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by gosu 4878 days ago
>it seems damned impudent of them to be assuming my voice

I agree. This is something that has been bothering me every since Windows XP. I think less about what marketers want and how desperate it may or may not be, and I spend more time feeling offended that someone is presuming to intrude into my personal space in my program on my machine and tell me how I plan to use it. It's like they're misrepresenting me to myself, and it never fails to provoke much scoffing and eyerolling from me. I consider it a major signal of BS in software.

On the other hand, software which uses "your" or no pronouns at all can do almost exactly the same stuff - like creating a default organization of data - and I don't mind. I see it as a respectful suggestion which has my best interest in mind, and I'm more likely to actually incorporate their idea into the way I do things because I'm not immediately on the defensive.

Edit:

This reminds me of when I was staying at one of those tropical beach resorts and one of the souvenir sellers was announcing "shopping time, everybody!" to everyone that passed by. I didn't like that he obviously wanted me to participate in a dishonest exchange, but he was presumptuously "reminding" me that giving giving him money is a natural part of my day, the same way that I have an "eating time" and a "sleeping time".