Devil’s Advocate: many anti-features of consumer products are there to protect the 99% of users who are not power users like yourself, and are a positive benefit for them. For example, the iPhone OS and UI protects most users from accidentally disabling their phones in ways they cannot understand or fix, limiting the utility of the device for them. Schools and tutors serve the great majority who have difficulty teaching themselves (and provide strong educational signaling benefits in a way that autodidacticism regrettably does not). Psychoactive drugs are second best (or third-best, or at least for many users better than nothing) meditation practice, in an analogous way to how caffeine substitutes for sleep. Jobs, by packaging tasks together, limit the search cost for people trying to find an economic niche in which they can thrive—most people want 8 hours of structured work, after which they are free to do whatever they want and can leave thinking about work at the office, as opposed to having to strive to consciously separate work and life the way entrepreneurs do.
If (a big “if”) ease of use and reduction of conscious, deliberate choice has been a net positive for consumers, these anti-features are the means to deliver them. You (and I, and many other users of this site) suffer because of that, but there are enough of us to support the flourishing open source ecosystem, so the results are net gains at the level of society.
I agree. But...
Devil’s Advocate: many anti-features of consumer products are there to protect the 99% of users who are not power users like yourself, and are a positive benefit for them. For example, the iPhone OS and UI protects most users from accidentally disabling their phones in ways they cannot understand or fix, limiting the utility of the device for them. Schools and tutors serve the great majority who have difficulty teaching themselves (and provide strong educational signaling benefits in a way that autodidacticism regrettably does not). Psychoactive drugs are second best (or third-best, or at least for many users better than nothing) meditation practice, in an analogous way to how caffeine substitutes for sleep. Jobs, by packaging tasks together, limit the search cost for people trying to find an economic niche in which they can thrive—most people want 8 hours of structured work, after which they are free to do whatever they want and can leave thinking about work at the office, as opposed to having to strive to consciously separate work and life the way entrepreneurs do.
If (a big “if”) ease of use and reduction of conscious, deliberate choice has been a net positive for consumers, these anti-features are the means to deliver them. You (and I, and many other users of this site) suffer because of that, but there are enough of us to support the flourishing open source ecosystem, so the results are net gains at the level of society.