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Comment by wutbrodo | Hacker News Reader

> but I read it as half-assed.

Why is formality any more natural for a user interface than casualness? This seems like an extremely arbitrary personal preference masquerading as reasonable criticism, no different from getting riled up about the fact that Windows default theme is blue when it should _obviously_ be green.

> Computers are our servants, not our friends. They should act like it.

I had a live-in housekeeper for a chunk of my life, which is roughly as close to "servant" as one gets in the modern West; we communicated in normal, casual English. If you are going around insisting that service workers address you like an aristocrat, you're an enormous asshole.

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I think a big part of it is the fact that it's a full-screen captive display, with an excessively long timeout. If it was a stupid little popup in the corner that said, "Hi, welcome to Windows!" It would have been cute.

If you're going to get all up in someone's face and demand their complete attention, there's a high bar for expected politeness, or at least some entertaining wit. "Hi" is just lazy and conceited. "Welcome. Please wait while we prepare your desktop," would be tolerable. A Maxis style status bar rambling on about "reticulating splines" would be funny.

To relate it to your experience with a housekeeper, if a housekeeper shouted your name from across the room, tapped you on the shoulder repeatedly, and then unplugged the TV you were watching to get your attention, you would expect them to say something like, "my apologies sir, the den is on fire," rather than, "lol, howdy."

A computer isn't a servant, though. It's a tool. A circular saw with a sassy personality means a trip to the hospital...

> if a housekeeper shouted your name from across the room, tapped you on the shoulder repeatedly, and then unplugged the TV you were watching to get your attention, you would expect them to say something like, "my apologies sir, the den is on fire," rather than, "lol, howdy

You're talking about something completely different, urgency rather than formality. In the rude interruption example you gave, you combined the two despite them having nothing to do with each other. "holy shit bro the den is on fire!" would be an infinitely more appropriate reason for a rude interruption than "my esteemed sir, how goes your day".

As I said, it's an arbitrary aesthetic preference. GP's irritation that computers dont address users as aristocrats makes just as much (little) sense as getting angry that they don't shower the user with compliments about your appearance.

Like, it's cool if they're into that, but it's super weird to describe it as a general principle of UIs

Computers don't have feelings, they process data. I don't want servants, I have computers for that. So how I talk to them shouldn't matter.

In fact, if you have a servant at all, YOU are an enormous asshole. Nobody should live in the shadow of someone far more privileged than they.

That’s how you feel about computers, but that’s not how the average windows user feels about their computer. I’m not saying the average Windows user considers their computing device to be their close personal friend- but there’s a reason that the blue screen of death was phased out. Nobody (not even you) wants a hostile relationship with their own device (eg: BSoD) but most users would prefer to think that their own device is at least their confidant if not their ally.

Would a confidant or ally obscure the reasons for problems behind a friendly face? Would they use subtlety and emotional manipulation to push you to use the things that they want you to use?

Is my computer my ally/confidant, or is it trying to control me from the shadows?

An ally does not behave in the way that Windows has been programmed to behave. It should be straight and narrow with me when something is wrong. Not friendly and fake-diplomatic.

Once again, we are shown an example of how business greed and the desires of average, illiterate users ruin computing for the people that understand them and are capable of making the most with them -- the power users. Of course, rather than spending the extra effort needed to elevate ordinary users to a more literate status, we happily stoop to their level as it makes obscuring the various telemetry and profit machinery embedded in Windows far easier.

It seems like you have more of an issue with Windows specifically, not with an OS saying "hi" on the setup screen

> Nobody (not even you) wants a hostile relationship with their own device (eg: BSoD) but most users would prefer to think that their own device is at least their confidant if not their ally.

I have a very hard time believing that Microsoft cares at all about avoiding giving users the appearance of a hostile relationship with their own device. So many choices they make (or take away from us) are way too user hostile for that to be their concern.

They have no problems making it painfully clear that if you are running windows then the device you paid for belongs to Microsoft and they will dictate what it does whenever they want, along with what you are or are not allowed to do with your own system.

Lol, I have a very hostile relationship with my Windows machine since around the Windows 8 era, but that's entirely on Microsoft ;)

A user shouldn't be victim to the whims of some far away UI/UX designer who only designs for what some data fortune teller thinks is their "average user". Computers are machines, designers need to stop anthropomorphizing them.

At the very least give me options to switch that crap off.

PS: But by far my main gripe with the "modern" UI philosophy is: a "No" means frigging *No*, it doesn't mean "not now" or "maybe later", I also can guarantee that I won't change my mind (and if I do I will find that option in the settings window myself, thank you). Not offering a simple "no" in a yes/no choice is an insult to the user's intelligence, it's as simple as that.

It's not like the "blue screen of death" was a feature. It was the kernel aborting due to an unrecoverable failure. They "phased it out" by making the kernel more robust because folk like their kernels to not abort, not because the blue screen was an interior UI choice.

I remember getting a mac to "blue screen" back in 2008 or so, by repeatedly plugging in a Logitech mouse while pushing its buttons down.

Also Windows still bluescreens from time to time, only now it has a giant sad face emoticon, with the error code a tiny label tucked away in the fine print down the bottom.

Right. It was phased out in favor of something intending to seem friendlier.

"Nobody should live in the shadow of someone far more privileged than they" - pretty sure 99% of the world's population does do exactly that...

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