Chris Martin"I really like Outlook, I can use it to talk to all my friends"
"That's a stupid attitude, Outlook is just one client, the underlying protocol is called email and it'd be useless without that"
"..."
Sonya Mann ✅@chris_martin I mean, it'd actually be extremely dumb if someone conflated Outlook with all of email, so you're not selling me on this
Meredith L. Patterson@sonya @chris_martin Talk to people who work front-line ISP tech support. Ask them how many of their callers think that the big blue E icon on their desktop is "the internet." This has been true at least since I was working dialup support 17 years ago.
@maradydd @chris_martin ugh just kill me now, I can't handle it
Andrea@sonya @chris_martin @maradydd heh, that's doing well - "the Microsoft didn't open" is a phrase I have heard
GinBaby ❣@chris_martin that is indeed why people can drive cars without knowing how the engines and transmissions work, and why we can live in housing with modern plumbing and electrical wiring that we use to do ~stuff~ without understanding how the pipes and wires work, let alone the vast network of pipes and wires that connect us all to sewage systems and electrical grids
@GinBaby @chris_martin @sonya It's good that people don't *need* to know implementation details. It's *important* that people continue to be *able* to know implementation details, should they choose to spend their attention that way. But these two values need not be in tension.
@maradydd i agree, and can i just say that i love that we have users from at least three different instances just in this conversation.
Paul Phillips ✅@maradydd @sonya Critical point - as you know these things are so often conflated, with tragic results. I don't want the source to everything because I plan on having hacked versions of everything or even ever plan to look at it. I want the source so that I know I have all my options. UX is a completely different question, where for the most part none of us want to see anything to do with the implementation.
@GinBaby @maradydd @chris_martin I still don't think the comparison holds up. Going back to email: you can still sort of use email if you think Outlook is all there is, but it cripples your usage of the larger system
@GinBaby @maradydd @chris_martin like, you aren't aware of the options beyond Outlook, so you're locked in by ignorance. that's bad.
@chris_martin @maradydd @GinBaby that used to be the case for Twitter; not all things that work okay stay working okay
@puellavulnerata The kind of "locked in" I was referring to is the fixable kind ("locked in by ignorance"), not the permanent kind (locked in because you're on an inherently closed platform) @maradydd @GinBaby
eqdw@maradydd @sonya @chris_martin
Look on these works, ye mighty, and despair https://www.reddit.com/r/talesfromtechsupport/
Look on these works, ye mighty, and despair https://www.reddit.com/r/talesfromtechsupport/