Ramparts of Dissatisfaction

[JM]: Given that it's that time of year, Dan, I'd like to ask you, what have you acquired during this conspicuous consumption week?

[DJ]: Well, I'll tell you, Justin, but first, is there someone we can lobby to to officially rename Black Friday and Cyber Monday to "Conspicuous Consumption Week"?

[DJ]: Because I think that's a great idea.

[JM]: We absolutely should.

[JM]: It always feels weird to say, "So did you buy anything for Black Friday / Cyber Monday?"

[JM]: It's just become so cumbersome.

[JM]: And also, it's not even limited to those two days anyway, right?

[JM]: Like it starts days before Black Friday and ends days after Cyber Monday, depending on which retail outlet or vendor you're talking about.

[JM]: So we should just call it what it is.

[JM]: And that is Conspicuous Consumption Week.

[DJ]: I think you're right.

[DJ]: But before I answer your question, or maybe because I'm avoiding it, I want to stick with this naming because I can't remember, like, how did we end up with Cyber Monday?

[DJ]: Like Black Friday was a holiday and or was it?

[DJ]: No, it's not a holiday.

[DJ]: I can't remember.

[DJ]: This is all invented by retail, right?

[JM]: Of course, like everything.

[JM]: Valentine's Day, all this stuff.

[JM]: My understanding is regardless of who invented it, the concept of Black Friday is family gets together, at least in the United States, for Thanksgiving, which is a Thursday.

[JM]: And usually they are still with family the following day,

[JM]: depending on where you live and whether you have to travel to get to be with your family.

[JM]: And generally, there's not a lot to do.

[JM]: And with the gift-giving season arriving a month later, getting people who have nothing to do to go to a mall and buy stuff is relatively easy.

[JM]: And that is how Black Friday became the thing that it is today.

[JM]: As for Cyber Monday, I think it was

[JM]: online retailers saying like, "Okay, well, you may be going to the mall on Friday, but then when are you going to have time to sit in front of a computer and order stuff from us online?"

[JM]: "So we're going to create another day for you to do that."

[JM]: And that is how we ended up with Cyber Monday.

[DJ]: That makes sense.

[DJ]: But it feels almost vestigial now because I presume that most people do most of their shopping online regardless.

[DJ]: So even for Black Friday, an awful lot of the purchasing is online.

[JM]: I would assume so.

[JM]: And yet every year, it seems you still see these video clips on local news of people lining up outside of Walmarts or other retail establishments because of some insane deal that they've pre-announced on, I don't know, PS5s or something where you get it at some unholy price.

[JM]: But of course, there's a limited number of them.

[JM]: And so everyone is

[JM]: lined up at four in the morning outside some retail establishment in order to get said insane deal.

[JM]: So I don't know.

[JM]: This does seem to be a thing that still occurs.

[JM]: I wouldn't know.

[JM]: I don't partake.

[DJ]: No, indeed.

[DJ]: But the naming is strange because certainly at this point in time, I think "cyber" feels like almost a retro modifier. Like, Cyber Monday...

[DJ]: What is that?

[DJ]: It feels like as this period during which consumer behavior is massively encouraged, as it

[DJ]: grows inevitably and irrevocably larger and larger in our lives, we're going to have to add another day.

[DJ]: And I have to assume that at this point, this period, it'll be labeled GPT Tuesday.

[JM]: That does seem like a pretty good name for this additional day that you're describing.

[JM]: But of course, like most brands, I don't think it's going to last as long as perhaps we expect it to.

[JM]: And so it'll probably feel as vestigial as Cyber Monday in no time flat.

[DJ]: That's probably true.

[DJ]: But to answer your original question, I did take this opportunity to indulge my hobby of buying computers.

[DJ]: I'm not sure if there's any more elegant way to describe it, really.

[DJ]: I bought a bunch of computers, but I can't tell you too much about them yet because they are currently in a series of delivery trucks somewhere in this great nation of mine being delivered, so...

[JM]: More on that to come.

[JM]: For my part, I continued my tradition of looking for interesting software that either (a) I've had my eye on for a while and am looking for an opportunity to get it at a lower price or (b) to find some tool that I hadn't considered before but found on some Conspicuous Consumption Week list.

[JM]: And looking at my list here, it looks like I acquired six Mac applications.

[JM]: The first one is MacWhisper, which is a dictation and transcription application.

[JM]: In a previous episode, I described the open-source Whispering tool that I have been using, and Whispering is great.

[JM]: And at the same time, I think there are certain features that MacWhisper has that I will find useful.

[JM]: And I wanted to take advantage of this particular season to buy it and try it out.

[JM]: And I should say, by the way, that the other reason that I do this is I want to support indie Mac developers.

[JM]: And so this is a good annual practice for me of saying, "Okay, what are some things that I would find useful?"

[JM]: And also, "How can I help support this

[JM]: group of developers that I respect, because they make good handcrafted applications?"

[JM]: And, and Jordi Bruin, the author of MacWhisper, has produced probably, I don't know, at this point a dozen, two dozen different Mac applications.

[JM]: And I think I have acquired half of them.

[JM]: Often

[JM]: at no cost to me, because in the beginning, he was iterating and just churning out interesting things that he was trying to see if there was a market for it.

[JM]: And he would offer them up and say, like, "I just created this thing — download it for free."

[JM]: And so I have a bunch of his applications.

[JM]: And this was a good opportunity for me to pay it back, because he's given me

[JM]: at least a half dozen Mac applications at no cost to me, so this was a great opportunity for me to support Jordi's work and buy this application that I expect will be quite useful.

[JM]: The next one I bought is called HoudahSpot, which is a file search application. I find that

[JM]: searching for files on MacOS is not as easy or effective as I feel it should be.

[JM]: So I wanted to round out my file searching capabilities by adding this very handy tool that allows you to create custom searches that you can save and easily come back to.

[JM]: You can refine your searches by

[JM]: searching for something and then adding new criteria to further shorten the list of things that you're looking at.

[JM]: The next one that I got is called Yoink, which has been around for a long time.

[JM]: And I finally decided that I would give it a try.

[JM]: And the problem that it solves is sometimes you're dragging something, and the thing you want to drag it to isn't visible on the screen.

[JM]: And if you are handy, you can learn this trick where you can

[JM]: hold your drag while you command-tab over to what you're doing.

[JM]: And sometimes you can do it that way.

[JM]: But it's kind of cumbersome.

[JM]: And what Yoink gives you is essentially a drop zone, or a temporary holding area for you to drag stuff to, then you can switch to where you're going.

[JM]: And then you can drag it from there to where you're going.

[JM]: And it has a couple other features.

[JM]: So I'm excited to give that a try.

[JM]: I don't know how to pronounce this next one.

[JM]: Velja, Velja... it's V E L J A.

[JM]: And similarly, the author of this application has produced a bunch of interesting free applications.

[JM]: So any opportunity that I get to buy something from them as a way of saying thanks for all the other great software that you gave me for free...

[JM]: is always welcome.

[JM]: This particular tool allows you to associate certain link patterns.

[JM]: So you could say, for example, I want all YouTube links to open in the Helium web browser because it has great ad-blocking support.

[JM]: You can direct certain link patterns to open in different browsers.

[JM]: That's the purpose of that app.

[JM]: Supercharge is another tool from the same author that has a bunch of interesting Mac-related tweaks and customizations.

[JM]: And then the last one, the entirely frivolous and festive Festivitas.

[JM]: Festivitas?

[JM]: I don't know how to pronounce it, but it's festive and it's fun.

[JM]: And it adds little holiday lights to your menu bar and other fun, festive, and completely frivolous things that are fun this time of year.

[JM]: And in typical fashion, I think so far I have installed less than half of those because it's been a busy week, but I look forward to checking them out and I may report on how well they meet my needs in a future episode.

[JM]: All right, jumping into the biggest news of the day by far, Alan Dye, who you in a past episode, Dan, described very well as the "Head of ruining MacOS at Apple".

[JM]: Did I say that?

[DJ]: I want to double-check with my legal representatives before I approve or disapprove of this claim.

[JM]: That is a direct quote.

[JM]: I mean, it's true, so...

[JM]: And I love every word of it.

[JM]: So Alan Dye has left Apple.

[JM]: He was the head of user interface design or something to that effect.

[JM]: And he has left Apple to join Facebook.

[JM]: In the post on the Fediverse that broke this news, it was described as a, "blockbuster coup for Facebook and a big loss for Apple".

[DJ]: Did Mark Zuckerberg make that Fediverse post?

[DJ]: Like, whose opinion are we getting there exactly?

[JM]: Yeah, I think I would contest both of those characterizations.

[JM]: In part, because if you look at the replies to that Fediverse post, the replies are scathing.

[JM]: Not one of them has anything remotely supportive of what Alan Dye did at Apple.

[JM]: And what did he do at Apple?

[JM]: He joined Apple in 2006, if memory serves, and within a few years, joined Johnny Ives' team, and among other things, worked on iOS 7.

[DJ]: Oh, the other time that Apple ruined their user interfaces.

[DJ]: Oh, it's all adding up.

[DJ]: It's almost like you can read between the lines, Dan.

[DJ]: Well, you can't read between the lines because the text and transparency makes it impossible to read.

[JM]: And so Alan Dye goes on to work on subsequent iOS, iPadOS, MacOS, et cetera, et cetera, design updates.

[JM]: The latest of which, of course, is the Liquid Glass design language, which has, shall we say, been met with mixed reviews.

[DJ]: No, I don't think that's true.

[DJ]: I don't think the reviews have been mixed.

[DJ]: Because that would imply a variety of qualitative statements in between "It's good" and "It's bad".

[DJ]: But I feel like I've only seen one of those about Liquid Glass.

[DJ]: Maybe I'm just reading the wrong articles.

[JM]: I would agree with you.

[JM]: I was trying to be charitable and well, let's just say you saw right through it.

[DJ]: Yeah.

[DJ]: Well, and also what are you worried about?

[DJ]: Like Alan Dye can't hear you.

[DJ]: He works for Facebook now.

[JM]: True, true.

[JM]: I've been trying to think of what went through Alan Dye's mind as he made this move, because it sounds like he wasn't forced out.

[JM]: This doesn't sound like the kind of thing where

[JM]: he left, but actually was booted out.

[JM]: And so if he legitimately decided to leave on his own accord, I feel like the following is the situation as I see it.

[JM]: He's not a qualified and experienced user interface design expert,

[JM]: but finds himself in charge of doing that job for whatever reasons I don't understand.

[JM]: And he goes on to, in my opinion, ruin Mac and iPhone and iPad user experience and design aesthetics, and then leaves when he realizes that everyone resents him for ruining what they loved.

[JM]: And...

[JM]: perhaps he feels like this is his crowning achievement, this Liquid Glass thing that he just shipped.

[JM]: The response to which you accurately point out has been resoundingly negative.

[JM]: And it almost just feels like bitterness.

[JM]: Like, "I created this thing."

[JM]: "Y'all didn't appreciate it."

[JM]: "I'm out."

[DJ]: A sort of, "I'm taking my ball and going home", or in this case, to Mark Zuckerberg's house.

[JM]: Right.

[JM]: And speaking of which, not to sound like a broken record, but if you told me that Alan Dye left for another company and then asked me to guess which one... Without missing a beat, I would answer "Facebook".

[DJ]: Do you feel like there's a certain has-bad-taste synchronicity there? Like...

[DJ]: Sometimes people recognize a certain quality in each other.

[DJ]: And in this case, Facebook and Alan Dye might have recognized in each other that they're terrible.

[JM]: And more so than bad taste.

[JM]: And yes, I would include that.

[JM]: I just don't think that Alan Dye or Facebook are super, super focused on creating great user experiences.

[JM]: Or if they are, they just aren't good at it.

[DJ]: I guess that's what I meant when I called them terrible.

[DJ]: It was mean.

[DJ]: It was a mean choice of words.

[DJ]: You said it with more nuance than I did.

[JM]: Usually I'm the one lacking in nuance.

[JM]: And I think the following quote on the Fediverse sums up my thoughts best about his departure.

[JM]: "Let's hope Alan Dye's legacy in Apple's software will soon become as invisible as a toolbar in iOS 26."

[JM]: Oof, shots fired.

[JM]: Brutal.

[JM]: I'd also like to note that Apple's stock price as of this moment is down by one and a quarter percent as we record this, which makes perfect sense to me because, generally speaking, you can predict how the stock market will react to Apple-related news by taking the inverse of how you think it *should* react to the news.

[JM]: Because I see this as a uniformly positive development because, and we'll get to this in a moment, the person who's going to replace Alan Dye is a person who is qualified and experienced in shipping great product experiences.

[JM]: So this to me sounds like something that should be uniformly positive.

[JM]: And so, of course, the stock market decides to move in the other direction and sell instead of buy.

[DJ]: Well, this is the perfect time to pick up all that Apple stock you've had your eye on now that their price is down by a percentage point from "totally unaffordable" to "almost completely unaffordable".

[JM]: That's true.

[JM]: They have had quite a run-up over the last little bit.

[JM]: So going down by one and a quarter percent doesn't mean very much.

[DJ]: No, I mean, if you looked at Bitcoin, it's up and down by like way more than that all the time.

[DJ]: That is true.

[DJ]: No, but seriously, can I sell you some Bitcoin?

[DJ]: Because...

[JM]: So Alan Dye's replacement at Apple is longtime Apple designer Stephen Lemay.

[JM]: And contrary, perhaps, to Alan Dye, this is a person whose design chops appear to be widely respected.

[JM]: And the reaction that I have seen so far to this, I can only describe as exuberant celebration.

[JM]: People are posting dancing GIFs.

[JM]: Everyone seems to be really, really happy about this development.

[JM]: And of course, it's premature, right?

[JM]: We don't know that Stephen Lemay is going to do what we want him to do.

[JM]: We want him to take us back to a previous era of Apple design where, I don't know,

[JM]: icons were attractive-looking and pretty, and user interface elements were distinguishable from one another.

[JM]: And you actually could focus on your content instead of being distracted from it, et cetera, et cetera.

[JM]: But those are just hopes and expectations, right?

[JM]: Those are dreams.

[JM]: We don't know that that's going to happen, but I do understand the celebration because take the inverse, right?

[JM]: Like, take the other side of it.

[JM]: What if the news was Tim Cook has announced he's retiring as of January 1 and Alan Dye is taking over as

[JM]: Apple CEO. Like, that would be, you know, bad.

[DJ]: I mean, it might be bad.

[DJ]: Although then again, like one nice thing about CEOs, well, maybe except Steve Jobs, I don't know, but generally CEOs can no longer do things like impose entire design systems because they don't have time to create them.

[DJ]: But, but you're right in general.

[JM]: No, but they have veto power.

[JM]: Right.

[JM]: That's true.

[JM]: And that's something that Steve Jobs used arguably to our benefit by, generally speaking, making good design choices.

[JM]: And I think the proof is in the products that shipped during his tenure and also the products that have shipped over the last 10 years, otherwise known as Alan Dye's tenure.

[DJ]: Yeah.

[DJ]: Yeah, this is true.

[DJ]: The inverse would have been worse.

[DJ]: It's interesting, though, because it does seem like there's a lot of shaking up in Apple's upper echelons recently, including, well, rumors anyway that Tim Cook might not stay at the company for too much longer, or at least might not stay in the role of CEO for too much longer.

[JM]: Yeah, John Giannandrea, who was the executive in charge of, I believe, Siri and Apple Intelligence, is also gone recently.

[JM]: He'd already been more-or-less demoted in terms of having those responsibilities moved to someone else recently.

[JM]: So his departure subsequently from Apple, I don't think really took anyone by huge surprise.

[JM]: But it does seem, as you said, that there are some changes afoot in terms of executive management at Apple.

[JM]: And so far, I'm not mad about some of these changes.

[JM]: I think some of them seem positive and will hopefully yield better user experiences for us.

[DJ]: Yeah, I hope so.

[JM]: I want to take a moment to comment on how Alan Dye's departure from Apple to join Facebook is described in this news, because this is often how it's described.

[JM]: And it was described as Facebook "poaching" Alan Dye from Apple.

[JM]: So if it's not clear, I'm highlighting on the word "poaching" in this particular context and the usage of it in this way.

[JM]: And by "this way", I mean, to hire an employee away from another company.

[JM]: And to just cut straight to the chase, if you use this word in this way, I think you're a hack.

[DJ]: You're saying you're only okay with "poaching" when it describes of an egg, cooking it without its shell in or over boiling water?

[DJ]: Is that, that's the only acceptable...

[JM]: That is not the usage I was referring to, because I believe that the usage that was borrowed is not egg-related and instead is the usage that means to illegally kill animals in the wild.

[JM]: If you think about this in the bigger picture,

[JM]: and not to get too philosophical, but this is about capital versus labor.

[JM]: Capital has always had the upper hand, and of course they like having the upper hand, and they want to keep it that way.

[JM]: I don't know who first used this term to describe an employee leaving a company to work at another company.

[JM]: But whoever it was, it was almost certainly not a laborer, because it sounds so sinister.

[JM]: It's right in the name.

[JM]: It's a crime!

[JM]: "How dare you hire an employee that we once employed but clearly did not make happy enough to want to continue working at our company?"

[JM]: "It is an outrage."

[JM]: That's how I hear the usage of this term.

[JM]: And unfortunately, now this usage is normalized, and it's become routine for many people to use the term this way.

[JM]: And it reminds me of other weaponized recharacterizations or redefinitions of words like "piracy", which infamously came from, I think, the Motion Picture Association of America to describe people who were sharing VHS tapes of movies with each other.

[JM]: I don't even recall exactly what this word was being affixed to, but it was essentially the sharing of media with one another.

[JM]: And to compare someone sharing a music album or a movie or a book or whatever with a friend in the same way as, "We're going to forcibly board your ship, murder all of the occupants of said ship, and then take the ship and everything on it" ...

[JM]: Yeah, I think that's a purposeful, malicious redefinition of a word.

[JM]: And of course, now we use that word.

[JM]: I don't, but lots of people use the word "piracy" in this context because it's just become normalized.

[JM]: And so I say all of this as a plea to you, dear listener: Please stop using their euphemisms, whether it's "poaching" or "piracy" or anything else that's been weaponized in this way.

[JM]: Just don't.

[JM]: Just don't.

[JM]: Find another word.

[DJ]: I was expecting to make fun of you for being pedantic, but actually I agree with everything you just said.

[DJ]: And also, just to add an important coda to it, fried eggs are better than poached eggs.

[DJ]: They just are.

[DJ]: So, dear listener, also consider having some delicious fried eggs.

[DJ]: I like mine over-medium.

[DJ]: Poached eggs.

[DJ]: Ridiculous.

[JM]: Everyone knows over-medium is the best way.

[JM]: It was interesting to see two articles published, I think within the last week or so, leading up to this news today about Alan Dye leaving Apple, because these articles were about losing confidence in the tech world in general, in terms of what it is today, and Apple in particular.

[JM]: And these articles aren't really saying anything that we haven't said on this show, but they are saying it in a lot more detail and arguably a lot more eloquence and with receipts, because these are people that are members of the tech world and the

[JM]: Apple ecosystem and have been for a long time.

[JM]: And they're both authors whose opinions I greatly respect.

[JM]: So to see them saying a lot of the same things that you and I have said on this show feels gratifying in some way — vindicating — even though it's effectively a lot of complaining.

[JM]: It's criticism that really lands.

[JM]: And so it was interesting to read these articles, to hear the news from today, and I guess to feel, like I said a moment ago, a little hopeful that things might improve, at least at Apple.

[JM]: I don't know about the tech world in general.

[JM]: I think that ship might have sailed.

[DJ]: It might have, but that's why I also feel good about coming across other people who share our feelings.

[DJ]: This is in a similar vein as that Needy Programs article we discussed recently, about just this ambient sense that so much of our relationship with software and technology and technology companies has become less about what's good for those of us who want to use software

[DJ]: and more about what can be extracted from us for the benefit of the people making the thing.

[DJ]: One of these articles that you're referring to underlined that point very directly.

[DJ]: Like it stood out to me.

[DJ]: It was like, oh yeah, this is what we keep talking about is this idea that we run into some thing.

[DJ]: I want to use this thing.

[DJ]: Well, we'll create an account.

[DJ]: Oh, turn on location tracking on your phone in order to use this.

[DJ]: Like we're going to send you push notifications about our Black Friday sale.

[DJ]: So much of these relationships anymore are about some company being like, "Hey, use our thing because it's good for us."

[DJ]: "Hey, here's this thing which benefits us, not you."

[DJ]: And that's frustrating.

[DJ]: But it's nice to find like-minded people, both for its own sake, but also...

[DJ]: That gives me hope as well that if there is enough of a groundswell that there will at least be some alternatives, right?

[DJ]: Like that's something we talk about a lot is what's available in areas like free and open-source software.

[DJ]: And the more people are unsettled and frustrated with the state of modern technology, especially as represented by all of the big tech companies that seem so ubiquitous, the more alternatives are likely to exist and get spread around, right?

[DJ]: Like we talked about, well, you turned me on to the Helium browser the other day, right?

[DJ]: Which is a Chromium derivative.

[DJ]: So it's like using Chrome without all the Google stuff.

[DJ]: And I just recommended that browser to a non-techie person in my life because even they have come across like, "So I've heard that Google is awful and I don't really want to, like, but I need to look at these websites."

[DJ]: "What can I do?"

[DJ]: They didn't have any idea that there was such a thing as Chromium, but

[DJ]: I can give them this alternative, and it's, in this case, as simple as just downloading another app and running it, right?

[DJ]: And that's something that is also really hopeful to me, is that the means of finding alternatives to the big tech companies are getting more and more accessible.

[DJ]: So it makes me happy to see that we're not alone manning these ramparts of dissatisfaction.

[DJ]: It makes me happy to come across these articles as much as their content is kind of sad and frustrating.

[DJ]: It's people expressing like their sadness and frustration.

[DJ]: But at the same time, the fact that we're out here doing this for each other gives me hope.

[JM]: Indeed.

[JM]: And I'm glad that you have found Helium to be helpful.

[JM]: And it sounds like perhaps someone you know has found it to be helpful.

[JM]: So Hynek will be happy that we are spreading the good word.

[JM]: In other news, the dreaded time has come where I receive notifications from Apple telling me that iOS 26.1 is ready and waiting for me anytime I want it, which I definitely do not want at this moment.

[JM]: But my understanding is that this is the time where Apple has decided to flip the presentation of the updates in its update pane so that iOS 26 takes priority at the top of the pane and way down at the bottom

[JM]: in barely noticeable is the "Oh, or if you want, you could just update to 18.7.2" or whatever.

[JM]: And presumably, this also means that if you have automatic updates turned on, at some point, you will wake up to Liquid Glass.

[JM]: So again, periodic reminder, this is either (a) something that's going to happen very soon or (b) has already happened.

[JM]: So you're welcome.

[JM]: Or I'm sorry.

[JM]: As the case may be.

[DJ]: "Wake up to Liquid Glass."

[DJ]: There's something that sounds kind of nice about it until you realize what I'm describing.

[DJ]: This is true on the Mac as well.

[DJ]: I'm looking at my Mac software update pane right now, and I'm running Sequoia 15.6, and there is a giant, gargantuan, detailed, exceptionally beautiful pane that says Mac OS Tahoe 26.1, upgrade now.

[DJ]: And it's got this...

[DJ]: features and all the little things and all of that.

[DJ]: And then way down at the bottom, there's also available other updates.

[DJ]: MacOS Sequoia 15.7.2.

[DJ]: "Don't install it though."

[DJ]: "It's the worst."

[JM]: "Definitely install this other one."

[JM]: Unlike iOS, I think that's been the way on MacOS since Tahoe shipped.

[JM]: I think they make it big and front and center on day one.

[JM]: I guess...

[JM]: with the idea that, in theory, you could always revert on MacOS, which you definitely cannot do on iOS.

[JM]: I don't know why they treat these things differently in this respect, but they seemingly do.

[DJ]: Indeed.

[DJ]: So, yeah, guard yourselves against unintentionally updating if you don't want to.

[DJ]: I mean, if you do want to, it's your life.

[DJ]: But it's Alan Dye's life now.

[DJ]: Yeah.

[JM]: It *was* his life.

[DJ]: Yeah.

[DJ]: Well, yeah.

[DJ]: But he's left this for us.

[JM]: It's his legacy.

[DJ]: Exactly.

[DJ]: His legacy.

[JM]: For better or worse.

[DJ]: His legacy of things that don't line up right and are hard to see through.

[DJ]: Or they're too easy to see through, so it's hard to read things.

[DJ]: Whatever.

[DJ]: I don't like it, is the point.

[DJ]: I don't like Liquid Glass.

[JM]: Speaking of "Updates Available" notifications on MacOS, Apple has continued to ratchet down the thumbscrews in terms of making it harder and harder for you to indicate your clear preference that I do not want

[JM]: any notifications that there are updates available.

[JM]: You used to be able to control these.

[JM]: You used to be able to burrow into some obscure system preferences pane and deselect these notifications and say I don't want them.

[JM]: I think as of MacOS Sequoia, which

[JM]: is MacOS 15, the version that I'm still running, Apple has decided that our preferences are irrelevant and will now always notify you and nag you to install them until you do.

[JM]: You can select "Later", but there is no option on these notifications to "Leave me alone".

[JM]: "I will take care of the updates myself."

[JM]: "I'm a grownup."

[JM]: "I can do this."

[JM]: No, that's not an option anymore.

[JM]: And there's all of these references across the Internet where you

[JM]: can find people who have tried and presumably failed to find some solution to this. There are obscure "defaults write ..." terminal commands that I've seen and run, only to find that they do nothing, and I just want to tell whoever decided that I'm not a grown-up and can't be responsible to install updates on whatever cadence that I want to that I hate you. It's official: I hate you.

[JM]: I thought you should know that.

[DJ]: Yeah, it's such a bad pattern...

[DJ]: I see in lots of software where there's some pop-up about a thing and the options are "Okay" or "Ask later".

[DJ]: There's a third option there that's missing, which is "Go away and don't come back".

[DJ]: It fits so nicely to mention those articles we were talking about.

[DJ]: I think that one slots really nicely into the Needy Programs framework.

[DJ]: We're like, as a user of your computer, there is no option to get it to just stop doing this thing you don't want it to do.

[DJ]: It's like, no, no, no.

[DJ]: I mean, you can say no now, but we're going to keep asking you.

[DJ]: It's like, that's really crappy.

[DJ]: And as you said, Justin, I hate you, whoever you are.

[DJ]: I don't know you, but like, I hate you.

[JM]: I understand that there's an argument to be made that if you give users an option to easily say, "Don't remind me about this", that that's bad from a security perspective, because sometimes there are security-related updates that are important to install.

[JM]: And I can understand the argument, not that I necessarily agree with it, but I understand the argument that that's an irresponsible thing to put on a button

[JM]: that someone can easily tap and just say, yeah, "Go away".

[JM]: "I don't want to hear about you anymore".

[JM]: But that does not excuse the absence of some other way to do it.

[JM]: Like the way that apparently existed before, where you could run some obscure terminal command.

[JM]: If someone knows how to do that, that to me is just fine.

[JM]: Like, they know what they're doing.

[JM]: They are saying, "I understand the risks."

[JM]: "I understand the consequences."

[JM]: Again, I'm a grownup.

[JM]: That should be something I can do if I want to do it.

[DJ]: Yes.

[DJ]: And the inverse of that, it's kind of a false conclusion to draw from the, "Well, you know, like a lot of people just, they use their computers, but they don't understand the importance of security updates and they really need to install them."

[DJ]: "So we can't give them an option to skip."

[DJ]: It's like, well...

[DJ]: The conclusion you should draw from that is to not even ask and just install certain updates automatically.

[DJ]: And there are certain things in Mac OS in particular, I believe, where like there are certain types of updates that just get installed.

[DJ]: But that's generally used for like, yeah, like zero-day security vulnerabilities and stuff where it's like, "Look, we're not interested in your opinion about this."

[DJ]: "This has to get fixed right now for your own good and for everyone's."

[DJ]: "So we're just going to do that."

[DJ]: And that's fine because it generally doesn't change the way all of your user interface chrome looks on you.

[DJ]: But I think there is actually almost a danger in the idea of a false choice.

[DJ]: We always feel that way with things like terms-of-service agreements.

[DJ]: Where like, "Okay, before you use this thing, we want to show you 25 pages of dense legalese that explains how we're not liable for anything bad that happens to you."

[DJ]: "Ever."

[DJ]: "And neither are our children or our grandchildren liable to your children or your grandchildren."

[DJ]: That's basically what that stuff says.

[DJ]: Sorry, I'm not a lawyer and that wasn't legal advice.

[DJ]: And then there's like a thing at the bottom where you have to click a checkbox and press a button to say, "I agree to the terms".

[DJ]: And some of these user interfaces will not activate the button until you've scrolled to the bottom.

[DJ]: Thereby, at least for their...

[DJ]: from their perspective, they're like, "Well, you must have read it then."

[DJ]: And again, I think there's something sort of disingenuous about the idea of software showing you this thing, even though we, the people using the software, and I presume the people who make the software having also experienced this themselves.

[DJ]: No, no one reads it.

[DJ]: The vast majority of people who use the thing just agree to the terms-of-service because they have to so that they can do the thing they were trying to do.

[DJ]: I think it would actually be a little more honest on the part of software manufacturers if they popped up a thing that said, "Hey, just so you know, to use our software, we want you to agree to a certain term."

[DJ]: "If you're pretty sure that whatever those terms are, you're okay with it..."

[DJ]: "fine, just click the button."

[DJ]: "But like, here's a hyperlink in case you are one of the five people on earth who insists on actually reviewing the terms."

[DJ]: That might sound like a distinction without a difference.

[DJ]: But I think there's something to that notion of, of not going, "Well, we gave you the choice."

[DJ]: It's like, no, not really.

[DJ]: And likewise, this thing with updates, where if it's like, "Well, it's really important to keep asking you because these updates are important."

[DJ]: Well, I would say instead, if the updates are so important, you should just install them without asking me.

[DJ]: If they're not important enough to install automatically, then trust me to decide whether to do it or not.

[DJ]: Because again, the average person who uses a computer is not qualified to make a nuanced distinction about, should I install this or not?

[DJ]: So the whole thing, it's like, "Well, we gave you the choice, but it's really important that you eventually do it."

[DJ]: It's like, give me a break.

[JM]: What you just described, the automatic installation, is not some abstract concept.

[JM]: It's the default behavior.

[JM]: If you don't go in and explicitly uncheck boxes, that's what happens on all of their platforms.

[JM]: Now, in theory,

[JM]: we can go into preferences and there is a separate checkbox for, and I forget how they word it, "Critical security updates and system files" or something like that, where only those can be automatically installed if you want, but everything else requires user interaction.

[JM]: And that to me,

[JM]: is a relatively sane way to behave, which is to say, if there's some critical security update, sure, go ahead and automatically install and fix it.

[JM]: Because I trust you not to do something else.

[JM]: I trust you not to break something that I rely on.

[JM]: I trust you not to rearrange the user interface in some way that I find confusing, unfamiliar, or deeply unpleasant.

[JM]: That to me is an okay bargain to make.

[JM]: That's not really what we're being given here anyway, right?

[JM]: Like, even if I check that box and then uncheck everything else, I still get nagged.

[JM]: We all still get nagged even if we don't want these notifications.

[DJ]: Yeah, I'm glad you pointed that out because I think it makes the point that I was trying to make even more succinctly, which is if you can say, or rather if the default is, yeah, just update automatically, but then you can turn that default off.

[DJ]: The system should take the turning off of automatic updates as a signal that it should not bother you about updates.

[DJ]: If you really wanted to be sure to install the updates, you would just tell it to automatically update.

[DJ]: And I think that was what I was going for before is that like these sorts of choices should probably be more at the extremes.

[DJ]: Like either just, "I don't want to think about my computer, just take care of it for me."

[DJ]: Or on the other hand, "Leave me alone".

[DJ]: "I got this".

[DJ]: And instead we end up in this kind of obnoxious middle ground where I've tried to say, "Leave me alone."

[DJ]: "I've got this", but you will not leave me alone.

[JM]: We only have this obnoxious middle ground because they took away the fine-grained, more granular control that we had not that long ago, where we could say, a checkbox for automatically downloading updates, a checkbox for being notified that bits are available, a checkbox for automatically installing it.

[JM]: This all existed.

[JM]: They've just been slowly taking those checkboxes away.

[JM]: And it feels to me like the inevitable endgame of this is to arrive at a place where all of the checkboxes are gone.

[JM]: This stuff just happens to you at a time and place of the vendor's choosing and you, the end user, don't get a say in if, when, and how it occurs.

[DJ]: Which I think is what's leading so many of us to feel like we're losing confidence in these platforms.

[DJ]: My reaction to what you just said is, again, it's like, "Leave my computer alone".

[DJ]: If I wanted a technology appliance that I would just turn on to do the one thing that it does, but someone else makes all the decisions about how that works, I would buy a PlayStation.

[DJ]: But I prize and value technology,

[DJ]: having a computing system that is heavily under my control because I am capable of controlling it.

[DJ]: And so, yeah, all the choices that Apple maybe in particular makes that just, it feels like they're trying to wrest that control out of my hands and turn my computer into some other thing that isn't the computing experience I want.

[DJ]: And I don't like it.

[DJ]: And that's why I'm switching to Windows, Justin.

[JM]: Yeah.

[JM]: Don't you mean...

[JM]: "And that's why I'm switching to using ChatGPT for every single thing, because that will solve all of these problems."

[DJ]: Oh man, you're right.

[DJ]: It's like I forgot how to do a segue.

[JM]: Indeed, because it sounds like there's been a leak that indicates that OpenAI is preparing for ads in ChatGPT.

[JM]: And this really should not come as a surprise to anyone who's paid attention to the tech industry for, say, I don't know, the last two decades.

[JM]: Or for that matter, anyone who has listened to this show in which we said in no uncertain terms that, yeah, we're going to get ads in these things and probably sooner than later.

[JM]: One of the things that I find really funny about this is that OpenAI CEO Sam Altman in the past has made it sound like mixing advertising and generative software maybe isn't such a great idea.

[JM]: And over time, in ways that I think are entirely predictable, that stance has shifted to being advertising-curious to, it sounds like, overt, "We're going to stuff ads into ChatGPT".

[JM]: And there's a video of him

[JM]: being asked about, "How are you going to monetize this product?"

[JM]: And his straight-faced answer is, "Once we've achieved," and again, this is not a direct quote, this is me just paraphrasing, "Once we have achieved true artificial intelligence, we will just ask it how to generate revenue, and it will give us the answer."

[JM]: And apparently the AI god has answered: ads.

[JM]: The answer is ads.

[DJ]: You have to be a very, very talented evil hypnotist from a cartoon to be the CEO of a publicly-traded company and claim that the only way to figure out how to generate revenue

[DJ]: is to create an AI, "smart" enough to tell you how to generate revenue and not be like thrown down a well by the board of directors, not even fired, like actually defenestrated.

[DJ]: It's just such a perfect...

[DJ]: microcosm of our moment in this industry.

[DJ]: And I realized you were paraphrasing and not quoting, so I'll be a little careful.

[DJ]: Not that careful, but I'll be a little careful there.

[DJ]: But just imagining Sam Altman being like, it's easy.

[DJ]: We'll just build an AI that's smart enough to figure out how to make this company that's spending 100,000 times more than it makes every month...

[JM]: Oh, I want to be clear:

[JM]: He absolutely said this.

[JM]: Not word-for-word, but...

[JM]: The thing that he said is this, this is the concept that, "Oh yeah, we don't need to worry about monetization because we're just going to ask our genius AI to come up with the answer and then we'll have the answer."

[JM]: It's like the question of, okay, well, wait a minute.

[JM]: We're building all these data centers.

[JM]: Like, doesn't that seem not-great in terms of our chances of future survival?

[JM]: Not because some evil AI is going to, I don't know, launch nukes or something, but because we're going to

[JM]: produce so much CO2 from all these data centers that we're going to cook ourselves into oblivion.

[JM]: And the answer inevitably from the AI tech bros is, well, we'll just ask the AI how to solve our environmental problems and they'll come up with a solution.

[JM]: That can't be the answer to everything.

[JM]: Everything that you're doing that's not great can't be the answer.

[DJ]: Well, because it's not an answer.

[DJ]: No, but the problem is it's the same answer as the traditional theistic religions that...

[DJ]: modern society has largely abandoned. Like, it's extremely insane to watch as these large groups of people who would probably if you looked at their online dating profiles would describe themselves as some kind of like scientific rationalist or something, and essentially like they are perhaps completely predictably doing what humans do, which is pray to a god and

[DJ]: like, how will you solve this problem?

[DJ]: "Well, we'll just ask the magic being in the sky to solve it."

[DJ]: Except instead of the magical being being like the god of the Torah, whose name is not to be pronounced aloud, its name is even shorter.

[DJ]: It's only two letters instead of four.

[DJ]: It's AI.

[DJ]: But a little while ago, a little while ago, before my head literally burst into flames from rage...

[DJ]: You said something about Altman paying lip service to the notion that maybe ads in ChatGPT is not such a good idea.

[DJ]: And no, it's obviously a terrible idea because a piece of software whose user interface uses the way that human brains respond to the apparent presence of another consciousness to totally like warp people's relationship with it.

[DJ]: Which is a complicated way of alluding to the fact that like an awful lot of people kind of blindly trust whatever the output of ChatGPT is.

[DJ]: And a small minority of those people you hear about sound like they are being driven into like extremely severe mental health crises by using the software.

[DJ]: I'm not saying that the software is deliberately driving them, but I'm saying that the

[DJ]: nature of their interactions with it is provoking this kind of really unhealthy response.

[DJ]: Imagine software that can do that and then turn it towards advertising, which is instead of being a at least hypothetically unbiased provisioner of structured information, now it has a bias, which is it wants you to buy Tide Pods.

[DJ]: I told you months ago that I was going to bring Tide Pods back somehow, Justin.

[DJ]: You should have been ready.

[JM]: Yes, yes.

[JM]: Future Abstractions podcast show sponsor, Tide Pods.

[DJ]: But it'll be the Abstractions podcast that you get by asking ChatGPT for it that will advertise the Tide Pods, right?

[JM]: Correct.

[JM]: All right, everyone, that's all for this episode.

[JM]: Thanks a lot for listening.

[JM]: You can find me on the web at justinmayer.com and you can find Dan on the web at danj.ca.

[JM]: Reach out with your thoughts about this episode via the Fediverse at justin.ramble.space.