Three days ago I wrote a comment:

"It's weird how the internet shifted from protocols to platforms.

Devs still know the plumbing, but for most people IRC became Whatsapp, FTP became Dropbox, RTSP became Netflix, SIP became Zoom and RSS became Google Now... so people might eventually forget about SMTP and this whole "email" hype.

In a decade or two we'll have forgotten about URLs and HTTP and the "internet" as well. You just pay your monthly $10 sub to Google or Amazon or Apple to have your condensed streams of memes & bait funneled right into your eyeballs."

And now Chrome devs are considering removing URLs just like in Safari, just showing the domain you are on....

Enjoy your retard web, people.

What's next, new Macbook & Chromebook standardized designs to prevent people from being confused?

Technology is going back to the 70's man. Back when the idea of a computer was IBM's turf and anyone who wanted to program used a calculator.

The general public doesn't want to be exposed to the inner workings of computers or deal with the hassle, they want services.

I fucking hate this whole tendency to dumb things down.

Politicians saying policy should be more "accessible", newspapers written in the "language of the population".

Why not be proud of your vocabulary, why not strive to expand your tools, get fucking smarter.

The brain is a muscle (no not literally, sigh).

Becoming smart requires exercise, being dumb is not predetermined.

Of course you can not run a marathon without training, it takes time.

The population is not just physically overweight, they are also mentally obese.

Reality shows and clickbait youtube vlogs are like sugary soda, it feels good while you're laying braindead in your sweatpants on the couch, with your neurons slowly fattening into a lifeless mush, but it's not something we should stimulate.

This reminds me of the sine wave.
As @starrynights89 said we are moving back down. The state of the 70s is the minima of the sine wave.
Just a random thought lol

It’s a simple matter of economics. Technology will always be made to be more accessible to more people, so as to make the most money.

This results in the “dumbing down” of tech. It’s not something I’m super concerned with, as ultimately it just creates a divide between those who know how it works / those who don’t - as opposed to not being able to use it at all.

It can only be a good thing to make technology more accessible and have a broader appeal, the alternative is some form of warped two-tier society where technology use is the new literacy... no thanks.

@Brolls Fighting the literacy gap by whispering (biased) information to people is far worse than teaching them to read.

If the internet turns into an automatic feed of pre-chewed, dumbed down content, approved by 3-4 tech giants, only getting through the gate if it's AMP... Yeah it's easier.

But platforms-over-protocols takes an awful lot of power away from end users.

@bittersweet true. But I mean. Either the internet is open for all (a free market) or we enforce controls. It’s either the state dictating who wins or market forces. We end up with giants either.

I don’t like it much, but I’d probably rather the companies than the state...

@Brolls I would not be against a "chrome for noobs", I just think the stupid option should not be the norm.

@bittersweet This sort of "entertainment" is easy to produce, it sells, and it makes the consumers very easy to manipulate into buying, voting, etc.

So long as people are mentally lazy, there will be people abusing that fact. It's directly proportional, too, and the trend is absolutely increasing.

I use the URL constantly when developing our site. It would be so annoying to be forced to constantly click the URL bar to actually see it

@bittersweet but people don't give a shit about protocols. The average computer user literally doesn't care what stack Facebook messenger runs on, or that you could use IRC. The ship has long since sailed on keeping protocols alive for anything more than a niche market.

@-ANGRY-CLIENT- And eventually the sine wave will change again. I was a kid in the 90's during the tech boom which spurred my interest, I'm now entering the tech world in a state of decline.

Maybe it'll take 10 years but the world will change again.

Yes, I hate the abstraction of detail from everything. Even UIs look more like they're made in paint in the name of "minimalistic" design.

@N0-Flux-Given I don't even hate minimalism, as long as there is a button somewhere to "open the hood".

JS Notch API

Even on simple things, as clicking Save As on Microsoft Word and see that menu with predefined paths to save the file makes me angry.

I want my old box to select a path. I want to type things. A computer, to me, is a product where I can make it work the way I like/prefer. If I want some predefined stuff that we just must use the way it is, I am going to by a Coffe Make or an iPad (actually I have an iPad, but that's another story).

@AlexDeLarge Aww thanks.

I do not plan to leave, nor change accounts.

I made devRant into my book, I ink down rants & comments not for the audience but just because I feel driven to write words somewhere. If a few people enjoy the torrent of crap flowing from my keys, I feel honored.

Sorry but I strongly disagree...! The average person want his job done not going through a million searches to do a simple thing...that's why Computers degrees exist..lol...we take care of the hidden magic...silly example but think of a car...do you really want a complicate machine to operate it or simple enough to go to your goddamn place?...

For most people computers are just tools. The simpler it can get without sacrificing efficiency the better.

@starrynights89 I’m really not so sure. It didn’t for machinery (think Jacquard’s loom-> 3D printing), I honestly think once you reach a level of automation and simple abstraction, it just keeps going that way until you hit the next paradigm.

Quantum will likely be that for a while, but eventually it will become mainstream.

Ultimately I think AI will render all complexity beyond domain-specific interaction with the AI interface completely moot.

@Brolls I agree. AI is the next frontier.

@ThatDevGuy26 the very first cars took fucking 30 minutes just to start, with lots of manual controls and levers and shit. Ask any dev here whether he would want such a car for his daily commute, and the answer will be "hell no, I just want to get from A to B".

Well, non-devs say the same about computer stuff. That's a good thing because it's our fucking job to make complicated shit usable in a way that average people would shell out money for it. Oh and btw., some of that money is supposed to land on our fucking bank accounts every bloody month.

@Fast-Nop Seriously thanks man...at last someone who gets it!😊😎
Oh and I don't think that anyone here would like for our sector to be overcrowded...!

@Fast-Nop You need a license to drive a car though. Which is a way to say you need to know at least the basics to use it.

Do you hear people complayning they don't get why the car isn't moving while they're not preasing any pedals? Because that's the equivalent of average people not getting PCs (and technology in general).

Of course, technology should be accessible and easy to use... But there's a huge difference between easy to use and "retard proof, not even 1 neuron required". Else, people will start thinking at it like magic (some already have, sadly). No need to know how it works, no need to know anything. It also translates in billions of users which will ask support to turn in their pc, or how to get a pizza out of their new browser.

Again: "ease of use" != "you don't have to think at what you're doing".

@soulsuke @Fast-Nop

I'm all for accessibility, but it's quickly moving to a point where the car is not just self driving, but also decides which roads you can take and which locations you can visit.

Handing over the keys to a tech giant might make things simple, but also transfers power away from you.

In software, I don't mind a simplistic interface, as long as there's an "expert toggle" somewhere.

@soulsuke the reason you need a licence is not the car's UIs, but because a car is a dangerous machine that is operated in public and can kill people. In fact, that happens even despite licences.

Btw., there is no car where the designer thought it would be cool to have the brake pedal at the left and the steering wheel with swapped directions just because and let the user RTFM.

And yes, ease of use is exactly "you don't have to think what you're doing". That's the ideal of a perfect UI because it lets the user concentrate on the thing he wants to do. Every second that the system itself needs attention is a wasted second for the user.

You can of course design such time wasters left and right. But then don't wonder why the users take their money to your competition and you end up coding under a bridge. ;-)

@bittersweet I'm 100% with you. But i also wish the advanced mode wasn't for a niche... If there was something actually stimulating the user to learn why advanced mode isn't just black magic :<

@Fast-Nop it's different. Things are not getting faster. They are getting dummer.

They are trading some fast that works for something blocked, hidding or getting ride of usefully functionalities.

On your example of a car, it is as they were making the car move to a place they think you go without any questions each time you get in. So you cannot just sit down in the car anymore.

And if you want to go somewhere, they wouldn't take any address. You could only say " home" or "work", as people doesn't want to learn about addresss. So any new address needs to be previously added by a big form with questions like "are you planning to go there every Saturday night?" and stored with a nick.

Choose the best path, with most beautifull view? Nops. If you want to go to a store, it would go to the nearest one, and do not let you choose the bigger store that you prefer and have some friends, because it is not near.

@Fast-Nop The license is for the car UI and it's recommended use, though. Laws, commands, occasional hiccups, and most average situations. It's not really different than a training session for a given software. Try taking that away.

On the topic about car being dangerous... There are dangerous uses of the most common softwares, which is mostly in the hands of average people. They are different kind of dangers, but they both end up killing people in worst case scenarios.

...Besides. I think it's a waste of time to develop a "perfect UI". If you really want the user not to think about anything but what he has to do, it means even the slightest hiccup becomes blocking. Fixing the UI would take much more than fixing the logic itself. Also, I doubt an UI which is obvious to everyone could ever be achieved. Not without having your user to actually think at what they are doing. Anyways...

@brunofontes getting dumber means removing functionality that is useless and confusing for the majority of customers. It also generates unnecessary costs for testing, maintenance and support.

The usual reason is that devs/designers can't decide for the best way and instead shove that choice off to the user who knows even less than them.

If you make products geared at average people, then you probably overestimate your customers by far. See this one: https://nngroup.com/articles/...

@Fast-Nop but cut costs doesn't mean it is a good thing when you are cutting resources to that.

A car is not better because it does not have air conditioner to be cheaper as it is sold in a cold place too.

I am not saying you cannot have both things. But I di not like when someone takes of something fast and simple as a save as dialog, hides it by 2 or 3 clicks away (when they does not simply just removes it) and replace with a new menu that has only two or three paths.

You can have some easy access to things without hidding and getting ride of the complete functionality that is still useful and pratical. When you just have the dummy way, you are levelling by the lowest one.

You don't want tour teacher to teach only the easiest things si the worst student could get it. Every one needs to be helped.

@brunofontes Well yeah removing so much that the tool can't do its job anymore is bad.

However, I think you misunderstand average people. They don't want to learn about computer stuff more than you want to learn about how to bake break or how to make shoes. You just buy these things and expect them to work.

If computers still were complicated shit that only CS folks knew how to use, then the world wouldn't be full of CS folks, it would be largely empty of computers.

And in a highly specialised world, nearly everyone is an idiot in nearly every domain.

@Fast-Nop Actuality, I like to learn about anything I use. Hahahahah But I got your point and you are right about it. People do not want to learn and it is not a problem.

I just think we, as developers, can try to provide solutions that works for everyone. Since the very basic users to very advanced ones. :)

It's not simple, I know. But we can try. We can show companies that we still want our advanced features easily accessible. Maybe a configuration enabling advanced mode. Maybe a different version if the tool. But having space for everyone.

You missed fcking AMP project by Google.

Google think it's future for mobile web.

FCK Google, amp's only v0.js size is around ~250kb.

And it loads slower than actual site.

Dumbing down imo is great, it allows even more people to do stuff. Just imagine if airplanes were dumbed down to the point of a car, that'd be amazing.

Having more buttons and switches is overwhelming, there just needs to be an option for more advanced people to the advanced things.

@canonbolt first, it's only around 70 kB over the wire because gzip works well with text data. Second, look at the cache expiration - most users will load that only once. Third, it's loaded with async and does not block rendering. Fourth, it's the only JS that is allowed, which speeds up things because sites can't load dozens of JS files with all their latency adding up.

@brunofontes options have a cognitive load. When you ask someone to make a decision about an option they don't care about, it's even worse.

Nearly 20 years old (!!!), but still relevant today: https://joelonsoftware.com/2000/04/...

@plttn it depends on your approach. If you have a different software version or if it is a checkbox in the advanced tab inside your settings, it will not bother anyone. :)

@plttn my little technically maybe a bit crappy project website follows the "reduce the shit" approach so much that even tests with users totally outside the domain were successful.

Advanced users still found the technical hardcore stuff that they were looking for.

But it was really difficult to reduce that so much because it required a lot of hard thinking about priorities and estimating what users would actually want, and guide them to there.

Looking simple is not easy.

@Fast-Nop You didn't heard about speed report for mobile, I.e. testmysite, gtmetrix.

1) I've already enabled gzip in website and got faster than amp cause it doesn't load fckin v0.js

2) if 250kb gzip ~ 50-60kb then think about only 40-50kb of js gziped ~ 20-25kb and have longer time set for caching, while you can't set caching time for v0.js cause they update it frequently.

3) in website I combined all js into one file and minified them and it is served over CDN.

@plttn

I think Kodi does it pretty well. Intuitively usable, simple options menu with a single toggle (basic | advanced |expert) to dig down into more options.

Or take a game like Minecraft: A concept so simple an elementary school kid can punch a tree and build a house, but install a modpack and you might be programming drones in LUA.

Good UX is simple on the surface, but endlessly customizable and configurable under the hood. It doesn't bother you because it provides sensible defaults, but it does allow you to change those defaults when you dig in.

@canonbolt I agree that you can build non-AMP sites faster and leaner than AMP sites. I've done that myself, too. gtmetrix scores my site with 100/98.

However, average websites don't follow that way, as the stats from gtmextrix easily prove. Average web designers created obese and bloated shit. AMP's major feature is to reign in these idiots by simply not allowing much of the crap they choose to do on their own.

@canonbolt agreed, but I don't want Google to shape internet as they want.

* Google added tracking into amp for "improvement" afaik *

@canonbolt yeah that's a shit part of AMP, I mean the Google lock-in. The reason is that they pre-render the sites in the search. But they can't pull that off "directly" because it would be a privacy issue if the browser fetched the pages from the search result links directly. That's also the root of the URL problem in AMP. The whole use case AMP has been designed around is "google stuff, read link, GO BACK TO GOOGLE, read next link".