In terms of impacts on software / application complexity, capability, and suitability to the needs and interests of advanced users, I feel somewhat similarly. I do take exception however with the notion that serving the needs of the much larger set people with less-advanced skills or interests is necessarily bad. In general I do support the effort of expanding access to computers and digital technologies.
A large part of the degredation Vendrov describes is less an element of the people using these tools as it is the financial and economic incentives of the entities providing them, encapsulated in Cory Doctorow's ever-more-widely-known term enshittification. That's driven by the dynamics of winner-take-all monopolies, advertising, surveillance capitalism, and the inherent challenges of monetising information goods.
What I would very much like to see, though, is a world in which both general and advanced-skills access are available and supported. A general characteristic and problem of media and information goods, going back to the advent of printing, is that popular tends to equate to degraded quality. This shows up in other products and services as well, though I'd argue it's most pernicious with information and media.
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In terms of impacts on software / application complexity, capability, and suitability to the needs and interests of advanced users, I feel somewhat similarly. I do take exception however with the notion that serving the needs of the much larger set people with less-advanced skills or interests is necessarily bad. In general I do support the effort of expanding access to computers and digital technologies.
A large part of the degredation Vendrov describes is less an element of the people using these tools as it is the financial and economic incentives of the entities providing them, encapsulated in Cory Doctorow's ever-more-widely-known term enshittification. That's driven by the dynamics of winner-take-all monopolies, advertising, surveillance capitalism, and the inherent challenges of monetising information goods.
What I would very much like to see, though, is a world in which both general and advanced-skills access are available and supported. A general characteristic and problem of media and information goods, going back to the advent of printing, is that popular tends to equate to degraded quality. This shows up in other products and services as well, though I'd argue it's most pernicious with information and media.