Hacker News Reader

Comment by jitl | Hacker News Reader

Notion doesn't like making things opt-in.

A feature that's opt-in will get like 1% of the use of a feature that's opt-out. A happier middle ground would be to enable by default and show a "I don't like this, pls turn it off" button the first few times.

EDIT: shouldn't single out any specific role here. We think opt-out, enable-by-default makes a feature have far greater total utility. But we could do more to provide user agency for these features in-line during first use or find a different balance point.

View on HN

Your PMs should not decide what your software does with my hardware without me giving my informed consent.

Our PMs don't like making things opt-in.

-> Your users don't like making things opt-out. Low usage metrics is a UX problem. Activating it without informed consent gives you bloated metrics anyway.

It’s just not true that users don’t like making things opt-out. HN Users tend not to like it but I think a lot of users dislike the alternatives: either because they’re undiscoverable (toggle in settings or a menu) or intrusive (various sorts of what’s new overlays). Imo, the question of when to make things opt-in vs. opt-out is fairly subtle and largely depends on the feature and pre-existing trust.

There are infinite ways on how to inform users of a new feature and ask to activate it.

And nearly all of them are annoying and disrupt my flow.

cookie popups that don't even work

The same thing disrupts your flow allows me to make informed decisions, and I'm happy to be offered a choice, and ability to change my mind later.

Your new feature is privacy invading. It's none of your business to detect if someones mic is on unless they invite you to do that.

What is so hard about that?

> Our PMs don't like making things opt-in.

Lamest excuse ever.

I wouldn't be surprised if you phoned back home about that mic activation - do you?

I recently joined an org where Notion is in use - I will actively lobby them to not install the desktop app, at all or to quit Notion alltogether.

What exactly is the privacy issue with detecting when a process begins using the microphone?

Following my habits, and reporting to a data broker that how I use my microphone, allowing even more precise profiling of my life circumstances or habits.

We don’t report your habits to any data broker. This information use used purely for local UI.

Yet... you don't report habits to a data broker yet. It is currently used for local UI.

Once you already are in the habit of evading user-privacy, it's a only a couple of down quarters before you start tracking and sending data to data brokers or someone else. This is why no one here likes this behavior.

Delta Airlines has entered the chat.

As more and more companies start to use AI for “personalized”/targeted pricing, offers, advertising, etc. The more this exact type of data will be useful and therefore lucrative.

And evidently their PM's don't like doing opt-out, so...

Sorry if it came through like that. I didn't mean to say Notion shares personal data to broker(s). I just wanted to highlight where it can go.

Please don't forget: Road to hell is paved with good intentions. Making features which can eavesdrop on users opt-in can go very wrong, very fast.

I understand the need to make it "feel like magic", but that line is very thin.

Last note, please when you move something around (e.g. Calculate button from bottom of the database columns to header menu), please let users know. It really feels bad when you use something too much just disappears.

BTW, I'm a Notion subscriber as you can say :)

Make a pop-up with the opt-in/out for all the features on first launch with everything defaulted to on so people can turn features off and get notified that such features exist. You can also use this to gather metrics on what features people are actually interested in.

Good compromise.

Yep, completely agree.

Nothing makes me not want to use software more than it asking questions about how I want to use the software before I've used the software.

Runner up is the "what's new" tutorial overlays.

Well, I suppose everyone is different. The first thing I do after launching a new software is inspect its options, and if it doesn't have a good range of tunable options, there's a good chance I'll immediately abandon it. So I actually really love the recent trend in video games putting you into the options at the start.

Just seeing the words “got it” raises my blood pressure.

Get better PMs. Seriously. Users shouldn’t have to opt-out of something for privacy. Respecting privacy should be the default. If a user finds value in letting you listen to the microphone, then great! But you have to inform them! There are also other ways to get the same information — such as if the user also shares their calendar. This is sneaky and evasive behavior.

But none of this conversation makes me want to use Notion. We used to use it at $OLDJOB for meeting notes and light DB work for non-technical users. Now I’m happy we stopped.

have any in mind? we're hiring :)

http://job-boards.greenhouse.io/notion/jobs/6345904003

not sure if I wanna send someone your way if the current PMs are dropping the ball so hard. There's no guarantee if this behavior will be only encouraged for new hires.

in seriousness: we don't listen to your microphone unless you click the button that says "start transcribing" in big letters.

we dropped the ball with the support response quoted the top of the thread. we don't process your microphone data until you click the button to start transcribing, and remind the user to confirm they have two-party consent. we merely detect when a meeting app is using your microphone.

source: i work at notion, just checked the code. it's electron, you're welcome to check for yourself.

> Our PMs don't like making things opt-in.

Thank god the web browser was developed in an era where PMs weren't stack-ranked on rubrics like "feature engagement". Imagine a world where every website was granted access to your filesystem, webcam, microphone, and geolocation by default so that PMs could report back on how many websites were making use of those browser APIs.

> A feature that's opt-in will get like 1% of the use of a feature that's opt-out.

Well... yeah. It's either because the benefits of opting in aren't communicated well enough or that users just don't actually want it.

For AI meeting notes, I'd imagine it's the latter.

>Our PMs don't like making things opt-in

Then refuse implementing it. Have some dignity for God's sake.

Depending on the company culture, this may not be allowed. As in: PMs will ask another dev to implement it; if this happens more often then they will replace you.

Also, searching for dignity in a post-“don’t be evil” startup environment seems unusual.

While I agree with your sentiment, I'll note that ethics are hard to hold when it's your livelihood on the line.

Expecting a shift in corporate culture to come from a short list of individuals making great personal sacrifice (of their careers, reputations, whatever) is not reasonable, sustainable, or realistic.

I know there are a lot of folks who abhor regulation in many contexts, but stuff like this is most effectively handled by such mechanisms.

And then what, be out out of a job because you were insubordinate? If you have the personal wealth and security to lose your job and possibly not have a new opportunity for the next year or so, then that's great. Not everyone has that security, and a roof over their head just may be more important than personal convictions about how to treat users.

Having that kind of power as an implementer requires the backing of a union.

And the utter certainty that you are infallible.

what an emotional response to work

While I personally wish that there were more people who had the ability to make such decisions, and exercised that ability, I think that this is a hostile response to someone who didn't have to spend the time to come on HN and describe the situation to the best of their ability. Calling people undignified because they, or their company, isn't perfect is just going to close down channels of communication.

> Our PMs don't like making things opt-in.

“Ze engagement metrics must go up on ze dashboard every quarter, jah!” I can’t wait for the day PMs and other parasites find a new industry to move to. They sure have sucked the fun out of this one.

> Our PMs don't like making things opt-in.

Tell them that alone is one reason I'll never use it. I'm sure I'm a minority, but not zero.

>Our PMs don't like making things opt-in

That is an implementation detail. What matters is the outcome:

Notion leadership has signed off on this being opt-out.

The calculus here, as you indicated, was that opt-in has little buy-in.

What leadership didn't take into account was the risk of this being publicized, and the blowback from this awareness.

That, or leadership has already calculated that not enough people will care (possibly true).

I suppose it's then up to those that do care to make more noise about this, to tilt the odds?, so this specific calculus (also known as enshittification) doesn't keep occuring (i.e, if the blowback costs are disproportionate to the value provided by default opt-out....)

thats a red flag imho

> Our PMs don't like making things opt-in.

Whenever people on HN and else where present you the mustache twirling evil Microsoft or Apple or Google C-suite/board who are trying to enshitificate a product or a tool because they don’t care, always keep in mind that the reality is often a lot more mundane than that.

The application that is “sneakily” listening to you and transmitting everything you say to their servers can be a legitimate product of a mustache twirling villain, but it’s a lot more likely (in my experience) that a group of 5 engineers and a PM were tasked by “Present relevant products from our company to the user” task and someone was like “what if we record what they are saying (or just zip-up their entire ~/Documents folder), run it through an LLM on our server and prompt it to analyze their convo or documents and recommend one of our products to sell to them? Sounds good to me, no?”

No Eddy, this simpleton scenario of yours is not more likely to be true than the evil scenario where the evil tech company invades users privacy and collect data it wasn't directly allowed for an extra profit.

I admit I haven’t been in any of the mustash twirling meetings. They probably happen, but I have also been in the room with engineers and PMs discussing solving problems with analytics attribution to user.

It is because when you get your attention fixed to the execution level you miss the strategic.

Given the structure of hierarchical orgs, both can (and likely are) true.

Moustache-twirler A: We've identified these metrics that correlate with increased shareholder value

Moustache-twirler B: But what do those metrics say about user privacy?

(both laugh. This is very funny)

MT A: no but really, fire any PMs that don't make these go up and let the survivors figure out why

MT B: sounds great. See you at golf this weekend

(some time later, in a less fancy conference room)

Engineer: This new feature is great, but could be construed as an invasion of privacy. Can we make it opt-in?

PM (panicking): Oh good heavens, no! Also send the opt-out button to the UX team, that way it doesn't come down on us.

It's probably more telling how you had to invent the cartoonishly evil MTA and MTB, a bootlicker PM, and an honest (but maybe just slightly clueless) engineer.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com