Irenes (many)the longer you spend using software that does not make deliberate efforts to run your inner peace through a wood chipper in order to monetize it
the more jarring it is using something that does
when commercial OSes insist on putting the weather on the lock screen whether we ask for it or not, that is the company advertising its own services to us, that is the company clamoring for our attention and telling us we need to be thinking about the weather rather than just quietly existing
people who are used to putting up with that one don't even recognize it as an intrusion, and when we call it an "advertisement" without explanation, people are confused. that's fair enough, but from outside, from a baseline position of not giving up any of our internal calm and quiet to external corporate demands for it, it stands out, it's obvious
we do suspect that our actions on this topic come off as extreme, but, like
we do not use things that have ads in them. it is not worth it to us. it's just completely not worth it, there is no way that it is ever going to be an experience we're glad to have had. we're glad that it's not a big deal to other people, but we have the self respect and self awareness that it is a big deal to us
similarly, we are also highly skeptical of using things that change their layout completely every six months because somebody needed to justify their promotion so they did a redesign. that is not respectful of our time, and it is not worth it. none of the things that programs like that can do for us, are worth devoting part of our brain to understanding how they work only to have the rug pulled out from us just when we're starting to get it.
we prefer software that stays where we put it, that only changes when we ask it to change. we also prefer software that doesn't demand attention, that waits until we choose to pay attention to it and then only tells us the answers to the things we asked rather than trying to tell us lots of other stuff for its own ends.
again, we're sure this comes off as extreme to someone. we can't help that, but we're not doing it for anyone else's sake, we're doing it for our own. we're quite serious about the "inner peace" framing.
this isn't an ideology, in the sense that it's not a worked-out philosophical position that encompasses many areas of philosophy and has been written down in a book that someone could go read to learn about it. this is just a personal belief on one small topic, and it's a belief we held for many years before we had any words for it
we also have no particular reason to think it's the same as anybody else's reason for preferring free software and community-driven tooling
but it's ours, so we figured we'd explain it, since we've seen questions going around and we're not sure whether those questions are meant to apply to us
we make our physical home as beautiful as we can, because we spend all our time living in it, it affects our mood through the day and through the night, when our home is clean and our furniture is aesthetically pleasing and free from distractions - except the specific distractions we actively chose to put there, such as the record collection! - then we are happier, calmer, more peaceful, more able to live the life we want
we make our computing environment as beautiful as we can for all the same reasons
just bumping this old one because a company did a thing again
(it's deliberate that we're not naming the company. it gives us pleasure to imagine that, if we revisit this thread again in another six months, we won't even know.)
Vinnie (any)@ireneista exactly. Having adhd myself, inner peace is hard to come by. Anything screaming for attention is highly disruptive to my life and I ban these items and software from my environment for that exact reason.
Julia RezGood heavens, yes.
It took an OS change, and not in the direction one might expect, for me to achieve that end.
@JuliaRez glad you figured it out! :) whatever software works for you is the right software, the whole point is that we don't get to tell other people what they should like
Cassandra Granade 🏳️⚧️@ireneista I do not want to live in a world where my brain is an uncontrolled experimental test subject in someone else's OKR optimization inner-loop. I would have hoped that's not controversial, but sadly.... *gestures wildly*.
@xgranade strongly agreed
for what it's worth, we don't think anybody really actively wants that, and if they do it's because they think they'll be on the giving end rather than the receiving end
people just feel hopeless because we're surrounded by such things, and perhaps also people don't realize there are alternatives
Chupacabra won't comply@ireneista Hidy from chupacabra world.
Talked to my roommate and had an ephipni. I asked if he ever tried noise cancelling headphones.
I don't like socks or underwear much like headphones.blew me away and I'm still studying about it.
We are onward to new adventures.
@Homoevolutis0 oh hey nice!!!!
O. Frabjous Gay@ireneista That's a great framing. I recently had ads come into my life for the first time in ages in the form of a free-to-play Scrabble app that I downloaded to play with my friends, and the ads have been so disruptive of my inner peace -- a framing that I wouldn't have considered in those terms until your thread -- that I'm considering stopping
András Németh@pqqq @ireneista I would imagine that there are free options under non-tm names, no? I don't want to see anyone give up on games with friends because of capitalism.
@sunarch @pqqq there are free options for both those games but it's a bit hard to find people to play them with, because of that awareness that it's technically a violation
(the free Diplomacy people have done the work to make it so you can use a variety of alternate boards they've come up with, or make your own. so, good for them)
@sunarch @pqqq enforcement against entirely free-software options that involve no money at all is rare, in part because such things are quite obscure anyway
but enforcement against options that are free at point of use but supported by advertising, is pretty frequent. that's what most people who didn't grow up in free software culture know how to find
@ireneista @pqqq Thanks for this whole thread answer/writeup:)
Mauser II@ireneista
Aside from "monetizing" or "redesigning for redesign's sake":
If the main thought of a software was "how can we make things great for the user", it wouldn't stand permanently in the way of what the user tries to do at the moment.
One of the biggest symptoms for "not caring about the user in the slightest" for me is message boxes.
They are always in the way, they don't belong in a UI and they are just a cheap escape hatch for the lazy developer.
Other obvious lack of respect: Little "hey, look at those new features" boxes, highlights, guides or whatever.
It's great if a company or developer has some new ideas for functionalities etc. They can tell the user all about it in the release notes. It does not belong in the UI itself.
0xC0DEC0DE07E9@wakame @ireneista but have you ticked all the boxes of how VS Code thinks you should use it??? Yeah, neither have I.
✧✦Catherine✦✧@wakame @ireneista i actually like these things (and hate reading release notes)
@whitequark @wakame needs do differ...
Andrew Zonenberg@ireneista Exactly my thoughts on such things - one of the reasons I'm so cranky about GTK3/4.
I try to respect this in ngscopeclient too, although it's early enough in UX development that some change is inevitable (there are several things with excessive popup dialogs and confusing layout that absolutely must change, and the only reason they haven't yet is lack of developer resources).
Generally my philosophy is that the UI should stay out of your way and let you get your job done. Which is why I've been trying to have the lightest weight UI as possible with controls you can expand/pop up as needed and then get out of the way when you're not actively interacting with them (but balancing this against discoverability of the UI is tricky)
@azonenberg well said. yes, discoverability is an important trade-off that we don't think there's any single way to navigate.
Fay 🏳️🌈@ireneista this. I know FOSS has issues with accessibility for many, but for me it's often the only accessible option. I need to be able to configure things to work in a way compatible with my disabilities and the way my brain works and that includes absolutely no ads anywhere
@obfusk for sure
Lisa@ireneista
Me to computers at times: "I didn't tell you to fucking do that, so don't fucking do it"
Me to computers at times: "I didn't tell you to fucking do that, so don't fucking do it"
@TicklishHoneyBee good line, we like that
@ireneista There are two valid courses of action when presented with an ad:
1) Leave, stop using the service/tool
2) Find a way to make the ad go away
Which I pick depends on how difficult option 2 is, and how important the service is to me.
@azonenberg yes, exactly
again, we want to be clear we're not judging people for their choices here, but that's the way we see it for ourselves, for our own goals
@ireneista Yeah my point is, I don't tolerate ads but I'm OK with using the service if it's the only viable option *and* I can make the ad go away somehow.
But like, for example, if YT anti-adblock gets bad for a while I'll just stop using it until ublock catches up.
@azonenberg yep, that makes sense for sure, and we're on the same page
@ireneista (to clarify for anyone else reading this, there is explicitly no third "watch the ad" option)
@ireneista I've always seen advertising as an attack on bodily autonomy. You're trying to reach your filthy money-grabbing hands into my most private of all spaces, the inside of my head.
And I reject such advances in the strongest possible way.
@azonenberg absolutely agreed
@ireneista this sounds … something good. I don’t know. I should figure out some alternative software that doesn’t track my usage and try to get me to buy more stuff.
Li ~ Crystal System@ireneista you can have widgets on the Lock Screen as a feature I guess nothing wrong with that, but I do agree defaulting whatever company widget paid the most to be there is a fucking ad
@Li yes, if it's a thing people choose to invite into their lives, that's fine.
Soatok Dreamseeker@ireneista
Companies pushing AI and increasing their CO2 emissions: "Think about the weather"
Climate activists: exist
Companies: "No, not like that"
@soatok lol indeed
@ireneista Every time I get confronted with a "Yes" in a giant bold button next to a tiny "maybe later," it just shocks the hell out of me. It's not something that would stand in any free software that I use.
Malte@ireneista or using the internet without a Adblock
@malte we do recommend using an ad blocker, for sure