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Comment by ben0x539 | Hacker News Reader

I fear the wider, wider problem is that hubris pays off, it's not economically optimal for most sites to show this humility you'd like to see. Someone decided it's worth it to annoy us grumpy nerds in order to sell fractionally more stuff to the statistically average user.

I don't think apps/sites are getting worse about this, it's that they're getting better at optimizing for users who aren't me. It's probably just deeply frustrating/alienating to have to use products that you're not the target audience for (and that's increasingly almost all products).

(To be clear this isn't meant as derision of the 'statistically average user', it's perfectly justified that not everything is built to suit me, the protagonist of reality.)

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I reject this notion based on close to 20 years of consistent observation of and participation in the web development industry. In that time I can count on one finger the number of times I've seen credible AB tests even attempted, and even then the initiative was abandoned because none of the client's staff were interested in interpreting the results of their testing. All of that is to say in nearly two decades of building websites I've never even heard of a client attempting to make results-oriented decisions based on actual data about how their website looked or performed. 100% of the drivers of obnoxious website behavior that I have personally witnessed have been overeager marketing department heads and designers refusing to come to terms with the limitations of the medium.

My tentative conclusion is that these people know something about human nature that we don't.

I have a friend who runs a small e-commerce business and is largely non-technical. I've found that I couldn't ever do the same because I don't think like he does.

Apparently the average person is way less grumpy than I am about things like right to repair or planned obsolescence.

Case in point: to him an e-book reader is just an appliance, like a dishwasher, which performs a specific function. He doesn't care that he can't upload whatever file to the device because he would never use that feature.

"Apparently the average person is way less grumpy than I am about things like right to repair or planned obsolescence."

That is obvious. Otherwise we would not have glued in batteries, spyware everywhere as part of mainstream OS and ads in the start menue.

But to me a e-book reader is also just an appliance, that should perform one specific function. Displaying books. But I simply happen to know what a file format is, so I know that there is no reason to limit that, so they can try to lock me in to their store.

Exactly. An ebook reader is an appliance.

I view an ebook reader telling me I can't read a format of books the same as if a dishwasher told me I couldn't wash a certain brand of plates. Completely unacceptable.

or, more realistically, allowing only one brand of detergent. oh wait, printers already do that (with ink, not detergent)

Perversely, and without exception, all of those anti-features you mentioned were implemented the kinds of individuals that find them offensive and refuse to engage with them where possible. I feel like this says something about the state of personal integrity either in industry or society writ large.

> Apparently the average person is way less grumpy than I am about things like right to repair or planned obsolescence.

More likely is that the average person feels powerless in the face of technology and doesn't know how to change things or doesn't even fully understand the issues.

Try to substitute "grumpy" with "informed".

That's honestly great to hear. I've not been super convinced of the way I've seen AB tests used to justify decisions but I figured it's just me not liking the results, and that the prevalence of shitty websites means that the businesses with good websites are just not competitive and disappear.

The success of this website which has rejected all "best practices" for more than a decade should tell you something. No profiles. No awards. No visible karma (anymore). No post footers. No popups. No ajax. No images. No colors. Only italic and pre for markup, and italic arguably is superfluous.

My view is that the design of this site, targeted at niche users, is not alienating because it is designed by people from the same niche. It's great for that purpose much like niche tools like git or whatever are for people in the right niche, but I don't think you can apply this strategy when designing something that needs to have mass appeal for its business model to work.

The success of this website is that it doesn't have to be successful along the same metrics as substack or reddit or tiktok to fulfill its purpose.

buddy, this website doesn't make money and is funded by a billionaire VC.

This site makes an unbelievable amount of money because it helps YC startups attract talent, it promotes YC companies, and most of all, it encourages founders to apply to YC.

nah, it doesn't make any money.

Okay it doesn’t make money if you believe ads don’t make money. Because this place is a giant ad for YC.

It still provides value

Which is different than making money.

I think that none of the top 10 most valuable (to me) websites generate any sort of direct revenue (many, not even indirect) to their owners.

But they're immensely valuable.

You're right there are obviously economic incentives driving this but I think (in general) the things that annoy us grumpy nerds also annoy everyone else - we just might be more conscious about what specifically is going on. Over the years I have helped out many non-tech savvy relatives/colleagues/friends and things like changing program defaults, changing home pages, browser desktop (or mobile push) notifications, too frequent business newsletters, etc have been a common source of rage and stress - made worse because the person doesn't always know how to stop the problem. In fact, we're shielded from some issues - imagine how bad it is for users without adblockers.

But you're right - there's no easy way to deliver negative feedback for these negative practices - so they will presumably continue where commercially it's profitable (and not prohibited). I can hardly boycott every company/product which displayed arrogant behaviour - I'd have to live a hunter gatherer lifestyle by the end of the year.

> It's probably just deeply frustrating/alienating to have to use products that you're not the target audience for (and that's increasingly almost all products).

This. As every day goes by, more and more software becomes deeply annoying to use because of this. This is mostly a problem with Windows and mobile, fortunately, but is increasingly an issue with Linux.

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