[zksmk]

>Something weird happened over the past decade.

I blame it on social media monopolies, or at least effective monopolies, oligopolies, and the network effect. Once everyone was sucked into these silos and unable to leave they could do whatever they wanted with the user experience without repercussions. And once everyone was used to it and took it as a given it was only a matter of time before it leaked even into desktop apps or even Windows, and people just accepted it. What I think could reverse the user hostility trend would be competition which would require breaking the oligopolies/network effect which means the rise of Linux desktop or Fediverse platforms, and that's gonna be a while, but not impossible. And of course there are limits to how far they can degrade the user experience without starting to lose users so I don't think it can be a lot worse than now, but still we're stuck with the status quo.

[selfhoster11]

I blame it on web development, pure and simple. The relentless drive for analytics and advertising is what brought the acceptance of spying.

[wolrah]

I blame marketing departments being given too much (read: almost any) control over product development.

No developer cares about the level of analytics being pushed today, and unless they're profit sharing they probably don't care about the ads either.

Those anti-features are there because marketing departments want them there and have enough power to get what they want.

Don't let marketing make product decisions.

[the_other]

As a career front-end developer, I take affront at this. I have never argued in favour of any of the shit people face on the web on a daily basis. I’m close to wanting to get out of the industry because the product is so toxic these days. The people are largely great, I love my current team.. but every month we’re told to add more tracking, or advertising (from Google of all people). I could leave out of political differences but where am I gonna go that’s different (in London)?

Biz: we need to track our users, stick GA on it Me: we could do a privacy-friendly alternative which brings the data in-house. It would lower our lower our GDPR burden so our cookie notices would be simpler, and at the same time make it easier to link our user data with other metrics (I work in streaming video at the moment) Biz: GA is free Me: Longer term, out overall cost of development will be lower because the complexity will be lower, and you wont be leaking data about your customers Biz: but GA is free and works out of the box with more analysis than we’d use Me: Do you see how that actually makes it more complex, over-engineered and unfit for OUR purposes? It’s also a dog to use by the data people and they will ask for a different tool because they can’t change GA Biz: it’s free. The deadline is three weeks.

BIZ: we want to make more money so we’ll sell advertising Me: Ok, but content-based advertising would guve us more control over what we get linked with, doesn’t track users, lets us set our own pricing, lets us sync better with our own content (because presumably we’d be able to control the manifests better Biz: but GA gives us an admin panel and we don’t have to think about it Me: but the integration will take months and half of it’s out of our hands be ause Third Party Biz: here’s the admin key they gave us…

(Ok, so I didn’t actually have these conversations and TBH I only learned the detail of sharing manifests with a third party after I joined the team.. but you get the idea).

[admax88qqq]

And yet almost every example of malware in the article is a native app.

[zo1]

I blame Javascript and the "hipster" devs that fueled its rise unnaturally.

[zelon88]

> which means the rise of Linux desktop or Fediverse platforms, and that's gonna be a while, but not impossible.

I like to hope you're right, but I don't believe you are.

Most people don't want to learn more about tech. They just want tech to be intuitive enough to pick up and use.

The mobile market appeared because Windows is too big and cumbersome. That's why people advertised it as a skill on their resume. It isn't fun. Windows is a chore to most people.

Nobody puts "experienced Android user" on their resume because it is expected that just by being alive you should be capable of using every function of an Android device. Very little functionality is abstracted away into 20 year old UI's or shell commands. There is a button for everything, and the button makes sense.

So if Windows didn't stand a chance, there is absolutely zero chance Linux will catch on at the scale it needs to for your post to come true.

[selfhoster11]

Ignoring the fact that Android puts its buttons in basically arbitrary places, the fact is that it's just not a very useful platform for more complex tasks. It can do less, so there's not much to master. Windows and Linux can do more, so there is more to master because they allow more complicated interactions between things inside the computer. In other words, listing an OS on your resume means that you are sort-of competent enough to pull off such tasks at all.

[EamonnMR]

The reason you don't list android user on your resume is that it's very difficult to use android (or iOS) for anything beyond passive consumption of content which is not something employers want.

[A4ET8a8uTh0]

I agree. Based on what I saw those that want to move either have or are exploring their options already.

Average user is perfectly content with what they have, because it requires zero new knowledge and zero extra work. Linux is still anything but that.

edit: Come to think of it. It is a good thing. Web became mainstream and see what happened to it.

[mixmastamyk]

A little too literal IMHO. No reason a floss mobile os can’t exist. Android proves Linux is technically capable.