The Rise of User-Hostile Software (2021)(den.dev)
den.dev
The Rise of User-Hostile Software (2021)
https://den.dev/blog/user-hostile-software/
199 comments
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.
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.
point beeing that self regulating markets are a lie
Lie? No. They just seek to a set point that is socially undesirable but may be preferred to a powerful subset of participants. There are other systems have the same control system issues.
I don't mean this a sarcasm. The point of good regulation is to try to change the incentive structure so that the system seeks to a different peak in the possibility space, avoiding various hill-climbing errors along the way. That's hard, but the approach of mandating how can be easier to write but much harder to implement (less stable, expensive, and requiring a lot of government effort).
A good example is exchange trading schemes. Instead of requiring a huge bureaucracy, the European trading system issues a number of emissions permits and then lets the market decide whether to upgrade or buy permits. As the number of certs sinks predictably over time, people can plan ahead to commit to building better plants (or retrofit) vs eking a couple of extra years out and then shutting the plant down. Less paperwork, fewer regulators, and letting the market seek to the point you want.
I don't mean this a sarcasm. The point of good regulation is to try to change the incentive structure so that the system seeks to a different peak in the possibility space, avoiding various hill-climbing errors along the way. That's hard, but the approach of mandating how can be easier to write but much harder to implement (less stable, expensive, and requiring a lot of government effort).
A good example is exchange trading schemes. Instead of requiring a huge bureaucracy, the European trading system issues a number of emissions permits and then lets the market decide whether to upgrade or buy permits. As the number of certs sinks predictably over time, people can plan ahead to commit to building better plants (or retrofit) vs eking a couple of extra years out and then shutting the plant down. Less paperwork, fewer regulators, and letting the market seek to the point you want.
Another way to put it is, the endgame of unregulated markets are monopolies.
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.
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.
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.
That works if the only ethical decisions relate to the workers, but there are still ethical decisions that relate to external factors like climate change or to customers. For example, a worker-run coal mine will probably be much better at maintaining safety standards than a privately-owned coal mine, but those workers still want a job! They're not going to willingly shut down the mine just because coal-fired electricity generation needs to be phased out. You still need government oversight and regulation.
(Of course, worker co-ops are still good things, even if they're not going to solve every problem all by themselves!)
(Of course, worker co-ops are still good things, even if they're not going to solve every problem all by themselves!)
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.
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.
> 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.
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.
> The endgame for any living being is maximize return for as minimal effort.
Sure, OG hackers don't want to waste 30 seconds walking to the printer if their print job isn't ready.
But OG hackers solve that problem by spending three hundred million seconds writing an entire OS from scratch.
And in the end, I'm not even sure if that solved the original problem.
Of course you wouldn't be wrong by seven orders of magnitude in the more common cases. But I strongly doubt that Haiku, the Quine that works in dozens of languages at once, or Gnome 2 started their work to fatten up for the coming winter months.
Sure, OG hackers don't want to waste 30 seconds walking to the printer if their print job isn't ready.
But OG hackers solve that problem by spending three hundred million seconds writing an entire OS from scratch.
And in the end, I'm not even sure if that solved the original problem.
Of course you wouldn't be wrong by seven orders of magnitude in the more common cases. But I strongly doubt that Haiku, the Quine that works in dozens of languages at once, or Gnome 2 started their work to fatten up for the coming winter months.
It's so easy for people to always 'assume' the cost of regulation is zero. But it never is. If you factor it in, and play with the amount, then all this nonsense goes away. There are no perfect markets free of problems. The real question should be how they get resolved. Regulation is the one way people choose, because it only seems cheap.
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.
You're conveniently moving the goalposts when the original premise no longer passes the smell test. I'm old enough to remember the original talking points selling 'self-regulating markets.
"A rising sea raises all boats" and plenty more of that ilk.
Just a poorly disguised fig leaf covering 'take from those with less, and give to those with more'.
Just a poorly disguised fig leaf covering 'take from those with less, and give to those with more'.
The ideal of self regulation the grandparent calls a lie is not about markets adjusting to optimally fulfill regulatory constraints, but the believe that such regulation is unnecessary, because market participants will factor in ethical concerns, removing unethical practices by not doing business with those using them.
unless, of course, you consider the government a player in the market as opposed to an outside force
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.
“Imported totalitarianism” is the new child labor and slavery.
This is a flawed argument, in my opinion. You stop doing something unethical because it is unethical. You don't wait until you've been able to force everyone else from doing what you see as unethical (while they may not). Virtue is its own reward. Virtue isn't forcing everyone else to do what you see as virtuous.
That may all be true and yet it wasn't individuals choosing to be unethical that ended (or dramatically curtailed) child labor. The federal government stepping in and disallowing it did.
Sure, but the argument FDR was putting was that he was doing it for the 'ethical' business owners who were supposedly forced to keep employing child labour because others were still using it. No. The business owners could have and should have stopped doing what they saw as unethical by themselves.
(I'm not arguing against anti-child labour laws here; I'm arguing against this reported argument for their introduction by FDR. And, to be fair, it's only the reported argument here that I'm responding to; it might not be a faithful representation of what FDR actually said.)
(I'm not arguing against anti-child labour laws here; I'm arguing against this reported argument for their introduction by FDR. And, to be fair, it's only the reported argument here that I'm responding to; it might not be a faithful representation of what FDR actually said.)
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.
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.
> 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/
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/
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.
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.
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?
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?
This sounds incredibly nihilistic. I don’t think it’s helpful to eschew personal action with the idea that we have to do collective action for any of it to matter. Personal action is contagious and helps create the impetus for collective action. Heck, democracy as an institution relies on individuals making small actions (votes) that make no difference individually but collectively determine who runs the city, state, and country. So this is ultimately a sort of nihilistic argument, maybe a sort of rationale for not taking action.
It's not nihilistic nor defeatist. It is saying that the playing field can't be this uneven and expect collective action. Which means there is a clear solution. Ensuring that no one is above the collective moral code.
It gives you way more moral authority to argue for these sorts of things if you’re actually taking personal action ala Greta Thunberg (who has inspired me to change my personal emissions, and to support stronger collective actions).
I agree with you here. But we aren't talking about my actions, we are talking about how to cultivate a larger collective action. I completely agree with you and I specifically mention Gates because he is a big climate advocate. I don't believe that any of the information he is spreading is wrong or even misleading, but that his actions often don't align with his speech. Though I will admit that there is a nuanced discussion to be had here given that he substantially invests in climate research and technologies to decarbonize the world, but I also wouldn't blame anyone for thinking he's a hack given that his personal footprint is several orders of magnitude above the median American (which is even higher than the median Westerner). We do have a current culture of defeatism because it looks like you can just buy your way out of all this. But if you are making the argument that actions speak louder than words, I'd fully agree.
> 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?
Are there no small, family-run businesses you could patronize, since you said you're willing to pay more?
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.
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.
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.
> 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.
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.
So is it game theory, or is it "the paradox of voting" (which is not a "paradox" at all)? You're mixing your metaphors.
In Catch-22, Yossarian says, "I don't want to go out there and get shot at," and they say "What if everyone did that?" He says, "Then I'd be a fool not to do it." That's intended to be funny.
Everyone didn't act like Yossarian in WW II for some reason, and some paid with their lives. Voting is voluntary in the US, and yet large numbers of people do vote.
So you need to figure all that out.
In Catch-22, Yossarian says, "I don't want to go out there and get shot at," and they say "What if everyone did that?" He says, "Then I'd be a fool not to do it." That's intended to be funny.
Everyone didn't act like Yossarian in WW II for some reason, and some paid with their lives. Voting is voluntary in the US, and yet large numbers of people do vote.
So you need to figure all that out.
It is exactly like the paradox of voting (which I linked to in another comment). You are right that it is not an actual paradox, but it IS game theory.
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.
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.
The gain or loss of a single customer will have no effect on Walmart or the local mom and pop.
The effects only add up if a significant number of people make the same decision.
On the individual level, the cost of the local shop is detrimental compared to Walmart. The rational choice for any given individual is to go with the lower price. Choosing otherwise doesn't gain you anything other than that the local spot is a nicer place to visit.
At the macro level, nobody wins unless everyone cooperates. At the individual level, you can only win by not cooperating. It's just the prisoner's dilemma.
Happy thoughts don't really factor in here, it's not really an ethics problem, it's an economics problem.
The effects only add up if a significant number of people make the same decision.
On the individual level, the cost of the local shop is detrimental compared to Walmart. The rational choice for any given individual is to go with the lower price. Choosing otherwise doesn't gain you anything other than that the local spot is a nicer place to visit.
At the macro level, nobody wins unless everyone cooperates. At the individual level, you can only win by not cooperating. It's just the prisoner's dilemma.
Happy thoughts don't really factor in here, it's not really an ethics problem, it's an economics problem.
It's not the prisoner's dilemma in any way, shape, or form.
It's the problem of collective action. A person wishes everyone would behave as he prefers. They have the difficult task of persuading enough others to follow their lead. No one said it would be easy or convenient. Why should it be?
We can find plenty of examples of people who do exactly that, today. There are boycotts active against thousands of organizations. It doesn't take "everybody" - just a loud minority who are organized.
As for "the rational choice" -- that's the myth of Economic Man, which has been thoroughly demolished by behavioral economics. People make choices all the time that do not maximize their financial return.
It's the problem of collective action. A person wishes everyone would behave as he prefers. They have the difficult task of persuading enough others to follow their lead. No one said it would be easy or convenient. Why should it be?
We can find plenty of examples of people who do exactly that, today. There are boycotts active against thousands of organizations. It doesn't take "everybody" - just a loud minority who are organized.
As for "the rational choice" -- that's the myth of Economic Man, which has been thoroughly demolished by behavioral economics. People make choices all the time that do not maximize their financial return.
It really is a form of a prisoners dilemma, and the wikipedia page for Collective Action Problem spells out the connection: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collective_action_problem#Pris...
It's easy to see how if you take an example. Imagine there is a company selling a widget that really makes your life better, but manufacturing it really pollutes the environment. If everyone buys one of the widgets, in fact, so much pollution will occur that our lives will be MUCH worse off than if we never had the widget at all. So my (and everyone else's) preference is that no one has any widgets and we don't have the pollution.
Now here is where it is a prisoner's dilemma; if no one buys a widget, the company goes out of business and there is no pollution, but I also don't end up with a widget. If everyone else doesn't buy a widget, but I do, then the company goes out of business (yay!) and there is no more pollution AND I have a widget anyway (double yay!). I get the best of both worlds - no pollution and this awesome widget. If I don't buy the widget, but everyone else does, then I still get the pollution but I don't even have a widget (the worst of both worlds). If everyone buys a widget, then we have pollution but at least I also have a widget.
Just like a classical prisoner's dilemma, I am always better off defecting. If everyone else is buying a widget, I might as well buy one, too, because the pollution is happening no matter what, might as well also get the benefit of a widget. If no one else is buying a widget, then I might as well buy one because I can have the widget AND no pollution (which is better than just having no pollution).
Everyone has this same incentive, which is why free markets don't solve pollution - it only is solved by regulation, forcing people to cooperate.
It's easy to see how if you take an example. Imagine there is a company selling a widget that really makes your life better, but manufacturing it really pollutes the environment. If everyone buys one of the widgets, in fact, so much pollution will occur that our lives will be MUCH worse off than if we never had the widget at all. So my (and everyone else's) preference is that no one has any widgets and we don't have the pollution.
Now here is where it is a prisoner's dilemma; if no one buys a widget, the company goes out of business and there is no pollution, but I also don't end up with a widget. If everyone else doesn't buy a widget, but I do, then the company goes out of business (yay!) and there is no more pollution AND I have a widget anyway (double yay!). I get the best of both worlds - no pollution and this awesome widget. If I don't buy the widget, but everyone else does, then I still get the pollution but I don't even have a widget (the worst of both worlds). If everyone buys a widget, then we have pollution but at least I also have a widget.
Just like a classical prisoner's dilemma, I am always better off defecting. If everyone else is buying a widget, I might as well buy one, too, because the pollution is happening no matter what, might as well also get the benefit of a widget. If no one else is buying a widget, then I might as well buy one because I can have the widget AND no pollution (which is better than just having no pollution).
Everyone has this same incentive, which is why free markets don't solve pollution - it only is solved by regulation, forcing people to cooperate.
Your last paragraph is just a list of reasons to ignore the game theory fact that your individual consumer choices won't make a difference either way. You say it is absurd, but there is simply no way of getting around that fact that the purely rational choice would be to shop at the place with the cheapest prices regardless of how you feel about the store you are getting those prices from, at least in terms of getting the best price and having an effect on which stores stay open. Sure, your arguments about meeting interesting people or having good ethics hygiene can be persuasive, but those are simply sidestepping the game theory rather than arguing against it.
I feel similarly, actually, and my gut reaction is revulsion to this fact, too. I hate the idea that my consumer choices actually don't have any affect on what type of business succeeds or fails. I want to believe that my choices matter to the world, but logical analysis clearly shows that it doesn't. We can't deny it, we can only ask, "ok then what do we do?"
My entire point is that we can't rely on the free market to fix these sorts of problems, because the free market relies on incentives, and those incentives won't solve problems like mistreating workers, polluting the environment, and any other externality of that sort. We can't simply hope that spending our dollars ethically will change anything, because it simply can't.
You might think I am immoral for pointing this out, but I feel like it is the opposite. The people who WANT us to believe that 'voting with our wallets' matters are the one's who want us to NOT do anything else. They know that our consumer choices aren't going to effect any real change, but they want us to think it can so that we don't do anything that could ACTUALLY make changes, like organizing politically. They want to promote the narrative that the free market is the way you change the world for the better, when it clearly isn't.
Honestly, this is the same as voting. People in power who want to maintain the status quo love to push the idea that you change the world by simply voting, but it isn't enough just to vote as an individual and hope it works out, for the same reason that an individual making a purchasing decision can't change things.
This is called the Paradox of Voting (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_voting), because no individual vote actually matters.
We can only make change by organizing and coordinating action.
I feel similarly, actually, and my gut reaction is revulsion to this fact, too. I hate the idea that my consumer choices actually don't have any affect on what type of business succeeds or fails. I want to believe that my choices matter to the world, but logical analysis clearly shows that it doesn't. We can't deny it, we can only ask, "ok then what do we do?"
My entire point is that we can't rely on the free market to fix these sorts of problems, because the free market relies on incentives, and those incentives won't solve problems like mistreating workers, polluting the environment, and any other externality of that sort. We can't simply hope that spending our dollars ethically will change anything, because it simply can't.
You might think I am immoral for pointing this out, but I feel like it is the opposite. The people who WANT us to believe that 'voting with our wallets' matters are the one's who want us to NOT do anything else. They know that our consumer choices aren't going to effect any real change, but they want us to think it can so that we don't do anything that could ACTUALLY make changes, like organizing politically. They want to promote the narrative that the free market is the way you change the world for the better, when it clearly isn't.
Honestly, this is the same as voting. People in power who want to maintain the status quo love to push the idea that you change the world by simply voting, but it isn't enough just to vote as an individual and hope it works out, for the same reason that an individual making a purchasing decision can't change things.
This is called the Paradox of Voting (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_voting), because no individual vote actually matters.
We can only make change by organizing and coordinating action.
He's saying, "I'd like to support them, but dammit! They charge more." Duh.
I’m part of a food coop. We’re about 150 people that essentially share the costs and output for a (very) small farm. Everyone matters. Sure, we can survive the loss of one, even 5 parties. 15 parties that leave for good with no replacement? Trouble. So yes, your choice matters, surprisingly much.
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.
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.
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.
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.
> we can't use our wallet
.. and yet, millions of people do exactly that. Consumer boycotts happen every day. Sometimes they even have an effect.
.. and yet, millions of people do exactly that. Consumer boycotts happen every day. Sometimes they even have an effect.
An organized boycott is different than just making an individual choice. And again, a single person defecting from the boycott won't make any difference either way.
So you don't vote in elections, I take it?
After all, almost no election is ever decided by one vote.
(If it did happen, they'd have a recount because there are probably counting errors.)
After all, almost no election is ever decided by one vote.
(If it did happen, they'd have a recount because there are probably counting errors.)
Rationally, you are right that voting as an individual doesn't matter (I linked the Paradox of Voting in another comment for this very reason). I still do vote, though, because there are non-rational reasons I think voting is important.
You are absolutely right, though, that pure game theory says voting is not important, and I believe that is why voting is not how we make changes to our society (at least not directly). It takes organizing.
You are absolutely right, though, that pure game theory says voting is not important, and I believe that is why voting is not how we make changes to our society (at least not directly). It takes organizing.
>sometimes they even have an effect
This is the point
This is the point
>Me choosing to shop somewhere else is not even a rounding error in Walmarts profits.
So you are saying you can make a measurable difference. It's not a super hero story where you save the world on your own.
So you are saying you can make a measurable difference. It's not a super hero story where you save the world on your own.
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.
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.
Not only that. It is not reasonable for people to e.g. test themselves if their food or drink or medicine is not poisoned. That's why laws exist. Likewise, it is not reasonable to ask an average person to consider the minutiae of standardised data interchange or open-source modem drivers. That's why laws to protect the user and to protect competition should exist.
I've had people unironically say to me (in person) "if you die from drinking tainted liquor your estate can just sue the shop; this is a deterrent so they won't do that".
I've had people unironically say to me (in person) "if you die from drinking tainted liquor your estate can just sue the shop; this is a deterrent so they won't do that".
> if you die from drinking tainted liquor your estate can just sue the shop
I think that would be a right thing to do, and the shop would likely be sued out of existence, with a felony charges for some of the personnel and owners. This is one reason why shops try to keep things sanitary: a customer with an estate to speak of would ruin them if hurt. (But those without an estate may have been hurt for some time with relatively little consequence.)
Another reason is, of course, inspections (they don't need to be strictly state-operated, but may have to be state-mandated), where the inspecting agency would sue / fine the shop out of existence if for presence of dangerously tainted liquor. An ounce of prevention, etc.
I think that would be a right thing to do, and the shop would likely be sued out of existence, with a felony charges for some of the personnel and owners. This is one reason why shops try to keep things sanitary: a customer with an estate to speak of would ruin them if hurt. (But those without an estate may have been hurt for some time with relatively little consequence.)
Another reason is, of course, inspections (they don't need to be strictly state-operated, but may have to be state-mandated), where the inspecting agency would sue / fine the shop out of existence if for presence of dangerously tainted liquor. An ounce of prevention, etc.
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.
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.
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.
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.
>>not anything to do with today
Only because it's still illegal today.
Only because it's still illegal today.
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.)
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.)
This is how manufacturing was moved to China. Walmart forced many manufacturers move their operations to China; otherwise, the latter companies would lose their contracts with Walmart.
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.
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.
>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.
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.
Neither of those will help when some company whose app I want to use says “Hey, our app is only available on Evil Store. Install that first and enable all permissions”
This did not happen on Android, show me 2 or 3 example of a must have app that an USA citizen has to side load? There is not otherwise I assure the Apple PR army would have jumped on that occasion.
Also as I said the USA is not in EU, so Meta/Facebook will still have no choice then put a iOS app of WhatsApp in the Store.
I am 100% sure that this is FUD, reality shows that there is no must use app that a developer refuses to put on the Google Play store because they are evil, the apps are either not allowed in the store because ToS or the apps are small side projects.
Also as I said the USA is not in EU, so Meta/Facebook will still have no choice then put a iOS app of WhatsApp in the Store.
I am 100% sure that this is FUD, reality shows that there is no must use app that a developer refuses to put on the Google Play store because they are evil, the apps are either not allowed in the store because ToS or the apps are small side projects.
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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.
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.
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.
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.
> 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
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
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.
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
"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.
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.
> Deregulation has saved lives just as regulation has.
I don't disagree. I'm more an Adam Smith guy. Low regulation is good, but that doesn't mean zero. Zero regulation is just as terrible as the government picking winners and losers. These discussions require a lot of nuance. I, and I'm assuming many others, read your comment as a very typical libertarian "free market" (but like communism, has "never really existed"), as your comment doesn't even hint at a nuance. I tried to allude to this in mine with my comment about the incredible complexity of our modern world, but I guess this too was missed. So I hope that is abundantly explicit now.
I don't disagree. I'm more an Adam Smith guy. Low regulation is good, but that doesn't mean zero. Zero regulation is just as terrible as the government picking winners and losers. These discussions require a lot of nuance. I, and I'm assuming many others, read your comment as a very typical libertarian "free market" (but like communism, has "never really existed"), as your comment doesn't even hint at a nuance. I tried to allude to this in mine with my comment about the incredible complexity of our modern world, but I guess this too was missed. So I hope that is abundantly explicit now.
It sure is. It makes me sad though that, depending on whatever side you are on, many of the commenters here don't seem to be so charitable and just assume zero nuance to the "other side's" position (of course, their side has ALL the nuance, e.g. only the good regulation, none of the bad, exactly the right amount and not too much, etc).
I don't mean to offend you, but reading the comments it was specifically yours where it seemed the nuance was removed. AequitasOmnibus was saying that we need regulation but to do it with care. There's nuance in that. Your comment was pretty reactionary and really just pointed at (near) universally disliked companies and asked how they were ethical. You set the bar for rebuttal pretty low since there simply needs to be a single proof of contradiction. This may not have been the thought you were trying to express but it is clear that I'm not the only one that interpreted your comment in this manner (and I think it should be clear to you what happened here). I want to promote better discussions and it seems like you do too, so I want to give some feedback so we can hopefully have better ones in the future and actually discuss what we want to discuss instead of fighting. I hope this comment helps.
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.
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.
> Now try imagining those businesses in a world without regulation.
You’ve brought us back to the theoretical world we were trying to avoid…
You’ve brought us back to the theoretical world we were trying to avoid…
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.
> 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
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
Free market doesn't mean unregulated market
Funny thing is Adam Smith talks about this extensively despite being the poster child for an unregulated "free" market.
Adam Smith's free markets weren't about not having regulations. He was talking about markets free from the extractive rents going to the landed aristocracy. Rents on the farms meant workers food was more expensive so factories had to pay more to keep the workers from starving.
Smith wasn't an anarchist and didn't believe in a completely unregulated market, but rather that a free market involves careful regulation to ensure a fair playing ground. Yeah, there is also a lot about the problems of rent seeking and I agree there, but my point is that the free market he was referring to isn't the "free market" many people today associate with the term. We have similar issues to his concept of the invisible hand (which was only mentioned once in each book).
Unregulated market doesn't mean a market with no referees or judges to settle disputes.
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When you have judges and referees you need rules. How else would they make decisions?
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.
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.
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:
" 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
"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.
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.
- 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.
> why should I swear your Hippocratic oath when everyone else is getting rich?
One must cultivate one's own garden.
One must cultivate one's own garden.
That's implied in the "your". Go ahead and be happy in your garden. But don't expect anyone else to follow along.
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.
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.
"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.
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
(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
But in point of fact engineers ship artificially limited products all the time. Yeah it's different if we're talking about a bridge that can kill someone but that's not exactly like an online installer, is it?
Quit. “I was just doing my job” stops being an excuse at some point…
If they were ordering me to do war crimes I suppose I would but I don't think the annoyances in this article are quite at that level and I question the idea that you'll find anywhere that never makes any decisions you don't agree with.
"It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it." ― Upton Sinclair
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.
This is a large part of the reason why I read the site and the comments. I want a finger on the pulse of population here. By this site's metrics I'm a bit outside the core population as a biologist. Rather luddite in how I approach tech. But at least if I have a computer problem, I backed up my work and tried turning it off and on again before bothering someone, and won't google-fu my way into a deeper mess for tech support.
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.
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.
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
from google chrome to visual studio: loads of software is extremely difficult to install offline
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.
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.
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.
which is not my default expectation possibly because I was raised in the late 80s/early 90s.
Take that as a hint to avoid installing such software.
It is hidden, but it is there:
vs_buildtools.exe --layout c:\where\you\want\the\entire\installer --lang en-US
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...
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
I wrote more about this here: https://notes.npilk.com/radically-user-centered
Strongly agree. A/B testing and equating time spent (“engagement”) and/or money spent with user happiness have a lot to answer for.
One problem is that these techniques - as I have seen them applied - are terrible at analyzing multimodal distributions. They will fail to capture small detractors until they pile up into a feeling of the software being user-hostile, because until then the engagement is not dropping, even though its foundations are eroding.
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.
> "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.
> 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.
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.
> 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".
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".
Replace 'harm' with 'evil' and I thing you've got something there....
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.
> 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].
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
I think Butler had a harder problem. His job was to produce violence and threats of violence. It's harder to know whether that's truly used for good ends than, say, a web form.
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).
> 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?
Why does the difference matter again?
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.
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.
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.
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.
It's a different mindset. When you're in uniform, under oath, you don't speak out, you salute and do what you're ordered to. When you retire, you take the uniform off and are your own man again.
> 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
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
It seems like we need to create enclaves of positive potential to reboot humanity.
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]
"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 !
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
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
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
[1]: https://www.reddit.com/r/assholedesign/comments/s31m8o/micro...
[2]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30055222
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.
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.
It’s the economic system that needs to change, not the devs.
100%, I think its really time for regulations.
I applaud the EU's recent regulations for tech, especially the digital markets act.
Yeah, EU is really a thriving market for tech and innovation right?
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
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.
Why do you value tech and innovation over the actual customer experience?
As if that has to do with anything relating to regulation?
> 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.
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.
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...
https://support.apple.com/guide/iphone/connect-external-devi...
I haven’t tried this
https://helpdesk.macroplant.com/hc/en-us/articles/3600190272...
I get that it’s only for Macs, but Airdrop has basically solved this for me. I’d never install iTunes.
> “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
Shall we not forget the software that only cares about aesthetic aspirations of its UX designers
The growing use of light grey text on an off white background "for aesthetics" pretty much demonstrates the level of respect some have for users.
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.
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.
> 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?
Mmmmm... how about oil and tobacco CEOs? How about patent trolls? How about actual professional criminals? Where do you draw the line?
If ACM actually enforced its code of ethics[1], employees of privacy-violating companies would be banned from ACM conferences and journals.
ACM doesn't seem to care though – they just want membership dues.
[1] https://www.acm.org/code-of-ethics
ACM doesn't seem to care though – they just want membership dues.
[1] https://www.acm.org/code-of-ethics
> they are just doing their jobs
Probably my least favorite phrase. If you help make a bad thing knowingly, you have done a bad thing. Period. There’s no 1 evil dictator CEO that deserves all the blame, devs have agency, product managers have agency.
Probably my least favorite phrase. If you help make a bad thing knowingly, you have done a bad thing. Period. There’s no 1 evil dictator CEO that deserves all the blame, devs have agency, product managers have agency.
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...
[1]: https://www.scottrlarson.com/publications/publication-transi...
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.
thats why its really regulation who going to change this, and probably not any individual actions.
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.
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.
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
Obsidian is not Foss, logseg is
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.
Your privacy is simply too valuable to allow you to keep it.
Companies are all too willing to trade user privacy for money.
Users are all too willing to give up their privacy for cheaper products.
Users are all too willing to give up their privacy for cheaper products.
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!)
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!)
> 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.
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.
Laziness is hostility for the user. They have a captive market and they see no need to make life easier. These companies have an effective monopoly so they don’t care.
Companies like the MathWorks seem to make licensing straightforward. Even Adobe make it easy to push someone out of a session so you can get work done. Others make is a chore. Ansys, Solidworks etc have awful user experiences in comparison.
Companies like the MathWorks seem to make licensing straightforward. Even Adobe make it easy to push someone out of a session so you can get work done. Others make is a chore. Ansys, Solidworks etc have awful user experiences in comparison.
I find it ironic that he's (very rightfully) complaining about all that stuff and arsehole designs and what not, but in the "about me" he's proudly working for Microsoft, the daddies of dark patterns and other shady stuff.
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.
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.
thread in 2021 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28291478
Thanks! Macroexpanded:
The rise of user-hostile software - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28291478 - Aug 2021 (283 comments)
The rise of user-hostile software - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28291478 - Aug 2021 (283 comments)
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.
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.
> "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.
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.
[deleted]
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.
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.
Good luck getting patches accepted upstream that remove such malware features.
Source on the bitwarden claim? I've been using it for a while and would like to know for sure if I should switch.
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
Homebrew comes to mind. Audacity has had attempts to corrupt it.
Homebrew lets you turn off telemetry. If it didn't, it would be quickly forked. https://evanhahn.com/prevent-homebrew-from-gathering-analyti...
Most of them let you turn it off, at least temporarily. As always, the ethical choice is opt-in.
It is absolutely sufficient because open source provides a quick and easy remedy — fork. I use Vaultwarden. No spying.
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.
Open source does not provide a remedy, as without an Apple Developer account I can't run a forked client easily.
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-...
The Bitwarden client on F-Droid has no telemetry at all, not even to opt into. https://github.com/bitwarden/mobile/issues/649#issuecomment-...
> 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.
That is probably the hardest piece of advice to follow. The temptation to cut corners in subtle manners can get really strong.
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.
> 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.
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.
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.
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?"
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?"
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.
This article misses the point. Its not about the developers, its about the people driving the developers.
If you take anti-trust, wiretapping, and other existing laws like the constitution and applied it rigorously you wouldn't have these issues.
These companies have been allowed to spy on their customers as an indirect arm of government without being held to the same laws governments are held to, and worse to make a profit off it (i.e. 4th Amendment).
If you take government money out of the monetization game, and enforce existing laws like anti-trust, this behavior goes away almost immediately because there is no financial incentive and many disincentives (i.e. prison and fines).
Its not like this hasn't happened in the past. Read up on the Stasi, and other socialist systems. You see the same fundamental problems going back thousands of years on that side of the economic system.
You either have one of two factors driving economies. The division of labor which historically protects and rewards people for being ingenuous with strong property rights, and Corruption which offers incentive to a small group of people to make a system work.
The former is self-moderating as long you don't have a Ponzi or Fraud going on, and the latter is unstable over time because people get old, age and die eventually, and competence isn't rewarded.
If you take anti-trust, wiretapping, and other existing laws like the constitution and applied it rigorously you wouldn't have these issues.
These companies have been allowed to spy on their customers as an indirect arm of government without being held to the same laws governments are held to, and worse to make a profit off it (i.e. 4th Amendment).
If you take government money out of the monetization game, and enforce existing laws like anti-trust, this behavior goes away almost immediately because there is no financial incentive and many disincentives (i.e. prison and fines).
Its not like this hasn't happened in the past. Read up on the Stasi, and other socialist systems. You see the same fundamental problems going back thousands of years on that side of the economic system.
You either have one of two factors driving economies. The division of labor which historically protects and rewards people for being ingenuous with strong property rights, and Corruption which offers incentive to a small group of people to make a system work.
The former is self-moderating as long you don't have a Ponzi or Fraud going on, and the latter is unstable over time because people get old, age and die eventually, and competence isn't rewarded.
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!"
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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?
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)
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A lot of the bullet points actually revolve around hostile hardware.
dmg and deb files are not binaries, they just contain binaries.
Step 1: Don't use Windows, Mac or Android.
DMGs are not binaries...
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.
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.
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.
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.
If your articles main solution is “just build what the user needs / asks for” then it comes off as incredibly juvenile and naïve. 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.
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.
> 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.
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.
> 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.
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.
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.