[HN Gopher] United States Digital Service Origins
___________________________________________________________________
United States Digital Service Origins
Author : ronbenton
Score : 96 points
Date : 2025-06-06 19:43 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (usdigitalserviceorigins.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (usdigitalserviceorigins.org)
| ForHackernews wrote:
| This is sweet. The USDS and 18F did a lot of good before they
| were gutted.
| i80and wrote:
| I'm not sure which group was behind it, but login.gov is a
| genuine delight and I'm always chuffed to run into a government
| website that uses it.
|
| EDIT: It was a joint effort between the two!
| octo888 wrote:
| > Just over a year old, GDS would serve as critical inspiration
| for the founding of USDS [0]
|
| Really appreciate the 14 mentions of GDS and acknowledgment of
| the inspiration.
|
| (The older but poorer cousin gets ahead of the younger, richer
| cousin for a change ;)
|
| [0] https://usdigitalserviceorigins.org/timeline/
| krainboltgreene wrote:
| I was a big fan of the USDSO at the origin, definitely it's
| previous iterations, but man was it so bad at getting their
| improvements any publicity. Then and now they (and Democrats)
| made the fatal mistake that the slow march of government would be
| enough for public support. This website too is from that same
| strategy: "If we simply show Americans the machine they'll
| understand what they've thrown away!" It's very Aaron Sorkin's
| West Wing.
|
| The reality is that the average american doesn't give a shit
| about the machines. They want better lives and they haven't
| gotten that for a long time. Talk to some old guy at a diner
| about why they were a Democratic voter and you won't hear "The
| Social Security Administation got my checks on time." You'll hear
| about the New Deal, wage increases, and how they can retire.
| pakyr wrote:
| DirectFile was a material product that had a 94% satisfaction
| rate.[0] Within the remit of this organization, if making
| filing taxes free and easy doesn't count as making people's
| lives better, then I'm not sure what does.
|
| [0]https://www.nextgov.com/digital-government/2025/06/direct-
| fi...
| krainboltgreene wrote:
| > Overall, traffic for Direct File was only up by 16%
| compared to last year, something the report attributed to a
| "lack of awareness and public confusion." >
| https://www.nextgov.com/digital-government/2025/06/direct-
| fi...
| pakyr wrote:
| I'm not sure how much control the USDS that developed
| DirectFile (or whatever was left of it) had over that given
| the reasons that article cites for the confusion
|
| > The IRS deemphasized the program on its website, the
| report said, and the media coverage this filing season
| focused on the question of if the tool existed or would
| continue to in the future.
|
| > Billionaire Elon Musk caused confusion in early February
| when he posted on X that the team powering Direct File was
| "deleted," leading to headlines like "Elon Musk says he
| 'deleted' IRS Direct File. Can taxpayers still use the free
| service?" Direct File saw a drop in use after that.
|
| To be honest, I'm impressed there was even a 16% traffic
| increase this year at all.
| dr_dshiv wrote:
| I really wish these people the best. It's humble, meaningful,
| high-impact, high-integrity work.
| stefan_ wrote:
| Truly humble. Makes sense to record some museum pieces thou,
| put it next to the Ruby On Rails section.
| mlinhares wrote:
| Kudos to everyone involved in this, it made a huge difference for
| this country, your service will be remembered.
| righthand wrote:
| Hopefully these services can be restored in 3.5 years. One of the
| greatest things to happen to aging infrastructure of this country
| in the last 10 years as a lot of our systems are based on aging
| military systems.
|
| We just need it, there's no question of the benefits and there
| were no negatives to speak about.
|
| Thank you President Barack Obama! A true leader and patriot.
| spencerflem wrote:
| I mean, I liked what they made but its kinda sad that greatest
| thing to happen to our nation's infrastructure was some nice
| websites.
|
| Meanwhile, healthcare housing and education got way more
| expensive and taxes for the wealthy went down.
| nemomarx wrote:
| And a lot of bridges fell into disrepair, roads get worse,
| etc. Gridlock has made funding anything pretty hard in the
| last decade, and certain parties are so anti spending they
| won't try to fix it
| spencerflem wrote:
| Lol anti spending but they're about to pass a bill adding 2
| trillion to the deficit
| kubb wrote:
| Isn't that just to cut taxes for the rich?
| amanaplanacanal wrote:
| Yep. The only real cuts I see are cutting medical care
| for the poorest of the poor.
| caycep wrote:
| and when Biden/Obama admins did actually fix a bunch of
| infrastructure, half the voting public didn't give a shit
| Hikikomori wrote:
| Anti spending? The deficit has increased under every
| republican president almost back to ww2. Their two Santa
| strategy seems to work well confusing people though.
| nemomarx wrote:
| Yeah but mostly tax cuts and MIC contributions, they're
| not paying for local development or education or so on
| ChrisArchitect wrote:
| This wasn't _that_ long ago. And it was very active in public
| ways over the Obama administrations etc. Sure you can find
| numerous discussions about various site launches and initiatives
| around here over the years. Definitely were discussions and
| fervent attention over in the Design community as things
| progressed. Why is everyone treating it like some forgotten
| Atlantis project?
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2025-06-06 23:00 UTC)