#Search Settings Customization

[doom-dreaming]

how do i tell my mother that coming into my room calling me "lazybones" if i'm still in bed at any time past 7 a.m. for YEARS has done near-irreparable damage to my self-esteem and created shame about being able to just fucking relax?

[frozenpinesmp3]

tlou2 really set the fucking bar for gameplay accessibility

[challenge-ant]

oh no what have I done why can I only view my blog on the dashboard

[dankovskaya]

Ok I watched. The one horror movie on his filmography and that was um. That was um.

[midwinterhunt]

hot artists don't gatekeep

I've been resource gathering for YEARS so now I am going to share my dragons hoard

Floorplanner. Design and furnish a house for you to use for having a consistent background in your comic or anything! Free, you need an account, easy to use, and you can save multiple houses.

Comparing Heights. Input the heights of characters to see what the different is between them. Great for keeping consistency. Free.

Magma. Draw online with friends in real time. Great for practice or hanging out. Free, paid plan available, account preferred.

Smithsonian Open Access. Loads of free images. Free.

SketchDaily. Lots of pose references, massive library, is set on a timer so you can practice quick figure drawing. Free.

SculptGL. A sculpting tool which I am yet to master, but you should be able to make whatever 3d object you like with it. free.

Pexels. Free stock images. And the search engine is actually pretty good at pulling up what you want.

Figurosity. Great pose references, diverse body types, lots of "how to draw" videos directly on the site, the models are 3d and you can rotate the angle, but you can't make custom poses or edit body proportions. Free, account option, paid plans available.

Line of Action. More drawing references, this one also has a focus on expressions, hands/feet, animals, landscapes. Free.

Animal Photo. You pose a 3d skull model and select an animal species, and they give you a bunch of photo references for that animal at that angle. Super handy. Free.

Height Weight Chart. You ever see an OC listed as having a certain weight but then they look Wildly different than the number suggests? Well here's a site to avoid that! It shows real people at different weights and heights to give you a better idea of what these abstract numbers all look like. Free to use.

[amazonmarketingagency]

Lab 916: Your Partner in Crafting Winning Amazon Strategies

Introduction: Lab 916's Expertise in Amazon Strategy

In the ever-evolving world of e-commerce, Lab 916 stands as a beacon of expertise, providing businesses with tailored Amazon strategies to succeed in the competitive marketplace. With a deep understanding of Amazon's algorithms, trends, and best practices, Lab 916 helps businesses navigate the complexities of selling on the platform and achieve their goals.

Strategic Planning with Lab 916

Lab 916 takes a strategic approach to Amazon strategy development, focusing on optimizing product listings, implementing competitive pricing strategies, leveraging advertising tactics, and fostering customer engagement. By customizing strategies to align with each client's unique objectives and market dynamics, Lab 916 ensures that businesses can maximize their potential on Amazon.

Optimizing Product Listings for Maximum Visibility

A crucial aspect of Lab 916's Amazon strategy is optimizing product listings to enhance visibility and drive conversions. Through meticulous keyword research, compelling product descriptions, and high-quality imagery, Lab 916 ensures that each product listing is optimized to rank higher in Amazon search results. By improving the visibility and appeal of product listings, businesses can attract more customers and increase sales.

Implementing Competitive Pricing Strategies

Lab 916 assists businesses in developing competitive yet profitable pricing strategies tailored to their market segment. By analyzing competitor pricing data, market trends, and consumer behavior, Lab 916 helps businesses set prices that maximize sales while maintaining healthy profit margins. Additionally, Lab 916 provides guidance on leveraging dynamic pricing tools and promotional strategies to stay competitive on Amazon.

Leveraging Advertising Tactics for Enhanced Visibility

Advertising is a key component of Lab 916's Amazon strategy, aimed at increasing product visibility and driving targeted traffic to product listings. Lab 916 utilizes Amazon's advertising platform to create and optimize sponsored product ads, sponsored brand ads, and sponsored display ads. By strategically targeting keywords and audience segments, Lab 916 helps businesses maximize their advertising ROI and generate sales on Amazon.

Fostering Customer Engagement and Loyalty

Lab 916 emphasizes the importance of fostering strong customer relationships to drive long-term success on Amazon. Through proactive customer service, timely responses to inquiries and feedback, and strategies to encourage positive reviews, Lab 916 helps businesses build trust and loyalty with their customers. By delivering exceptional shopping experiences and maintaining positive seller ratings, businesses can enhance their reputation and drive repeat purchases on the platform.

Conclusion: Achieving Success with Lab 916's Guidance

In conclusion, Lab 916 serves as a valuable partner for businesses seeking to excel on Amazon. With Lab 916's expertise and strategic guidance, businesses can optimize their Amazon strategies and achieve success in the competitive e-commerce landscape. By leveraging Lab 916's insights and best practices, businesses can unlock their full potential on one of the world's largest online platforms.

Introduction: Lab 916's Expertise in Amazon Strategy

In the ever-evolving world of e-commerce, Lab 916 stands as a beacon of expertise, providing businesses with tailored Amazon strategies to succeed in the competitive marketplace. With a deep understanding of Amazon's algorithms, trends, and best practices, Lab 916 helps businesses navigate the complexities of selling on the platform and achieve their goals.

Strategic Planning with Lab 916

Lab 916 takes a strategic approach to Amazon strategy development, focusing on optimizing product listings, implementing competitive pricing strategies, leveraging advertising tactics, and fostering customer engagement. By customizing strategies to align with each client's unique objectives and market dynamics, Lab 916 ensures that businesses can maximize their potential on Amazon.

Optimizing Product Listings for Maximum Visibility

A crucial aspect of Lab 916's Amazon strategy is optimizing product listings to enhance visibility and drive conversions. Through meticulous keyword research, compelling product descriptions, and high-quality imagery, Lab 916 ensures that each product listing is optimized to rank higher in Amazon search results. By improving the visibility and appeal of product listings, businesses can attract more customers and increase sales.

Implementing Competitive Pricing Strategies

Lab 916 assists businesses in developing competitive yet profitable pricing strategies tailored to their market segment. By analyzing competitor pricing data, market trends, and consumer behavior, Lab 916 helps businesses set prices that maximize sales while maintaining healthy profit margins. Additionally, Lab 916 provides guidance on leveraging dynamic pricing tools and promotional strategies to stay competitive on Amazon.

Leveraging Advertising Tactics for Enhanced Visibility

Advertising is a key component of Lab 916's Amazon strategy, aimed at increasing product visibility and driving targeted traffic to product listings. Lab 916 utilizes Amazon's advertising platform to create and optimize sponsored product ads, sponsored brand ads, and sponsored display ads. By strategically targeting keywords and audience segments, Lab 916 helps businesses maximize their advertising ROI and generate sales on Amazon.

Fostering Customer Engagement and Loyalty

Lab 916 emphasizes the importance of fostering strong customer relationships to drive long-term success on Amazon. Through proactive customer service, timely responses to inquiries and feedback, and strategies to encourage positive reviews, Lab 916 helps businesses build trust and loyalty with their customers. By delivering exceptional shopping experiences and maintaining positive seller ratings, businesses can enhance their reputation and drive repeat purchases on the platform.

Conclusion: Achieving Success with Lab 916's Guidance

In conclusion, Lab 916 serves as a valuable partner for businesses seeking to excel on Amazon. With Lab 916's expertise and strategic guidance, businesses can optimize their Amazon strategies and achieve success in the competitive e-commerce landscape. By leveraging Lab 916's insights and best practices, businesses can unlock their full potential on one of the world's largest online platforms.

[dirtcube]

Minecraft Wiki is independent again!!

Yahoo!!! No more FANDOM wiki!!! Find the new minecraft wiki at minecraft.wiki!!

I thought it would be good to make a little PSA post with summarised information on why they moved from FANDOM!

Why did they move?

FANDOM is notoriously a bad wiki for both readers and editors alike. This is due to the insane amount of ads, the site layout, the lag, the fact that FANDOM can just take your wiki from you, etc has made the minecraft wiki decide to move

Because of the lack of agency the minecraft wiki has over its own wiki, they had a long discussion and vote with the community on what wiki platform to move towards. You can view both discussions here and here

By moving to a more independent wiki, they can provide a much better and friendlier service.

What's improved with the new wiki?

New site look, lacking the ugly FANDOM yellow sidebar and removing all other unnecessary bloat! This also includes a dark mode option and other custom settings.

Faster load times! I have incredibly good internet, and even I notice the STARK difference between the load times of FANDOM and the official wiki!

Less ads! At the moment they have no ads, but they do intend to have at least one. The placement of which will be discussed with the community to ensure minimal disruption to the user.

Better search functionality! FANDOM's search is notoriously bad at giving you the answers you need. Now they can have a more robust search function that more accurately brings users to what they are looking for.

No age popups- Unlike FANDOM this wiki does not need to know if you're a child or adult.

Anonymous editing has returned! Users can now once again anonymously contribute to the site!

HOWEVER. THE MINECRAFT WIKI NEEDS YOUR HELP!

FANDOM refuses to close old wiki's that have moved away, and so they will continue to show up in search domains. The old domains such as minecraft.gamepedia.com and minecraftwiki.net are also permanently attached to the FANDOM wiki.

In order to help the new wiki be successful, you can help out in the following way:

Spread the word!

Don't interact with FANDOM links. The less people interact with FANDOM, the more google knows that people are looking for the official wiki and not the FANDOM one!

Dont use the old links, again for the same reason as above!

And of course, improve the wiki :D! Since you don't need an account to make edits, see what you can contribute!

[splatoongamefiles]

dumbest firefox feature you can just set whatever the fuck you want to be your default search engine

not the dumbest actually this rocks

(go on a page with a search bar and right click the address bar at the top of the page, an option gets added to the bottom and you can even set custom shortcuts for it if it's not your main one)

[kresscooper1]

Unwrapping the Excellence of Kress Cooper's Accounting Mastery

[dravidious]

You're more amazing than multiple pillows

"Your honor, the prosecution would like to call the next witness to the stand."

"Mr Murder claims to have seen the entire crime personally."

"Your honor... With all due respect, that's a bird. You can't call a bird as a witness! Furthermore..."

"As as the previous witness revealed earlier, several black feathers were found on the victim's body. This makes Mr Murder look like far more than just a witness. The defense would like to accuse Mr Murder of being the true killer!"

"Mr Wright, the last time we had a bird at the witness stand, you were the one wanted to cross-examine it. And we're all well aware of the black feathers. Let's hear what Mr Murder has to say before throwing around accusations. Now then, Mr Murder, please state your name and occupation."

"You will die on the twelfth of April, 2038, 11:31 am."

In other news, an expansion on disturb cards!

And now that we've got a nice chain going, let's string them all together!

[prodrive1234]

"Rolling into Savings: Discover Our Newly Opened Wholesale Tire Shop"

Introduction

Are you tired of searching high and low for affordable, high-quality tires? Look no further! We're thrilled to announce the grand opening of our brand new wholesale tire shop, where you'll find an extensive range of tires at unbeatable prices. Whether you're a seasoned auto enthusiast, a professional mechanic, or just someone who wants to get the best deals on tires, our store is the place to be. In this blog, we'll introduce you to our newly opened wholesale tire shop and explain why it's the perfect destination for all your tire needs.

A Wide Selection of Tires

At our wholesale tire shop, we understand that every vehicle is unique and deserves the right set of tires. That's why we've curated an extensive selection of tires to meet all your needs. From all-season tires to high-performance summer tires, off-road tires, and more, we've got you covered. Our tires come from reputable manufacturers, ensuring top-notch quality and safety.

Unbeatable Prices

One of the standout features of our wholesale tire shop is the incredible value we offer to our customers. Buying tires for your vehicle can be a significant investment, but we believe it doesn't have to break the bank. We've built strong relationships with tire manufacturers, allowing us to pass the savings on to you. Whether you're buying in bulk or just need a single tire replacement, our prices are designed to be the most competitive in town.

Professional Guidance

Choosing the right set of tires for your vehicle can be a daunting task. That's why our knowledgeable and friendly staff are here to help you every step of the way. Whether you have questions about tire sizes, tread patterns, or seasonal considerations, our experts are here to provide guidance and recommendations. We want you to leave our store with confidence in your tire purchase.

Bulk Orders for Businesses

For businesses such as auto repair shops, car dealerships, or fleet managers, we offer special deals on bulk orders. Partner with us, and you'll not only save money but also receive top-tier service. We understand the importance of minimizing downtime and ensuring your vehicles are equipped with the best tires to keep your operations running smoothly.

Convenience and Customer Satisfaction

Our newly opened tire shop is conveniently located, making it easy for you to drop by and explore our tire collection. We've designed our store with your comfort in mind, ensuring a pleasant and stress-free shopping experience. Customer satisfaction is our top priority, and we're committed to serving you with a smile, every time.

Conclusion

At our newly opened wholesale tire shop, we're passionate about tires, and we're dedicated to providing you with the best deals and service in town. Whether you're an individual looking to save on your next tire purchase or a business in need of bulk orders, we've got the perfect tires for your needs. We invite you to roll into our shop and experience the difference for yourself. Our commitment to quality, affordability, and excellent customer service sets us apart from the rest. Come visit us today and discover the tire shopping experience you've been waiting for.

[myshunosun]

The Art Room Redux

The Art Room Redux is the reimagined version of The Art Room, a set that I shared a few years ago. You get 10 brand new items for your art-loving pixel people.

You can read more about the items and check out the in-game preview below.

Download (always free on Patreon) / Follow and support me

Here’s what you get:

Canvas rack, 12 swatches

Easel (functional), 18 swatches

Cart, 12 swatches

Desk, 12 swatches

Stool, 12 swatches

Drafting table (decor), 12 swatches

Jar with brushes, 1 swatch

Palette, 3 swatches

Paint bottle, 12 swatches

Tiny lil baby easel (decor), 12 swatches

More info and credits:

Base game compatible

New meshes, all LODs

Custom specular and normal maps

Custom catalog thumbnails, tagged swatches

Swatches come from my personal palette and from peacemaker-ic’s color palettes

Simlish font used in textures: Simlish Lengiza by gazifu

Have fun! You can search for “art room" or “myshunosun” in the buy catalog to quickly find these items.

Follow and support me here: Tumblr / Twitter / Patreon / Instagram / Bluesky / PayPal

@maxismatchccworld @s4library @public-ccfinds @mmfinds @sssvitlanz

[deer-butch]

hey instead of bullying or scaring you into switching to firefox, let me tell you why i LOVE firefox and how my online life has improved significantly since installing it

- the setup process is easy, and even fun! if you’re using tumblr rn, you can handle it, and if you’re the kind of tumblr user who likes customizing your blog or tinkering with xkit, you can have a lot of fun personalizing really granular settings and picking themes and extensions and everything, it’s very customizable and i happily spent like 2 hours getting everything perfect.

- you can use a command line entry tool to change specific settings right from the search bar! i did this to make firefox stop auto filling my email information since i use a different password locker (which you should too! try bitwarden!), and it was easier than digging through a bunch of submenus for a setting i wasn’t sure existed. you can just turn shit off!

- there’s a preset theme called aurora that’s purple and VERY pretty

- once you get ublock origin and as many other blockers as you’d like set up, no ads, anywhere, ever! streaming sites, youtube, all the basics, totally no stress and no compatibility issues for me

- in browser screenshot and picture in picture functions!! holy shit i use these every day, the PiP is especially helpful, it replaced an extension i used to use on chrome and it’s leagues better and works on all video content pretty much

- overall better downloads management imo, it’s a lot easier to get to your downloads and find them later

- better bookmark system, with the ability to organize your bookmarks with searchable tags and assign them a shortcut you can type into the search bar to go to

- containers! you can have two accounts to the same website open in two different tabs and switch between them without having to switch accounts. also gives firefox the ability to contain facebook and their trackers, so you can click that party invite link without feeling like you just let mark zuckerberg into your house

these were just off the top of my head, i love firefox a lot and actively enjoy using it, which i never felt with chrome! please download firefox!! you will not regret it!!! where’s your fucking rage!!!!!! go!!!!!!!!!

[branddiariesingurgaon]

The Ultimate Guide to Customer Engagement in Digital Marketing

Introduction:

In today's digital landscape, customer engagement has become a critical factor for business success. Building meaningful connections with customers not only fosters loyalty but also drives brand advocacy and long-term growth. In this ultimate guide, we will explore the strategies, techniques, and tools that can help you enhance customer engagement in your digital marketing efforts. From crafting compelling content to leveraging social media, personalization, and customer feedback, this guide will provide you with actionable insights to cultivate strong relationships with your audience and create a customer-centric digital marketing approach.

1. Understanding Customer Engagement:

To lay a strong foundation, let's define customer engagement and understand its significance in digital marketing. Explore the different dimensions of engagement, including emotional, cognitive, and behavioral aspects. Learn how engagement contributes to customer satisfaction, brand loyalty, and business growth. Recognize the importance of creating positive experiences that resonate with your audience.

2. Crafting Compelling Content:

Content lies at the heart of customer engagement. Discover techniques for creating valuable, relevant, and engaging content that captures the attention of your target audience. Explore storytelling, visual elements, and interactive formats that enhance customer experiences. Understand the importance of consistency and authenticity in content creation.

3. Leveraging Social Media:

Social media platforms provide a powerful channel for customer engagement. Uncover strategies for leveraging social media effectively, including building a strong presence, fostering conversations, and leveraging user-generated content. Learn how to create a two-way dialogue with your audience, respond to feedback, and provide timely customer support.

4. Personalization and Customer Segmentation:

Personalization plays a crucial role in engaging customers. Discover how to leverage data and customer insights to deliver personalized experiences across channels. Learn about customer segmentation and tailoring your marketing efforts to specific customer groups. Explore techniques such as dynamic content, personalized recommendations, and targeted messaging.

5. Harnessing the Power of Customer Feedback:

Customer feedback is a valuable resource for enhancing engagement. Learn how to collect, analyze, and act upon customer feedback effectively. Explore methods such as surveys, online reviews, social listening, and sentiment analysis. Discover how to use feedback to improve products, services, and overall customer experience.

6. Building Relationships through Email marketing:

Email marketing remains a powerful tool for customer engagement. Explore strategies for building meaningful relationships through email campaigns. Learn about segmentation, automation, personalization, and optimizing email content. Discover techniques for nurturing leads, promoting loyalty, and driving conversions.

7. Measuring and Optimizing Engagement:

Measurement is crucial to gauge the effectiveness of your customer engagement efforts. Explore key metrics and analytics tools to track and assess engagement levels. Learn how to identify areas for improvement, optimize campaigns, and iterate on your digital marketing strategies.

Conclusion:

Customer engagement is the foundation of successful digital marketing. By understanding the importance of engagement, crafting compelling content, leveraging social media, personalization, customer feedback, email marketing, and continuous optimization, you can create impactful connections with your audience. Implement the strategies and techniques outlined in this guide to build strong relationships, foster brand loyalty, and drive business growth through enhanced customer engagement.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

How lock-in hurts design

Berliners: Otherland has added a second date (Jan 28) for my book-talk after the first one sold out - book now!

If you've ever read about design, you've probably encountered the idea of "paving the desire path." A "desire path" is an erosion path created by people departing from the official walkway and taking their own route. The story goes that smart campus planners don't fight the desire paths laid down by students; they pave them, formalizing the route that their constituents have voted for with their feet.

Desire paths aren't always great (Wikipedia notes that "desire paths sometimes cut through sensitive habitats and exclusion zones, threatening wildlife and park security"), but in the context of design, a desire path is a way that users communicate with designers, creating a feedback loop between those two groups. The designers make a product, the users use it in ways that surprise the designer, and the designer integrates all that into a new revision of the product.

This method is widely heralded as a means of "co-innovating" between users and companies. Designers who practice the method are lauded for their humility, their willingness to learn from their users. Tech history is strewn with examples of successful paved desire-paths.

Take John Deere. While today the company is notorious for its war on its customers (via its opposition to right to repair), Deere was once a leader in co-innovation, dispatching roving field engineers to visit farms and learn how farmers had modified their tractors. The best of these modifications would then be worked into the next round of tractor designs, in a virtuous cycle:

https://securityledger.com/2019/03/opinion-my-grandfathers-john-deere-would-support-our-right-to-repair/

But this pattern is even more pronounced in the digital world, because it's much easier to update a digital service than it is to update all the tractors in the field, especially if that service is cloud-based, meaning you can modify the back-end everyone is instantly updated. The most celebrated example of this co-creation is Twitter, whose users created a host of its core features.

Retweets, for example, were a user creation. Users who saw something they liked on the service would type "RT" and paste the text and the link into a new tweet composition window. Same for quote-tweets: users copied the URL for a tweet and pasted it in below their own commentary. Twitter designers observed this user innovation and formalized it, turning it into part of Twitter's core feature-set.

Companies are obsessed with discovering digital desire paths. They pay fortunes for analytics software to produce maps of how their users interact with their services, run focus groups, even embed sneaky screen-recording software into their web-pages:

https://www.wired.com/story/the-dark-side-of-replay-sessions-that-record-your-every-move-online/

This relentless surveillance of users is pursued in the name of making things better for them: let us spy on you and we'll figure out where your pain-points and friction are coming from, and remove those. We all win!

But this impulse is a world apart from the humility and respect implied by co-innovation. The constant, nonconsensual observation of users has more to do with controlling users than learning from them.

That is, after all, the ethos of modern technology: the more control a company can exert over its users ,the more value it can transfer from those users to its shareholders. That's the key to enshittification, the ubiquitous platform decay that has degraded virtually all the technology we use, making it worse every day:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/19/twiddler/

When you are seeking to control users, the desire paths they create are all too frequently a means to wrestling control back from you. Take advertising: every time a service makes its ads more obnoxious and invasive, it creates an incentive for its users to search for "how do I install an ad-blocker":

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/07/adblocking-how-about-nah

More than half of all web-users have installed ad-blockers. It's the largest consumer boycott in human history:

https://doc.searls.com/2023/11/11/how-is-the-worlds-biggest-boycott-doing/

But zero app users have installed ad-blockers, because reverse-engineering an app requires that you bypass its encryption, triggering liability under Section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. This law provides for a $500,000 fine and a 5-year prison sentence for "circumvention" of access controls:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/12/youre-holding-it-wrong/#if-dishwashers-were-iphones

Beyond that, modifying an app creates liability under copyright, trademark, patent, trade secrets, noncompete, nondisclosure and so on. It's what Jay Freeman calls "felony contempt of business model":

https://locusmag.com/2020/09/cory-doctorow-ip/

This is why services are so horny to drive you to install their app rather using their websites: they are trying to get you to do something that, given your druthers, you would prefer not to do. They want to force you to exit through the gift shop, you want to carve a desire path straight to the parking lot. Apps let them mobilize the law to literally criminalize those desire paths.

An app is just a web-page wrapped in enough IP to make it a felony to block ads in it (or do anything else that wrestles value back from a company). Apps are web-pages where everything not forbidden is mandatory.

Seen in this light, an app is a way to wage war on desire paths, to abandon the cooperative model for co-innovation in favor of the adversarial model of user control and extraction.

Corporate apologists like to claim that the proliferation of apps proves that users like them. Neoliberal economists love the idea that business as usual represents a "revealed preference." This is an intellectually unserious tautology: "you do this, so you must like it":

https://boingboing.net/2024/01/22/hp-ceo-says-customers-are-a-bad-investment-unless-they-can-be-made-to-buy-companys-drm-ink-cartridges.html

Calling an action where no alternatives are permissible a "preference" or a "choice" is a cheap trick – especially when considered against the "preferences" that reveal themselves when a real choice is possible. Take commercial surveillance: when Apple gave Ios users a choice about being spied on – a one-click opt of of app-based surveillance – 96% of users choice no spying:

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/05/96-of-us-users-opt-out-of-app-tracking-in-ios-14-5-analytics-find/

But then Apple started spying on those very same users that had opted out of spying by Facebook and other Apple competitors:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/14/luxury-surveillance/#liar-liar

Neoclassical economists aren't just obsessed with revealed preferences – they also love to bandy about the idea of "moral hazard": economic arrangements that tempt people to be dishonest. This is typically applied to the public ("consumers" in the contemptuous parlance of econospeak). But apps are pure moral hazard – for corporations. The ability to prohibit desire paths – and literally imprison rivals who help your users thwart those prohibitions – is too tempting for companies to resist.

The fact that the majority of web users block ads reveals a strong preference for not being spied on ("users just want relevant ads" is such an obvious lie that doesn't merit any serious discussion):

https://www.iccl.ie/news/82-of-the-irish-public-wants-big-techs-toxic-algorithms-switched-off/

Giant companies attained their scale by learning from their users, not by thwarting them. The person using technology always knows something about what they need to do and how they want to do it that the designers can never anticipate. This is especially true of people who are unlike those designers – people who live on the other side of the world, or the other side of the economic divide, or whose bodies don't work the way that the designers' bodies do:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/20/benevolent-dictators/#felony-contempt-of-business-model

Apps – and other technologies that are locked down so their users can be locked in – are the height of technological arrogance. They embody a belief that users are to be told, not heard. If a user wants to do something that the designer didn't anticipate, that's the user's fault:

https://www.wired.com/2010/06/iphone-4-holding-it-wrong/

Corporate enthusiasm for prohibiting you from reconfiguring the tools you use to suit your needs is a declaration of the end of history. "Sure," John Deere execs say, "we once learned from farmers by observing how they modified their tractors. But today's farmers are so much stupider and we are so much smarter that we have nothing to learn from them anymore."

Spying on your users to control them is a poor substitute asking your users their permission to learn from them. Without technological self-determination, preferences can't be revealed. Without the right to seize the means of computation, the desire paths never emerge, leaving designers in the dark about what users really want.

Our policymakers swear loyalty to "innovation" but when corporations ask for the right to decide who can innovate and how, they fall all over themselves to create laws that let companies punish users for the crime of contempt of business-model.

I'm Kickstarting the audiobook for The Bezzle, the sequel to Red Team Blues, narrated by @wilwheaton! You can pre-order the audiobook and ebook, DRM free, as well as the hardcover, signed or unsigned. There's also bundles with Red Team Blues in ebook, audio or paperback.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/24/everything-not-mandatory/#is-prohibited

Image: Belem (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Desire_path_%2819811581366%29.jpg

CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en