| Hmm. Were the "old days" really all that great, though? You talk about websites which use 10MB of JS to display a 32KB article. I think what we have seen historically is that most software developers will work only as hard as necessary to make their products acceptably performant on their testing hardware. When computers were slow, people worked harder to optimize the software. When the machines got fast, people weren't forced to optimize as much, so they didn't. Do I like that? No. Is it understandable (and perhaps even predictable) that things will go that way? Yes. You also mention the proliferation of dark patterns in various online services and even products like MS Windows. Well, one thing that has become clear is that many consumers really like products which are free, and which they can obtain with little effort. If an online service employs 'dark patterns' to get what they want out of their users, but it is free, the users might actually prefer that to a paid service. So while it is regrettable, it's not strange or surprising that such things are happening. I suspect that the software field does not, as you suggest, "attract people who are adamant that their customers do it their way". Probably these developments which you speak of are just a combination of human nature playing out as it always does, plus random events, plus the ongoing advancement of technology which makes it possible for people to do (sometimes undesirable) things which they would have done earlier if they could, but they couldn't until now. I would love to hear evidence to the contrary, however. |