{"id":50781,"date":"2026-01-22T16:52:06","date_gmt":"2026-01-22T21:52:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/?p=50781"},"modified":"2026-01-30T13:50:26","modified_gmt":"2026-01-30T18:50:26","slug":"backseat-software","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2026\/01\/22\/backseat-software\/","title":{"rendered":"Backseat Software"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/blog.mikeswanson.com\/backseat-software\/\">Mike Swanson<\/a> (via <a href=\"https:\/\/indieweb.social\/@brentsimmons\/115917762578038606\">Brent Simmons<\/a>):<\/p>\n<blockquote cite=\"https:\/\/blog.mikeswanson.com\/backseat-software\/\">\n<p>And yet, this is how a lot of modern software behaves. Not because it&rsquo;s broken, but because we&rsquo;ve normalized an interruption model that would be unacceptable almost anywhere else.<\/p>\n<p>I&rsquo;ve started to think of this as <strong>backseat software<\/strong>: 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&rsquo;s remarkably hard to keep it quiet.<\/p>\n<p>[&#8230;]<\/p>\n<p>And that&rsquo;s when the vocabulary starts to creep in. DAU. MAU. Retention. Funnels. Stickiness. Cohorts. Conversion. Gamification. Oh my!<\/p>\n<p>If you&rsquo;ve worked inside a modern product organization, you&rsquo;ve heard these words so often they start to feel unavoidable.<\/p>\n<p>[&#8230;]<\/p>\n<p>The analytics didn&rsquo;t prove the feature was unwanted. The analytics proved that we buried it.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n<p>Previously:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2023\/01\/27\/the-enshittification-of-all-things\/\">The Enshittification of All Things<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n<p id=\"backseat-software-update-2026-01-30\">Update (<a href=\"#backseat-software-update-2026-01-30\">2026-01-30<\/a>): See also: <a href=\"https:\/\/news.ycombinator.com\/item?id=46817452\">Hacker News<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/mastodon.social\/@daringfireball\/115980616486010426\">John Gruber<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Mike Swanson (via Brent Simmons): And yet, this is how a lot of modern software behaves. Not because it&rsquo;s broken, but because we&rsquo;ve normalized an interruption model that would be unacceptable almost anywhere else. I&rsquo;ve started to think of this as backseat software: the slow shift from software as a tool you operate to software [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"apple_news_api_created_at":"2026-01-22T21:52:10Z","apple_news_api_id":"e3f8b3e9-1cba-42fa-b997-9705e47e1865","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2026-01-30T18:50:29Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAQ==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/A4_iz6Ry6Qvq5l5cF5H4YZQ","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[77,295,31,30,355,1074,251],"class_list":["post-50781","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technology","tag-design","tag-history","tag-ios","tag-mac","tag-privacy","tag-push-notifications","tag-working"],"apple_news_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50781","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=50781"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50781\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":50859,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50781\/revisions\/50859"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50781"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50781"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50781"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}