People want something that works out of the box and keeps working without additional maintenance or annoying you all the time.

The post you are replying to has a stronger focus on the second part but still wants the same thing.

Same reasoning for getting debian instead of windows. The preinstalled option seems easier at first sight (someone else prepared the box for you), but then windows has McAfee trials, hey sign up for this, oh you don't want updates right now... too bad, your microphone does not work in Skype and you have no clue where to even look to fix it. I don't have the time or patience to deal with this, so debian it is.

I understand what the person I was replying to wants. I was replying to their point that they don’t understand that other people don’t want the same, when they do but they just value other forms of simplicity.

And how does being on Debian meaningfully change your scenario? You’ve just shifted the issue elsewhere to something that you are subjectively more familiar with and subjectively more willing to debug.

Let’s be real. Most people aren’t going to do that. The year of Linux on the desktop would have come by now (and let’s not trot out the steamdeck which hides that away)

Any vanilla option with millions of users and some reputation for quality works for this. Windows works just fine out of the box. As does mac os. As does debian.

With windows you ofc run the risk of purchasing your kit from a shitty vendor - so that for sure is a slight extra hurdle.

I have always hated how almost everywhere I go I get told “no one can know everything/no one cares how a plain works so long as it works” for me that’s fundamentally untrue.

But I have heard it said so many times and seen so many people simply agree with it that I believe that for many many people out there, it is true.

There’s a difference in ability and desire.

Why do a lot of technical people own iPhones and use Mac’s? It’s not because they can’t understand the technology and it’s not because they don’t like to tinker.

It’s because they don’t want to carry that constant burden of thought with them. Maybe some do, but a lot of folks like the base state to be one where they can just chill.

> It’s because they don’t want to carry that constant burden of thought with them

With me it's the thought of how it's going to prevent me from doing what I want because "it's not the Apple way" (but that applies to more than just apple). It's the main reason not to use those.

And that’s fair, and it’s important to always underscore that people have subjective preferences.

But the two people I responded to prior seemed to find it odd that others have a different set of goals.

You are very right.

I want my iPhone to connect via cloud with my Mac, because I can scan documents with the iPhone and open them there. Without me doing anything to connect the devices apart from first install.

I want to experience new things like new music hence why I use Spotify to get something new washed in (but in the past it worked better).

All the gain but without the pain of fixing it. I already have to fix packages during work time and debug through software. Not in my spare time please.

With the need to curb CO2 emissions, I sincerely hope that "subjective preferences" will leave some space to "reasonable preferences".

I bought into the "it just works" ideology after using Android since my first smartphone. Not only is the UX really confusing and lacking any sort of help to understand what you can and cannot do, but the "It's not the Apple way" is really getting in the way of the most basic stuff.

Apple gave iPhone users "Automation" yet it's so lacking you cannot do things automatically when you receive a text message for example, without requiring manual action. Apple CarPlay doesn't seem to have been tested with people actually driving and using it, exemplified by receiving a call while trying to use map navigation and the receiving call covers the navigation. There are so many examples like this, while what I thought I would get would be something that excelled in every way.

There are so many examples of UX that is lacking of thought, that this is my first and last iPhone.

I had exactly this experience! I’m so frustrated people convinced me to buy an iPhone, because it was so expensive I can’t justify switching back. I have been using a Pixel 6 for some drone photography and everything about is nicer than my iPhone 14 Pro.

I found out long ago that it's easier and more cost-effective[] for me to change my habits than it is to try to shove the square peg of my habits to the round hole of the tool I'm using.

[] actual per-hour cost and mental load

100%

The final part of my comment got cut off by my tab switching behaviour but it was along the lines of “I find it hard to believe that even the most passionate hacker or tinkerer could become an adult and not have realised most people aren’t like that.

Ah fair. Yes I definitely agree with that.

> People want an experience that works out of the box. That they don’t have to think about package managers or maintenance. That’s low complexity for the vast majority of people.

> That’s why people are going for Apple and Tesla.

I think you misspelled Toyota...

Agreed. that I think why some here prefer the more stripped down but more actively operated products is that, in contemporary versions of Apple (or similar) products is that the surface level simplicity of those products comes in exchange with a far more complex business model of DRM, product ecosystems, subscriptions, IOT nonsense etc.

Ironically Apple's appeal used to be the buy it and forget it product, where Toyota today remains one of the last champions of the buy it and forget it practice.

by similar, I mean firms that take a page of Apple's book with sleek, consumer friendly design and decidedly consumer unfriendly business (Peloton etc).

Tesla’s Model 3 and Y outsell other brands models. Toyota is losing their crown , especially in California. https://news.yahoo.com/report-sheds-light-major-rivalry-2045...

Not what I meant. "People want an experience that works out of the box."

That experience of a car just working out of the box, doing what it is supposed to do, and never having any issues whatsoever, is more typical of Toyota/Honda than it is of any of the EV makers. Even though electric vehicles as a category should be better in principle (fewer moving parts).

There’s no single axis to people’s decisions though.

The Japanese brands have stagnated in terms of style, features and BEV availability. Especially in the case of Honda, they’ve also lost that impression of reliability.

Tesla and Hyundai/Kia are eating their market for what people’s wants have changed to: cars as an extension of the rest of their lives, not just a utility.

ease of use has to be viewed in that context

> cars as an extension of the rest of their lives, not just a utility

I don't even understand what that means. That could be a marketing slogan.

Cars have been at the center of our lives for decades in most developed countries, we don't even notice it anymore. Unless you live in the Netherlands, Japan or a big European metropolis, everything has been designed for them.

What do people do the rest of their day when they’re not in a car?

They’re using apps to navigate, listen to music, entertain themselves, get support etc…

A Tesla gives them an extension of the rest of their day in car form. It’s a smartphone on a car.

That’s in addition to their ecosystem of chargers. Not having to worry as much if a charger is compatible or cross shop gas price rates.

It’s also why most buyers require CarPlay or Android auto as a must have feature.

I don’t care if it sounds like marketing. You can see people make the decision time and time again that new technology should be an extension of what they already use outside of it.

My mom drives a small Citroen C1 and never opened the hood. Cars are already pretty damn reliable.

As I understand it it's usually the software that goes bad they have the whole engine thing down to a science.

Being popular isn’t the same as “good”.

The whole point of this thread is subjective desires.

“Good” is not an objectively measurable or relevant subject.

Tesla (and Apple) don't just work though. The latest Tesla issue I have is the navigation system which caches nothing and often takes 2-4-10 minutes before it updates the map WHILE I'M DRIVING and trying to find a new route. I end up having to take out my phone (more dangerous) and search there. This happened often in both SF and LA. Say you're driving, you want to zoom out a little to get some idea of where you need to be, which exits it's picked, etc. You zoom out and the tiles at that zoom level don't fill in for minutes. And, if you want to them to fill in you need to keep fingers on the screen, otherwise it auto-zooms back to the default level and throws away whatever data it started downloading. It's infuriatingly bad

Okay so it's not just me. I feel like the map issues have been absolutely infuriating recently. There are also offline maps that are downloaded as well so I don't understand how the maps are so awful. I don't remember it being this bad in 2019/2020.

I didn’t say they were perfect. I very much do think there’s room for improvement but the stock experience in a Tesla is miles ahead of other companies. The only thing that would be better IMHO (and much better) is if they allowed CarPlay or Android auto.

Let’s not miss the forest for the trees with equating flaws with what the original topic was: hackable. All their examples require up front knowledge and patience. They’ll still have flaws after all that.

Most people don’t want that. They’ll put up with flaws if they can skip the up front mental energy and friction.

Was going to say this. I went from what he describes as the solution, to what he describes as the antithesis, for the exact reasons he went in the opposite direction. Funny eh?

> People want an experience that works out of the box.

I hear this since 30 years. Yet absolutely nothing works out of the box. Everything has a learning curve, sometimes only for the sake of change (see Windows, iOS, etc)

A lot of things work out of the box. Hairdryers. Cooking stoves. Fridges. Coffee machines.

It's just as soon as a company wants to make everything into a full-blown computer (to get that sweet data), that's when the problems start. The system becomes complex, feature creep and lack of engineering effort do the rest. Maybe not everything needs to be a computer.

It's not the computer that's the problem. It's that, as soon as a computer is involved, our engineering standards go to shit.

> A lot of things work out of the box. Hairdryers. Cooking stoves.

I wish my cooking stove worked out of the box. After the control panel died a technician who didn't know what they were doing replaced it and then neglected to push a new firmware version into the Linux box running in my stove. That messed up the communications between the control unit and the power board, and my oven was perpetually 25F cooler than what I had set it to until I called another tech back to figure that out.

That was actually a food safety issue, as one might assume that if you cook your meat at a particular temperature and time then it will be safe to consume. The cook top also seemed to only be able to cook at settings 6 or 7; the lower settings seemed to be way too weak.

Fortunately I had the sense to buy an oven thermometer just to make sure.

> People want an experience that works out of the box. That they don’t have to think about package managers or maintenance.

I still have to think about them on the new shinies. It's just harder to understand them.