Hacker News Reader

Comment by tarcon | Hacker News Reader

I don't get it. We have custom web frontends because we feel our problems can be solved more efficiently in UIs different from a spreadsheet, don't we?

Granted, not every custom UI is better than its spreadsheet version would be. But thats a different problem.

Otherwise, there are a lot of react datagrid and spreadsheet components to use if you feel that would be the best UI solution for your app.

Am I missing something?

View on HN

It’s not really true that we have custom front-ends because they are best for the user. Consider the example of AirBnB in the article and the fact that in 2012 they stopped allowing ranking by price: one has to assume that if a feature has been absent for eight years there’s no intention to reimplement it (presumably because it behooves the company to have it absent). I’m guessing that AirBnB knows/believes that the absence of this feature leads users to choose slightly more expensive properties and this generates more income. The spreadsheet intercept allows the user to regain control.

This is for the end user to use when they need the web app to work differently or to filter data from the web app while it is live. If software devs implemented everything that everyone needed, this wouldn’t be needed, but that is obviously an impossible goal (and even if you could do it, would you want to?)

The goals of the site builder and the end user are unfortunately not always the same. Airbnb doesn't want the user to have too much control (sorting by dollars), Facebook and Google also come to mind (being able to easily filter out ads would be great).

This browser extension is targeted at the end user.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com