
| are walking around with titles like Senior Stagecoach
| Divestiture Specialist and everyone pretends that it's normal.
| scottLobster wrote:
| Fun piece of history regarding business ethics, the mass-
| unionization of West Virginia coal mines occurred after the mass-
| unionization of coal mines in other regions. Part of the reason
| the unionization effort in West Virginia was so fanatical was
| that part of the deal the unions struck with the mine owners in
| other regions was that they would unionize West Virginia as fast
| as possible, otherwise the newly unionized coal mines in other
| regions couldn't compete with cheaper, non-unionized West
| Virginia coal miners.
|
| Point being, the playing field must be level for ethical business
| to exist. If you try to act ethically on your own you will lose
| to a less ethical (but still legal) competitor. Sure if you're
| dominant enough or niche enough you can get away with being
| ethical, but if you have hard competition, good luck. You'll
| maintain your virtue, and they'll maintain their profits, and
| we'll see who's still around in 5 years.
|
| Granted it is possible to overstep and cause a customer revolt,
| but hoping your competition is that stupid is not an effective
| strategy.
| [deleted]
| cortesoft wrote:
| Yep, this is what is known as a Collective Action Problem
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collective_action_problem): even
| if every individual would prefer if all businesses behaved
| ethically, the rational decision for each individual is to
| behave unethically.
|
| This is why I get frustrated with people who say we should
| influence businesses with our wallet, by choosing not to shop
| at stores who behave badly.
|
| However, my individual buying choice won't make any difference;
| for example, if I hate Walmart, my only two choices are to not
| shop there and not get the benefit of the cheaper prices, but
| still have Walmart around doing bad things, or I can shop there
| and get the better prices, and Walmart is still around doing
| bad things. My individual choice does not change whether
| Walmart is around or not, but it DOES have a big effect on how
| much money I save. There is no rational reason to pay more when
| there is no benefit. My individual spending is not even a blip
| on their bottom line.
|
| Of course, I would be willing to pay more if it meant the type
| of abuses that Walmart does would stop, but that is not the
| choice I am given.
| scottLobster wrote:
| Yeah, it's also why I stopped feeling guilty about driving a
| ICE car and not choosing the more expensive renewable
| supplier option on my power bill. At the end of the day I'm
| not so rich that I can afford to make inefficient sacrifices.
| My kids' college funds still need filling, sourcing my power
| from coal/natural gas means thousands of dollars in those
| funds over the years that wouldn't otherwise be there.
|
| Or I can make a negligible dent in global carbon emissions
| and my kids can take on thousands extra in student loans. I'm
| happy to do my part when we're all (or at least most of us)
| playing the same game, but I have too many people directly
| relying on me to be an ineffective martyr.
|
| Back in 2016 I read a "human interest" story about some
| janitor who saved his pennies for months, keeping track with
| an excel spreadsheet, so he could make a multi-hundred dollar
| donation to Hillary Clinton's campaign. The article was
| clearly trying to frame this as some noble sacrifice from
| someone who doesn't have much to begin with, I just saw a
| poor person getting fleeced by an aristocrat, and she lost
| anyway.
| godelski wrote:
| I think something difficult about this is that a big
| component depends on how much we weigh future outcomes.
| Obviously too much future weight is not good because we do
| a lot of harm now ("for the greater good" utilitarian
| philosophy has done extraordinary damage to our world) but
| also hyper focusing on the now too does substantial harm
| (existential threats like climate change can be traced to
| these effects). It also depends how we weigh collective
| actions vs individual. I do not think there is a correct
| answer here, at least one we can measure or define in a
| meaningful way, despite how much passion we have for
| certain views.
|
| But I also agree with your main message, that it is hard to
| encourage collective action if we are not willing to first
| go after the main contributors to the problem. Individuals
| who contribute to the problem several magnitudes above the
| median individual (e.g. independently, Gates and Musk both
| produced more emissions than the median American, in a
| single week, purely do to their aviation admissions). We
| get mad at those who are above the law, and it is
| unsurprising that we would be mad at those who are above
| our moral codes. How can we have collective action while we
| let hundreds or thousands of people like this persist in
| their actions?
| godelski wrote:
| > This is why I get frustrated with people who say we should
| influence businesses with our wallet, by choosing not to shop
| at stores who behave badly.
|
| The reason I get upset with this is because the world is so
| complicated that it is really difficult to determine if
| something is ethical or not. Or rather, which options are the
| most ethical (the world is so complex that nothing is
| completely ethical, so I think we should make an analogy to
| harm reduction. There will almost always be harm and if we
| seek zero harm through purity testing, we give advantage to
| those that do the most harm). While I agree that we should
| vote with our wallets to put pressure on the market, it is
| clearly not enough. It never will be enough because we can't
| peer behind the curtain and no one really knows how to make a
| pencil[0]. If no one knows how to make a pencil, then it
| follows that no one knows if pencil making is ethical to
| begin with, let alone pencil usage. I think what we must do
| instead is be willing to have these complex and nuanced
| conversations without religious vigor and instead make sure
| our passion to advocate for or against a system is
| proportionate to the time we are willing to put in to
| learning about the complexities of said system.
|
| [0] https://fee.org/resources/i-pencil/
| AlbertCory wrote:
| > Of course, I would be willing to pay more if it meant the
| type of abuses that Walmart does would stop, but that is not
| the choice I am given.
|
| Are there no small, family-run businesses you could
| patronize, since you said you're willing to pay more?
| cortesoft wrote:
| You are missing the point... if I shop at a small, more
| expensive, family run shop, it means I spend more on my
| shopping and Walmart still exists with all the problems
| that entails.
|
| Me choosing to shop somewhere else is not even a rounding
| error in Walmarts profits. My choice will not bring about
| any change, but it will hurt me.
|
| I said I was willing to make the sacrifice IF IT MEANT
| WALMART WASN'T AROUND ANY MORE. I am not willing to make
| the sacrifice if it doesn't do any good.
| AlbertCory wrote:
| I'm not missing any point, but you're missing one:
|
| I'm pointing out that you don't rule the world, and
| Walmart will exist whatever you do. Some people seem to
| like it.
|
| Your only other option is to lobby publicly for the
| changes you favor.
| cortesoft wrote:
| You are still missing my point. I know very well that
| Walmart will exist no matter where I shop; that is
| exactly my point. My individual decision will not change
| anything in regards to Walmarts existence or actions.
|
| My only choice is whether I get to enjoy the cheap prices
| Walmart offers; you say "some people seem to like it",
| and I am clearly agreeing... everyone likes cheaper
| prices! I hate the way Walmart treats its workers, but I
| love the cheap prices... so I either shop there and get
| the cheap prices or I pay more to shop somewhere else,
| but either way the workers are going to be treated the
| same way. Given that, why wouldn't I choose to shop
| there? If they are going to be abusing their workers no
| matter what I do, I might as well at least get cheap
| prices.
|
| And that is why "the free market" will never stop the
| types of abuses that Walmart commits.
|
| Your last sentence is EXACTLY WHAT I AM ARGUING FOR. I am
| saying if we want to change Walmarts behavior, we can
| ONLY do it through legislation; we can't "vote with our
| wallet" and expect Walmart to change its behavior. We
| have to vote with our actual vote.
|
| My argument is with people who think we shouldn't
| regulate businesses because we can use our wallet to
| change them; I am saying we can't use our wallet for all
| the reasons I laid out.
| Xylakant wrote:
| But also, at the same time, the small ethical run
| business is more likely to survive, keeping the option
| open for other people to join you. Walmart will still be
| around doing unethical things, but some people will have
| an ethical place to work at or shop at.
| cortesoft wrote:
| > But also, at the same time, the small ethical run
| business is more likely to survive
|
| This isn't really true, either, though. Even a small mom-
| and-pop shop won't be kept in business by a single
| customer choosing to shop there. Unless we are talking
| about a speciality shop that only has a few customers,
| one customer is never going to make or break a retailer.
|
| Now, of course you can argue "yeah, but if 50 other
| people do the same thing then the store will survive!",
| which is true, but again, my choice doesn't really change
| anything. My choice to shop there or not doesn't have any
| affect on the other 49 people, and if the store would
| survive with 50 customers, it will survive with 49. My
| choice doesn't matter to either store.
| yunwal wrote:
| This is absurd to me. Of course your choice matters to
| the mom and pop store. Just because you can't single-
| handedly keep a mom and pop hardware store, grocery
| store, and bookstore afloat on your income doesn't mean
| they don't benefit from your business.
|
| It's just good ethics hygiene. And shopping at locally-
| owned stores always pays off in the long run. You meet
| interesting people who actually care about where they
| live and their neighbors.
| ethanbond wrote:
| This was also a specific argument FDR made in the fireside
| chats against child labor: ethical business owners who try not
| to use child labor are being put out of business by those who
| do, so we need to step in and correct the market to allow for
| the ethical to compete with the unethical.
|
| Edit: As a brief aside the Fireside Chats are pretty remarkable
| pieces of public communication. I just can't imagine a public
| leader speaking with such a blend of clarity, compassion, and
| force as what he did. They're not particularly shallow or short
| on details, either! He spoke like an adult to a nation of
| adults - really refreshing.
| api wrote:
| It also works today for tariffs against goods manufactured
| using overseas slave and near slave labor.
|
| "Imported totalitarianism" is the new child labor and
| slavery.
| hansel_der wrote:
| point beeing that self regulating markets are a lie
| largepeepee wrote:
| Another way to put it is, the endgame of unregulated
| markets are monopolies.
| hannasanarion wrote:
| the endgame of _for-profit companies_ in unregulated
| markets are monopolies.
|
| Cutting corners and monopolizing makes sense for a
| business when absentee profit-seeking owners are the ones
| calling the shots and taking the spoils.
|
| An alternative corporate structure where decision-makers
| have different incentives coughsoughworkerco-ops might
| choose different and less destructive behavior in the
| same free market.
| IG_Semmelweiss wrote:
| The endgame for any living being is maximize return for
| as minimal effort.
|
| This is not true for just "unregulated markets".
|
| Regulated markets operate the same way, see: Banks.
| Credit Cards. Healthcare insurance by state.
|
| But that's why we have laws specifically to break up
| anticompetitive behavior. The problem is they are not
| properly written and leave a lot up to discretion.
| lostlogin wrote:
| > The endgame for any living being is maximize return for
| as minimal effort.
|
| I'm a cynical person but this is way beyond what I think.
| You don't have to go far to see counter examples where
| someone has done something pretty great for which they
| get little return but spent a lot of effort. Skimming the
| front page on HN today has some examples.
|
| The examples I found: the WLED link, the large format
| camera blog post and the thing about Tolkien.
| CPLX wrote:
| Sort of. The end game is more what I would call a mafia
| state. Localized monopolies in constant conflict but also
| loose cooperation with each other. Your ability to
| survive and thrive depends on being in the favor of the
| most relevant oligarch.
| jazzyjackson wrote:
| unless, of course, you consider the government a player in
| the market as opposed to an outside force
| akomtu wrote:
| It's not a lie. It just says that under any set of
| constraints you define, a free market will arrange itself
| in the optimal way. The market, by itself, is blind, and
| its optimal state is as good as your constraints. Under no
| constraints, the most efficient "eigenfunction" of the
| market is one uber monopoly.
| nine_k wrote:
| There is an idea that sheer market forces should push things
| towards being honest and pleading to the user. If a customer
| buys rotten stuff in a store A, next time the customer goes to
| another store (B, C, D,..), and tells friends that store A is
| no good. If store A continues to mistreat its customers, it
| goes out of business.
|
| But this only works when the customer has some reasonable
| choice. If store A is the only store in town, it will have
| customers, no matter how bad it is.
|
| With a lot of daily-use software, there is a network effect:
| you have to use it because everybody else uses it, and you need
| to interoperate. Here choice wanes, and you're stuck with the
| same 2-3 choices. Each of the mega-businesses can inconvenience
| you, or screw you over, but you have little to gain by
| switching to a competitor, if it even exists.
|
| Google and Microsoft are AT&T and Standard Oil of our day.
| wpietri wrote:
| That is a good example of why ethical businesses should support
| regulation.
|
| Another one is the capital markets. The most popular stock
| markets tend to be the most highly regulated both internally
| (that is, by the markets themselves) and by government (e.g.,
| the SEC). Why? Because strong regulation enables consumer
| trust. Look at all the foreign companies that list on the NYSE,
| for example: https://www.nyse.com/listings/international-
| listings
|
| Smart businesses support things like standards, certifications,
| and good regulations so that they are competing in a fair arena
| and don't have to compromise on their principles.
| subradios wrote:
| Unethical business also supports regulation, the vape
| industry has been handed to RJ Reynolds due to regulations
| that ban all vapes that would be competitive with Vuse.
|
| Businesses support regulation if it gives them a permanent,
| competitive advantage over potential competitors.
|
| Child labor laws hurt my ability to pay for college and
| advance my career, and it also destroys mom and pop shops,
| because the school system has to give the 15 year old kid a
| permission slip to help stock shelves or open up shop.
|
| That's not to say we shouldn't have them, but child labor
| laws were primarily about children being exposed to the
| nature of industrial manufacturing work circa 1930 - not
| anything to do with today and thus using them as an analogy
| for other incentives problems (especially when solving them
| creates a principal agent problem) is misguided.
| Avshalom wrote:
| >>not anything to do with today
|
| Only because it's still illegal today.
| BlueTemplar wrote:
| At 15 years old, you are not a kid any more.
|
| Chimney sweepers used (often sold to them) boys, 5 to 10
| years old (sometimes as young as 3) to climb in the
| chimneys to clean them (quite dangerous work).
|
| A minimum age of 14 (then 16) was put into place in 1834,
| and started to be enforced in 1875.
|
| (Note that this might have taken much longer if innovators
| hadn't been lobbying for child-free technics to do it.)
| RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote:
| This exact thing is why I am not happy about Apple being forced
| by the EU to allow alternative app stores. The Apple App Store
| has served to mitigate some of the worse excesses and privacy
| abuses by various apps and social media sites.
|
| Now that there is a way apps can reach the coveted iPhone user
| demographic without having to go through Apple's strict privacy
| review, I fear that apps will slowly migrate their
| functionality/offer discounts for using alternative stores and
| will increase their abuse of user data.
| simion314 wrote:
| >This exact thing is why I am not happy about Apple being
| forced by the EU to allow alternative app stores. The Apple
| App Store has served to mitigate some of the worse excesses
| and privacy abuses by various apps and social media sites.
|
| Since USA is not part of EU, and USA is a giant market then I
| assume that USA citizens have no reason to get scared by your
| FUD, and if you are from EU and want the wall garden I am
| sure Apple will let you opt in in the USA version of the
| store.
| AequitasOmnibus wrote:
| This is such a spot on observation. But the incentives aren't
| there for business competitors to self-regulate in an ethical
| manner.
|
| That's why we as users (and yes, we're all users to various
| degrees) should push for more robust regulation. If, as you
| correctly note, most competitors are only going to operate in
| the legal-but-unethical space, change the law until the legal
| avenue and the ethical avenue are the same.
|
| The libertarians will come out of the woodwork to say more
| regulation is not the answer, but when it comes to
| alternatives, watch the real world examples of "unregulated
| ethical businesses" melt away into the realm of the
| theoretical.
| hammock wrote:
| > watch the real world examples of "unregulated ethical
| businesses" melt away into the realm of the theoretical
|
| Try an example of a regulated ethical business. Exxon?
| Verizon? Amazon? Nestle? UnitedHealth Group? Pfizer? General
| Motors? DuPont?
|
| Regulation is just as much a pipe dream as libertarianism
| godelski wrote:
| Regulation of these specific companies has saved many
| lives. We've reduced lead in gasoline which has increased
| IQ, decreased violence, and improved average well-being. We
| can find similar effects in each of these markets. While I
| agree that none of these markets act in a purely ethical
| manner it is hard to argue that regulation didn't reduce
| harm that these companies were causing prior to the
| regulation. If we perform purity tests we just give
| advantages to those doing the most harm as we squabble
| about the impossibility of doing no harm in a vastly
| complex and interconnected world. Instead, focus on harm
| reduction, which we can continually perform and converge
| towards a more perfect solution rather than requiring that
| we go all in or not at all.
| hammock wrote:
| Deregulation has saved lives just as regulation has. How
| many millions have been brought out of poverty and saved
| from starvation during the globalist revolution? My point
| is that regulation is not a panacea and sounds great in
| theory, just like free markets sound great in theory to
| others. An open mind and a flexible approach are
| warranted
| rqtwteye wrote:
| "An open mind and a flexible approach are warranted"
|
| Of course. You can't just blindly follow an ideology but
| you have to constantly think about the proper balance of
| all factors. Overregulation is not good and neither is
| underregulation.
| alexhsamuel wrote:
| Now try imagining those businesses in a world without
| regulation.
|
| No one has suggested that regulation will produce ethical
| business. The proposal is to impose regulation to limit the
| unethical behavior of business, which is something quite
| different.
| hammock wrote:
| > Now try imagining those businesses in a world without
| regulation.
|
| You've brought us back to the theoretical world we were
| trying to avoid...
| fragmede wrote:
| Unless you're allergic to the entire concept of modern
| banking, I think most credit unions would apply. Local
| restaurants run by good people also would also seem to
| count.
| rqtwteye wrote:
| Regulation reduces unethical behavior in the same way that
| laws reduce things like people killing each other. They
| don't eliminate bad behavior 100% but they reduce it by a
| lot. I grew up in the 70s and I can tell you what positive
| impact environmental regulation had on the world. It's not
| perfect but without these rules nothing would have
| happened. Big business fight every little step tooth and
| nail.
| hammock wrote:
| > I grew up in the 70s and I can tell you what positive
| impact environmental regulation had on the world. It's
| not perfect but without these rules nothing would have
| happened.
|
| I grew up in East Germany and I can tell you what
| positive impact free markets had on my country. It's not
| perfect but without these freedoms nothing would have
| happened
| rqtwteye wrote:
| I am from the West! Markets certainly had a positive
| impact on the East but regulations also had a positive
| impact. You need both and constantly have to work on
| finding a good balance.
| mrighele wrote:
| Free market doesn't mean unregulated market
| IG_Semmelweiss wrote:
| Unregulated market doesn't mean a market with no referees
| or judges to settle disputes.
| rqtwteye wrote:
| When you have judges and referees you need rules. How
| else would they make decisions?
| [deleted]
| trinsic2 wrote:
| I don't follow any particular political mindset. I watch
| patterns, and patterns in government regulation have shown me
| that there is just as much corruption in regulation as there
| is in businesses that are unethical.
|
| So I have doubts that regulation is the answer. I would be
| more comfortable with putting my support behind people or
| small organizations that actually care about the specifics of
| this, then with 90% of politicians that mostly want to stay
| in power, and benefit off of their political position.
| [deleted]
| bytesandwich wrote:
| If all these products are so low quality, why do they sell? Do
| all these businesses have monopolies?
|
| Is it possible that we on Hacker news are out of touch with
| regular users who _prefer_ cloud accounts because they can't
| maintain a NAS array to store their own dashcam footage?
|
| Maybe people prefer low cost apps that include ads to higher cost
| apps without ads?
|
| That said, the subscription pricing thing IMHO is predatory, like
| gambling.
| mlpinit wrote:
| thread in 2021 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28291478
| dang wrote:
| Thanks! Macroexpanded:
|
| _The rise of user-hostile software_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28291478 - Aug 2021 (283
| comments)
| knolan wrote:
| Another form of user hostile software is software that is
| deliberately and inexplicably complex. I'm thinking specifically
| of 'professional' engineering tools.
|
| Simulation and CAD software that comes in a multi gigabyte
| installations, for no obvious reason other than to justify the
| price, clunky user interfaces (often as a result of glueing
| together acquired software from a competitor) seemingly to up
| sell training, and awkward licensing terms (one license per CPU
| core!)
| plonk wrote:
| > software that comes in a multi gigabyte installations, for no
| obvious reason other than to justify the price
|
| In my experience, it's more laziness in the face of dependency
| hell. You integrate N big projects with different dependencies,
| hacked-together CMake modules with hard-coded paths and other
| mistakes, by copy-pasting several installs full of DLLs with
| different versions, and you end up with 10x the size you could
| have had. Or you can spend weeks on making a common build
| system with shared deps, and ship nothing of value in the
| meantime. Guess which one I'd rather show my manager.
|
| > awkward licensing terms (one license per CPU core!)
|
| For a workstation and an honest user maybe, but if you don't
| limit CPU cores, a user could simply deploy your software on a
| huge compute server and make it available to N users. Price per
| CPU makes sense in that case.
| ChewFarceSkunk wrote:
| Should also mention online-only installers a la vs_buildtools
| from MS and a whole lot vendors more.
|
| Want an offline installer? Easy peasy, just
|
| - find one in a cobweb-covered thread in an obscure subforum on a
| vendor's site;
|
| - manually compile a list of thousands of workloads your build
| tools would need, including optional ones, and create an offline
| installer yourself - using another machine that still has to be
| online - which will fail anyway if your target machine happens to
| be _really offline_ ;
|
| - be told to basically GTFO for being an outmoded Luddite who
| opposes The Progress.
| vetinari wrote:
| It is hidden, but it is there:
| vs_buildtools.exe --layout
| c:\where\you\want\the\entire\installer --lang en-US
|
| Have enoughh space there, current 2019 release is ~40 GB and
| 2022 is ~35 GB. It is updated each month, you can use the same
| command to update your installer (won't remove old packages
| though).
| ChewFarceSkunk wrote:
| Been there, done that, stopped updating when the layout got
| around 52 Gb. Decided to download only relevant workloads,
| which proved to be a failure on each reinstallation, even
| with all the recommended and optional workloads included as
| per MS docs...
| dijit wrote:
| as a person who worked a lot in isolated environments, this was
| really frustrating.
|
| from google chrome to visual studio: loads of software is
| extremely difficult to install offline
| einpoklum wrote:
| Take that as a hint to avoid installing such software.
| MarkSweep wrote:
| I remember both of these programs you mention not being that
| hard to install offline.
|
| https://support.google.com/chrome/answer/95346
|
| https://learn.microsoft.com/visualstudio/install/create-
| an-o...
|
| The main challenge with VS is trimming languages and features
| you don't need. But if you don't care about size you can just
| download everything. And it has support for incrementally
| updating the installer and pruning obsolete packages.
| dijit wrote:
| I remember searching the internet for 25 minutes for each
| of them after discovering (annoyingly) that the installer
| that is given is not actually going to work offline. The
| ones you link work, but you really must _search_ for it;
| its not presented as an easy to find option at all.
|
| which is not my default expectation possibly because I was
| raised in the late 80s/early 90s.
| lern_too_spel wrote:
| Or just use open source software if you want developer incentives
| to be aligned with users instead of fruitlessly asking developers
| of proprietary software to go against their incentives.
| sneak wrote:
| Sadly this is not sufficient. Tools like the Netlify CLI,
| Mattermost, Bitwarden, and NetData are all open source, but
| will all still spy on you.
|
| Good luck getting patches accepted upstream that remove such
| malware features.
| twojacobtwo wrote:
| Source on the bitwarden claim? I've been using it for a while
| and would like to know for sure if I should switch.
| Karunamon wrote:
| Probably referring to telemetry, the only thing I can find
| is an old, now resolved issue that was brought in thanks to
| a dependency on MS SQL on the server side:
| https://github.com/bitwarden/server/issues/286
| lern_too_spel wrote:
| It is absolutely sufficient because open source provides a
| quick and easy remedy -- fork. I use Vaultwarden. No spying.
| sneak wrote:
| I meant the client.
|
| Open source does not provide a remedy, as without an Apple
| Developer account I can't run a forked client easily.
| lern_too_spel wrote:
| The problem you have is from using a proprietary user-
| hostile operating system, not the open source software.
|
| The Bitwarden client on F-Droid has no telemetry at all,
| not even to opt into. https://github.com/bitwarden/mobile
| /issues/649#issuecomment-...
| [deleted]
| citizenpaul wrote:
| A huge number of those examples is for a reason that makes my
| skin crawl every time I think about it.
|
| Your privacy is simply too valuable to allow you to keep it.
| college_physics wrote:
| User-hostile software strategy #13
|
| Force users to update apps even if they dont want to and with
| each update introduce hidden new privacy flags set at your
| desired default option, guessing correctly that the average user
| will likely miss it
| ChewFarceSkunk wrote:
| Also never mention those flags anywhere in docs, which are
| shambles anyway in regard of everything beyond the _" I'm a
| power user, I promise I know what I'm doing"_ banner.. And
| there are literally hundreds of such flags in e.g. every modern
| browser.
| _Algernon_ wrote:
| Don't forget (re)installing third party software which the user
| has explicitly uninstalled[1] and resetting default app
| configurations for no reason[2]. Windows is malware.
|
| [1]:
| https://www.reddit.com/r/assholedesign/comments/s31m8o/micro...
|
| [2]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30055222
| robertoandred wrote:
| DMGs are not binaries...
| renjimen wrote:
| This is all a result of short termism. Short term profits from
| dark behaviours trump long term profits from satisfied customers.
| Why is this behaviour of publicly traded companies surprising to
| anyone? It's not unique to software either.
|
| It's the economic system that needs to change, not the devs.
| jacooper wrote:
| 100%, I think its really time for regulations. I applaud the
| EU's recent regulations for tech, especially the digital
| markets act.
| holyknight wrote:
| Yeah, EU is really a thriving market for tech and innovation
| right?
| yunwal wrote:
| I would personally give up the "thriving" market if it
| meant software was developed with users interests in mind.
| Much of the tech growth in the U.S. doesn't actually result
| in higher quality of life in the long run
| PeterisP wrote:
| The point of these regulations is acknowledging and
| asserting that users (and people in general) matter more
| than a thriving market for tech and innovation - yes, user-
| hostile software benefits the market, but that's a cost we
| aren't willing to pay.
| samarthr1 wrote:
| > Be ethical. This is the most straightforward
|
| That is probably the hardest piece of advice to follow. The
| temptation to cut corners in subtle manners can get really
| strong.
| TheRealPomax wrote:
| Not to mention that it's not just "be ethical", it's "instill
| ethics in others, too", because you don't inherit clean
| software that you then ruin. You inherit ruined software that
| you can, at best, clean back up over the course of years.
| nonrandomstring wrote:
| > instill ethics in others
|
| Yes very much. Bare ethics, like monatomic hydrogen, doesn't
| exist in "room temperature" reality. It's relational. There
| have to be two of you. Technologies that destroy the
| relational undermine ethics because all consequences are
| divided through by infinity.
| godelski wrote:
| Not just that, but there can be lots of unintended
| consequences. I think mistakes are okay, but handwaving this
| away as simple does more harm. It gives us a false sense of
| security when the "be ethical" advice really means that we need
| to constantly be asking ourselves various questions.
| aiisahik wrote:
| There is always going to be financial incentives to do User-
| Hostile stuff. Collecting user data to market to them and
| increase LTV is a no brainer for most product / general managers.
|
| There is a market solution to counter the financial motive of
| making User-Hostile software: Make the lack User-Hostile software
| a MARKETED FEATURE.
|
| - It should be promoted on product description details
|
| - Hardware review sites should actively make note of it
|
| - There should be curated sites / lists that feature products
| that are not User-Hostile
|
| - There should be a certification body that has a logo that gets
| plastered on devices / software that has been certified.
|
| Don't blame the guys whose design products to maximize consumer
| LTV - they are just doing their jobs.
| alexhsamuel wrote:
| > Don't blame the guys whose design products to maximize
| consumer LTV - they are just doing their jobs.
|
| Mmmmm... how about oil and tobacco CEOs? How about patent
| trolls? How about actual professional criminals? Where do you
| draw the line?
| emodendroket wrote:
| These precepts don't do a whole lot to address the real reasons
| these things happen, which don't have a lot to do with "to hell
| with the customer -- we're deliberately going to do things that
| annoy them!"
| trinsic2 wrote:
| This is the reason why I switched to OSS[1] completely and only
| support (where I can) non-predatory SAAS. I'm not sure that its
| enough though...
|
| [1]: https://www.scottrlarson.com/publications/publication-
| transi...
| jacooper wrote:
| I try to do the same, but its simply not going to matter if the
| majority still uses big tech and falls for the dark patterns.
|
| thats why its really regulation who going to change this, and
| probably not any individual actions.
| einpoklum wrote:
| If a large enough minority use FOSS-only systems, and support
| their development (with donations of money and/or effort) -
| that is enough to prop up sound and capable alternatives
| which gradually attract users.
|
| Twenty years ago, it was rather difficult to suggest to
| clueless users to use a FOSS-based system. Today, it's quite
| realistic. Not everything is in an ideal state, but still.
| trinsic2 wrote:
| I was reading you comment and the obsidian note taking app
| came to mind in regards to how supporting foss makes an
| impact over time. Look at valve supporting Linux and look
| where we're at today with Linux gaming. I think you're
| right It makes a difference over time. Look at all the
| gamers using the steam deck. They don't even know the
| platform is based on foss. And that in and of it self has
| the impart to change where we are headed. The masses don't
| really need to know what is happening. They just benefit
| from the supports of foss
| bhauer wrote:
| > _Want to get data from inside a device onto your computer?
| Nope, it's not a mass storage device. You need to install another
| app, that will be used just for this one device, to sync things.
| The app inconspicuously asks for location access while at it, and
| eats 85% of your CPU at all times, even when idle._
|
| This one has to be an iPhone and iTunes. Absolutely nonsensical
| levels of obfuscation to getting data on and off. iPhones can't
| connect to network disks on the local network, they don't appear
| as mass storage devices if connected via USB, and the software
| they require--iTunes--is an absolute cluster. If only Android
| weren't its own complete disaster for different reasons.
| scarface74 wrote:
| You can connect a phone to a server using the built in Files
| App
|
| https://support.apple.com/guide/iphone/connect-external-devi...
|
| I haven't tried this
|
| https://helpdesk.macroplant.com/hc/en-us/articles/3600190272...
| npilk wrote:
| I find this trend particularly ironic as it has come about at the
| same time as an explosion in the popularity of "user-centered
| design". It seems like, especially on the web, more and more
| companies are telling themselves they care about the needs of
| their users, while at the same time designing more and more user-
| hostile experiences.
|
| I wrote more about this here: https://notes.npilk.com/radically-
| user-centered
| barnabee wrote:
| Strongly agree. A/B testing and equating time spent
| ("engagement") and/or money spent with user happiness have a
| lot to answer for.
| nonrandomstring wrote:
| Reading this again something new jumped out at me:
|
| > "I mean it as - software that doesn't really care about the
| needs of the user but rather about the needs of the developer."
|
| No. The "developer" is often as much a clueless victim and tool
| of other forces who misuse her work.
|
| Malware, in it's broadest sense, has become an industrial scale
| venture. Technological abuse exists at a system scale.
|
| In some ways that's positive, because developers and end-users,
| being much wiser in 2023 than in 1993 can unite against a common
| foe. But that won't be easy. The key lies in building relations
| between developers and end users that completely bypass the "at
| scale" bandits.
| wpietri wrote:
| > No. The "developer" is often as much a clueless victim and
| tool of other forces who misuse her work.
|
| Eh. It's implausible to me that we're simultaneously both
| highly paid geniuses and clueless tools.
|
| Fundamentally, I think we need to decide whether we are
| professionals or minions. Professionals being people who have
| not just a duty to the paycheck, but also to the profession and
| society at large. See, for example, the ACM/IEEE code of ethics
| for software: https://ethics.acm.org/code-of-ethics/software-
| engineering-c...
|
| If somebody wants to say, "Yup, I'm a minion, just going to
| build the volcano lair and the atomic rockets, and I'm not
| going to worry about where they'll come down," I will at least
| commend them for their honesty. But otherwise, I think we need
| to act like professionals and take responsibility for being
| clueful about the impacts of our work. Between the need for
| software and the rise of remote work, our negotiating power
| with employers has never been stronger. Let's use it for
| something beyond foosball tables.
| trinsic2 wrote:
| Yes. I think this is exactly the issue. We can't on one hand
| say we're cogs in a wheel, and on the other complain about
| the state that we are in. The choice begins with us. Don't
| work for companies that produce software that is unethical.
| Do what ever it takes.
| nonrandomstring wrote:
| > act like professionals and take responsibility for being
| clueful about the impacts of our work.
|
| Well said.
|
| I think there's a lot of work to do before we can even figure
| out what those impacts are and how to work in such a way as
| to minimise the harms. Something along the lines of a
| Hippocratic Oath to "do no harm".
| nonrandomstring wrote:
| > It's implausible to me that we're simultaneously both
| highly paid geniuses and clueless tools.
|
| It can happen to the best of us [1]. "" I
| spent thirty- three years and four months in active military
| service as a member of this country's most agile military
| force, the Marine Corps. I served in all
| commissioned ranks from Second Lieutenant to Major-
| General. And during that period, I spent most of my
| time being a high class muscle- man for Big Business, for
| Wall Street and for the Bankers. In short, I was a racketeer,
| a gangster for capitalism. "" - Gen. Smedley Butler
|
| [1] https://man.fas.org/smedley.htm
| fanso99 wrote:
| Honestly, that's not a great example. Re-evaluating your
| ethical impact on the world is not the same as
| understanding the direct consequences of your daily work.
| Both are important, but really different. After all we are
| not discussing some more abstract issues of modern software
| propagating capitalistic values (we are all "the system",
| etc, etc).
| trinsic2 wrote:
| > Honestly, that's not a great example. Re-evaluating
| your ethical impact on the world is not the same as
| understanding the direct consequences of your daily work.
| Both are important, but really different.
|
| Why does the difference matter again?
| fanso99 wrote:
| Because looking back at the decades of your work while
| being retired is just a sweet ethical exercise with very
| few direct personal and financial consequences.
|
| If you are an engineer employing dark UX patterns _today_
| you must look at yourself and evaluate the ethics of your
| work _today_. This will likely have direct personal and
| financial consequences.
|
| So the stakes are completely different.
| nonrandomstring wrote:
| I always took it that Butler underwent an epiphany after
| years of believing something else. Maybe it was a case of
| eyes wide open. Nonetheless your distinction stands and
| yes it's very significant. I wonder how many developers
| are being hoodwinked and how many are just not being very
| honest with themselves.
| fanso99 wrote:
| I might be wrong, but I always lean towards this being
| the result of prioritization. Most engineers know the
| difference but prioritize other aspects than ethical. I
| am not even judging that, just describing. After all,
| implementing a dark UX pattern that will inconvenience
| some unknown to you users is not as high priority as
| providing to your own family.
| horsawlarway wrote:
| This. None of this software is prioritizing the developer.
|
| It's prioritizing value extraction.
|
| It's capitalism in it's worst, most naked form. Advertising
| spend is worth more than a quality product - because we've
| inverted the classic information problem: Information is no
| longer scarce and valuable, it's flooding out everything and is
| mostly worthless noise.
|
| Making sensible, educated decisions becomes increasingly
| harder, and you're presented with an environment designed to
| cause choice paralysis until you finally cave and just buy the
| item at the top of list presented to you by
| Google/Amazon/Apple/Walmart/Etc.
|
| That item will be terrible, but it's paid the right protection
| money to the monopolies (sorry! advertising spend) to keep its
| spot.
|
| --- Can developers win in those situations? Sure - sometimes.
| But most times they're some poor contracting team paid literal
| peanuts to create this product, then immediately go through
| "staffing reductions" to the bare minimum needed for legally
| required product support. The developers are not the root cause
| of this - although they are also not absolved.
| kazinator wrote:
| Most software written will not be used. Nobody will buy it,
| or even download it if it is free. (Or even FOSS free.)
|
| The stuff people complain about is all the rest.
|
| But maybe the reason they are complaining about it has to do
| with how the purveyors figured out how to get it into
| people's hands. Enough hands to sustain the product.
|
| We can almost entirely blame this on the end users. Users
| vote for software and hardware with their purchase and use
| decisions.
|
| Whenever you have a problem with anything, you're a victim of
| the poor decision making of a million unsophisticated
| consumers who voted for that piece of crap to have the
| revenue stream and funding so that it garnered your attention
| too.
|
| Consumer behavior itself basically creates a barrier of entry
| to the existence of viable alternatives.
| trinsic2 wrote:
| It seems like a vicious circle to me. End-users are
| effected by the technology in society. TV, Facebook and
| TikTok plays a part in dumbing down people. Where does it
| start and where does it end?
|
| It seems like we need to create enclaves of positive
| potential to reboot humanity.
| dijit wrote:
| > No. The "developer" is often as much a clueless victim and
| tool of other forces who misuse her work.
|
| its reductive to assign or reject blame.
|
| "developer" is the same to the user, if its the product manager
| of the company, QA, the CEO or the person writing the code.
|
| it would be easy for me to point blame on the person writing
| code for a variety of reasons: because ultimately not pushing
| back on bad behaviour _is_ making their lives easier, see also:
| using electron, sticking in all the analytics systems under the
| sun, using framework du jour, etc.
|
| but i wont; in this context "developer" is the company that
| produced the software; not the individual: customers do not
| understand the distinction
| nonrandomstring wrote:
| I hear you dijit. In speaking to the HN crew I'm hoping that
| people understand what I mean by developer.
|
| TBH I never actually liked that word and have previously
| attacked it - or rather us using it about ourselves for the
| reasons you point to here... it's deflationary.
| fanso99 wrote:
| So then who is the abuser? The users and the developers are the
| victims. PMs are likely also the victims of their higher-ups,
| their higher-ups are the victims of the CEO, the CEO is the
| victim of the shareholders, the shareholders are... the users.
| So that's a full circle: the users are abusing themselves.
| [deleted]
| BlueTemplar wrote:
| "Everyone" is (at least potentially). That's also why I
| disagree that "voting with your wallet doesn't work" : it is
| part of the solution too !
| b0rat wrote:
| [dead]
| kmoser wrote:
| Flowchart says, "Did any user ask for this?"
|
| Even with an entire top-down team dedicated to serving the user
| and not corporate interests (which would be all but impossible,
| except in the world of open source), you'll always have a few
| stray users asking for features that not everybody wants, and
| there will be perpetual arguments about which features would
| benefit most users.
|
| At the end of the day, the problem isn't that software is user-
| hostile, or written for engineers or corporate surveillance, but
| that nobody will ever agree 100% on what features should go into
| any piece of software.
| haburka wrote:
| If your articles main solution is "just build what the user needs
| / asks for" then it comes off as incredibly juvenile and naive.
| This is one of the hardest problems in product design.
|
| Also they seem fairly oblivious as to why these hardware apps are
| poorly made and require accounts. It's because it's expensive to
| write software and you already bought the product. Whatever
| keyboard light program you're using costs real money for the
| company to make and maintain, and they'd like to keep costs down.
| UncleEntity wrote:
| > Whatever keyboard light program you're using costs real money
| for the company to make and maintain, and they'd like to keep
| costs down.
|
| Then just release the hardware specs and let motivated users
| maintain it past it useful (to the manufacturer) life.
|
| Like, I have this Govee thermometer I bought to learn about
| Bluetooth that needs an app to read out the data stored in it.
| Last I looked nobody reverse engineered the protocol and they
| don't have technical specifications because they want to keep
| you inside their ecosystem. Someday they will just give up the
| ghost and all these gadgets will be mostly useless (said
| thermometer transmits current readings so can always be read
| with a little work).
|
| Yet another of my "when I get motivated enough" projects...
|
| --edit--
|
| Counterpoint:
|
| I have a couple Bluetooth button things which did provide specs
| and it took me a couple hours of fiddling to get it to fully
| work with an example program, I push the button and the
| computer knows it, computer tells it to beep and it beeps, its
| built in "alert on dropping signal" (so you don't lose your
| keys) just works, easy peasy.
| wpietri wrote:
| > This is one of the hardest problems in product design.
|
| True, but it is also one of the easiest. We have known for
| decades that you can get much better products with little
| effort. E.g., by doing basic user testing with 5 users and then
| iterating. We did that at a consumer-facing startup in 2010 by
| getting 5 people off Craigslist every Tuesday, and we learned
| useful stuff every week. By the following Tuesday, we'd have
| new things to try out. It worked great. And all of this was old
| knowledge even in 2010.
|
| Is it true that there are user problems and needs that can't be
| settled with a quick user test? Sure. There are all sorts of
| harder problems, with fancier research techniques to match. But
| given that so few places are even doing the basics, I say we
| should start there. Just build what (we think) the user needs,
| and then as soon as possible see if it worked.
| sound1 wrote:
| Lightly went through the article and i agree with the sentiments.
| We deserve a better desktop computing experience, and cross
| platform programs are preferred.
|
| Yes, but how about the software other people want to use or need?
| Can we make their effort easier with our software and make a
| business out of it adding value to both? I think it is one area
| everyone needs to think about.
|
| You help your social circle, try to understand their problems and
| think about solutions they need to make their business
| successful, and if you are capable of delivering that, then
| great. Else you become a consultant. I believe this is how the
| businesses were built in the early days.
| [deleted]
| tomxor wrote:
| > "would any user benefit from this"? [yes, no]
|
| This doesn't work... Unnecessary user accounts, telemetry,
| inefficient electron app etc etc: It's possible to genuinely
| argue they all _ultimately_ benefit the user (e.g market
| research, developer efficiency). Some people would use this to
| push their agenda. It 's also not a good idea to reject ideas
| that do not directly benefit the user, because many of those are
| good.
|
| What's missing is quantitative and qualitative assessment.
| Sticking to the decision tree format, that node needs to be a
| continuum. e.g "does-it-benefit-the-user" changes to "cost-to-
| user/benefit-to-user > x". You can also distinguish between
| quality of benefits and costs by weighting the inputs... and
| while we are at it "cost-to-bottom-line/benefit-to-user > x"
| would remove a lot of busy work.
|
| But realistically this is reasoned about in non mathematical
| terms, effects are nuanced and the more you dig the more you
| find. The best approach is human and imperfect, but can at least
| be considerate of the user experience as a _whole_. This I
| believe is the heart of the problem: Decisions being made in the
| abstract when not appropriate, e.g a department only considering
| the direct effects to that department and ignoring effects to the
| ultimate purpose of the department- >company->service/product.
| Perhaps it's just the result of over siloed workers without any
| empathy or concern beyond their short term personal benefit.
| userbinator wrote:
| All those examples about hardware remind me of a few
| counterexamples.
|
| _Want to use a dashcam for your car and sync the data to your
| local computer? You need to create an account and connect an app,
| even though you just want to do local sync._
|
| This seems to be a feature of the more expensive models only. All
| the cheap and generic ones just record to a memory card.
|
| _Want to get data from inside a device onto your computer? Nope,
| it's not a mass storage device. You need to install another app,
| that will be used just for this one device, to sync things._
|
| I think this started with Apple and the iPod. Meanwhile, all the
| other generic media players were indeed USB mass storage devices.
| I remember a friend choosing to get a cheaper lookalike clone of
| the iPod Shuffle specifically after reading that the real thing
| wouldn't just play files you copied to it, despite how it looked
| like a USB drive. As a bonus, the clone even had an FM radio.
|
| Another counterexample is my experience with an unbranded drawing
| tablet ---that even came with driver source code on the CD:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29060411
|
| It seems that whenever companies grow big enough or get some sort
| of grand "vision" to "disrupt" or something similar, they become
| user-hostile. Those which just focus on making product and don't
| try to make a name for themselves, and possibly are so small they
| barely have resources to even do so, are not. They won't have the
| resources to spend on setting up and maintaining services to keep
| users on a leash.
|
| In the flow chart I would make the "Yes" of the "Would any user
| benefit from this?" question go to another question: "Are you
| sure users will benefit or are you just thinking that to justify
| it yourself?"
| frankohn wrote:
| The fault is to the users that are not able to say "no" to these
| bad practices.
|
| The author of the post seems to use Windows which is the worst in
| term of crap software and abusive practices. Just use Linux, you
| will have less but at least you will not be abused.
| m463 wrote:
| _" It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his
| salary depends on his not understanding it."_ -- Upton Sinclair
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| Should be permanently stickied at the top of HN. I notice that
| we skirt a lot of issues around here that if followed to their
| logical conclusion would drastically undermine some salaries.
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