Guys... honest question. What happened to settings menus? Why are we taking away configuration from users' hands?
It's a dark pattern - don't let people use the software in unexpected ways that might take potential profit away from another service or future feature. If any use gives more value than was intended, that use will be curtailed, then properly monetized elsewhere, or simply (and more often than not) shut off.
If combinations of available settings reveal an actual bug, sometimes it's easier to take away the options than to fix the bug. But if it's simply a case that the software is doing things the developers don't want for any of the above reasons, they claim users are too incompetent to be trusted, and that they're removing the option for the good of the user.
It's a gross and vapid perverse incentive endemic to FAANG.
Good solutions exist for complexity and user configurations, like snapshots, reset to default, and so on. There's no excuse for mature software to lose configurability.
Plus, we're talking about Google here, so this new desktop version was 99% likely to have been rebuilt as an MVP.
See: some of the Chrome feature requests about making things user-configurable (off memory, related to download / execute behavior for enterprise web-launched apps), which Google closed with "Adding a setting would be incompatible with Chrome's design goals"
Exactly the point the referred poster was making. Google does nothing without monetization in mind
Naturally, as is it is these days, any new product or redesign is conceived in terms of an MVP. You could argue that the industry as a whole has taken this concept far too literally over the last decade, to the point of being cultish about it.
I don't dispute the parent poster's point in general, I just think it's more indifferent than lazy/greedy/arrogant, unless it comes to search or ads. That's arguably worse, but Google's reputation for delivering increasingly mediocre versions of its products (or shitcanning them entirely) does precede it.
They're not the paragon of virtue I want them to be, but it sure fucking ain't Google.
My point is that there are shades and degrees of bad behavior. It's a mistake to handwave every company as equally bad.
That feeling is how you normalize horribly immoral things.
There does not seem to be any genuine reason to make this change a setting because the main objection is just "I don't like it" rather than "it stops me from doing x" or "it makes x harder"
It would be much less painful to just have users get used to the new behavior than to support a setting for forever. For people who want full power, custom clients exist for google drive which can work however you want.
We see a constant trend where users move towards products which just work rather than require manuals and configuration. Seems only sane that general public products like google drive should cater to this and if you want full power over everything, you have 3rd party clients, nextcloud, ftp, etc.
I see one of the comments on that page is:
« I just installed the new Google Drive desktop client (Win 10 pro) and the new virtual drive it creates triggers a non-compliance issue with ClearPass OnGuard that my employer requires (because the drive is not encrypted) and thus prevents me from connecting to their VPN. »
Maybe this OnGuard thing is being foolish, but that's no comfort to the user.
Maybe, but if corporate policy requires all storage to be encrypted and the tool to enforce that policy can't verify that whatever Google's software is doing is compliant, maybe not.
Different policies might be appropriate for software that is used by non-experts in a personal capacity and software that is part of professionally managed IT systems used for business purposes with regulatory compliance obligations. A lot of the modern trends from the likes of Google, Apple and Microsoft might make sense for the former group but they are a significant concern for the latter and for prosumer or small business users who might want to operate more like the latter but are stuck with software aimed at the former.
Painful for who?
Do you care what gold thinks, as you mine it?
No, you only care about raw cost. And if you lose some gold, but in the end save money, who cares?
Which makes one wonder, should OSS vs profit driven, think of such things the same way?
This is overstated, and blown out of proportion these days.
Many of the studies stating so are 30 years old, at a time when virtually everyone was new to computing.
As well, an "advanced" menu item makes it simplisticly clear, don't monkey here novice, even an option for 'expert'.
And these can all be hidden away, so the novice / confused cannot find them easily, such as a pref "show advanced option".
This had worked well for decades. No confusion.
The real reason this "confusion" narrative exists, is options cost money, time. It fits the preference of less work.
Sometimes confusion is the appropriate state. Companies (or at least products) often have to choose between retaining the most users (or worse, customers) and catering to a subset who know what they want and are willing to learn to use it.
Sadly Google these days always seem to go with the former, and not to care about the latter. This completely turns me off their products and ecosystem.
Google has been following this approach for years now, simplifying the UX in a way that both 1. makes the product easier to use and 2. in a way that benefits Google.
Google has merged the url bar and the search bar in chrome, they force defaults on google search, and not long ago [1] we were discussing removing detailed cookie controls.
What if the emphasis of mainstream users is overstated? I find it more likely that an organization could be shaping features to coax its users into submission to make the org's life easier.
"Yes, mainstream users want this simplification. No, we can't share the data or methodology in which we surmised this. Yes, this makes our life vastly easier, but we want to excuse it by pinning it on mainstream users."
I've seen power apps (so by definition all the users are very technical and should not be patronized) that use the same reason to cut features instead of saying outright that it's too much to support. Maybe for a big org like Google it would be an admission of embarrassment.
I can't really think of any software from a major tech company that I use frequently and that's been updated to give me _more_ toggles to customize the app. It's always to take things away.
For example on a small company we had one user that needed RTL support, this ment we create backend code to store his perferences, front end code to add UI for it and testing the feature. We implemented because for a small company each user is important where big companies or projects(Firefox,GNOME will force this minorities to go elsewhere)
For mainstream, global software this is not a niche feature but a core requirement.
Appliances shed the sharp corners.
example: set Spotify to be the default music app.
I mean, what are you going to do, use a 3rd party client for Google's services? You're not allowed to - at least not on the same service level.
3rd party Google Drive clients have been the only type of Google Drive client on Linux for a long time.
Probably the only good graphical client is this one and it's actually pretty good: https://www.insynchq.com/
The poweruser needs to die to accomplish this goal.
We've taken the opportunity of technological advancement and turned it into societal devolvement in the name of convenience, instead.
Speculation, but plausible. I'd look at the broader trends, not just this one event. Rather, the series of events and the dark pattern behind it.
Because users are the product, not the customers. Time to choose a cloud provider with a different business model.