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Comment by 13415 | Hacker News Reader

I doubt that future. Traditionally, only hardcore power users are interested in extending software. Normal end users want reliable software that does what they want it to do. Some of them also want a certain amount of shiny buttons and UI effects to look at. I'm not saying there is no market for heavily personalized software, just that it is not going to be big. Of course, people also want AI that acts like a friend or expert and does amazing things. However, I don't believe the two worlds mix well. IMHO, AI substitutes a person working for you whereas traditional software is a tool that persons and AI use.

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The experience can be vastly different than deeply configuring a system like a power user. My nontechnical, 87-years-old grandfather is putting together apps to help him with his language practice. He uses Google iirc. The chatbot is a familiar interface since his time working did overlap with IRC, email, early internet, yada yada.

I don’t want to necessarily argue about merit or quality, but I have seen that custom software can be accessible to a general audience.

> Normal end users want reliable software that does what they want it to do.

But how does that contradicts the idea of extendable software? If anything, extendable software will better do what the user wants it to do.

It's just right now we think of extending the software as if it's a complex operation. It looks to me like the article envisions a future, where extending your software is as simple as, say, creating a new google doc or opening a link.

It is doubtable, however, that such level of ease of extendibility can be achieved at all. There might be enough essential complexity, like answering lots of questions, which, I agree, most users won't be doing.

The vast majority of users buy the software that does what they want it to do right from the start. If you reflect on it, you will likely find that this is also what you do. That behavior is not just normal for software, though, it's the standard for almost any product. You have a certain problem or need, look around until you find something that solves the problem or satisfies the need, and then you might buy it.

Think about cars for comparison. Some people like tinkering with them and tuning them. However, most people look for the features they need or desire and buy the car that satisfies their requirements and budget best.

Sometimes extensibility is part of the requirements to solve a problem or fulfill a desire but normally it isn't.

I think people who don't tune their cars also have some very specific requests on what they miss. It's just they never articulate their requests, because the only way to satisfy them would be to spend lot's of time and resources on tinkering.

However, I can see another counter-argument to my claim: not every consumer has specific requests for the product they're buying! Sometimes people are just not sure what they want. In that case, yes, I can agree that customization doesn't help. Moreover, having a limited set of pre-defined products helps to educate a consumer on what their options even are.

So, if a large part of consumers are the ones that don't know exactly what they want, then yes, you're right. I guess the distribution of “know-what-they-want” vs. “don't” depends on the product, although I think generally it tends to be that most people usually don't know.

Anyway, thanks for the good argument! Thinking about other products and industries, as cars, really helped, I missed that.

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