> My kids never want to clean up their toys; they will pull out new ones, but it is a struggle to get them into the habit of putting the old ones away first.
Yes, as kids probably always did since the invention of the children's room. The usual solution was to educate - and push - them until they hopefully started to understand the benefits that an orderly room can give you and maybe even had some fun thinking of a good ordering scheme by themselves.
Only in tech would the response to kids being too lazy to clean up their rooms be "oh well obviously keeping your stuff in order is an unworkable strategy".
I remember that, back when we were in school, we would actually spend a lot of time structuring the bookmark folder, making elaborate menu hierarchies. Doing this the first time was fun.
The problem was, this lasted about until the first time the PC had to be reinstalled or someone switched the browser or something else caused the bookmarks menu to be lost. Redoing all that stuff after it got wiped was much more of a chore than doing it initially.
But this would be my takeaway here: If software developers want their users to manage their own ordering schemes or use customization features, make it easy and convenient to do - and for the love of everything, threat the resulting bookmark trees, settings files etc as critical data that has to be synced, backed-up etc. If it has to be redone after a few updates or a crash, then no one will use it.
(Incidentally, tech companies have absolutely no problem "educating" their users if the behavior is something they care about. I'm pretty sure, no product or marketing person ever said "oh well, it sure would be nice if all our users made accounts or installed our app, but they're far too lazy for that, so that's a nonstarter...")
>If software developers want their users to manage their own ordering schemes or use customization features, make it easy and convenient to do
This is akin to telling parents that if they want to their children to clean their rooms, you should make it easy and convenient to do. Obviously this is non-sensical: if you make a mess it might be hard and inconvenient work. Thats why kids don't do it!
I find some tech criticisms to be simply inane; the tech companies are not going to absorb the costs of educating users or fixing unworkable strategies. Not because Bezos needs to buy another yacht, but because the companies that try to do that all die before they get big. There is a giant graveyard of startups who have tried to be the "responsible and patient parent", and they have all died. Users don't want to put up with it, and if given the option will run to the company that just handles everything for them with a subscription fee or reselling their data.
> This is akin to telling parents that if they want to their children to clean their rooms, you should make it easy and convenient to do. Obviously this is non-sensical [...]
Doing exactly that, by coming in and helping them with it (initially doing most of the work) as they get into the habit if it being a regular task, actually seems to work pretty well (at least, in the n=1 experiment conducted with my son).
Not sure what the basis for “obviously non-sensical” is, other than the (very common) fetishization of struggle.
Yeah, imo the only way this is changing at all is if for some reason organization is inherent to the value offered. I guess Notion kinda did that, Obsidian too.
Organization (like other hard / unpleasant things) is something that people will do if 1) it helps them and 2) there's no other way.
What tech companies understand well is that if a competitor takes away people's pain and you don't, people will use that competitor.
It was technically possible to copy mp3s one by one to a USB mp3 player, and many people did if they had no other options, but marking an artist in iTunes for sync was a lot easier, so consumers preferred iPods. And managing syncing and purchasing itself was a chore, which Spotify proved was entirely unnecessary to the music listening experience for most people.
Sure, there's a small but loud minority for whom the process of purchasing / organizing music itself is enjoyable, and that minority will often try to push their views on everybody else, but the majority of the population wants a "magic box" where they can type "Taylor Swift" and get Taylor Swift music to play. Or they just want "radio, but without the battery drain, commercials, useless yapping and inability to skip songs they don't like."
> oh well obviously keeping your stuff in order is an unworkable strategy
Volume makes all the difference. If you could only visit sites you bookmarked first and you had only say 200 bookmark limit, you’d keep your bookmarks in perfect order.
That’s an occupant completely ridiculous proposition in 2024; in 2027 you’ll only need to bookmark the AI chatbot services you pay for, because the rest of the internet will become completely unusable by humans.
Yes, as kids probably always did since the invention of the children's room. The usual solution was to educate - and push - them until they hopefully started to understand the benefits that an orderly room can give you and maybe even had some fun thinking of a good ordering scheme by themselves.
Only in tech would the response to kids being too lazy to clean up their rooms be "oh well obviously keeping your stuff in order is an unworkable strategy".
I remember that, back when we were in school, we would actually spend a lot of time structuring the bookmark folder, making elaborate menu hierarchies. Doing this the first time was fun.
The problem was, this lasted about until the first time the PC had to be reinstalled or someone switched the browser or something else caused the bookmarks menu to be lost. Redoing all that stuff after it got wiped was much more of a chore than doing it initially.
But this would be my takeaway here: If software developers want their users to manage their own ordering schemes or use customization features, make it easy and convenient to do - and for the love of everything, threat the resulting bookmark trees, settings files etc as critical data that has to be synced, backed-up etc. If it has to be redone after a few updates or a crash, then no one will use it.
(Incidentally, tech companies have absolutely no problem "educating" their users if the behavior is something they care about. I'm pretty sure, no product or marketing person ever said "oh well, it sure would be nice if all our users made accounts or installed our app, but they're far too lazy for that, so that's a nonstarter...")