| > trying to teach them stuff they do not care about flies in the face of good user experience The worry about "user experience" is the cholesterol-rich fast-food of design. It's terrible, dumbs users down, but, somehow, it's addictive. Imagine a world of immediate gratification and zero frustration. That's what many people are tying to build. > they just don't give a shit about stuff that is cruft Not everything you don't grasp, or that was decided before you were born, is cruft. > The fact that tiny URLs are such widespread Tiny URLs are a reaction against poorly-designed, overly complex URLs that convey little or no meaning. Nobody needs Bit.ly to go to http://www.google.com. I'm all in for not failing when a user fails to type http://, but I am completely against hiding it under a magical hood that will protect users from the dangerous unknown techniques under it. Knowledge is power and, therefore, it belongs to the people. The better it's distributed, the better. |