I think the entire argument falls apart at the Flowchart presented:
"Would any user benefit from this?"
Why? Because its trivially easy to say those shitty additions help a user, satisfying the check and throwing you into "Build It" territory.
Do users know how to navigate their local network to upload data to a folder? Not all of them, hook it into a cloud service. Do all users know how to download the right BIOS for their mobo and execute the update? No, make an app. Do users even know what version of OS they're on? Nope, better make something platform agnostic so electron it is!
I'm not all in on FOSS, but I do try to support them when appropriate. I think that ecosystem does a decent job of giving the user control over what's happening, but that comes with the obvious drawbacks of having a higher barrier to entry. I can figure these things out, but my wife can't... my mom can't.
At the same time some of the examples given live in two different realms. A calculator accessing your contacts & location is a different case than your dashcam wanting to ease the backup process. A mobo bios update is different than ads in your video driver installer.
I don't pretend to offer realistic solutions. I think I'm a bit pessimistic that our hacker culture will collectively decide we need to focus on user-first features and oust malicious developers looking to exploit the tech-illiterate. I've seen it too many times on hackernews that people will justify any action because it simplifies things now. I've never favored "move fast and break things" culture and butted heads with hackers who think regulation à la engineering code of ethics is detrimental to our profession.
Yeah, I had a broadly similar reaction. Some of the things the author points out seem like genuine attempts to make software less user hostile by adopting solutions that "just work" across all platforms even if the users have no technical knowledge. I think a lot of engineers think of user friendly as "I can configure it any way I want" whereas for the vast majority of people user-friendly means "just do what I think it should do and don't ask me any questions I don't understand".
> but that comes with the obvious drawbacks of having a higher barrier to entry.
Which isn't necessarily a bad thing. Many governments even raise the barrier of entry artificially for dangerous activitys by requiring licenses or training to operate heavy machinery, handle dangerous chemicals, install electricity etc. Using technology sometimes requires knowledge about the inner workings so users will not accidentally hurt others or themselves. Imo developers shouldn't infantilize users but give them tools to work with. Of course this naturally works better with FLOSS since there (more often than not) is no monetary incentive to get absolutely everyone on to use it.
"Would any user benefit from this?"
Why? Because its trivially easy to say those shitty additions help a user, satisfying the check and throwing you into "Build It" territory.
Do users know how to navigate their local network to upload data to a folder? Not all of them, hook it into a cloud service. Do all users know how to download the right BIOS for their mobo and execute the update? No, make an app. Do users even know what version of OS they're on? Nope, better make something platform agnostic so electron it is!
I'm not all in on FOSS, but I do try to support them when appropriate. I think that ecosystem does a decent job of giving the user control over what's happening, but that comes with the obvious drawbacks of having a higher barrier to entry. I can figure these things out, but my wife can't... my mom can't.
At the same time some of the examples given live in two different realms. A calculator accessing your contacts & location is a different case than your dashcam wanting to ease the backup process. A mobo bios update is different than ads in your video driver installer.
I don't pretend to offer realistic solutions. I think I'm a bit pessimistic that our hacker culture will collectively decide we need to focus on user-first features and oust malicious developers looking to exploit the tech-illiterate. I've seen it too many times on hackernews that people will justify any action because it simplifies things now. I've never favored "move fast and break things" culture and butted heads with hackers who think regulation à la engineering code of ethics is detrimental to our profession.