If you’ve been around, you might’ve noticed that our relationships with programs have changed.

Older programs were all about what you need: you can do this, that, whatever you want, just let me know. You were in control, you were giving orders, and programs obeyed.

But recently (a decade, more or less), this relationship has subtly changed. Newer programs (which are called apps now, yes, I know) started to want things from you.

  • JackOverlord@beehaw.org
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    13 hours ago

    The reason I was working in IT support for a couple years and why that is the biggest team in my company’s IT is because most people aren’t tech savvy. The rest of this comment is written looking at a regular user: My mom.

    The section on accounts I mostly agree with except for one thing: Accounts are used to sync things across devices. Syncthing is great and I personally use it. Does my mom use it? Heck no, she wouldn’t even be able to set it up, let alone keep it working or repair it when it breaks. Google’s cloud doesn’t break, neither does Apple’s or Microsoft’s and all of those are already set up for her just by logging in once, when getting a new phone/PC.

    Updates: Complete bullshit. The other comment already explains it well. Most updates contain security fixes, the smaller ones, made outside the regular update cycle, are usually to fix major security flaws and should be installed by everyone, not just my mom.

    Notifications: Agree, even my mom complains about them and the only ones that are actually useful are the ones from communication apps.

    Onboarding: I find it funny that the author writes that they don’t care about Copilot, Figma make and calendar functions and just assumes that everyone else feels the same way. Does my mom care about those things? I don’t know, I haven’t asked her. That’s what these onboardings are for. Telling the user that you have a certain feature after an update or on first start is needed, because most users will not search for it on their own. It’s marketing and it’s gone after you go through it once.

    In conclusion: The author seems to not be aware that they are part of a very small group of people who don’t need these things.