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Comment by pariahHN | Hacker News Reader

This...does not seem as bad as I originally thought. Just a prompt bar to use Office instead of WordPad. I was thinking it would look like the start menu does. Admittedly I would be more concerned if it was advertising something other than a product most consumers regard as the default way to edit text.

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Agreed. Most of my Windows-using family members wouldn't be able to tell the difference between WordPad and Word... until they go to share the file and discover that RTF looks different on every other person's machine. This is entirely a positive for the tech-illiterate portion of Microsoft's userbase, who probably intended to be using Word anyway.

It will also train them to further ignore the presence of these bars if they see them and close them without reading - these same bars that usually contain security warnings in Office products.

Paid users shouldn't be exposed to advertisements like these.

They probably have a very different idea of "paid" from the companies creating the software. Even though you "bought" a piece of software, it's more accurate to say you "licensed" that software. Buying something in a box doesn't change this in the eyes of the law and companies take advantage of this.

What can be done to change this perception? If "software is eating the world" then it's hard to see where this ends. Soon you'll have ads in your car, or on home appliances.

> Soon you'll have ads in your car, or on home appliances.

No, I won't, because the instant that I see any of that happening is the instant that I'll be getting rid of that car/appliance/whatever.

so says every single cable subscriber.

And look at the slow march to the grave cable is experiencing.

Hulu seems to be doing OK

The headline made it sound like the horrible mess that Freecell has become, but this is fairly low key.

this is fairly low key

Only if you're inured to this kind of corporate intrusion on your machine that you paid for with your money.

My toaster barking, "Hey, wouldn't you like a nice Thomases' English Muffin instead? Nooks and crannies!" is also fairly low-key, but not something I want.

Agreed. The fact that we're making comparisons to worse scenarios just shows how low standards have become.

It's more like your toaster saying "we have another model that provides xyz features you may or may not want"

Maybe more like you rent an apartment that comes with a basic toaster, and has a sticker on the said that says "full feature toaster available, inquire with the landlord if you are interested".

Mildly annoying and silly, but maybe some people wouldn't even consider the possibility if you didn't tell them about it.

Why is that even remotely OK?

If done well, it could just be a way to inform customers of an improved product.

Lets say Apple launched iTunes2 as a separate product and one day you opened iTunes and saw the banner "Try iTunes2!" would that be equally upsetting? Or you go to gmail.com and see a banner for "Try Inbox!" etc.

This isn't candy crush in WordPad, it's an ad for an enhanced text editor

I honestly can't imaging who this could be "done well".

> Lets say Apple launched iTunes2 as a separate product and one day you opened iTunes and saw the banner "Try iTunes2!" would that be equally upsetting?

Yes.

> Lets say Apple launched iTunes2 as a separate product and one day you opened iTunes and saw the banner "Try iTunes2!" would that be equally upsetting

It would, actually. I don't want to be sold to, at all.

It really does get as annoying as you'd expect. The Sci-Fi comedy Red Dwarf has a toaster that does essentially this, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LRq_SAuQDec

> My toaster barking, "Hey, wouldn't you like a nice Thomases' English Muffin instead? Nooks and crannies!" is also fairly low-key, but not something I want.

On the bright side, my kids would get to (briefly) see a reproduction of After Dark's "Flying Toasters" screensaver.

Just a prompt bar to use Office instead of WordPad

Wait.

Feature creep. Scope creep. Ad creep.

It could surely be worse, but it's still bad. I often pick Wordpad because I want more capability than a mere text editor can provide, but don't want to get bogged down with the overhead or complexity of the full Office offering. It's not appropriate for the OS to be second guessing my choices.

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