by dusted | 2025-10-30 20:07:10+00:00
I think we need to stop this madness.

The disaster that is "modern UX" is serving no one. Infantilizing computer users needs to stop.

Computer users hate it - everything changes all the time for the worse, everything gets hidden by more and more layers until it just goes away entirely and you're left with just having to suck it up.

"Normal people" don't even have computers anymore, some don't even have laptops, they have tablets and phones, and they don't use computer programs, they use "apps".

What we effectively get is:

- For current computer users: A downward spiral of everything sucking more with each new update.

- For potential new computer users: A decreasing incentive to use computers "Computers don't really seem to offer anything I can't do on my phone, and if I need a bigger screen I'll use my tablet with a BT keyboard"

- For the so-called "normal people" the article references (I believe the article is really both patronizing and infantalizing the average person), there they're effectively people who don't want to use computers, they don't want to know how stuff works, what stuff is, or what stuff can become, they have a problem they cannot put into words and they want to not have the problem because the moving images of the cat should be on the place with the red thing. - They use their phones, their tablets, and their apps, their meager and unmotivated desire to do something beyond what their little black mirror allow them is so week that any obstacle, any, even the "just make it work" button, is going to be more effort than they're willing (not capable of, but willing) to spend.

Thing is, regardless of particular domain, doing something in any domain requires some set of understanding and knowledge of the stuff you're going to be working with. "No, I just want to edit video, I don't want to know what a codec is" well, the medium is a part of the fucking message! NOTHING you do where you work with anything at all allows you to work with your subject without any understanding at all of what makes up that subject. You want to tell stories, but you don't want to learn how to speak, you want to write books, but you don't want to learn how to type, write or spell ? Yes, you can -dictate- it, which is, in effect, getting someone competent to do the thing for you.. You want to be a painter, but you don't care about canvas, brushes, techniques, or the differences between oil, acrylic and aquarelle, or colors or composition, just want to make picture look good? You go hire a fucking painter, you don't go whining about how painting is inherently harder than it ought to be and how it's elitist that they don't just sell a brush that makes a nice painting. (Well, it _IS_ elitist, most people would be perfectly satisfied with just ONE brush, and it should be as wide as the canvas, and it should be pre-soaked in BLUE color, come on, don't be so hard on those poor people, they just want to create something, they shouldn't have to deal with all your elitist artist crap!) yeah, buy a fucking poster!

I'm getting so sick and tired of this constant attack on the stuff _I_ use every day, the stuff _I_ live and breathe, and see it degenerated to satisfy people who don't care, and never will.. I'm pissed, because, _I_ like computers, I like computing, and I like to get to know how the stuff works, _ONCE_ and gain a deep knowledge of it, so it fits like an old glove, and I can find my way around, and then they go fuck it over, time and time again, because someone who does not want to, and never will want to, use computers, thinks it's too hard..

Yeah, I really enjoy _LISTENING_ to music, I couldn't produce a melody if my life depended on it (believe me, I've tried, and it's _NOT_ for lack of amazingly good software), it's because I suck at it, and I'm clearly not willing to invest what it takes to achieve that particular goal.. because, I like to listen to music, I am a consumer of it, not a producer, and that's not because guitars are too hard to play, it's because I'm incompetent at playing them, and my desire to play them is vastly less than my desire to listen to them.

Who are most software written for? - People who hate computers and software.

What's common about most software? - It kind of sucks more and more.

There's a reason some of the very best software on the planet is development tools, compilers, text editors, debuggers.. It's because that software is made by people who actually like using computers, and software, _FOR_ people who actually like using computers and software...

Imagine if we made cars for people who HATE to drive, made instruments for people who don't want to learn how to play.. Wrote books for people who don't want to read, and movies for people who hate watching movies. Any reason to think it's a reasonable idea to do that? Any reason to think that's how we get nice cars, beautiful instruments, interesting books and great movies ?

Fuck it. Just go pair your toaster with your "app" whatever seems particularity important.