Backseat Software
Mike Swanson (via Brent Simmons):
And yet, this is how a lot of modern software behaves. Not because it’s broken, but because we’ve normalized an interruption model that would be unacceptable almost anywhere else.
I’ve started to think of this as backseat software: the slow shift from software as a tool you operate to software as a channel that operates on you. Once a product learns it can talk back, it’s remarkably hard to keep it quiet.
[…]
And that’s when the vocabulary starts to creep in. DAU. MAU. Retention. Funnels. Stickiness. Cohorts. Conversion. Gamification. Oh my!
If you’ve worked inside a modern product organization, you’ve heard these words so often they start to feel unavoidable.
[…]
The analytics didn’t prove the feature was unwanted. The analytics proved that we buried it.
Previously:
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Software and websites equally are hell to use because of the constant, constant, constant interruptions, regardless of how many times you use the software or visit the site. If I tracked every incident where I speak derogatively to a machine, I bet 90% of these incidents are me trying to do something quickly and getting interrupted by something I couldn’t care less about.
I looks like Brent assumes companies want to write good software. Similarly to users, who don't want a drill but a hole in the wall (or rather a hanged picture), companies don't care about the software or its users but just want to earn money. Enshittified software earns more money. Maybe not over 10 or 20 years but who knows if it would survive a year, let alone 10+ years?
