A feature that's opt-in will get like 1% of the use of a feature that's opt-out. A happier middle ground would be to enable by default and showed a "I don't like this, pls turn it off" button the first few times.
Our PMs don't like making things opt-in.
-> Your users don't like making things opt-out. Low usage metrics is a UX problem. Activating it without informed consent gives you bloated metrics anyway.
Good compromise.
Runner up is the "what's new" tutorial overlays.
What is so hard about that?
> Our PMs don't like making things opt-in.
Lamest excuse ever.
I wouldn't be surprised if you phoned back home about that mic activation - do you?
I recently joined an org where Notion is in use - I will actively lobby them to not install the desktop app, at all or to quit Notion alltogether.
Once you already are in the habit of evading user-privacy, it's a only a couple of down quarters before you start tracking and sending data to data brokers or someone else. This is why no one here likes this behavior.
As more and more companies start to use AI for “personalized”/targeted pricing, offers, advertising, etc. The more this exact type of data will be useful and therefore lucrative.
Please don't forget: Road to hell is paved with good intentions. Making features which can eavesdrop on users opt-in can go very wrong, very fast.
I understand the need to make it "feel like magic", but that line is very thin.
Last note, please when you move something around (e.g. Calculate button from bottom of the database columns to header menu), please let users know. It really feels bad when you use something too much just disappears.
BTW, I'm a Notion subscriber as you can say :)
oof, i will forward that feedback to the team. we should do better about communicating changes to ui
Then refuse implementing it. Have some dignity for God's sake.
Also, searching for dignity in a post-“don’t be evil” startup environment seems unusual.
Expecting a shift in corporate culture to come from a short list of individuals making great personal sacrifice (of their careers, reputations, whatever) is not reasonable, sustainable, or realistic.
I know there are a lot of folks who abhor regulation in many contexts, but stuff like this is most effectively handled by such mechanisms.
Whenever people on HN and else where present you the mustache twirling evil Microsoft or Apple or Google C-suite/board who are trying to enshitificate a product or a tool because they don’t care, always keep in mind that the reality is often a lot more mundane than that.
The application that is “sneakily” listening to you and transmitting everything you say to their servers can be a legitimate product of a mustache twirling villain, but it’s a lot more likely (in my experience) that a group of 5 engineers and a PM were tasked by “Present relevant products from our company to the user” task and someone was like “what if we record what they are saying (or just zip-up their entire ~/Documents folder), run it through an LLM on our server and prompt it to analyze their convo or documents and recommend one of our products to sell to them? Sounds good to me, no?”
Moustache-twirler A: We've identified these metrics that correlate with increased shareholder value
Moustache-twirler B: But what do those metrics say about user privacy?
(both laugh. This is very funny)
MT A: no but really, fire any PMs that don't make these go up and let the survivors figure out why
MT B: sounds great. See you at golf this weekend
(some time later, in a less fancy conference room)
Engineer: This new feature is great, but could be construed as an invasion of privacy. Can we make it opt-in?
PM (panicking): Oh good heavens, no! Also send the opt-out button to the UX team, that way it doesn't come down on us.
Well... yeah. It's either because the benefits of opting in aren't communicated well enough or that users just don't actually want it.
For AI meeting notes, I'd imagine it's the latter.
That is an implementation detail. What matters is the outcome:
Notion leadership has signed off on this being opt-out.
The calculus here, as you indicated, was that opt-in has little buy-in.
What leadership didn't take into account was the risk of this being publicized, and the blowback from this awareness.
That, or leadership has already calculated that not enough people will care (possibly true).
I suppose it's then up to those that do care to make more noise about this, to tilt the odds?, so this specific calculus (also known as enshittification) doesn't keep occuring (i.e, if the blowback costs are disproportionate to the value provided by default opt-out....)
Thank god the web browser was developed in an era where PMs weren't stack-ranked on rubrics like "feature engagement". Imagine a world where every website was granted access to your filesystem, webcam, microphone, and geolocation by default so that PMs could report back on how many websites were making use of those browser APIs.
“Ze engagement metrics must go up on ze dashboard every quarter, jah!” I can’t wait for the day PMs and other parasites find a new industry to move to. They sure have sucked the fun out of this one.
But none of this conversation makes me want to use Notion. We used to use it at $OLDJOB for meeting notes and light DB work for non-technical users. Now I’m happy we stopped.
we dropped the ball with the support response quoted the top of the thread. we don't process your microphone data until you click the button to start transcribing, and remind the user to confirm they have two-party consent. we merely detect when a meeting app is using your microphone.
source: i work at notion, just checked the code. it's electron, you're welcome to check for yourself.
Tell them that alone is one reason I'll never use it. I'm sure I'm a minority, but not zero.