I always assumed that part of what made "the great architects" great was their skill in combining lofty visions with practical engineering, making houses that were at once artistic statements and durable, comfortable living spaces... utilizing the strengths of different materials, built on sound engineering principles and so on.
But these architects seem to be more interested in the experience you get when _visiting_ the house in its environment, rather than the experience of actually living in it, and these houses are famously often impractical, hard to maintain, and in need of constant repair. That makes them less interesting to me.
This is my favorite kind of website. An individual going into depth on a topic they're passionate (in the true sense of the word) about. Another example is Dan's Motorcycle Repair Web page [1]. A collection of such websites would be awesome.
Looks interesting, I wonder to what extent they really want to make cars DIY-able again (as they state). On the one hand, they mention servicing is "easy" — just turn to their partner repair shop chain! On the other hand, there's Slate University and mention of repairability. I haven't followed development of this at all, so I'm genuinely curious. Hope it's not just "you can swap in and out our proprietary modules".
I have a theory that these environmental regulations at least to some degree defeat themselves. They make engines more complicated, so more fragile and harder for an amateur (edit: or any professional who isn't their own brand repair shops) to service. They encourage smaller-block engines with turbos and compressors which makes the engine more short-lived. They produce stuff like throttle-hang and gear selection recommendations optimized for driving economy, not engine longevity (or driving experience, for that matter).
On the whole, they seem to be contributing to this movement of taking power away from the end consumer and making your product more and more like a subscription (this goes further than the car industry, of course). I do realize that it's important to cut down on pollution! And maybe this kind of stuff has been studied... although I imagine it would be very hard to do accurately.
Imagine if a car manufacturer would provide service guides, easily-accessible part diagrams and competitively priced spare parts. Imagine if they optimized for longevity and if the handbook that came with the car had more technical details than it had warnings about how doing any kind of maintenance yourself will result in a) your death and b) a voided warranty. That would be pretty nice.
I agree with this article. I just want to add one thing: the author mentions companies in general, CEOs and the media as culprits. I'd like to add the people working at those companies.
Few of those might be actively looking at graphs and deciding to make the product worse for the sake of short-term revenue increase. Yet every act of enshittification takes people to make it happen. Those who "just work here", who may be slightly uneasy with adding another popup or displaying more ads but still do it, actively contribute to the problem. That's a decision they make. Even if those employees feel they are doing this only to keep a roof over their children's head or something along those lines, it's worth pointing out there's a choice being made.
This is especially worth mentioning as I think there are rarely actual evil masterminds — most enshittification is a result of tens, hundreds, thousands of people incentivized to repeatedly do things that are just a little bad.
Speculating here but I'd say a big part of the reason Dan Luu has as big a reach as he has is that he isn't the kind of writer who'll change his style to accommodate the audience that just wants to do a quick scan.
Somewhat unrelated but Apple are mainly focusing on Apple Intelligence in these new announcements.
The first version of OS X I used was Mavericks. In hindsight, that was the last great version of OS X for me — the last version where it seems the priorities of the people deciding the direction of development where somewhat aligned with mine.
Many have written about the decline in usability and attention to detail in OS X since then — I guess Apple Intelligence represents this shift in focus perfectly: a black-box interface that may or may not do something along the lines of what you were intending.
I agree that the mainstream web is becoming increasingly useless, but at the same time, there are counter-movements: search engines like Marginalia, decentralized communities and federated protocols, open-source projects and businesses, "the indie web".
"Small Discord servers, Telegram groups and mailing lists" aren't the only places good stuff happens on the internet, though it might take some deliberate effort to find the right ones.
Yeah, and it's not just the drivers. It's that everything is about money first and foremost in the sport. That seems to be what happens with any sport once it grows big enough.
The drivers, incredibly skilled as they are, will also frequently do things like go on the radio during races and complain about their car to their team, i.e. the persons responsible for said car. Not offer any constructive input, just... complain. Often. On the other hand, that's one of the few times they actually show any emotions or say what they think, with all the media training and endless PR events and making sure the sponsor logo on their hat is clearly in view in interview after interview after interview... Yeah, I'm ranting. But it's all just so incredibly blatantly commercial. Again, like any sport once it grows big enough.
(Another commenter wrote about the interesting technical side of the sport: I agree that there would be so many more interesting stories to tell there: about car development, strategy, manufacturing... but whenever these things are touched upon, it's done in a very shallow way, to prevent people quitting their subscription in horror at having to digest some actual information. Instead we get things like PR events with drivers having to pretend they enjoy whatever ridiculous competition they're put in against their teammate as part of their contractual obligations. It seems there could be so much more there... but perhaps this way is more profitable.)
I agree with the article, but was thinking along the same lines.
What if a business actually takes a long-term view: investing in standards and fostering it's ecosystem instead of trying to outmaneuver competitors using any short-term tricks available? What if a company makes a great dishwasher and only change it when they can improve it? Will they inevitably be driven into extinction or bought up by more short-term profit-hungry enterprises? Maybe... but is that really inevitable?
Not arguing with that. In discussions about Electron, there are often comments along the lines of "Electron apps can be fast if done right, just look at VS Code" and that just doesn't hold true for me.
Agreed on the power-user stuff and the courses. I use Obsidian in a simple way, but it's nice that the extensibility and the community is there.
Unlike VS Code, Obsidian is (for me) an actual example of an Electron app that feels fast. The quick open/command palette features are more responsive than similar features in native Mac apps I've tried.
As mentioned elsewhere, users frequently ask for Obsidian to be open source, but the fully transferrable file format is enough for me. I don't think most of those drive-by open-source commenters have thought about the work that goes into running an open-source project.
In other words, on some theoretical plane I'd like Obsidian to be an open-source native app, but in reality those things haven't bothered me at all. The app is as simple as I want it to be, as complex as I need it to be, and it's regularly improved in a thoughtful way.
But these architects seem to be more interested in the experience you get when _visiting_ the house in its environment, rather than the experience of actually living in it, and these houses are famously often impractical, hard to maintain, and in need of constant repair. That makes them less interesting to me.