On 6/9/2015 5:03 AM, Gervase Markham wrote:
On 09/06/15 04:22, Nicholas Nethercote wrote:
What I'm saying is this: don't mix up the two arguments above. If
you're really upset by the Pocket integration, it's almost certainly
because of the first argument above, so don't get side-tracked by the
second argument.
Right. And the first argument is strange because this is not the first
time we've done this. Most of the bundled search engines, safe browsing
and (until recently) our location service are/were all commercial
third-party services with closed source back-ends.
Nicholas, that is a nice point that there seems to be two separate
reasons people are upset. Personally, I'm upset by both arguments [0],
but agree with you that the first is more important. (I can get over
there being a feature I don't use...[1]).
Gerv brings up a good point of "how is this different"? This shouldn't
be used as an argument for brushing this point away! (And I'm not
suggesting anyone is trying to do that.) But we must dig deeper into
what is different about this that is upsetting people whereas search
engines, safe browsing, etc. don't! I'd suggest there are a few components:
- User facing component: Pocket is a MUCH more user facing feature
than, e.g. safe browsing is. Frankly, I'd suggest many non-power users
don't know that safe browsing is a thing...and if they do know, they
probably have no idea how it works. Search engines obviously have quite
a bit of clout in the UI, but the utility of them is probably
- Openness of it: there's an open format for search engines, I can go
use Google, Yahoo, Bing, Duck Duck Go, or make my own. I'm not being
locked into a specific vendor. (And no, having a public API does not
make it open. The control is from the wrong side: for it to be open the
browser vendors and services need to agree upon an API. It cannot be
controlled by the services.)
- Privacy implications: Just a little extra point in the comparison to
search engines; search engines have "always" been part of the browser,
even before "privacy" was the "crisis" that it is now. I'd suggest that
users will put new features that have any sort of privacy implication
under significant more scrutiny now than 5 - 10 years ago.
- Utility: And to tie back into Nicholas argument, I'd also suggest
the use case is important. For search engines it is clear that users are
using a third party service, and (I hope) understand there is privacy
implications. But frankly, you can't use the Internet effectively
without a search engine, there is a *clear* utility for (almost?) all
users. I'd suggest some of the backlash has been due to people feeling
the trade-off is not worth it for using Pocket *or* don't see a use-case
for it. But yes, this is a weaker argument.
--Patrick
[0] I also have other issues with it, such as how it landed (on beta,
really?) How it was integrated in a point release...and I don't care
about the argument "version numbers don't mean anything", that's a delusion.
[1] Although it seems that every new feature added to Firefox recently
is one that I don't use...and have no interest in using. :)
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