Niche communities like this care. Normies don’t care at all. That’s where enshitification comes from, from the fact that companies don’t get punished by the majority of their userbase even when they pull pretty extreme shit.
I think the problem I’d that they’re sold on the idea if simple/easy being the highest version of technology, that frictionless and smoothe is better than empowering or secure.
Its the pitch that got them to pick up smart phones, after all. And that’s what needs to change.
But the average American is tech dumb, and will happily fuck up their own devices. I work at a university, the number of students who think “restart your PC” means “hold down the power button until it dies” is sad. Some of them can’t figure out the exam software we use, like the “reset password” link. They have a mixture of Avast and Kaspersky that was preinstalled on their devices, long expired, which is the only barrier against them getting malware from the random shit they install. Browser hijacks are super common. They don’t know how to fix those, sometimes they just buy a new laptop.
So I’m not convinced the average American SHOULD have a device that’s complex and requires a lot of understanding. iOS is incredibly popular for a reason - you don’t have to be a genius, old people and children can use it, and it’s not going to leak your saved credit card info because you installed some random “app” from an ad, which is actually of course malware.
This site is full of people who think the average American is just a RTFM away from being as tech literate as them… please go out and do some end-user support to see what they’re really like. Simple, easy, secure should be what people expect.
They’re infantilized. They’re made to be children, their brains depatterned into sludge by systems that give no options and respond as they want to, to manipulate the user rather than to do what the user wants. All of our technology does this. Modern ux design is fucking violence. You can hear corporations glory in how far this has come. It’s horrible.
It’s not that they need to RTFM. It’s that they need to be challenged and put in a position where their agency is exercised and their choices matter. They need technology to be meaningfully a part if their reality, rather than fantasy bullshit a tech billionaire just kind of decides/does in their direction. They need to heal. They need to reclaim their humanity and ability to apply logic to the world. And then maybe also to RTFM.
And until they do our technology will be violence.
You, as the it department, will be the managers of that violence, the theological police chief of the mystical real of domination and deception that is technology in this paradigm, rather than the infrastructural support mechanic you want to be. It’s why they don’t respect you; because your job isn’t real to them, its just the excuse to intrude upon them ever farther. Your stated philosophy makes you the enemy of all humanity, which is metal as fuck but not good.
Niche communities like this care. Normies don’t care at all. That’s where enshitification comes from, from the fact that companies don’t get punished by the majority of their userbase even when they pull pretty extreme shit.
I think the problem I’d that they’re sold on the idea if simple/easy being the highest version of technology, that frictionless and smoothe is better than empowering or secure.
Its the pitch that got them to pick up smart phones, after all. And that’s what needs to change.
But the average American is tech dumb, and will happily fuck up their own devices. I work at a university, the number of students who think “restart your PC” means “hold down the power button until it dies” is sad. Some of them can’t figure out the exam software we use, like the “reset password” link. They have a mixture of Avast and Kaspersky that was preinstalled on their devices, long expired, which is the only barrier against them getting malware from the random shit they install. Browser hijacks are super common. They don’t know how to fix those, sometimes they just buy a new laptop.
So I’m not convinced the average American SHOULD have a device that’s complex and requires a lot of understanding. iOS is incredibly popular for a reason - you don’t have to be a genius, old people and children can use it, and it’s not going to leak your saved credit card info because you installed some random “app” from an ad, which is actually of course malware.
This site is full of people who think the average American is just a RTFM away from being as tech literate as them… please go out and do some end-user support to see what they’re really like. Simple, easy, secure should be what people expect.
They’re infantilized. They’re made to be children, their brains depatterned into sludge by systems that give no options and respond as they want to, to manipulate the user rather than to do what the user wants. All of our technology does this. Modern ux design is fucking violence. You can hear corporations glory in how far this has come. It’s horrible.
It’s not that they need to RTFM. It’s that they need to be challenged and put in a position where their agency is exercised and their choices matter. They need technology to be meaningfully a part if their reality, rather than fantasy bullshit a tech billionaire just kind of decides/does in their direction. They need to heal. They need to reclaim their humanity and ability to apply logic to the world. And then maybe also to RTFM.
And until they do our technology will be violence.
You, as the it department, will be the managers of that violence, the theological police chief of the mystical real of domination and deception that is technology in this paradigm, rather than the infrastructural support mechanic you want to be. It’s why they don’t respect you; because your job isn’t real to them, its just the excuse to intrude upon them ever farther. Your stated philosophy makes you the enemy of all humanity, which is metal as fuck but not good.
I don’t think about the avarage american, i think about the avarage person
I like my response more, but yours is pretty good.
I prefer your reply too,if i wasn’t triggered by the fact that he continued to say “American” instead of “person” i wouldn’t have writen at all
I don’t see how one can get confused; those things have very little overlap.
They care after the fact but they dont understand and are hostile to the idea of trying to.
And only care once it directly affects them, because they’re tired of politics and the likes.
Thwy are infantilized. Children who would rather die than grow.