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Comment by ryandrake | Hacker News Reader

There's been a big shift in the whole software industry from "enable what the user wants to do" over to "we want the user to do this". Back in the '90s, we would go out, talk to customers, find out their needs, gather requirements, and write software that enables them to do what they want to do. Now, in a lot of software companies, it's the opposite. Product leadership starts with "What do we want users to do?" and then every software decision is in service of encouraging / forcing / channeling users' behavior into these paths. I've sat in product meetings where people would just say "No, the user should not be allowed to do ABC, we (Company) need them to do XYZ!" It's arrogance, it's hubris and it's everywhere.

The slogan "Where do you want to go today?" is dead. It's now all "This is where we will let you go today!"

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The skype thing kinda makes sense. People want software which just works without configuration. When you sign in to an iphone or macbook, it immediately sets up facetime which is always active waiting for a call in the background. No one complains because this is expected and it has always happened.

But then Microsoft wants to give their users the same conveniance as Apple users get with their "just works" setup and people call it user hostile and malware. It makes perfect sense that users would like a way to call other windows users in a way that doesn't involve installing things and fiddling around with more accounts/configuration.

I see your point but maybe the reactions are because most of these efforts feel half baked? For example they are forcing teams on users, which I use as a daily driver at my work and I feel that it's the worst piece of software I have to use.

On top of that the way things are integrated always looks and feels forced. Like going into lengths to hide control panel in windows 10 even if it's still there and while the settings app which replaces it only has a fraction of the functionality.

I agree it’s an implementation issue. Windows always feels like annoying nagware while macOS and iOS largely get out of your way. Teams would pop up with a window on every boot to annoy you while FaceTime just sits in the background.

But the power users on this site would rather we have some kind of advanced configuration page where every single feature of windows should be opt in. While simultaneously praising the Apple “just works” system.

> While simultaneously praising the Apple “just works” system.

Because included into that "just works" system is just leaves you alone.

Maybe if the "helpful" Windows feature wouldn't nag all the time, as you put it, the power users wouldn't complain about it and look for ways to turn it off.

I've been using a Mac for more than 10 years now without an iCloud account. It asked me once whether I wanted one, when I bought the computer new, I said no, and it's left me alone ever since. And I went through I don't know how many "major" upgrades. Windows bugs me all the time.

So there's really no reason for me to complain about FaceTime, or whatever. I don't even know it's there if I don't go looking for it specifically. Whereas Windows, it's in my face, all the time. So there's a direct benefit for me to look for ways to shut that crap down. Maybe, just maybe, if Teams isn't installed it will shut up and leave me be. At least until the next update brings it back...

Edge is arguably the worst one here. Change your default from Safari on MacOS and it'll never bother you again, and anything that would have previously opened in Safari will open in the new browser.

There's practically no easy way to get rid of Edge or silence it; not only is it forced down your throat, there's active investment in trying to prevent you from switching to something else.

It doesn't excuse the constant nagging from OneDrive and Teams but, at least for now, they're not detecting that you're on Slack/Discord/Dropbox and trying to force you to switch.

Absolutely. And everything is extremely confusing, even for "tech workers", which I am.

The other day, I installed Win 11 on a work computer to give it a try. I figured since it's gonna be domain joined and whatnot anyway, might as well go all in. So when it asked for an account, I plug in my Office 365 account, and got all kinds of weird errors, such as wrong password, etc. In the end I gave up and created a regular account. Now it asks whether I'm sure I don't want an MS account, 'cause it's so much greater. Right. Except it doesn't work... Then I try adding the account manually in "accounts". Same issue...

In the end, I managed to add the account via OneDrive, which installed a separate OneDrive. But at least it did it on its own, no intervention needed. But I do have two "one drive" folders in the explorer for some reason, and I can't remove any of them [0]. I don't remember iCloud showing up multiple times in Finder.

Later, I find there's Teams preload. Good, let me just log in. Strange, I added the account, said it was OK for other apps to use, but it still wants me log in. I type in my credentials, and the odd account errors are back. Turns out, that's the wrong Teams! It's teams for the plebs, apparently I needed Teams "pro" or something. At least, Skype had a somewhat different name, as in "Skype for business" vs "just skype".

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[0] Yes, I know it's possible to change the "shortcuts" or whatever they're called from the registry, but the point is that it's half-baked, it tries to be "helpful" but it's actually a hassle. If I don't want iCloud in the Finder, I can just pull it out of the sidebar. And it stays that way, as opposed to the Explorer shortcuts which have a tendency to come back after updates.

The separation of Onedrive and Teams into plebs and business versions is asinine. Why cant both types of accounts use the same application?

It's not the same though.

If I buy an iPhone then it is so that people can call me on it. The Mac makes it easy that I can also receive a call on my Mac if I am working on it. It's an additional convenience feature. It's not like the Mac is forcing me to do this. The call would still happen on my phone, I'd just have a much harder time to respond to it if I didn't get the smooth integration on my Mac whilst working on it. If I didn't have an iPhone then I also wouldn't get random calls on my Mac. Besides, if I don't want this feature to work then it is very easy to disable it form a very self explaining settings app and that setting will persist during updates.

It literally couldn't be more different to how Windows operates.

Also, perhaps Apple makes things enjoyable in how they work, which is maybe why less users have a desire to disable these handy features. It certainly feels more straight forward, down to the point, no dark patterns and very obvious as a macOS user. I can't say the same about Windows.

> When you sign in to an iphone or macbook, it immediately sets up facetime which is always active waiting for a call in the background. No one complains because this is expected and it has always happened.

People actually complain. We’re past the point where everyone only has one set of devices, a single apple ID, and everything is simple.

You might not want your iPad to receive the “family” account Facetime. You might not want your second phone to register for iMessage. You might want these services from an ID different from the device’s main account.

There’s optout ways out for all these services, but following the 80/20 rule, I think there is a “20” part with circumstances that make the blanket “turn it all on” grating and tedious to get rid of.

That misguided notion of product features and integration, where the user has minimum role, started out at Apple. The standard pattern used to be talking to OEMs and discussing what users wanted from them. That review phase generated update ideas for next release and so on. Apple turned that question on its head and made it "the one last thing" show business.

We have employed a generation of PMs now who idolize Steve Jobs' mantra: "Users dont know what they want until you show it to them".

EDIT: We does not mean I am employed by Apple. It signifies the general trend for companies to enable product development by PMs

> We have employed a generation of PMs now who idolize Steve Jobs' mantra: "Users dont know what they want until you show it to them".

just because a bunch of dumb PMs are pushing hot garbage to the user doesn't mean that statement is false. There almost always IS a way to improve and innovate a user experience—a new experience that the user hasn't thought of before. Its just that the PM incentives aren't aligned with the users these days.

That is a good observation. The whole GTalk-Hangout-Chat saga at Google is testament to that misguided ideology.

Agreed. I think it was Henry Ford who said that if he had asked customers what they wanted, they would have told him a better horse.

Innovation is the act of giving the users something they didn't know what they want.

But that's not what these anti-user dark patterns are. They are the end result PMs trying to hit their KPIs by any means necessary. And those happen to not track things like users satisfaction and trust.

Note that Apple doesn’t have PMs.

Absolutely, although something that really grinds my gears is that there's sometimes this weird Orwellian lie that they really start to believe, that they actually are doing it "for the user." There's something deeply disturbing about mass group delusion.

Indeed. One need only look at something as simple as UI styling to see the drastic difference. It used to be that the user could set every aspect of the UI widgets to pretty much whatever they wanted in terms of color, don't, and size. It wasn't even really noteworthy to come across someone who used italic comic sans in their title bars on a purple and green widget scheme.

Nowadays getting a bespoke dark mode for applications is an advertisement worthy feature.

It’s probably driven by all the unicorns and massive tech companies that got where they are by building what they think the customers will want.

Not defending, but I do recall the ford quote of “If I’d asked customers what they wanted, they would have said ‘a faster horse’”

I guess the ultimate goal is profit, and strategy was implementing what users wanted. “Strategy is how not what” etc etc.

The goal is now growth, not even profit, and control over users is strat.

What comes next? Jerk(2nd derivative of speed, rate of acceleration changes)? — the speed at which users conform a platform?

Capitalism is so ripe for disruption, or innovation, it seems!

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