When I was growing up, we had operating systems that exposed a lot of the technical details about their inner workings, and websites that let us use code to customize them, like MySpace and Geocities. UX designers in tech have since optimized away most of the stuff that allowed and encouraged people to learn to use technology and now people get confused by files and browser tabs. And as the knowledge shrinks, more and more things have to be simplified away. I only ever see it as a one way road.
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@Gargron in those times internet wasn't widely spread and most people who used it were either technologically proficient or didn't knew what was going on and barely understood what was happening.
Most people don't care how browsers and their computers work. They just want them to work. If your kitchen stove wasn't simple to use and you had to manually tinker with its insides to just make your food, would you actually use it? Interestingly, knowledge about how kitchen stoves work didn't shrink. People who are interested in the topic still learn it.
@tragivictoria I was a child. How was I technologically proficient? I didn't understand a thing when I first logged on. That's kind of my point.
@Gargron When I grew up, the OS was ditched by coders, taking over the system for maximum speed and resources. 😃👍
"ChatGPT, summarize Eugen's post for me, it has too many sentences in it, way too much to read"
(/s)
@Gargron that's not fair. Back in the day people with an university degree were the ones, who would get on the internet back then.
In those days it was not at all mainstream for common people, who weren't that tech-savvy., to be online.
@Gargron I think there's a modern thirst for what used to be normal with computing and the web. Most people are sick of being boxed into a certain way of doing things - we're creative by nature and what's mainstream right now is largely restrictive in that sense.
The core problem is the commercialization of it all. Companies started wanting to sell computers and software (and show ads) to people who don't want to put in any effort to educate themselves how to use these technologies. This is how we got this relentless simplification.
Except some people just don't want tech anyway. I have an elderly relative who is essentially forced by the society to have a smartphone. It's quite predictable that she would sometimes ask me "Grisha, why is it not working well, can you take a look" and I'll see all kinds of nasty bloatware and adware she inadvertently installed. It happened on several occasions. I was able to put an end to this by setting up system-wide ad blocking via DNS like I do on my own devices.
This is what convinced me that the society needs to change to make the use of tech a choice, not a burden.
A legitimate perspective. I understand it as a technique driven perspective.
Let me add a second perspective. Reduction is an art. If ‘form follows function’ hard work is required. If done right the outcome can be pure esthetics. Thin of Braun Hi-fi equipment, Apple iPhone, Jacob Jensen, Bauhaus Designers a.o.
There are many other perspectives.
Why does it matter whether people know how to use files and tabs or re-install their operating system? Isn't it better to let people get on with their day? Well, it's like with everything in life, ignorance costs a premium. If you are ignorant of something, you can be taken advantage of. Apple sells you expensive devices capable of running any program in the world, but keeping an iron grip on what you can run on it. Google is following suit. Many such cases.
@Gargron You clarify that you are talking about iOS/iPadOS because I've never seen an "iron grip" on MacOS that prevents me from running what I want. Between brew and compilers, MacOS is still fine in this respect.
@Gargron very well said. Big corporations can also lobby for laws they want due to tech illiteracy. Mostly tech literate society would never allow mandatory identification on web
@Gargron They're coming for the URL bar next I suspect.
@Gargron I wouldn't be so dire: when I was growing up only a small subset of people was using computers and the vast majority used MSDOS or Windows 95 with closed source software. Today's population using and understanding open source software/hardware is incredibly larger than 30 years ago. So, people mindlessly using chromebooks and browsers today are the equivalent of yesterday's TVs and washing machines users.
May I remind that current Linux usage numbers on the desktop are about 5% (grossly underestimated).
And no, having to do with monstrosities like CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT was not that educational... 😄
@Gargron Remember when they remade old reddit without custom subreddit CSS? They promised they would build appearance settings to compensate, but no matter how many you put, a finite collection of settings can never replace everything you can do with arbitrary code. And even if they let you send feedback to request missing features, it would still be a pain in the ass to get support to add what you ask for instead of making it yourself in minutes.
@Gargron i agree. i feel like the ability to customize, tinker, modify, edit... even hack (gently) websites and web apps especially has been taken away over the past 10-15 years of so. editing the live HTML of a Myspace page back in the 2000s almost feels impossible without all of the guardrails put in place today. it was actually fun to grow up on the internet and with computers during the 90s and 00s!
So.... does this mean custom native Mastodon UI css and scripting on a per-user, or per-instance basis will be officially supported sometime?
@Gargron For me it was Neopets!
