Needy Programs
Postedabout 2 months agoActiveabout 2 months ago
tonsky.meTechstory
heatednegative
Debate
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Software DesignUser ExperienceApplication Complexity
Key topics
Software Design
User Experience
Application Complexity
The article 'Needy Programs' criticizes modern software for being overly demanding and intrusive, sparking a discussion about the balance between feature-rich applications and user experience.
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Discussion Activity
Moderate engagementFirst comment
11h
Peak period
7
15-18h
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Based on 23 loaded comments
Key moments
- 01Story posted
Nov 13, 2025 at 3:46 PM EST
about 2 months ago
Step 01 - 02First comment
Nov 14, 2025 at 3:01 AM EST
11h after posting
Step 02 - 03Peak activity
7 comments in 15-18h
Hottest window of the conversation
Step 03 - 04Latest activity
Nov 15, 2025 at 3:30 AM EST
about 2 months ago
Step 04
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Analyzing up to 500 comments to identify key contributors and discussion patterns
ID: 45920307Type: storyLast synced: 11/20/2025, 4:50:34 PM
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> If I need an update, I will know it: I’ll encounter a bug or a lack of functionality. Then I’ll go and update.
It's a fun puzzle but to hard for me.
Perhaps a 4th kind is needed (needed by the developers)
If the updates are split into small chunks some users could review it before installing. Read the div in the dialog.
To be clear I don't think the author's point on updates is such a good idea and that's an example of why, but I understand they require a level of trust on the developer that many, many companies haven't earned.
What changed?
> If you are using my service and I need to make backwards incompatible changes to my system, you can bet I'm going to force you to update.
Now, users universally understand that updates solve your problems, not theirs.
The solution is elsewhere: let me update my programs centrally without the program deciding. Like the App Store or the apt repository.
It’s fair if devs don’t accept reports unless the user runs the latest version.
If you care about security, like a company, you’re probably also doing that on a schedule, and more or less globally, not in the program itself anyways. If the security fix is critical, I’d argue the user does need to install it asap, and then letting them know does make sense.
I'm going to be careful here, this doesn't mean that there aren't times when we can't avoid bothering our users, but I think we resort to doing so far too often, we don't apply the axiom of "if this person was someone who I deeply respected and would feel real bad if the contacted me and asked me to justify bothering them, would I still do this" as our actual test.
I'm not saying this is uniquely our decision, this entire process might be out of our hands, but in my opinion it bares thinking about and weighing up appropriately.
It's very easy to say it's only 5 seconds, if your software serves millions, that's a lot of people and even if you don't, a couple of 5 seconds here or there adds up very quickly.
I'm not here to berate or point fingers, but we also are users of each others software, so I hope that at least on that level we'll try to do better :)
I know I will.
E.g. on user accounts: nobody likes them, but when Uncle Fizz asks customer support for his data because he lost his phone again, a synced user account would be the simplest way to help him.
Updates should either be automatic and transparent, or it's indeed on you to keep track and decide whether to update. I do agree that NPM packages are freaking annoying, every package now needs to tell you something when you install or update.
Same with What's New modals, some people will benefit from learning these things (notably power users?), but they'll annoy others.
Notification dots are idiotic.
So… striking a balance where we can? Otherwise most users would be left behind, as if we'd given them a terminal and said APK installs and updates things.
I'm not sure what the solution to all this is, but I like Tonsky a lot, and it's a great blog post.
BTW, stop making SMS your 2FA. Not everyone is in the US all the time. I have hardware keys. Just stop already.
Log back in after a vacation, and everything's still there.
A window with "maybe" resizable panels and a menu, and that's it.
The Web used to be the "documents."
For a technology that's been built for documents, all the navigation, footer, and header of any modern app feel like a "hack" compared to elegance of what desktop used to be.
In an old-fashioned desktop application, anything that gets "synchronized" is by choice, and rather feels like magic.
In a web app, even the UI is not a given.
We are forced to stay logged to an "Massively Online Revenue Platform Generation" games, and it keeps getting disconnected, and is laggy.
So "Let's replace the Cloud with self-hosted alternatives," right? -- Good luck with added effort and complexity of config, maintenance, network, db, bugs, updates, and the pain of "admin accounts" in first setup.
We used to have the client and server functionality baked together in any major desktop software that used to connect to FTP, IRC, P2P, Mail, and to each other.
Today it's accounts... Accounts. It's accounts all the way "up."
We used to own the data, and the software.
Now it's full-scale surveillance and dispossession.
Btw, night mode on that site is brilliant. Also necessary, the yellow burns my eyes.
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