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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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 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!
@Gargron Yes, but it's also worth considering that, by today, there are people using this kind of technology that, three decades earlier, weren't still nowhere near tools more technologically complex than a TV set or a radio receiver....🙈
@Gargron Yes!
And while I appreciate that one should not need to be a nerd to use a computer, I also don't see the drive towards computers as locked-down appliances as desirable.
@Gargron that's because you're technically proficient.
