> I used to share your belief, but as I got older, I realized... Windows isn't targeted to us, the faux technocratic elite that grew up with computers: it's targeted to the average person, and the average person, largely, is technologically illiterate to some degree.
I mean, the average user has been capable of installing and using alternative browsers for a significant period of time. Most folks exist as some shade of gray between your Grandma with an Ask toolbar and the "HN elites." If anything, I think there is often an underestimation of what regular users understand and are willing to do with their tech (to improve their experience, privacy, etc.) If you need some sort of a sanity check, see how your friends and peers (that don't work in software) configure their systems. See what browsers they use, what adblockers they configure, etc. I predict you'd be surprised.
I rarely meet this "average user" who is often discussed on HN; this person who isn't interested in using non-standard software, who doesn't care at all about their privacy, who will use only the easiest and cheapest solution possible, etc. Dark patterns don't just work on these "average users," they work on plenty who even work in tech. I click "Accept All" on the cookie banner on this one-off website if it's the fastest way to read the contents, I will put off changing default apps if I have to hunt for the correct settings, heck I've been charged for subscriptions an extra month because I put off dealing with the hassle of cancelling the thing.
I think this "average user" is constructed in the collective imagination because it makes implementing user-hostile design choices a little more conscionable if you view your users as tech illiterate morons. Considering the state of the industry, one where dark patterns and user hostility permeate nearly every design choice, it doesn't surprise me that HN, a subset of this industry, holds this dim view of its users.
> If you need some sort of a sanity check, see how your friends and peers (that don't work in software) configure their systems
Everyone I know who doesn't work in tech "configures" their system by calling me and saying, "it doesn't work" (no other details provided), and asking if I can just fix it.
> I rarely meet this "average user"...who isn't interested in using non-standard software...doesn't care about privacy...will use only the easiest and cheapest solution
Consider yourself lucky, and consider the circles you travel in are may not be reflective of the majority of users.
Everyone's anecdotes will be different (and may differ along generational lines.) For a more concrete example of users seeking non-standard software, within a few years of it coming out Chrome became the most popular desktop web browser, surpassing IE. People perferred the experience on Chrome over that on IE to a considerable degree. On the privacy front, 96% of users opt out of surveillance-based advertising [1] when empowered to do so.
The longer we consider concepts like user freedom and privacy as only things that "HN elites" would appreciate, the more tolerable user-hostile design choices will be among HN types.
I'm inclined to agree with you on this one. I spend a lot of time and effort customizing my setup so it fits my needs perfectly. Because I believe that spending even a day or two on setup for a system I'm going to use for a year+ is well worth my time.
So many of my coworkers at every job have just blindly accepted all defaults for Windows, macOS, etc. setups. Even when something really annoys them, they'll only occasionally express it... and when I show them that it's a setting they can actually change to better suit their workflow, they're super grateful and excited at this new thing they learned. As if they couldn't possibly have navigated to preferences on their own.
Even things that are massively broken, like my dad's router that was constantly overheating and shutting down because it was stacked in the back of a closet surrounded by other crap, many people just accept and move on from.
My personal favorite? I'm constantly frustrated by almost everything I do in the Spotify app:
- General lagginess, slowness to start up or respond to clicks
- loading in albums and playlists that reorganizes the homescreen as a I scroll and try to click on things
- albums I click on that never load unless I back out and click on them again
- music that shows up as "playing" but doesn't actually play any audio
- unplugging headphones leading to half a second of audio blasting out my speakers because the app takes so long to respond to the headphone disconnect event...
I asked a software engineer friend if he's ever frustrated by those same things. He said "it's fine." I showed him some of these frustrations (because they're very replicable).
He said "it's fine. It plays music, what else do you want it to do?"
Most people are content with mediocrity. Perfect example: the folks who use built-in apps on Samsung phones that display ads in between weather and text messages and emails.
Honestly the way I look at it, these issues all have such a simple solution. The user experience can be so much better, but MSFT does not want that. They want a confusing experience that pretends they aren’t monopolizing their platform.
Even if the lowest common denominator can navigate the settings (eventually) it’s still not an excuse to make shitty UX paradigms. This is a company with some of the best and brightest engineers—and we’re on three decades of Windows… and they can’t figure out how to design a proper defaults page? Come on.
I mean, the average user has been capable of installing and using alternative browsers for a significant period of time. Most folks exist as some shade of gray between your Grandma with an Ask toolbar and the "HN elites." If anything, I think there is often an underestimation of what regular users understand and are willing to do with their tech (to improve their experience, privacy, etc.) If you need some sort of a sanity check, see how your friends and peers (that don't work in software) configure their systems. See what browsers they use, what adblockers they configure, etc. I predict you'd be surprised.
I rarely meet this "average user" who is often discussed on HN; this person who isn't interested in using non-standard software, who doesn't care at all about their privacy, who will use only the easiest and cheapest solution possible, etc. Dark patterns don't just work on these "average users," they work on plenty who even work in tech. I click "Accept All" on the cookie banner on this one-off website if it's the fastest way to read the contents, I will put off changing default apps if I have to hunt for the correct settings, heck I've been charged for subscriptions an extra month because I put off dealing with the hassle of cancelling the thing.
I think this "average user" is constructed in the collective imagination because it makes implementing user-hostile design choices a little more conscionable if you view your users as tech illiterate morons. Considering the state of the industry, one where dark patterns and user hostility permeate nearly every design choice, it doesn't surprise me that HN, a subset of this industry, holds this dim view of its users.