[jedberg]

Since HN users tend to be more traditional in how they expect their computers to act, I wonder, how many people turn off "natural" scrolling the second they get a new Mac?

I never understood why it was there. It makes a ton of sense for content to scroll in the direction your finger moves when your finger is touching the content, but I fail to understand why you'd expect it to move that way when using a touchpad or a mouse.

Was this done specifically for users who were coming to Mac from iPad?

[dhosek]

Arguably, the other direction is less intuitive. When Apple introduced this, it took me a couple days to adapt, but now if I ever end up on a Windows machine with the scroll setting in "unnatural" mode, it makes no sense.

[pottertheotter]

I agree. I find "natural" to be very unnatural, and it seems to be everywhere now. It drives me nuts when I help my wife with something on her laptop. When/how did this become the norm, because it seems like it was not at one time?

I suppose most computer users don't consider settings at all and just go with whatever the default is and eventually get comfortable using that, not knowing it's not "normal". But who made the change so that this became the new normal setting?

[netsharc]

It was Apple who decided down was up one day. Nowadays on Windows with Synaptics trackpads, we have the same problem (well for me it is, as you say, you prefer it).

It made sense because it relates to PgUp/PgDn or to consider that you're pulling the scrollbar indicator down. (oh, what's that, this UI element is hidden nowadays..?).